Obama, Paladino, and Hilton
The Obama line on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is something that rolls back to the 1996 Adolph Reed, Jr Village Voice article…
… His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program
The belief is that it’ll get through a Lame Duck Senate with somewhere between four and ten Republicans replacing Democrat waiting in the wings, Republicans defined off of a Right Plank that has long since stretched the credulity line that they are exclusively concerned with matters fiscal.
If Obama has a point — DADT was established through a legislative process and is best un-established through a legislative process — it is undermined through the fact that the repeal of DADT failed by a vote count of 57 – 42, or 42 votes against repeal. Two of the Senators, the Maine Republicans, claiming they were not going for it because — wait for it – the Process was wrong. Wheels inside Wheels, everyone looking for a Process Escape Clause.
In this Lame Duck session, assuming Jim DeMint doesn’t have the power of Holding this thing up, the defeated Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln will switch her vote — her political considerations gone as she settles in for her new Washington Lobbying job, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine will no longer feel the brunt of heavy Republican Whip Pressure. Maybe he knows that will happen. Or maybe he should just have the Justice Department skip an Appeal.
Something that I should have known regarding Carl Paladino and his ham-fisted appeal to radical right Orthodox Jewish rabbis, reading their scripted denunciation of the “gay lifestyle“, and his follow-up interview / apology suggesting the “gay pride parade” grinding. (Note: treat these things like you would if you took your child to a PG-13 or R rated movie — distract them during these brief moments.) My immediate thought went over his pornographic email propensity, and specifically that bestiality related porn. Strangely, that’s not the most relevant problem with his cc’d email list. His hypocrisy comes with something more standard in the land of pornography — as one would have to figure, his cache included faux lesbians — which he made sure to spot-light with the word “AWESOME”. Probably doing more than “grinding”, but I guess they’re not doing it on the streets, so it’s not hypocritical.
Remind me to take a look to judge the awesomeness for myself.
The truth is Paladino’s campaign is another of those curiosities, about as worth bothering with in political horse race pictures as Christine O’Donnell’s campaign. Though, telling the Chris Coons — Christine O’Donnell debate was shown on CNN, while the more relevant Harry Reid — Sharron Angle debate didn’t get beyond CSPAN. The more brutal truth about Paladino is that much of his words would play all right in much of this country — see Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn’s 2004 campaign which included the great scourge of high school girls in South-east Oklahoma going off to the bathroom in pairs to… get their Larry Craig on? (Here’s his 2010 opponent, by the way.) Given this scandal, I imagine…
These things aren’t well remembered or known. Paladino wouldn’t be getting so much attention except he’s in New York, a media capitol.
I doubt there’s been any real rise in gay teen suicides or bullying, so much as the Internet has allowed a national focus to slide various stories together — as it has excaberated the terms of certain avenues of bullying ala the Rutgers student (and beyond). But, as they say, whatever. There’s a certain “h”m to this candlelight vigil. I have visions of a bully looking over the crowd for their particular target, and relentlessly teasing them the next day at school. A thought I had with this story about a high density suicide high school –Â
Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn’t get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant, his mother says. He wore a stuffed animal strapped to his arm, a lemur named Georges that was given its own seat in class.
Braver lad than I would have been if I had a strong impetus to wear pink and carry around a stuffed animal, I suppose. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Though my vague sympathies for school uniforms are shading in.)
Perez Hilton, in view of the publicized bullying and suicide stories, and who — in case you don’t know is gay — has announced he is moving away from being mean to celebrities. Interesting, but I don’t understand the point. Understand the world of Celebrity Gossip is the world of Schaudenfruede. I think it’s fair to say that the celebrity tabloids developed as a reaction to a sort of Guarded and selective Trade Publicity Manchine that emphasized their Glamourous lifestyle — and, for instance, Rock Hudson’s striking heterosexuality. We then revolve into the world of passive aggressive celebrities who invite the papparazi to violate their privacy, and then hound over to friendly publications for either damage control or further publicity. So, at the supermarket checkout line, you’ve got your choice of Mean to Celebrity or Nice to Celebrity publications. How long will it take for Perez Hilton to go back to type — who knows?, and I’ll not be there to notice.