Fear Of A Brown Planet

Dana Rohrabacher, craziest of the "cavemen" right-wingers who run Orange County, has a solution to the immigration problem. Apparently, he wants to release hundreds of thousands of convicted felons into California's farm fields to pick fruit.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I guess they could also use felons in the restaurant industry, the gartment industry, the landscaping industry, etc. Felons can come in and clean your house! Just never mind the guy with the shotgun and the german shepard there.

Maybe we can just turn the whole state into a large prison, where no one is paid a wage, and we all have to eat Salisbury Steak three times a week.

Of course, I don't expect people like Rohrabacher to actually think about the practical impact of immigration. For them, it's not about the economy of the facts of the issue. It's about restoring California to this lily-white Beach-Boys 1960's fantasy that never really existed.

And You Thought You'd Changed A Lot

In the eighties and early nineties, Ken Price was a married Mormon father of six, a member of the city council in the conservative Salt Lake suburb of Sandy, Utah. Well, he's still in politics, currently running for the Utah Senate.

Only now he's named Jennifer Lee Jackson, and he's a she:

Many people may know Ken Prince as a three-term member of the Sandy City Council in the 1980s and 1990s. Or they know his name as a Sandy mayoral candidate, where in 1993 he lost to Mayor Tom Dolan by only 207 votes. But the father of six children who married twice, served an LDS mission and later served in the LDS church leadership, struggled all his life with internal feelings that conflicted with his outward body appearance. On the inside, he felt he was a woman.

You've come a long way, baby.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

The poor babies of the religious right. They are so persecuted, they need to have a conference to whine about it:

The War On Christians And The Values Voter in 2006 Conference will be held March 27-28 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

This is the first conference to cover every aspect of the cultural war on Christians --- including attacks by Hollywood, the news media, gay activist and leftist groups like the ACLU and Anti-Defamation League.

If any one of these pampered, middle-class twits actually knew for five minutes what it really was to be a minority, their world view would collapse like faster then a souffle during a French baker's strike.

My favorite speaker on the lineup? None other then Pastor Tom Crouse, who gave us the Mr. Hetero contest! Do you remember how that turned out?








Thanks to Atlanta Malcontent for the heads-up.

Why I Love American Apparel, Reason 4582

I just received this company-wide e-mail:

Ronald Reagan said that "Every immigrant makes America more American." As for our company, it would not exist without immigrants. In every department, at every stage of production, people born and trained in other countries contribute their skills, their hard work, and their cultural heritage to make American Apparel the success it is. The Sensenbrenner-King Bill (H.R. 4437) may drastically change the conditions that make our company possible by taking away rights of legal immigrants and punishing innocent acts of kindness toward undocumented immigrants. The American immigration system needs repair, but treating immigrants as criminals will not fix it. We've said this before and we say it again: legalize LA, don't criminalize it.

On Saturday, March 25th, American Apparel employees will join thousands other Angelenos to oppose H.R. 4473. The march will start at 10am at Olympic and Broadway and end at Los Angeles City Hall. For more details about H.R. 4437 and the march against it see: http://www.nohr4437.org/.

Ding Dong

Red Dawn blogger and all-around smarmy homeschool boy Ben Domenech lasted all of three days as the Washington Post's new conservative shill:

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarism material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

I wonder if it also counts as plagiarism if all you do for a living is regurgitate right-wing talking points in the smug know-it-all manner that only a pophead with no life experience can have?

Remember, this is a guy who opened his first column with this sentence:

This is a blog for the majority of Americans.

What kind if ignoramus actually thinks he speaks for the majority of Americans?

Well, guess what Ben? The majority of Americans don't cheat.

Oh well, at least he is young enough to join the military and go off to fight in our glorious battle for the liberation of Iraq. Be all that you can be Ben. Be all that you can be.

Beards Are Back!

Facial hair is once again chic, thanks to the bears.

I love it when I'm trendy, and I don't even know it.

Death to the metrosexual!

The Red Crescent

Remember how we were going to bring the Iraqis liberty, freedom, democracy, civil society, and free apple pie for everyone?

This is what we end up with:

Speaking by telephone from London, the Abu Nawas Group's Hili said that “there is a very, very serious threat to life for gay people in Iraq today. We are receiving regular reports from our extensive network of contacts with underground gay activists and gay people in Iraq -- intimidation, beatings, kidnappings and murders of gays have become an almost daily occurrence. The Badr Corps was killing gay people even before the Ayatollah’s fatwah, but Sistani’s murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to all Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men.”

Hili says,”Badr Corps agents have a network of informers who, among other things, target alleged 'immoral behavior'. They kill gays, unveiled women, prostitutes, people who sell or drink alcohol, and those who listen to western music and wear western fashions.

"Badr militants are entrapping gay men via internet chat rooms. They arrange a date, and then beat and kill the victim. Males who are unmarried by the age of 30 or 35 are placed under surveillance on suspicion of being gay, as are effeminate men. They will be investigated and warned to get married. Badr will typically give them a month to change their ways. If they don't change their behavior, or if they fail to show evidence that they plan to get married, they will be arrested, disappear and eventually be found dead. The bodies are usually discovered with their hands bound behind their back, blindfolds over their eyes, and bullet wounds to the back of the head.”

Yup, this is what our blood and treasure buy. Blurry pictures of murdered Iraqi queers.








Anti-gay violence. The one idea that all religious nutbags can agree on.

Straight Acting Review

Here's a very sweet review of my film. Made my day.

Shield Your Eyes

Yes, this is a photo of Kiefer Sutherland, in a karaoke bar in Burbank, with his pants around his ankles. Courtesy of my friend Doug.
Look how scared the guy on the left is. I wonder if he just randomly sat down at that table.
BTW, I have a friend who tells a lovely story about the time he ran into Kiefer at a party at Brian Grazer's house. Apparently he flirted with my very male friend rather intensely for a few minutes, and then threw up on his shoes.
And to think, this man once almost married America's Sweetheart(tm), Julia Roberts?
How long until he's talking about his "recovery process" on Oprah?

Money Changers In The Temple

One way for the administration to guarantee the fervent support or religious conservatives?
Buy it.

Bush's Fetish?

He likes the bald guys. More evidence here.

Myself, I like a good razor cut, but the full queball doesn't really do it for me.

Red State Rising?

Jesus, is the Washington Post now handing out blogs to any snot-nosed, concieted little asswipe who ever registered a Blogger account? What else can explain this abomination? I mean, claiming that you are the Triumphant Voice of the True America is great. At least until the next election. Someone get the boy some smelling salts. I think he's been overcome with the vapors of righteousness.
Best quote so far?

For the MSM, Dan Rather is just another TV anchor, France is just another country and Red Dawn is just another cheesy throwaway Sunday afternoon movie.

Um, yeah. That would all be true.

BTW, Red Dawn references aside, I bet that Ben Domenech has never held a gun in his life.

And I'll take money on his being a closeted homosexual.

Oh, and the RedState/BlueState meme was always bullshit. These days it's just painfully dated bullshit.

Morrissey Part Deux

My favorite lyric on the new album so far, from On the Streets I Ran:

And all these streets can do
Is claim to know the real you
And what if you don't leave?
You will kill or be killed
Which isn't very nice
Here, everybody's friendly
But nobody's friends

Oh, Dear God
When will I be where I should be?

I guess someone finally got sick of L.A. I heard he moved to Rome.

Hang The Download

Gee, wouldn't it be great if, ya know, you could download the new Morrissey record, Ringleader Of The Tormentors, before it comes out? I wouldn't know where you could do that, cough cough, but that would be nice. I hear it rocks.

The Bottom Line

So, I was reading Michael Reagan's almost violent screed against gay adoption on the right-wing website Newsmax. It's real stomach-turning stuff from a third-rate bloviator who wouldn't have a career if it weren't for his last name. But the best part was when I got to the bottom of the page and saw the following advertising links, arrayed in no particular order. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Religious Right, presented by those who know them best, their marketers:

Make Monster Profits in Options
(Not like that would violate any biblical proscription against usury)

The Real Viagra, Cialis and Levitra Deal on the Internet 10 Tablets $99, Free Shipping
(Gives a whole new meaning to the term "impotent rage")

Married or Single: Get Athena Pheromones and get more romance
(Or stop blogging and try moving out of your parents basement)

200% Gold Profits? Learn why experts call gold "Buy Of A Generation." Free Gold Guide
(What is it with conservatives and gold? Do they actually think it's still used as currency?)

Cure High Blood Pressure Naturally without Drugs
(How about you just stop listening to fear-mongers and outrage-peddlers for a change?)

Lazy Man's Personal Profit Center - In 6 hours and 35 Minutes, You Can Be In Business
(Sounds like the good, old-fashioned American way to earn a living)

There Is No Salvation, No Everlasting Eternal Life, No Real Love Without Receiving God's Spirit
(And you should see what it does for your sex life/bank account!)

Grow an A+ Brain in 30 Days
(Heh)

Of course, I blog about how backwards and homophobic the Mormon Church is, and I get ads for Mormon singles all over my site, so go figure.

Digital World

Take a midnight motorcycle ride through London.

My Lai Every Day

A massive roadside bomb kills a Marine in the city of Haditha. In response, his fellow soldiers rush into three nearby houses and start shooting. They kill 23 people. By the marines own account, 15 of the dead are non-combatants (although it's questionable if any of them were). Of those fifteen, most are women and young children.

Could you imagine the response if something like this happened during a police raid in the U.S.?

In the end, all the police recovered from the houses were two AK-47's, a gun that is probably found in most Iraqi houses these days (how else to protect yourself from the lawlessness of the streets?). Maybe the most incriminating evidence is the simplest. The raid happened right after dawn. Most of those shot dead were still in their night clothes.

At first the Marines claimed that the dead were killed by shrapnel from the bomb, blaming the toll in the insurgency. But when Human Rights Watch acquired evidence to the contrary, including a video of the bullet-riddled bodies, the Pentagon changed the deaths to "collateral damage". No chance that it was just some pissed off young men paying back the death of their 20 year old comrade.

What's going to happen, five years from now, ten years from now, when those young Americans are trying to live with what they did in our "war of choice?" Jay Elias wrote this on Saturday on his Daily Kos journal:

But usually, we think little of the cost to the men and women who are ordered to commit those acts. We think little of what has been done to them in our name, and what they have done in service of us.

They were soldiers once. They were proud and honorable men and women who took it upon themselves to protect all of us and our way of life. Do you think they are proud today? Do you think they will come home with their honor intact?

Nearly everyone here despises our leadership for many reasons. But I would like to add this one to the list of grievances: do you suppose our leaders have thought hard about what they were ordering our young men and women of the armed forces to do? Do you suppose they thought about what they were asking from our soldiers, and what it cost those soldiers to do as they were ordered?

There are many in America today who have little sympathy with those we torture and torment. They are our enemies, they say. They would do worse to us if the situation was reversed. Maybe so. But those young men and women who we have turned into torturers and inquisators, they were soldiers once. What are they now?

Bad Father Of The Year Award

Having trouble with your six year old? Why not use an electo-shock dog collar to keep him in line?

Same Old Sleight Of Hand

Jesus, how does your party run for re-election when its leader is at an abysmal 33% in the polls? Easy. Symbolic gay bashing, the old GOP standby!

Weight Update

Well, it's been six weeks since my Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery. Shortly after the operation, I purchased a new scale to track my weight loss, but at the time, I was far too heavy for the scale to even work for me (I would guess this is an increasingly common problem in America). But I knew that if things went according to plan, I'd soon be able to weigh myself, without the aid of, say, a roadside truck-weighing station(or the heavy-duty scale at my doctor's office).

I hit that point this morning. I have now, since my surgery, lost 60 pounds. I'm starting to dramatically feel the effects. When I was in San Francisco last weekend, I attended a rugby match with my buddies on the San Francisco Fog, and I volunteered to be the Touch Judge, which is the sideline judge who must follow the action up and down the field, and hustle under the goal posts for conversion kicks. It was unbelievable to be back on a cold, sunny pitch, running up and down, concentrating on the ball. I never would have had the energy for that two months ago. Today I slipped into a jacket I haven't worn for over a year. Unfortunately, it's a bit dated now, fashion-wise, but who cares. I'm getting the old me back. This weekend, I'm going to actually try going to the gym, a place where I haven't stepped foot in a long time.

Best side effect? Being horny again.

Worst side effect? Being horny again. All the time!

Spiritual Punishment Run Amok

The Mormon Church decides to excommunicate a lifelong member, Buckley Jeppson (on the left) who is gay, because he married his boyfriend legally in Toronto last year. So what does he do? He launches a web site, of course! The bigotry and ecclesiastical abuse that would have, in a previous age, been swept under the a veil of silence, is now in the pages of the Los Angeles Times.

God, I love the internet.

The one piece of advice I would offer to Buckley Jeppson is that he should stop trying to reconcile the hierarchy of the LDS church to his own respectful and open-minded beliefs (unlike many of the everyday members, the church's leadership is neither) and just realize that he's got to move on. You don't dance at a party where you're not invited, man.

Gay, Not So OK

The Oklahoma House, in a fit of "WHO WILL SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!" perfectly worthly or Reverend Lovejoy's wife, have passed a law requiring that all library books with "Gay Themes" be hidden from children. The state's public libraries must segregate (great word there) any such books or they will lose their funding. The best part is the quotes. You can't make this shit up:

"And I will tell you this, the American Library Association is out to sexualize our children."-Representative Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City

"(It is) Secular, progressive, inclusive librarians who are putting this garbage in front of our kids."-Representative Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs

Gay Or British?

The British Navy, an organization that used to routinely execute sailors for homosexual acts, is now allowing gay and lesbian service members to march at the upcoming Europride while in uniform. I guess Winston Churchill was right when he was asked about naval tradition. He responded that it was all "rum, sodomy, and the lash."

Catfight!

I'm the tabby.

Thanks to Doug.

Best. Song. Ever.

The Flickr song.

This just turned my day around.

Remember, "If you're receiving, then you're not gay".

My Hero!

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

Costitutional Law Professor and State Senate candidate Jamie Raskin, testifying Wednesday, March 1, 2006 before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in response to a question from Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs about whether marriage discrimination against gay people is required by "God's Law."

Hat tip to Americablog.

The War On Kiddies

So, some gay parents decided that they would attend the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt this year wearing matching t-shirts, so that folks could get the idea that homos have families too. Yes, they actually do:













Look at them, those dastardly queers, infiltrating the sanctity of the White House Easter Egg Roll with their irresistibly adorable children! But don't worry, groups with words like "tradition" and "family" in their names will come to your rescue:

"For crying out loud, at the Easter egg roll? This is a family event", said exasperated executive director Andrea Lafferty (Traditional Values Coalition), who called it "very distasteful"; and inappropriate to politicize the occasion and to use children to do so.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the religious right now officially wants to deny Easter eggs to kids. Or as a conservative shill in the White House press corps (sigh, Jeff Gannon, where are you when we need you?) asked Scott McClellan recently:

"Will the president take any measures to prevent these activists from using this non-political event as a way to push their agenda on the rest of us?"

What "measures" would you take against small children with hard-boiled eggs? I dunno, I guess they could use tazers or something. Too severe? Don't be fooled, these aren't normal children. As the blogger at Got Detroit put it:

We agree. It is very distasteful to have these children at a “family event”. Because, as well all know, children from same-sex relationships aren’t really children at all. Sure, they look like children, act like children, but if left alone, will hump your leg like the untrained dog-like creatures they are. Like their mutated evil parents, only smaller.



But using kids as political footballs doesn't just stop at Easter Eggs. In a far more serious story, the Archdiocese of Boston, an organization synonymous these days with child abuse, has decided to overrule the Governing Board of Catholic Charities of Massachusetts, after it decided to follow state law and see that the charity, which arranges adoptions, not discriminate against gay couples. But that wasn't "Christian" enough for the suspiciously single men in the velvet robes. They decided, these dried-up old fellows who don't have a clue what it's like to be a parent, that Catholic homophobia comes before helping children. So now Catholic Charities will be getting out of the adoption business entirely.

Let's make this clear. A lay board, comprised of 42 active Catholics, most of them parents, votes unanimously to allow gay couples to adopt the needy children for whom they are working to find homes. The Archdiocese, directed exclusively by men who don't have children, decided that if a single child goes to a gay couple, it is so terrible that the agency should just stop doing adoptions altogether. This is the twisted logic that conservatives have to use to justify their culture war. They think they have to destroy the village to save it. So what if some Cambodian child dies in a squalid orphanage instead of being adopted by two parents who are the same gender?

Jesus Christ. No really. They should try reading him sometime. Then maybe they'd stop using real children like convenient religious props.


















Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19, 13-14

Feed My Sheep

God I love it when anti-gay critics get bashed with their own bible. That's exactly what columnist Leonard Pitts does here:

Put simply, I've had it up to here with the moral hypocrisy and intellectual constipation of Bible literalists.
By which I mean people like you, who dress their homophobia up in Scripture, insisting with sanctimonious sincerity that it's not homophobia at all, but just a pious determination to live according to what the Bible says.
And never mind that the Bible also says it is ''disgraceful'' for a woman to speak out in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-36) and that if she has any questions, she should wait till she gets home and ask her husband. Never mind that the Bible says the penalty for going to work on Sunday (Exodus 35:1-3) is death. Never mind that the Bible says the man who rapes a virgin should buy her from her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and marry her.
I'm going to speculate that you don't observe or support those commands. Which says to me that yours is a literalism of convenience, a literalism that is literal only so long as it allows you to condemn what you'd be condemning anyway and takes no skin off your personal backside.
As such, your claim that God sanctions your homophobia is the moral equivalent of Flip Wilson's old claim that the devil made him do it.
You resemble many of your and my co-religionists, whose faith so often expresses itself in an obsessive focus on one or two hot-button issues -- and seemingly nowhere else.
They're so panicked at the thought that somebody accidentally might treat gay people like people. They run around Chicken Little-like, screaming, 'Th' homosex'shals is comin'! Th' homosex'shals is comin'!'' Meantime, people are ignorant in Appalachia, strung out in Miami, starving in Niger, sex slaves in India, mass-murdered in Darfur. Where is the Christian outrage about that?

Best San Francisco Quote

From a homeless kid, speaking in a cracking voice to his girlfriend, sitting on the sidewalk in front of my favorite noodle house on Haight Street, 11:00 on a Sunday morning, in the rain:

But...I can't get drunk today. I have, like, stuff to do.

Fucking With The DMV

So Jalopnik points to this web site that allows you to generate your own virtual vanity license plate. You can choose the state, the year, and what it says. In honor of Utah State Senator Scott McCoy, here's my submission:

Schaudenfreude Now 25% Off

The O.G. Uncle Tom, Claude Allen, a black man who made a name for himself as Jesse Helms's spokesman, has come a long way since his days bashing queers in South Carolina. He's risen all the way to being George Bush's chief Domestic Policy Advisor. Bush even nominated him for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, although the Democrats killed the nomination because he had almost no legal experience.

Well, it seems that Claude Allen had a "domestic" policy of his own. He decided to furnish his domicile in goods from his local Target without paying for them (Target? How fabulously gay. Wasn't there a local Wal-Mart for him to hit instead?). Apparently he ran this scam to the tune of 5 large. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call in politics a "felony".

Republicans. They're not just looting the Treasury any more.

Heavy Metal Kittens

From the blog at The Stranger.

Americablog Meetup

We had a great lunchtime discussion here in San Francisco with John Aravosis of Americablog, as well as a number of other local and out-of-town bloggers (like me). Check out the Flickr photos here.

S.F. Bound

I'm heading up to San Francisco tonight, and I'll be stopping by the coffee that John Aravosis of Americablog is having, 10:30 tomorrow at the 3 Dollar Bill Cafe in the LGBT Center on Market. If anyone is in the bay area, make sure and drop by. I need to get out of L.A. for a few days!

Brokeback Mormon

One of the favorite floats at this year's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney?

The "Brokeback Mormon" float.













*They've got the details wrong, though. Mormons would never have crosses on their bibles. They'd consider worshiping the cross just a little too "Catholic".

You Have The Right To Remain Republican...

Americablog digs up this fake I.R.S. form that the campaign of Elizabeth Dole has been sending out in North Carolina:


















Notice the nasty warnings that this is an

OFFICIAL REPUBLICAN PARTY DOCUMENT-DO NOT DESTROY

and just in case you are tempted to throw this piece of push-polling trash in the garbage where it belongs:

This SURVEY DOCUMENT IS REGISTERED IN YOUR NAME and must be accounted for upon completion of this project. If you choose not to participate in this crucial Republican Leadership Survey, return this Survey Document at once using the postage-paid envelope provided.

Also, if you complete this survey, a Nigerian banker will deposit in your account 10 Million Dollars U.S.

It's not like Republican voters are already confused enough.

I.T.M.F.A. Is Here!

Impeach The Mother Fucker Already.

Health Update

I passed my one month mark since surgery last Thursday. I feel really good. I've lost about 45 pounds, and it's starting to have an impact. My knees feel better, I have more energy, and I've been getting a bit of exercise, mostly in the form of walking the Basset/Beagle in my neighborhood, up some of the steepest streets in L.A. In the next few weeks, I intend to start going to the gym and rugby practice, and getting myself back on track. I've been able to eat a wider range of solid foods (chicken salad on white bread is a favorite) and I even went to the Cheese Store of Silverlake yesterday for some nice soft cheeses. Humboldt Fog rules!

I certainly don't regret having the surgery. I've had my dark moments, but overall I know that this is a good thing. I've also realized that it is just a tool, and that I'll have to work just like I did three years ago when I lost over 100 pounds. This time, I just have some help in controlling the overeating that has been my fall-back position in the past.

My goal is to lose 100 pounds by the Bingham Cup in late May. I think that I am well on my way to this goal. After that, I'd like to lose another 50 pounds by the end of the year. I've been thinking of doing the AIDS Lifecycle S.F.-to-L.A. ride next year. Let's hope that my knee holds together and my weight continues to drop. The less pounds I have to push the better!

I'm A Middle American, Dammit!

Read this great rant on Kung-Fu Monkey on who qualifies as a representative of "Middle America". I'll let you guess:

1) 60 year old family farmer in Lebanon, Kansas.
2) 37 year old IT worker in Los Angeles.

(Hint. There are two million agricultural workers in America. There are four million people who play World of Warcraft.)

More Brokeback Bitterness

Here's my response to a Lesbian who was complaining in the Guardian film blog about Brokeback Mountain slighting women:

Elizabeth, darling, Michelle Williams gave one of the best performances of the year. Yes, her character gets shafted, but that's the point. Ennis's character in Brokeback Mountain is doomed because he marries, and hurts, someone he doesn't love; his wife is a small-town girl from Wyoming, and if she is a bit simple, well, it's because she's a bit simple, ya know, all of which makes her plight even more painful. That this is some kind of "universal insult" to women is silly, in the same way that the fact that Ennis lacks the courage to overcome his fears and childhood tramas and accept the love he is offered is a "universal insult" to gay men. It seems to me that you walked into the theatre with a chip on your shoulder large enough to block the view of the screen.

Maybe the best thing I can say about Brokeback is that I grew up in the part of the country where it is set, in Utah, a few miles from the Wyoming border. The characters in the movie are probably the most realistic small-town working-class Westerners I've seen since The Last Picture Show (also written by Larry McMurtry). If they seem a bit backwards or slow, well, that was the time and place. Everything plays out a little slower under that wide sky.

In a way, I've lived both the stories in these two films; growing up gay in a small Western town in the Seventies, and living in a racially diverse present-day L.A. Brokeback is a genuine movie that actually knows its characters in the context of their larger world, and treats them realistically, good and bad together. It's a movie that reaches for a universal theme as well, in that the pain and destruction come as the cost of living a lie (a theme that has nothing to do with your sense of being slighted as a lesbian in a gay man's world). Crash, on the other hand, is a silly melodrama that trades on cliches. I can't decide which was my favorite moment of hysteria: Sandra Bullock in the kitchen screaming, or Thandie Newton on the road screaming, while being heroically rescued by the cop who once molested her, if you didn't see that coming in the first fifteen minutes. Maybe the worst part of Crash was watching the excellent Terrance Howard trying to maintain his dignity through the whole affair. As to why it won, my guess is that the movie's 4,382 cast members all voted for it to win. No one will even remember Crash in a couple of years. DVD's (or whatever format replaces them) of Brokeback will grace the shelves of people for a long time coming. It'll wear well.

In the end, though, it comes down to two images. I've no doubt which I prefer:

Crash! What The Fuck!

I'm utterly gobstoppered that this Lifetime Movie Of The Week would win the Oscar. It's total rubbish. If Los Angeles were really as it portrays, I'd be forced to relocate from my home town due to a melodrama-induced rash.

Remember, this is a movie in which a screaming Sandra Bullock, blinded, quite literally, apparently, by hysterical racism, actually Falls Down The Stairs!!! Alexis Carrington couldn't have done it better.

I mean, Munich was almost ruined by just one over-the-top moment (Spielberg's near- pornographic closing shot of the World Trade Center) but this movie was 2 whole hours of being beaten with a wet hose. Compare this to Brokeback Mountain, which took a subject with just as many cliched pitfalls as "Racism in America"(homophobia in America) and delivered its message without a moment of cheap sentimentality or self-pity.

This is what happens when the Academy's Gays and Jews split their votes and the contest is decided by the swinger ballots of a few decidedly goy West-side heterosexuals. Crash. Think of it as the Ralph Nader of the Motion Picture Academy.

Well, Jon Stewart was hilarious. What is up with the interpretive dance numbers?

Worth A Thousand Words

This painting has the professional homo-haters all riled up:












Because only the Last Supper painting of (that faggot) DaVinci is the true Last Supper painting.

Especially on crushed velvet.

P.S. Notice Judas flipping Jesus the bird.

Speaks For Itself

"Dear Dr. Dobson:

This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months.
I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.
As I said when I spoke at my formal investiture at the White House last week, the prayers of so many people from around the country were a palpable and powerful force.
As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.
I hope that we'll have the opportunity to meet personally at some point in the future.
In the meantime my entire family and I hope that you and the Focus on the Family staff know how we appreciate all that you have done.

Sincerely yours,

Samuel Alito"

Smoking Video

Here's a lovely video of George Bush, being briefed that the New Orleans levees might be breached, the levees he later claimed "no one had anticipated" breaking. It's from video conference conducted the day before the hurricane hit.

Motherfucker.

Even worse, in the face of this onslaught of information, the President didn't ask a single question, or give a single order. I remember during the 2000 campaign, some pundit referred to Bush's "fatal lack of curiosity". I didn't quite understand what he meant. We all do now.