Rich Libral Monster...

St. Paul Minnesota is going to be the home of the 2008 Republican National Convention, in the Excell Center looking over the Historic Riverfront. The problem, though, is where are the republicans going to stay? Where are they going to eat? Where are they going to spend their money? Minnesota, and especially the Twin Cities are strongly liberal. The large younger population in Minneapolis means that that city tends to be more progressive. The St. Paul population is different. There are a lot of families, young and old, and many long-time residents. It is also a city that has made a mission out of preserving its more historic areas.

Over the past decades, however, this has meant that the projects, funding, and interest of the city was distributed among its different neighborhoods, and since there are several colleges with long histories in St. Paul, it is not hard to see why. However, this has meant that the downtown area which boasted numerous shops and dining during the sixties and seventies has shriveled up to a single Macy's which is chugging along until it's lease is up and then there'll be one more empty building downtown. In fact, there is one building already that is completely empty, it's owner having left it to stand, the street level boarded up, for almost a decade. The building isn't small either, but a dozen stories. This is the city that the republicans are coming to.

When the convention was first announced, the mayor defended the situation by saying it should attract $150 million in revenue, despite what money would be required to prepare for it. That was a few years ago. Now, however, looking at less than a year away, it is scary to think what will happen when they come. Where are those millions going to come from?

This diatribe has a point, though. The catalyst for this situation is what I will call a rabid form of self-satisfying, self-righteous, and self-glorifying liberalism on the part of upper middle class and upper class long-time citizens of this area. They'll create projects of affordable housing in neighborhoods with little crime and good schools, as long as it isn't in their neighborhood. As long as they can rely on those working class and poor people not to cross the street that marks the edge of the secluded wealthy houses than it is an act of a good old liberal. They want to preserve the historic nature of Victoria Crossing, an area with small shops and a collection of bars and restaurants which guarantees two things: night life and consistent business, though the area has benefited from their inclusion of a Bonfire Grill, a J-Crew, and a Pottery Barn.

All of this is completely overshadows the importance of a downtown filled with offices where the only places that survive do so because of their lunch crowd. The most successful shop, it seems, is the tiny candy and popcorn store which is busy at all hours and open three or four hours after everything else except bars shut down. There is little nightlife, and what of it there is scratches and claws a living out in spite of no help from the city.

Still, the good old liberals go on in their self-satisfying way, helping those poor, the blacks, the Hmong, and the Latinos, as long as it isn't bringing them into to their neighborhood, or into the schools where their children attend.

Six-figure contract for some, food stamps for others...

I find it interesting that the government is trying to retain large numbers of experienced service people with large cash bonuses. Hit here to read the AP article on yahoo that talks about this issue. If the businesses feel that it hasn't been a significant drain, isn't this really making an effort to extend the tours of already career military men? I say men since I don't believe that the green berets and navy seals receiving the payments allow women.

I do know that there are servicemen and women who are barely making the equivalent of minimum wage and many families are on food stamps. All the 'benefits' referred too in that article are available on the base only, and the quality of housing is vastly different for non-officers than it is for officers and their families. If the Pentagon is having trouble paying the younger troupes, most of whom are young men and women with young families and children, than how is it able to afford paying six figure bonuses to anyone? If these career soldiers are so experienced, how about they lead the tactical training and drills to better prepare the younger and less-experienced soldiers, then the military could cut down on the number of high bonuses they hand out and maybe the families with children could afford to send their kids to competitive local schools, afford better child health care, pay for spouses to go to school or receive job training and a host of other things. Maybe they could even take better care of the surviving families of those who have already lost their lives. Wouldn't that be worth the money?

Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia: the fine art of oppression

A professor at Columbia found a noose on the door of a colleague and friend, a woman who teaches about racism in the graduate school of education. One student reacted in the article by saying that she's not surprised because racism is still very active in the world. I have mixed feelings about that, especially given the anti-gay political support coming from black churches and religious leaders, but I suppose in some people's minds the oppression of gays isn't nearly as bad as the oppression of black people, but they probably never saw the pictures of the bloody fence where Andrew Shepherd hung and bled all night in the freezing cold, badly beaten and asking for his mother.

She's right in one way, though, racism is alive and well, so is sexism, homophobia and other forms of oppression. While self-identified Christians complain about being oppressed by our modern secular society, they should think about a few issues first:

1 - They have yet to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, it hasn't even passed one house of Congress, and that is a bill that was worked over and over again so that it simply prevented the discrimination of groups recognized as oppressed minorities. That list, funny enough, didn't include gay people. It managed to become an Act of Congress, but doesn't carry enough support to be added to our most defining document.

2 - It isn't at all shocking that nooses were placed on the tree outside Jena High School, a horribly painful symbolism for black students, but one acceptable enough for the students responsible to only receive a suspension. It also wasn't shocking that the resultant escalation of tension and violence occurred that ended up playing out in the case of the 'Jena Six'.

3 - When public figures like Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh are able to use their platforms to spew long diatribes of hurtful, painful, and hateful words to a mass appeal with few repercussions. The Imus case is only one example among the many shock-jocks and political pundits who are arrogant enough to think they should get on the radio and convince the masses that their ignorant and self-righteous beliefs are gospel truth. Rush Limbaugh still has a huge fan base that is willing to overlook his drug abuse and perjury because they are entertained by his vicious comments which include denigrating mothers of active duty military members who want their children to come home.


I think the more devastating problem is the more subtle forms of discrimination that can be as unnoticeable as the spell check on my firefox program. If you type in the words, Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim, and don't capitalize it, they activate the spell check signal. If you type pagan, a recognized form of religious worship, it doesn't.

I've experienced the subtler forms of discrimination at work, not getting rehired after a brief time off from work. While I had some issues with lateness and some with appropriate office conversation, the vast majority of issues that I had as an employee could be directly or indirectly linked to one or both of two things: being a gay man, and being bipolar. The being gay part didn't happen in overt homophobia, but instead by people who were uncomfortable with some of my conversations. I refrained, at least most of the time, from anything graphically sexual, yet there were still complaints to the managers. Once, during a review, my manager actually said, "and you need to cool it with the 'gay stuff'" Well, sorry, that's my world. It might not be everything of my world, but it is at least a big part. I don't want to have to sit through a long conversation in the break room about engagements, wedding planning, honeymoons, babies, nieces and nephews or anything of the trappings of an obviously heterocentric society, yet I can't speak about topics that relate directly to my life without making people feel uncomfortable. If that is an issue with the 'team' I worked with and I make noticeable improvements on being more careful with what I say and around whom, then that shouldn't be a further issue. If I have to adapt myself so significantly to my work environment until I feel uncomfortable, or if I feel like, which I did, the managers were allowing others to speak in a way that I was uncomfortable with but which were about heterosexual sex topics, that is harassment.

In the end it doesn't really matter if your employer has an nondiscrimination policy, unless there is an obvious and overt form of harassment or assault, there isn't safety for people of a minority at world or in the world, not really.

A Problem With Circumcision

I was at work today and a woman was having a conversation with one of her coworkers about, what I inferred was, circumcising her baby. I have a serious issue with that topic being discussed in the workplace as I am one who is often had supervisors discussing appropriate and inappropriate work conversations. I also have serious and fundamental problems with the idea of circumcision.

A) That's how nature made us, the foreskin has protective/hygienic functions as well as sexual functions. The practice of circumcision is ancient and has cultural and religious roots, yet these were originally dependent on the beliefs and customs of those ancient cultures. The Christian and Hebrew faith tells that Abraham was given direction from God that he should circumcise his son and himself as a sign of his faith, and that it would distinguish the Jews from the gentiles. It was also much more hygienic in ancient times since they didn't have readily accessible hot water to be able to clean underneath the foreskin on a regular basis. So why do we continue the practice now, 3,000 years later?

B) There is no choice for the infant or toddler whether they should be circumcised or not. It is a decision the parents make regardless of whatever the child may eventually want in the matter, and it is a surgical alteration to the child's natural body that is common practice in the United States. It is a problem when male circumcision is considered 'normal' or becomes common practice in a culture that considers female circumcision to be a violation of human rights. It is also a problem because it is an either-or situation, once the foreskin is removed it cannot be truly restored and there are enough instances of improper methods and failed circumcision and the effects on the emotional/psychological health of the child later on that there should be more awareness of its violation of the child's rights.

What bothers me most about the practice is that the children aren't given a choice and the fact that as they grow, there is no basis for comparison to call into question whether or not it was right for the alteration to have occurred. I was never given a choice and now in my adult years, I wish my parents hadn't decided to go ahead with it. I am also not sure how much thought goes into the decision among most parents. If hygiene is the consideration, we are in an age of easy cleaning. Parents use soft disposable tissue already soaked in antibacterial soap to clean the child between baths, and it is a simple matter of pulling back the foreskin to clean the penis until the child is old enough to clean it himself. If it is a matter of ethnicity or religious beliefs, there are plenty of Catholics from Spanish-speaking countries who are not circumcised. Also, and while I have no statistics on it, the fact that circumcision has become such a widely encouraged means of preventing the spread of HIV in African states suggests that there are probably many uncircumcised men there, and at least a few of them are from predominantly Islamic countries. How does it prevent the infection? The mucosal layer of the foreskin is there to delay penetration into the skin by foreign bacteria and parasites, if cleaned properly, there should be no substantial increase in the infection rates as the infection would still have the primary means of entry, through the urethra, or the possible secondary, through cutes or sores on the shaft of the penis.

There is no reason for the barbaric practice of circumcision to continue in an age of Clorox wipes and antibacterial soap. While the beliefs of it may have changed over time, the horrible instruments used in the act have changed little. It violates the rights of the young child, hasn't shown any significant reduction in disease that can't be attributed to the reduction of sexual activity caused by lack of sensation brought on by the additional abrasion on the head of the penis once the foreskin is removed, and it one of the first steps parents can take to force an identity on their child, by taking away his ability to control his own body.

Links for more information on circumcision:

http://www.circumcision.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision

Setting the Tone for Everything

So, here's the deal, I'm 28 on Friday and I'll have only had one boyfriend, who never actually said anything about us being together, and we were only together for a month. I know that's shitty in comparison to so many heterosexual couples my age, and in fact compared to all of my friends, but that's what happens when you are crazy and between the periods of deep and scary depression there are bouts of feverish mania with intermittent manic outburst of uncontrollable and terrifying rage. I'm on plenty of meds now, though, so that is supposed to make everything better. How could someone in those circumstances ever expect to find someone that wasn't as chronically ill as they? That's on top of any body issues I have. I'm a thin blondish haired twink trapped in the body of a 250+ pound hairy gay man and have been ever since I can remember. I've always had a tough time with my body, for reasons that are due to abuse and not so much a gradually developed poor self esteem. It makes it crippling to go out and interact with anyone in social settings like bars or even at parties. I went through periods of desperate loneliness, especially as my depressive symptoms grew stronger and stronger, but now I am in a place of quiet desperation as I feel like I've wasted more and more time. You see, I'm never going to be that happy, pretty, young person, ever. I wasn't when I was younger, and I'll never be that as I grow older. That's a tough thing for me to face, especially when I compare it to the brief times I've had some companionship, aside from my parents, in my life and how satisfying I found that to be.

I try not to be bitter about these things, I have accomplished things and I have had friends and seen and done what other people find pretty amazing. Still, it's hard for me to look back and be satisfied with my past since there was such long periods of unhappiness. Now, at 28, I find myself truly enjoying very few things. I find happiness to be fleeting and struggle and heartache and pain to be constant. It's something that some people find melodramatic and I've heard many many people say that everyone has problems, everyone struggles, life is hard...But that's not true. Life doesn't have to be a struggle, and usually its the results of peoples' actions that make them have to struggle, but that's not what I'm talking about...What I'm talking about is the way that truly poor people have no ability to move out of poor neighborhoods, their school systems are broken so there isn't really a viable education available, most young people only see the violence and poverty immediately surrounding them and so they have no ability or even plan to escape that world. That's struggle. People with AIDS who have to manage the world of public assistance, finding a place to life, work, mental health, discrimination wherever they go if people know their status, or how the fear of other people will cause coworkers, etc,... to react if they know, and all of this on top of taking 30 pills a day which often make them too sick to eat.

Those people know struggle. I know struggle. When you can't make yourself get out of bed, when you can't even appreciate the colors of the trees and flowers, laughing children, or good weather, when debating and planning suicide are a constant activity in your down moments or when a TV show or movie can rock you so badly that you are physically ill for days, that is struggle. When you can't go to work because the dreams you have been having have progressively made you more erratic and make you so physically sick you are practically paralyzed for hours, that is struggle, and none of those are exaggerations at all.

Most people don't have to struggle like that. Yes, everyone has problems and life is hard, but not everyone has to struggle like that, not everyone has problems like that. That's why I hate people, possibly with good intentions, who have no ability to really grasp the kinds of things that fuck with me on a minute to minute basis judge me or tell me, you have control over what you say and do...Shut up, you don't know, you have no idea what it's like to be so full of rage that you watch yourself like you are in a movie as you run around the house screaming and with the irresistible urge to break things, or to hurl things at people around you trying to calm you down.

How can I expect anyone to want to deal with that for thirty years, much less weeks or months.