A Little Christ for Your Christmas

Despite this hastily-created ironic graphic that you can actually buy on your choice of t-shirt, bag, mug or coaster, I'm not actually so big on Jesus. As I type that I can of course hear a smiling voice in my head say, "well that's okay, cause Jesus is big on you." Heh heh. yes, well. Not that I have any particular issue with Jesus: rebel against Rome, inspirational man teaching people to commit acts of decency on fellow humans, nothing to hate on there. If some of his followers like the label "Christian" better than paying attention to what He actually said, I freely admit that's not Jesus's problem.

When I was a little kid I loved playing with the family creche set, a nicely painted little diorama with figures of shepherds and apparent Arab kings and a happy little family and lots of sheep, plus a little angel that never quite stayed attached to the top of that shed called a manger. But despite my mother's intentions Christianity never stuck with me, though thankfully, I've grown out of the angry rage that so many gay people have for His religion.

But Christmas is a lovely holiday; social obligations balanced by the chance to see people you haven't seen in a while, exchange some gifts, and drink a little too much. It's not clear to me if Jesus was a drinker exactly, but He did turn water into wine and that's a pretty impressive and useful talent.

So as they say in our secular society, happy holidays. But if Jesus is indeed your comrade, then may you have blessed celebration of His birth.

Anti-American Art: Welcome and Unwelcome Guests

Strangely enough, during the 1980s when Nicaragua was engaged in a de facto war with the United States, fighting off rebels armed and trained by Ronald Reagan's special forces and CIA, this is the only stamp issued by the Sandinista government that alludes to that conflict. Oh, Nicaraguan stamps were plenty political: they were largely printed in Cuba, which specialized in printing stamps for a number of countries in the vague orbit of the Soviet Union. In fact stamps issued in 1983 showing Karl Marx were distributed by the Reagan government to members of the U.S. congress to prove that the Sandinistas represented the communist threat at the American doorstep. But the stamps with political themes were largely confined to marking the anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, fallen Sandinista martyrs, and occasionally an anniversary of note to the international left.

Incongruously to outsiders, this stamp showing crowds carrying a banner was issued as part of a series marking the visit of Pope John Paul II to Nicaragua in 1983. It reads "Nicaragua Lucha por la Paz" or "Nicaragua Fights for Peace." The depicted banner reads "Por Nuestros Hijos Venceremos la Agresion Imperialista: No Volveran": "For Our Children We Will Defeat Imperialist Aggression: They Shall Not Return." The Sandinistas were hoping the Pope would show the church's commitment to social justice and embrace them. The Pope hated communism much more than he loved social justice and pretty much turned his back.

Dear American South: Let Me Refresh Your Memory...

"I just don’t remember it as being that bad," -- current Mississippi governor and leading Republican Haley Barbour remembering his youth in Missippi in 1962.

"Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer
Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we
Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me
Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie
Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more"
-- singer Nina Simone, 1963


"Had I found myself alive in those days, I think, I hope, to pray to God, I would have fought the way my ancestors did ... for the South." --Thomas Hiter, of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organizer of the Carolina Secession Ball, just held to mark the 150th anniversary of the secession of South Carolina immediately preceding the American Civil War. (That's a photo of the Slave Market in Charleston, South Carolina, still standing.)

"Our master ordered a pot of mush to be made for our supper; after despatching which, we all lay down on the naked floor to steep in our handcuffs and chains. The women, my fellow-slaves, lay on one side of the room; and the men who were chained with me, occupied the other. I slept but little this night, which I passed in thinking of my wife and little children, whom I could not hope ever to see again. I also thought of my grandfather, and of the long nights I had passed with him, listening to his narratives of the scenes through which he had passed in Africa. I at length fell asleep, but was distressed by painful dreams. My wife and children appeared to be weeping and lamenting my calamity; and beseeching and imploring my master on their knees, not to carry me away from them. My little boy came and begged me not to go and leave him, and endeavoured, as I thought, with his little hands to break the fetters that bound me. I awoke in agony and cursed my existence. I could not pray, for the measure of my woes seemed to be full, and I felt as if there was no mercy in heaven, nor compassion on earth, for a man who was born a slave. Day at length came, and with the dawn, we resumed our journey towards the Potomac. As we passed along the road, I saw the slaves at work in the corn and tobacco-fields. I knew they toiled hard and lacked food but they were not, like me, dragged in chains from their wives, children, and friends. Compared with me, they were the happiest of mortals. I almost envied them their blessed lot." -- former slave Charles Ball, writing in 1837

Winter Solstice 2010

Today is the Winter Solstice, and in the middle of the night, for the first time in several hundred years, a full eclipse of the moon will occur at the same time as the solstice. I took the photograph above in New Orleans about 15 years ago: it's a cast iron plug reinforcing a wall, common on very old buildings. It has nothing actual to do with the Solstice, but the classic simplicity of its design, a cross with four equal parts set in a circle, shares something with the easy-to-grasp classic simplicity of the Pagan concept of the Wheel of the Year: a rotating circle, divided into four solar seasons, turning, repeating and spinning into eternity. The wheel turns, time passes: the darkest, shortest day of the year -- now -- soon recedes as the days, cold at first, start to lengthen and brighten, warming, the Earth reacting to the changing light and temperature. If today's extra dark solstice night is a sign that soon the light will return, the returning light is also a sign that the darkness will also return. And so it goes.

I have nothing against complex theology. Actually it can be rewarding: I like arcane detail, and the mystical understanding that comes from deeper knowledge. That's true about subjects not limited only to spirituality and religion, I might add. But while a spiritual love affair with a chosen, or discovered, religious path might deepen with knowledge of the accumulated wisdom of generations of the faithful, there's much to be said for that simplicity of an idea so profoundly straightforward as the Solstices and the turning of the seasons.

My own spiritual journey began with acknowledging that simple natural event. And certainly that natural event continues -- and will continue hopefully for a very long time -- whether I, or anybody, notices or names it: it's so much bigger than mere humanity. Unlike Christmas with its questionable blend of Northern European quasi-Pagan folk tradition, historically doubtful Middle-Eastern myth, and perfectly modern rabid consumerism, the Solstice is just there. It happens, without a lot of explanation or doctrinal debate. Nobody has to look anything up. And conveniently, it doesn't actually contradict the teachings of any of the many worthy religions out there. I'm going to light a candle in the space where there is no light, but whether I do or not, that light will eventually return.

To me the turning wheel suggests the mysterious engine of life force called God, but that's me and my enjoyment of a quest for meaning. But to celebrate the Solstice you don't even have to make that leap of faith. You just have to marvel at the way the world is, was, and will be again. And if you're so jaded that you don't find it particularly marvelous, well, there it is, just a piece of cast iron hardware holding up a wall in a convenient and pleasing shape.

Anti-American Art: The Fickle Finger of Fate

In honor of the failure of the Korean War to restart today, after provocative live-fire military exercises by South Korea off the coast of North Korea, here's a North Korean stamp from 1973 from a series calling for the reunification of the peninsula. I don't know what the caption on it says, but it's a giant finger (of God? Doubt it!) pointing at an American tank stationed in the barbed-wire no-man's land of the Demiiltarized Zone.

After a month of sabre-rattling, North Korea had threatened to respond to today's military exercises with, well, unspecified violent-sounding retribution. With American prodding the South Korean government went ahead anyway, and fortunately North Korea has responded with...more rhetoric. Everybody should be happy about that.

I read an article on the New York Times about Bill Richardson's peace-making trip to North Korea. Most people in the comments on the web post of this article called North Korea a "bully." I thought that was darkly hilarious....the residents of the most powerful nation in the world, whose military forces are camped out on the border of the tiny nation of North Korea, whose nuclear missiles and spy satellites are pointed at that tiny improverished nation, are callying North Korea the bully. Really, people?

DADT Repealed!

Played with the strategic wizardry of a chess master, President Obama today achieved one of his campaign promises, the repeal of the Clinton-era "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law that was used to purge the American military of lesbians and gays. Coming down to the wire in the lame duck session of Congress, Obama's skill at compromise and building support paid off for a major item in the liberal agenda. Repealing DADT was a campaign slogan, then given more urgency in this year's State of the Union address. He completely lined the ducks up in a row: he organized his Department of Defense and military bigwigs to advocate for repeal, and then worked with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to come up with compromise language to suggest that repeal of the DADT law wouldn't imply immediate culture shock to the armed forces. Through a year of ups and downs, slow advances and setbacks, with the liberal and gay community constantly calling "foul" and suggesting Obama was selling them down the river, the final duck was lined up with his tax compromise that, signed and delivered, allowed him to bust Republican unity and swing several Republican senators over to his side. The vote today was historic, possibly the first piece of stand-alone gay civil rights legislation to pass through Congress. Along the way there was lobbying, backroom deals, protests, and howls of betrayal. As it is, implementation of the repeal is likely to be slow.

On the one hand I think it's important to recognize a civil rights advance, one that adds potential momentum to civil rights advances in other areas, especially employment non-discrimination. It's important to see this as a victory for Obama as well: just weeks after the midterm elections his maneuvering skills seem formidable. The fact that the right and center wings of the Republican party were just completely outmaneuvered is major. We'll see how this plays out after the new year when the House reverts to Republican control: we're not likely to see even minimally progressive legislation make it through there for a while. But I think it's also important to be reminded of what the repeal means: that gay people now have the equal right to kill and die for imperialism.

And this is not an abstraction: the U.S. remains engaged in, depending on how you count, at least two wars of aggression, and numerous questionable military engagements all over the world from Korea to Somalia. All those gay Arabic-language military translators who were fired over the last few years (and there were dozens), they will shortly be able to keep their jobs.... ensuring American and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. So as much as the extension of a democratic right is a victory, it remains incumbent on those of us on the side of peace to continue to advocate for the gay community to make wise choices. The presence of openly gay volunteer soldiers will not make these wars more just, nor make them go away. These wars are still wrong: don't enlist!

And if Obama's manipulation of the forces of government was a thing to behold, there is a caution for those on the left. He, as a force in the center, is likely to be successful in some ways that are not at all progressive. In that his strategic victories in the DADT fight make him stronger, there is the danger that it makes his repressive instincts stronger also. The Department of Justice has already made raids on leftists in the midwest, attempting to taint certain leftists with the tar of terrorism. His sabre-rattling over Korea and Iran should be watched with caution.

Still, a battle won. I'll take the good news with the bad.

(Graphic "I Want You To Die in a Foreign Desert for Corrupt Politicians...Don't Be An Idiot Don't Join up!" snagged from a comment on Queerty.)

Please Dawn, Not on Christmas!

In honor of Christmas shopping, most of which I finished doing today, here's a brilliant clip from the John Waters camp classic film "Female Trouble." This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, a cautionary tale for gift-givers everywhere. That is, of course, the late Divine as Dawn Davenport. If you're partaking in this sort of holiday tradition this year, pay attention!

The closest I came to holiday drama as a child was when I was given a sort of rag doll I must have asked for (yes, I had progressive parents!), and the poor thing's head fell off within minutes of unwrapping, spilling sawdust everywhere. I can still remember what felt like hours of shrieking horror at the grisly tragedy that befell my new doll. I was inconsolable. The next day my parents exchanged it for an unbreakable plastic baby doll, the kind you filled with water which would soon dribble out of a tiny hole between its legs. There are many of life's lessons right there.

From the Annals of Hatred...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. One of the gay blogs I read everyday, that's it on my RSS feed on the left, Joe.My.God., specializes in paying attention to the rantings of the anti-gay fringe hate groups. With an apparent cast-iron stomach, blogger Joe Jervis consumes vast quantities of bigoted filth, offering up choice excerpts of outrage on a daily basis. He's made a heroic career of following the trajectory of all the groups who claim to be fighting gay and lesbian rights not out of bigotry but out of concern for "Christian civil rights," "traditional values," or pseudo-scientific "family research." I can't say my own stomach is strong enough to read all of it.

In my files I found a fascinating photocopy of an original direct mail solicitation from the original Queen of Homophobia, Anita Bryant. I grew up with Ms. Bryant's false smile shilling for Florida agri-business and selling orange juice on TV. But in 1977 Bryant became outraged at the passing of a non-discrimination ordinance in Dade County, Florida, and she became a crusader against gay civil rights. I thought it would be amusing to post a few paragraphs from this ground-breaking solicitation of anti-gay hatred to show how unoriginal are the mouthings of today's anti-gay bigots. It's been a broken record for over thirty years, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, but always the same melody of thinly disguised bigotry.

The front page of the six-page letter is shown above (go ahead and click it to see it larger). It's done in a folksy hand-typed style, with fake handwritten underlining and emphasis marks. It's a masterpiece of fundamentalist Christian, intolerant right-wing propaganda. Its fearmongering, its howling sense of victimization, its matter-of-fact dismissal of gay civil rights, and its brilliant attempt at guilt by association linking gay rights to kiddie porn is a thing to behold. Make no mistake, this is not a defense of religious freedom, it's a veritiable miniature Mein Kampf calling the black hordes of bigotry to action...and making donations. On the "stationery" of Protect America's Children here are a few hateful excerpts:

Dear Friend:

I don't hate the homosexuals!

But as a mother, I must protect my children from their evil influence. And I'm am sure you have heard about my fight here in Dade County, Florida -- and nationwide -- for the rights of my children and yours.

But I had no idea my speaking out would lead to such frightening consequences:
...ugly persecution at the hands of militant homosexual groups.
...the attempted blacklisting of my career.
...constant bitter threats to shut me up for good.
...misguided individuals hounding me and my family -- even when we go to church.

All this, because I stood up for my children -- as a mother --as an American -- as a Christian. [snip] I cannot remain silent while radical, militant homosexuals are raising millions of dolars and waging a campaign for apecial privileges under the disguise of "civil rights"... and they claim they are a legitimate minority group.

Do you realize what they want?

They want to recruit our school children under the protection of the laws of the land! [snip] One miltant homosexual group actually publishes a newsletter giving techniques to entice and recruit young men to commit unnatural sex acts. [snip]

I don't hate the homosexuals. I love them enough to tell them that truth!

She goes on to raise the issue of child pornography. (Related how?) She paints a grim picture of adults persuading children to act in porn for the price of an ice cream cone. Then she moves on to violence on TV:

Sex, violence, beatings, rape and sexual perversion is an everyday affair and happens nightly in your living room in full view of your children. Is the answer to smash your TV set? Perhaps.

She ties to all together with her "love of the Lord" and says she's not afraid of standing up for what she believes in.

I have just received a disturbing report that the militant homosexuals are planning to mount a massive public relations campaign...will you help me stop the militant homosexuals? ...and stop the evil child pornography business? ...and stop the sex and violence on television?

How? a gift of "love." $10, $15, $25, or $100 "if these issues really shake you as they do me."



That's her signature, and her clean-cut picture perfect family. There's no date but it's likely this is from 1977. Thankfully, Bryant's career as a spokesperson of hate caused her career to tank, and she was laid low by financial difficulties. She fled to the midwest, and today continues her hateful activities from Oklahoma.

Anti-American Art: This Is My Rifle, This Is My... Shell

"The Vietnamese People Must Win!" reads this oddly blocky 1960s Chinese poster. A Vietnamese soldier and a militiawoman gaze loftily into the distance as American planes fall from the reddened sky in the background. But it's hard to remove one's gaze from the remarkably phallic artillery shell the soldier holds with his chunky hand. His companion has her own weapon but his is clearly the most powerful.

The lip service Cultural Revolution-era Chinese propaganda paid to gender equity is commendable. Women were shown to be the equals of men quite matter of factly in posters like this one. It's interesting that since downfall of Mao's widow Jiang Qing shortly after the Chairman's death, the Chinese Communist Party seems, at least to the casual outside observer, completely male dominated. For all Madame Mao's vanities and excesses her role in the cultural aesthetic of classic Maoism was remarkably proto-feminist. I wonder what the political future of women is in capitalist road China.

Stamps from the Land of Dignity

I've shown many postage stamps in my Anti-Americana series: these tiny works of art serve an expressive and propagandistic purpose, a direct communication from the issuing nation not only to its own citizens but to the peoples of the world. There's an interesting story in this regard just now coming out of Palestine.

With the establishment of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority on the Occupied West Bank and in Gaza following the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel granted the PA limited control of its own postal services including the right to issue its own stamps. Even though international authorities like the Universal Postal Union don't usually recognize the authority of states that are not fully independent, an exception was made and the new stamps of the Palestinian Authority were to be recognized as valid on international mails. Given the complex political and diplomatic situation between the Palestinian Authority, the Arab states and Israel this has not always been smooth going, but it's all legit in theory.

Israel placed several demands on the Palestinians: the subject matter of the stamps had to be "peaceful," and Israel reserved the right to reject stamps--and the mail bearing them--whose designs were deemed controversial. The Palestinian Authority began issuing stamps in 1994. The first batch of stamps were denominated in "mils," the currency of the pre-Israel Palestine mandate. Israel objected, and the Palestinians had to recalibrate the stamps in Jordanian currency.

Then the Palestinians issued a set of stamps picturing the original stamps issued by the Palestine Mandate back in the 1930s. Again Israel objected. So the Palestinian Authority played by the rules and stuck to extremely "safe" subjects: the flora and fauna of the region, Christmas holidays (think Bethlehem, in Palestine), international sporting events, and the like. As relations between the PA and Israel worsened, and then when the Hamas movement won legislative elections in Gaza, normal things like issuing stamps fell to the wayside. In 2009 the Palestine Authority tried to issue stamps to honor the central role of Jerusalem/Al Quds in Arab culture (part of an international series by many Arab countries), and Israel suppressed the effort, seizing the printed stamps before they could be released.

Now, nearly two years after Israel's brutal attack on Gaza, the so-called "Operation Cast Lead," the Hamas-run Gaza wing of the Palestinian Authority has found its own voice. Several sets of stamps have been issued this year with designs and themes that most definitely would not meet the approval of Israel censors. Hamas basically issued a big "fuck you" to the rules about content, which probably means mail using these stamps won't make it through Israeli controls. One senses the "fuck you" is also aimed at the Al-Fatah wing of the Palestine Authority, which, according to Wikileaks anyway, seems to have given tacit assent to the Israeli attack on Hamas and Gaza's civilians.

One of the sets is shown above. The stamps read, "Gaza, Land of Dignity," and the special commemorative envelope bearing them honors "Our People's Steadfastness against The Siege." Others released at the same time mark the "Significance of Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds in Muslims' Hearts," "Palestinian National Unity," and the "Resistance Victory Against Aggression on Gaza," this one showing two small children embracing amidst the ruins of the Israeli attack.


I think this kind of postal or philatelic resistance is inspiring. Despite the attempts of the Israeli state and the western powers to subdue the Palestinian people through fake peace talks and negotiations for an apartheid-style Bantustan micro-state, the Palestinians are going ahead and acting like a nation.

Anti-American Art: Four-Way Fight

Here's a modern mural, in English, from Tehran in the Islamic Republic of Iran. "Down with USA & Israel" and "His excellency the leader: Imam Khomeini's followers are always supporting palestinians and fight their enemies." That's a combination American flag/Star of David on the left. The center depicts the Al Aqsa Mosque and Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem (Al Quds), the Holy Kaaba in Mecca, and I believe another mosque in Iran. The portrait on the bottom is the invalid founder/leader of the Palestinian Hamas organization Sheik Ahmed Yassin assassinated by Israel in 2004. The quadraplegic civilian leader and spiritual figure was attacked by a helicopter gunship and the bodyguards and civilians around him were also killed. And yet somehow it is Hamas and not the Israeli government that is on the list of terrorist organizations. Which is why you see that combo star and stripes up there.

Anyway, neither Hamas' nor Iran's politics are my cup of tea, but the Palestinians are free to choose their own manner of resistance and pick their own friends. I'd rather they chose the path of secularism and socialism, but who am I.

(Photo snagged from the "Murales Politicos" website.)

Time to Castrate Testicular Metaphors And Bring Back Some Feminist Clarity

"If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two." James Carville on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008

“If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he’d have two,” James Carville in Nov. 2010

"[Arizona governor] Jan Brewer has the cojones that our president does not have." - Sarah Palin to FoxNews, August 2010

"Obama and the Democrats have no balls!" - a million commenters in the liberal blogosphere, December 2010

Okay, I am a gay man, and as an admirer of the male anatomy let me say I have a fond appreciation for a nice pair of low-hangers. A nice pair of high and tight ones ain't bad either. Whether mysteriously and tantalizingly bulging inside clothing, swinging wild and free, or squeezing out behind a misplaced strap or seam, the lovely and delicate male appendage known as testicles, balls, nuts, cojones, or junk is a monument of natural wonder and sensual pleasure. But what it is not is a useful political metaphor.

IT'S STUPID
The vulgarity and stupidity of using the term "balls" for political leadership or courage should be immediately self-evident from the nature of the people who use it the most. Vampire-like underminer and enabler James Carville and quitter/ignoramus Sarah Palin are now pioneers among the political class "daring" to bring such a vulgarism into everyday political discussion, and FoxNews, the great moral arbiter of our time, thinks that's fine. It is positively insidious that a linguistic moron like Sarah Palin should be setting cultural discourse by planting her finger so firmly up the anus of American media culture. It was she, of course, who uttered the barbarically cynical line, "How's that hopey-changey thing working out for you now?" A quotable line which has started to work its way not only through low-information right-wing regurgitators, but through liberal ones now manipulated into feeling betrayed by Obama.

But this is bully talk. Talking about politicians showing "balls" is an attempt to avoid actual discussion of issues. It's an attempt to oversimplify issues with dark intent, to silence deeper questioning. To narrow issues of immigration, as Palin has done, down to a testicular level is not only to evoke fear, but to suggest that immigrants themselves are somehow sapping America's "manhood," that the correct response is defensive crotch grabbing, and that it's all a schoolyard contest to see whose swagger is the widest. And these bullies are counting on intimidating those who secretly worry about their own testicular inadequacy into shutting up and going along with loud, empty-headed braggarts.

This is utter stupidity. Which might be expected from the ilk of Palin and Carville. But it's even worse that the vulgar idiocy of right-wing morons is seeping leftward as progressives react to Obama's response to a new political reality.

IT'S OFFENSIVE
This equation of political power, determination, ability, and leadership with testicles is profoundly sexist and misogynist. There's a word I try very hard to avoid: it's "hysteria." And why? Because "hysteria" is a linguistic migration from crackpot sexist psychology into popular usage: it describes women losing control, shrieking and flailing about because of uncontrolled natural urges provoked by their genitalia. "Hysterical" in its original sense means acting like a woman who has lost control of herself; she has allowed her womb to take over and turn her into an irrational, raving animal: the cure for hysteria is a good slap from a stern man, or failing that, being sent away for a while. Somehow "hysterical" has been confused with "hilarious" and people use "hysterical" for something so funny they lose control of themselves. I choose not to perpetuate the notion that it is some inner "female" defect that causes us to lose control. Well I feel the same way about "balls."

Even in the backhandedly complimentary way being applied to Hillary Clinton, courage and leadership should not be considered "male" properties. It's always struck me as deeply ironic that patriarchal male-dominated society insists female submissiveness is the natural order when history shows us both the repressive origins of male dominance and thousands of examples of female leadership.

People on the left should know better than to fall for this crap. It's really a shame that feminist theory and analysis has been so marginalized and discredited with accusations of "political correctness" (always a vile, slanderous, and right-wing dodge) that disgustingly sexist language -- and the intent behind it -- is creeping back through popular culture. For a disturbingly eye-opening experience read the comments about any (probably right-wing) woman on a gay blog and start counting the c-words and the b-words and worse. Using sexual stereotypes is such an easy thing to fall into; but it only requires a little effort and sense of respect and human decency to restrain oneself.

And questioning a male leader's "balls," as is being done about Obama, isn't it rather a lot like calling him a f*g? Perhaps no one is saying Obama is literally gay, but in demasculinizing him aren't they sissyfying him? It's the same thing they mean when they, these multimillionaire rightwingers, call him an "elitist." They mean a pansified, glasses-wearing, sissy who thinks he's too rarified to hang out with the boys, with the real men. Bully speech. Kick his ass!

And let's not even go into why these people think it's cute to call balls "cojones," especially when they're plotting against Hispanic immigrants.

IT'S WRONG
But perhaps what irks me the most about questioning Barack Obama's, or the Democratic Party's, metaphorical balls is that I think it is a facile argument and an incorrect interpretation of what's happening in Washington.

People on the progressive left wanted very much to believe that Obama and the Democrats are on their side. But in truth the Democrats' consensus and Obama himself are much more middle-of-the-road than all the glorious hype of the 2008 elections. But if the Democrats and Obama are a first line of defense against the advancing right-wing resurgence, it does not mean they are actually themselves left-wing.

Let's look briefly at the issue of education reform. Most on the liberal left think it means defending schools against cutbacks, defending education against bizarre testing standards, restoring quality and priority to childhood education. But to the political center (and right) education reform also means busting teacher's unions. That is a crucial difference of position. And anyone can look into Obama's rhetoric to see that he is committed to both the humanistic value of improving education and the corporate value of busting unions. This will lead him to both good and bad policies. And so it is with the economic crisis and his solutions and compromises. What the left perceives as weakness is actually a difference of position, a divergence between what we really wanted a symbolically game-changing president to be and who Obama actually is.

Obama is not a leftist. And let me add, outside of a Bernie Sanders/Dennis Kucinich fluke here and there, leftists will not be elected to government anytime soon in the kind of numbers that will make an actual difference. That is just the way it is. Hopefully, I might add, not forever. But for now.

So when the left accuses Obama of not having "balls," that is, the leadership and courage to stand up to the Republicans on the economy, I think the left is missing several crucial points. And in missing these crucial points I think the left continues to disarm itself. There is a left-wing solution to the economic crisis. And you know what? Cancelling the Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires is an insignificant teeny-tiny-tip of that iceberg. It's symbolically hugely disappointing, sure. It was nice to think that a President might draw that kind of line in the sand. But in a world where the "defense" budget will not be surrendered to right the economy, where banks and corporations will continue to be encouraged to rape the population, what's more important? That symbol -- or the extension of unemployment benefits to millions of people and a modest second economic stimulus?

The left needs to find a way to articulate its vision, advance its agenda, and pragmatically react to the reality of the times. Why are Americans not out in the streets? Right now it's a very one-sided class struggle and our side is losing. Badly and without putting up much of a fight. And we're accusing Obama and the Democrats of being weak?

So fondle some testicles today. It's fun for everybody, except, well, Lesbians (sorry, Sapphic sisters!). But stop talking about them like they're more than a random body part. It doesn't make you sound tough, it makes you sound stupid. And worse, it makes you act stupid.

(Art of anonymous nuts snagged from the excellent nostalgic gay porn blog "BJ's gay porn-crazed ramblings." It's from his post on the dread "mooseknuckle" phenomenon.)

Anti-American Art: Holiday Cruise Package Deal

"Come Alive, Leave Dead" reads another Vietnam-war era cartoon of uncertain origin, published in China. It's sardonically humorous like this previous entry in our series, and is essentially the nautical version of this one, as a ship going out labelled "U.S." is full of soldiers and war materiel, and the similarly labelled ship returning is full of coffins and wreaths.

The war was won not only because of the military brilliance of the Vietnamese and the righteousness of their cause, but because the draft meant that the American GIs were mostly not voluntary cannon fodder, and draft resistance and rebellion in the ranks of the military coupled with protests from draft-age young people were becoming real problems for the American aggressors. Can you believe the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been going for almost ten years and people are still signing up to join the military? Crazy. What's wrong with those people. One does suspect that if there was a draft the wars would have been over about five years ago.

Stirrings on the Left

Today I listened in to a bit of independant socialist senator Bernie Sanders's symbolic filibuster attempt in the U.S. Senate. It may be that ugly compromises are the best we can hope for right now, but it sure was nice to hear an actual senator saying all the right things, even if it was a futile exercise.

So it's fitting that also today I ran across an interesting web statement. It's called "An Open Letter to the Left Establishment," and it's a letter from a number of mostly B-list and C-list (no disrespect intended) leftwing figures to the symbolic bigwigs of what passes for a left in this country, people like Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Katrina van den Heuvel and the like. Among the better known signatories are people like Cornel West, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky, and included are leftists I read daily like Louis Proyect. Most of the signatories seem like people who have never really been in the Obama camp, while the addressees are all leftists who signed on to backing Obama.

(I must fess up to being a completely E-list leftist myself who, as is plain to see here at The Cahokian, has at times vigorously supported Obama. I've often argued that supporting Obama was a necessary tactic, and I reserve the right to do so again. I believe in pragmatism and realism, and almost as much as I hate the idiocy of the right-wing teabaggers I dislike what has often appeared to me as hyperbolic whinging outrage and the almost juvenile jilted-lover routine of many who have come to oppose Obama. But I am a socialist, I do believe in fundamental change, and, well, Obama is no longer the symbolic candidate of progressives yearning to breathe free, he's the head of the most powerful military machine and instrument of mass repression on the face of the earth. Time waits for no one.)

I don't know if I'm ready to add my name to this open letter, and its organizers are indeed seeking endorsement and support, but I'm ready to ponder its message. I'll leave off the lists of signatories -- you can go to protestobama.org to see them and more about this campaign -- but I'm copying and pasting with source code so you can follow links the organizers provide to back up their claims. Here's the statement:

-----
This letter is a call for active support of protest to Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, Katrina van den Heuvel, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jesse Jackson Jr., and other high profile progressive supporters of the Obama electoral campaign.

With the Obama administration beginning its third year, it is by now painfully obvious that the predictions of even the most sober Obama supporters were overly optimistic. Rather than an ally, the administration has shown itself to be an implacable enemy of reform.

It has advanced repeated assaults on the New Deal safety net (including the previously sacrosanct Social Security trust fund), jettisoned any hope for substantive health care reform, attacked civil rights and environmental protections, and expanded a massive bailout further enriching an already bloated financial services and insurance industry. It has continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded the war in Afghanistan as well as our government’s covert and overt wars in South Asia and around the globe.

Along the way, the Obama administration, which referred to its left detractors as “f***ing retarded” individuals that required “drug testing,” stepped up the prosecution of federal war crime whistleblowers, and unleashed the FBI on those protesting the escalation of an insane war.

Obama’s recent announcement of a federal worker pay freeze is cynical, mean-spirited “deficit-reduction theater”. Slashing Bush’s plutocratic tax cuts would have made a much more significant contribution to deficit reduction but all signs are that the “progressive” president will cave to Republican demands for the preservation of George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy Few. Instead Obama’s tax cut plan would raise taxes for the poorest people in our country.

The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.

We are writing to you because you are well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, and you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize.

In this connection we would like to mention a specific protest: the civil disobedience action being planned by Veterans for Peace involving Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Joel Kovel, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern, several armed service veterans and others to take place in front of the White House on Dec. 16th.

Should you commit yourselves to backing this action and others sure to materialize in weeks and months ahead, what would otherwise be regarded as an emotional outburst of the “fringe left” will have a better chance of being seen as expressing the will of a substantial majority not only of the left, but of the American public at large. We believe that your support will help create the climate for larger and increasingly disruptive expressions of dissent – a development that is sorely needed and long overdue.

We hope that we can count on you to exercise the leadership that is required of all of us in these desperate times.

Digging in the Crates: Art Webb Reissued on CD!!

At various times in the history of digital music since CDs started to take over in the 1980s, reissues of pre-CD LPs have gone through many phases. When digital technology first took over, record companies rushed to put parts of their catalog back on the shelves. I remember furiously making the rounds of record stores every week, hoping against hope that some of my favorite wax albums had been upgraded and brought back to life by CD. Sometimes I scored, often via costly European and Japanese imports. As CD technology improved, record labels would go through another wave of back-catalog reissues, and sometimes in addition to re-reissuing remastered albums they'd dig a little deeper and broader and more forgotten vault treasures would spring back to life on the shelves. Falling for record-company hype over and over again, there are even a handful of albums I have bought three times on CD. It's a familiar pattern. The first digital reissue was welcome but didn't sound so good. Then the remastered version. WOW! And then the remastered deluxe edition in a nice digipak or mini LP-sleeve with bonus tracks. DOUBLE WOW! And the record company makes money over and over again from the same repertoire. But some albums just didn't seem to make it into the CD age, and I have on several occasions replaced favorite worn out-of-print vinyl LPs with slightly fresher less worn-out used copies.

A few years ago when digital downloads and iPods started to change how music was consumed, free (called by some, illegal) file-sharing became the rage. All of a sudden thousands of lost LPs were digitized by music lovers and shared for free over the internet. What fun! As both a consumer and sharer (through my music blog Ile Oxumare), I found this amazing. LPs I thought I had no hope of hearing again or for the first time even circulated freely among a community of music heads, real fans most of them, dedicated to the love of the groove.

And yet as the death of the CD is hourly reported, as music lovers have rediscovered crates and crates of great old LPs, it seems record companies have discovered that licensing old titles out to semi-independent labels has a little more money-making life left in it. Music blogs seem to have proved that crate diggers and seventies-grooves connoisseurs are still a loyal audience who buy enough CDs to make a new, even deeper, foray into the vaults worthwhile.

Which brings me to my discovery that two of my favorite 1970s discofied jazz-groove albums have finally made it to CD. Courtesy of the Wounded Bird reissue label, I am happy to welcome back flautist Art Webb's albums "Mr. Flute" and "Love Eyes," both, I believe, originally released back in 1977. (I bought both my copies from Dustygroove.com of course).



I bought both of these LPs back in the day. Having fallen in love with Blue Note jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey's albums when I was in high school, I somehow assumed that all jazz flute must sound like her. Sorta funky, gurgling with danceable energy and complex, heady electric arrangements, and the occasional mellow if unvirtuosic background vocal, when I started consuming jazz LPs upon my arrival at college I kept running into disappointment in the pursuit of more jazz flute. Artists I now respect as awesome like Lloyd McNeill and James Newton disappointed the hell out of me at the time. Herbie Mann? Gees, guy pick a style and stay with it. And then I found Art Webb.

Art Webb turns out to have been a mainstay of the New York Latin music scene, and while these albums are not Latin music per se, his cred in that area comes shining through. "Mr. Flute" does conclude with an almost Santana-like Latin fusion tune cut with the group Raices, but I tended to skip that track in my hip-swinging youth. The real starmaker of "Mr. Flute" is producer Patrick Adams, who spent the late 1970s and early 1980s pioneering a gloriously glossy urban sound. And by urban I mean disco, baby. This album sounds like jazz funk dipped in a little Salsoul, with sweeping strings, a propulsive Latin beat, and the best background grooves studio singers and musicians could sell. Oh yeah and Art Webb plays the flute.

Which comes across as mean, I suppose, but what I realized from Bobbi Humphrey and Art Webb both is that the flute is a brilliant focus for a groove, riding along like foam on the crest of a wave, but I have no idea if their playing is particularly good. Oh the music is brilliant: it seduces each part of my body to the parallel lines of its groove. A little chunky guitar, the congas and cowbell, the cooing of female vocalists, the glorious bells, buried harmonies of golden horns, the sweep of those strings. Some of these songs have words, I suppose, but they're not lyrical ballads, these snatches of phrases and words whose beauty is momentary and whose meaning is nothing except the joy of getting lost in this beautiful sound. When that singer commands us to Smile in my favorite track of "Mr. Flute." that is exactly what I do. And if Herbie Mann's attempted forays into disco about the same time sounded crass and cliched, almost embarassingly forced, Art Webb via Patrick Adams gets it exactly right. While I don't think this music made it big on anybody's playlist -- it was still, after all, consigned to the deadly bins of Jazz -- the sound captures something about the spirit of the boogie, if you will, all in it together, no stars, no self, just groove.

I even featured a scratchy rip of one of these albums in the early days of Ile Oxumare. The new CD sounds terrific though, and my rip is now officially retired.

"Mr. Flute" was an album of mostly originals, and as much as it made an impression on me, it didn't really crack the charts. The follow up, "Love Eyes," tried to remedy that by including some covers, strangely all from the orbit of late Charles Stepney-era Earth Wind and Fire. There's "You Can't Hide Love" and "Devotion" which EWF both performed, and the amazing "Free" which made Deniece Williams a star under EWF's tutelage. Hubert Eaves is now in on electric piano and Patrick Adams is replaced by the eclectic John Lee and Gerry Brown, flown in from the continent on some starmaking errand, no doubt, from backing up for obscure-in-America European fusion musicians. The covers are more than serviceable -- God bless a world filled only with Earth Wind and Fire covers, I mean, really -- and even though the general formula is the same as "Mr. Flute," the album doesn't have quite the same brash freshness to my ear as the first. Not that I could live without either of these albums. These are wonderful things to have on pristine digital reissues, and whether or not the end of the CD is nigh--certainly the first thing I did when I got these is rip them to my iTunes--I'm thankful that somebody is still digging in those crates and bringing these tunes back into the light.

Thanks Art, for making this music!

Anti-American Art: Ninja Peek-a-boo

DADT repeal -- on or off? Obama -- sellout or pragmatist? Global warming, hey, it's effing COLD outside! Julian Assange -- hero or rapist? Let's take a break from today's confusing headlines and go back to basics courtesy of the reliable Democratic People's Republic of Korea propaganda machine.

"Don't be deceived by U.S. disguises" reads this atypically dour North Korean poster, more or less. That's a combination Ninja-US Military Policeman failing to hide himself very well behind an olive branch....see the dangling olives? Note the talons, the ruby red ring, the icy blue eyes, the sharp knife, and the lack of a Kim Jong Il pin. Now there's clear messaging. Beware!

The Deal: Compromise and Contradiction

I heard this quote on the radio, and was glad to see it in print: “Sympathetic as I am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do. The American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories.” That's President Obama on Monday at his announcement of his deal with Republicans in Congress to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts, including the ones for millionaires, in return for 13 months of extended unemployment pay, a bit of a tax holiday (at the expense of social security), and other bits and pieces including a compromise that splits the difference over the Estate Tax for gazillionaires which the Republicans call "the death tax."

Once right-wing pundit Andrew Sullivan called it a masterstroke, a virtual second stimulus deal that ensures Obama's reelection. Liberal NYT columnist Paul Krugman calls it a shortsighted capitulation to the Republicans that weakens his future chances. A sober analysis on the supremely unsober site Gawker sees Obama staking out the turf of the "last reasonable man in Washington."

Obama was shown on TV today attacking the Republicans for holding the economy hostage, and also for attacking the progressive/liberal left for valuing "abstract ideals" above results and for being unwilling to compromise. But what I find the most revealing of all these contradictions on these deeply unsatisfying events are Obama's words quoted above; they give me pause to consider the last three years.

Because as those of us who felt a glimmer of real hope about Obama know, it was all about the symbols, all about the abstract ideals. The Obama campaign were masterful manipulators of symbolism, and they called it right. Those symbols got him elected. Now as I have said before it turns out that the problem with symbols is that what they stand for is highly subjective, and the country wasn't really making a hard left turn at the last election, despite the wishes of those of us on, well, the hard left.

In truth Presidents do horrible things: American capitalism with all the good things like relative political freedom is actually a pretty horrible institution and the person who gets to be in charge of it all is going to be pretty horrible probably no matter what. By which I mean, Obama is risking something by shattering the last illusions of himself as the second coming of FDR, or rather, the 70-years-later liberal myth of what we wish FDR was, but not that much: he's not actually the progressive liberator. While his compromises with the Republicans are unattractive to behold, his pragmatism is probably actually doing something, short-term at least, to make things better for people in difficult times. Certainly the people whose unemployment benefits won't be cut off would agree with that.

It was exhilarating to see him elected. But from the moment of his inaugural address, though, the hard realities started to clear away the symbolic fog. He was revealed to be, well, just another American President. Which is, um, what the point of having those elections was in the first place. I strongly supported his election, and while this is not the moment, I often find him brilliant and likable. I strongly believe given the realities of 21st-century America, voting for Democrats is usually going to be the necessary...wait for it...compromise. Even when their election puts brilliant and (sometimes) likable people in charge of war machines and spies; in charge of the institutions of state repression; and in charge of the corporate/financial juggernaut that strengthens wage slavery and gives to the rich at the expense of the sweat of working people; making them instantly a lot less likable. Well it will ALWAYS do that. Until the game changes.

There's no mass movement, no socialist party, no class consciousness, and the ones out there waving the torches and pitchforks, those scary cretinous legions are no friends of progress, peace, and justice. I'm sobered by Obama's renunciation of the symbols that got him elected. But the choices, the alternatives, are few. I don't plan on surrendering my voice, my advocacy of real and permanent solutions--real socialist ones. I don't intend to renounce the hope the symbols give me. Oh it could be so much better. I know that.

But oh, it could it be so much worse.

Graphic courtesy of my blogfriend Fritz of the Album Art Exchange blog. That's the famous Sheperd Fairey poster variously entitled "Hope" or "Progress" completely subverted.

Sabra Hummus -- Now with the Taste of Murder!

"As part of its donations program, the Sales Division of Strauss Israel has made a contribution to the men and women who serve in the Golani brigade. The funds are designated for welfare, cultural and educational activities, such as pocket money for underprivileged soldiers, sports and recreational equipment, care packages, and books and games for the soldiers' club. Yotvata, our dairy in the south, contributes likewise to the southern Shualei Shimshon unit."
--Strauss Foods Website

What is the Golani Brigade? It is a division of the Israel Defense Force based in the north of occupied Palestine. It has participated in ethnic cleansing and attacks on Palestinian civilians since 1948. Heavily involved in the murderous attacks on South Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza in 2009, as well as in numerous so-called reprisal raids, the Golani brigade is dedicated to attacking Palestinian and other Arab fighters and civilians and to smashing the Palestinian resistance movement.

Since 2006, Sabra Hummus is majority owned by the Strauss Group quoted above. If you're buying Sabra Hummus, some of your money is going to the murderers of the Golani Brigade.

I actually love Sabra Hummus. It's got a nice smooth and creamy consistency, a wide variety of delicious flavors, and is readily available all over the New York area, even in my Brooklyn neighborhood not known for its middle-eastern-food consumption. But I am now proud to endorse the consumer boycott of Sabra hummus. Sabra Hummus is in part locally made and it saddens me to think that a part local business creating a delicious product needs to be boycotted. But the reasoning behind the boycott is sound: I won't be shopping for Sabra any more.

The boycott of Sabra hummus is gaining notoriety. (The Angry Arab has been running angry--and funny--posts about it for months.) Even the NY Times has picked up on it. It's part of the BDS -- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions -- for Palestine movement. Like the previous boycott and divestment movement against Apartheid South Africa, this movement against the apartheid State of Israel's economic interests seeks to raise consciousness and participation in the fight for justice for the Palestinians.

Of course those of us in the United States are contributing to the Golani Brigade simply by paying our income taxes. It's a sad fact that the State of Israel, especially its child-murdering ethnic-cleansing war machine, continues to be heavily bankrolled by American taxpayers. The sad truth is there's not much we can do about that in the short term. But there is something we can do about the money we do control:

Boycott Sabra Hummus!

Doug & Jean Carn Reunion?

Wow! A friend passed the above flyer to me: a reunion of Doug and Jean Carn in performance at Boys & Girls High School in Brooklyn on December 30. Spiritual jazz afficionados and groove heads will remember the three amazing albums they cut together on the legendary Black Jazz label in the early 1970s before going their own ways. Doug Carn later recorded an album as Abdul Rahim Ibrahim "Al Rahman! Cry of the Floridian Tropic Son" somewhat recently reissued on CD. Former wife Jean Carn went on to be one of the amazing voices behind Norman Connors's and Dexter Wansel's blends of spiritual jazz and sophisticated soul grooves, and then becoming a big star for Philadelphia International Records with a string of disco hits including the awesome "Was That All It Was." I'm trying to rustle up more information about this concert, and hopefully, a pair of tickets. Stay tuned!

Update: A review of this concert is now up at the top of the blog here.

In Praise of Sta. Barbara

The story goes that St. Barbara was a teenage Pagan princess who converted to Christianity in the third century. She was imprisoned in a tower by her jealous father; when he found out she was a Christian he tried to have her killed. Many attempts at martyring her failed until her loving father finally cut off her head, for which crime he was promptly struck by lightning and burnt to a crisp. Because of her royal stature, her red vestments, and her relationship to this avenging lightning, she came to be syncretized with the Yoruba deity Shango (Chango in the new world), "god," or orisha, of war and fire and lightning. Despite the fact that Santa Barbara was a virginal innocent maiden, Chango represents a fiery, masculine force of raw sexuality. The young Santa Barbara is shown carrying her father's sword, the one he used to decapitate her. But it makes her look like a warrior, and the sword compares easily to Chango's legendary double-headed axe. Today, December 4, is Santa Barbara day.

The photo above is my shrine to Santa Barbara ca. 1994, before I was initiated into Santeria and received the actual sacraments of the orisha Chango. I loved my spiritual shrine to Sta. Barbara/Chango! That's the traditional Catholic image of Sta. Barbara on the left that has been adopted by syncretic Santeria; and the statue of the young saint (dwarfing the tower in which she was imprisoned) is there in the center. Those are unconsecrated red and white Chango beads, the kind you buy in a botanica, rather than receive in a ceremony. That's a handcarved wooden mortar, also a symbol of Chango, a little Santa Barbara scapular, and the traditional 7-day Seven African Powers candle showing her at the top.

The statue on the right of my old shrine is one sometimes used to represent Chango; it's a terrible several-generations removed copy of one of the blackamoor statues of Baroque German sculptor Balthasar Permoser shown here. More delicious irony that a deity synonymous with fierce pride and dignity should be represented in part by a statue rooted in antique renaissance-era European racist fascination with black servitude. Santeros, that is, initiates of the Lukumi tradition rather than generic Latin American spiritualists, tend to recognize this statue as an image of the powerful Congo spirit from the Palo tradition, Siete Rayos. Siete Rayos is similar to Chango, a spirit/deity of lightning, thunder and fire. While Santeros might have spiritual shrines to Siete Rayos or Santa Barbara, including statues or metal pots, our actual reverence is directed to the consecrated wooden vessel we receive in which reside the stones containing the essence of Chango's power. Some Santeros throw parties for Chango on Saint Barbara's day.

There's nothing more inspiring than seeing a dancing priest of Chango mounted by the diety: it begins with a sort of pantomime of reaching to the sky for thunderbolts and flinging them to earth, and ends when the orisha himself fills the priest with divine energy. Priests or priestesses of Chango are usually sturdy, beefy people: when possessed with their orisha they radiate strength.

I still have some of these altar pieces, though the extended spiritual altar that this was part of was consumed by a fire when I was a Iyawo, a new initiate of the religion. The first lesson Chango teaches you is never, never, be careless with fire. So that's how I'm going to celebrate the day, by staying away from matches. Kabiosile! Oba ko so! The King is in the house! The King does not hang!

Anti-American Art: The Devil You Know

"You Know: Death, Misery, Represion. That's Imperialism" reads this modern mural from Colombia, South America. It's from another picasa stream featured on the "Murales Politicos" website. The contempt bred by this familiarity is shown as a ghoulish spectre with a sickle and an American flag climbing up a pile of money. It's easy to forget with its pro-U.S. government, narco-trafficker problem, and aggressive attitude to neighboring socialistic Venezuela, but Colombia has its own tradition of anti-imperialism and radicalism.

Deficit Reduction Nonsense: The Plot to Steal Your Money

The sinister "debt reduction" plan recommended by a panel set up by President Obama is slowly advancing through Congress. Written by two right-wingers hand-picked by Obama, a Republican former Senator, Alan Simpson, and a Democratic advisor to President Clinton, Erskine Bowles, this dangerous bipartisan proposal is an outright grab at the wallets and bank accounts of regular people. It's the one thing the various factions in government can apparently unite about: the need to wring every possible dollar out of people at the economic bottom of society to pay for the excess, privilege, and mistakes, and betrayals of people at the top. Among the scandalous provisions of this plan are proposals to move the retirement age to 69 (for people now being born) and austerity measures including the removal of tax deductions for home ownership, which is fundamental to the ability of middle-class working people to anchor themselves in the face of economic crisis. The proposal rips into social safety nets like medicare. In attempting to split the difference of the toxic meme that Democrats favor increasing taxes and Republicans favor cutting back spending, this proposal manages to take the worst from both and present them as "creative" thinking to solve the country's deficit problem. While this outrageous proposal does face opposition in government, it's not clear that it won't eventually succeed.

It is absolutely disgusting that the Republican politicians, and some number of Democrats, are grandstanding over trying to keep the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires in place, crying copious crocodile tears over the potential danger to the economy the lapse of such tax cuts might cause, while at the same time they are making devious schemes to keep more money for themselves. While Obama has said he opposes keeping these tax breaks for the ultra-rich, it's not clear that he's actually made a principle of the matter and who knows what he will actually negotiate away. That Obama -- the sponsor of the panel who have made such outrageous recommendations -- continues to be accused of being a socialist by the teabaggers and the far right racist Republican establishment just shows how bad things are. That the richest people in society and their mouthpieces are insisting that poor and working people must be the ones to sacrifice to restore the economy to health is unbelievably brazen.

Taxes are part of the cost of living in a free society: I have no absolute problem with them. What I have a problem with is unjust and regressive taxes and increases which burden regular people while letting the top layer of society off the hook. It's simple math, and here's a completely hypothetical example: one person has $50,000. Take away half, that $25,000 would be a challenge to live off of. Another has $1,000,000. Take away half and that person still has $500,000, still a fabulous fortune and twenty times what the other has. And usually the loopholes and shelters wind up with the richer person paying far less a percentage than the poorer one.

Just as it is a lie that the so-called tea party have no conservative social agenda, it is also a lie that the right-wingers care about deficits or how much money the government has on hand. What they care about is how much money--and power--they have. They want a society unburdened by "entitlements," unburdened by a costly social security net, or by safety regulations, or by people organized defensive organizations like labor unions. Each giveback and takeback is attached to the next, just wait and see. Don't believe the jazzed up hype about debt and deficits. The debt is the fruit of right-wing policies.

Apparently untouchable are the billions upon billions of dollars spent on the war machine fighting stupid and pointless wars killing and wounding untold thousands of innocent people for absolutely nothing at all. And that's because in the end, when this debt reduction plan fails to save the economy, as it surely will, it will be up to the military machine to end the economic crisis in the only tried and true method capitalism knows: repression and world war.

Meanwhile, watch your wallets.

World AIDS Day: In Memory of My Friend John

I met John Moroney in the early 1980s at the Beacon Baths on the east side of midtown in New York City. Although I was proudly out, I was terrible at dating. I met guys at gay bars which led to the occasional hookup, the rare date, and the occasional friendship, but the place that holds a special memory for my mid-1980s social/sexual life is that pit of gay bathhouse. It was two random floors of a random office building. If you stayed overnight on Sunday, you found yourself leaving on damp-smelling elevators as the building's other tenants arrived for their regular office jobs. The Beacon was legendary for catering not to the downtown pretty-boy type but to closeted commuters and regular guys; it also proudly had the market cornered on the pre-bear world chubby-chaser scene: big guys like me could go there and feel welcome and desired. As though a study in contrasts the place was staffed by mostly straight immigrants from Bangladesh: they would hand you a towel and escort you to eiher your locker on the first floor or your little cubicle on the second, occasionally copping a feel.

Calling it a bathhouse is generous: there was a steamroom and a shower but this was a place not for spa-like recreation nor sporting activities but for sex. It was dimly lit and divided up into plywood cubicles with small little platform beds in each room. They played music from an extraordinarily small collection of cassette tapes; I still have flashbacks every time I hear Diana Ross's "Touch Me in the Morning" album with its cover of John Lennon's "Imagine." Imagine, indeed. I certainly didn't go every weekend, but when I went I almost always had a great time. And to my surprise, along with some great sex and occasional STD I also picked up quite a number of friends there. That was the way of things in that era of gay male culture. AIDS was unknown the first time I went there, and I believe the Beacon was among those closed in 1986 or so by public health officials. By then we were all pretty freaked out about AIDS and had stopped going to such places with such wanton enthusiasm.

Anyway one night I went and this incredibly handsome man with a bushy red beard started cruising me. This was a bath, not a bar, and there was no social chit-chat. I went into his room and we had what I recall being an incredibly hot encounter. In the way of such things and such places the social interaction was saved for afterwards. We were making out when I asked him what he did for a living. "I'm a cop!" he barked out and left it like that, almost as though it were the script of some kind of porn-movie fantasy scenario. Which meant we immediately had sex again.

I don't remember if it was that first time or the second time we happened to meet there, but we walked out together in the morning and he gave me a ride home. He wasn't, it turned out, much of a tough guy at all. He was a pussycat, actually. He really worked as a "corrections officer," ie, prison guard, in a career that shortly after we met went south. There was some accusation of something or other; and while John had some trouble finding worthwhile work for the rest of his life, that job hadn't been a good match for him. He was a working-class Irish-American native New Yorker but what John really loved was big guys and Broadway shows. I remember when he went to see "Cats," he explained every bit of that show to me despite my protestations that it sounded awful. He lived with his partner in an open relationship down in Chinatown; Randy was a playwright, and the two were completely open and tolerant of each other's busy social lives. I became one of John's many friends with benefits, and was lucky enough to be introduced to Randy; their relationship was strong and loving.

By 1987 or so John started getting sick, and soon enough he was diagnosed with AIDS. In a couple years he appeared to age twenty. He became gaunt, his hair got all wispy, and he was hospitalized repeatedly for pneumonia. He and Randy lived in a co-op John had inherited from his father. At one point his mother, a bitter harridan who hated John being gay but who lived in the same apartment complex, asked Randy what he was going to do when John died, where he would live. John was furious, the only time I'd ever seen him lose his temper. He raged at his mother assuring her that they had had papers drawn up to prevent Randy being turned into the street after John was gone. I visited John the last time in the hospital; he was comatose, still and silent. He died a day or two after my last visit.

At his funeral his mother and her relatives refused to acknowledge Randy or any of John's friends. We who had all known John as he really was, intimately even, were relegated to a corner of the funeral chapel. I have never seen such horrible cold-hearted people in my life. And true to her word, his mother immediately tried to force Randy out of the home they had shared together. Surrounded by the memories of their life together, Randy chose to leave the apartment rather than spend years engaged in a legal battle with such an evil human being.

I wish I could say John was the first or the only friend I lost that decade. Sadly neither is true. It seemed strangely commonplace back in the 1980s, when some acquaintance or friend of a friend disappeared from common sight, to assume the worst; how terrible that so often it was true, that another gay man had succumbed to the mysterious and awful AIDS.

I miss them all, and I feel like we owe it to all of them to keep their memories alive.

Sadly I have no photos of John. Graphic snagged from The Renaissance Society's website; that's a neon treatment of the old ACT-UP silence equals death icon.