In Praise of Log Cabin Patriots

So much to say, so little time.  Politics:  Gotta love those Log Cabin Republicans.  Perhaps second only to the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and/or ACT-UP, they have put themselves on the line, especially when it comes to bearding the lion in his den.  These gay and gay friendly grassroots folks brave the insults, sneers, neglect and cold shoulders of a party whose official response to them is "good riddance."  Alone of those groups opposing the officially hateful party platform of the GOP, they are able to do so vocally and visibly inside Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Obfuscation.  For that, they earn my eternal respect.  But I still cannot support the candidate they want to put in the White House (presumptively, that is: the Log Cabinnaires still have not officially endorsed Bush).  However, I must support their continuing efforts to be visible inside the GOP.  Braaavo, say I.  Keep speaking up and living well, sipping chardonnay and giving your boy/girlfriends chaste kisses on their cheeks in full view of the G.O. party faithful.  You go, girl!

"Iceberg Right Ahead"

Such must be the words of the DNC chairman about the campaign boat captained by John Kerry.  The pundits have long said about Kerry's candidacy that the election is his to lose and he appears at this time to be proving them right.  Two weeks ago I actually felt a kind of stupefying relief that Kerry's approval numbers were good, that Dubya was doomed.  Now it appears that the incompetence of the incompetent president's incompetent advisors does not extend to his relection committee. 

The swift boat debacle over the past week has been a brilliant blitzkrieg of negative campaigning: coming from a GOP activist who had the ear of President Nixon: John O'Neill, author of Unfit for Command.  No matter the reasoned refutation of O'Neill's assertions point by point in the press, online or otherwise, O'Neill isn't appealing to the rational.  His strategy is simply harassment.  Throw the Kerry camp into disarray and confusion, without a clear message and cover the entire Vietnam issue with a thick layer of tarnish.  Use Kerry's service record against him, in any way possible, and above all, keep President Bush out of it.  That way, the president can float above the fray and act presidential.  America is still in denial about the 60's, so much so that even veterans who served honorably cannot count it in their favor.  Such is the cynical irony of Vietnam: those who wisely avoided going there through connections or string-pulling are now seen as having better judgment than those who actually served.

The swift boat strategy seems to be working like gangbusters.  Bush's approval ratings have topped 50% for the first time in months, and this on the eve of the GOP national convention.  Unless the undecideds wake up to the dire reality of four more years of Bush, the worst of which will be a reconstituted Supreme Court so far to the right that it will take a generation to moderate it, then I'm afraid that Bush's chant of four more years will turn out to be prophesy.

A moment of magic

Like most men, I don't like being sick.  I'm finding, however, as I age, that it sneaks up on me.  Take the past few days, for example.  At some point in the last week I remember injuring my ankle.  I remember the sharp jab of pain, but I didn't think anything about it until Wednesday night, when I took off my sock and found a rather large red welt covering my ankle and streaks of red climbing up my calf.  I went to the doctor the next morning and was told to take a heavy dose of antibiotics and to rest and elevate the leg.  So, I've been off work for the two days since.  I don't say this to elicit sympathy, though any expressions of "poor Mike" will be accepted, of course.  I say it because it grows increasingly important to take care of myself.

One of my best friends, Mike B.'s partner Steve P., is a nurse at Harborview ICU.  He recently told me a story about how one of his patients died of septic shock after a knee infection grew beyond medicine's ability to intervene.  She was in her mid 50's.  One day she's playing golf, two weeks later she dies of septic shock in the region's best trauma center.  Infection is nothing to play around with or ignore--no matter how innocuous it seems in the moment.  Steve's cautionary tale weighed heavily on my mind when I made the decision on Thursday morning to go to the doctor, rather than ignore the symptoms and hope they went away. 

It was a little bit of synchronicity in my life.  A moment of magic for which I am extremely grateful.

Why I Sometimes Like Republicans

Sometimes I like Republicans.  It's a rare event.  But usually it's when they remind me of my Dad and reflect my Dad's values.  Such is the case with Vice President Cheney's view points on gay marriage expressed in Davenport IA (of all places) yesterday. Speaking candidly about his gay daughter, Cheney expressed the view that freedom was for everyone, that people were free to engage in relationships of their choice, that the states should be free to determine marriage free from interference at the federal level.

It wasn't his comment about states' rights that charmed me, it was the acknowledgment of the essential humanity of gay people.  After being labeled "sick, twisted, satanic, tragic, sinful and perverse" it's nice to hear something different coming from the very top levels of an administration more than willing, in fact, enthusiastic, to use gay bashing to achieve their political purposes.  It is a different side of the party than the Santorum/Bauer/Reed cabal, rather; it is the fair-minded side, the one that attracts my father, the individual I hold to be the most estimable human being currently alive on the planet.

Vice President Cheney's comments struck me as being personally true, and then his willingness to support the president's agenda to write discrimination into the Constitution also struck me as true.  For, ideology trumps personal values when it comes to both political parties.  So, while I respect Vice President Cheney's sentiments, and his humanity, I cannot champion his cause.  Kerry and Edwards represent the vision of the America I want to live in.  Vote Kerry/Edwards in '04.

Heckle & Jeckle

A man from my sister's home state of West Virginia was recently fired for heckling President Bush at a political rally.  Evidently the heckler's presence at the rally was due to tickets given to his employer, a graphics design firm, by a client.  When the heckler's behavior at the rally offended the client, the client complained, and the heckler was terminated.  I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like grounds for a lawsuit.

Heckling goes with the territory of being a public speaker.  There's a long tradition of it in America, and although we no longer tolerate throwing rotten fruit and vegetables at orators, certainly a few choice verbal barbs fall within the purview of the right to speak one's mind and the inalienable right to make an ass out of oneself in public, I right I cherish and would die to defend.  Heckling cuts through the scripted, polished, buffed and waxed nature of these rallies, and makes the speaker respond with some kind of unvarnished, non-vetted real tone, if not substance.  The nature and content of that response is often illustrative of the candidate's character and ability to think on his feet. 

GWB has shown time and again that he is more than capable at responding to such challenges.  But to fire the heckler?  That just seems wrong.  You ought to be able to have a political viewpoint and be able to keep your job.  I hope he sues.

Blind Justice

That it took only three days to decide a first degree murder case and only two hours to deliberate a verdict is no reason to criticize Oprah.  This was Chicago, not California, and the legal standards were the ones which apply to the poor, not the cases covered by Court-TV.  The reality of the situation is that justice is simply easier to dispense when the defendant isn't famous.

Have you ever served as a juror?  I have.  My case involved three counts of first degree rape of a child.  The trial took three days and we deliberated four hours.  That was two hours more than the jurors in the Oprah case, but, we were evenly split 6-6 when we took our first poll, which means it took a lot of deliberation to reach a unanimous decision.

Oprah said that it was a life-changing experience, and that was certainly true for me.  But for me it was the deliberation that was life-changing.  Human lives were at risk.  Although we weren't allowed to entertain the sentence or penalty when we deliberated, certainly the awareness that the crime was incredibly serious and the penalty would match did.  And that was appropriate.  As jurors we did our job.

For us it came down to a 'he-said/she-said' situation.  But because of the young age of the victim (7) we were able to hear from her social worker.  During that process I made up my mind that I would never, ever send someone to prison based on the opinion of an expert. Somehow, some day, you or I might be sitting in that defendant's chair.  And if so, I hope to God I have someone on the jury who believes the same.   However, the little girl also testified, and she testified extremely well.  In the end, we believed her.  Without her testimony we couldn't have convicted the defendant. 

In this culture saturated by CSI and Law & Order we expect tidy packages.  This trial wasn't neat, it had loose ends.  There were questions about some of the principals involved that wouldn't be answered until after the verdict was in.  There was no physical evidence, there was no DNA evidence, the victim hadn't even been examined by a doctor (a point brought up by the defense). 

Could you convict under those circumstances?  That was why it was difficult for the 6 who voted to acquit.  We ultimately did, but only on one of the three counts.  Each count was a different sexual act, rather than a different event or time, and only one of them had enough proof to be beyond a reasonable doubt.  The other two were vague, maybe they happened.  Maybe they didn't.  Not good enough. 

So our jury reached a compromise, convicting on one of the counts, and acquitting on two.  But in these days of zero tolerance for child molestation, that was enough to send him to prison for 160 months (ten years).

I'm proud of the service I rendered on that jury.  I'm proud of how we behaved toward each other and the decisions we reached.  Justice was served.

Valhalla Rising

Clive Cussler is a piss-poor novelist the way Liberace was a piss-poor pianist.  I'm sure my assessment will send him crying all the way to the bank.  What he does do well (character and point of view not being among those qualities deemed well-done), is spin a pretty good yarn.  And in Valhalla Rising, he imagines a terrorist plot to destroy the World Trade Center, as well as most of the southern tip of Manhattan, using a vehicle of transporation, in this instance a ship, rather than airplanes.

Most of this novel is one adventure after another, a kind of novelized adventure serial of the old school, from one hot pickle to another.  It's rousing in an old fashioned way.  Definitely plot driven guy stuff, as opposed to character driven chick lit, and the body count is very, very high.