Staceyann Chin, Round 2: Open Letter

...to gay men, dykes, transsexuals, blacks, women, et al.

S.C. doesn't immediately give away how her letter to a gay group relates to the impeachment of the president. She takes her time, reading in measured breaths, appalled that gay women have gone from happily out, in the Ellen era, to shunning the word "lesbian" for more neutral, less politically-identifiable terms today, only a decade or so later. S.C. is pissed. Something has changed, and she's not exactly sure why, and I'm not exactly sure what's changed, but I'm fairly sure I agree with S.C.'s views about it.

Here's my best attempt to decode the calmer portions of her letter:

Gay men used to be united in the struggle against AIDS - everywhere. They supported young black women in other countries who are routinely raped our forced into prostitution. Now those same well-to-do gay men don't seem to care as much. AIDS isn't a huge epidemic in America anymore, at least not for white men, so the issue is over and AIDS will not addressed elsewhere.

[Her tone changes; her face bunches up. This is just an example of something. A general apathy. A malaise with the Left, the enervated, vitiated, minority-lip-servicing-but-really-who-cares-because-let's-face-it, we're-doing-fine Left...]

The less calm regions of Chin's thoughts would look like night in Alaska if you painted them. They are black and white, and cold, cold, cold...

Chin, like a young Bell Hooks, excoriates all of us who do not daily involve ourselves in the plights of the poor and abused and mistrusted, here and abroad, gay and straight and black and whatever. Her point is that struggles are interconnected, and deadly apathy eventually circles back home.

I.e., we cannot stand by and say, "this isn't my struggle; I'm a [fill in identity-group]." Bush and Cheney's crimes effect not only all U.S. citizens and noncitizens, but all people of the world. If this time the boy in the small town dies for the cause of his oil, next time it could be you, for some evil cause you never dreamed of.

Chilling stuff - watch her do it - she twists your own brain on itself, making you ask, "What have I done to help anyone? Am I one of the imperialists (I can't be!)?" But if we all band together...? Incantation that stuns, prepares for the revelations ahead (the proceedings of the impeachment - what to do).

Hard to write in the dark; hard to finish this post; I'm not sure how else to talk about Chin's work but in these immediate impressions. Perhaps a later post will clarify where I think her cynicism and boundless energy and moral laser-guidance can/will take us.

Anyway, I won't yak more about it when you can watch her yourself here. (The audio seems to cut out every few seconds - is that just me?)

The Health of the Doctor

The next surgeon general might be a gay-hater.

The candidate, a self-described Christian conservative named Dr. James Holsinger, supports research into cloning, has backed lesbian issues in the past, and is anti-big tobacco.

Yet, as a lay leader of the United Methodist Church, Dr. Holsinger opposes gay membership in his congregation and believes that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching."

Worse, Holsinger wrote a paper for a church committee that outlines the various ways in which male homosexuality is abnormal and unhealthy.

I propose a counter-nominee for Surgeon General - Atlanta's own Dr. A. Verras, M.D.

Verras was my doctor as a kid. He's a tiny Greek man with a perma-smile and the most whimsical, non-threatening accent on the planet. All of his medicinal metaphors involve Mickey and/or Minney Mouse (sometimes an ear infection is worthy of a Donald Duck).

I never specifically asked Verras about his views on gay rights, since I am not gay and was not as interested in social justice when I was twelve as I am presently.

However, Verras' bipartisan approach to solving tummyaches and constant references to Disney characters [isn't Disney is one of the gayest-friendly {gay-friendly-est?} companies on the planet?] make him an obvious choice to bridge the pro-anal sex/anti-anal sex divide (or crack) and unite this sad country.

Merkel Reversal; Gay Arab Speakers

(Say "Merkel reversal" three times fast. Never mind.)

O happy day - Bush compromised, on something, anything! Even though the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocols, we might sort of agree to demonstrably cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

From the NYTimes, June 8, 2007, "U.S. Compromise on Global Warming Plan Averts Impasse at Group of 8 Meeting," By MARK LANDLER and JUDY DEMPSEY

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, June 7 — The United States agreed Thursday to “consider seriously” a European plan to combat global warming by cutting in half worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, averting a trans-Atlantic deadlock at a meeting here of the world’s richest industrial nations.

The compromise, worked out in tough negotiations between the United States and Germany, also endorses President Bush’s recent proposal to bring together the world’s largest emitting countries, including China and India, to set their own national goals for reducing emissions.

The agreement reached Thursday does not include a mandatory 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050, a key provision sought by Chancellor Angela Merkel, nor does it commit the United States or Russia to specific reductions.

Bad news: We kick loyal, Arabic-speaking soldiers out of the army. For being gay. Not for doing anything wrong - we don't tell them it's "wrong" to be gay - just don't say you're gay, at least not while you're in the army. (?) Doesn't make sense to me, might not make sense to you, but it makes sense to my grandfather and probably your grandfather. Why even John McCain thinks it works well for now. Mitt Romney's not happy about it, of course, but he's a perennial Grumpy Gus.

(Probably he and Fred Thompson are only confused because the Teletubbies were honorably discharged from the National Guard before they confessed to being celibate gay Jupiterians, complicating the whole "homo" rights issue.)

From the NYTimes, June 8, 2007, Op-Ed Contributor, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Translate," By STEPHEN BENJAMIN

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay.

...

I could have written a statement denying that I was homosexual, but lying did not seem like the right thing to do...

The result was the termination of our careers, and the loss to the military of two more Arabic translators. The 68 other — heterosexual — service members remained on active duty, despite many having committed violations far more egregious than ours; the Pentagon apparently doesn’t consider hate speech, derogatory comments about women or sexual misconduct grounds for dismissal.

...

Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?

In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism.Stephen Benjamin is a former petty officer second class in the Navy.

Wowee-Wow: Another Anti-Gay Religious Leader, I R Surprised

From the Times:

The archbishop of Canterbury sent out more than 800 invitations yesterday to a once-a-decade global gathering of Anglican bishops. But he did not invite the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and the bishop in Virginia who heads a conservative cluster of disaffected American churches affiliated with the archbishop of Nigeria.

The exclusions offended liberals and conservatives in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has been threatened by schism since the election in 2003 of the bishop of New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his gay partner.

...Bishop Robinson said he was extremely disappointed at his exclusion and asked in a statement, “At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a ‘listening process’ on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion?”

LOL, I think I'm going to call up Hezbollah to hold a Quorum On Healing Society In Lebanon and not invite any secular Muslims, Christians, or Druze. Post-Falwell / pre-fixin stuff.