Remembering a September Morning

(The following is an updated repost  of an entry from Sept. 11th, 2011)

Today the media, and the blogposphere will undoubtedly be full of all sorts of remembrances and commentary around what is the 15th  anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.

To be honest I really don't like to dwell on the topic. Not out of any sense of personal pain, but more out of respect, for those people I know who were far closer to the events of that day than I was. My experience that day was a somewhat surreal one.

I had gotten up very early and caught a flight from Chicago Midway to Houston. I was heading there for work. It was about 20 minutes into the flight, the seat belt sign had just turned off, and people where shifting about, getting comfortable. I had just pulled out my laptop to work on the presentation I was going to be giving later that day. Suddenly the seat belt sign came back on, and the crew announced that everyone was to return to their seats and prepare for landing, the flight would be returning to Chicago.

The Pilot then came on the speaker system to say that there was nothing wrong with the plane, and we were returning to Chicago because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had ordered the flight to return to "clear air traffic". He said that was all the information they had, and he apologized for the inconvenience.

Everyone on the plane thought the same thing. (Not terrorism.) Chicago Midway had upgraded to a new Air Traffic Control System earlier in the Summer and a few weeks prior, there had been a series of glitches that had delayed several flights.  Everyone groaned, made comments about "Government Efficiency" assuming it was yet another problem with Midway's system that was going to mess up  our day.

This  assumption that was bolstered when the captain came back on the loudspeaker  and announced  that we were not returning to Midway but rather we were diverted to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The woman sitting next to me was happy about this thinking at least it might be easier to get on the next flight out to Houston. I nodded, and said "I hope so", thinking of how I might salvage the rest of my schedule that day and make my afternoon meetings on time.

It took us about 30 minutes of circling over O'Hare before we could land. Sitting in a window seat I watched as the line of planes waiting to land stretched to the far horizon and oddly enough, no planes were taking off. I commented on this to the woman next to me, and she said "wow Midway's systems must be really screwed up!" I laughed and said that what we get for Ronald Reagan having fired all the good Air Traffic Controllers. She laughed and said she had forgotten about that.

We landed and had to wait an additional 20 minutes to get a gate. but finally pulled up to a jetway , and we all lumbered off the plane into the gate area I was getting annoyed because people were not clearing the area in front of the door but were all standing around the televisions that were tuned to the CNN Airport Network. I was about to say a loud "excuse me!" when I happened to look up at the TV and saw CNN  replay footage from ABC of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

CNN then cut to live shot of a column of smoke and ash where the World Trade Center Towers were supposed to be, but weren't. I called my office and my boss told me not to come in, The area in downtown Chicago around the Sears Tower was being evacuated. I called my parents and let them know I was not in Houston, got on the CTA Blue Line and went home.   The rest of that day I did what most Americans did, watched the news, and when the images became overwhelming, I put on my roller blades and went blading along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

It was brilliant sunny day. One of those late Summer, early Fall days that you get in Chicago that make you appreciate what a beautiful city it is. As I stopped at Oak Street Beach and admired the downtown Chicago skyline, I didn't think that somehow the "world had changed". But rather I found myself thinking how the United States had  sadly, finally  joined the rest of the world.

Before that that morning, Terrorism was something that happened in other places, Israel, Lebanon London, Belfast , places far away. Even the first World Trade Center bombing for many people, didn't seem like international terrorism. After all, the people responsible were caught when they tried to get the deposit back on the rental van they had used. (How sinister could people that dumb be?)    That is what changed I think, it was the moment America lost the illusion that somehow our two oceans would keep us safe from global terrorism.

For friends of mine who lived in New York on that day,  I understand  that  today  is a much different  experience for them.   A good friend of mine is  a New York City Police Officer  who  lost an arm in the attack that day.   Another friend of mine worked  for an investment bank housed in the  North Tower,  she had a doctors appointment so she didn't go into work  that morning.   For her, today  is a reminder of  the  friends and co-workers  she lost  that day.

For the numerous friends of mine who have served, and currently serve in both Afghanistan and Iraq with the American and British Armed Forces, they deal with the effects September 11, 2001 on a far different level than most people ever will.

So this evening, as many Londoners and ex-pats attend the 9-11 memorial service at Westminster Abbey , people all over the world will remember the events of that day, pray for those who were lost, and show solidarity and support for friends and family for whom this anniversary is far more personal than political.

God Bless America, God bless us all.

Donald Trump on Immigration - We have seen this before...

MSNBC's  Rachael Maddow  gives  what may well be the best , and most accurate analysis of how we got to this place.  Where an emotionally unstable,  racist sociopath  is the Republican Presidential nominee.

Gene Wilder, 1933-2016

from BBC News:

Gene Wilder's distinctive looks helped him create roles that he made his own.

His performances combined sentimentality, comedy and suppressed rage, often veering between idiocy and apoplexy. Films such as Young Frankenstein, Silver Streak and The Producers established him as one of Hollywood's top comedy talents.

But behind the corkscrew hair, the bulging organ-stop eyes and the twitchy mannerisms, lay a much gentler, more reflective individual.

He was born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 11, 1933.   He later described his childhood as "sane but disturbed" and was always drawn to acting by the "chance to be someone else".

When he was eight years old, Wilder's mother had a heart attack Her doctor took the confused child to one side and told him: "Don't ever get angry with her, you might kill her." He turned to leave and added: "You can make her laugh, though."

For years Wilder harboured the belief that any harsh words would end his mother's life.

His parents sent him to a military school in Hollywood where, as the only Jewish boy, he recalled the bullying that made his life a misery. He quickly returned home where he became involved with the local theatre, making his first public performance at the age of 15 in a production of Romeo and Juliet.

He took a course in Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa before moving to England to pursue his studies with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He felt stifled by his acting lessons in Britain, but became the first American to win the English Schools Fencing Championship. He admitted he had always worshipped Errol Flynn.

In 1956 he was drafted into the US Army where he found himself posted as an aide in a psychiatric ward, helping to administer electro-shock therapy to patients. On his discharge, he went back to acting, having changed his name to Gene Wilder, partly, he later said, because he could not imagine a Jerry Silberman being asked to play Hamlet.

He also became an outspoken critic of the US involvement in Vietnam and would later oppose the invasion of Iraq.

In 1961, he had a small part in a production of Arnold Wesker's Roots and made his Broadway debut as the comic valet in The Complaisant Lover. His breakthrough came in 1963, when he starred alongside Anne Bancroft in a Broadway production of Bertolt Brech's play, Mother Courage and Her Children. 

Bancroft was then dating her future husband, Mel Brooks, who invited Wilder to look at a screenplay provisionally entitled Springtime for Hitler. At the time, Brooks lacked the money to turn it into a film so, in the event, Wilder's first cinema role was that of Eugene Grizzard, the undertaker captured by Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 gangster film.

A year later Brooks finally began casting The Producers. Wilder's role as the neurotic accountant brought him his first Oscar nomination in 1968, for Best Supporting Actor.Wilder was liberated by the spontaneity of Brooks's direction and the pair enjoyed an extremely successful partnership.

In 1971, he gave a tour de force performance as Willy Wonka in the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel. Wilder stipulated that he would not take the role unless Wonka's opening scene saw him pretending to be crippled and leaning on a cane. It became one of the film's most memorable moments as Wilder halts, tumbles forward then leaps back on to his feet.

"I knew that from then on," Wilder says, "the audience wouldn't know if I was lying or telling the truth."

In Woody Allen's 1972 comedy Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Wilder played a doctor who was in love with a sheep.

Wilder was reunited with Brooks for the 1974 spoof Western Blazing Saddles, and the inspired lunacy of his trigger-happy Waco Kid, burnt out at 29, helped create a worldwide hit. In the same year Young Frankenstein brought him and Brooks another Oscar nomination, this time for screenwriting.

He spoke of an almost "telepathic rapport" with Richard Pryor, and the comic duo blundered their way through a series of films, including Silver Streak in 1976 and Stir Crazy in 1980.

"I have an affinity with people who've had a tough time in their lives," he later said

When Pryor's ill health prevented his appearing again with Wilder in Hanky Panky in 1982, the part was rewritten for the doyenne of the Saturday Night Live line-up, Gilda Radner. She became Wilder's third wife and occasional co-star, but died of ovarian cancer in May 1989.

 Radner had been misdiagnosed in the 10 months before her death and, for the next five years, Wilder channelled his energy into saving "the hundreds of other Gildas out there".

In 1990, he established a Los Angeles cancer detection centre in her name, and even went to Congress to speak out for early medical screening for women at risk. Gilda's Clubs sprang up all over America.

Wilder married again in 1991, and later returned to performing. For two years, he starred in the NBC sitcom Something Wilder and, in 1996, made his London stage debut in Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor. He continued to act, notably appearing as the Mock Turtle in a star-studded US TV version of Alice in Wonderland, but he was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the limelight.

"I don't like show business, I realised," he explained on a Turner Television tribute. "I like show, but I don't like the business."

He was scathing about 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Warner Bros remake of Willy Wonka, describing it as a money-making exercise. The same year he published a very personal account of his life, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.

Over the following seven years he published three novels, My French Whore, The Woman Who Wouldn't and, in 2013, Something to Remember You By: A Perilous Romance.

For all the vicissitudes he suffered in his personal life, the boy who kept his mother alive with his funny voices succeeded in conveying his own quirky brand of humour to millions of others.

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The world is a sadder  and darker place without Gene Wilder...

Meanwhile... over in Damage Control-Land

While Donald Trump and Nigel Farage had their little " We love to hate" fest down in Mississippi, over on MSNBC,   Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway  (one week into her new job) was trying valiantly to contain the dumpster fire that is her candidate.

Clearly this  is Kellyanne's  role. To go on television and pretend  everything Donald Trump has said and done while running for President up to this point, never happened.       

In a digital age, where everything Conway would like to simply sweep under the rug is there to see and hear,  that is  pretty tall order.

Good Luck with that Kellyanne...

Donald Trump & Nigel Farage - Two Racist Peas in a Pod.

From the "birds of a feather, flocking together department..."(Via the Huffington Post )

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JACKSON, Miss. - Nigel Farage, a key figure in the successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, lent his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump represented the same type of anti-establishment movement that he masterminded in his own country.

Farage appeared with Trump before a cheering crowd of thousands at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Farage partly based his Brexit drive on opposition to mass immigration to Britain that he said was leading to rapid change in his country. Trump summoned Farage on stage in the middle of his appearance, shook his hand and surrendered the microphone to him.

“I cannot possibly tell you how you should vote in this election. But you know I get it, I get it. I’m hearing you. But I will say this, if I was an American citizen I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me,” Farage said.
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Now for those of you outside the UK who may not be familiar with Nigel, and his political Party , UKIP (The UK Independence Party);   Ukip is part of the group Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD). The group includes representatives of the Danish People’s Party, the True Finns Party, the Dutch SGP and the infamous Italian Lega Nord – all of them far-right. Nigel Farage is co-President of the group along with Lega Nord’s Francesco Speroni, who described multiple murderer Anders Breivik as someone whose “ideas are in defence of western civilisation."

Mario Borghezio, another member of the group, declared in a radio interview that Breivik had some "excellent" ideas. Farage’s reaction was to write a strongly-worded letter to Borghezio, asking him to withdraw his comments or Ukip would pull out of the EFD. Borghezio not only did not apologize, but responded with an extraordinary speech in which he raged: "Long live the Whites of Europe, long live our identity, our ethnicity, our race… our blue sky, like the eyes of our women. Blue, in a people who want to stay white."

Nigel Farage did not withdraw from the EFD. He continues to co-preside over it, along with the leader of the Lega Nord.

Last May, during a Pre-Brexit radio appearance on London's main talk radio station,   The UKIP leader endured a 'car-crash' interview as radio presenter James O'Brien quizzed him over racism, expenses and his party's links to far-right European politicians  prompting the party's director of communications to step in and try to bring the interview to a halt.

Like  his new BFF Donald Trump,  whenever Farage is confronted with his Party's clear racist  and far right extremist ties,  he  (wait for it...)  blames the media!    So is it really any surprise that this is who Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential Nominee invites on stage to speak at a nationally televised campaign rally.  

Birds of a feather indeed...

The Latest Episode of: "What Donald meant was..."

One of the things supporters of Donald Trump cite as reasons for supporting him is; “He tells it like it is!” and “He means what he says!”. Yet never before in modern American history has a campaign and political party had to spend so much time clarifying how what their candidate “really meant” is different from what he actually said.

The latest episode of  “Donald Trump said what?!?” comes to us from a rally yesterday in North Carolina, where the Republican nominee suggested the  way to prevent  Hillary Clinton from appointing judges should she be elected President,   would be that “2nd Amendment people” might have a way to stop her.

The reaction on both sides of the political spectrum has been swift and fairly predictable.  Sane people are horrified and crazy  people and their apologists are blaming everybody BUT Donald Trump for the controversy.  The New York Daily News  devoted its entire front page to calling for Trump to either end his campaign,  or for the GOP to finally walk away from him,  (Good luck with that...)

But  all of that really is not the issue.  Also the issue isn't did Donald Trump mean somebody should shoot Hillary Clinton, because clearly he didn't mean that..   But the fact remains,  he SAID that, and he said that knowing full well that  it could be interpreted as such.

Here is the reality of Donald Trump,  he said it because he thought it would sound good. He said it because he thought the crowd there would like it.  There was no thought process beyond that.  He gave no thought  as to would it be a wise thing to say or an appropriate thing say, or even a potentially dangerous thing to say.  Donald Trump's  train of thought never makes it that far down the track.

We are now in a time when  there is no point in asking if this latest episode of the Trump un-reality show will be too much for the Republican Party to bear.  It's not.   The fact is the GOP has decided that this is who they are, and the real tragedy is, they are right.  This really IS who they are, and what they have become.

Trump is the political equivalent of the guy in a youtube clip who,  moments before the totally predictable,  horrible accident, turns to his buddies and says "hold my beer  while I try sumthin..."   He is what it would look like if  MTV's  Jackass  was  political campaign.  

Donald Trump is not stupid,  he just can't be bothered to think any of this through.

I'll say it again, Donald Trump is not stupid.   Donald Trump,  is a fool.   Like most fools,  he will do and say foolish, reckless, dangerous  and profoundly stupid things, with no thought to any potential consequences;   simply for the short term gratification of  being  the center of attention.

Like most fools,  he will make make mindbogglingly bad decisions, without a moment's hesitation, if those bad choices feed his ego.   If  anything bad does happen  as a result,  like most fools he will contort himself  incoherently  and attempt  to blame anyone and anything but himself.

So,  I have to ask my Republican friends one simple question;    Have you ever watched  Star Wars?

Donald Trump reportedly asked "Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

Republicans...   Have you completely lost your minds???  Stop this insanity NOW.

Watch: What are some major concerns about Trump's handling of national security? Hayden and #morningjoe weigh in. https://t.co/FyFoSmJlJI

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) August 3, 2016

Mocking Gold Star Families - What the Trump GOP has become...

During the last night of the Democratic National Convention there was an incredibly moving speech by Khizr Khan, the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 in the Iraq war. All the major networks except one, showed Khan's remarks in full. Can you guess which one didn't?

From Media Matters:

Fox News ignored a speech by the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 in the Iraq war, instead opting to air commercials during the speech. Fox later went live to a song by pop singer Katy Perry after the speech.

During the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA, Khizr Khan spoke about the honor he felt to be present at the convention with his wife, “as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.” Khan’s speech was preceded by a video that showed Hillary Clinton calling Captain Khan “the best of America” and explaining the circumstances of his death, for which he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Not only did Fox keep it's panel of pundits talking over  the speech, but then  they  cut to a commercial from a Donald Trump super-pac that uses  the terrorist attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.  Clearly  there was an editorial decision made at FOX that the speech didn't fit  their anti-Muslim, pro-Trump narrative.

 If that wasn't enough, there was this response, during the speech, from Conservative celebrity and Donald Trump enthusiast Ann Coulter.

The first tweet referenced a speech by respected CNN and Washington Post Journalist Fareed Zakaria, (whose name Coulter  apparently couldn't spell...), and the second  was Coulter's usual inability to contain her own racism  and insulted Captain Khan's mother.

This is what the Republican Party and  American conservative movement has become.  A pathetic gaggle of internet trolls who are so consumed by racism and bigotry that they attack a Gold Star family  because of their faith.

In case you missed it,  THIS is what FOX News was determined not to show their viewers, and what sub-human gargoyle, Ann Coulter was attacking..

Republicans,  if you have any, and I mean ANY sense of decency, love of country or respect for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation;  You will vote for Hillary Clinton in November,  this is no longer an election, it is an intervention.

The Republican Party we saw on display last week in Cleveland Ohio, the Party of Donald Trump and Ann Coulter, is an affront to everything our nation stands for.    It is cancerous growth on our Republic and must be removed. 

Okay, I Get it... You Don't Like Hillary.

I get it, you don’t like her…

You “feel” she is dishonest, you say she lied, (about what exactly, you never actually specify…but I get it..) Setting aside the fact that she is the most investigated Presidential candidate in American history, by both the Media, and her political opponents.

Setting aside Millions of Dollars and hours of government resources have been spent repeatedly investigating her and had found no crimes, ever. Setting aside that she sat and testified for 11 hours about a tragedy that happened on her watch, and yet the men whose lies took  America into the war that created the terrorists responsible for that tragedy,  have never even been questioned under oath.

Setting all that aside… I get it, you don’t like her.

Setting aside the fact that there has been an entire cable news network that for the last twenty years has been near singularly dedicated to accusing her (with no evidence or proof whatsoever) of everything from bad fashion sense, to first degree murder. Setting aside the fact that she is the most experienced and qualified candidate to seek the Presidency in a generation. Setting aside the fact that she is held to a standard of public transparency and critique that NO male candidate for the same office, has ever been held to…

Settling all that aside… I get it, you don’t like her.

I know you feel Bernie was robbed, and you know what? He wasn’t. I have a news flash for you . The overwhelming majority of American voters don’t do what the DNC subliminally tells them to. Hillary Clinton won more votes. It’s not a rigged system it is math. Even without “Super-delegates” (Which we all agree are stupid and are now being reformed, thanks to Senator Sanders…) She still would be the nominee, because (again.. math,) she won the most delegates.

Setting ALL that aside…. I get it, You don’t Like Hillary Clinton

I know you feel both parties are part of a rigged system that deliberately excludes third and more parties. You are right. It does, and you are correct in saying it is wrong. But guess what? There is no way whatsoever that this system,( rigged against the Libertarians and Greens though it may be), is going to change in the next 84 days between now, and first week of November.  So the reality is, neither Gary Johnson or Jill Stein have a snowballs chance in hell of winning the election, assuming even they are able to get on the ballot in all 50 states.   

So like it or not the choice is between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Who, I get it… You don’t like. ) But it doesn’t change the fact that, these are your choices. 4 years (at minimum) of President Clinton or President Trump. Where there will be at the very least one, if not two or more appointments the United States Supreme Court, in addition to the current vacancy. 

I know you tend to tune out when people talk about the Supreme Court, because it is very abstract. But as you apparently are willing to accept at least 4 years of a Trump/Pence administration, you should at least be intellectually honest about that means in real life terms.

The following are taken directly from the 2016 Republican Party Platform:

Appoint anti-choice Supreme Court justices:

"Only a Republican president will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia.”

Appoint anti-LGBT and anti-Obamacare justices:

“Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the long line of activist decisions — including Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have usurped Congress’s and states’ law-making authority.”

Legalize anti-LGBT discrimination:

"We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which will bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Make Christianity a national religion:

"We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country's Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities."

Privatize Medicare, the health plan for seniors:

“Impose no changes for persons 55 years of older. Give others the option of traditional Medicare or transition to a premium-support model designed to strengthen patient choice, promote cost-saving competition among providers."

Support traditional marriage but no other families:

"Children raised in a two-parent household tend to be physically and emotionally healthier, more likely to do well in school, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, engage in crime or become pregnant outside of marriage. We oppose policies and laws that create a financial incentive for or encourage cohabitation."

I could go on and on.   This stuff  is just the tip of the right wing fundamentalist iceberg. But I hear you cry that Trump, really doesn’t believe all that far right claptrap, so we don’t have to worry about it! So…. You are saying Trump is lying when he says he supports the GOP platform “100 Percent”. Funny, I thought it was because she was liar you didn’t like Hillary?

Then there is the fact that Donald Trump has already indicated he cant be bothered with the day to day aspects of being President. All that stuff he plans to farm out to the Vice President, while he is busy “Making American Great Again”

From the New York Times:

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio… according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

So it is not an unreasonable assumption to make, that it is a Vice President,  Mike Pence who will essentially be picking who fills any vacancies on not just the Nation’s highest court, but up down the federal judiciary.  Where you may like to think Trump doesn’t really believe the right wing stuff in the GOP Platform , you can be sure Pence is a true believer, and he will want the populate the federal bench with like-minded gargoyles

Setting aside all the other issues we could talk about, like immigration , climate change, consumer protection, or the fact that a Trump / Pence supreme court would issue rulings that make Citizen’s United look like child play. Let’s just take one issue; Donald Trump has pledged that, if elected, he would appoint justices who would reverse the landmark Supreme Court decision establishing marriage equality nationwide. "It has been ruled upon. It has been there. If I’m elected I would be very strong in putting certain judges on the bench that maybe could change things, but they have a long way to go," he said on Fox News Sunday. "I disagree with the court in that it should have been a states' rights issue.

I get it, you don’t like Hillary Clinton, but how do you feel about me? 

Because voting for Donald Trump, or voting in a way just to vote against Hillary Clinton, you are either way, voting FOR Trump, Mike Pence and the entire GOP platform. Which in turn is a full throttle commitment to use the power of government to dissolve my marriage, and declare that discrimination against me in  public accommodation is a protected form of Religious expression.

In very real and practical terms you are voting to put my civil rights up to a public vote, and even if that vote in your state says I should have equal rights, discrimination against me in employment, housing or any other sort of public accommodation should be perfectly legal, if someone feels their “God” thinks Gay people are icky.

But I get it, the fact you “feel” you can’t trust Hillary is waaaayy more important than my being able to one day move back to the US with my Spouse,  or my having the same civil rights as you ... I get it, the fact that a Trump Presidency would do untold damage to our nation’s economy, global standing, national security, and environment is just the price we need to pay to give the Libertarian Party a serious shot at 2020!

I get it, the fact that women’s reproductive rights, minority voting rights, and consumer protection rights and access to affordable health care for millions of Americans will all be wiped away in the first year of a Trump Administration isn’t nearly as important as showing you didn’t “Sell out the Revolution!” and were not co-opted by the party machine!

So by all means, “be unsure” of whether or not you can “bring yourself to vote for her”. I get it… you don’t like her…. Or lots of other Americans either, ...apparently,

Donald Trump's Fairy Tale Moment...

Maybe it was a sixth sense that something truly awful was happening… But around 3 am here in London I found myself wide awake, wrestling with a bout of acid re-flux and insomnia. So I got up, quietly made my way down the hall from the bedroom to the living room and turned on CSPAN.

The stage was set in  ALL CAPS glory with “TRUMP! “emblazoned in larger than life letters above a wall of American flags. After a graceful and well spoken introduction by his daughter, "The Donald" came out. Soaking up the adulation of assembled masses of Republican National Convention delegates.     Clearly savoring the moment, Donald Trump smiled, and began his speech, accepting  the Republican Party's  Presidential Nomination.

After watching  the speech,  my first impulse was to sit down at this keyboard and  write a massive, detailed point-by-point rebuttal  of everything Trump said last night that was either an out and out lie or at best, wildly contorted half truths taken deliberately out of context.    But you know what?   It doesn't matter.  

 The past three days, watching the sad, very very angry spectacle that was the 2016 GOP convention, one thing has become all too clear;    People who support Donald Trump for President of the United States don't care that he is lying.    The reason is  very simple,  they like the lies.    The lies affirm their world view and confirm their beliefs.     

The victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary is the culmination of the shift  of the Republican Base away from facts.  Well, OK,  not all facts.  But away from ANY facts or information that doesn't support their existing view point.   When confronted with facts that contradict those views they simply ignore them, if  facts don't match the talking points, they simply don't exist,  or are part of an "elitist  conspiracy" to discredit their point of view, obviously.

This isn't new. What we saw this week in Cleveland is just the end result of what has been happening on the American Political right since 2008.

For the GOP base, if you believe President Obama is a foreign born Muslim, even his actual birth certificate will never convince you .  It must be a fake, because your belief in the Birther conspiracy  is more important to you than the truth,  so you can never accept the fact that the President of the United States is an American, born in Hawaii and a practicing Christian.    

For the GOP base the talking point that both the deficit and national debt  have "skyrocketed" under President Obama is so sacrosanct  as to even defy Math. The fact that the numbers prove otherwise simply doesn't matter,  "Math clearly has a "liberal bias".  

Likewise If you believe the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was the result of  "Hillary Clinton hating America", and was the worst attack on Americans since Pearl Harbor,  there is no amount of facts or logic  that will dissuade you of that notion.  Even nine Republican led investigations, clearing Clinton of any negligence isn't credible to you .  They all must have clearly been co-opted by  "The Clinton Machine".

Unemployment must be up, (it is down). Violent Crime must be on the rise (it isn't, it has fallen).   America clearly IS the highest taxed nation in the world (actually No, we rank 30th out of 34 industrialized  nations).  

I could go on and on but  why?    If you really want to see for yourself the Washington Post has an excellent fact check of Trump's speech here.     But what's the point?  Trump voters  have no interest in reality. 

Last night has shown the world, that in 2016,   the Republican Party has adopted  willful and aggressive ignorance,  as their overarching  political ideology. 

The New York Times is reporting that should he be elected, Donald Trump plans to hand all responsibility for  domestic and foriegn policy off to  his Vice President, and his role would be, (according to his son) simply to "Make America Great Again".  

"One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. ... according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply."

Did you catch that? Let's be clear here, because this is important. If you are voting for Donald Trump this November, you are voting to elect Mike Pence as essentially  American Prime Minister with Trump as some sort of ceremonial head of state / constitutional monarch.

Friends of mine on both sides of the Atlantic have been asking me on a near daily basis what I think is going to happen come November.   They  nervously point  out that no one expected Trump to get this far, and ask me to seriously handicap the possibility of a Trump victory in Novmember.

I take a deep breath, and remind them that winning the GOP nomination and winning the General election are two very different things.  I dutifully point them to Nate Silver's careful and detailed  assessment, of polls, voter demographics, social and economic trends.  All of which give Trump about a 20 to 25 percent chance of winning.    Honestly though,  who knows?   I would like think that the great mass of the American electorate sees Donald Trump for exactly what he is;  A narcissistic sociopath  with delusions of political grandeur.     

Which then begs the question, of those who are voting for Donald Trump.  Why? If you are a Trump voter, I can only surmise that you clearly have decided that facts do not matter,  and you want to see Trump  set fire to American democracy,  just to watch it burn. 

No plans,  no policies  other than banning all Muslims and building a wall.   No answers other than "believe me, it will be great!"

 

What the world saw in Cleveland, Ohio last night will either be the death knell of the Republican Party as we have always known it.  Or, the death knell of American Democracy as we have always known it.  Either way,  it  will be the triumph of willful ignorance over common sense.

Hitting the "Mute" Button for a Bit...

Hey there Everyone...

Like so many others, I am going to take a break from Social Media for a bit. I will undoubtedly re-join the great virtual debate a few weeks, but for now, I am just tired.

Tired of hearing people say that mass shootings have nothing to do with Guns. Tired of hearing people say that I have to choose between supporting law enforcement, and the idea that Black Lives matter just a much as everyone else’s.

I am tired of hearing that another deluded madman has gone and killed dozens of innocent people and in doing so perverted and polluted the faith of millions of Muslims around the globe.

I am tired of watching Republican cowards stand idly by while a bloviating, racist idiot, destroys the credibility, viability and legacy of their Party. I am tired of hearing a disgraced serial adulterer man-whore on his third marriage, claim that MY marriage is a threat to America .

So it’s time to hit the “mute” button for a bit. Not indefinitely, but for a week or so. Instead of reading  my news feed and getting a headache, I plan to take my husband’s hand and go for walk. We live in a magnificent city. It’s time to get out and enjoy Summer in London   (Yes we do have Summer here, this year I think it is on a Thursday…)

That way I will be refreshed and recharged and ready to comment on what happens next week in Cleveland and two weeks after that in Philadelphia.

Happy Summer everyone.

‪#‎JeSuisÉpuise‬

What to expect next week in Cleveland, Ohio...

Here now,  is an exclusive sneak peak at the 2016 Republican National Convention, in Cleveland, Ohio..

Happy Fourth of July

Wishing all of my fellow Americans, no matter where in the world they may be,  a Happy Independence Day.

BoJo The Clown flees the scene of the mess he helped make...

What is now painfully obvious is... BoJo the Clown's master plan was to back a Leave campaign that would narrowly lose, then stand for Tory Leader, either against a weakened David Cameron or with Cameron's blessing as to "Heal the rift" in the party, and become Prime Minister. While being able to whine and moan about "the overreach of the EU" but not have to actually leave it. Thus having his Euro-cake while being able to still complain about it while he eats it.

It was a cunning plan Black Adder!, He would get to be PM while keeping his Faux Anti- EU bona fides intact..... Yeah, but then anti-migrant hordes he had spent weeks stirring up into a rabid racist frenzy, went and voted.

Well the vote result (leave) torpedoed Boris' master plan real quick and then David Cameron's resignation meant, whoever comes next, owns this particular sh*tstorm the UK now finds itself in. It didn't take long for BoJo to figure out that as PM he would either have to admit his grand pandering lie, and stop the Brexit , or preside over the economic suicide of the UK,

Being the mop haired profile in cowardice that he is.. he has fled from the mess he played a central role in making.

The Canadian Parliament are better Americans than Republicans

There are so may reasons why Barack Obama is an amazing leader and one history will judge as one of America's  greatest Presidents.   The unbelievable, blatant and often borderline  treasonous disrespect  President Obama has suffered at the hands of an infantile, moronic Republican Party in the United States over the last eight years,  stands is clear and sharp contract to how the President of the United States is viewed and received  elsewhere around the world.

Case in Point... Yesterday in Canada.

Broadway stands with Orlando

Wow....

Omar Mateen - The Lethal Impact of Living a Lie?

As more details about the deadly homophobic terror attack in Orlando come to light, one of the more troublesome details is that the shooter, Omar Mateen may have been himself, a Gay man. Witness at the club have told investigators that Mateen was in fact a regular patron of Pulse apparently visiting the club on average once or twice a month over a period of three years.

An article in the Telegraph newspaper in the UK cites friends and family who also claim that Mateen was deeply conflicted about his own sexuality.  

Mateen’s ex-wife, Sifora Yusufiy, has said he alluded to a secret private life before they were married – a marriage arranged online in 2008, which lasted two years.
 

"When we had got married, he confessed to me about his past - that was recent at that time - and that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife," said Ms Yusufiy, who divorced Mateen in 2011 and said he was abusive and unstable.

Others who knew the 29-year-old have described him in less reticent terms.  In 2006 Mateen attempted to join the police. And a colleague in his academy class said he believed Mateen was gay. 

Mateen had asked him out, the classmate, who did not want to be named, told local television in Orlando.    “We went to a few gay bars with him,” he said. “I was not out at the time, so I declined his offer.”

Kevin West said that Mateen had contacted him on gay dating apps, and the pair exchanged messages for around a year. They had never met in person, though, until they crossed paths by chance an hour before the shooting.

These latest revelations raise the question , does any of this matter?  Is, or should, Omar Mateen’s sexual orientation be relevant to how we respond the horrific act of domestic terror he committed?

 It’s a difficult issue. 

It has become something of a modern cliché that public figures who are most vocally anti gay , at some point invariably get exposed as self hating closet cases who have been attacking what they most fear about themselves. Matten’s ex wife went on to tell CNN that his own Father had on more than one occasion publically accused his son of being homosexual.

Public response to these revelations have taken a number of interesting tracks. On the American Taliban wing nut right, there has been honest confusion about how to approach this. They want to give in to their natural instinct to gleefully point out that a mass murder was gay. (Some right wing websites are still flogging the lie that Mateen was Clinton campaign volunteer.)

Yet to do so would get in the way with the right wing talking points that Mateen was a radical islamist hell bent on killing Americans and non-Muslims, and by not focusing on that, President Obama must be sympathetic to the Islamic State.   That desired narrative doesn’t hold up if Mateen, is was in fact, a deeply conflicted, closeted gay man lashing out in a lethal mix of anger and self-loathing. The origins of that self-hatred are frankly, not hard to track.

In recent interviews Mateen’s father has adamantly asserted that his son was not Gay. Coming across in some interviews as being far more concerned that his son might be thought of as Gay, as opposed to being seen as a radical Islamic terrorist. 

Part of the toll, life in the closet takes on people is the constant fear that your "secret" will be discovered. Threats to that secret are always in the front of the mind. People who question your sexuality must be rebuked and marginalized . Psychologists tell of how this can lead to feelings of alienation against "out" LBGT people. A toxic mix of jealousy, envy, fear and anger. 

From the Journal Psychology Today:

There is some evidence to suggest as much. In a study, levels of homophobia were assessed among 64 men along with their sexual arousal (measured by increases in penile circumference) in response to erotic videos of heterosexual, same-sex female, and same-sex male encounters. Those who scored high on homophobia were more likely to also manifest sexual arousal in response to the videos of male homosexual encounters.* In a more recent study it was found that men raised in authoritative households were more likely to repress same-sex attractions and to exhibit more hostility to gay people
 

Emile Griffith, a recently deceased welterweight and middleweight champion, pummeled an opponent to death after he had called him an anti-gay slur, Griffith continuing to punch him in the head well after he had clearly won the fight. Though he denied he was gay or bisexual at that time, later in his life Griffith admitted to having had affairs with several men including a male partner who cared for him up until his death.
 

Add this anecdote to several others including that of right wing politician Larry Craig, who pled guilty to lewd behavior toward other men in an airport bathroom but who also championed anti-gay legislation during his political career, and Ted Haggard, leader of the famously anti-gay National Association of the Evangelicals, who resigned after it was discovered he was engaging male prostitutes.

Richard Ryan, a co-author of the study and psych professor at the University of Rochester, told USA Today; “If you come from a controlling home where your parents do have negative attitudes toward gays and lesbians, you're even more likely to suppress same-sex attraction and more likely to have this discrepancy that leads to having homophobia and feeling threatened.”

Is that what drove Omar Mateen to commit mass murder? Frankly we will never know for certain. Yet the impact that deep seeded messages of hatred and bigotry towards LGBT people may have on those struggling with issues of self identity and acceptance is very real. The research backs up the theory that bullies are often acting out of their own insecurities.

“Some people who are threatened by gays and lesbians and are most vociferous in their opposition to them are suffering internally themselves,” Ryan told USA Today.

When a Baptist Preacher in Northern California posts a video online, enthusiastically  praising the murder of 50  Americans at the Pulse nightclub,  part of me wonders  after  I watched this disgusting video; What is it inside of this person that could drive that that level of vitriol?

To be that hate filled towards people to whom you have no connection with, and whose lives do not impact yours in any way,  is not normal or natural. 

Orlando Thoughts... Remembering my own "Pulse"

I hate doing this….

Every time there is a mass shooting in America I sit down at the keyboard and just want to bang my head against it until the world stops NOT making sense.   But instead I write somber, reflective musings on America’s gun fetish and toll it has taken on the lives of countless numbers of our citizens.  I wax philosophically about the historical context of the 2^nd Amendment and the “intent of the founding fathers”.  Then I usually wrap things up with a call for us to pray for each other and our nation in hopes that things will get better.

Well they haven’t.   In fact they have gotten far worse than any of us could ever have imagined.

I would lying if I said that Sunday’s horrific  mass murder of patrons at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando didn’t strike  me very close to home.     Pulse was  for many of those there that night,  not just a club.  It was a safe space.  By safe I mean it was a place where you could be yourself.   Without fear of being ostracized, fear of  losing your friends and family over the simple fact of who you were.

Many of the commentators covering this story have remarked how perhaps some, of the people in that club were not “out” to their families  and this was the one place where  the fear of being rejected by those who are supposed to be your strongest advocates, was for brief time, lifted off their  shoulders;  and for a few hours you could just be  guy, or a girl dancing with , flirting with just being with another guy or another girl.  A simple social interaction that most straight people never even think twice about.

I remember my own “Pulse”.  A place where as young gay man working through my own coming out process I found friends, a sense of community and camaraderie.     It is a club on Halsted Street in Chicago’s “boystown” neighbourhood called  “Sidetrack”  It is  a large brightly lit bar that shows music videos on a giant screen.     Each night of the week has a theme.  Comedy night, 80’s night, Diva night, etc,   

But  Sunday and Monday nights  were Showtune nights.   When videos from Broadway musicals  played to packed crowd of mostly gay men,  singing along (in harmony) at the top of our lungs.   A tradition I am happy to see carries on there to this day...

I had only recently moved to Chicago  but I soon made a group of friends and Showtune Mondays became our ritual ,  it was the first time in my life I felt part of any sort of LGBT Community.  It was incredibly empowering.  

Down the street from Sidetrack was a wonderfully dingy Piano bar called Gentry.  There  I would make friends with some of the most amazing  people I have ever known..  The glorious Honey West,   the amazing Khris Francis, the  late, great and fabulous Rudy De la Mor  and the late and dearly missed Michael James.   All of them,  powerful LGBT role models.  Who each in their own way,  showed a terrified young gay man that living authentically and honestly was not only the better choice,  it was in fact, the only choice  

Yet never once during all that time in those “safe spaces” did I think that my life might be at risk. That some conflicted, hate filled madman would seek out that space in order to rain chaos and death down on me and my friends.

I am sure none of the people at Pulse last Sunday night thought that either Yet that is exactly what happened to them. Their lives cut brutally short in place that had been a refuge and place they felt was truly theirs.

As the Donald Trumps  of the world shriek hysterically and nonsensically about  “radical islam”,  it is crucial we not lose sight of what really happened in Orlando last Sunday.    It was an act of homophobic terror.    The gunman didn’t target Pulse and the people there because they were American, (so was he)  or because they were Non-muslims  or even because they were in a nightclub    He targeted them because they were Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender.   

This was about killing Gay people   The right wing in America desperately is trying  to spin the reasons   away from that basic truth, because it is their rhetoric  and actions that send clear messages to people like this disturbed gunman that LGBT people are “less than” and therefore killing them isn’t wrong.

The voices of the American Taliban;  The Tony Perkins’, the Bryan Fischers, the  Brian Browns, did not pull the trigger last Sunday night.  Yet their fingerprints are clearly  all over the gun.

So yes,  again,  I hope that we all can pray for the victims,  pray for the survivors, pray for our nation and hope that someday it will get better.

My Annual Response to "Why is LGBT Pride Ok, but Straight Pride isn't?"

It's June... so we all know what that means...

As the rainbow flags go up on Market Street in San Francisco , the annual debate over the merits of LGBT Pride celebrations re-surfaces like a perennial weed that just won't stay down. It's a debate that rages both inside and outside the broader LGBTQ-XYZ123-whatever-else-you-want-to-add-on... community.

Inside the community the question always gets asked ; does some of the imagery of Pride celebrations hurt the cause of equal rights? In addition, this year in the wake of significant legal victories for LGBT rights, especially around Marriage Equality; Some are asking do we even need pride celebrations anymore?   

While outside, critics and opponents love to point to that same imagery as evidence of Gay folks wanting "special rights", and then pull out their favorite chestnut, of asking why are Gay Pride Celebrations acceptable but Straight Pride celebrations are not?

Sigh.... Really? It's like asking why isn't there a "White History Month". I get tired of trying to explain to people who really do know better, but get enamored of Fox News talking points, just how stupid they sound whey they try to make these types of arguments. But fine, since clearly there is some "genuine" confusion out there as to the reason for LGBT Pride celebrations , allow me to clarify.

The number of states in the USA where you can be fired  for  being  Straight = 0
The number of states in the USA where you can be fired for being Gay = 29
Number of countries that will execute you for being Straight = 0
Number of countries that will execute you for being Gay = 10

Growing up, how many books, songs, television programs, and movies did you see that featured straight couples meeting, falling in love and living happily ever after?  Pretty much all of them. Ask someone who is Gay how many positive images in popular culture they had growing up that affirmed who they are? The answer is, none, or at best few, if any at all.

Gay characters in movies and television were either creepy villains or camp comic relief. If you doubt that, you really should check out the groundbreaking HBO documentary, "The Celluloid Closet". It shows clearly the disparity in popular culture where messages about sexual orientation were concerned.

Then there is the area of religion. The number of straight kids who have been told they are going to hell simply for being heterosexual = 0. The number of LGBT kids who have been told that they are going hell simply for being homosexual = too many to even try to count.

In the light of LGBT rights victories in the U.S. over the past few years, it is easy to laugh at the various American Talabangelicals who shrieked hysterically how the US Supreme Court ruling on Same Sex marriage back in 2015, would result in nothing less than some sort of Gay, Nazi... apocalypse. But for a young person struggling with issues of identity and self acceptance,  these toxic messages of hatred and bigotry could cut right through you .

To my Straight friends, I have to ask, how many times have "respected" public figures, politicians, pundits and clergy gone on national television demanding that everyone be given the chance to VOTE on your civil rights?  How often has someone told you that not being able to discriminate against you was somehow an attack on them?  When was the last time you heard a member of the Supreme Court saying that simply by being allowed to exist, you were "an attack" on the moral fiber of America?

Anyone?? Yeah...I didn't think so... I have a flash of the obvious for you, every month is "Straight Pride Month."  There is a word for someone who truly feels that equal rights for people they don't like is somehow an attack on them. That word is "Bigot".

Saying LGBT people are human too, isn't an attack on straight people. Those people who really think it is, I want to ask them if they are really that stupid, or just that bigoted? People who say LGBT Pride celebrations need to be stopped, are in fact, the exact reason they all started in the first place.

Are pride celebrations good or bad for the cause of equality? The answer is both. With visibility comes closer examination. Anti-gay bigots love to show images of drag queens, leather daddies and nearly naked porn stars dancing on parade floats, and scream "See! it's not about equal rights! They just want to recruit your kids into THIS!!"

They never show the families, advocacy groups, welcoming and inclusive religious denominations, and workplace affinity groups who participate in Pride parades. After all, that wouldn't fit their desired narrative.

Media outlets are complicit in this, by the way.  CNN loves to show the drag queens  and semi-naked boys in their coverage, but when straight allies like the CEO of  the largest health care company in the United States rides in the San Francisco Pride  parade every year, along with his LGBT employees,  you'd think the guy was invisible.

Likewise, critics of  the concept of LGBT Pride , never talk about the rates of divorce, unplanned pregnancy, child abuse and neglect and domestic violence in Straight relationships.  You never see  folks like Tony Perkins, head of the certified Hate-Group, the "Family Research Council" on Fox News talking about Mardi Gras, or "Girls Gone Wild" on Spring Break.

That would be admitting something of an inconvenient truth.  It's much easier to just point at a group of shirtless men on a flatbed truck or women on motorcycles and say that they are the real threat to families.

I have always said that Pride celebrations are not really for the people who attend them. Instead they are for the people who cannot attend them. Growing up as a Gay kid in a small town in South Central Wisconsin, there were times when I was convinced I was the only gay person on Earth. The constant message from popular culture, religion, family and peer groups was "boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married (or not) and have kids and live happily ever after". There was no happily ever after for someone who felt what I was feeling.

Then, for one weekend in June, I would turn on the TV News and see thousands of people just like me, in places like New York, San Francisco and Chicago saying "No, that's not true, you are not alone, and there is a big wide world out here beyond Sun Prairie Wisconsin. So hang in there .... we're here and we're waiting for you!"

Now 30 years later, I watch coverage like this and it seems so endearingly cheesy. Yet at the time, it was a lifeline to people like me, living with the fear and isolation of being "in the closet".

Pride Celebrations are the original  "It Gets Better Project". 

My straight friends never needed to be told that being straight was okay, and that they were okay because nobody ever told them they weren't. Pride isn't about celebrating being Gay, it's about publicly showing that being LGBT is just as much a part of the the human experience as being straight is. I for one would love to see the day when Pride is obsolete. When that scared closeted gay kid, in some small town doesn't need to be told that he or she is fine just the way they are.

But until that day comes, I will be adding my voice that joyous mob in places like Market Street in San Francisco, Oxford Street here in London, Halsted Street in Chicago and Fifth Avenue in New York City. If for no other reason to let that kid know, it really does get better. There is a world where "boy meets boy" and "girl meets girl", where they fall in love and (f they want to) get married, and yes, even live happily ever after...

Happy Pride Everyone.