Our non-literate society

I heard some bimbo news anchor this weekend say, "And now let's go to our reporter in the Haitian capital of Port of Prince." But wasn't she reading the news from a computer or a piece of paper? Maybe not -- maybe some director was in her ear saying, "OK, now go to Bob in Port-au-Prince."

Local church groups promised to take their shoes away, too

Girl Scout programs in the Waco area once participated in sex ed program sponsored by Planned Parenthood. Though the ties no longer exist, homophobic, anti-feminist parents pulled their girls out of Scout groups in Crawford, Tex., home to W's "ranch." The story started with a cookie boycott.

Meanwhile, another Texas church confronted the fact that their 18,000 members (!) are fat tubs of lard.

Budget cuts involve electric trolley buses

San Francisco's Municipal Railway -- the local public transit agency -- announced a plan to cut jobs and service on some routes to save money. Curiously, two of the routes being cut -- the 4-Sutter and the 7-Haight -- are electric trolley buses.

Much quieter and cheaper to maintain than deisel buses, the trolleys (not to be confused with streetcars or the famous cable cars) are powered by electric power from a San Francisco-owned hydropower system in the Sierras. At the same time, there's a ballot proposition in next week's election to eliminate SF's noisy, expensive, outmoded diesel buses. So I wonder about the timing.

Spread the love

21 gay couples were married in upstate New York Friday, and 350 more couples were on a waiting list by the end of the day. The New York state Attorney General declined to take action, and an aide said the A.G. personally believed gay marriage should be legal. However, legality of the vows is in question because the town clerk of New Paltz refused to grant marriages licenses.

Another NY Times article looked at conservative Christian support for a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage and found support surprisingly soft. One man said he was ambivalent because he had a gay friend, while another said, "If there was a gay lifeguard, and I was drowning and couuld not swim, send the lifeguard." (Curiously, that quote was cut from later online editions of the story -- perhaps the man who was quoted starting getting jokes about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation -- but you can find it if you search "gay" and "drowning" on Google News, and it is in the West Coast print edition.)

Meanwhile, the Bush administration "has taken its first bureaucratic poke at" the legality of San Francisco's same-sex marriages, denying requests for name changes in Social Security records.

Love goes on

The California Supreme Court declined to stop the wedding fun going on at San Francisco's City Hall. I like the way this whole thing is going.

Not much time today to blog. I was doing errands all morning, then working on my freelance layout gig all afternoon. Tonight to a performance by my good friend and ex Catherine. You could do a lot worse as far as entertainment tonight. Update: Geez, it was really good. Also playing tomorrow night -- go see it.

Feel great

In one of the most bizarre commercials you'll ever see, a man takes a bite of a Nutri-Grain bar (Quick Time required)and creates havoc in his office. The fun includes a lightning proposal to a female co-worker, who agrees to marry him only if she can "make lots of babies;" she then follows him around the office, snatching paper off people's desks and putting it under her blouse to simulate a pregnancy. And that's just the start of it.

This just in

The town of New Paltz, NY will begin performing gay weddings Friday, the New York Daily News reported. (That's gay weddings, not gay weedings as I originally had it. Sekretnaut caught it.)

Update on Friday: They did 21 gay weddings today. I hope those folks spent a lot of dough there, too. I mean, hello! -- it's an economic plus, ya know?

Still floundering back there in Clear Lake City

Last year four youths were brutally murdered in the Houston suburb I went to high school in -- the same place that psycho Andrea Yates killed all her kids. After months of investigation and "After interviewing more than 125 people, police have made no arrests and a $100,000 reward has turned up no leads."

Adulation ahead

San Francisco's recently minted Mayor Gavin Newsom became a hero to many and a villain to even more by opening marriage to same-sex couples. Now he's going to hold a "town meeting" for his LGBT constituency. I'm scratching my head. Aside from giving him a hearty ovation for his bold move, just what more do LGBT people have to say to the guy? But anyway:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LGBT Town Hall Meeting
with Mayor Gavin Newsom
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When: Saturday, February 28, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Where: James Lick Middle School, 1220 Noe, San Francisco


Mayor Newsom is having an LGBT Town Hall meeting this Saturday, February 28th. It is being held in the auditorium of James Lick Middle School, 1220 Noe, from 11 am to 1 pm. He would very much like as large an attendance as possible.

This will also be an opportunity for the Community to personally thank the Mayor for his courage and leadership on same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a small group of demonstrators gathered Tuesday outside the governor's mansion in Austin. They were responding to Bush's anti-gay rhetoric and the rumors about Gov. Rick Perry having been caught in bed with his (male) secretary of state. The only mention of the Perry rumors in anything close to reputable media is this column in today's Austin Chronicle (the local alt.weekly) saying they had investigated the rumors and found them groundless. Yeah, I guess it was too good to be true.

Well, maybe if you start doing gay marriages

At the "Mayor's Prayer Breakfast," an evangelical minister in the desert crossroads of Barstow, Calif. asked God to make Barstow one of the greatest cities on earth.

Tech pr0n

Apple Computer is opening a new store in San Francisco. This is supposed to be big news, and people are excited, but looking at Apple's website I realized an Apple store has been open just across the bridge in Emeryville for months without anyone making a fuss. I guess it is less interesting when it's in a mall, but really, a trip across the bridge is just not that big a deal, unless you are dumb enough to go during evening rush hour.

If a celebrity's involved, you know it's real

As if a presidential attack and daily national news updates weren't enough, Hollywood joins in the gay marriage carnival today as Rosie O'Donnell comes to SF to marry her girlfriend. Meanwhile, residents of a remote SF suburb shrugged when asked their opinions of gay marriage -- "It's a San Francisco thing" -- as a statewide poll showed attitudes are liberalizing. Oh yeah, and Fred Phelps and his merry band visited City Hall the other day, but no one paid any attention. That act's getting real tired.

Downpour

Torrential rain in San Francisco this morning, and around the Bay Area. Radio reports are full of flooding, rockslides on 101, "downed trees," flipped SUVs, and even manhole covers blowing off storm sewers. I saw it myself on Monterey Blvd. coming in to work: water pouring out of storm sewers and through holes in manhole covers, creating little spouts. The covers weren't blowing off yet, but I didn't stick around to find out. (That Chronicle link contains four pictures which very closely follow my route to work this morning.)

On happiness

Go Space Waitress has a very nice blogpost on the elements of happiness and unhappiness.

Enough horror for one day

I am so not liking where this whole global warming scenario is leading. And how the fuck do you explain this -- African insurgents killing people, then draining their blood and making off with it in jars?

And they say gays are undermining marriage

You've seen them -- those super-public marriage proposals at professional sports games, when men, ready to embrace commitment, post "Will you marry me?" messages on scoreboards. If the television producer is especially deperate, he might zoom in on the couple as she (usually) agrees to the proposal.

An event last night at a pro basketball game didn't go quite as smoothly.

A woman participating in a publicity stunt during halftime was blindfolded and asked to locate a sponsor's mascot. When she successfully did so, she was dumbfounded to see the mascot's costume come off and her boyfriend emerge. Someone handed him a mike and he got down on one knee and asked the woman to marry him. She responded by covering her face in horror and sprinting away from the guy and off the court.

The link above includes a link to TV tape of the event (Windows media player required). It's pretty hilarious.

You know, I'm thinking -- maybe it wasn't her boyfriend.

Update: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann revealed the next night that the incident was a hoax. The man and woman were actors. (Low in transcript.)

Hear music

With ashes firmly in place on your forehead, you can catch some new music:

The LAB Presents
Sound Rewound: Celebrating 20 Years of Sound Art
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 at 8pm

Pamela Z, Donald Swearingen, and F-Space

PAMELA Z is a composer/performer and audio artist who works primarily with voice, live
electronic processing ,and sampling technology. Her performance works combine operatic bel
canto and experimental extended vocal techniques with found percussion objects, spoken
word, "MAX MSP" on a PowerBook, and sampled concr?te sounds triggered with a MIDI
controller called The BodySynth, which allows her to manipulate sound with physical gestures.
Pamela will perform solo works for voice, electronics and video. She will also join Donald
Swearingen for improvised duets for voice, electronics, and sensor-based instruments.

DONALD SWEARINGEN performs new electronic sound works utilizing an array of sensor-based
control devices connected to a laptop computer. Swearingen has been involved for the last
ten years in the design and construction of new and innovative musical instruments
oriented to the unique environment of electronic music performance.

F-SPACE (Scot Jenerik, Aleph Kali, Ethan Port), is an extreme
experimental pyro-industrial art-punk rock-band project by Mobilization.com founders Scot
Jenerik (23Five.org) and Ethan Port (Savage Republic), with Aleph Kali (Chrome) drumming
with the ferocity of a runaway locomotive. The result conjures an apocalyptic, feral,
destructive trance state implying a catastrophic act of nature, a march through the desert
on the path to war, or an offender's mental state during a crime of passion. This
particular F-SPACE performance promises to be more noise-based than usual.

Wednesday Evening Program Order:

Donald Swearingen
Pamela Z
-intermission-
F-Space

at The LAB, 2948 16th Street @ Capp, San Francisco
FOR INFORMATION AND RESERVATIONS:
call (415) 864-8855 or go to www.thelab.org

$10-25 Sliding Scale Admission
(those paying $20 or more receive a free 20th anniversary CD)

Hollywood Squares

As recounted in a hilarious L.A. Times piece, two South Dakota women "won" a weekend in Hollywood with a fourth-rate actor. The Hollywood fun that was supposed to be the prize -- perhaps a visit to a movie set, or dinner at a star-studded restaurant? -- amounted to crashing in the apartment of the actor, who made himself scarce:

Kilpatrick bluntly insisted he had more than fulfilled his obligation to them by cleaning his apartment, stocking the refrigerator and leaving the keys with the doorman. Kilpatrick said he had to pick up one of his two sons in Santa Barbara, and he likes to spend enough time there to "relate" to the boys' school. He also had scheduled a two-hour "purification" session, or he might have had more time to give his scheduled visitors a better "expression."

Maybe so. But no one can deny they got a real Hollywood experience:

A man stood on a corner, spewing racial slurs, and when the out-of-towners had to use a restroom, they went into a McDonald's. "A woman was in the stall, leaning against a toilet paper dispenser, shooting up," Shirley says. Her brother was locked out of another stall until a man staggered out, rolling down his sleeve. On the way back to the car, they had to duck for cover when some scaffolding collapsed. And when they reached their street, the car was gone.

They did make it back to South Dakota in one piece, but vowed never to return unless they got to meet, say, Tom Cruise.

Psychedelic moment

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship, 'cause I'm a sucker for you.

Those nutty Republicans

Not a month goes by without some right-winger publicly stuffing his foot in his mouth and biting down hard, and you know why? Because they talk this way to each other in private, and once in a while one of them blurts out something unbelievable over a live microphone.

Today's blurt: Education Scretary Rod Paige, in a speech to the nation's governors, called the National Education Association "a terrorist organization". This posting on spinsanity.org shows that this seemingly out-of-left-field blurt is just another in a series of slanderous characterizations of the NEA, the nation's largest teachers' union.

The beat goes on

Same-sex marriages continued today at San Francisco City Hall, the day after a huge reception at the Hyatt Regency. One thing this marriage thing is good for is business! And don't miss the Chronicle's album of wedding photos.

Levels of shamelessness

Last week a slip-up by Amazon's Canadian site revealed that some positive "reader reviews" on Amazon were secretly written by the authors themselves. John Rechy is among those who anonymously praised their own works; a behind-the-scenes goof mistakenly published the "reviewers'" real names instead of their anonymous handles, e.g. "A reader from Chicago."

Embarrassing. I have to say I've never stooped that low. What I have done is, once or twice, submitted a glowing review for a friend's book, and why not? If it's a good book and I like it a lot, why shouldn't I say so? But anonymously praising my own books, or buying them at quantity to affect their placement on bestseller lists? Seesh.

Here's a British perspective on the fuss. Pretty minor fuss as things go.

Atty. Gen'l to Governor: Drop Dead

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schw. formally asked the California Attorney General to step in and stop the gay wedding madness going on in San Francisco and threatening to spread to other locales. Attorney General Bill Lockyer, however, is not an appointee of the governor, he is elected in his own right, and he's a Democrat, to boot. His response?

"The governor can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct the next 'Terminator 4' movie if he chooses. But he can't direct the attorney general in the way he's attempted to do," Lockyer said, adding that Schwarzenegger's written directive "was a statement designed for consumption at the Republican convention."

I think the score is something like queers 7, hateful shits 0.

Gov. Schw. opined this morning that foreign-born politicians ought to be able to run for president. And here you thought he was just being nice to Republicans by coming out against gay marriage. No, he wants to rule them. He also suggested that gay weddings could lead to riots in the streets resulting in "dead people."

But in a blow to Democrats, Ralph Nader announced he would run for president again, this time as an independent. I could just strangle him.

Sleazy political rumor of the week

This bizarre posting on the Austin Independent Media Center bulletin board alleges that the Republican governor of Texas -- Rick Perry, George Bush's replacement -- was discovered in flagrante with his male (but very weasly-looking) Secretary of State by the governor's wife, who, the story alleges, stormed out of the governor's mansion. Here's another version of the same rumor. Here's a raft of them. And there's already a bumper sticker!

There's nothing in the mainstream media about this, so it must be put down as merely a vicious rumor. But on Tuesday the Secty of State, one Geoffrey Connor, was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. Very strange.

Save energy, wear a sweater

It's still chilly out, so wearing a sweater is a good way to warm up. Turn your thermostat down, too!

Not everybody hurrying to altar

Not all queer couples are peeling off to City Hall to get officially hitched, according to this Chronicle story. I was relieved to see it. There have to be some people who stand fast and say, "I don't need it. I don't believe in it." A society without unbelievers is a culture that is dying.

Personals ad response of the month

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Whirlwind

The church I attend has joined in the swirl of publicity and action around gay marriages, offering to bless any of the City Hall weddings on Sunday the 29th. The local paper used this info in an article today, but got the date wrong. So we're going to do it both this Sunday and next for all comers. The Examiner also ran a story, but instead of getting the date wrong, got a name wrong.

It's a lesson for me, every time I get close to a news story. When I was involved with Queer Nation in the early 90s, I was often interviewed by reporters, and was amused to see how often they got details wrong. But you can't sweat the small details. My mantra is: "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

Gay marriage a Democrat-killer?

A Sacramento Bee political columnist says SF mayor Gavin Newsom gave Bush and the Republicans a "gift" by forcing the gay marriage issue during an election year.

I disagree. Opposition to Bush et al. has to be about something. If the Democratic race is just a contest to see who can beat Bush by being most like him, you're going to see a record low turnout in November and a Bush re-election.

That said, Kerry's voting record could be a lot more liberal. Though he got a 92% approval rating from a progressive group, Kerry voted for the war, for "no child left behind," for the Patriot Act, for national ID cards, and many other questionable ideas.

But to get back to the gay marriage thing: Here's a transcript from CNN that pretty much sums up the arguments -- and clarifies the basic discriminatory, homophobic basis of the right wing, in their own words.

Polluted search results

Try using Google to search for -- for example -- "Boston webcam," and you'll get lots of links. But if you look before you click, you'll see that a number of the results actually lead to suspect sites. Here are just two of the results:

Boston Webcam Chat
Boston Webcam Chat. ... `This has boston webcam chat the best time I've ever stayed in
this motel,'' he said while his hand gently circled my cheergirls archives. ...
keoz9.com/html/boston-webcam-chat.html - 2k - Cached - Similar pages

Boston Webcam
Boston Webcam. "Well ... The young lady looked at him, boston webcam her
lips and said, "No. But I am meeting Mr. March in a half hour. But ...
keoz5.com/html/boston-webcam.html - 3k - Cached - Similar pages

keoz is, of course, a porn site. But I rather like the Joycean "his hand gently circled my cheergirls archives."

Sploosh

I love these photos Min Jung Kim took going through a car wash. Even if they didn't remind me of today's weather. (Yeah, she was inside her car at the time. What did you think?)

Antipodians of the week

Here's today's wild Aussie story: Two women got a little carried away with their masquerade as Thelma and Louise, brandishing toy weapons at other motorists. They were charged with "going armed in public to cause fear."

Marriages go on

Thousands of same-sex couples were married in San Francisco over the long weekend, and in the absence of other news, the story with its happy pictures and Valentine's theme dominated the media, to the consternation of homophobes. Right-wingers finally got a chance to sue to stop the weddings today, but a judge delayed ruling, and the nuptuals went on.

Here is a PDF file of the Feb. 10 letter from SF Mayor Gavin Newson to the county clerk ordering her to begin issuing marriage licenses to all couples.
Here is the filing of one of the lawsuits against the mayor and the county clerk by right-wingers trying to stop the weddings.

Meanwhile, in Orange County, Calif., two women sued the county clerk for not issuing them a marriage license Jan. 7.

Ruh-roh

In its efforts to fight Satanic influence everywhere, the Bush administration has in its latest budget cut funding for anything that talks about witchcraft. So closed captioning for Scooby-Doo and I Dream of Jeannie is out! No, not kidding. And here's a full list of shows whose captioning was cut. (Thanks, Jamie!)

Holiday

I got at least partially caught up on my sleep last night, though I got up at 6:30 as usual to go to Morning Prayer. Then I came home and installed the Quark I got from Orna. The calla lillies in the garden are going to town in this rainy weather, while at City Hall people are still lining up to get married in huge numbers. Later I went over to California Street and lurked in a cafe.

Does anybody have Quark XPress 4.0 or 4.1? Orna gave me 5.0 which is great, but my publisher has 4.1 and I want to be able to give her useable files.

Party-poopers of the month

The Washington Post published the conversation of a panel of "business leaders" complaining that the "reality" show The Apprentice is -- quelle scandale! -- unrealistic. It's "bad for business" because "it's like watching 'Dallas' reruns to learn the oil and gas business" Man, I feel so sorry for the poor misrepesented business community. How are they ever going to keep the frat boys working 60 hour weeks if they find out that business actually has nothing to do with running lemonade stands and hopping on corporate jets?

Back from Portland

I spent Friday and Saturday in Portland, where I visited my mother and spent Valentine's Day with an old flame. We went to see Love Actually which has to be the highest-pressure date movie ever made -- I defy any couple who goes to see it not to walk out ready to fuck. (Or at least, any couple which has not only recently managed to be able to spend more than 30 minutes with each other even though they broke up 12 years ago. I slept by myself in her basement.) I got up at 3:30 a.m. this morning to drive to the airport and boarded a 6:00 a.m. flight back to SF. I managed to get another 45 minutes of sleep on the plane.

Then I drove straight from the airport to a downtown hotel where a writers conference was wrapping up with a "Speed Dating for Agents" event. The idea was to get 250 writers in a room with 20 agents, and you had three minutes to pitch your book. Man, what a cluster-fuck that was. But it was kind of fun, because the energy in the room was so high and rather positive. I think all the agents were in a yea-saying mood, or maybe I just picked the right ones, because all four of the agents I talked to were interested in reading some sample chapters of my novel.

Finally home about noon. I got 6 hours sleep Friday night and three hours sleep last night; even though I took a two-hour nap as soon as I got home, I'm still utterly exhuasted, from the book pitching as well as the lost sleep.

To do in the next couple of days:
     - Go to Sara's for preseason warmups of "The Sopranos"
     - Pay bills
     - Install Quark XPress for freelance layout gig
     - Take cats to vet for checkup
     - Send my first three chapters to each of those four agents who were interested in my novel

My friend Windy got a profile in the Chronicle today, just for being a cool, stylish gal.

Glorious pre-Valentine mood

To do today:
     - Go to Sausalito to meet with small-press publisher to discuss layout job
     - Send valentines to Cris, Sara, Jeanne, Sylvia, Orna, and Windy
     - Fly to Portland to visit Mom

'Barbie come to life'

A literary agent has submitted a book proposal on behalf of Paris Hilton, suggesting that "many people want to know her -- or be her" and that the celebutante "has the life that most of America's young girls and teens can only dream about." The proposal goes on to detail chapters that spell out how to emulate Hilton ("Figure out how to be tall and lanky and never gain weight" is one sample bit of advice).

Don't you shudder to think of this book in the hands of "America's young girls and teens"?

In other linx:

The BBC website has a online exhibit of the photos of renowned Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. But for a real treat, see his official site (Shockwave required -- takes a while to load, too, so be patient).

Harvard officials have approved the publication of student-created erotica magazines, as long as they don't take nude photos in campus buildings. I'd take that as a challenge.

In a stunning move, Fox News bomb-thrower Bill O'Reilly apologized this morning for uncritically accepting the Bush administration's WMD claims last year. O'Reilly is well known for his sneering on-air persona and for telling guests to "shut up."

In a related story, Pat Nixon admitted to being Deep Throat. Just kidding.

And the day wouldn't be complete without a jaw-dropping story from Australia. A swimmer was bitten by a 23-inch shark, which refused to let go, so the guy swam in and drove his car to a nearby facility to seek help, with the shark attached to his leg the whole time. He took the whole thing in "remarkably good spirits" -- the man, not the shark, that is.

'Heavenly B.O.'

As I and millions of others blogged over the weekend, an American Airlines pilot alarmed passengers Friday when he asked them to raise their hands if they were Christian (he apologized later in the flight after flight attendants apparently began to catch flak from miffed passengers [not real flak]). Today, the gay magazine The Advocate is the only publication to score an interview with the now-embarrassed flyboy -- its executive editor happened to be on the flight. The moderative-conservative publication Christianity today praised the interview for its fairness.

Only my close friends know this, but my older brother is an airline pilot -- and a fundamentalist Christian to boot. But not even he would be dumb enough to pull something like that.

In other news, Variety brings you the headline of the month:

'Passion' poised for heavenly B.O.

Meanwhile, NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte will be "racing for the Lord" this weekend.

Pray on this

All over the newssphere today: Afghan prayer rugs depicting tanks, machine guns, the WTC under attack, and other documentary motifs. NPR's "Morning Edition" did a feature on them this morning.

Mayor: 'Atikins was fat!'

NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg sparked a controversy with hilarious comments to local firefighters during chow at their firehouse. As captured by a local TV station, Bloomberg commented that the firefighters' meal of chicken and pasta was verboten under the famous Atkins diet, but went on to say:

"Atkins is dead. I don't believe that bullshit that [Atkins] dropped dead slipping on the sidewalk. Yeah, right!"

Mr Bloomberg went on to describe meeting the diet guru during a fundraising event at the doctor's home: "The guy was fat ... and the food was inedible. I took one appetiser and I had to spit it into my napkin. It was just terrible."

The article goes on to say that the comments, repeatedly broadcast by the TV station, stirred outrage among Atkins followers. I don't know what's funnier -- Bloomberg's comments, or the outraged snuffling of the Atkins acolytes:

Richard Rothstein, an Atkins spokesman, told the Post that Dr Atkins's widow Veronica was "extremely upset and hurt" by the remarks especially considering Mr Bloomberg sent her a touching condolence letter after her husband's death in which he said the doctor was "an inspiration to us all".

Wait til we send this to 'Funniest Police Videos'

This is the cutest animal story of the year, so far.

Oh yeah -- thanks for checking in, Loud Al

Al Gore -- that is, the angry, give-'em-hell Loud Al persona who endored Howard Dean -- really socked it to Bush yesterday. (Emphasis mine)

"He betrayed this country!" Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their approval for Gore, the party's 2000 standard-bearer.

The party's 2000 standard-bearer. A sob catches in one's throat.

I feel sorry for them too, but not because they can't keep up with my identity politics

Get hip to the new generation of queers, or whatever they're calling themselves these days:

The list of terms -- which have hotly contested definitions -- goes on: "FTM" for female to male, "MTF" for male to female, "boydyke," "trannyboy, " "trannyfag," "multigendered," "polygendered," "queerboi," "transboi," "transguy," "transman," "half-dyke," "bi-dyke," "stud," "stem," "trisexual," "omnisexual," and "multisexual."

"The language thing is tricky," said Thom Lynch, the director of the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center. "I feel sorry for straight people."

That's the compassionate view, I guess -- that a well-meaning but clueless straight person might use the wrong term when dealing with their local neighborhood queer boy or girl. (Even by using "queer," I'm dating myself, I suppose.)

I remember being about 10 years old -- it was about 1966 -- and correcting my mother when she used the adjective "Negro." "They prefer to be called 'black,' mom!" I said, much as Michael Doonesbury's daughter might earnestly correct him on some politically incorrect terminology. She laughed in my face and told it as a funny story that night to my father -- I can still hear her voice imitating mine. Typically, my father just sniffed. "Don't correct your mother, son," he said, never lowering the newspaper.

Weekend update

Today's such a gorgeous, sunny Sunday. Traditionally I hang around the house on Sunday afternoons, puttering around and just enjoying the sun, which streams in through the kitchen windows and makes the whole house warm. The office (actually the back bedroom) also faces west, and gets plenty of sun from noon onward; it's almost too bright in there to use the computer on days like this. But I sit in there and read, or go in the basement and do laundry.

Lately this blog has gotten more newsy-linky and less personal -- which some people are glad of, no doubt. As I grow more aware of a slowly rising readership (though still miniscule as these things are measured -- on good days, 100 readers), I'm sometimes hesitant to put really personal things here. In fact I have a diary on my laptop that I don't publish, and it's there I put all my sexual conquests, revenge fantasies and funky moods. Nonetheless, I have a tendency to be revealing. I recently compared my website to one run by a new crush, and my site is almost embarassingly larger and more comprehensive; it now feels like there's too much stuff on here. My novel is too long too: according to Katia's estimation, it runs more than 600 pages. And I don't feel like I can cut either the book or much off this site. So here I am, hanging out all over, if you're interested.

In case of Rapture, this plane will be pilotless

In a strange incident Friday, an American Airlines pilot asked his passengers to raise their hands if they were Christians, then urged them to discuss their faith during the 4 1/2-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles.

The story doesn't say how many people raised their hands in response to the pilot's question, or if the passengers then took another poll on the question of whether their pilot was a total nutball.

Luxuriating in beats

My wishlist now has one less CD on it, thanks to the enticing and enterprising Sekretnaut. Eschewing amazon.com except as a research tool, she copied a friend's disk and presented me with pirate booty. Now I'm raising a mug of blog to her, aaarrrr!

I once scored three months' worth of free NYT Book Reviews. Standing around in a local independent bookstore, I overheard another customer saying to the woman behind the counter that she had seen a book on amazon.com and wanted to see if they had it. I remarked that I used amazon.com only for window shopping, as it were, and tried to buy all my books at that store. The delighted clerk -- who turned out to be the owner -- presented me with my intended purchase, the NYT Book Review, gratis. When I recounted this incident to a columnist at the Chronicle, she printed it, with the name of the store. In return for this free publicity, the owner gave me free Book Reviews all summer long.

Elsewhere in San Francisco, twenty clowns took a ride on BART, making a baby cry. Others were more sanguine:

Passengers seemed amused, puzzled, overjoyed or bored by the display. Somewhere below Market Street, Ellie Kim, a student at the Boalt Hall School of Law, was trying to read a legal text while several clowns juggled around her. "I think this is the First Amendment in action,'' Kim said, looking up from her book at last. "But I'm just a first-year student, so I could be wrong. ''

One more gay man who quietly did his job

Joan Ryan's heartbreaking and inspiring story of Lindsy McLean, who worked in the locker room of the San Francisco 49ers football team for two decades, occasionally suffering blatant harrassment and intimidation but more often respect, is typical of so many stories of men of his generation. A gay man or lesbian woman works quietly in a company, school or other institution, doing their job well, suffering from homophobia despite not "flaunting" their sexuality or even coming out of the closet, then at the end of their career comes out with dignity. Younger queers must acknowledge the ways older generations suffered and died for the freedoms we have today.

Supposedly there's a current article about his struggle in ESPN-the-Magazine, but not online. Here's an article on a fan site marking McLean's retirement. Finally, this press release from the 49ers pictures McLean and mentions charity work he did for something called "Courage House." If only they knew how much courage he really had.

Republicans continue to abound

The Bush AWOL story is dominating the newswaves lately. In my opinion, this issue is peaking too soon. The Dems should have trotted it out in June, a month before the convention, so it would stay fresh in everyone's mind as they watched (whoever) being nominated.

Continuing with this theme: Looks like Tenet is toast. And Cheney might be the melted cheese.

Hey Republicans! Here's how Bush can win easily

Arianna Huffington writes in Salon about continued rumors that Bush & Co. are considering dumping Cheney.

It would be smart. In fact, if Bush would just dump Cheney and Rumsfield and admit some mistakes in Iraq, he'd win the election going away.

• He'd distance himself from the growing Halliburton scandal
• He'd give himself an escape from drum-pounding war critics who are sneering over the increasingly obvious fact that there were no WMDs
• He'd distance himself from other war mistakes, by blaming them all on Rumsfield
• He could pick up a much more attractive VP candidate that would help him win some of those close states.

About last night

A South African pastor was the subject of a manhunt for several days after he disappeared. When he turned up at a police station, he told of being blindfolded, tied up, kidnapped, and dumped in a field. Subsequent inquires revealed he'd actually spent the weekend at a resort casino. The man resigned his post today.

And in other news, a former "Survivor" contestant who used to be a minister at a large fundamentalist church is suing the congregation for unlawful termination. .Their answer: he stole.

Rich: wired. Everyone else: fired

Here's Jesse Jackson on Bush's budget plan:

Tax cuts for the wealthy come first -- before jobs, before schools, before health care, before poverty, before the war on Iraq, before dealing with the deficits. Bush proposed these tax cuts when the economy was soaring and the budget was in surplus. He demanded them when the economy tanked and the budget went into deficit. He insisted on them even as he led the nation into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now, with record deficits, a jobless recovery, costly and endless occupations, he wants only to make them permanent.

Doctor please, some more of these

John Kerry's wife, millionaire widow Theresa Heinz, comes off weird on TV -- she has some kind of weird affect, like she's on Xanax. (No, this is not her personals ad. It just looks like her 20 years younger.) Kerry's daughters, on the other hand, are hot.

Oh, right, they're apologizing now...

Janet Jackson got a little too much national exposure Sunday. Now CBS is "apologizing."

"CBS deeply regrets the incident," spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade said after the network received several calls about the show.

The two singers were performing a flirtatious duet to end the halftime show, and at the song's finish, Timberlake reached across Jackson's leather gladiator outfit and pulled off the covering to her right breast.

The network quickly cut away from the shot, and did not mention the incident on the air.

Timberlake said he did not intend to expose Jackson's breast.

The New York Times is all over the story, with frantic apologies from Timberlake, MTV, the National Football League... Wait a while and you might have Bill Clinton apologizing.

I'd say that by 11:00 tonight all you're going to have to do is Google "janet halftime" to get a nice freeze-frame of the bold mammary.   Update: Here it is, right on Yahoo News.

Final update: Bush Slept Through Risque Halftime Show. Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry.