P = G x E

The WSJ had an article the other day about an economist who is trying to figure out keys to autism. The economist is trying to correlate an increase in autism with an increased incidence of rain/snow. His hypothesis: the weather and autism are linked through the fact that children watch more TV when the weather is crappy outside and TV is a strong environmental component leading to autism. This economist adapted economic analyses to prove his point - and his methods are unorthodox.

Ok - I thought it was an interesting article.

As with anything like this, you get an interesting response.

The most interesting comes from Alison Singer, parent of a autistic child and senior VP of Autism Speaks. She states, "This is junk science. Autism is a genetic disorder. The only thing that the parents do wrong is they have bad genes."

Now I found it interesting that Autism Speaks is a non-profit founded by NBC Universal Chief Executive Bob Wright. Anyone see a conflict about a VP of a non-profit, using a non-profit funded by a television executive, discussing autism in absolute terms? Didn't happen to see a PhD after her name BTW.

Clearly Ms. Singer needs a little lession in genetics and Dr. Fag is here to lecture:

Central tenet to genetic analysis: genetics does not occur in a vacuum. The environment nearly always plays some role in genetics, and the observable result is what is called the phenotype.

Effectively, the interaction of your genes (i.e. your genotype or G) and the environment (E) collectively create a phenotype (P).

This interaction is written as: P = G x E

Now there are some traits where the number of genes are small and have a very clear effect (the environmental effect may have a small, or narrow, effect). Two examples: blood type and eye color. These are termed qualitative traits.

There are number of other traits that are alot more messy; the effects of genetics and environment are hard to delineate absolutely.

Take height as an example. You could have the genetic potential to be 6 feet tall, but you better have good nutrition, among a myriad of other environmental effects, to acheive that potential.

Another example might be weight - you may have a propensity to carry weight on a high carbohydrate diet, but in the absence of excess carbohydrates, you may not see that potential.

In these cases, extremes in the environment can mask the genotype. These genetic component of these sorts of traits (i.e. height, weight, etc) are generally the result of a number of genes working in concert with the environment and are termed quantitative traits.

Now I am not a human geneticist, but I can tell you that autism is not a qualitative trait. Autsim clearly has both environmental and genetic components and the interplay between the two is very complex - hence the spectrum of disorders that are grouped under autism and the range in severity among people with a common autistic disorder.

It is irresponsible of Ms. Singer to trivialize autism as purely bad genetic luck - her view is that autism is strictly genetic with no environmental component.

She tries to make autism like haemophila or phenylketonuria.

Most shocking to me, Ms. Singer fails to address the responsibility of the parents to ensure a balanced development for their children. Where is the data that autism has no enviromental component? Is there definitive evidence that TV plays no component in autism? Is TV good for a child's development?

*Crickets chirping*

Totally and completely irresponsible behavior on Ms. Singer's behalf. But then again, proceeds from TV pay her bills, so I guess she can't bite the hand that feeds?

Our baby Linus

Snowy Metro stop

Takoma metro on Sunday after the snow had stopped.

James Purefoy

He plays Mark Anthony on Rome.

Composite world satetllite

This is a composite world satellite image from last evening. I thought it was kind of pretty. The northern and southern hemispheres at the higher latitudes have that woderful swirly appearance. Kind of like the skies in Flash Gordon.

Bubba and I watched "Blast from the Past" last night. Really enjoyable drivel.
After that we caught last week's episode of Rome - I love Atia.

Penis panic

Kinsey -1 sent along this little nugget from Wiki:

Genital retraction syndrome (GRS), generally considered a culture-specific syndrome, is a condition in which an individual is overcome with the belief that his/her external genitals—or also, in females, breasts—are retracting into the body, shrinking, or in some male cases, may be imminently removed or disappear. A penis panic is sometimes a mass hysteria event or panic in which males in a population suddenly exhibit symptoms of genital retraction syndrome.

Penis panics have occurred around the world, most notably in Africa and Asia. Local beliefs in many instances assert that such syndromes are often fatal. Genital retraction syndrome in Southeast Asia is known as Koro (Malaysian/Indonesian), which apparently comes from a Chinese term Shook yang (suo yang, 縮陽), although no credible occurrence of such a phenomenon has ever been recorded there. Psychological diagnosis and treatments are under development. It is becoming increasingly clear that these forms of mass hysteria are more common than previously thought.

The phenomenon is often, but not always, associated with occult belief, such as witchcraft. These panics frequently, but not exclusively, occur in places where access to education—particularly in science and human biology—is limited, or otherwise restricted (for example, when government policies restrict such education). Others have been reported under the influence of drug use. (Compare with castration anxiety.)

Chaka got beat....twice!!

Jimbo and I had a shorter workout yesterday. We got a late start, we had to endure a very unattractive 1pm crowd at WSC and Jimbo had to jet to play D&D.

I bopped home reading the Blade and the MW. Note: the Bitch Session has some interesting entries this week.

I got some great news at work on Friday, so I decided to whip up a nice meal with placemats and cloth napkins and good wine. Chaka joined us. He looked money in a retro outfit - black smoking jacket atop a vertical striped (matte and shiny) black shirt with art deco cuff links. Chaka got on the horn during apps and set up a little fiesta with some ruggers at Halo. Dinner was nice and we got a good solid wine buzz going. Off to Halo and we met up with the Young Lovers and two hetero guys from the rugby team. B and W. Well we had some quick cocktails and the straight guys got an eyeful of the upstairs Halo crowd. Someone got a bright idea to do Jager bombs. Well it was much larger than I thought and it turned into who could slam it quickest. Delicate flower clearly did not get his money's worth at college because it look him 10 minutes to drink the damn thing. I was a respectable third. But Chaka got his ass kicked by W.

Now Chaka had had just enough that he was going to test W. Another round magically appeared and W. kicked Chaka's ass even harder.

20 minutes later both W. and Chaka looked like they were on a rocking boat. During all the merriment we lost track of time and quickly had to jet over to Remington's where Jimbo was waiting with his buddies.

Remington's was packed and the straight boys were getting groped so we had to huddle by the pool table. A couple rounds of beer, I did a quick karaoke number, and we were out of there. Good times!

Off for an afternoon pump up with Jimbo and dinner with J&J (our upstairs fab neighbors). Bubba is going to walk around Dupont in the snow while Jimbo and I pump and cruise - hopefully he'll take some nice pics for me to post.

Bubba is on the web

From Seamus McStubbins' gayest try ever! Bubba is number 6 - doesn't he look good???

Size queens take note

Here is a particularly revealing image from the new whole body scanners installed at the Phoenix airport.

If this technology goes nationwide, every size queen in town will be lining up to be a screener.

A must-read

Joe.My.God has posted a masterpiece called Worst.Sex.Ever.

Note to Enis/Kinsey -1, this is AGM (Advanced Gay Material).

The Gay Wiki

I was talking with Pam after the SotM event briefly and I brought up an idea that popped in my head during the event.

The idea?
We need a Gay Wiki.

Wikis, like blogs (see the clogs post below), have been adopted in all sorts of interesting ways. At work, those busy computer geeks, made an in-house Wiki. It is FABULOUS. The Wiki is posted by the person who developed the code or pipeline, has some instructions (like a really nice README file), and usually some thoughts about why this new tool was developed. One guy at work is prone to leaving snappy comments in his Wiki posts which are kind of fun. Our Wikis tend to be static, more of a record and instructional in nature. By their very nature, they are not prone to revision or additions.

Anyways, I was talking to Pam briefly about this idea that there needs to be a Gay Wiki for the 2008 election cycle.

My proposal is to do it as an experiment and see if it works.
1) Major organization (HRC, maybe) hires some tech saavy person part time to set up and manage the Wiki server. I'm sure there are some queer computer geeks who wouldn't mind earning a few bucks.
2) The Gay Wiki has a debut and the blogosphere is asked to contribute. So each person could put in entries about things personal to them.
3) The Wiki is used as a resource by gay folk (and their allies) to get information. Example: What is ENDA? The Gay Wiki might have an entry for it.

Now there is always a problem with distributed efforts. And the one problem with the Gay Wiki is the same problem that happens with the original Wiki - people, with ulterior motives, go in and fuck with the entries. And this requires active curation and occasional purging and freezing.

My suggestion would be that the submissions to the Wiki are open and closed in one week (by the curator). After that one week, the Wiki is frozen and can only be revisited if there is a need for changes. In this way, the Gay Wiki would be semi-static (or slowly evolving) to prevent infiltration by the forces of Evil.

It is a total pie-in-the-sky idea. But I use the original Wiki all the time. Its so easy to find information and I can cross check its content with other sources if I feel it is incomplete or inaccurate. The Wiki serves as an initial point of discovery - not as a sole source of information.

Clogs

There was a great article in the WSJ a few weeks back out blogging and fashion.

Apparently, blogging has even been adopted by Neiman Marcus at Bryant Park and Parisian fashion shows (and other events) to blog about "new trends". These live blogs are followed up with additional entries about what Neiman Marcus currently is offering (or will offer) that matches the new trends.

These blogs are subjective - but their opinion always runs on a positive note about Neiman Marcus, the store's collection and reviews of the fashion shows. Nary a negative word. Neiman Marcus does this because they always see a bump in sales for the labels that get covered and the products that are highlighted.

The article had called these corporate sorts of blogging efforts Clogs. I have no idea if this has entered the lexicon yet or if it was a pun by the author (since he was talking about fashion).

Blogs apparently are useful at work. At my work, the computer geeks set up a really efficient one to keep track of our projects and as a eternal record of what happened. What is nice about this is that everyone can communicate on the blog (they are called boards at work) and files can be stuck there and so on. Its a great way to avoid the endless rounds of e-mails that people, who are avoiding work, do. The blog/message board tends to keep communication directed and succinct.

Organizational blogs also can have their utility. It can be a topic arranged message board that could be original content and submissions by members to keep people up to date on what is going on. Kind of like a calendar with a shitload of notes.

From Mike Petrelis regarding the HRC's advertisement (or lack thereof) of the SotM event:

The event took place at the offices of the Human Rights Campaign and the group's executive director, Joe Solmonese, was on the panel, but you'd never know any of this if you depended upon the HRC web site for info on it. Cruise on over to HRC's site and you won't find anything on the panel, the fact it was held at their HQ, and that it attracted a good turnout.

If anyone ought to have a highly visible and useful blog, it ought to be HRC. This sort of a forum (obviously this blog would be filtered and more instructional than personal) to address topical matters of the day/week/whatever.

Tiny Queer Footballs was addressing the HRC, in particular, about coordinating the movement at many levels to effect change. One point that he made that would be easily handled by a blog would be:

[...]but we need well-developed talking points for each and every unhinged e-blast attack that we know is coming. the religious right knows how to use the Internet to smear and spread fear and using the Internet is essential for a counterattack.

Note that as stories have their arc, which can takes months to play out, the story morphs as the media tends to push some aspects unevenly to sell papers. Due to the nature of the arc, it can get sometimes confusing to pinpoint what the original conflict, or discussion, or event was that started the whole thing. Blogs are a searchable record, organized by date (or topic) that the gay movement can use to manage Tiny Queer Footballs reasonable request. Additionally, e-mails can be shared and talking points easily downloaded for individual users to adopt in their own lives.

I think that blogs are essentially a platform. And they can be customized in many different, and diverse, ways by differing sorts of organizations. While I conceptually think of blogs as an upgraded list serve (Jimbo brought that point up a couple weeks ago), they appear to have been adopted most successfully by individuals as a means of peronsal expression in the virtual world. But I think that as the large monolithic organizations start to think about how they should present themselves digitally, or virtually, they will find that static HTML pages might be less effective than a curated blog or blogs reflecting the dynamic behavior of the organization.

Blogs are like a knife, they can be used for good (cooking, cutting), bad (killing, cutting), or novel ways not originally intended (i'm stirring my coffee with one right now). I'm curious to see whether the larger gay organizations will adopt blogs as just another form of communication in the virtual world.

What is the role of activism?

These are from my notes - so don't take it as the Gospel. Just view it as a "snapshot".

Side note: My grandmother of 83 was talking with me on our last visit about shorthand. She was a secretary for Hamilton Standard for ages and was showing me how to take shorthand. It could have been Hindi from my perspective. But it definitely has its benefits and has been largely lost with the advent of new technology. But I could have used it at the State of the Movement event to give a more accurate transcription of the panelists' statements.

Sean Bugg (looking a cross between traditional and festive with tan slacks and a navy blazer with a light lime green tie that gave the look some "tension" - it was a Southern frat boy look who uses the tie as a playful experiment - kudos from this homo) asked the panel about the role of new media (read: blogs) in the spirit of ACT UP and Queer Nation.

There was a number of responses:

Pam Spaulding offered some thoughts: New media gives those in the community a voice about which a collective coalition can form. New media gives a neccesary check on how to confront power structures that "filter" the message into something more palatable. (Pam - please correct me if this summary is a bit off from your intention).

Herdon Davis (National Black Justice Coalition): Technology is a means to have access to the people. He spoke later, at some length, about his organization's role in fostering interactions between the gay community and the black church, and that Pam Spaulding would be blogging live from an event in March to highlight the particular discussions of black gays, vis a vis, the church.

Joe Solmonese: (I have noted that he was picking mindlessly at the microphone stand) New media reflects broader societal movements. Blogs are a means to highlight events that can, in turn, percolate into the broader media. Unfortunately (in his view) blogs offer a means of the angry people to have a voice. This voice can be fragmentary and distracting to the larger issues of the day (he gave an example about how a blogger said something that was inaccurate and he had to put out a fire that was unneccesary, and he could have been using his time more effectively). However, politically saavy, Joe wants to be respectful of the differences that the blogosphere has with the establishment. (Joe - please correct me if I am wrong and I will post your response).

Dixon Osbourne (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network -SLDN): Blogs have permeated the traditional media. An example: CNN has a blog. The World Wide Web (www...) is a powerful force to touch the masses.

Mara Keisling (National Center for Transgender Equality): There has been a tentative response in the LBGT community to embracing the web (effectively the blogosphere). The web offers a spectrum of voices, and the key is balance. She offered her own experience as an example - when reading her teaching evaluations, she was mentored to throw out the absolute best and absolute worst and read the remainder to get an idea of her performance. She suggested that blogs, or how blogs should be weighed, ought to be analogous. Overall, her view was that the distributed nature of the web should be harnessed by the LBGT community as a tool for exchange and discovery. (Ed note: Three snaps for that position).

Chris Barron (Log Cabin Republicans): Blogs are a great tool to encourage participation. They represent a voice that, for those who are disenfranchised, can use to protest and/or clarify. (Ed note: When was the last time a Republican talked about the disenfranchised? I hold this as a nice counterpoint that the queers are solely beholden to the Democrats).

I really liked this question (for obviously selfish reasons) by Sean Bugg. It gets to the heart of the issue of how activists must compromise with those who are working within the system. Larry Kramer, a pivotal figure in ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and the earlier iteration of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), is one of my idols. Contrarian and fiesty, Larry has offered up the best and worst of gay life for consideration. ACT UP, unlike many other gay inititatives, has permeated the straight world. Cancer patients, who might be hopeless, use the results of this movement to force the FDA to grant access to novel therapies (recently this has gotten alot of new press). Similarly, others, having illnesses that are on the fringe, benefit from an uncoupling of the FDA oversight of review from utilization. This is not to discount the oversight of the FDA, rather it is to realize that those who will die or suffer should be free to offer themselves as guinea pigs for novel therapies. To those who are dying, what do they have to lose?

Having had a partner (previous to Bubba) with AIDS, I went to every doctor's visit with him, forcing better care for him using my knowledge of molecular biology and the literature, seeing him through a four week hospital stay with tuberculosis and two T cells, endless numbers of small illnesses that came and went and prevented us from being a "normal" couple because he was well one day and sick the next, taking on a two year-long part time job in grad school to help him pay for his meds and care, doing an HIV vaccine trial through UC Davis as a testiment to his struggle, and ultimately having to let go of him. This has given me a prism to value Larry Kramer, and I do value him. I only hope he will stay with us long enough that I can stop and say my thanks in person. I also thank Sean Bugg for bringing this particular question up. I had a personal interest in what the panel had to say because many of us, and I am but one, have had to make terrible sacrifices because of this disease. I don't regret what I have done - but when I compare my own experience with others in grad school - I can't say that my experience with an HIV/AIDS partner factors into the equation. I set my life back years and I took on debt for this - and I cannot put it on a resume. Larry Kramer, and those who did the direct action for ACT UP, can put a value on that. The broader majority, oblivious to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, might not attribute a value to it.

I can only say that I thought, among some other short-comings, that HIV/AIDS got a short-shrift in this presentation. I thank Sean for trying to incorporate the gay activist tradition into the discussion. Thanks Sean. Something as small as a question means the world to some of us.

The arc of the HPV story

The HPV rants that I had in the past seem to have come full circle. The WSJ had an article on Wednesday that Merck is going to cease lobbying at the state level for its HPV vaccine Gardasil. Political backlash by parents, physicians and consumer advocates forced Merck to abandon its backroom deals to use legislative action to force all girls in a state (or the District) to have a $360 vaccine before being promoted in middle school.

Again, I am firmly for vaccination and particularly for HPV. But this must be done in full and transparent consultation with those persons who will be required to be vaccinated. Forced vaccination, in and of itself, has merits. But I am glad to see that this discussion about the HPV vaccine will take place in the open. And not be forced so that Merck can use the law to guarantee a revenue stream. No company should use the government to prop up its earnings (this is naive on my behalf but I still think it is true). Shareholders should not benefit from these sorts of shady arrangements. People should discuss the merits of the offerings of a company and effect a mandatory vaccination policy based upon merits and safety. This ensures that Merck (and other companies) make the best product which is chosen on its efficacy. True capitalism is rare in this country and this is a nice example to show that the competitive model must be judged by the consumers and not forced down their throats. Glad to see that the little people have stood up for their rights and denied Merck a short-cut to enhance its revenue stream because Merck is eyeing a tight patent timeline.

An apology for my sloppy editing

Quick note to those who read my blogs. I am not a very good editor. I've re-read some of my blogs recently and I cringe at the simple mistakes. As a neophyte, I write my blogs as if I were talking, but I don't do a good job of then converting that into a proper written format. Jimbo's link to my HRC rant got picked up and placed onto some higher visibility blogs. I, in turn, might gain a few readers from this visibility, but I don't want them to shun my blog because I don't spend a few minutes to do some editorial clean-up before posting. If others take time to click, then I should try to look semi-literate.

I am tempted to go back and revise them. But I won't. It reminds me that the power of the written word is hampered by simple mistakes. It is the equivalent of using "ain't" - the point may be accurate but it is diminished by the presentation.

What does both mean?

In interesting piece in the WSJ today about the 2010 census. The planners have decided to simplify the census to 6 questions.

In doing a field test for the proposed simplified census form, Question 3 asks about gender and asks for people to mark one box. Interestingly 0.05% of this field test filled in both. This, to the census takers, was a bit odd. But what happens if 0.05% of the 300 million check both boxes? That means there are 150,000 people that either cannot read, are being difficult, or most likely - feel divided in their gender identity. While 0.05% does not seem like alot, 150,000 is a moderately sized city and that rate of dual gender identity would probably be higher if the person were asked the following: Male, Female, or Both.

I have read that in the past, people who were born with indeterminate genetalia were effectively feminized. Longer term studies of these people suggested that gender identity was in conflict all through their lives which suggests that gender identity is partially determined before puberty and before the pernicious effects of society (boys like trucks, girls like dolls). What constitutes indeterminate genetalia should be given more visibility such that parents, when confronted with this dilemma (what do I do), might have a standard that is based on social and medical science and not on personal bias.

This brings up an interesting point that I have been considering since the State of the Movement meeting at HRC. Mara Keisling, for the National Center for Transgender Equality, was both humerous and pointed in her views on the struggle for transgender equality. She spoke initially on the changing of "mediated access" where the organization is restricted access by some person to "collaborative access" where the NCTE could use established gay rights organizations and gay allies to assist in gaining access to people in power. And this transition has not been as painless as it ought to be.

This led me to think later about my own bias. Am I trans-phobic? Is trans-phobia any different than racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism or anti-radical Islam? I must confess I love drag shows - love, love, love them. But that is probably the point that Mara cringes at. My exposure to trans-issues is limited to a Saturday night show all boozed up and tossing out dollars to fierce drag queens. But would I have a trans-person as a friend? Would I be biased if I had to work with a trans-person? Would I make derisive jokes if I saw a group of trans-people having lunch? Do I have different views of MTF or FTM persons? Is a trans-identity as strong as a gay identity, lesbian identity, bi-identity, straight identity?

Sadly, I have to say that I am not as liberal as I thought. I have to confess that I think of trans-persons as different than gays or lesbians. And I probably would continue to do that had I not heard Mara speak. In my own assessment, I mentally marginalize trans-people the way that heteros marginalize me for being gay.

This self-criticism has revealed to me that I ought to consider the totality of person who happens to have a different view of their gender identity than I do. They are a person first and foremost. And I ought not view them in any way that I would take affront to if someone else were to take the same view of me (sorry for that very complex construction). So for that reason alone, Mara's presentation - full of pith and pointed comments - has really made me think that I have alot of work to do in my acceptance of the spectrum of people within the queer collective. And that is one of many highlights from the State of the Movement.

About Me

I got a post earlier in the week that I should not be anonymous.

I had a little About Me blurb on the upper right corner, but I went fucking around with my HTML code (which is proper code and not hacker HTML) so I will need some advanced assistance to plug the About Me variable which calls a new page (Google calls the information from some other location - it is not hard coded). I also lost my color banner at the top because google uses .gif files as increments of color and tiles them to make fields of color (but I cannot find where they keep the list of the .gif files) - so I suspect I will just have to hard code my personal info somewhere on the right column for a quick fix.

But in the interim.

I am a scientist. Call me Dr. Fag.
I am a green party member.
I'm in my mid 30s.
I live in Takoma.
I play on the Renegades, like to fish and hike and ski, and I read alot.
I do alot of cooking and testing new recipes on Bubba.
And I am one of the many Gay Weather Geeks.

Riding the wave....

I finally figured out why I was so fired up this past week.

I was having my manic period!

This wave was unusually strong and bouyant so I just figured that I excited about Spring coming and the snow and so on...but then I started looking back and things came into view.

For the two week manic period: I submitted one very long paper to a journal last week. I partied all weekend. I finished up the first full draft of another (that i am writing with my dad - how cool is that?) very long paper on Wednesday, gotten a bunch of work done on a variety of things, adapted some bitching Perl scripts quickly (thanks Enis for the help) to crank through some data for a collaborator, i have been on a total blog tirade (Bubba has said several times "Are you blogging AGAIN?) and I called Joe Solmenese the Devil.

This is the good side of being somewhat manic. Or bi-polar. Or some combo of the two. Using these waves, I can get some shit done. Its definitely been an asset in my line of work since mania (in general) has led to high productivity in lab. Often in a binge/purge cycle - I (and alot of my lab mates) would work several 14-16 hour days in lab and crank out experiments and then coast for a few days and digest the results. It was great fun to blast disco, pouring gels and spreading plates late into the night. The good ol' days of subcloning, transformation and hybridization.

This has been one of the hardest things for me to transition into my new position - I have to be at work during the day and most of the day. And I sit at a desk. And I don't do experiments. And I have to listen to music using headphones. It can get a bit difficult for someone who is a little manic such as myself. So I walk around alot and visit with the staff when I am feeling restless.

At work, I had a quiet start, a very bumpy transition, but my boss gave me a reality check and now I have settled down into a groove at work that has minimized my negative interactions and maximized my positive and productive interactions. Mania, much like a chemical reaction, is controlled by heat and pressure and concentration.

So I have learned to ride my manic wave (although sometimes it rides me). My tiny coterie has accepted my manic side long ago. I think they actually find it somewhat endearing. The vast majority of people, whom I never have clicked with, think I am loud, totally inappropriate, geeky, obtuse, etc. But I think that my mania allows me to be a good friend and a good person now that I have (sort of) figured out when to turn it down and when to turn it up. And this week was interesting becuase I didn't feel totally manic but I guess that I was.

I'm not sure I should have called Joe the Devil. That is not fair really. But I do think that HRC is misguided and I have talked with alot of people in my life about why. Some agree and some don't. So the HRC represents a part of the spectrum that I might not appreciate or agree with. So I might just blame it on the mania - but damn, the mania made for a good week. Sorry Joe. I'll buy you a drink and apologize in person when I see you out and about.

Log Cabin...

I am a Green Party member - I understand market principles but do not necessarily agree with them in many cases.

Chris Barron offered a nice view of how to merge a gay identity with conservative thought at the State of the Movement. His point, overall, was very clear. The Gay Rights Movement is dependent upon the Conservative movement - for better or for worse. As Joe Solmonese pointed out, corporate America (tending to be right leaning), is leading the charge on gay rights. But that is driven by profit. Chris' point was politically oriented. And the bottom line is cloture in the Senate. If gay folk want to get legislation through both branches of the legislature, then cloture is the safety net and the sticky point. That was made clear with Harriet Myers - she would never pass cloture (hence her withdrawl).

Chris' clarifying comments were focused on the nature of what role that both sides of the aisle playing in letting a bill through the Senate. It is bipartisan inherently. It has to be a joint choice. His strongest point is that nothing will pass the Senate (without regard to the House) without 60 votes. And this is a check that keeps us gay folk hopeful and in despair. Chris clearly states that anything that will reach the Executive for a signature must pass muster of the Senate. The subcommittee, the committee and the Senate as a whole. And that requries compromise and negotiation.

We won't get what we want with 50 votes in the Senate - we need 60. And Chris brought that point home. Cloture is real. He was clear and a singular voice on the panel that the current minority is not powerless - rather they can exert a very strong effect on our future. And we must negotiate with them to effect change.

One benefit of the panel was that it brought out nuances in our current state. And it definitely gave me pause to think about the concept of a majority and what it actually means to us. It is an opportunity at the committee level - but it will not get it through the Senate alone. We need to keep in mind that the minority is both a curse and a blessing. These 60 votes are the singular check to the excesses of the majority. And I thank Chris for bringing up this point.

I'll take the House Blend

Pam Spaulding, from Durham NC, came up to sit on the panel at the HRC event and she runs a blog called "Pam's House Blend". And the content is great. Give it a read.

Pam described the evolution of her blog from a single voice to a blend of voices which discuss matters that are important to them. One issue that she highlighted early on in the HRC event and it came up in several other ways was: "What about us in the provinces?"

This theme of non-urban vs. urban as been around for awhile - but I was talking with Pam afterwards and she put it thusly:

"What happens if we don't want to move to a big city? And people have alot of reasons not to want to move. What about us?"

Having lived in Durham, I can say that it is about as gay friendly as the South gets - and that area of inclusion is about 10 miles in diameter. Drive outside of that invisible line and you are in bubba-land.

So let's do a little thought experiment. Let's go to Pam's pad with Joe, drive 30 miles to the north and east along I-85 to Henderson, NC. Its a unremarkable town near Kerr Lake and deep in the red zone. Let's have Joe walk with us to a local event and he can start with his "You just don't get it" routine. Experiment will end with a lot of hard stares and mummering - no success there. Joe might as well be a creature from another planet. Middle America can't even wrap their heads around gay marriage -its way ahead of our (read: gay) political and legal strategies and it is light-years ahead of what "fairness" means to Middle America.

Hint: Not terribly effective. That is why the homos got their asses kicked. Hard. And several panelists talked of the past 10-15 years as wandering in the gay desert. Our dear leaders clearly thought that, in these past 10-15 years, they could get the Senate and the House to legislate fairness and tolerance. WAKE UP.

When Joe talks about gay marriage and getting bills through subcommittee and cozying up to legislators, he is doing what Sean Hannity talks about every day on his radio show with 12 million listeners, "They have an agenda". And "they" do and I saw it last night. The short cut to gay rights is using the long arm of the law in Congress - and Joe's sniffing about an expected blowback from these struggles is completely inaccurate. Its not blowback Joe, it is a rejection and repudiation because you and your organization tried to force the issue well before its time.

Newsflash: We are a minority. That is how DOMA got passed and Bill Clinton signed it. We are subject to the tyranny of the majority. If you are going to piss them off, at least get something for it. When you piss them off to generate revenue for your own coffers, you leave the rest of us exposed. And you give them ammunition - it only takes 50% to vote for the trains that will take us away to some gay gulag (I like to call it "Camp Haggard").

American sympathy to gays peaked with Philadelphia - One small piece of anecdotal evidence? About 15 of my fraternity brothers took their girlfriends (or some boyfriends as it later turned out) to go see this movie one night as a group event. I will repeat - Fraternity boys. AIDS had given a human face to the gay struggle. These guys chose to go see Philadelphia and some of them actually cried and they all thought it was a good movie. In my still-closeted days, I thought this was pretty amazing in 1992/1993. And what of this high tide of public awareness and some sympathy?

We get "Gays in the military". And the Clintons get run over. That and the health care debacle sealed the slaughter of the Dems in 1994. Its like the gay leadership picks the most antagonistic topic (gays in the military) and way (forcing it through the executive branch). And in doing so, the battle is lost before there has been a fight. I would argue that most average gay people are as lost as I am in articulating how the gay leadership has changed their life day-to-day in the recent past - say since the "Gays in the Military" non-sense.

That, children, is a very bad sign.

It was really dishearening for me to see that our leadership is not able to articulate a clear agenda. And, as was stated several times last night, we should have an agenda. When the conservatives talk about the gay agenda as some sneaky inside-the-Beltway cabal, the gay person should be able to answer with some action items from the Gay Agenda that would be obvious, incremental steps towards equality. It shouldn't be shadowy, vague, or pie-in-the-sky. It could be some of the following:

1. Defining 100 politicians in local elections that can defeat a homophobic candidate in 2008. Target funds to these friendly challengers and use the gay media machine to promote them to the broader community.
2. Making ENDA much broader in scope (great point last night regarding this, Joe got a deer-in-the-headlights look briefly, and then completely blew it off).
3. Setting state goals for gay rights that are state-specific and acheivable (and the person could say, I live in state X and we are working on these two or three things).
4. Reducing the increasing rate of HIV infection in our country (it is pretty bad when Bill Gates is spending more time talking about HIV than DC activists - don't know if I heard HIV/AIDS mentioned at all last night - that is fundamentally disturbing).
5. Developing gay scholarships for gay kids who want to get an education and cannot because they are poor, marginalized, etc. (We should not be promoting trivialities such as Lance and Reichen while there are gay kids who want to go to college and cannot afford it). Subsidizing education is an easy win and it makes for great copy.


There are many more possibilities - I just throw these choices out off the top of my head. Joe himself told us last night that Gay Marriage never polled well. Whatever marginal victories that were had required intensive work. These victories are probably tenuous at best (and probably Pyrrhic).

Just a little hint here: If you are fighting something that polls so negatively - you might need to adjust your priorities or message. Perhaps those of us in the provinces might actually like some protection - like DP or civil unions. Polling seems pretty decent on that. Hmmmm, had we fought for DP or civil unions, we could have been talking about incremental improvements in people's lives instead of talking about blowback.

But then again, Joe can't make a wedge issue out of a success.

The Devil Wears Gucci

The state of the movement is a mess.

Dear Joe Solmonese deigned to sit on the panel tonight. And he was pedantic. His whole spiel could be embodied in this summation:
"You just don't understand how things work."

Now having been in academics for ages, I have run across this sort a number of times. The professor, giving you some weary look as you describe your idea, shoots it down passively. They don't explain their disagreement with your idea because "it is just wrong". No further explanation given nor needed. The professor doesn't have time to go into explaining the basics of the err of your ways. Or, what is generally more accurate, they won't lower themselves to argue with an inferior. And why should they? You, the little peon, just don't understand but Joe does.

Joe is a political animal. As the head of HRC, he doesn't have time to explain why grass-roots approaches are so slow, sloppy and ineffective. He can just tell you that it is, he'll then do a stage voice sigh, and pick at some imaginary lint on his Gucci sleeve. Condescension dripped from his every pronouncement.


To Joe, low level politics are passe. Blogs are distracting (quote). Local efforts are notable, not as a means but soley as a humble example, but ultimately, small potatoes. The only thing that matters is the House and the Senate. 535 people are his audience. The rest of us, the unwashed gay masses, are just sheep and we ought to just write our checks and shut the fuck up. He will decide what we need and our job is to genuflect towards the onerous burden that he has in spending our contributions.

Joe told us tonight that corporate America is leading the way in gay rights. FYI - No secret there Joe. But Joe said that corporate America is an ally. Here is where we have to be careful. Joe's statement is that corporations offer all these benefits to gays and are models for the gay rights movement. But corporations offer those as a response to market forces - not as some sort of paragon of virtue. Corporations will lose gay talent if they don't offer those benefits - and talent is the lifeblood to any company. Corporations are not friends to gays, they are friends to their shareholders - corporations offer these gay benefits to enhance their bottom line - if they lose talent then they lose market position. This is standard capitalist thought - Joe should spend some time reading the WSJ, Economist, etc. The false assumption, offered by Joe, is that corporations will go to Congress and sing the praises of gay rights - and in turn, the Congress will grant gay rights.

Yeah, sure, youbetcha.

Joe, if that was true, wouldn't they have more black, or woman, or gay, or illegal immigrant CEOs? Wouldn't GE or Exxon be the leaders in Human Rights in this regard? But corporations are not. Corporations offer gay benefits to bolster their bottom line. Period. Ask yourself if that profit motive qualifies as a model of human rights? Are these same corporations fostering human rights in their sweatshops in China? That is a serious question - not a bitchy comment.

What Joe likes about the corporations is that they come to Joe to ask what they should do to enhance their gay benefits. And then Joe can get a contribution from the corporation to the HRC for his "expertise". Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do the same thing - it is just a shakedown.

Kids - it is all about the bucks. The gaping maw of the HRC beehive needs funds - and Joe will whore the homos to get it. And tonight, alot of the gay sheep saw that. HRC is top-down. I find it sad that HRC has taken the the position that gay rights has "matured" to the point of being one more lobby. Direct action, local action, grass roots action are all cute in Joe's eyes. Look at the cute gays protesting. Its so 1970s.

Side note: If we are going to give an HRC Visibility Award to Lance and Reichen - then just give it to some porn stars. At least I would get something out of a porn star's performance. HRC is a sham. A sham. A sham. A sham.

Jimbo was next to me and during one of Joe's many looks of disgust, Jimbo writes "Joe looks bored", and right after that one queen behind me says to the other "Joe looks like he would like to be anywhere but here". I wanted to throw something hard and sharp at Joe. Only to wipe that smug and condescending look off of his face for one second.

This rant is purely to illustrate that our largest organization oriented towards gay rights is calcified and indignant. HRC deserves not one dime of our money. For HRC has positioned itself to tell us what is important and how it will unilaterally decide what is important.

Aside from the corporate whore plea, Joe's other contribution was that "we" need a few victories to get some wind in our sails. No Joe, you need some victories. Gay marriage is a sham, it was a sham and will continue to be a sham. Gay marriage is a wedge issue to raise funds and ensure you get a quote in the NY Times. It is a wedge issue to keep you current. Gay marriage has no grass roots support - none. It has been shown to be anethma to at least 40% of Americans, and more in the red states. How do I and everyone else know this? Because gay marriage gets trounced every time it comes up. Joe, you can spin the narrow victory in AZ and the 2% loss in SD however you want to - but those are the good points. HRC pushed this topic into average Americans lives and they are not ready for it - and they have demonstrated that in the voting booth. As a political animal, you know this and we have to live with its consequences. Hence, the deceptive talk about corporate America as our ally. It is always revealing to watch spin because it tells you where the failure was. And I think clearly is.

Blogs got alot of time tonight. Their role is vexing for the elite. The unfiltered voices are fractured. This variety makes it hard to package by the elite and harder still to distill into a message. But that is the message. Gay rights have evolved into something substantial. The goals are many and diverse now. We have trans issues, gay black issues, gay latino issue, a panoploy of lesbian issues, and so on and so forth. The previous river of gay rights before has spread out onto the plains and runs in all different directions. But the common core is obvious, and being ignored by the elite. Gay rights hinge on day to day, person to person, locality to locality. Gay rights is best cast now as local change. The constitution and the courts have a long tradition of state's rights. If you want to effect change at the Federal level, then start at the local level. The hard right took this approach in the 1980s and it led to Federal changes in the 1990s.

The majority of gays are outside the urban core. They need protection. There is the M.O. for the grass roots - very simple. Anyone who has lived "out there" knows that.

The single most powerful image in our gay community is the AIDS quilt. It is a testimonial to the loss of the collective at the hands of the bickering elite. The gay elite need to think about this in the current climate. Why is the AIDS quilt so powerful? Why was Matthew Shepard or Ryan White or Brokeback Mountain so powerful? Oprah has made a fortune on this idea - working or exposing the struggles at the local level, and making that struggle approachable to the non-homos, can lead to powerful movements and social change. Very idealistic, I know - Joe's eyes are probably rolling out of his head at that sappy sentiment. Never forget Joe, the 535 in Congress work for us. Joe can smirk all he wants about that being "naive" or "simplistic". But then his check comes by serving them. Kissing their ass. Begging for their crumbs. He, and his organization, choose 535 politicians over you and I.

I say, and I think many others would agree, IT IS NOT SO. We live in the tyranny of the masses, not in the shadow of 535. HRC has drifted so far from this as to be unrecognizable as a gay rights organization and now has every feature of a lobbying. We win our rights by living our lives and sharing our experience with our neighbors. And we expect our gay donations to facilitate change at that level. It is only fair - we are not giving the HRC money to swill drinks with Congressmen in the hopes of getting gay marriage to pass.

Boycott the HRC. Just like a corporation, when the dollars stop flowing, the rhetoric will change. Simple economics. We homos should control the HRC, some Gucci whore should not control us.

BTW - Thanks to Sean Bugg for putting this together. He's a cutie to boot!

More about the other speakers later - I gotta get up early tomorrow and earn some bucks. I can't suck corporate donor dick like Joe does to pay the bills. This gay bitch acutally has to produce something to earn a check. Odds are that you other gay folk have to do the same as well. Demand more and expect more. It is time for the HRC to get some tough love.

DC cultural event

I just got back from a cultural day in DC. Some of the boys on the rugby team and I have decided that we need to have cultural experiences. Our last event was a tour about the National Gallery of Art. Today was a wonderful surprise - The National Portrait Gallery. Absolutely fantastic - the art collection was diverse and fantastic. Highlights include:
1. A photo of a couple in Kentucky in 1976. It was the embodiment of the American dream.
2. A really fun portrait of Bill Clinton - I thought of sex immediately.
3. A de Kooning (Elaine) portrait in green of Kennedy.
4. The portrait contest from 2006 which was more interesting than any biennial going on - such creativity and execution. I was enthralled.
5. Wonderful collection of the 1950s New York school - It was a clean and tidy example of the progression of abstraction during the 50s.
6. A glorious refashioning of a classic marble Federalist building - I cannot wait to see what is done with the main hall when it is finished. A true gem.
7. The people - families with kids everywhere. Kids are wearying in art museum - but I thought it was wonderful that families took the time to come down and see art. Money quote about the lite-bright display of a portrait of a naked couple (it was glorious) by a mom to her two young daughters - "What do you guys think about the lite-brights?" Its refreshing to see a mother not obsessed about the cock and tits and view the portrait on its merits. What was most fabulous and disturbing about the lite-bright display of the naked couple? Its title - "Mom and Dad". There is a family dinner I would LOVE to attend.

The day started with early drinks at Kramerbooks. The cast: Chaka (rugger), Delicate Flower (one half of the Young Lovers and rugger), Josh (delicate flower's stag hag and rugger), K-Dawg (from work) and me. K-Dawg was bold with a G&T before noon (duly noted!) and the rest did Bloodys. Then off to culture. Then Sangria and Tapas at La Tosca (money!). Then over to the gay mile for 2 dollar rail drinks at JRs. K-Dawg had never been to a gay bar - so we popped his cherry and JRs is perfect for that. K-Dawg seemed to have a good time. Those bitches are still going - out at Logan Tavern for dinner - I had to come home. Bubba had to work today and couldn't come out (boo hiss).

What a great weekend!!! I am lucky to have found such a good group that is fun and extremely sharp! I am sad to see the resumption of the work week. Its probably good that I don't have a trust fund - I'd be under the knife for a liver transplant by now. The March event is the Phillips and I look forward to see how they have reworked the collection. Also I love that we had a group of gays and straights for a cultural outing - it is what gay liberation was all about. K-Dawg (hetero) had a money quote about hearing about gay sex: "This is where the rubber meets the road. I am a liberal and I have to embrace this."

Could HRC adopt this? Instead of swilling cocktails and whoring themselves to Congress, could the have a "Rubber meets the Road" initiative? Could they actually sharpen their teeth and say that it is not enough to give money (read: subsidy)- but can straights and homos go out and talk about what is important in their lives and have it be a learning experience. I love hearing about Josh's horrible dates with chicks and I want him to appreciate the complexities of gay marriage. After all, as K-Dawg has pointed out - "I am a liberal and need to put it to the test". I love hanging out with guys, straight, gay, whatever. But I am not sure that the HRC has that objective in mind. I am not sure that their objective is pure - i.e. that we are blind to one's sexual orientation. I think their intent is solely identity politics. And Chaka discussed this at some length - the content is basically - what happens when the identity politics gets divorced from the individual??

I hope to hear this tomorrow at the State of the Movement address. How does the HRC manage their identity politics from the individual. Gay rights is not here to be seperate. We, gays and straights, ought to be equal. The rugby team and also our cultural group is the ideal - we share laughs and offer each other novel insights- not as gay and straight - but as guys who make different choices. Some like snatch and some like cock. It is just a detail, not a defining characteristic.

State of the movement

I'm going to go the "State of the Movement" at HRC tomorrow night which starts at 7pm. I'm going to go to the Kramerbooks bar around 6-ish, have a quick glass of wine and collect my thoughts and head over to the HRC mothership on Rhode Island.

Anyone else game? I think it should be an interesting event.

"In the Life"

As part of my new and improved social life, I went with Chaka down to Halo last night to meet his buddy from Iraq who is in town briefly - we'll call him NavyHot.

Well Chaka was looking fetching again last night - he had a festive, rich blue striped shirt with a V neck chunky cable knit grey sweater - it was a good look for him. I was going to wear V neck merino wool sweater over a crisp white shirt (in honor of my Halo debut - I wanted to look "gay") with my money Lucky jeans - but, right before leaving, I opted for a minimal plaid tangerine button down - a little splash of color. Good thing too - because NavyHot had was wearing my first outfit - fashion disaster averted.

NavyHot and Chaka have been buddies for ages and it was nice to sit and chat with them and share some thoughts and giggles - our schedule was Halo and then Taint and back home by 1am so Chaka could watch Rome. So we cocktailed at Halo and gossiped. Then over to Taint which had a long line outside (Chaka's money quote "This bitch does not do a queue") and it was shockingly cold last night. (The snow squalls were gorgeous last night). We bumped into Jimbo outside Taint and did a quick hi/bye. A quick cab ride and we were back at Halo. We had some more cocktails and tried to get NavyHot some action. Overall, it was a festive night.

Now I have studiously avoided Halo for two years - partially because I am a smoker, partially because I like butch guys, and partially because the bar looked too cool for my taste.

I am delighted to report that I had a great time last night. Good cocktails and we hit 2 for 1 night - great for volume cocktailers. As expected, the crowd was a tad precious.

When I walked into Halo (the first time), the whole adventure was worth it, as I finally got to see what the fuss in the Bitch Session has been for the past month.

Background: There has been an on-going "discussion" in the Bitch Session in the Blade about how the self-described "Brothers in the Life" were not "allowed" upstairs. This subset felt they were restricted to the downstairs and effectively segregated.

When I was reading this in the Bitch Session, I thought that it sounded silly - almost like Al Sharpton had written it. And last night I saw a gaggle who could meet this Bitch Session description downstairs talking amongst themselves. And upstairs I did not see any similar gaggles. Interestingly, I did not have to pass any barriers or racial checkpoints to get upstairs. So this little oddity was cleared up - the only thing separating "in the life" downstairs and the "gays" upstairs is 30 steps and an attitude adjustment.

Newsflash

This just in - Kenny Chesney (Peyton Manning's bestest buddy - see pictoral evidence) is going to be on 60 Minutes and Kenny has decided to tell the world that he is NOT gay. Repeat - Kenny Chesney is not gay.

Right.

Boy pix

Tom Ford

Chris Evans

Gabe Kaepler - from the BoSox.

Gay Salsa

Children - the world must be ready to come to an end. After ages of shunning cha-cha clubs as "too noisy, too smokey, too many cracked out queens, et al." I have gone out to cha-cha at Blowoff last week and Fuego for gay salsa last night. And it was fun!

Salsa was a big deal in grad school and I went to a couple of Salsa nights with my peeps - and it was mainly an excuse to grab some T&A. However gay salsa night was a blast!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

First Jimbo and I had our afternoon pump-up. The scenery was quite good but relatively caveman free. Jimbo and I have spotted a new fave at the gym - he has a salt and pepper look with nice guns and reminds us of our flyhalf who has the voice of the angel and is generally dreamy. This was the third time we have spotted Mr. Salt and Pepper (I think of sex when I see him - he just has that stern toppish look) and he is definitely a member of the tribe. Our prime caveman (who I got to spot last week as he was doing incline bench with 3 45 plates on each side) is more of a sunday regular. Hopefully we will see him today.

So Jimbo filled me in on the Costa Rica drama and we gossiped about the DC homo scene. A nice workout was had as well.

Jimbo and I parted ways at the circle and then I zipped home and quickly talked with ATL Kiki whose grandmother is in the hosptial - best wishes on a speedy recovery Mom!!! (Mom is what ATL kiki calls his grandmother). Then Bubba and I skipped over to Chaka's house for a ride out to Alexadria (by way of Glover Park to pick up the Young Lovers). Chaka always has adventurous fashion that he pulls off flawlessly. Last night was money jeans, a tight and bold striped shirt (lots of blues and light purples and whites) with a western cut under a deep chocolate V neck merino wool sweater. The Young Lovers were flush from their V-Day dinner the night before and several rounds of desert and their radiant post-coital look was charming. We all car-pooled out to the burbs to see Butch and the Colonel for a B-Day dinner party. Butch always has a great bar so my inner promise to not get cocktailed went right out the window when I found lime juice and triple sec and a vat of vodka and cranberry. Butch and I went to pick up Clayzilla from the metro and with cocktails in go cups - Clayzilla filled us in on yet another interesting date - this one had a sling. He has got some great stories!!! We made a bunch o' cosmos and everyone got really chatty. I'm sure the Colonel is probably highly pissed as his floor is sticky today - I'm a sloppy cosmo maker. Miss Moon was there, stag, and looked fab in tight jeans (great box honey) and a fab little sweater - El Gordo was on the red-eye back from a Cali adventure. Butch and I squeezed in a little DOA4 on Xbox before Chaka was tapping his watch and the taxi was leaving for gay salsa.

Now I was really not sure about this gay salsa thing- it was like my anxiety about Blowoff. But I figured WTF and Bubba was game too (he likes to dance much more than I do). So we got there, slammed a few beers and then cha-cha-ed until close. Between the food, drinks, more drinks and dancing - the wheels fell off the wagon around 1:30am but a good time was had by all - I had to go to the gym this morning for bike ride and sauna to sweat out some of the toxins. I would definitely do it again - although when sober, it might be a bit loud and crowded. If looking for something a bit different - round up your peeps and roll out for some salsa.

Helpful GeneQueen hint: Make sure to have pre-flight before or get your cocktail on going before - Coronas were SIX BUCKS EACH at the bar.

Nick Beyeler

Jim, the Takmoa massage pro, sent along this link. I think the Barometer would LOVE this.
Nick's website.

Ethanol production

Now that GM seems ready to consume Chrysler which is being "disposed of" by Daimler and Ford has mortgaged every single piece of property that it owes for a nearly 20 billion line of credit, things may be finally ready for a shake up in Michigan.

With the Big 3 down on the mat, it may be time to extract some concessions from them that are painful in the short term and beneficial in the long term.

I know that they will never give up on those big gas hogs but it might be time for the government to do a little deal making to boost alternative fuel development in America. The government is going to have to rescue these companies at some point (they cannot pay all of their legacy costs currently and things are getting worse as these companies prove incapable of making cars that people want to drive) and instead of waiting for the self-inflicted implosion - the government can barter with these companies to produce a fleet of E85 cheap vehicles that can also run on gas. These companies already make these types of cars for Brazil, so it is not like we are asking them to reinvent the wheel - rather to transfer some of those production lines into North America. These platforms would generate cars that are small sedans and coupes which are light and efficient and can run on E85. This would be perfect for city drivers and commuters - most of whom drive less than 80 miles a day anyways. This supply will drive the creation of E85 pumps in the city (we need demand in order to increase the supply) and the compact arrangement of cities makes it easy for delivery of E85. Note: ethanol cannot be run through a standard pipeline as the ethanol dissolves the O-rings in the pipeline joints. Once gas begins its upward climb in price (and it will) then E85 will become a very clear winner based upon economics. This would allow the market to begin its transition into sources of fuel that are cleaner and politically more favorable.

In exchange for this platform development, the government will give a yearly subsidy for each of the big 3 to use as they see fit. But they only get the subsidy if they stick to the goals of platform development, otherwise they will get nothing.

To many conservatives, this may seem like a horrible idea. But for many of us who live in the city and have to breathe polluted air (making us the equivalent of a smoker) and the political considerations that are built into foreign purchasing of oil, this bribe by the government to spark development is worthwhile. Plus these companies have been running according to market principles and are utterly incapable of making good long-term decisions. Should we watch domestically produced Toyotas backrupt some of our largest companies? Someone has to help these companies break through with a new market (they only make money on large SUV and trucks - effectively every sedan made is a neutral or losing endeavor).

I just love drudge...

Britney was in rehab earlier in the week (and then bounced back out) and now she is bald. Well, at least she got rid of that horrid brown dye job.

Shameless photo swipe

Some Saturday morning fun courtesy of Ginger Bear a.k.a. ATLpeanut from whom I swiped these pix. For all you ginger and bear loving men, Ginger Bear is your fantasy come to earth. Also, he is a complete doll and plays for the Altanta Bucks (rugby). Note that Angry Hole is the daddy version of Ginger Bear (also a rugger) and Angry will be in town the weekend of March 10th. I'm thinking we'll have Jimbo bring in some of his bear loving friends, Seamus McStebbins and I will get some of the rugby bitches out and we can have a little mixer to welcome A.H. into town. Since A.H. has been in a drought, I am hoping that one of you D.C. men can help him get his sexual mojo back.

Wanna Rassle??

Here is some beef and hair - a wrestler from PA named Mark.

A google find...

But wait - there is also a website (not work-safe) and a T-shirt.

Roy Colpaert

A wrestler at the Gay Games in Amsterdam.

Dude, you know how I know that you're gay???

Seth Rogen is on the left and Paul Rudd on the right. I thought this was a very funny scene from the 40-year old virgin.

I got an interesting e-mail from the wife of a person who works across the hall from me. I have talked with this guy, a very nice Canuck. His wife and I have crossed paths once. Apparently, I was not being "gay" that night (to eveyone else's protestations, I can be a non-screamer - its rare, but true). Anyways, I'm pretty out-there at work so most people have figured out that office 130 has a 'mo in there but the wife wants me to go out for drinks with a really funny and nice friend this weekend.

Here is my conundrum - if you are passively out at work (i.e. you neither promote nor hide your sexuality), then what happens when you have people who have yet to consider the idea???

In our present climate, do we need to come out actively when at work? Again, if asked directly, I have never hidden it and the single girls had me figured out in about 3 seconds after starting. But I don't hang around really straight guys (you know, the Kinsey 0 - the ones for whom gayness is not an option). I'm actually interested in this because I am somewhat shocked that someone hasn't figured it out and/or gotten the message through the gossip circuit.

So I am not sure what to do with the wife yet - I think I will use the weather to politely decline and make sure we reschedule. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to broach the topic with my office acquaintance. And "coming out" seems so blunt - I don't want to embarass this guy or his wife or have a socially awkward interaction with him at work. Not my style and not a good idea in a building full of scientists and computer geeks (introvert city). Ideas?

Ryan Reynolds

WOOF!

Seth

My newest bear crush....Seth Rogen. Loved him in 40-year old virgin and saw him today in You, Me, and Dupree. Bear-tastic!!!

Intentional weather botch???

On occasion, even the most informed of meterologists will fudge the facts in order to avoid "getting it wrong".

The NWS did a pretty good job with this storm in actuality - except they botched one small detail - and I think it was intentional. In Takoma, I noticed only a small amount of freezing rain which occurred last night between 6pm and midnight. The bulk of the precipitation that fell after midnight was "frozen rain" but it was not "freezing rain" as was predicted.

The "frozen rain" is, in fact, sleet and 1-2 inches of that is sitting outside your door in the DC metro area ths morning. When walking in it, you will notice it has the consistency of sand. And when shoveling it, you will notice how heavy it is. And if you look at the trees and powerlines outside, you will not see much ice which is where "freezing rain" would have accumulated, but did not.

I bring this up only as a clarification to the NWS: All day yesterday the temperature was dropping, the wind was stiff from the NE and cold air was clearly filtering down from the Northeast (temps also declined all day across PA, DE and NJ). The high pressure was much stronger than the modeling programs indicated (the barometric pressure was 30.3 at noon yesterday and it was snowing heavily). An over-running event was going to happen, however all chances of accumulating sleet were discounted and the forecast doggedly stuck solely with "freezing rain". Even last night when it was sleeting very heavily (looking like a Florida thunderstorm), the forecast remained "freezing rain". In the future, one might want to stop looking at the models for a minute and do some simple investigations of regional temperatures and past storm behavior to create a more rational forecase. I would have written the following:

Temps tonight will hold steady in the mid-20s. Signifiant accumulations of sleet or freezing rain will occur. Sleet will be favored north and west and freezing rain will be favored south and east. 1-2 inches of ice are expected. Stiff 10-20mph winds will shift from NE to NW towards dawn. Chance of precipitation is 100%.

The point is that for the past several days, the freezing line was dancing right over the District and prior storm behavior (with a strong dam of cold air in place) would suggest that a range of precipitation would be observed along a 100 mile axis from Rockville (favored for sleet) to Upper Marlboro (favored for freezing rain/rain).

Sleet is not freezing rain and these guys know the difference. The botch was so obvious that I think it was intentional. Just don't know why.

Newsflash: Serious women in the early 20s don't date

An odd piece of pseudo-journalism in the Post this morning. It is a story in the Style section that outlines how women in their early 20s today have a strong aversion to emotional ties. This article has a very Cosmo sort of feel to it - snippets of "insights" from nameless women layered amongst the writer's own therapy issues.

Anyways, this article talks about how hooking up is now the preferred way to spend time with men and that dating, for serious women in their early 20s, is dead. Deader than a doornail.

The "insights" that confirm this?
1. Romance is a waste of time, it takes effort and is generally annoying (this is an amalgam of insightful quotes)
(If these women are this jaded in their early 20s, they may overtake the Castro queens (in terms of bitterness) by their early 40s).

2. Confessing love implies weakness.
Insights: I'm just a weepy girl who relies on someone. I want to be independent and I want to love someone and need him but that is contradictory. I don't want to give into love because I am scared he won't call me. I will be heartbrokedn and then feel like a stupid girl that should have known better.

3. Love is distrating to higher and more important goals.
Insight: She didn't see how she could afford to invest time, energy and emotion in a loving relationship during the busy senior year of her life.

To be fair, there is a bunch of quotes from "experts" on the benefits of dating.

But I am disturbed that this sort of slavish devotion to goals is somehow held up as a virtue. And that dating during the early 20s is some sort of antiquted notion for the frivolous underclasses. This article should be expanded into a wonderful parody of what young, serious women thought that "wimmin's lib" meant and where they got it wrong. That would be both funny and revealing.

This article is almost an affront to those women in their early 20s who do choose to date (in the traditional sense) and who do not view their vaginas as another mouth to feed. This can be summed up as: "Serious women do not have time for men's non-sense when there are goals to be met". But in this twisted universe, a quick hook-up is fine to fill the occasional need for intimacy (read: periodic weakness). And they try to validate this garbage by talking about how many goals they have and how much there is to do and blah blah blah. These women are suffering from: "age-appropriate dating nihilism"

These women, who are so goal driven in college, are going to emerge as empty voids. In the mid-20s, these voids will be watching Friends re-runs every night at 7pm after going to the gym and eating low-fat diets and bringing work home so they can be "taken seriously", or even better - going to "professional school" to become a Woman of Consequence. These voids will actually address reality at 28 and become fantastically horrible creatures upon their 30th birthday when no one has married them. And why would any reasonable guy marry any of these shrews? The guy would become her pawn to meet the goal of "married at 30" and then promptly discarded as the first serious battle in the marriage (i.e. who is going to take care of the spawn). These sham marriages (if the women actually does capture some poor unsuspecting guy) are not because of love - but because of "The Goal".

Can you imagine the bitter creature that will come out of the divorced chrysalis?

I would find it interesting for the journalist to ask these goal-driven women in their early 20s the following: "How do you envision managing a serious relationship with a man who (because of the woman's ego) will also be goal oriented and motivated?" "And why is that such an unworthy goal?"

The answer to that would be the "insight".

Ping Ping Ping

Above is a gorgeous picture of the newly formed low pressure off of the NC coast. It is beginning to develop the comma shape of a classic nor'easter. Note the clear line across Virginia which is a nice delineation of the precipitation on the backside.

This storm is going to be big for downeast Maine and Eastern Massachusetts. The temperature here in DC has dropped throughout the night and the temperature differences (which power these storms) is dramatic.

At 3am it was 26 at Reagan (and strong North wind) and it is 61 in Norfolk VA (which had a strong southerly wind). That wind in Norfolk has turned to the NW meaning that the low is now offshore (5 am). The barometric pressure in DC has dropped almost 0.8 inches of Hg in 18 hours and stands around 29.5 inches and still dropping.

Across the local area, the temps vary from 23 at Dulles to 33 at Annapolis which is a pretty good spread. The heaviest of the preciptation is just about over and we may have some snow showers in the morning.

I went out to get the paper and the steps (facing north) are covered in wind driven sleet. Looks like 1.5 inches of sleet here in Takoma which is on top of 1-2 inches of snow/ice from earlier on Tuesday.

Be sure to shovel the sleet quickly or it will turn to a hard, thick sheet of ice on the first sunny day (and it will be below freezing until Saturday) - it takes much longer to melt sleet than snow so this will be around for awhile.

Be safe and enjoy the snow day!

State of the Movement

Achtung Gay Bloggers!

Our fearless leaders at HRC will be having a little town hall meeting next week.

Date: Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Time: 7 p.m.

Place: HRC HQ (1640 Rhode Island Ave NW)

Moderator: Sean Bugg (Metro Weekly)

Panelists: Chris Barron (Log Cabin Republicans), Herndon Davis (National Black Justice Coalition), Matt Foreman (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force), Mara Keisling (National Center for Transgender Equality), Joe Solmonese (HRC), Pam Spaulding ("Pam's House Blend" Weblog)

Title: State of the movement: A community forum

The Deep Thought: Where does the GLBT community go from here? GLBT leaders talk about the issues and challenges facing the community and answer your questions.

This would be a great opportunity for the DC gay bloggers to get together and ask some questions and get some new content....hope to see you there!

Weatherwoof and Gene Queen

Nice pic of Weatherwoof (The Barometer) and Gene Queen (Me) from Jimbo's pre-Blowoff party.

In other news, I am wearing all black today and am in mourning for my snow storm gone bad. I want it to rain now, just plain old rain. What I fear is that we will end up with a messy ice storm and then no power for a week. Note it will be in the low teens for lows Wednesday night and Thursday night. I'm mad at WOODY! right now. My crush on the weather guy took on a whole new layer of complexity with this wintry mess - WOODY! you and I are going to have some tough times ahead if this keeps up....

Favre!

For Jimbo! A hottie cheesehead.

Beefcake!!!

I think this would be a hit a Blowoff.

Nice look

Nice stance.

The Winter Storm Rollercoaster

Winter time storms are like a three play act.

Act I develops the plot (a snowstorm cometh) during the progression of the act and it will end on a high note (that would have been Saturday night with forecasts of all snow and over a foot accumulation). Note I looked like the guy on the right on Sunday morning

Act II sees the situation become more complex (wintry mess forecasted yesterday) and that forecast becoming more dire towards the end of the act when the play is at its nadir. We are currently witnessing this low point now with the "slush from the sky" forecast (which means that nobody knows what is going to happen, but they will err on the side of caution). Today I look like the guy on the left.

Act III is going to be played out Tuesday. Snow will change to sleet (I don't see freezing rain this far north - that usually happens in a different set-up (too much cold air is here so I think it will be a mess of sleet, snow pellets and snow) - and the bright light will be when the storm wraps up and draws down the cold air and slings the moisture back onto shore when we will get a nice burst of snow.

Think of what is going to happen as a winter sandwich. Snow on the bottom, some icy crap in the middle and a nice layer of snow on top. It is a good thing that there will be no freezing rain - with the amount of precip we are going to see, if it was freezing rain there would be no power for weeks. Having grown up in NC where we have alot of ice, it is ugly to look at and makes for a very cold house.

I'm going to stick with 8+ inches for the northern and western burbs, DC will be the transition (also is a urban heat island which holds down accumulations) so 6 inches of snow and ice, and the eastern burbs (Bowie and Upper Marlboro) out to the Bay will be under 4 inches with alot more ice.

My offer for a free dinner for Andrew Sullivan

I really like Andrew Sullivan's shirt in this pic.

I would like to offer Andrew Sullivan a free dinner. Nora, the Palm, wherever. And for a poor scientist, this is a fair piece of my meager salary. But I want to have dinner to listen. Jimbo told me today during our weekend pump-up that he likes Andrew. I, however, would like to listen to where Andrew is coming from. I understand it would be an imposition, but as a scientist, I realized that I am not being fair in my opinion and need to gather more data. The bribe of a free dinner and two very open ears for Andrew is a paltry offer, but it would be an opportunity for me to clear up some of where he is coming from.

1. Post-AIDS: I wanted to see what Andrew's thoughts are on vaccine development. I participated in a Merck-sponsored trial in Sacramento during grad school - it was a very meaningful event and hopefully not a waste of my time. I want to know if we are indeed in a post-AIDS world. Big pharma spends so much on advertising and the "management strategies" of retrovirals while spending far less on vaccine development. I know this is a slippery issue since an HIV vaccine is not trivial and big pharma has to make a profit. But we are not in the mid-90s - what is the role of big pharma and government science in the current situation?

2. Virtually Normal: What is the role of gay Americans to assimilate to the values of heterosexual America? Is gay marriage a realistic option and, as an extension, what is the state of heterosexual marriage now? I don't know the right choice for gays, is there an answer or is it a morass? But what is a realistic goal for the average gay American to form a partnership in the current atmosphere? And what does the gay majority vote for to effect change?

3. HIV and the gaylings: When young gays want to get "seeded" and HIV/AIDS is marketed as a version of diabetes (i.e. a chronic but managable condition), what does the gay establishment tell the average gayling? What are the choices in this age of crystal meth, Viagra, and the appearance of non-lethality?

4. Mary Cheney: What on earth do we, the gay majority, do with this? She is playing both sides against the middle. How does the gay establishment, and the gay middle class, handle an insider who is not an ally for our drive for political equivalence? Do we throw her under the bus as a pariah? What is her role in the current political discourse when she insists that her fetus is merely a child, and not a political football?

5. 2008: Do the gays, using the existing infrastructure, unite in the primaries to throw our voting weight and monies into this formative deomcratic stage to select a candidate? Do we support the Breck Girl, Obama, Hillary or the more peripheral candidates? The primaries have very low representation (relatively speaking) with very significant consequences (to wit: John Kerry in 2004) and what power should the gay vote hold in the primaries?

6. Education: Should the gay organizations move towards a more education-centric goal in the near term? Private corporations see the value in gay workers and these market-based changes in benefits and person-to-person interactions at work have effected change at an individual level in tandem with the "liberal press". Should the gay majority focus on making sure that every homo who needs monies for education get it and advertise it widely? Is it a viable option or is it a bottomless pit?

7. Grass roots targeting of local elections: See next post for more. Should the gay organizations recalibrate their efforts at the local level? Should mobilization of the local gays and their votes and monies be a priority in the near term?


I do hope one of my readers can forward this onto Andrew if they have a direct route (I lack it at this moment). Free dinner (the bribe) and a chance to get some insight (the goal) would be ideal. I firmly believe the gay community and organizing activists are going in the wrong direction. I would like to talk about a role in effecting change (if viable) and get some feedback.