Passed Over

 

Passed Over

 

My weekend was all about eating.  Friday night has already been sucked into the fog, but I recall that Saturday was breakfast at Steven's followed by a Tivo binge at my place (Extreme Engineering, Will and Grace, Friends, Enterprise) and capped by a nice evening walk to the Hyde Park neighborhood wine tasting.  Sunday began with the sleepy realization that HEB was closed and the brief but frantic search for alternatives since we were committed to bringing greens and starchy things to some friends' house for Easter brunch. Fortunately, the pagans of Whole Foods were open and we exchanged a small fortune for a correspondingly small, albeit attractive and organicky haul of asparagus, black seasame seeds, congealed coconut oil, toasted peanut oil, cilantro, yellow potatoes, gyrure (sp?), orange juice, and a rare Klingon vegetable that we humans call "celery root."  We added a couple bottles of bubbly to our load and journeyed to our friends's home in Barton Springs and paired our food stuffs with their spinach-stuffed-lamb-of-God-leg and bedeviled eggs.  Yum.  We ate for about 5 hours and then limped through their neighborhood gawking and cackling, at the nicer homes and the inferior homes, respectively.  What a fun game!

...then we had to do it all over again at 7pm because I had doubled-booked us.  A simple mistake really.  I told one set of friends that we'd join them for Easter and another that we'd join them on Sunday, April 20th.  So by the end of the evening, with no unleaven bread in sight, there was not a chance that any of us gay first borns had any chance of rolling along with an exodus, let alone outrunning the angel of death.

--r

My Support for the War (such that it is)

My Support for the War (such that it is)

I support and oppose lots of things that I personally do not have the time, and often the capability, to participate in.  For instance, I support dolphin-safe tuna,but perhaps not enough to get into a Greenpeace speedboat and throw myself in front of a Russian trawler.  I also support the Equal Rights Amendment, but I doubt that I'll ever find myself testifying on Capitol Hill.  I also disagree with some of the plays called by UT quarterbacks, but it's even less likely that UT Athletics will be seeking my counsel than either Greenpeace or the ERA movement.  Similarly, I'm pro-choice, but I've never encircled a clinic in its defense.  I have testified in the Texas capitol on gay rights adoption, testified before the Austin City Council against overzealous church expansionism in neighborhoods, marched for gay rights, laid on train tracks to protest the Gulf War, written letters to various elected officials for various issues that I no longer remember, and spoken to audiences on the importance of preserving our civil liberties.... yet, I can't consider myself any more or any less firm in my convictions or any less hypocritical than someone who did not choose to engage in any of these activities.  As political beings, we choose our fights.  It's a personal choice, but the choosing alone does not belie hypocrisy.  Modern war is conducted by professional experts.  It's best that way, especially if we want to win.  My support for the war (such that it is) is not diminished because I do not personally bear arms in the conflict.


--r

Why I Didn't March This Time Either

 

 

Why I Didn't March This Time Either

 

[Jerry Brown shared an article in the The Village Voice, "Why I Didn't MarchThis Time" by Nat Hentoff.]

I'm enjoying Jerry's and Nat's reflections on a complex situation.  When asked to post an antiwar sign in my front yard, I passed, and I didn't like the way it felt.  I felt that either I had changed from the guy who protested the Gulf War, or that the reasons for war were different.  Jerry described the change(s) best.  The point really, is that you can't describe it with a yard sign ...or a bumper sticker.  Sound-byte liberalism is no more sastifying than sound-byte hawkishness.  I've found myself seeking discussion.  In my relatively short life, I've been both liberal and conservative in view.  I can say from experience that liberals have more fun--sex, drugs, and the Grateful Dead.  Liberal protests of any sort are almost cookie-cutter produced with drums, glib signs, music, dancing, smiles, love, and warmth...all my friends.  It doesn't matter if it's antiwar, pro-life, pro-gay rights, pro-affirmative action, anti-death penalty, anti-apartheid...They're a great way to see people and catch up. It's almost worth fudging one's pro-anti inclinations just to join the party.  At the party, it's almost always the same people, wearing different buttons..  It feels like Peace and Love, Inc.  But the choreography of produced liberal protests chaffs against my internal skepticism... that maybe it's all just an "event...".... that maybe if it lacked the coolness factor, if it wasn't so fun, if folks didn't see all their friends there, that maybe protesting wouldn't be the "thing to do."  Sometimes, I want to pull random liberal protestors aside and ask "Why are you here?" and hope that I can get a response with more depth than a yard sign.  I guess I shouldn't have such high expectations. I fear that the conservative protestors that I see at pro-gun, pro-war, pro-KKK, anti-hate crime legislation, anti-gay rallies are possibly less likely to provide me with a satisfactory response beyond jingoist hate and greed smattered with red, white, and blue.  But there's definitely no doubt about it: conservative protests are not as cool, the music's worse, the people are uglier, and signs are not nearly as clever.  So if a rally or protest is unable to communicate a satisfactory message that reflects a grappling with complexity, it seems that really just becomes an experience, a spectacle, an orgy of expression, a be-in of kinship, cameraderie, a televised show to fill a hungry news hole, a fellow-feeling with others who are *feeling* something similar--sorta like "We're feeling hungry," but after discussion finding that they are feeling hungry for different things... so afterwards, they agree to fuck instead.


--r