News for the Week Ended May 3, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Let’s Celebrate
What do you think of the mass rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death? Is there anything unseemly about it?
I don’t think so personally. The rejoicing was about so much more than the death of one man. It was about achieving a kind of justice for the victims of September 11 that we didn’t even realize we were missing until it arrived.
It was an overdue answer to the unspoken question of whether America, for all its strength, is an overblown military behemoth, rendered impotent by the complications of geopolitics and bureaucracy. The answer is no.
It’s a defeat for the carnival barkers, as Obama put it, and the game players and the sound biters. Presidential leadership is a serious business, and the job may require you to manage a natural disaster one day, put on your tails and deliver a comic address to the Washington press corps the next, and conduct a special operations raid in a foreign country the next. Sarah Palin? Donald Trump? Tim Pawlenty? Mike Huckabee? Mitt Romney?
Really?
A large part of my rejoicing was out of loyalty to Obama, who has returned permanently to the top of my favorite people list ever since February, when he decided sexual orientation should be a protected class under the Constitution. I ranted for two years about the fact that Obama declined to do the little things that would advance gay rights without costing him any political capital. In February, he did the single biggest thing within his power to advance our cause. Case closed. He has my vote.
But back to Bin Laden. His death vastly improves our position in what has seemed like a Whack-a-Mole fight to disrupt and fracture Al Qaeda. It’s hard to specify exactly how victory in such a fight can be determined, but certainly, killing Bin Laden was a necessary element. There will always be subgroups calling themselves Al Qaeda. And the threat of “terror” will always be with us, just as tornados will always storm the plains, hurricanes will always smash our coasts and rogue psychopaths will continue to pull out their AK47s for impromptu shooting sprees. But this is a turning point.
Finally, I celebrate the incredible strategic courage of the President and those who supported this raid rather than the idea of dropping a big bomb. Those special forces troops put their lives on the line to give us, not just the satisfaction of killing Bin Laden, but to recover the intelligence on site that may allow us to reset our relationship with Pakistan and further undermine
Al Qaeda.
Our relationship with Pakistan must be solidified. And it can’t work unless the Pakistani government weeds out the Al Qaeda sympathizers in the military and perhaps in its own ranks. Perhaps there are only a few bad apples, perhaps there’s a small network. But that government must be cleansed and strengthened. This is a nuclear power. It must remain our ally and we must be able to trust their leaders.
Dropping a big bomb, killing everyone in the area, and possibly not knowing who was in the complex, would have been a mess. And yet, the alternative was so dangerous, so risky, and so uncertain. By picking that alternative, Obama risked his political life without hesitation in the national interest just as those Navy Seals risked their physical lives without hesitation for our country.
We celebrate for all of these reasons. Not for the death of one man, who arguably was little more than a symbolic figurehead, but for a moment of tangible victory in the seemingly endless struggle towards the amorphous (and ultimately unreachable) objective of securing the nation.
--
Free For A Day
I’m writing my column a day early, which means that some huge breaking GLBT news story will hit the wires on Wednesday. Look for it. I’m serious. It never fails.
Meanwhile, the GLBT news this week is tepid at best. We all spent two days oohing and ahhing over the Royal Wedding. (I heard Kate’s brother was gay, did you?) We had hundreds of people killed by giant tornadoes with winds of 200 mph. Then came Bin Laden.
I mean, was this week real? Or did we all just get abducted by aliens and have our memories replaced by a series of B-movies? “The Girl Who Would Be Queen,” followed by “Winds From Hell,” capped off by “Fire Over Abbottabad.”
Time out. I just learned that today is “World Press Freedom Day,” which means that I have the “freedom” to write about whatever comes to mind, right? Well, as I just mentioned, I don’t have any major GLBT news to report, so today’s lack of restrictions are particularly welcome.
Have you seen the McDonald’s commercial with the African American couple sitting at the table over a hamburger? The woman says that some other guy told her friend that “Sundays are just for football.” Then she asks her boyfriend to comment, suggesting by her tone that the sentiment was not one she shared.
During a lengthy pause, the narrator reminds the boyfriend that he’s smart. He can handle the situation! He ordered a value meal, so he knows what he’s doing. Bolstered by the voice over, the guy tells his girlfriend that the football fan is “a jerk,” and his girlfriend smiles in satisfaction.
I profoundly hate this ad. It’s another one on the lengthy list that depicts African American women as tyrannical or semi-tyrannical control freaks.
But worse, since we know by the context that the boyfriend actually likes football, it recommends that smart boyfriends simply lie to their girlfriends and tell them whatever they want to hear.
How long do you think this relationship going to last? Can you see the boyfriend getting a call from his buddy next fall?
“Hey Derrick. Want to come by and watch the game tomorrow? Sheila’s welcome to come too. Candice is making ribs!”
“Um. Let me get back to you. We’re supposed to go to some church thing and then Sheila said something about the art show….”
“What? We’ve got two screens going. Redskins inside and the Saints on the porch TV. C’mon man!”
“Let me call you back.”
Later, after he tells Sheila that he has to drive to Albuquerque because his aunt is sick, Derrick calls back:
“Hey Calvin! I’m on for tomorrow! Sheila can’t make it.”
And this is the smart approach? For God’s sake, tell Sheila right off the bat that most Sundays in the fall should revolve around football and if she doesn’t like it, she should find someone more compatible. How hard is that?
It’s not just Black women, many wives and girlfriends on commercials are cast as the enemy who has to be placated, lied to, manipulated or outwitted by hapless husbands and boyfriends. I know I’ve written about this before, but you never see an abusive husband laying down the law while the sneaky wife goes behind his back, now do you? Yet some of these women are horrible! And the spineless men just take it and everyone laughs. Who writes this stuff?
Now I’m reading on the TV scroll that the fat removed by liposuction reappears in other places on the body. In a separate news line that ran under the MSNBC screen a few minutes earlier, I read that people with belly fat are more likely to have heart problems than people with other fat. Why not have liposuction on your belly? Then you can be healthy, even though you might develop thunder thighs.
--
Gay Stuff (Sigh)
OK. Gay news. I’m really not in the mood for this, but here we go.
In Minnesota, the house has passed an antigay marriage amendment that now goes to the senate.
In Rhode Island, plans for a marriage equality bill have been dropped in the face of opposition, but some lawmakers may push for a civil union bill even though our side has vehemently said that civil unions are not enough in this New England state.
New Yorkers are advocating for a marriage equality bill, even though the legislature is back under GOP control. You know, I have to admit that New York is getting a lot of optimistic gay marriage press these days, and there’s even talk of passing a bill this summer. But personally, I’ve written thousands of words, in breathless prose, about marriage bills being on the verge of passing in New York, in New Jersey, recently in Maryland, only to sum things up in the oft-quoted words of Rosanne Rosannadanna. “Never mind!” This time, I’m watching and waiting.
And in Washington D.C., we seem to have the votes to pass the Respect for Marriage Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill-- I’m calling it REFMA—is the attempt to repeal DOMA, and so far it has not been scheduled for any hearings whatsoever. But we’re ready!
Donald Trump has been trying to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage, which he says just “doesn’t feel right” to him. He likened this sensation to how he feels when he sees golfers using long putters or belly putters. They just look awkward and it rubs him the wrong way.
By the way, which looks better to you? A golfer holing a 30-foot putt with a belly putter? Or a golfer missing a two-footer with a three-foot Ping? Just sayin’.
--
Fait Triste Bouche
Now, I’m officially giving up on gay news and just spent half an hour watching a slideshow of “unexpected table manners around the world.” I learned that Koreans spit the bones of their fish out of their mouths and onto the plate or floor. And Zambians sometimes begin their meal with a small dried mouse, that must be eaten head first. The tail, which is not eaten, can be used as a toothpick.
Still on the same website, I moved on to “The Ten Most Pointless Salad Ingredients,” but my computer froze while I was trying to bring up the story. I don’t like weird unidentified little pellets of something in my salad. I also don’t like giant cubes of toast, or random things that get tossed in for no real reason like crunchy pea things. So you can see why my attention was drawn to this provocative headline.
Eventually, I googled “ten most pointless salad ingredients” and found the list: cucumbers, croutons, iceberg lettuce, onions, cheese, green beans, alfalfa sprouts, chow mein noodles, corn and bacon bits.
Pointless? What’s “pointless” about bacon bits, onions or cucumbers? The list reflects only the author’s taste, and I felt tricked into reading it.
Hey! My word-count is standing at a patriotic 1776, even though it went to 1797 after I wrote this sentence. There was something metaphysical about seeing 1776, and realizing that I couldn’t capture the moment in print without destroying it. Much like the impossible act of determining the location of an electron by hitting it with a photon, that shifts its position in the process.
Because, is it not true that whenever you put an idea into words you alter the essential thought that put the idea in your head to begin with?
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
Let’s Celebrate
What do you think of the mass rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death? Is there anything unseemly about it?
I don’t think so personally. The rejoicing was about so much more than the death of one man. It was about achieving a kind of justice for the victims of September 11 that we didn’t even realize we were missing until it arrived.
It was an overdue answer to the unspoken question of whether America, for all its strength, is an overblown military behemoth, rendered impotent by the complications of geopolitics and bureaucracy. The answer is no.
It’s a defeat for the carnival barkers, as Obama put it, and the game players and the sound biters. Presidential leadership is a serious business, and the job may require you to manage a natural disaster one day, put on your tails and deliver a comic address to the Washington press corps the next, and conduct a special operations raid in a foreign country the next. Sarah Palin? Donald Trump? Tim Pawlenty? Mike Huckabee? Mitt Romney?
Really?
A large part of my rejoicing was out of loyalty to Obama, who has returned permanently to the top of my favorite people list ever since February, when he decided sexual orientation should be a protected class under the Constitution. I ranted for two years about the fact that Obama declined to do the little things that would advance gay rights without costing him any political capital. In February, he did the single biggest thing within his power to advance our cause. Case closed. He has my vote.
But back to Bin Laden. His death vastly improves our position in what has seemed like a Whack-a-Mole fight to disrupt and fracture Al Qaeda. It’s hard to specify exactly how victory in such a fight can be determined, but certainly, killing Bin Laden was a necessary element. There will always be subgroups calling themselves Al Qaeda. And the threat of “terror” will always be with us, just as tornados will always storm the plains, hurricanes will always smash our coasts and rogue psychopaths will continue to pull out their AK47s for impromptu shooting sprees. But this is a turning point.
Finally, I celebrate the incredible strategic courage of the President and those who supported this raid rather than the idea of dropping a big bomb. Those special forces troops put their lives on the line to give us, not just the satisfaction of killing Bin Laden, but to recover the intelligence on site that may allow us to reset our relationship with Pakistan and further undermine
Al Qaeda.
Our relationship with Pakistan must be solidified. And it can’t work unless the Pakistani government weeds out the Al Qaeda sympathizers in the military and perhaps in its own ranks. Perhaps there are only a few bad apples, perhaps there’s a small network. But that government must be cleansed and strengthened. This is a nuclear power. It must remain our ally and we must be able to trust their leaders.
Dropping a big bomb, killing everyone in the area, and possibly not knowing who was in the complex, would have been a mess. And yet, the alternative was so dangerous, so risky, and so uncertain. By picking that alternative, Obama risked his political life without hesitation in the national interest just as those Navy Seals risked their physical lives without hesitation for our country.
We celebrate for all of these reasons. Not for the death of one man, who arguably was little more than a symbolic figurehead, but for a moment of tangible victory in the seemingly endless struggle towards the amorphous (and ultimately unreachable) objective of securing the nation.
--
Free For A Day
I’m writing my column a day early, which means that some huge breaking GLBT news story will hit the wires on Wednesday. Look for it. I’m serious. It never fails.
Meanwhile, the GLBT news this week is tepid at best. We all spent two days oohing and ahhing over the Royal Wedding. (I heard Kate’s brother was gay, did you?) We had hundreds of people killed by giant tornadoes with winds of 200 mph. Then came Bin Laden.
I mean, was this week real? Or did we all just get abducted by aliens and have our memories replaced by a series of B-movies? “The Girl Who Would Be Queen,” followed by “Winds From Hell,” capped off by “Fire Over Abbottabad.”
Time out. I just learned that today is “World Press Freedom Day,” which means that I have the “freedom” to write about whatever comes to mind, right? Well, as I just mentioned, I don’t have any major GLBT news to report, so today’s lack of restrictions are particularly welcome.
Have you seen the McDonald’s commercial with the African American couple sitting at the table over a hamburger? The woman says that some other guy told her friend that “Sundays are just for football.” Then she asks her boyfriend to comment, suggesting by her tone that the sentiment was not one she shared.
During a lengthy pause, the narrator reminds the boyfriend that he’s smart. He can handle the situation! He ordered a value meal, so he knows what he’s doing. Bolstered by the voice over, the guy tells his girlfriend that the football fan is “a jerk,” and his girlfriend smiles in satisfaction.
I profoundly hate this ad. It’s another one on the lengthy list that depicts African American women as tyrannical or semi-tyrannical control freaks.
But worse, since we know by the context that the boyfriend actually likes football, it recommends that smart boyfriends simply lie to their girlfriends and tell them whatever they want to hear.
How long do you think this relationship going to last? Can you see the boyfriend getting a call from his buddy next fall?
“Hey Derrick. Want to come by and watch the game tomorrow? Sheila’s welcome to come too. Candice is making ribs!”
“Um. Let me get back to you. We’re supposed to go to some church thing and then Sheila said something about the art show….”
“What? We’ve got two screens going. Redskins inside and the Saints on the porch TV. C’mon man!”
“Let me call you back.”
Later, after he tells Sheila that he has to drive to Albuquerque because his aunt is sick, Derrick calls back:
“Hey Calvin! I’m on for tomorrow! Sheila can’t make it.”
And this is the smart approach? For God’s sake, tell Sheila right off the bat that most Sundays in the fall should revolve around football and if she doesn’t like it, she should find someone more compatible. How hard is that?
It’s not just Black women, many wives and girlfriends on commercials are cast as the enemy who has to be placated, lied to, manipulated or outwitted by hapless husbands and boyfriends. I know I’ve written about this before, but you never see an abusive husband laying down the law while the sneaky wife goes behind his back, now do you? Yet some of these women are horrible! And the spineless men just take it and everyone laughs. Who writes this stuff?
Now I’m reading on the TV scroll that the fat removed by liposuction reappears in other places on the body. In a separate news line that ran under the MSNBC screen a few minutes earlier, I read that people with belly fat are more likely to have heart problems than people with other fat. Why not have liposuction on your belly? Then you can be healthy, even though you might develop thunder thighs.
--
Gay Stuff (Sigh)
OK. Gay news. I’m really not in the mood for this, but here we go.
In Minnesota, the house has passed an antigay marriage amendment that now goes to the senate.
In Rhode Island, plans for a marriage equality bill have been dropped in the face of opposition, but some lawmakers may push for a civil union bill even though our side has vehemently said that civil unions are not enough in this New England state.
New Yorkers are advocating for a marriage equality bill, even though the legislature is back under GOP control. You know, I have to admit that New York is getting a lot of optimistic gay marriage press these days, and there’s even talk of passing a bill this summer. But personally, I’ve written thousands of words, in breathless prose, about marriage bills being on the verge of passing in New York, in New Jersey, recently in Maryland, only to sum things up in the oft-quoted words of Rosanne Rosannadanna. “Never mind!” This time, I’m watching and waiting.
And in Washington D.C., we seem to have the votes to pass the Respect for Marriage Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill-- I’m calling it REFMA—is the attempt to repeal DOMA, and so far it has not been scheduled for any hearings whatsoever. But we’re ready!
Donald Trump has been trying to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage, which he says just “doesn’t feel right” to him. He likened this sensation to how he feels when he sees golfers using long putters or belly putters. They just look awkward and it rubs him the wrong way.
By the way, which looks better to you? A golfer holing a 30-foot putt with a belly putter? Or a golfer missing a two-footer with a three-foot Ping? Just sayin’.
--
Fait Triste Bouche
Now, I’m officially giving up on gay news and just spent half an hour watching a slideshow of “unexpected table manners around the world.” I learned that Koreans spit the bones of their fish out of their mouths and onto the plate or floor. And Zambians sometimes begin their meal with a small dried mouse, that must be eaten head first. The tail, which is not eaten, can be used as a toothpick.
Still on the same website, I moved on to “The Ten Most Pointless Salad Ingredients,” but my computer froze while I was trying to bring up the story. I don’t like weird unidentified little pellets of something in my salad. I also don’t like giant cubes of toast, or random things that get tossed in for no real reason like crunchy pea things. So you can see why my attention was drawn to this provocative headline.
Eventually, I googled “ten most pointless salad ingredients” and found the list: cucumbers, croutons, iceberg lettuce, onions, cheese, green beans, alfalfa sprouts, chow mein noodles, corn and bacon bits.
Pointless? What’s “pointless” about bacon bits, onions or cucumbers? The list reflects only the author’s taste, and I felt tricked into reading it.
Hey! My word-count is standing at a patriotic 1776, even though it went to 1797 after I wrote this sentence. There was something metaphysical about seeing 1776, and realizing that I couldn’t capture the moment in print without destroying it. Much like the impossible act of determining the location of an electron by hitting it with a photon, that shifts its position in the process.
Because, is it not true that whenever you put an idea into words you alter the essential thought that put the idea in your head to begin with?
--
arostow@aol.com
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