FIRST DRAFT

The underlying message

Love it, hate it, dismiss it, you can't deny that Glee's made a splash.  Conservatives love to hate it, a clear signal that they fear its power; at the same time, hipsters argue that the show is a celebration of mediocrity, retreading the lamest recesses of American popular entertainment.

Content-wise, two seasons in, it's still a little tough to sort out the truly inspired bits from the merely good (a lot), the mediocre (also a lot), and the marketing onslaught (a shitload). The show's a pastiche of all pop culture that has come before it: it eats and replicates the same stuff it's transforming, so evaluation of it on that front tends to get mired in overlapping contextual webs. Personally, I don't think Glee was ever intended to be overly substantial, and that's okay. It's meant to be a trifle best enjoyed on the run.

The way that Glee delivers, as opposed to the what, is always going to be front and center. That's not to say it doesn't have a message, though. It does, and it's basically the same one over and over, which is that it's not just okay to be different, it's absolutely vital. Our differences are what makes life worth living.

And that's a very important thing to keep saying, as noted in this great post by AfterEllen regular Heather Hogan:

And then it got better. It wasn't easy because the getting better meant I had to dig into my desires and dreams, that I had to to unearth every fear, plucking each one out of decades of detritus and debris. And I had to polish those differences. And I had to treasure those differences. And I had to display those differences for the entire world to see.

But you know what I had to have first? I had to have the language to describe what was going on inside me. I had to have the words and the images to understand what it even meant to be a lesbian. And you know where I found that language? Books and movies and television. 

TWTFUS: all through my coffee break time

Whatever you do, whatever you call it, send some to Aretha.

One for the good guys

Every once in a long while, something goes right and victory gets pulled out of the jaws of defeat at the last minute.

Yesterday was one of those times.  After a protracted - and do I ever mean protracted - up-and-down-back-and-forth battle with developers and their political allies, the acquisition of a critical 55-acre land parcel adjacent to Jacob's Well Natural Area was finalized yesterday by the Hays County Commissioners' Court.

A few months back, the acquisition seemed like a done deal. But political maneuvering as well as concerns of those  fearful of county government involvement ground the whole process to a crawl following the recent midterm election. The 4-1 vote to finalize came after a 12-hour court session.

The acquisition, by the county and the Nature Conservancy, increases the buffer area around the preserve and critical wildlife habitat. It brings an end to the threat from plans for a residential development that would have placed 65 condominiums and a hotel within 700 feet of the Well. The developers got $1.7 million, which was at least less than what they started out asking for in what was basically a hostile shakedown attempt.

Lack of objectivity disclaimer here:  I'm on the steering committee/board for public outreach at JWNA.  It's a few blocks from my home, and since the neighborhood I live in is one of many threats to the survival of the Well, I feel it's my obligation to give as much of my free time as possible to saving the place. We all make our stands somewhere, and this is where I've made mine.

The threats are still there, too many to count. The Hill Country region is Ground Zero for the raging water wars in Texas. Quite frankly, the odds are stacked against conservation. There is the archaic Rule of Capture, and development and the scramble by water miners to suck the state's aquifers dry are not slowing down. 

But today at least, there's reason for some thanksgiving.

 

 

WWTFUS: And all of the walls that they built in the seventies finally fall

Dazed and Confused morphs into Red Dawn. Atrios gonna love this.

You fed me when I was hungry

I am your savior

I am your lover

I am several others

and I am your mother

who moves from your presence

If we're lucky and the timing is right, and we're paying attention, sometimes we find our people, whether we get to know them as friends and intimates, or whether they become teachers, icons, books on our shelves, that poem we've carried with us from house to house to house over the years, the ones who, literally or metaphorically, feed us when we're hungry.

I can't imagine how I'd feel about this mean cold world if Patti Smith hadn't always been around, more than once, when I was hungry over the years. What a gorgeous warm soul.

The National Book Awards are announced tonight.  Smith's one of 20 finalists for her wonderful Just Kids.

 

He walked in circles till he was crazy and he lived that way forever

We drove past this hellhole on I-10 the way to and from Rising Tide.

We live in a country where slackjawed yokels pass a bill banning Sharia law in fucking Oklahoma but inhumane idiot shit like this is still legal. 

I know that fighting individual instances of stuff like this is time-consuming and is not as efficient a strategy as taking aim at the bigger regulatory picture, but if you can please help. 

Big Cat Rescue

Change.org

WWTFUS: peer into the great unknown

Because we assume it's about political transition, even though any assumption as to what an NP song is really about is always entirely fruitless.

Because I passed over Callie in my OMG post below, and Nicki Clyne is adorable in this vid.

But MOST OF ALL because it's Andy Gifford's favorite song (or favorite NP song anyways) and as of yesterday, he's been a dad for one whole year!  Talk about the laws changing, hang on to yer hat Daddy! Weezy's gonna be asking for the car keys before you know it.

OMG, they killed Fill in the Blank!

I know, I know. We have all been so distracted by the recent political bloodbath, some of you have totally missed this important breaking news on the cultural front:

We now know that they never really killed Kenny. Or rather, that he can't be killed. Because he won't stay dead. Or something like that. Bastards!

Yeah, so it's totally jumped the shark, but one reason I loved Kenny's constant dying and returning, then really dying and being gone for a while, then coming back and dying every once in a while, and now being a superhero who can't stay dead is because it's the greatest wank ever on one of my favorite television tropes:

ANYONE CAN DIE

Why is it so simultaneously delicious and awful when we get gobsmacked by a tragic and ruthless character death and the subsequent emotional onslaught?  Well, if you ever sat through a class on Greek drama or Philosophy 101, and if you stayed awake, you might  remember Nietzsche's take on the essence of classical tragedy: by combining Apollonion and Dionysian extremes, tragedy allows us poor little humans with our tiny scared minds to experience the transendence of catharsis. The higher the body count, the more undeserved and/or random the loss, the more transcendent the payoff.

So, in light of last week, I thought it might help us to wallow in some shocking fictional bereavements. Hey, I'm a giver. Also I have a sick mind.

And please, this is BYOC (Bring Your Own Catharsis) so feel free to add your own favorites in the comments as what follows is a highly subjective short list and I know all you peeps who watch Lost and 24 and Heroes got plenty to add. 

Finally, this is TV, so Wash buying it in Serenity doesn't count. But damnnnnnnn, right?

Warning. This post contains spoilers (albeit some of them rather ancient) to various fictional narratives as well as imagery some may find disturbing. If you don't want to be spoiled or disturbed, don't proceed. If like most of us, you are spoiled and disturbed beyond all telling, do carry on. 

DSTWTFUS: Wade! Wade! Wade!

Going out of turn because forward or backwards, the daylight savings transition is tough and we need some WTFU up in here. Hence, Mavis. Mighty. Mighty. The lady said "Wade!" Y'all get to it.

There's a seven-minute version of this on the very wonderful Live: Hope at the Hideout. I listen to it nearly every day on my commute and I swear that track is as essential to my wellbeing as any of the meds I take.

Take heed y'all, this woman is still very much with us and performing regularly. If you haven't seen her live, you got no damn excuse. She's one of our treasures and she WILL take you there.

 

The Queer Problem

 Seriously, THIS, and not just because she's the boss lady:

You had it, and we worked hard to give it to you, and we see you calling things impossible which are just very hard, and we get fucking annoyed, because we don't get to get away with that shit. Not at our jobs and not in our lives.

We've all of us been running some variant of that loop the last few weeks, and we all will probably continue to, and we should.

But the loop in my head goes off into my own personal cul-de-sac, and I get that it's at the very least not just a bit selfish, not to mention somewhat counter-productive, even downright presumptuous, but here in my private angry cul-de-sac, it's just me and the President.  More specifically, me and the President and his Queer Problem.

Because whether anyone else thinks it's right or not, whether it's rational or not, in my heart, I hold Barack Obama personally responsible for letting us down. Letting us down about same sex marriage, about DADT, about ENDA.  I hold Barack Obama personally responsible for choosing cynicism and expediency over principle on these issues that for me and mine, are profoundly central to lives, not to mention our experience as engaged citizens. 

Because yes, we needed strategy and a coalition and policy prowess, but even more we needed a champion, we needed the personal political authority and leverage that only a POTUS can bring. And our POTUS has a Queer Problem. I'm not saying he is homophobic, nor do I actually think that, but I am saying he simply doesn't seem to believe gay rights are human rights.

I think part of this is owning up to just how invested I was with my queer expectations, about my hopes for this charismatic, principled candidate to address some redress, to be a champion. I mean, what's more "hopey-changey" than righting wrongs, ensuring basic human rights?

The sand started trickling out on those expectations pretty early on. As the midterms came on, I knew I would vote no matter what.  It's a personal choice and my ingrained choice is always going to be to vote, but this year I couldn't condemn the many pissed off GLBTQs who abstained.  I still completely disagree with the political efficacy of their choice, but goddamn I do feel the rage, and goddamn I did struggle against that anger even as I pulled into the parking lot at my polling place yesterday.

Because Barack Obama has a Queer Problem.

He doesn't seem to think the despair and despondency of our GLBTQ youth is an emergency. Oh sure, he made an It Gets Better video. AFTER everyone else and their dog did. 

Sure he's spoken out in favor of repeal of DADT but seems incapable of understanding the whole "fierce urgency of now" with respect to the hundreds of ruined military careers of gays and lesbians who continue to volunteer to put their lives on the line.

He has spoken in favor of a trans-inclusive ENDA, he's appointed a lesbian to the EEOC but tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, queers can still get fired for being queer in 28 states, and in 38 states, it's still legal to fire someone on the basis of gender identity. In 2010. It's still legal to discriminate in the country you lead in 2010, Mr. President.

Last week, the POTUS hinted to some DFH bloggers that he actually thinks about same-sex marriage, that his "attitude" has evolved. This from the man who thought it was okay to make the distinction that "God is in the mix" only when heteros stand up in front of their friends and family and commit themselves to each other. Some people considered it an optimistic signa but the first thing I did was look at the calendar and count back from Nov. 3.  But hey don't worry, Mr. Obama, you've got time. After all, Dick Cheney will likely die pretty soon so people will probably stop pointing out how he's more progressive than you about the queers getting hitched.

On a related note, it's flat out presumptuous of me to assume to know what someone born in an interracial family believes or thinks about marriage.  I do get that, but I still wonder why, if Mildred Loving herself can say

"I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people civil rights"

that Mr. Obama does not make a similar personal connection and having made that connection, publicly bring his personal understanding to bear on the issue of marriage freedom, similar to the way he often spoke so eloquently about how his mother's experience as a cancer patient influenced his advocacy for healthcare reform. My guess, again cynical, is that even if he does have personal insight about the freedom to marry based on his family's experience, to speak about it publicly might pose the additional political risk of emphasizing his "foreign-ness." 

Barack Obama has a Queer Problem. Sure, he's said a lot of positive supportive stuff and made some key appointments and the HRC thinks he's superswell, but when it comes down to it, time and again, over and over, the POTUS has simply failed to prioritize gay rights as human rights, failed to afford them that urgency, or any urgency at all. 

As a result, as these midterms will certainly underscore, from here on out the queers officially have an Obama Problem.

WWTFUS: The Great Pumpkin, the Man in Black, and Bodhichitta

Firstly, this wasn't really a major story in the big scheme of things, but I find it awfully illustrative as to the character of the opposition and it reminds us not just who we fight but who we fight for.  I happened to be hanging out on Twitter when it went down, I follow @rosannecash and I admire the way she handled Boehner, as well as the subsequent personal assaults by craphurling winged monkeys unleashed by Politico's post. 

Secondly, what Merle says below sort of points out that no one of us, whether in heartfelt admiration (my grandma was fond of saying that she loved Johnny Cash just like she did her own equally flawed yet mostly goodhearted sons) or in venal opportunism (Boehner), has any real rights of appropriation to the individuals who become our cultural icons, but we still keep trying to possess them nonetheless, usually to their ultimate detriment. And to ours.

Thirdly, that said, when such an individual, or said individual's family, tells you to back the f*ck off, backing the f*ck off is usually considered the decent thing to do, at least by principled folk.

Fourthly, on the eve of a monumental election, shouldn't Politico have been putting their energies to something, I don't know, a bit more substantive?

Fifthly, as expletives go, "asshat" barely qualifies, despite Smith's pearlclutching.

And finally, even when I was a kid, this song always made me cry, and it still does. Splits me open straight to a tender, unguarded place. That tender ragged place is a good place to be this dark morning, rather than curled up, closed off, defended, and blind.

"Till things are brighter," this is good practice for these times. So, I guess thanks to the Great Pumpkin are in order for this reminder of our marching orders, and a chance to revisit an enduring piece of art by one of our great flawed warriors.

A cautionary tale

Yesterday, as I was farting around on the internetz, like I do, looking for more about the film Trigger, which I really, really, really wish I could see but apparently will have to move to Canada before I can, I stumbled across this old episode of Twitch City.

I fell in love with this show years ago. I haven't thought about in a while but back when Bravo picked it up, my ex was working night shifts and I was watching a lot of late night television. A lot. I'm pretty sure this show was the first time I sort of lost it for Molly Parker.

If you haven't seen it, it's a must for ... well, anyone who watches television.

And if you can seriously look at the Internet and NOT think cats are taking over, then you, my friend, are in deep denial. They rebelled. They are evolving. And they totally have a plan, people!

Parts 2 and 3.

FYI, Twitch City featured everyone who is also in, and created, Trigger, including the late Tracy Wright, who is hysterical in this episode.

Dispatches from the war on fat

So day before yesterday, over at that esteemed bastion of critical thinking, Marie Claire magazine, this happened:  

The other day, my editor asked me, "Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?" ... Yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. 

It wasn't just the one excerpt that was jaw-dropping. Writer Maura Kelly went blithely on (and on) about the ickiness of just having to exist in the same world with fat people,

To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine [sic] addict slumping in a chair.

not to mention seeing them on her teevee, validating their right to exist and all.

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny.

She even dispensed some nutrition advice because everyone knows fat people really do have "a ton of control" over their issues, if they would just put their mind to it.

But hey, don't get the wrong impression of her!

I have a few friends who could be called plump. I'm not some size-ist jerk.

All of which unleashed a (justified) shitstorm and not just the 900+ comments on the post but here and here and all over.

Apparently gobsmacked at the reaction, Kelly apologized — hey she really thinks it's totally cool to have all shapes and sizes of people in magazines and TV as long as they're not, you know, obese  — and also copped to having some underlying body image issues and a history of anorexia. Which, just maybe, might have influenced what she wrote. To her credit, the apology seems heartfelt and honest, if still way clueless, and in no way does she deserve the more extreme responses, like having her address and phone number made public. That shit is not cool, nor is it remotely "understandable."

WWTFUS: better not to light that fire

Undertow, from Warpaint's just-barely-released album The Fool. Nice, very nice.

WWTFUS: it's wonderful to be here, it's certainly a thrill

This is going to be an interactive WWTFUS:

Tell us - or let us actually listen to/see - the best LIVE concert/show you ever saw, or WISHED you saw. Tell us what made it great for you, why you still remember it, or why you'd love to have been there when. If you can find them, leave links to videos and I'll use them in future WWTFUS, okay? 

I wasn't at the Neko gig below but damn, from the sound of it, what a fantastic show. A sweltering hot February night in Melbourne, the iconic Prince of Wales pub packed to the gills with drunken Aussies jostling each other, slopping beer and belting out declarations of ardor and/or song requests. I once heard Case describe how awkward and scary the transition that came with success was, when the band started getting booked into actual seated venues where people sat and listened quietly, politely. Contrast with this scene below: sure, it's loud, the air quality problably sucks, the sound's all muzzy, but this was the first of four encores. That's what happens when the crowd and the muscians are both having a great time.

Oh, and bicycle messenger porn banter, FTW of course

 

WWTFUS: Kitten Punch 3

In my mind, this is pretty much what the First Draft Crack Van looks like. Except with ferrets.

And speaking of the Van, I'm hoping it's gonna roll for Election Night. Maybe it's a little premature to pester Athenae about, but on the other hand it's never too early to pressure wash the walls and shampoo that chartreuse shag carpet.

The Gossip, from their new album Music for Men.

 

No right to their privacy

I've been thinking a lot about something Dan Savage said recently, and not just because he's been in the news a lot lately, though more power to him for It Gets Better. A frequent guest on Olbermann, Savage was on last week to opine about the bonehead in Saxby Chambliss' office who posted "All Faggots Must Die" in comments over at Joe My God.

This is par for the course. This is what they believe. This is how they talk about us in private, when they think no one's looking and no one's tech savvy enough to trace their hatred back to their office.

It's no surprise. Saxby Chambliss is a homophobe and he employs homophobes, and this is, I'm sure, how they talk about gay and lesbian Americans who are serving in the military when they think it's no one but them in the room listening.

They hate us. Does anyone out there doubt this? They hate us, they revile us, they even exploit the deaths of our young to amplify their hate and ignorance. And when we talk about them doing it, we need to call it by its name, not use polite words like "cultural differences," "conservative values," or other carefully coded phrases that make it sound reasonable, like there is an understandable equivalency between our experience of their hatred and violence and their expression of it.

There is no equivalence. One side is on the wrong side of history. Speaking of history, no one calls this an expression of cultural differences any more. It's been decades since anyone tried to call this family values.

There is no equivalence. One side is wrong, is full of hate for us, is actively inciting more violence and death, is bent on our destruction. This is how they talk about us in private and we need to talk more honestly and frankly, in public, about how they do so. And not just on MSNBC and the dirty hippy blogs, either.

 

WWTFUS: you can't carry it with you if you want to survive

If this doesn't wake you up, check your pulse.

WWTFUS: I'll paint you mornings of gold

SATX, represent!

Girl in a Coma is about ready to release their third full length album, Adventures in Coverland, October 19. Not enough room here to explain how much I love this band. Go see them live, you'll fall in love, too. The video below started as a fan video by none other than Robert Rodriguez, who ended up using GIAC's Yo Oigo in his new movie, Machete. 

(btw, in keeping with the ongoing Buffalo Springfield meme, For What It's Worth is one of the covers on Adventures in Coverland.)

WWTFUS: Bring on the wand

MADDOW: In terms of the timing of that, if that goes as you say it’s possible that it could go. If that repeal happens, the timing is that the Defense Department is studying the issue through December. They’ve got another, I think, 60 days or something that they– after which they would have to delay any repeal process. So, we’d be looking at, best-case scenario for repeal, would be sometime in the spring. With the policy under such intense scrutiny, that study underway at the Defense Department, progress being made both in the courts and politically, why not suspend the discharges of people under the policy now, pending that Defense Department review? Why keep kicking people out now while all of this movement is happening towards ending the policy?

BIDEN: Because that is the compromise we basically had to make to get the votes to finally repeal it. In other words, everybody’s looking for, in my view, if I could just wave a wand, it would just be flat repeal. No one else would be able to suspend it. And everyone who was suspended would be able to come back if they wanted to. But the truth of the matter is, we had to build a consensus for this. Working very hard on the telephone. Calling people. And everybody’s looking forward to the orderly elimination of this law. I would prefer it not be orderly. I prefer it just end, boom, done. But that’s why that hasn’t happened. It’s resulted in us getting over 55 votes, I think we’ll get 55 vote, to flat repeal it.

So much for the compromise.  It's time to put up or shut up, sirs.

Scenes from our abusive relationship

Brought to you by evil genius Ali Davis. More of her videos here. Follow her on Twitter.

Can you dig it? Uhhh...no, actually

God knows BP hasn't had many victories lately.

Sure, they capped the well and all but, while it could hardly be called an afterthought, it certainly belonged in "more of a whimper than a bang" category. Much as they wanted to savor the triumph, BP didn't want anyone to really dwell on that whole awkward IT TOOK US FIVE MONTHS part of the story. 

So maybe this is one last attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of death that the British are so well known for.  Personally, I'm willing to give it to them because goddamn it, I think they've earned it this time. So, Stephen Fry's rather historic assertion aside, I think we can all agree that the British have at long last won the Irony War. 

And kudos to BP for being the ones to bring the trophy back home with what looks to be a longplaying show, revolving around a elegantly simple yet reliably absurd theme:

With respect to the giant clusterfucking disaster they've created, BP would very much like us all to kindly bury our heads in the sand. And god knows plenty of us would like to at this point. But...wait for it....

We can't!

Dig in the sand, that is.

Well played, BP, well played. (h/t to Patrick for the video)

WWTFUS: the event of the season

Huge news of the "Hey, we're getting the band back together" variety announced this week:

Neil Young will reunite with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay for a pair of performances as Buffalo Springfield for Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Northern California, with lineups that also include Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and several other acts.

The reunion of the influential country-rock band born in 1966 in Los Angeles will feature Young, Stills and Furay as an acoustic trio, given the Bridge School’s history of unplugged performances by all participants. The group's other two original members, bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

Springfield will top the bill both days of the Oct. 23 and 24 shows, which generates funds and awareness for the school’s programs aiding severely physically handicapped students.

“We make Pearl Jam look like a young band,” Young said with a chuckle over the weekend. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”  Buffalo Springfield, in turn, won’t hold the most seniority thanks to the presence elsewhere on the shows of 83-year-old mountain music patriarch Ralph Stanley and a pairing of two of country music’s most esteemed singers and songwriters: 74-year-old Kris Kristofferson and 73-year-old Merle Haggard.

The Oct. 23 show features Springfield, Pearl Jam, Williams, Costello, Haggard and Kristofferson, Jackson Browne with David Lindley, Billy Idol, Modest Mouse and Grizzly Bear.

Wait...one of these things is different than the rest...Billy Idol? Really?

Performing on the second day of the benefit will be The Speaking Clock Revue, a "multi-artist concert extravaganza" put together by T Bone Burnett to raise money and awareness for arts education. In addition to Burnett, the Bridge School concert lineup of the revue features, I shit you not, Elton John, Leon Russell, Ralph Stanley, Elvis Costello, Neko Case, and Jeff Bridges.

So for today's special Buffalo Springfield edition of WWTFUS, I give you what is quite possibly, even after many years, even with because of the excessive sideburns and fringe-itude, one of the high holiest two minutes and forty-four seconds of my personal pop culture catechism. Some serious air guitar was performed in front of the TV machine at my house the evening this aired. It helped that my proto-babydyke haircut at the time was nearly identical to Neil's, minus sideburns of course. I was still only in single digits, but any girl in the world could have easily known me better, that's how much of a badass hippie tomboy this made me feel. 

Extra WWTFUS bonus trivia points to Adrastos or one of other resident musical completists who can 'splain the presence in this clip of the shadowy bass player with his back to the camera. 

She would be 78 today

And she would still be a badass.

WWTFUS: my god, my god, my god he was something

This may be the only one, or maybe one in only a teeny tiny handful, of any virgo-type posts anywhere with a sports tag. Even so, it's actually a music post. A music post inspired by a television show at that. All of it inspired, in part, by Muhammad Ali.

So, the Mad Men recap is Adrastos' gig and I won't tread there but I do have to glance off it a bit because this meditation washed up in the wake of this week's amazing episode, as I kept flashing back to my very first memories of Ali. 

Much like JFK was my "first" president, Ali was my first athlete, the representation of the role that first broke into my child consciousness, via talk around the supper table, newscasts, the playground. The early sixties was a speedy, jumbled-up, complicated time to be a nascent little sprout sucking up American culture like water. Ali looms large in my recall of that experience, in some of my earliest conceptions about racism, religion, wealth, politics, war. More than anything else though, I remember being astounded - who wasn't? - just watching him move. Tuning into the iconic signal burst of that outrageous power, the grace and speed of it simply displaced the static of the cultural noise surrounding the man.

Appropriately enough then, today's WWTFUS is a two-fisted offering. Two of my favorite songs by two of my favorite bands that capture that same instant in those hard times for the man not yet Ali. The young man still, but just barely still, Cassius Clay. In the first, Original Air-Blue Gown by the Mountain Goats, boxer is metaphor: 

Next, and no doubt somewhat improbably to anyone not familiar with the genius of Catherine Irwin, Freakwater's Louisville Lip, about the legendary moment when Clay/Ali threw his Olympic gold into the Ohio River:

Not the only one

Yeah, yeah, posting out of turn and all but it's Friday, plus Athenae said I could do some extra RT5-related posting. Pretty sure she meant during, rather than after, the event but hey, in New Orleans, the party never really ends.

Credit/blame to racymind for the song. It was on her ipod, we did pass by Hammond, it became part of the trip soundtrack. But it does work here, too, because it's a song — a story really — about families, mostly about choice, about what and who you choose to stand for and with. About how sometimes what might seem a choice to someone else is, to you, an imperative. Crystalline, unavoidable despite the odds of success or failure. 

It works because this is actually a post about Rising Tide 5, at least a highly subjective take thereon, and all those things are part of what RT is about.  A community of like-minded citizen journalists choosing to continue to stand together, not because they can't stop looking backwards, or because they can't get over something that happened five years ago, but rather because they see the truth. In fact, they cannot help but do so: a lot of shit that started five years ago is still happening, is happening again, over and over, and more continues to start new every day.  Mac McClelland pretty much nailed it in her keynote. If you STILL haven't seen the video, just go, do it now.  

It was an awfully damn inspiring event to take part in. I'll be there next year for sure. Don't have a choice not to. 

WWTFUS: Rising Tide in my rearview mirror edition

With respect to RT5 liveblogging, alls I can say is the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, folks. Too much hugging and alcohol, perhaps. But I would be remiss not to give timely props to the conference organizers-they BROUGHT it, y'all.

Life w/parrot: repeat as necessary

The Green One learned a new sound this week. From Saturday morning through today, it's been in high rotation. At high decibel levels. He's quite pleased with it, I can tell. My guess is he got it from television; he has quite the variety of SFX-type sounds, including the laser sound heard at 00:15 seconds in. This is why I"ll likely be stone deaf in my old age. 

ass? ass! ass? ass! ass? ass! ass? ass! ass? ass! ass? ass!ass? ass!

It never fails. Just when I'm feeling completely cynical and bleak about the future of the country, of humanity — hell, of the whole planet — the intarwebz always manages to shake me out of it. 

Via Nerdist:  

So. To reinvigorate America’s waning interest in the space program, NASA has taken an inspired and admirable step; creating a freeware game called Moonbase Alpha where the player takes on the role of an astronaut working to resolve an emergency on a hypothetical moonbase in the not too distant future. 

However, in what amounts to the Internet equivalent of forgetting to convert to metric, they assumed, in their naiveté, that people would actually use it for its intended and extremely boring purpose.

(best when viewed in full screen mode) 

"A breakdown at the intersection of ideology and reality"

Take a look at the following excerpt from a recent editorial on the conservative reaction to the outcome of the Prop 8 trial. It rather neatly removes each of the already-shaky legs holding up the conservative Right's attempts to paint Judge Vaughn Walker as nothing more than an ungodly sodomite and biased activist tyrant intent on destroying Constitution and pissing all over California voters:

Conservatives cannot deny that our Founders intended the judiciary as an equal and independent branch of government purposed to ensure the protection of every citizen’s rights.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that the right to marry is a fundamental constitutional right. 

When an unpopular minority is denied the right to marry, it is indeed the role of the courts to protect the rights of that minority, especially when a majority would deny them. This is why Judge Walker’s opinion reads, “That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." 

Not to mention that conservatives have a flawed history with civil rights, a trend that began when Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional. While Goldwater was no racist there is clearly a conservative precedent for a breakdown at the intersection of ideology and reality.

Nicely put, isn't it? Particularly that last paragraph. So who wrote it? 

Great-granddaughter of the 31st US President, writer, conservative commentator, and blonde Fox News contributor Margaret Hoover.

Go back to bed America: "Oil from spill poses little additional risk"

News that gets released in the dead of night (actually just past midnight this morning) is seldom good, no matter how much optimism it's wrapped in.

WASHINGTON — The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.

A government report finds that about 26 percent of the oil released from BP’s runaway well is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, in principle, cause new problems. But most is light sheen at the ocean surface or in a dispersed form below the surface, and federal scientists believe that it is breaking down rapidly in both places.

It seems there's a chance, in principle, that we might not see any new, additional harm. Oh, and then there's this other stuff. You know, about the old, already-happened harm, the questions left unanswered, which is pretty much all of them.

She emphasized, however, that the government remained concerned about the ecological damage that has already occurred and the potential for more, and said it would continue monitoring the gulf.

“I think we don’t know yet the full impact of this spill on the ecosystem or the people of the gulf,” Dr. Lubchenco said.

Among the biggest unanswered questions, she said, is how much damage the oil has done to the eggs and larvae of organisms like fish, crabs and shrimp. That may not become clear for a year or longer, as new generations of those creatures come to maturity.

Thousands of birds and other animals are known to have been damaged or killed by the spill, a relatively modest toll given the scale of some other oil disasters that killed millions of animals. Efforts are still under way in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to clean up more than 600 miles of oiled shoreline. The government and BP collected 35,818 tons of oily debris from shorelines through Sunday.

It remains to be seen whether subtle, long-lasting environmental damage from the spill will be found, as has been the case after other large oil spills.

So, let's recap, shall we?

• we're pretty sure  we know something about some of the stuff that happened
• we're pretty sure there isn't any new stuff, about which we know nothing, about to happen
• we know for damn sure that we have absolutely no idea about most everything else that's happened, which is a lot of stuff

WWTFUS: and the sweat will roll down our backs

WWTFUS: telling the children to rock for their choices

If there is anything queerer than a Band Queer, it's a Choir Queer.

Which is why I adore every single one of these guys:

For those unfamiliar with the tune, live version of the original

Even though Athenae has killed journalism, newspapers still wonderful

via Daily Art Fixx, the paper sculpture of Nick Geogiou:

Georgiou’s work is inspired by “the death of the printed word/world, economic collapse, political and environmental uncertainty.

Georgiou states: “Books and newspapers are becoming artifacts of the 21st century. Whatever we used to read off paper, we’re now reading off digital screens. Our way of interacting with text is changing. My work is not only about the decline of the printed word in today’s society but its rebirth as art.”

The view from underneath the bus

via Salon, but Jealous also spun the same story on Maddow, and she didn't challenge it, which I found disappointing.

Said NAACP President Ben Jealous in the new statement:

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans. 

<...>

This is the same Jealous who said Monday he was "appalled" by Sherrod's "abuse of power." Good for the NAACP for admitting a mistake.

No, not good. 

Because they admitted the wrong mistake. No one believes for one minute that Jealous, or Vilsack, and whoever in the administration allowed or ordered Vilsack to carry the ball on urging Sherrod to step down, was "snookered" or "hoodwinked."  No one at that level of political power listens to Fox or Breitbart and falls for it.  Fox News manipulating a story?  Andrew Breitbart lying? Gosh, who in the White House press office would expect that?

They made a bet on the response that was calculated to cause the least amount of damage, and now, in addition to losing big to the rabid assholes who started all this, they are throwing table scraps to the public and pretending they didn't do something cynical and paranoid and contrived at the expense of a public servant with a long career of civil rights advocacy who committed the grave error of speaking in public about a matter of moral complexity that happened a quarter of a century ago.

Breitbart and Fox are scumbags and they deserve every bit of blame getting thrown at them for this. But come the fuck on, in what nine-dimensional, 12-steps-ahead, crystal-ball-PR-chess game did the Obama administration, the USDA, and the NAACP arrive at the decision that the correct first course of action, the very best first thing was to condemn and jettison Sherrod right off the bat?  In what universe does no one in the administration pause and consider that their actions will make them look like chumps and losers - again- to the people who put them in power? In what game book is that preferable when it's written across the sky in black smoke that everyone on the other side hates your guts anyway and no one over there will ever be convinced anything you do is right?

There'll be more statements, maybe an apology, maybe some attempt to walk part of this back.  I don't care what they do because none of it will bear any resemblance to the truth and it certainly won't look like winning. I am so weary of this shit.

And don't even get me started on the Washington Post story.

That sums it up nicely

"Water."

This, after pulling over the bottle, spilling water all over the table, then rolling the bottle off the table onto the floor. In the tiny sweet voice he tends to use immediately after he's done something bratty.

The Fourth of July in my mind

Yeah, this one's a bit early but I only get the keys on Wednesdays.

The tiny little place where I live really goes all out on Fourth of July (and also on Halloween, but that's a different post). Everything shuts down and everyone goes down to the town square or as close as they can get to it. That is, everyone who isn't in the parade. It's a toss up whether there's more people marching or watching from the sidelines but the important thing is, everyone goes: the old people, the high school Shakespeare troupe, hippies young and old, ranchers and artists, yuppies and tourists, everyone shows up.

The video below is from a few years ago when I marched with my naturalist group — I was in the kazoo corps. We were behind a float carrying Mother Nature and a bunch of other folks sitting on bales of hay. Immediately after the parade, a huge rainstorm hit, so everyone in town was caught in it at the same time, which was almost as much fun as the parade. It was a good time and I get a catch in my throat watching this because there's something so uncomplicated about it, even though it's not without irony, or even absurdity.

It's not everyone's storybook ideal, but it's damn close to what I used to think Fourth of July should be. Even though it's completely impossible to forget a great many things that have torn that ideal all to hell for me, I can't help reflexively pledging allegiance to the whole crazy, raggedy, imperfect mess.

More kazoo awesomeness here.

Several days late but still proud

This is the first year in a while I didn't do a big bunch of Pride blogging. So as not to let the holiday completely slip by, here's my favorite queer comedy routine, even though I can't embed it. The comic is Erin Foley, btw.

What will happen to them in October, BP?

A whooping crane in the wild is an astounding sight. If you're lucky to be close enough to view one without binoculars, the first thing that strikes you is the size. An adult whooper stands 5 feet tall and has a wing span of 7.5 feet, blindingly white body plumage, black wingtips, a striking red and black mask, and large dark beak. They are magnificent animals and getting to watch them in their winter habitat at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, near where I grew up, made an indelible impression on me as a kid. Without a doubt, that's one of the reasons I became a naturalist. It made a difference in how I saw the world, to see these birds, knowing there were literally just a handful left on the planet, that an animal so majestic and large (bigger than me at the time) was so vulnerable, that we humans had been so careless with such a treasure. 

The population has grown since then and the establishment of a second flock and eastern migration led by ultra-light aircraft is a monumental success story in wildlife management. Still though, as of January this year, there were only 398 birds alive in the wild,150 in captive breeding programs. Less than 600 on the planet. 

Of those in the wild, most will winter at Aransas, and the others in Florida. That will be in October.

Four months, with a hurricane season between then and now. Where will the oil be then? What will happen between then and now to the brackish marshes and estuaries this species is dependent on for survival? Last year, the drought in central Texas so impacted the flow of the Guadalupe River that the salinity of San Antonio Bay increased, and 23 Aransas whoopers died of malnutrition from the lack of blue crabs, wolfberries and fresh water. That's how delicate their supporting ecosystem is already, without BP's oil destroying it. The situation in Florida is even more dire, threatening to destroy two decades of work toward establishing the eastern migratory flyway between Florida and Wisconsin.

Ever since the first instant I heard about the Deepwater Horizon blowout, I have had a couple of recurring thoughts that won't go away.  First, selfishly, I am truly grateful that my father is dead and can't see what's happened to the Gulf, his real home as well as his workplace. (He ate and slept at the house, sure, but he couldn't wait to get back out on the water every day.)

Second, and more urgently, what will happen to the whooping cranes? What happens to us if we let them be destroyed?

Sadly not real

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

W.W.T.F.U.S: It was ignorance more than pretension

Down here in Texas the heat has settled down on us in earnest and everything moves slower, if at all. Anything from the late, great Freakwater is always a good choice no matter the temperature but I think they sound even better in hot weather.

And for the record, Catherine Irwin is one of America's greatest under-appreciated songwriters. I wish she was more prolific:

I guess nobody needs to look too far about something to get either incredibly pissed off or just despondent about. The way that the government and the country are headed, they're certainly not trying to make me happy. It's not that they're thinking: "Hmm, little girl from Kentucky, why so sad? Why you think so often of death?" They're not thinking of me, and what would make me feel like perhaps things are looking up - less starving people or less petroleum-coated otters. Just everything's awful, and it's just more and more awful. The people that really are concerned about it, their heads must be beaten to a pulp from pounding them against the wall.

So what keeps you from feeling like you're beating your head against a wall?

CI: Well, I don't think I can. There's just a sense of outrage that's just a little bit ... aerobic or something. Everything's just awful, but I don't know what else I would do musically, really. If I was younger, and I was just learning how to play guitar, this would be a really excellent time for really hateful punk rock. It's always kind of funny to me, these questions about the themes in country music, because I guess they just don't seem that different to me than the themes in any popular music. Maybe it's because the lyrics are so much more prominent, and so much easier to understand because of the way the records are produced - it's more story-oriented. But a lot of Black Sabbath songs, aren't they talking about death? More babes, but also death. I mean, Led Zeppelin: elves, and death. Trade unions and elves. Stuff like that. It's all grim.

Catblogging: now we are three

Us guest posters don't typically do much critter blogging but I hope you'll indulge me this once.

I moved into my home during the summer four years ago, so I always think of summer as my anniversary of single living. I moved in with all but one of the animal roommates. The last one, Alfie, joined us the following summer. Below, the tiny ball of fluff he was at the beginning, compared to the big palooka he's grown into: definitely the biggest, heaviest, most muscular cat I've ever had. He's actually bigger this year than he was a year ago but I think he's finally stopped growing. In addition to his size, he's also the most gregarious, dog-like feline I've been around.

He's a funny guy. 

 

WWTFUS: before they turn the summer into dust

Don't know about you, but music is one of the things getting me through right now. It sure is a hard time to find something to hold onto. How are you taking care of yourself?

W.W.T.F.U.S: Sound advice for these troubled times in which we find ourselves:

Don't ever forget the Foghat Rule, man.

WWTFUS: You said it was night inside my heart, it was

Good stuff from last weekend's landmark livestream event, The National Live at BAM, directed by the famed team of Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker, highlighting the group's brand new release, High Violet, one of dozens of great new albums falling out of the sky this month. All videos (beautiful, high quality) from the show are here. Proceeds from the event benefited the Red Hot Organization.

I haven't fallen in instant love with this one yet the way I did with Boxer and Alligator, but it's starting to work on me, I can tell. Love that neurasthenic white boy music.

Twitterbomb alert: Tell the children the truth!

If you are on Twitter, set an alarm for 9 a.m. tomorrow. Go do it right now, we'll wait. [Jeopardy music interstitial] Okay, now that you're back, this is what you're going to do tomorrow at 9 a.m., and why:

Send the following to the Texas Education Agency (TEA):

".@teainfo Do right by TX kids& public school kids everywhere. Reject distorted Social Studies curriculum changes. #SaveHistory" 

Why? Because the usual suspects at the State Board of Education (SBOE), continuing their slash and burn pillage of state curriculum standards, have proposed a social studies curriculum so egregiously out of touch with actual historical fact and so literally "whitewashed" that not even founding father Thomas Jefferson makes the cut, not to mention prominent civil and human rights leaders from more recent eras.

After curriculum teams of qualified subject area experts presented a draft of revised state standards for the Board's consideration earlier this spring,

the board’s far-right members made substantial changes to the standards. Among those changes: removing Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about important Enlightenment thinkers, exaggerating religious influences on the Founders and the founding documents; watering down instruction about the civil rights movement; requiring that students learn about the political positions of conservative leaders and icons, such as Phyllis Schlafly, Moral Majority and New Gingrich; portraying Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s reckless smears in the 1950s as having been justified; and even removing the concepts of justice and responsibility for the common good from a list of characteristics of good citizenship. They even rejected an amendment requiring students to learn that the Founders barred government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.

Why should you care what happens in Texas?  Because despite the increase of digital technology and online learning resources, paper still prevails in the textbook market, and Texas buys so many textbooks that publishers write all their books to meet this state’s standards. 

I've posted here before about how critical the tenacious Texas Freedom Network is to the fight against the the conservative agenda of the S.B.O.E. In addition to supporting TFN, what else can you do?

Donate directly to the campaigns. Support two candidates running for the SBOE by donating directly to their campaigns.  Dr. Judy Jennings (running for SBOE District 10) and Dr. Rebecca Bell-Metereau (running for SBOE District 5) are running in districts that - if you put the two districts together - are geographically the size of Mississippi and total about 1.8 million registered voters.  Judy and Rebecca are both committed to Saving History and you can donate to both candidates at their Save History ActBlue site. 

Help spread the word through Facebook, Twitter and your blog of choice.  Those of us supporting Judy, Rebecca and others in Texas are using the #savehistory hashtag on twitter, as well as using that same tag on our posts.

WWTFUS: Will the love you’ve given take the morning seat right next to you tonight?

Some sunshine for Andy and Emily and Weezy, who are loved.

from Visqueen's Message to Garcia.

"Only in the last moment of human history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world." *

After four decades, the Brown Pelican was taken off the endangered list last year. Pelicans currently nesting on Gulf Coast barrier islands are right in the bulls-eye for the oil spill as it drifts shoreward.

Brown pelican, Caspian tern, royal tern, Sandwich tern, least tern, laughing gull, black skimmer, American oystercatcher, Wilson's plover, snowy plover, reddish egret, roseate spoonbill, mottled duck, clapper rail, black rail, seaside sparrow, red-cockaded woodpecker, sandhill cranes, and all other species of plovers, sandpipers, ibises, herons, egrets, warblers, orioles, buntings, flycatchers, swallows, marsh-dwelling songbirds, ospreys, hawks, eagles.

Those are just the birds. 

All other animals in the marine, estuarine, riparian, and terrestrial habitats along the Gulf Coast are at risk from the oil and spill-related pollutants: plankton, marine invertebrates, sea turtles, all fishes, crustaceans, reptiles, and amphibians. Alligators, river otters, manatees, dolphins, whales.

Something you can do right now:

text "WILDLIFE" to 20222 to donate $10 to the National Wildlife Foundation.

Or donate to other rescue and volunteer efforts:

Audobon Society

International Bird Rescue Research Center

Lousiana Gulf Response

Sierra Club

Mobile Baykeeper

Matter of Trust (hair and nylon collection)

You can find other resource, rescue, and volunteer organizations here.

*E. O. Wilson

WWTFUS: this thing you pushed with all your might

By this time next week, I want everyone here to have mastered this routine, okay?

Now, get to work! 

Blaine Thurier talks about creating the video.

W.W.T.F.U.S: we hang in the balance

Truer words were never spoken: