All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
While the GOP attacks Kerry’s botched comments on Iraq, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacks the Republican Congress and the Bush administration for their botched war in Iraq. The difference couldn’t be clearer.
In the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about the impact of new technologies and new sources of information on the political process. But the fact remains that the the mainstream media — newspapers, magazines, talk radio and especially television — still set the terms of our public discourse.
That’s why the video below is so satisfying: it’s the White House press corps literally laughing at and mocking the official Republican spin six days before the midterm elections. Mouthpiece Tony Snow, trying to get some traction with the irrelevant story about John Kerry’s unfortunate (and genuinely embarrassing) misstatement, claims he’s actually trying to help Kerry by offering him a chance to apologize. And the press corps are having none of it: listen for the question at the end.
What else have the Republicans got? In Virginia, Jim Webb is under attack for the sexual perversions included in his novels about men driven to depravity during the Vietnam War. He’s being attacked for depicting horrifying behavior in fiction, while the vice president is out declaring actual horrifying behavior to be a no-brainer. Rush Limbaugh displayed deep confusion between acting and reality when he accused Michael J. Fox of “acting” because he “depicted” the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which he actually has, instead of coming across smooth and polished, which he may no longer even be able to do.
Other than that, there are scary pictures of Osama Bin Laden — you know, the guy who attacked the United States during the Bush administration and remains at large. Oh, and in Tennessee, you have racist sexual innuendo, backed by nothing. And that’s pretty much it. Pure fantasy.
[Via TPM Cafe.]
In the race to represent New York’s 13th district in Congress, the New York Times has given Harrison about the most resounding endorsement one could possibly give. Check it out.
In Dan Savage’s sex-advice column this week, wedged in there with all the raunchy stuff, is this remarkable quote:
Google “marijuana” … and wedged in there with the stories about this week’s numerous, ineffectual pot busts — so many pot busts, so little trouble buying pot — you’ll find this: A study conducted by the reputable Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient — tetrahydrocannabinol or THC — is more effective at preventing Alzheimer’s disease than any of the legal drugs on the market today.
Sure enough, here’s the Scripps press release. How ironic would it be if marijuana turned out to be good for your memory?
Disregarding the larger debate over legalizing recreational possession and use of marijuana (Nevada and Colorado will be voting this November on whether to do just that), the Scripps study strikes me as yet more evidence that the federal government’s opposition to even medical use and study of marijuana is faith-based — and not necessarily in good faith, either. It’s just one more way our government is replacing science and factual evidence with fantasies and baseless fear.
In India, I was fascinated by the wild monkeys that live among humans. They are remarkably like us: visual rather than scent-oriented, omnivorous, given to games and amusements. And one of the most startling things I saw was homosexuality. I watched as a monkey attempted to mount its companion and assumed the latter was a female, but a moment later the situation was reversed. Clearly these males were attempting to mount each other.
One of the more common arguments against homosexuality is that it is unnatural. Clearly, the argument goes, our genetalia are designed for male-female procreation, so why sanction the supposedly deviant practice of homosexual genital stimulation? But it has always seemed obvious to me that human genitalia, and our fascination with our own, go well beyond any procreative imperative.
A tremendous amount of human energy is devoted to socialization. Our ability to cooperate in ever larger and more abstract groups has been a spectacular success evolutionarily, and socialization has been posited as the primary purpose of language. (The older, utilitarian hypothesis is that language developed as a tool for coordinating action on big game hunts, but it has been pointed out that among modern humans, something like 95 percent of conversation is social and only about 5 percent is directly utilitarian in a “pass the salt” sort of way. The more recent hypothesis is that language is useful because it allows you to “groom” more than one person at a time.)
Our sexual drives are also intensely social, far more oriented towards pairing up with appealing partners and satisfying our own desires than towards making babies. Is there any biological reason why sexual socialization shouldn’t follow the same patterns as conversational socialization in terms of gender distribution? Whatever the specific details might be, it seems clear that homosexual erotic desire is common enough in humans that to label it “unnatural” is to distort the very concept of what we mean by nature.
What brings all this up is a BBC report on a natural history exhibition in Norway entitled “Against Nature? An Exhibition on Animal Homosexuality,” which documents homosexuality and even long-term homosexual pairing among species as diverse as penguins and bonobos. The latter, in fact, are probably the closest relatives we have in the animal kingdom, and they appear to be wholly bisexual.
Of course, I’ve often thought that the whole debate over whether homosexuality is natural or not is beside the point. Lots of urges are clearly natural — desires to smash the heads of people who anger us, desires to have sex with attractive strangers, desires to defacate when we’re in inappropriate settings — yet we proscribe them. Much of the point of civilization, in fact, is to teach people how to repress their natural urges. (On this topic, Freud was absolutely correct.)
So the question of whether homosexuality should be socially acceptable shouldn’t hinge on whether it’s “natural.” A gay gene wouldn’t give homosexuality any social legitimacy, any more than a genetic predisposition to pedophilia would make such acts acceptable. What should give homosexuality social legitimacy is our liberal tradition of support for individual freedom. Homosexual acts are consensual and do not impinge on anyone’s liberties. As such, there is simply no legitimate reason to ban such behavior. Indeed, genuine support for liberty requires that we protect the rights of all adults to engage in consensual homosexuality as they see fit, just as it requires that we protect other rights.
(This doesn’t resolve the question of whether gay marriage should be legalized. I personally believe that the state should get out of the marriage business entirely — that’s really for individuals and their religious institutions — and simply allow domestic unions among any two persons, including close relatives, with shared property, shared child custody and all the other attendant rights. I recognize, however, that this is totally unrealistic. As such, I believe that gay people should have the same rights as straight people to choose their legally recognized life partners, and we should call it by the same name when they do.)
For some great coverage of the Fossella-Harrison contest in New York’s 13th District, check out Blue Spot, a Democratic blog covering New York politics. You can even watch a complete Harrison-Fossella debate, if you’re feeling masochistic.
Outside of all the gloating Democrats have been doing about the perfect timing of Representative Mark Foley’s scandal, there is the very real question of what exactly that scandal consists of.
Here’s the thing: Foley flirted online with boys who were above the age of consent in Washington, DC, and who were not working directly for him. So what Foley did wasn’t attempted statutory rape or sexual harrassment. Nor did he cheat on his wife or lie under oath about his actions. The only law he seems to have violated was one he himself sponsored, which goes after Internet sexual predators.
None of this quite excuses Foley’s behavior. He is a middle-aged man in what is clearly a paternal role towards the young pages with whom he flirted. Had they been 19 and female, it would also have been deeply troubling.
But as troubling? In the first days of the unfolding scandal, I couldn’t help wondering whether we were all grossed out because it was gay May-December sex. I wouldn’t be surprised if the religious conservatives found the homosexuality particularly troubling, but liberals also seemed to react with a revulsion far stronger than we have felt towards older politicians who have messed around with younger women.
Andrew Sullivan, a gay conservative commentator, seems to have gotten to the root of the issue in this New Republic article. In his view, it is not the homosexuality in itself so much as the pathology of the closet that is so creepy about the Foley case. If Foley had been an openly gay politician who hooked up with a couple of young but legal hotties during spring break in Key West, it might’ve been splashed all over the news, but it wouldn’t have been nearly so disturbing to me, or I think to most people who consider themselves sex-positive or pro-gay. It’s the weird secrecy of it — the lurking-uncle, secret-touching-game quality — that is the problem.
Well, that and the fact that the Republican leadership seems to believe that homosexuality is best kept in the closet. Because they label all homosexuality as deviant and wrong, it’s harder for them to make distinctions between the good kinds and the bad kinds.
For another gay perspective from a very different part of the political spectrum, here’s Dan Savage’s view.
According to a statistical study of mortality rates in Iraq, there have been roughly 665,000 extra deaths there since our invasion on March 20, 2003. That’s more than 500 deaths a day. The study will be published in The Lancet, the UK’s premier journal of medicine.
That’s 2.5 percent of the population that is simply gone. One out of every 40 people. If the United States lost an equivalent number, that number would be 7.5 million.
When the president says we’ll stay the course, please be aware that this is the course we’re on.
Steve Harrison, Democrat for Congress, has a blog up at Daily Kos. Let’s hope it brings in some campaign contributions and generates some attention where it’s needed.
And the race must be getting competitive, because incumbent Republican Vito Fossella has agreed to not one but four separate debates. Considering that his main tactic so far has been to avoid discussing his own record and try to label Harrison as some kind of nut (he’s not), the debates are a sign that Fossella’s people are getting nervous.
These aren’t national debates, of course, but local events, meant to sway local voters. That means Harrison needs supporters to pack the seats. If you can make it to any of the debates, I’m sure it’d mean a lot to Steve and his campaign. The dates and locations are on Steve’s homepage.
Nice work, Steve!
Today’s top story involving Korea ought to be Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon’s likely appointment as UN Secretary-General.
Indeed, last night’s annual reception for National Foundation Day was packed, attended by far more dignitaries, of far higher rank, than in past years. United States Ambassador John Bolton was there — Jenny remarked that he is shorter than she expected — as were the ambassadors of the other permanent members of the Security Council, as well as Japan’s ambassador, who is currently the president of the Council. The big crowd was there, I am certain, because of the news that had come out less than an hour before the reception began that South Korea would be providing the next SG. Already the appointment was having one of its desired effects: raising South Korea’s profile in the world.
At the moment, however, the big Korea news is that the North is planning a nuclear test. The timing is fairly typical of North Korea — these are the same people who managed to stage a naval incident in 2002, killing four South Korean sailors right around the climax of the World Cup hosted in South Korea. Whether today’s announcement is meant to derail Minister Ban’s appointment or merely overshadow it is unclear, but it is certainly bad news.