Elephant in the Room: Michele Bachman Is a Pathological Liar and Delusionally Paranoid

That's a quote from 2005, but to my knowledge just-declared Republican presidential candidate and "Tea Party" favorite Michele Bachmann has not, er, refudiated it. Let's repeat it: "Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level." Um. Sure! Imagine what we could do for unemployment if slavery was brought back!

Today at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, she said, according to the NY Times: “This hasn’t been talked about very much – the president’s plan for senior citizens is Obamacare,” Ms. Bachmann told party activists here. She added, “I think very likely what the president intends is that Medicare will go broke and ultimately that answer will be Obamacare for senior citizens.” What a combination of dishonesty, paranoia and idiocy. Obama wants to institute a government takeover of healthcare...by eliminating government medicare and forcing seniors to get private insurance! What she is saying is literally, actually, irrational....and worse, her fans eat it up. Isn't the truth actually that the Republicans, her people, want to eliminate government medicare and force them to buy private insurance? Disturbingly, the NY Times lets this bizarre fantasy go factually unchallenged.

Then there's her claims last year about the president's trip to India: "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day," Bachmann said. "He's taking 2,000 people with him. He will be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending." This was a lie created out of whole cloth based on somebody's misreading of single misinformed article in an Indian newspaper.

Reactionary idiocy on the Middle East: "Today President Barack Obama has again indicated that his policy towards Israel is to blame Israel first. In a shocking display of betrayal towards our ally, President Obama is now calling on Israel to give up yet more land and return to its 1967 borders. If there is anything that has been proven, the policy of land-for-peace has meant that Israel has continually had to give away increasing amounts of its land and decrease its size. In exchange, it still has not known security. President Obama wants to further this policy by putting Israel in a very vulnerable position with borders that would be extremely difficult to defend....I am calling on President Obama to reverse course and clearly renounce the position which he spelled out today. This is an insult to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the day before the Prime Minister is scheduled to come to the United States." Yes, in print she's taking the side of a foreign leader against her president. She's a patriotic American!

Idiocy on Obama being a "socialist" and on mariage equality: "“This is just the beginning in our fight to repeal Barack Obama in 2012,” she wrote. “Had Barack Obama been on the ballot in 2010, he would have gone down in a fiery defeat. Yet he continues to push his far-left, socialist agenda on the American people. And today, he has declared war on marriage.” Obama far left? Perhaps if your politics are somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun.

She's a foreign policy expert! "Bachmann said there was a name already chosen for that part of the region, but she couldn't recall it exactly. Bachmann said Iran would use that territory as a training ground for terrorists. "There is already agreement made," said Bachmann. "They are going to get half of Iraq, and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more attacks in the Middle East, and come against the United States." She couldn't recall it exactly, I bet!

And she pays attention to detail! "Nearly four decades ago, a group of settlers seeking religious freedoms, known as the Pilgrims, marked their thankfulness to God for countless blessings with a Thanksgiving celebration." Yes, she wrote decades.

Wikipedia's description of delusional disorder nails her: "Delusional disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental disorder that is characterized by holding one or more non-bizarre delusions[1] in the absence of any other significant psychopathology. Non-bizarre delusions are fixed beliefs that are certainly and definitely false, but that could possibly be plausible, for example, someone who thinks he or she is under police surveillance."

From the police report of what was called "Bathroomgate" back in 2005, when Bachmann claimed she was kidnapped by lesbians: "BACHMAN [sic] STATED THAT WHEN SHE WAS GETTING READY TO LEAVE SHE WENT TO THE RESTROOM. SENATOR BACHMAN STATED THAT WHEN SHE WAS TRYING TO LEAVE THE RESTROOM, 2 WOMEN BLOCKED IN AND TOLD HER THEY WANTED TO CONTINUE TALKING. SEN BACHMAN STATED SHE WAS AFRAID AND SCREAMED FOR HELP. THE 2 WOMEN LET HER LEAVE THE RESTROOM WHEN SHE SCREAMED. THE WOMEN ARE BELIEVED TO BE W/ THE GLBT GROUP."

You know, all of this would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that millions of white people in America are so driven by racist rage that they're actually going to pretend they believe what she says and vote for her.

Graphic snagged from JMG. These are dated but do read the "Best Michele Bachmann Quotes" at the Dump Bachmann Blog. Unbelievably, of course, she has been reelected several times since making many of these bizarre statements.

News from the Malabar Front: US Bombs Over Libya Are Not "Hostilities"

What is it about the war in Libya that brings George Orwell's 1984 to life over and over again? From today's New York Times online:

'The White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it.... The White House, for the first time, offers lawmakers and the public an argument for why Mr. Obama has not been violating the War Powers Resolution since May 20....

[T]he White House argued that the activities of United States military forces in Libya do not amount to full-blown “hostilities” at the level necessary to involve the section of the War Powers Resolution that imposes the deadline....The two senior administration lawyers contended that American forces have not been in “hostilities” at least since April 7, when NATO took over leadership in maintaining a no-flight zone in Libya....

The administration had earlier argued that Mr. Obama could initiate the intervention in Libya on his own authority as commander-in-chief because it was not a “war” in the constitutional sense.'

Is it not outrageous that Obama is now practically begging the Republicans to assume an (utterly phoney) anti-war mantle? As if their newfound anti-war, pro-War Powers Resolution identity is anything other than an anti-Obama smokescreen. What sheer clusterfuck!

And what unbelieveable hubris: everyone knows NATO is the United States.

Just a few days ago the Times noted: "The United States accounts for about three-quarters of total military spending by all NATO countries, and it has in the past taken the lead in military operations and provided the bulk of the weapons and matériel. ... If the United States did not have large stockpiles of ammunition, a senior NATO official said, the NATO campaign would already have come to a halt. The Americans are selling the ammunition, but it was the American military budget that paid for its manufacture and stockpiling. Similarly, NATO allies must still rely on American Awacs planes and refueling aircraft, American suppression of air defenses and American intelligence gathering. Even with the United States playing a secondary role, by mid-May its operations in Libya had already cost $664 million, according to a Pentagon memo circulating in Washington."

I don't watch much so-called news on TV since it's mostly paid infotainment or government-authorized propaganda, but I do listen to NPR all the time. Have you noticed, as I have, that casualties in Afghanistan are now reported as being "NATO casualties"? As if everyone can't see that NATO means American. Do they think people won't notice?

A few years ago I worked in the music business. The megacorporation I worked for specialized for a while in absorbing smaller, independent companies: When it was still part of German-owned Bertelsmann, the BMG Music Service purchased CDNow, an innovative but financially troubled independent music website. At first they tried to maintain its business, but then the cutbacks started. Eventually hundreds of people were laid off and offices were closed, and the CDNow brand was licensed to Amazon.com. It changed from being an independent site that provided reputable editorial content as well as music sales to being basically an automated brand script on Amazon's servers. Well shortly after BMG washed its hands of day-to-day CDNow affairs, our company had a town hall meeting. The CEO was taking questions. Somebody asked him why he killed off CDNow. You could see the smoke pour from the CEO's ears. Almost tearfully he raged, "How dare you say we killed off CDNow! It's right there on the back of our business cards. It's a great brand for us. We're committed to that brand. We have turned it around into a brand that makes a profit for us!" See, it didn't matter that hundreds of people had lost their jobs. It didn't matter that CDNow the company, the employer, the home to hundreds of careers, ceased to exist: in corporate double-think, he really believed CDNow still existed. It sure did on his profitability statements and on his yearly bonus.

My point in this digression is that in the world of corporatists like my old CEO or President Obama, reality is not experienced the same way you and I experience it. So if there's no U.S. "hostilities" in Libya because the pieces of paper in front of him say "NATO," then that's the way it must be. It's not war...in the constitutional sense.

Excuse me, but fuck that BS.

(Illustration from the excellent left-wing "Rag Blog." That's Obama's now painfully embarrassing Nobel Prize bleeding on his lapel.)

If You Don't Support Gay Marriage, Don't Get Gay Married!

Last year in a landmark case in California, two well-known lawyers were hired to sue the State of California to overturn Proposition 8, a ballot measure banning marriage equality (poorly called "gay marriage" or "same-sex marriage"). The judge in the case, Vaughn Walker, ruled against Prop 8; it later turned out that the judge himself was gay. Today a judge threw out an attempt to void Judge Walker's ruling made by right-wing bigots who claimed Walker had a conflict of interest.

I followed the Boies-Olsen case that overturned Prop 8. Despite today's ruling, it returns to the legal limbo of appeal, so it's not likely that marriage equality will return to California immediately. It's even possible that the case will find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But what's fascinating about the Boies-Olsen case against Prop 8 is how thorough and methodical it was. The opponents of allowing gay people the same civil rights that straight people have rely on quick soundbites to make their case. When challenged to actually defend their case in a court of law, it turns out they don't have one. It's worth tracking down some of the summaries of the case from last year. Because one by one, the Boies-Olsen team calmly and coolly destroys every argument made by people who are shown in the end to be basing their arguments solely on their own bigoted notions. And while American law allows people to hold bigoted notions, even proclaim them loudly and freely in church or the public square, it does not allow them to hold bigoted notions over actual civil rights. Well, at least in theory.

This is why the right wing organizations like the detestable National Organization For [sic] Marriage, or NOM, would like so desperately to squelch the California case: because for once it shows that all the emotional, misleading, and ultimately lying propaganda that they spew is so much dishonest cover for nothing that might actually provide a legal basis for the denial of gay couples their right to marry. The trial and its verdict showed that the religious-fundamentalist arguments of such people have no bearing on civil law. The trial basically stripped the bigots' lies bare. Which they hate, more than anything, being caught with all their fake love-the-sinner-I-don't-hate-anybody posturing exposed as nothing but the bigotry it is.

Here in New York we're allegedly one Republican state senator vote away from marriage equality. We've been down this path before, with sad and disappointing results, but this time the politicos swear we have a chance. Two Republicans and several conservative Democrats are allegedly already committed to vote yes. The new governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bloomberg have been applying pressure to legislators. Bloomberg, who bankrolled last year's Republican recapture of the State Senate, is now saying he'll donate to the reelection campaigns of any Republican legislators who vote in favor of marriage equality (NOM and the Conservative Party who endorsed racist horse-fucker Carl Paladino last year are threatening to unseat any such Republicans). Friday is apparently the deadline for a vote.

It would be nice to see marriage equality come to New York in June, marked as Lesbian and Gay Pride Month. A happy ending is not guaranteed: finding that last vote is gonna be difficult. And frankly, should anybody be voting on the rights of minorities? There's a certain injustice in that in and of itself. And how about the irony of the "small government" advocates many of the rightwingers claim to be here advocating that the government stand in the way of civil rights? Remember that to the teabaggers, "freedom" means doing what they say.

Anyway, cross your fingers.

The Laughing Faces of Evil

Who are these jovial people and what are they laughing about? These are the Republican presidential candidates at tonight's debate, and they're laughing at you, America.

I couldn't bear to watch any of it, and having read a number of live blogs and articles, I made the right decision. These people are monsters, every last one of them. They think it's funny to talk about enshrining discrimination against gay people in the constitution. They would rather orphaned and unwanted children languish in group homes than be adopted by loving foster parents who happen to be gay. They actually look admirably upon the social policy of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. They want to take away the rights of working people to organize. They want loyalty oaths and the right to choose who among those of us who live are here are good enough to be called real Americans. They don't understand the separation of church and state, and they think that their religion is not only better than yours, it gives them the right to make you do what they tell you. These people think that corporate profits and the right of rich people to have even more and more money are more important than the right of you and I to afford medical care. These people believe they have the right to lie as much as they want if it means they can have power over you and me. These people admire the mobs in occupied Jerusalem who just chanted "butcher the Arabs," and yet some of them claim to be against America's current wars.

Me, I'm not laughing at all.

Anti-War Anthems: "Saigon Bride"

The version of this song I'm familiar with is from Joan Baez's 1967 album "Joan" and bears a beautiful, mournful string arrangement by Peter Schickele ("PDQ Bach," who arranged many of her early works). The version above was recorded live in concert in Italy is spare and acoustic.

She says something in her introduction above that really resonates with me, "I'd like to start by making one thing clear. I feel that I carry the guilt of the United States aggression in Vietnam, and I'm fighting against this and any other violence." I was watching one of those Iraq-war movies over the weekend that didn't make much of a commercial impact and I realized the terrible guilt that all of us in this country bear for the tragedies in the Middle East. Even those of us who protested against these wars — back in Vietnam in the 1960s or Iraq in the 2000s — failed to prevent the carnage of these wars, and every moment we pretend that we don't know about the ongoing horror our government bears responsibility for, creases our good conscience. We should be shouting about these things all the time.

This song is dated in some ways with its specific references to "red and yellow," but it communicates the cynicism of those who backed the war and created lies of rationalization. I remember the cultural wars over heroes like Joan Baez and Jane Fonda who did the right thing against so much pressure at the time. They were very brave.

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
How many children must we kill
Before we make the waves stand still?

Though miracles come high today
We have the wherewithal to pay
It takes them off the streets you know
To places they would never go alone
It gives them useful trades
The lucky boys are even paid

Men die to build their Pharoah's tombs
And still and still the teeming wombs
How many men to conquer Mars
How many dead to reach the stars?

Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead

(Music by Joan Baez, Lyrics by Nina Duscheck. © 1967 Robbins Music Corporation and Chandos Music)

My Favorite Things

I've noticed a slight uptick in blog readership over the past couple months. Which is great! I don't write this blog to make money or anything, just as a creative outlet in a sometimes frustrating and soul-deadening world. I recognize the worldview presented here is a complicated mix of politics, culture, spirituality and personal identity. It is, after all, a complicated world: call it an attempt to rise to the challenge.

Anyway I realize having written this blog at various rates for several years now — wow almost five — a lot of the writing that I'm most proud of is buried in that Blog Archives bar at left. So for the record, here are links to some of my personal favorite Cahokian posts.

Echoes of a Past Life: Gay Libre/Patria Libre
An extended account of gay life under the Sandinistas in Nicaragua back in 1986.

The Massacre Monument
An essay on making and keeping enemies from the Fort Dearborn Massacre to 9/11.

Everybody Draw Muhammad?
On Islamophobia and cartoonists.

More on Left-Wing Homophobia: My Story of Survival
In a different time and place, a young gay men discovers the Left isn't all it was made out to be.

The Terror and Beauty of Difficult Music and the Miracle of Creation
Listening to Miles Davis and other challenges.

Of Tea Parties and Things Left Unsaid
On the open secret of teabagger racism.

Echoes of a Past Life: A Ball of Mirrors
The healing power of disco.

Echoes of a Past Life: Healing Darkness
A story of spiritual transformation.

Dies Irae
My 9/11 story.

Me and the Chairman
My surprising friendship with Chairman Mao.

---

It all adds up to a crazy few hundred posts. Press any of the labels at right for what I hope is a stimulating collection of images and ideas. Thanks for stopping by!

Politicians' Follies

It seems to be the political sweet season. Here's a few must-read links.

Herman Cain Casting Call
Courtesy of We Are Respectable Negroes blog, a chilling Herman Cain video coupled with a leaked casting-call for a Cain commercial. Includes this priceless paragraph:

"7. Arab American with Dog. One person from the Middle East is needed with his or her dog. Preferably, a yellow Labrador retriever or a lovable mutt who enjoys interacting with others. The dog should be a puppy. If it is exceptionally talented and has prior acting experience, an older animal will also be acceptable."

Read the whole post here.

The Important Lies of Anthony Weiner
The underwhelming Weinergate generated some hilarious headlines. But what about the actually important lies Weiner has told? Hint, they're about neither his penis nor whether he sexted his facebook friends.

"WEINER: You can see a difference in the development in the West Bank with 11 percent year over year growth, with no Israeli occupation there either, with increasing access to checkpoints...
COHEN: No occupation in the West Bank, did I hear you right?
WEINER: Yes."

Read the list of his actual lies on Mondoweiss.

T-Paw's Imaginary Economic Plan
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty entered the Republican race with a plan to oppose gay adoption. And with a plan for full economic recovery achieved...by lowering taxes! Ezra Klein demolishes T Paw:

"This plan isn’t optimistic. It isn’t a bit vague. It’s a joke. And I don’t know which is worse: The thought that Pawlenty knows that and went forward with this pandering, fantasy-based proposal anyway, or the thought that he doesn’t know it, and he really thinks this could work."

Read the whole thing on WaPo. And hey Minnesota, what is wrong with you people? This guy AND Michelle Bachmann?

Breaking: Newt's Rats Jump Ship

As of this posting, Newt Gingrich's campaign team just walked out on him.

"At least Newt wasn't being treated for cancer when this happened."

Hilarious analysis at aplainblogaboutpolitics.

Rick Santorum Doesn't Like Being Made Fun Of

Also recently officially-announced ultra-right wing and ultra-uptight Republican candidate Rick Santorum has a google problem. His program consists of little more than his hatred of gay people. Watch him whine frothily and then read the comments of the gay people who rightfully hate him back at Joe.My.God.

Sarah Palin Said Something Unintelligible
Oh wait, I was posting news.

"How To Survive a Plague"

This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of the medical establishment realizing that a new and virulent killer was in our midst. Back in 1981, HIV/AIDS was not yet understood, nor even accurately named. It would be years before scientists and doctors understood what they were dealing with, or could name it correctly, much less treat it; but back then they recognized that the disease killing a small number of gay men seemed to be something new and dangerous. Now, thirty years later, millions of lives around the world have been lost to the disease; millions more people live with the virus in their systems, and while expensive treatment seems to have greatly reduced its mortal danger, HIV/AIDS remains without an actual cure. I remember 1981 like it was yesterday. I remember the faces no longer here. I remember the fear that gripped us as AIDS spread.

"How To Survive a Plague" is the name of an exciting new documentary film being created by David France, a journalist, activist, and now filmmaker with thirty years of experience bearing media witness to the AIDS years. (He's also a dear friend referred to obliquely throughout this blog; our friendship began that same 1981, the year we both moved to New York City from the Midwest.)

Still in production, "How To Survive a Plague" uses archival footage and modern interviews to tell a truly miraculous story. It tells how a small group of activists not only waged a political struggle around the disease and its disregard by American political authorities, but more than that also: How they resolved to help themselves survive by pushing the scientific edge, leading an unfocused and uncaring scientific establishment to the medical breakthroughs that since the early 1990s have saved so many lives. The film reveals how central and crucial the activism of the gay community and people with AIDS themselves was to transforming HIV from an automatic death sentence to something that could be survived. The state of AIDS/HIV today is shown to be the result not of medical or scientific luck, but the result of the determination to survive of people the U.S. government considered entirely expandable.

A trailer for the film is not yet public; when one is available I will post it here. I can tell you what I have been privileged to see privately is absolutely stunning: it's moving and simply beyond inspiring. You can "like" the film's facebook page for updates and more information.

Living Franz Kafka's "The Castle"

I noted that the other day, June 3, was the anniversary of existentialist author Franz Kafka's death in 1924. Like most people my age I read his "Metamorphosis" in school, the story of a man who awakens to find he's become a giant bug. I also read much of one his other novels, his unfinished work "The Castle," and that's a funny story.

Kafka wrote in German, but he was a Jew from Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic but was, during most of his life, then a part of Austria-Hungary. Wikipedia sums up what I remember of "The Castle" perfectly: "The Castle (German: Das Schloß) is a novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist, known only as K., struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village for unknown reasons. Kafka died before finishing the work, but suggested it would end with the Land Surveyor dying in the village; the castle notifying him on his death bed that his 'legal claim to live in the village was not valid, yet, taking certain auxiliary circumstances into account, he was permitted to live and work there'. Dark and at times surreal, The Castle is about alienation, bureaucracy, the seemingly endless frustrations of man's attempts to stand against the system, and the futile and hopeless pursuit of an unobtainable goal." It's a kind of horror story, not of monsters or sudden frights, but of drawn-out skin-crawling frustration.

I spent a chunk of the summer of 1976 attending Jagiellonian University's Institute of Polish Language and Culture in Kraków, Poland. I was between high school and college, and while unlike most of my classmates in the program I was not of Polish ancestry, I was a bit of a Slavophile. I'd studied Russian through High School and I jumped at the chance to spend a summer abroad; behind the Iron Curtain no less. It was a great summer, and the program was quite educational as well an excuse to be escorted around the country by bus and see some really cool stuff.

We had a weekend off, and I decided I wanted an adventure. I couldn't believe that having flown all that way I was only going to get to see bits and pieces of one country. So I looked at a map, found some train schedules, and decided I would forge bravely on my own to visit neighboring Czechoslovakia, an entity I realize in my middle age is now as obsolete as Austria-Hungary.

From my base of Kraków, first I got myself to the Silesian coal town of Katowice. There was not so much to see there, except for a massive statue of Lenin in a roundabout. It was all huge uniform post-war Communist housing blocks and factories: not quaint nor inviting. But there was a train station. First I got on the wrong, and very crowded, train. I pushed my way into a crowd before I realized my error and pushed my way out the other side. Sadly my camera didn't make it out with me, but it took me a little while to realize that. Anyway, I've no photos of the massive Lenin statue as a result, no proof, in fact, of the entire excursion except what is burned into my memory.

What was neither purloined from my pocket nor fell on the train floor was my choice of reading for my excursion, which was of course Franz Kafka's "The Castle." I'm not sure what I was thinking: maybe good train reading for a journey to Kafka's homeland? I might have been a slightly intense, angst-filled seventeen-year-old, but I was curiously blind to the omens which were shouting at me, "Turn back young man!" Apparently our Polish lessons hadn't gotten that far, and I wasn't good at reading those metaphorical Signs.

I found the right train and settled in for the journey to the Czech backwater of Ostrava, a mere hop over the border but still on that other side of the Soviets' curtain of iron. I remember some military border guards, a handful of raised eyebrows at a young American traveling alone, but I found myself getting off the train in the lovely woodsy main square of Ostrava. I had a pocket full of American Express travelers checks, some Polish zlotys, a map, and the name of a hotel. I was by then accustomed to Eastern Europe's strange mix of old and new. I don't remember a lot about how Ostrava looked except that the hotel I eventually stayed in was old and dusty, while much else looked new and strangely out of scale as though it was built of Lego. Oh yes, it turns out nobody in Ostrava spoke English. The air was damp, cool and fresh, despite the occasional whiff of coal smoke. But oddly, everything around me was closed down tight.

I must have arrived on a Saturday morning. The first thing I learned was that in socialist Czechoslovakia, one weekend a month was reserved for the workers' leisure, and all businesses were closed, including banks, museums, government ministries, tourist offices, and telecommunications offices. Guess what weekend I arrived in Ostrava?

There was nothing to do and I had no Czech money.

I went up to some sort of militia kiosk and inquired where I might change some money. The militiaman spoke neither English nor Polish, and I no Czech. It was the hated lingua franca of the Soviet bloc but I tried out my high school Russian. Success! Although he spoke too quickly for me, I figured out enough to understand that everything was closed, and I was the proud owner of unspendable money. I wandered around town and found the Hotel I had planned to stay at. No, while they would have loved to accept American cash or Czech crowns, they didn't accept my mysterious travelers checks. The food from the restaurant off the lobby smelled delicious. And was definitely not free.

I shuffled out the door and wandered around the deserted streets in the center of Ostrava with my bag in tow and looked at all the closed shops. I sat on a bench by the train station and resumed my reading of "The Castle." K had arrived in this mysterious village with its mysterious castle. He found himself trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare, and came to the understanding that he could neither stay nor leave. He was trapped. Literal darkness was falling around him. Oh my God. It came to me with a sudden realization, as the real-world shadows lengthened. I looked at my train schedule: the next train back to Poland was not til the next day. A policeman eyed me nervously. I was hungry. I had no place to sleep. I, who had been afraid to go to sleep-away camp a few short years before, was alone in a Communist country. As far as anyone knew, I was safely ensconced in my dorm in Kraków. Uh oh. I could do nothing but sit on my bench and read.

Eventually I went back to the Militia Kiosk. I tried to convey my desperation to the uniformed, blonde woman who now occupied the seat behind the window. Back in Poland we had all learned that the best way to change our money was privately, with friends or family of our minders and instructors. Cold hard dollars gave us Polish zloty at a rate hundreds of times better than we could get at an official money-changer. This was in this long-ago days not only pre-ATM but pre-global economy: the money of the Soviet bloc was worthless outside the Soviet bloc and kept at strange artificial exchange rates. Traveling to East Europe you had to actually prove you were going to exchange a portion of hard currency at official rates, basically giving some of your money away for free to the government. We tried to avoid that as much as possible, which made Poland a bargain even for a poor student like me on savings in dollars from my after-school job and an allowance.

Somehow in broken Russian me and the militiawoman broached the subject of the black market. I showed her my travelers checks. She got on the phone and read them to somebody on the other line. "A-myer-i-kan Eks-press," she sounded out. There was a lot of back and forth. "Come back later," she told me. I returned to my bench. Forlorn. Hungry.

After an hour I went back to the kiosk. No, she said, she couldn't help me. Didn't I have any actual American dollars? Nothing? Stupidly, I had nothing. I had Polish Zlotys. "Wait," she said. "Zlotys?" She got back on the phone. It made no sense to me, but somehow the worthless Polish Zlotys were practically dollars when it came to Czech crowns. She could help me. "Wait for my friend," she said in Russian. A man in a little cap approached the kiosk; she waved me away with him. He spoke no English either. Just more Russian. We ducked into a doorway. He gave me Czech crowns for my zlotys, at a black market rate far above what I could have gotten in the closed banks for either my travelers checks or the Zlotys themselves. Having just sealed a bond through antisocial crime the militiawoman pretended not to see me when I neared her kiosk again. I telegraphed my profound gratitude and turned away toward the Hotel.

I was rewarded with a musty and uncomfortable room in an aged prewar building. But I had a roof over my head, I was filled with relief. After I opened my bag at the foot of the bed I went downstairs and caught a meal of hot, tasty goulash as the restaurant prepared to close. The streets outside the hotel were quiet and empty...there would be no pub crawl. I returned to my room, turned on the lamp, and returned to Kafka's nightmare world where nothing went right. Fortunately, I slept, and unlike Gregor Samsa awoke to find myself still me, in a quiet strange land. I packed my bag and found my train ticket. I set "The Castle" on the table by the bed and turned and left the room, locking the door behind me as I headed back to the station.

A Tale of Two Videos

This catchy song and video is the work of One World, a project formed by members of the British electronica band Faithless. It's a benefit for UK Charity War on Want projects in Palestine, and features a mini-super group of pop musicians, gospel choirs, rappers, break dancers, and even musicians playing Middle-Eastern hand percussion and oud.

"So many years of catastrophe
More than six million refugees
It could be you and your family
Forced from your home and your history

We are the people
And this is our time
Stand up and sing out for Palestine

No matter your faith or community
This is a crime against humanity
God's earth turned into a prison camp
Apartheid wall divides the West Bank

We'll break down the wall
Freedom for Palestine
Demand justice for all
Freedom for Palestine"

The One World website has dance remixes of the song and there's a facebook page as well. It really shows the diverse face of the justice for Palestine movement.

And now to break the mood here's the second video.



It's a video of the "Reunified Jerusalem" demonstration by extremist Israelis in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem just this past June 1. As you'll see in the subtitles the crowd is chanting such charming things as "Butcher the Arabs!" "Death to Arabs!" "Death to Leftists!" "May your village burn!" and "Muhammad Is Dead!". (More photos of the demonstration can be seen here.)

This is who the so-called settlers are: racist bullies shouting for genocide. Next time the U.S. vetoes a motion in the UN about Israel's illegal settlements, this is whose side the U.S. is taking.


(Hat tip to Annie for pointing me to the first video; second video from Mondoweiss. There's another video on Mondoweiss of the same demonstration.)

News from the Malabar Front: Republicans Are Against Expensive and Unjustified War!

"So, during this debate we must make clear to the American people that the United States had to take action in the best interests of the security of our nation and the world community. As Republicans who supported military action against Saddam Hussein and terrorists around the globe, the United States had to show our resolve as the world’s premier defender of freedom and liberty before such ideals were preyed upon, rather than after standing witness to their demise at the hands of our enemies. ...

Republicans believe victory in Iraq will be an important blow to terrorism and the threat it poses around the world. Democrats, on the other hand, are prone to waver endlessly about the use of force to protect American ideals. Capitol Hill Democrats’ only specific policy proposals are to concede defeat on the battlefield and instead, merely manage the threat of terrorism and the danger it poses.

These are troubling policies to embrace in a post-9/11 world. During this debate, we need to clarify just how wrong the Democrats’ weak approach is and just how dangerous their implementation would be to both the short-term and long-term national security interests of the United States." — Republican Rep. John Boehner, House Majority Leader, June 2006 when George Bush was President


"We have our opportunity to do what our forefathers have done, and that's to stand up, support our troops and to win, because the outcome of failure is actually too ominous to even think about." — John Boehner on Iraq in 2007, when George Bush was President


"[HR292 declares] that the President shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya, and for other purposes.

(1) The United States Armed Forces shall be used exclusively to defend and advance the national security interests of the United States.

(2) The President has failed to provide Congress with a compelling rationale based upon United States national security interests for current United States military activities regarding Libya.

(3) The President shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya unless the purpose of the presence is to rescue a member of the Armed Forces from imminent danger. " — H.Res 292, authored by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, and passed by the Republican majority in the House, while Barack Obama is President

“The American people and the members of this House have questions and concerns that have gone unanswered,” Mr. Boehner said on the floor of the House. “The president of the United States is our commander in chief, and I’ve always believed that combat decisions should be left to the commander in chief and the generals on the ground. But the House also has an obligation to heed the concerns of our constituents and to carry out our constitutional responsibilities.” — reported today in the NY Times

I am completely against President Obama's policy of military intervention in Libya (or in Iraq and Afghanistan for that matter). But is there any doubt that the newfound Republican interest in the War Powers Act and in monitoring the costs and rationale behind a military adventure is 100% solely a product of the fact that a black Democrat is sitting in the White House? The hypocrisy and opportunism boggle the mind.

Mr. Boehner, WHERE ARE THE FUCKING JOBS?

(Excellent graphic from somebody's Cafepress store — not mine!)

NYC LGBT Center Buckles to Zionists Again

A week ago I spoke too soon.

New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center last week offered space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. Today they reneged, and announced a new policy which bans any group — gay or not — which "organizes around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" from renting space at the Center indefinitely.

"The Center has been forced to divert significant resources from its primary purpose of providing programming and services to instead navigating between opposing positions involving the Middle East conflict. The Center, which does not endorse the views of groups to whom it rents space and requires all groups to sign a non-discrimination pledge, has decided to implement this moratorium to allow a cooling off period....

[The Center] agreed to rent space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which conformed to the Center’s application guidelines and signed its non-discrimination agreement. But the ensuing controversy has again consumed significant time and resources and forced Center staff to negotiate issues of anti-Semitism in political expression – an area outside the Center’s expertise. For these reasons, the Center has adopted an indefinite moratorium."

What an outrage. And what utterly false even-handedness. This ban is aimed solely at queer pro-Palestinian activists. It slanderously suggests that the issue involves being asked to be somehow tolerant of anti-Semitism: a total lie raised by the political supporters of Israel having absolutely zero to do with the actual perspective of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, many of whose members are themselves Jewish.

A longtime activist friend of mine summed this up best on Facebook: "I have been in this community since high school, and the people now running the Center are the most destructive non-leaders we have ever been subjected to. They don't know how to solve problems, and they have no moral impulse. They created this crisis through their bad judgement and now they are escalating through more bad decision making. The lack of intelligence and responsibility is stunning. Even the corrupt mafia bar bouncer and the corrupt token clerk who used to run the Pride Parade at least threw a good party."

The Center has been open in New York for almost thirty years. It has provided a place for all sorts of people in the community to meet. Nobody presumes the Center endorses the views or issues of people who meet there, many of whom are outside of what some people call the mainstream. Why should there now be an issue of who inside the gay and lesbian community is able to meet there? Nobody's asking the LGBT Center to take a position on the Middle East. But by trying to silence the discussion, they are in fact choosing a side: the side of right-wing pro-Israel pornographer Michael Lucas who wants nothing more than to do exactly that: silence all opposition to the Israeli apartheid state.

Shame on the LGBT Center. It's time for an "indefinite moratorium" on donations and attendance at that now tarnished institution.

DSK & IMF: Rapists not Socialists

This smiling man standing in front of the fisted-rose logo of the French Socialists is Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He, of course, is the incredibly wealthy French businessman currently under house arrest in New York City for allegedly attempting to rape the hotel worker assigned to cleaning his room. I haven't discussed Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest here mostly because even the regular media seems ripe with repulsion over his alleged crime, and I didn't think there was much to add. I'm quite sorry he used his considerable wealth to buy his way out of Riker's Island jail: evidence once again of who has the power in our "free" society.

But I would just like to add one thing: Mr. Strauss-Kahn's rape attempt of the as yet publicly unnamed hotel worker is not unique; she herself is apparently an African immigrant, and Mr. Strauss-Kahn has years under his belt raping the people of Africa. Until he resigned in the wake of the charges against him, he was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, an organization that functions something like a follow-up rapist to the poorer nations of the world. After countries in the second and third world have been robbed blind by international mega-capitalism, the IMF moves in to rape the impoverished corpses of these nations, ensuring that no matter what happens, these nations will remain naked and bleeding slaves to the rich nations of the world.

While I'm gratified to learn that DSK is at least a member of the right wing of the French Socialist Party, the very thought that such a monstrous individual with such a vile career would consider himself a socialist blows my mind. He was even once seen as a possibly successful socialist electoral challenger to the current French president. Here in the United States where "socialism" is something akin to a curse word, many people are confused about what a socialist might be. Let me say loud and clear that DSK is not it.

Let justice take its course. Hopefully he will stand trial and be convicted. Might I suggest he serve his punishment in the poorest prison in the poorest country the world can find?

Anti-war Anthems: "Bring the Boys Home" by Freda Payne

On Memorial Day Americans honor the memory of generations of soldiers who gave their lives in past wars. While every family is right to recognize the humanity of those sacrificed in this country's violent history, I've never understood why Americans allow the politicians to stand there saying "Support Our Troops" when the best way to do so would be to bring the troops home from futile and unnecessary wars waged for dubious foreign policy goals or for the profit of corporations.

"Support the Troops" is often, in fact, used to shout down opposition to this country's wars. Here's the ugly truth: those who claim to support the troops while opposing efforts to bring American soldiers home sooner rather than later are offering the same kind of support to those troops that a noose offers a hanging man. They are responsible for prolonging the tragic waste of war. The blood of America's children serving in these wars as well as the blood of innocents in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya are on their hands. Nobody wants to think that the lives of their loved ones were wasted or squandered, but wishing that doesn't make it so.

So don't talk to me about "Support our troops." Bring them home.

This song was recorded by soul singer Freda Payne back in 1971 during the Vietnam War. (I didn't know until looking for it on Youtube that it had also been remade by Canadian singer Jann Arden). I wish there was a better video available, this one is just lyrics.

"Fathers are pleading, lovers are all alone
Mothers are prayin', send our sons back home
You marched them away on ships and planes
To a senseless war facing death in vain

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)

(Why don't you) Turn the ships around
(Everybody oughta) Lay your weapons down

Can't you see 'em marchin' 'cross the sky?
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home?
Tryin' to get home
They're tryin' to get home

Cease all fire on the battlefield
Enough men have already been wounded and killed
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
What they doin' over there now (bring 'em back alive)
When we need 'em over here now? (bring 'em back alive)

(Why don't you) Turn the ships around
(Everybody oughta) Lay your weapons down"


How can it be that forty years later this song is still relevant? Shame on you, America.

Who Will Tell the Truth Now that Gil Scott-Heron Is Gone?

Gil Scott-Heron had a way with words; a way with the truth.

Some people think that America invented the blues
And few people doubt that America is home of the blues

The blues has grown
by the country has not
The blues remembers everything the country forgot

America has got the blues
It's got the blues because of partial deification
of partial accomplishments
over partial periods of time
Halfway justice
Halfway liberty
Halfway equality
It's a half-assed year
And we would be silly in all our knowledge
In all our self-righteous knowledge to acknowledge anything less than the truth
About this bicentennial year
And the truth relates to 200 years of people and ideas getting by

It got by George Washington
slave-owner general

It got by Gerald Ford
Oatmeal man

Ronald Reagan, it got by him
Hollyweird
Acted like a actor
Acted like a liberal
Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California
And he acts like somebody might vote for him for president

It got by Henry Kissinger
The international godfather of peace
A piece of Vietnam
A piece of Laos
A piece of Angola
A piece of Cuba

The blues is in the street
America has got the blues
But don't let it get by us
(Bicentennial Blues, 1976)

He had a complete vision of the way things were. He wasn't afraid to take the symbolism of America head-on. He knew the history and the facts, and he knew what it was like to experience the reality of racism, violence and hypocrisy. He knew how much life costs.

And now democracy is a ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain
It looks like he's hoping, hoping for some rain
And I see the robins perched in barren treetops
Watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
Just like the peace signs that that vanished in our dreams
Never had a chance to grow
And now it's winter
Winter in America
(Winter in America, 1975)

He was pissed off. And found a way to express it clearer than any. He channeled bitterness into lyric beauty. Here he is on the pardoning of Richard Nixon.

We beg your pardon because the pardon you gave this time was not yours to give.
They call it due process and some people are overdue.
We beg your pardon America.
Somebody said 'brother-man gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, brother man gonna go to jail.'
The main who tried to steal America is not in jail....
We beg your pardon America because we understand now much more deeply than we understood before
But we don't want to take the pardon back, we want to issue some more
Pardon brother Frank Willis, the Watergate security guard, he was only doing his job
Pardon H. Rap Brown, it was only burglary
Pardon Robert Vesco, it was only embezzlement
Pardon Charles Manson, it was only mass murder
And pardon us while we get sick
Because they pardoned William Calley, 22 dead, and America in shock....
We beg your pardon America because we have an understanding of karma
What goes around, comes around
And we beg your pardon for all of the lies and all of the people who've been ruined and who look forward to next year because they can't stand to look at this one.
We beg your pardon America because the pardon you gave this time was not yours to give.
(Pardon Our Analysis, 1975)

But Gil Scott-Heron knew how to laugh through tears. His poems — his songs — were witty and expressive and moving, but they also expressed a wry sense of humor. Mixed with outrage, for sure, and brilliance, but deadly funny.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkins strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 1971)

He was not always an optimistic man. His outlook could be bleak: he knew what the odds were, the strength of what he was — we are — up against.

So you cry like a baby
Or you go out and get high
But there ain't no peace on Earth, man
Maybe peace when you die
(A Sign of the Ages, 1971)

There's a sense of duty and obligation in his lyrics too. He knew what he had to do. Even as he fought his inner demons he couldn't set down his weapons in the battle for justice. I think it made him weary. But he was never able to stop, completely.

We want to be free
Yet we have no idea
Why we are struggling here
Faced with our every fear
Just to survive
We've heard the sound
And come around
To listening
(Beginnings/First Minute of a New Day, 1975)

He cut many great albums in the 1970s and some adequate ones in the 1980s. I had the sense that his tragic miscalculation about Ronald Reagan — indeed the tragic miscalculation about all of us on the left that America would actually vote a person like that into the presidency — haunted him, and dulled the certainty of his vision.

As Wall Street goes, so goes the nation
And here's a look at the closing numbers: Racism's up, human rights are down.
Peace is shaky, war items are hot — the house claims all ties.
Jobs are down, money is scarce and common sense is at an all-time low on heavy trading. Movies are looking better than ever and no one is looking because we're starring in a B-movie.
You don't need to be in no hurry
You ain't never really got to worry.
Just keep repeating that none of this is real.
This ain't really your life,
Ain't really your life,
Ain't really nothing but a movie.
(B-movie, 1981)

Gil Scott-Heron was, to all appearances, an anguished soul. He fought drug addiction his whole life, and lived that side of his life in the lyrics of his songs, openly sharing his pain. His last two records were full of the hard toll on his life. His honesty is almost painful to listen to.

Life is like a circle and you end up where you started
If you end up where you started ain't no other side
Yeah but if like is like a curtain then I'm 90% certain that I'm looking through at something
Yes I'm almost touching something on the other side
If life is like a mirror than the nearer you get clearer
You can see it so much clearer
Feel like you know about the other side
My friends all swear they know
What I should do with my life
How I should run my life
What should be happening with my life
They're on the other side
They're on the outside
I'm on the inside
(The Other Side, 1994)

Gil Scott-Heron is gone now, way too soon, at the age of 62. I'm happy for the legacy he left behind, the music; but I can't believe I never got to see him, and I can't believe there will be no more.

Early this morning
when you knocked upon my door
and I said, Hello Satan, I believe it's time to go
Me and the Devil walkin side by side
Say I don't see why you keep on dogging me around
You may bury my body down by the highway side
So my old evil spirit the Greyhound bus can ride
(I'm New Here, 2010)

Who will tell the truth now that Gil Scott-Heron is gone? Peace go with you, Brother.

Straddling the darkness
he controlled the bucking thrusts and rode on
into the emptiness that he alone would try to fill
into the middle to try to be the bridge between spirits
EXPAND he screamed
the vacuum was aroused, suspicious and alarmed
who would dare? but on he rode...
(And then he wrote Meditations, 1972)

(All italics are lyrics by Gil Scott-Heron).

UPDATE: Here's an audio tribute from my friend Blackclassical.

RIP Gill Scott Heron by Black Classical on Mixcloud

America Has Lost a Prophet: Gil Scott-Heron RIP

Sad news indeed: I've just learned that jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron has passed on at the age of 62. The above video is a not-so-famous later-day performance of one of his well-known songs from the 1970s, "Winter in America." His most famous songs are probably "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," "The Bottle" and "Home Is Where the Hatred Is." He had a hard life frequently struggling to deal with uncontrolled substance abuse, but he was an absolutely brilliant prophet of the American condition. He pilloried all the problems of American society, and with them a succession of politicians, holding Ronald Reagan up to the light of brutal excoriation. He was a singer and a poet; indeed many people call him the originator of rap music, as his first records in the very early 1970s consisted largely of spoken-word rants over spare jazz arrangements or percussion.

I can't believe he's now gone: I'll try to come back with a greater appreciation of his work later.

(I previously presented one of his songs here.)

Rightwinger now calls NYC Gay Center "an anti-Israeli nest"

Back in February I wrote on the successful efforts of a pro-Israel rightwinger to prevent a pro-Palestinian activist group from holding meetings or events at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. Porn magnate Michael Lucas applied pressure to the Center's board who subsequently cancelled all meetings of the group "Siegebusters." Since I wrote about these events there has been a flurry of activity on the issue. First, members of the excluded group, largely themselves gay or lesbian activists, organized a counter-campaign to keep the Lesbian & Gay Center open to all members of the community. As the Center's policy of openness came to be in doubt, there was a lot of discussion in the activist community, especially among anti-racist activists, about whether the Center could continue to be seen as any kind of welcoming home base. There was talk of a boycott.

A related group, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, requested space in the Community Center to plan activities around this year's New York Lesbian & Gay Pride celebrations. The group applied for its meeting on May 10; nearly two weeks later the request had not been answered. A third group called Queers for an Open LGBT Center — which keeps a website called "Open The Center" — called for a protest in support of the right of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.

Just in the nick of time the Lesbian & Gay Center issued a statement that must be seen as at least a partial victory: "The Center recently received a request for space rental by a group called “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” for the purposes of holding recurring meetings to plan for local Pride events. This afternoon we informed the group that the Center would allow access for these meetings." The statement goes on to say that since QAIA is an "LGBT group" unlike Siegebusters, they would be granted space, provided that they sign a new "Space Use Pledge of Non Discrimination." That statement has what's no doubt meant to be a "gotcha" clause in it ("We recognize that respecting individual dignity, achieving equality and promoting intergroup harmony are the responsibilities of all people, including our group. We reject hatred and will not engage in acts or expressions of hatred directed to any person(s) or group(s). Our group will work in good faith to affirm and abide by these principles in all our activities and affairs.), which I find a little creepily naive or thought-controlly, but not a deal-breaker. The Center states it will be engaging a consulting company to review its policies; who news how that will turn out. So the new good news is that supporters of the Israeli Apartheid state have not, for now at least, succeeded in completely silencing pro-Palestinian activists at the Center. Queers for an Open LGBT Center says pressure must be kept on the Center's board.

But now here's where it gets interesting. The pro-Palestine activists were open in their suggestion that the Center needed to be pressured, and possibly boycotted. But the right-wing porn magnate (a dual US/Israeli citizen) behind the expulsion of Siegebusters issued a remarkable statement on these later developments:

"I have a very unfortunate update. The group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid was just granted the ability to have their meetings in the LGBT Center. As I always believed, the LGBT Center of NY is an anti-Israeli nest and we did not put enough pressure on them to stop their efforts to harm the Jewish state. But we have the power to stop them. The LGBT Center receives city, federal, foundation, and private funding. We have to work on reaching the government officials and ask them to cut that funding unless the Center changes its decision. We should also reach out to different organizations and individuals and collect money to take a full page ad in the New York Times Magazine. I know this is not cheap and I myself will generously contribute. I also believe that their support of political activity may jeopardize their ability to maintain tax-free status. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts, input, and suggestions. I do need your help. Best regards, Michael Lucas."

The statement shows Lucas's priorities. He's not advocating discussions with the Center or the community, or even a boycott, he's talking about getting it shut down or put in legal or financial jeopardy unless it does what he tells it to do. Lucas's actions are a transparent threat to the entire lesbian and gay community to either enforce a pro-Israel-only policy or face destruction. Lucas is no friend of gay people.

I remember how exciting it was when the Lesbian & Gay Community Center first opened its doors in the 1980s. Finally there was a place to call home. You could find meetings, events, celebrations, forums, religious services, from an incredible variety of groups there. It set up policies meant to be welcoming to everybody in the community, especially those whose commununity needs were not met by the gay bar scene. While various criticisms have surfaced over the years, by and large it really is a valuable service institution to the community. In the 1990s I co-led two groups who met there all the time, New Moon New York, an open group of Pagans who held a brief weekly circle in its small cement garden, and Queer Pagans, a group of queer Pagans that held seasonal holiday rituals on a grander scale including Halloween/Samhain circles that drew hundreds of participants. We were excited to be at such a welcoming space, and proud that queer youth and transgendered people were a part of it all. Having a place where Pagans could come wasn't a threat to gay people of other forms of spirituality or to completely secular or even atheist gay people. We were all there together. While I wouldn't go to its meetings, I think a pro-Israel group should have the same right to meet at the Center as the pro-Palestine activists. What's clear is that Lucas and his ilk have no such principles: it's their way or the highway.

It's a reflection on a small scale of Israeli logic itself.

(Graphic from Desertpeace blog. "Pinkwashing" is the attempt by apologists for Israel to use its allegedly progressive attitude toward gay people to buy support for Israeli policies in the world Lesbian and Gay community).

UPDATE: For an unfortunate update, read here.

A night off blogging

Hic! We will return to regular programming shortly due to extenuating circumstances. :)

Tornado Season

When I was a child living in Chicago in the 1960s, there were a string of terrible tornado seasons. While the twisters didn't come for us in the city, we felt the same weather systems. The sky turned green and the air pressure did strange things; the air one minute thick and damp and heavy turned wild and windy the next. Neighboring Will County was struck hard. For years afterward, every time my parents would take me on a car trip out of town, I was seized by terror that we would pass through Will County and be attacked by tornadoes. My mother later recounted to me that if they saw a "Will County" sign they would try distracting me so I wouldn't notice it and freak out.

This year the U.S. has been struck by waves of killer tornadoes: a few weeks ago in the South, yesterday in Missouri and today in Oklahoma. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands of people have been injured or lost their homes and belongings to the wind. In times like these it doesn't really seem useful to wonder — or possible to know — if these storms are just something nature is doing right now or if they're related to climate change (bizarrely we even had a small tornado here in Brooklyn a couple years ago and this is surely not tornado alley). But if I still remember the fear of being even a few dozen miles from tornadoes, I can't imagine how frightening it must be to live near where they're causing such suffering right now.

I know at least two of my regular readers live in prairie states right under those winds. Be safe, my prayers are with you. I sure hope you have basements!

Anti-war Anthems: "Ping Pong" by Stereolab

I first heard Stereolab's album "Mars Audiac Quintet" back in the mid 1990s when it came out. I was hooked on the poppy, quirky, synthy sound, but it took me a long time to zoom in on the lyrics delivered in a heavily accented and strangely deadpan voice. They're sung, like many Stereolab songs, almost as though you're not meant to understand them. But when I finally deciphered what Laetitia Sadier was singing about I was blown away. And now almost twenty years later, the lyrics of this song, "Ping Pong," continue to be remarkably apropos. I rediscovered their albums recently looking for some stuff to add to my iTunes, and was reminded how much I love their groove.

"it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

you see the recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry for things will look after themselves
it's alright recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry if things can only get better

there's only millions that lose their jobs and homes and sometimes accents
there's only millions that die in their bloody wars, it's alright

it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing

it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

don't worry be happy things will get better naturally
don't worry shut up sit down go with it and be happy"

Yes, that seems to be a vaguely Marxist analysis and critique of the cynicism behind the capitalist economic cycle of crisis, war, and dehumanization of the individual. C'mon people, even hipsters can see it.