The Aerie
I've heard many people -- including homosexuals involved in committed relationships -- complain that there are better things we could be doing right now than engaging in a battle over gay marriage. They say we have economic issues that need to be addressed, or that the environment is going to pot, or that the world is overpopulated. Gay marriage is distracting, they claim, from attention to these other important issues.
I so disagree.
To begin with, I reject entirely the disempowering argument that if we are not fixing everything, we should not fix anything. We are a great and powerful nation, a cornucopia of human resources: we have the power to save the environment AND assure human rights.
I understand and appreciate the concern that we might NEGLECT other issues -- particularly in an election year -- while addressing gay marriages. But at the same time, the confluence of events leading to the present circumstance is not something that can be controlled or predicted. I doubt many people could have anticipated the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, much less the Donnybrook that
would follow. Nobody could have anticipated the heroic actions of San Francisco's Mayor Newsom or other public officials (a breed, I might add, not usually noted for audacious faith) who have put their jobs on the line for this Twenty-First Century Boston Tea Party.
When such a confluence of events occurs as has this one (a true crossroads or "crisis" moment), it is a time for people and institutions to step forward and become involved. And when our allies risk their careers to advance our common goal, it would be the worst sort of perfidy to stand by and do nothing.
The call to change cannot be scheduled, it can only be answered.
If we are to face future crises, of environment or population or whatever, we will meet them better prepared if we are free men and women than if we are slaves to bigotry and fear.
Meanwhile, I remain confident that the future can take care of itself. I care for my neighbors, here and now, and their children, here and now. The oppression is now. Widowed lesbians turned out onto the streets by their partner's families are happening now. Homosexuals, transsexuals, and bisexuals discriminated against
in housing, work, military participation, and abused and assaulted on the streets are happening now. The ichor of ignorance, fear, fundamentalism and judgementalism oozes down the corridors of power RIGHT NOW, eating away at the stonework of justice.
This is an opportunity not to be neglected, to strike a blow against that bigotry. If we can turn back the most conservative, regressive cultural tide this nation has seen in decades, we can not only secure for our friends, neighbors and loved ones the right to live as full equals in a society such as the world has never before seen, but we can also deal a blow to the smug brokers of power upon their hypocritical thrones.
If we fail, we failed trying. And our posterity will remember this time as a time when people who believed in truth, in love, and in the real meaning of family engaged
in a hopeless quest to thwart the darker times they saw ahead.
These events cannot be scheduled. Their outcomes cannot be assured. But these are times that measure our words by our deeds, and our values by our actions.
And I would rather live today by my own self-respect than face tomorrow's challenges without it.
Okay, so I bring in the mail today, and there's a mailing from this sort-of-scam place: Poetry.com My daughter apparently sent in a poem over the Internet and now they want her to buy a $50 book that has her poem on one of its pages.
There's nothing new about selling appeals to egotism, but the poem that she sent in, which was positioned in a transparent panel in the envelope, absolutely knocked me out.
Think About the True Necessities
I don't know why the president will talk
about the war that's active in Iraq,
and we will help the citizens therein,
and that we shall cure the problems of our kin.
Why does he not think of people who reside
inside the country which he calls his pride?
The unemployed, the poorest girls and boys
who do not have the money for life's joys.
The education of our country's youth,
who, with not proper care, will be uncouth.
The health of all the citizens who're ill,
the ones who cannot pay their tax or bill.
Forget the wars, all men who do govern;
take all the human rights into conern.
Take care of our great country, USA,
for without care will our pride dwindle away.
To quote The Simpson's Moe Szyslak, "Buh-whaa?!" Where the hell did THAT come from?
I mean, yeah, it ain't perfect and no, it doesn't scan in several places, but, holy moly, where'd she get that from? It's not about ponies or puppies or loneliness or lost love: she twelve and she's written a poem about domestic versus foreign policy, educational funding, and the social safety net!
Despite the fact that I know that she is very gifted, I am afraid I am guilty of underestimating my very gifted daughter...
The wife and I, we're crazy Indigo Girls fans.
So when the latest tour was announced, we subscribed to a local radio station's "early purchase" program, and got in a day and a half early to buy tickets.
Despite accessing the website as quickly as possible, we couldn't get tickets any closer than halfway back the main floor. This is because the whole ticket-purchasing scheme is as fixed as the US Electoral system, and all the best seats are distributed to radio stations and high-income "ticket clubs" before the tickets are made available to the peasants.
Well, we've sat in those halfway-up-the-main-floor seats about a kazillion times already, and I wasn't willing to accept them again, not for the prices that Ticketmaster wants. Also, the last time
we went to a concert, we noticed another frequent fan had scored third-row seats. When I asked her after the show she told me that she'd bought them on eBay. So that was my plan: rather than settling for "the usual," I wanted to at least see what the prices were for good forward-row seats (at the moment, about $125 apiece for fifth row).
The whole forward-row seats idea was looking like a pipe dream seeing as we're absolutely flat broke right now, and I had just about given up on attending this concert.
So this morning we wake up to Cities '97 as usual (their morning show is actually very nice to listen to -- it isn't smug, angry shock jocks bitching about politics, the deejays are friendly and civil and talk about things in a reasonable fashion), and they're having their "'Much Too Early for a Question' Question" trivia contest... for Indigo Girls tickets.
Now, I used to be a master of radio call-in contests, but those skills have faded. Twenty years ago I used to win tickets and crap off of WWTC ("The Oldies Station") armed only with a dogeared old trivia book and a rotary dial phone. Timing, it was all timing.
But this morning I was barely awake, still lying in bed. Theresa had to nudge me to make sure I was conscious. They asked their question: "The Indigo Girls song 'Shed Your Skin' starts with the line '115, you are 17', what are they referring to?"
Well, even a non-fan could get that one, based on the song title alone, but we both knew the answer.
I just didn't know the phone number.
A couple of critical seconds later, they mentioned it, so I dialed.
Busy. Of course it's busy.
I fumbled groggily with the bedside phone, and managed to hit the hang-up and redial keys.
It rang.
I won!
So now we're dying to see where these seats are. Hopefully they'll be 'way up front!