Dancing with Myself

Happy Memorial Day

This holiday in the States began after the Civil War.  Southern women would gather at the battlefield cemeteries and lay flowers on the graves of the fallen, remembering them for their gallant effort.  The rest of the country picked up on it after World War I, probably earlier in most places, but eventually it became a national holiday and was expanded to include the fallen from all wars.

However, it never meant that to us growing up.  It meant the beginning of summer.  Public swimming pools opened on Memorial Day.  The beach businesses opened up on Memorial Day after being closed all winter.  Thousands and thousands of people, young and old, but especially the young, spilled out of the woodwork and into the sun.   So, to honor that tradition, I'm off to a ballgame.  Joseph got tickets to see the Giants play somebody.

The rest of the week-end will be spent cleaning the garage and the deck.  I would like to see a play  that's in town and Sunday evening is the last performance.  There's always something. 

Here's hoping you have a good Memorial Day, whatever your memories.

Who Won?

I'm sorry the middle caved and Frist was let off the hook.  Jeez, the three justices we were forced to accept are just about the worst group of loonies to make it through law school.  Talk about having agendas!  Those three goofballs are nothing but agenda driven.  However, I remain an optimist.  The pendulum swings right to left. 

Being an optimist, I can always find the bright side of any situation.  For instance, Janice Brown will no longer be on the California Supreme Court.  She's the only ideologue on that Court.  No one is going to mourn her departure.   Our gain is your loss.  Or something like that.

The buzz today was about who might Schwartzenegger appoint to replace her?  I think it will be a White male.  From what I can tell, Schwartzenegger has turned the governing part of being governor over to former Governor Pete Wilson and his associates.  They're conservative, but not religiously so.  If the Chief Justice has any influence with Schwartzenegger, we'll get someone who's got a track record for production and evenness.  There's a back load of cases that he can help with.

Meanwhile, Brown gets to go to the major league.  The Eleventh Circuit is Washington, D.C.  There's a lot of justices on that court, and most of them are already Republican appointees.  I don't think there's enough time to give her a track record to be in consideration for the Supreme Court when an opening comes up there.

Do you think Bush is going to appoint Scalia as Chief Justice?  He (Bush)  has a wicked sense of humor.  I wouldn't put it past him to do it just to give the Democrats massive heart failure.  I'd rather Scalia than Thomas, and that's for damn sure.  He (Bush) is such a little man when it comes to the big picture.   Who knows?

The Republic will survive this administration. America as we know it will stumble along in its ever increasing morbidity until it collapses from it's own calcification.   As far as the nobility of the American idea, I'm sure the idea survives in dozens of forms in dozens of climes, near and far.  Democracy has evolved into many shapes and forms.  The one thing all the successful ones have in common thus far is multi-culturalism.  It's not just a good idea, it appears to be one of the laws of physics. 

I've never had a romantic notion about who we are, we Americans.  I've been on the outside of society and the law on enough occasions to know we're not always a nice people.  Oh maybe in our imagined memories of life in the good old days when we were all neighbors, we were all White, we all liked each other, and we never sued each other.  That time never existed in this country.

We'll do alright.  Keep the faith.

The Play's the Thing

Theater tonight with Katie K. and her theater group.  We're going to see the A.C.T. production of Moon for the Misbegotten. This is Marco Baricelli's last play with A.C.T.  Marco is this great big hunk of a man that has played every leading man role for A.C.T. for the past five years or more.  The ladies adore him.  Me?  He's alright.  Doesn't particularly do anything for me but act, and he does that well enough.  I don't mean to imply that he's not an excellent actor, it's just that he's never sparked me with a performance.  The reviewers all liked him in this his farewell performance for A.C.T..  Roommate saw the play Saturday and said the other two actors, Robin Weigert as Josie Hogan and Raye Birk as her father, own the stage.

The play this past Sunday at the Marin Theater Company was Charlie Cox Runs with Scissors, written by Michael McKeever. It was an incredible play with stellar performances.  It's a comedy about a man who has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease who's been been given 18 months to live.  Yeah, as if anybody can give anyone even as much of a day.  The day belongs to you.  You can either count it or live it.  This play took on the subject of death and handled it deftly.  Charlie, played by Howard Swain, picks up a hitch hiker in the desert who tells Charlie that his name is Wally and he's Charlie's death.  Charlie is driving through the desert because after he was told that he only had 18 months to live, he decides he needs to go and find his reason for living. Charlie's an editor and feels out of touch with his creative, spiritual self.  Well wouldn't you know his car breaks down right next to a run down hotel run by Nell (Anne Darragh), a beleaguered woman who has had the misfortune of having to take care of dying men.  First her husband who went quickly, and now her father-in-law who has lingered ad infinitum.  Just her luck, here comes Charlie.  Wally is trying to get Charlie to accept him and get it over with.  Unfortunately for Wally, Charlie falls for the plain proprietress.   Over the next several days, the two fall in love.  At which time, the last and most fabulous character comes onto the stage and changes the entire nature of the melodrama we had been enjoying.  Isabelle Ortega, playing the part of Kiki who represents Love explodes onto the stage.  Love is a beautiful dark-haired Cuban, dressed in a red dress, beautiful red shoes, huge red-framed sunglasses, red lipstick, and a white cane, because you see, love is blind.  For the next hour, this marvelous comedienne brings the stage to life.  Our proprietress becomes prettier and begins to glow.   Charlie becomes a more sympathetic character.  Love totally wins the day.  Wally is banished.

I laughed and cried for a solid straight hour.  Afterwards, we were standing in the lobby and Lee Sancovich was across from us talking to another guy.  Katie made me go over and speak to Lee and tell  him how much I enjoyed the production.  (Yes, she made me.  I find it hard sometimes to speak directly to people on whom I have a crush.)  The rest of the group came with me to lend support.  I hope I was coherent and not gushing, but I was very conscious of the fact that my eyes were red from having been laughing and crying for an hour.  It was so obvious by my appearance that I had been profoundly moved by the performance.  Lee graciously accepted my compliments and then introduced me to the play's author, Michael McKeever.  Then I did gush.  Hopelessly. This man has written an incredible play.  Wow.

Kudos to the Marin Theater Company for an evening of superb theater.

Wednesdays

AND if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday­
So much is true.

And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,yes ­but what
Is that to me?

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Setting the Record Straight

Senfronia Thompson, a representative to the Texas House of Representatives rose to the floor of the Texas House, and lectured her fellow members.  Her speech is quoted in full by Molly Ivins, and with a thank you to Molly for bringing it to our attention, I also follow Molly's example and reprint it here in its entirety.

I have been a member of this august body for three decades, and today is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong direction, in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination. Members, we all know what this is about, this is the politics of divisiveness at its worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.

Members, this issue is a distraction from the real things we need to be working on. At the end of this session, this Legislature, this Leadership will not be able to deliver the people of Texas, fundamental and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.

Let's look at what this amendment does not do: It does not give one Texas citizen meaningful tax relief. It does not reform or fully fund our education system. It does not restore one child to CHIP, who was cut from health insurance last session. It does not put one dime into raising Texas' Third World access to health care. It does not do one thing to care for or protect one elderly person or one child in this state. In fact, it does not even do anything to protect one marriage.

Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination. I know something about hate and fear and discrimination. When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about "protecting the institution of marriage" as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree. That's what the white folks did back then to "protect marriage." Fifty years ago, white folks thought inter-racial marriages were a "threat to the institution of marriage."

Members, I'm a Christian and a proud Christian. I read the good book, and do my best to live by it. I have never read the verse where it says, "gay people can't marry." I have never read the verse where it says, "though shalt discriminate against those not like me." I have never read the verse where it says, "let's base our public policy on hate and fear and discrimination." Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness -- not hate and discrimination.

I have served in this body a lot of years -- and I have seen a lot of promises broken. I should be up here demanding my 40 acres and a mule because that's another promise you broke. You used a wealthy white minister cloaked in the cloth to ease the stench of that form of discrimination.

So, now that blacks and women can vote, and now that blacks and women have equal rights -- you turn your hatred to homosexuals -- and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag. . . brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what? Persons of the same sex cannot get married in this State now. Texas does not now recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, religious unions, domestic partnerships, contractual arrangements or Christian blessings entered into in this State -- or anywhere else on this planet Earth.

If you want to make your hateful political statements then that is one thing -- the Chisum amendment does real harm. It repeals the contracts that many single people have paid thousands of dollars to purchase to obtain medical powers of attorney, powers of attorney, hospital visitation, joint ownership and support agreements. You have lost your way -- this is obscene.

Today, you are playing to the lowest common denominator -- you are putting aside the real issues of substance that we need to address so that you can instead play on the public's fears and prejudices to deceive and manipulate voters into thinking that we have done something important.

I realize that gay rights are not the same as civil rights -- but I can guarantee you we are going in the wrong direction. I can not hide my skin color. In fact, in most of the South, people as pink as Rep. Wayne Smith were still Black by law if they had a great grandparent who was African. I was unable to attend an integrated and equally funded school until I got my Master of Laws degree. There were separate and unequal facilities for nearly everything.

I got second-hand textbooks even worse than the kind you're trying to pass off on every public school student next year. I had to ride to school on the back of the bus. I had to quench my thirst from filthy coloreds-only drinking fountains. I had to enter restaurants from the kitchen door. I was banned from entering most public accommodations, even from serving on a jury.

I had to live with the fear that getting too uppity could get you killed --- or worse. I know what third-class citizenship feels like. In my first term, one of my colleagues walked up and down this aisle muttering about how Nigras should be back in the field picking cotton instead of picking out committees.

So, I have to wonder about Rep. Chisum's 3/5 of a person amendment. Some of you folks hid behind your Bible then, too, to justify your cultural prejudices, your denial of liberty, and your gunpoint robbery of human dignity.

We have worked hard at putting our prejudices against homosexuals in law. We have denied them basic job protections. We have denied them and their children freedom from bullying and harassment at school. We have tried to criminalize their very existence.

But, we have also absolved them of all family duties and responsibilities: to care for and support their spouses and children, to count their family's assets in determining public assistance, to obtain health insurance for dependents, to make end-of-life or necessary medical decisions for their life partners --- sometimes even to visit in the hospital, even to defend our own country. And then, we can stand on our two hind legs and proclaim, "See, I told you homosexual families are unstable." And nearly every one of you on this Floor has a homosexual in their extended families.

Some of you have shunned and isolated these family members. Some of you, even some of the joint coauthors, have embraced them within your own family for the essence of Christianity is love. Yet, you are now poised to constitutionalize discrimination against a particular class of people.

I thought we would be debating real issues: education, health care for kids, teacher's health insurance, health care for the elderly, protecting survivors of sexual assault, protecting the pensions of seniors in nursing homes. I thought we would be debating economic development, property tax relief, protecting seniors pensions and stem cell research, to save lives of Texans who are waiting for a more abundant life. Instead we are wasting this body's time with this political stunt that is nothing more than constitutionalizing discrimination. The prejudices exhibited by members of this body disgust me.

Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids --sweet little vulnerable kids -- out of the homes of loving parents and put them back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's disgusting. Today, we are telling homosexuals that just like people of my ilk, when I was a small child, they too are second class citizens. I have listened to all the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap.

Mr. Chisum, is a person who I consider my good friend and revere. But, I want you to know that this amendment [is] blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry. You are trying to protect your constituents from danger. This amendment is a CYB [cover your behind] amendment for you to go home and talk about.

Amen to that.  The last time Texas went after something with this much passion, it was free people of color in the late 1830s.  They passed a law saying that all Free Persons of Color had two years to leave Texas or risk being sold into slavery.  You got to give those Texans credit:  when they hate, they go all the way.   I nominate for the new Texas motto:  Texas, the Hateful State.

Solomon Had it Easy

Remember the story from the Bible where two women, each claiming to be the real mother of a baby, come before King Solomon, and he has to decide to whom to give the child.  He says the only solution is to cut the child in half and give each of them a half?  In the fictional account, i.e., the Bible story, the real mother recoils in horror at the idea and offers the other mother the baby to save the child.  From that Solomon deduces the mother willing to do what's right for the child to be the real mother.  That's how it works in fiction-fantasy.

In real life?  On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court is hearing arguments in three similar cases.   Each case involves Lesbians fighting over their children.  None of these cases would be before the court if Gay and Lesbian relationships were recognized marriages.  The San Francisco Chronicle has a new legal reporter, Bob Egelko, who covered the story and summarizes the situation very well.

In two of the situations, the women thought they covered all the bases for protecting themselves and their children.   Take for example, the first case, K.M. v. E.G. from Marin County.  K.M. contributed the eggs, E.G. carried the fetuses, both women welcomed the twins born to their relationship as their children.  After five years the women broke up, E.G., the birth mother, took the twins to Massachusetts.  Even though she has no genetic connection to the twins, she gets to be the presumed mother because her womb was used.  Last year, the first District Court of Appeal ruled that birth mother trumps, despite contract and promises to the egg-mother.

The second case is about contracts.  Kristine Renee H. and Lisa Ann R. decided to have a baby.  Kristine Renee was the birth mother.  They signed a court approved contract to guarantee that they would always share custody of the baby.  Two years later they separated and Kristine Renee decided unilaterally that Lisa Ann had no right to be involved in the baby's life.  Lisa Ann sued.  The contract was ruled invalid.  Lisa Ann appealed.  The second District Court of Appeal upheld the invalidity of the contract, but ruled that Lisa Ann might qualify as a parent under the laws that establish the right of legal fatherhood, because that law is written in a neutral gender. 

But wait, there's more.  Elisa Maria B. and Emily B. had a couple of children.  They split up about a year after the birth of the second child.  For awhile, Elisa Maria paid child support to Emily, but after a few years, lost interest and quit.  Emily went on welfare.  The county then sued Elisa Maria B. to recover support payments.  The county lost and appealed.  The Court of Appeal said Elisa Maria had no obligation to pay child support.  The county appealed, supported by the California Attorney General who is arguing that at least when it comes to paying child support, Elisa Maria can be the presumed parent.

"What's at stake is whether children of same-sex parents will receive the same protection of their emotional needs as children of heterosexual parents, '' said Jill Hersh, lawyer for a Marin County woman who is seeking to become a legal parent of twin girls she helped raise with her now-estranged partner. "Are we going to treat children differently based upon the status of their parents?''

But attorney Matthew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a conservative Florida- based organization that has filed arguments in all three cases opposing expansion of parental status beyond the birth mother, said courts should not redefine parenthood.

"I think what's at stake is the definition of family,'' he said. "If somebody can cohabitate and, by virtue of that, develop parental bonds, and thus parental rights, I think that undermines the biological parent's parental authority. If you start defining family by mere emotions, I think that undermines the core of the family itself.''

Some of these situations may be covered in future Lesbian divorce scenarios, but this is the Gordian knot presented to the California Supreme Court today.  And this being California, it's going to be on television.  Check with your local station.

Cowboys and NdNs, the zero sum game

The Big Story in today's San Francisco Chronicle, is about the Deh Cho First Nation people of northwest Canada and their successful (thus far) efforts of keeping a natural gas pipeline from traversing their land.

Let me summarize this.  When the pipeline goes through, everyone gets big paying jobs and because you're working 80 to 100 hours a week, you get big pay checks.  For a couple of years, you make a few thousand dollars a week.  In those two years you develop a lot of expensive habits:  cocaine, crystal meth, alcohol, cars, etc.  Then the money stops.  Life gets very desperate for the ill-prepared and those who pay a disproportionate cost are the least sophisticated amongst us.  Fort Simpson is going to have a dozen years or more of social problems.  They are right to be cautious.

Now let me warn my Canadian neighbors.  I don't think the neocons will invade you over this issue.  That does not mean that they will not bring great pressures to bear against you.  To my White Canadian friends,  my plea to you is that you resist with all of your might the racial hatred crap that is going to be spewed at you from an incredible array of sources.  The Great Wealth that is affected by this will use every card at its dispossal to win.  The easiest card to use is the Race card.  Canadian friends, you are forewarned.

Go and read the story.  I think it's very well presented.

 

Staying Busy

Houston's mother, Dorothy, has been here all week-end.  Friday night we each had a couple of martinis and remembered our life together.  We have 58 years of common experience after all.  I'm always amazed at how differently we remember the same events.  My mother and I are alike in that we both are the main character on center stage in our lives.  I remember her as a supporting character, she remembers herself as the star; and vice versa, I'm sure.  In her younger days she was a very formidable character.  Thank god, she's mellowed.  As have I.

We went shopping for kitchen cabinets and ideas on Saturday.  She was in the tile business for 20 years or more, so I value her opinion in many areas.  I think she helped me get past the stage I've been in the for the past two weeks where I have been overwhelmed by the possibilities and unable to make simple choices.  After four hours with her, I know damn well what I want.  There's nothing like arguing with an opinionated person to help one focus on what one does like.

Saturday night we found ourselves on the San Francisco waterfront where there was an incredible fireworks display courtesy of K-FOG radio.  That's Geezer rock to most of my younger friends.  Jeez, they must spend over a hundred thou on it.  I've never seen so many colors before.  It's all choreographed to music, too.  If you ever find yourself in San Francisco in the latter part of May, make sure you don't miss it.

Dorothy has left the building at this point.  She's on her way to Oregon to see her grandson graduate from high school.  Both of my sisters live in Oregon, Gwen about 7 hours from my house, and Michelle, the mother of the graduating senior, about three or four hours farther.  I'm spending the afternoon doing two things at once:  gardening and getting some sun.  It's hot as hell outside.  That always makes my cousins in Texas and Louisiana mad at me.  It can't be hot as hell if the humidity is below 60 percent and the temperature not above 80 degrees.  I tell my cousins it's all relative. 

Tonight is the Marin Theater Company.  We're seeing a production called Runs with Scissors by Michael McKeever.  It's a comedy about a guy who finds out he's got Lou Gehrig's disease and starts to run from death because he's never truly been alive.  Right, I'd be laughing.  MTC, under the direction of Lee Sankowich (who looks so fucking hot in a black t-shirt) is a very exciting bang for the buck:  very high production values, good acting, fresh material, interesting subject matter.

I've run into a problem and must run.  No matter how hard I try, I cannot write and garden at the same time.  I will be back.  Dorothy brought up a copy of the Santa Cruz newspaper and there are about half a dozen items that beg my opinion, and you know what they same about opinions:  better to fart and bear the shame, than not and bear the pain.

Random Playlist for Friday

I'm still not sure what the point of this is, but neither do I have anything else I want to talk about right now.  So there.

1. The Folks who Live on the Hill - Nina Simone
2. Music is the Victim - Scissor Sisters
3. Could you be loved - Bob Marley
4. Welcome to Tajuana - Manu Chao
5. I Surrender - Ute Lemper
6. Volveras - Gloria Estafan
7. Three Days - Pat Green
8. These are a few of my favorite things - Dan Reeder
9. Una Notte a Napoli - Pink Martini
10. I put a spell on you - Tab Benoit

Best Line of the Day

The absolutist best line of the day:  "...the idea that there's no difference between chicken livers and chicken shit just because some people can't tell the difference, is just as stupid."

From Doghouse Riley over at  Bats Left Throws Right.