It’s still World AIDS Day. What used to be the day without art. The National Portrait Gallery has pulled a David Wojnarowicz piece it was showing. Not because they wanted to dramatise the loss of a generation of artists that AIDS caused, but because professional bigots and opportunistic politicians began complaining. As it was decades… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: politics
Marmelade Me too…
It was a fun little road trip – a chance to reconnect and romp. Back on the job now and trying to plot out the next couple of months. Today brought the sad news of Jill Johnston’s passing. I love her writing and her disruption of orthodoxies great and small. It’s odd how few social… Continue Reading
There’s probably a peanut in there somewhere…
I’m trying to work up interest for my current book It Didn’t Happen Here, an analysis of the failures of American Socialism. It’s got all the hallmarks of “doctoral thesis turned to book”, and you may have guessed that that doesn’t translate to “gripping prose style”. Thing is, I have a very hard time just… Continue Reading
Two trucks in two days….
This big odd thing was in front of my door today, pumping or flushing something underneath the street. ConEd sent it out, but I have no ideas for what purpose. I’m back in the office, on what is usually a day off, trying to finish up some stuff before a teaching trip to Tennessee. Communication… Continue Reading
Introducing the rantlet…
Listening to Grace singing “Bullshit”, if singing is really the right word for it. Doesn’t matter: I still love her. There’s a whole degree of “I’m bat-shit crazy, now and for eternity” in her whole career that I just have to admire. I’m suffering from the inverse of the usual web rhetoric inflation impulse; every… Continue Reading
Watching the Parade go by
I’m not surprised at the outcome of today’s New York State Senate vote. The state legislature had a history of defeating any Gay rights bill brought before it for decades, and in the current state climate, the fact that Governor Paterson had made a stand for the bill almost guaranteed its failure. Still I’m disappointed… Continue Reading
Where’d you get that idea?
I got the idea not to vote for Bloomberg today from his cavalier disregard for the laws of the city he governs, by which I mean that he is of the new breed of plutocrats who change the rules when it suits them. I’m still pissed at the city council for caving in to his… Continue Reading
New York to Kinksters: Don’t Be It, Damn It…
At last night’s TES meeting someone who has been around New York’s leather life for a long time talked about the “scene getting bland” in the midst of reminiscing about the Hellfire Club. Their observation was not dissimilar to those made many times in my circles, and for the most part everyone seems content to… Continue Reading
Angry? Blame Hiram Johnson…
“In 1911, Johnson and the Progressives added initiative, referendum, and recall to the state government, giving California a degree of direct democracy unmatched by any other U.S. state.” It seems clear that Johnson believed that direct democracy could counter the machinations of entrenched special interests (in his day, mostly industrial trusts). What he could not… Continue Reading
Watching the speech at work…
I felt sorry for Elizabeth Alexander, the poet selected to follow the President. Talk about a tough act to follow. And how intense has Dianne Feinstein’s life been? Seeing her make the introductions, looking remarkably similar to when she announced the Moscone/Milk shootings (I mean hairdo and all, not in bearing or emotional state) made… Continue Reading