Scouts Honor

Renowned sage and erstwhile diner owner Mr. Miyagi once pointed out, "If you walk on right side of road: safe.  Walk on left side: safe.  Walk in middle: squashed, just like grape."  Today, you could make a fine wine out of the Boy Scouts of America, who, by doing the partially right thing, will likely end up squashed just like Mr. Miyagi's proverbial grape.

Yesterday, the BSA leadership voted to rescind the organization's ban on openly gay scouts.  A welcome development that just goes to show that BSA executives read the newspapers.  Truly, in this day and age, it takes more courage for an organization not to welcome gay members--albeit the same kind of courage in the service of a distasteful cause displayed by bear-baiters and suicide bombers--than to embrace tolerance.  Still, good for them.  And, predictably, a significant number of scouts and their families are outraged.  They find something offensive about welcoming openly gay youngsters to the macho world of the BSA, where girls are not allowed, where young men sport short shorts and neckerchiefs, and where grown men impart to their youthful charges the fine arts of gardening and basket weaving.  Anyway.

But while the BSA lifted the ban on gay scouts, it retained its prohibition against gay scout leaders.  And so, while the scouts suffer condemnation from the right, they can not even bask in the adulation of the left, whose approval may be considered tepid at best.

What makes this truly ridiculous is the fact that you just know it's only a matter of time before the organization lifts the leadership ban as well.  They've explicitly acknowledged that homosexuality should not prohibit a young man from participating in the scouting life; simple logic (which I foolishly believe will ultimately prevail) indicates that homosexuality should not prevent someone from being a good scout leader.  Moreover, do the BSA leaders not realize that they have always had both gay scouts and gay scout leaders?  Do they not realize that, by promulgating their bans, they simply force young men to engage in lies, deceit, and shameful abnegation?  Those hardly seem like the sort of values the BSA wants to promote.

Cool for Scandal

So unless you've been living under a rock--or, I don't know, stuck in some sort of a closet--you know that, earlier this week, Jason Collins, late of the Washington Wizards, became the first athlete in a major American team sport to come out as gay while still active--well, while still active as a player; I imagine plenty of the other athletes who have come out are still actively gay.  Collins certainly deserves credit for breaking what may be the last major civil-rights barrier in professional sports (although I can't help but notice a continued dearth of Jewish long-jumpers),  But cynics point out that Collins is, at best, a marginal player in the twilight of his career.  As a free agent, Collins is not guaranteed ever to play again unless he suits the needs of an NBA general manager.  If anything, his announcement may have helped his chances of being signed by a new team. You know  Commissioner David Stern would dearly love to see Collins on the hardcourt (snicker) next season, lest the NBA--deservedly or not--face accusations of homophobia.

How times have changed.  An NBA player reveals that he is gay and not only does he not jeopardize his career, he may well have prolonged it.  In today's Times, even while columnist Frank Bruni laments the double-standard that condemns women as sluts even while celebrating men for sexual conquests, a front-page article discusses how numerous scandal-plagued men, including libidinous subjects Eliot Spitzer and David Petraeus, have found that the road to redemption leads through the groves of academe.  It seems non-normative sexual behavior may just be the stepping stone to greater triumphs.

All of which is to say that I, the Solipsist, would hereby like to declare myself a clam fetishist.  And if you stop reading my blog--indeed, if you don't each immediately coerce at least five more people to read it--you are intolerant bastards and should be ashamed of yourselves.  I thank you for your continued support.

Monday Miscellany

Kudos to Jason Collins, the NBA player who made history today by becoming the first active player in a major American team sport (no, hockey does not count) to come out as gay.  Frankly, I'm guessing he just wanted to beat Colin Kaepernick to the punch, but good for Collins nonetheless.

Just Another Day at Solipsist Central--Super Bowl Edition

WOS: Do you have work to do today?

SOL: A little.  I want to get it done soon.  It is Super Bowl Sunday, you know.

WOS: Oh, really?  Cool!

SOL: "Cool"?  Do you even know who's playing?

WOS: Yes! Yes, I do, Mr. Smartass.  The 49'ers and. . . uh. . . Wait, I know this. . . . Um. . .  (SOL begins flapping his arms.)  Um. . . Hm.

SOL: (Still flapping arms) SCRA-AAA-AAA-AWK!

WOS: The Chickens?

SOL: The Chi--  SCRA-AAA-AAA-AWK!!!!

WOS: The Roosters?!?

SOL: (Making a menacing face as he flaps his arms) SCRAA-AAAAAAAAAA-AWWWWWK!!! SCRAAA-AAAAAAAAA-AWWWWK!!!!

WOS: Um. . .The. . . Hawks?

SOL: (Croaking) NE-VER-MOOOORRRE!

WOS: The. . .Crows?

SOL: WHAT?!?

WOS: Oh, I mean, the Ravens!

SOL: "Quoth the CROW, 'Nevermore'"?!?

WOS: Shut up! Leave me alone! I just woke up!  Just for that, we're watching the Puppy Bowl on the bigscreen! You can go watch the game in your mancave!

SOL: (Muttering) Yeah, like that wasn't going to happen anyway.

WOS: What?

SOL: Nothing.

**************************
I don't really have a dog in this year's fight.  I live in the Bay Area, so I guess I'm nominally rooting for the 49'ers.  If I had to bet, though, I think I might actually go with Baltimore.  Here's the interesting thing, though: In a game featuring San Francisco and Baltimore, if you had to guess which team has gotten tons of press for recent anti-gay sentiment, and which has become known for its players' support of gay rights and marriage equality. . .  Well, let's just say, you'd be wrong.

Still, go Niners.

Mix It Up

Eleven years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center inaugurated "Mix It Up Day," a nationwide event where students are encouraged to eat lunch with students with whom they would not normally eat.  I know: Pretty gay, right?!?

Actually, no.  Not at all.  Not in any sense of the word.  But that hasn't stopped the American Family Association from condemning "Mix It Up Day" as a nefarious attempt to recruit unsuspecting schoolchildren into the hedonistic ranks of the creeping homosexual subculture.  The conservative activist group--and thanks, right-wing troglodytes, for turning "family" into code for ignorant bigotry--has called on parents to keep kids out of school on October 30--lest their children come home all gayed up!

The event, of course, has nothing to do with homosexuality, except perhaps in an incidental way.  The "Mix It Up" program "is not about sexual orientation but rather about breaking up social cliques, which are especially evident in a school cafeteria."  "Mix It Up" is part of the SPLC's "Teaching Tolerance" project, which seeks to combat bigotry and, obviously, intolerance wherever it may crop up.  Sure, on "Mix It Up Day someone will presumably end up dining with a gay student; someone else will dine with a bunch of science geeks; and someone else will finally get the chance to talk to Charlene, the cheerleader he has pined for since freshman year but who never knew he existed so she could never see that they were meant for each other and he could love her in a way that Chad the wide receiver never could and--

Sorry, I got distracted.

The American Family Association seems to labor under the kind of misconception that has caused paleoconservatives to react with atavistic dread to the concept of same-sex marriage: The fact that people CAN marry people of the same sex does not make it MANDATORY to do so.  The fact that people will be "forced" to eat lunch with a relative stranger on October 30 does not mandate that the new lunch buddy be gay.  I hasten to point out that the program calls for students to dine WITH--not ON--each other.

Furthermore, conservatives are terrified at the thought that dining with a gay student could turn a straight kid gay.  But by that reasoning, isn't it equally plausible that dining with a straight kid could bring the poor benighted deviant child back into the good graces of God and community?  Or is the lure of homosexuality just so great that no one can hope to resist?  For a group that hates gay people, the AFA sure does give them a lot of credit.
Look, AFA, talking to or eating with--or even, dare I say, befriending--a gay person will not make a straight person gay.  In much the same way, if I were to dine with any representative of your group, I wouldn't turn into a moron.  Luckily, the world doesn't work that way.

The Solipsist Reads the Times (So You Don't Have To)

First, some good news: American negotiators see hopeful signs that the Iranian government may be feeling pressure to reach a deal on its nuclear program that may prove acceptable to the international community--said "international community" presumably not including Iran.  It's always struck me as somewhat ironic, not to say hyprocritical, not to say "wrong" that countries like the US, with its own huge nuclear arsenal, dictates to other nations whether they can or cannot possess such weapons themselves.  Not that I'm in favor of Iranian nukes: I'd prefer that President Mahmanamana not have such weapons; I'd prefer even more that NOBODY had such weapons; and I'd prefer most of all that ONLY the United States had such weapons--well, and maybe England, 'cause they're adorable.  But, y'know, what's good for the nuclear goose is good for the atomic gander and all.

Anyway, the good news: International sanctions seem to be having some effect on Iranian leaders.  How do we know that Iran is feeling pressure?  Among other things, "Americans believe that recent blustery statements from Iranian officials are laying the groundwork for concessions by Tehran."  Hey, if "blustery statements" are good, then "outright threats" must be even better!  If we're lucky, maybe Iran will launch an "all-out military attack" on a neighboring country!  Then, we'll really be in business.

Unless you live under a rock or are still using MySpace, you know that Facebook went public yesterday.  Apparently even Zuckerberg couldn't figure out the privacy settings!  (Yes, I stole that line; it was worth it.)  People are disappointed (or maybe gloating) because the stock posted only a minor gain on its first day of trading.  Some suspect that investors were turned off when Mark Zuckerberg showed up to ring the stock market's opening bell wearing his trademark  hoodie.  Where's George Zimmerman when you need him?!?

Sorry.

Representative Harold Rogers (R-KY) has some 'splainin' to do.  He steered a government contract to supply "drip pans" for army helicopters to a company in his district, at the presumably outrageous cost of $17,000 per pan.  In Rogers' defense, these are leakproof pans.  He could have gotten leaky pans for only $16,500 per, but I for one think our troops are worth the extra expenses.

Eminent psychiatrist Dr. Robert L. Spitzer has come out (so to speak) against an earlier study he authored.  In that 2003 study, he claimed that so-called "gay conversion therapy," which seeks to "cure" homosexuals of their gaiety, might offer benefits to those who truly wanted to change their sexual orientation.  Now, Dr. Spitzer is no gay-basher: In the 1970s, he played a prominent role in convincing the psychiatric community to STOP classifying homosexuality as a mental illness.  So his later study, which bucked the consensus view that "gay cures" were at best ineffective and at worst extremely harmful, was hailed by many conservatives as a vindication of their view that homosexuality was a reversible choice.  In fairness to Dr. Spitzer, he most emphatically denied that there was anything wrong with homosexuality, and emphasized that his study only suggested that "gay cures" merited further investigation, but this didn't prevent the demagoguery of small minds.  At any rate, Dr. Spitzer now acknowledges that his study suffered from methodological flaws and he has apologized to the gay community for the harm that he unwittingly caused.  Good for him.

Now, if only someone would find a cure for narrow-minded bigotry and homophobia.

Alexis Tsipras may become the Prime Minister of Greece in the next few weeks.  His left-wing party is likely to claim a majority in upcoming elections, a result of widespread anger at austerity measures demanded by the power-brokers in the European union.  Tsipras seems to enjoy his newfound power and has unaplogetically tweaked the euro-zone leaders (read: Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany).

Annoying the Germans, huh?  Surely, nothing bad could come of that.

Finally, I was deeply saddened to read of the passing of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.  Then I remembered that I don't know who that is.  Turns out, he was the pre-eminent twentieth-century interpreter of  "art songs," a traditional genre that extends from classical works, such as Schubert's "Der Erlkonig," to modern-day masterpieces like Nicki Minaj's "Stupid Hoe."  Truly, Fischer-Dieskau was a genius; only someone with a heart of stone could be unmoved by his rendition of "My Humps."

You're welcome, Nation.

I Hate to Admit It, But Santorum Was Right

Talk about burying the lede! Hidden in an article about President Obama's recent endorsement of the right of gays and lesbians to marry ("Obama’s Switch on Same-Sex Marriage Stirs Skepticism")--all the way down in paragraph 12!--was this:

Mr. Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage appeared to have little effect on Americans’ view of the issue. More influential seems to be the increasing familiarity with people who are gay and lesbian. In a 2003 Times/CBS News poll, 44 percent of respondents said they had a colleague at work, close friend or relative who was gay, compared with 69 percent in the latest poll. Those who did were more likely to support legalizing same-sex marriage than those who did not.

Oh, well, there you go.

HELLO!!!!  Can we go back to that paragraph for a moment:  "In a 2003 Times/CBS News poll, 44 percent of respondents said they had a colleague at work, close friend or relative who was gay, compared with 69 percent in the latest poll."

(DIGRESSION: Heh. .  . heh. .  . He said '69.' END OF DIGRESSION)

There's been a 57% increase in the gay and lesbian population of the United States over less than ten years, and all we're talking about is the President's poll numbers?!?

(DIGRESSION: Heh. . .heh. . .He said 'poll.'  END OF DIGRESSION)

Have gay-marriage foes seen this? Their whole raison d'outrage has been that sanctioning gay marriage would lead to greater acceptance of homosexuality and, presumably, greater and greater numbers of people embracing this alluvasudden chic lifestyle ('cause nothing's cooler than holy matrimony!!!!). . . .  And, if these numbers are to be trusted, they're right!  As gay marriage has become a more and more mainstream topic of conversation, the numbers of gays and lesbians have increased dramatically!  The only possible conclusion: Letting gays marry TURNS AMERICANS GAY!!!!

Well, you've been warned.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch a Ricky Martin video.

Oh, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Youthful Indiscretions

As President Obama strides two steps forward in the history of civil rights with his endorsement of gay marriage, Mitt Romney takes us one step back.  It has recently come to light that, as a senior at Muffington Central Prep School (or something), Romney may have engaged in a bit of playful gay-bashing.  He and some of his good buds ganged up on a schoolmate, John Lauber, who had the temerity to return from Spring Break with his hair dyed blond.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Little freak had it coming.  I know!  But, you know how the lamestream media is: Give them a story about a future presidential candidate bullying a gay teenager, and they're all over it!

In Romney's defense, he claims he was not bullying Lauber because Lauber was gay; indeed, Romney says--and personally I believe--that he wasn't even aware that Lauber was gay.  So, there, it's cool: Romney's not a homophobe; he's just a jerk.

Honestly, I don't think anyone should worry too much about things that presidential candidates might have done in high school, which in Romney's case was almost fifty years ago. Hell, when I was in tenth grade, I killed and ate a local electrician.  Nobody's going to hold that against me now, right?

What?

Oh.

Well, just forget I said anything.

Not That There's Anything Wrong with That

When doing crossword puzzles--particularly those from The New York Times--you want to try to figure out the gimmick.  Once you have, the puzzle practically solves itself.

The gimmick tends to reside in the "long" answers--especially the long "Across" answers.  In the Sunday paper, the puzzle's title gives you a hint, but on the other days, you're on your own.  Sometimes, the gimmick is positively fiendish--requiring you, for example, to put multiple letters into one box or involving an answer that actually "bends" up or down.  Other times, the answers call for a pun.  Such was the case with today's puzzle.

This being a Wednesday, the puzzle was not especially difficult.  The gimmick, too, was fairly simple: The "trick" answers simply involved replacing a word ending in a 'z' or 'ze' with a homonym.  So, for example, the answer to the clue, "Heckles the Westminster Kennel Club show?" was "boos hounds"; the answer for "Entourages for Odysseus' faithful wife?" was "Penelope crews."  (Digression: In case you're not familiar with crosswords, a question mark at the end of a clue generally indicates that the answer involves a pun or other wordplay. EOD)  The final "gimmick clue" for the puzzle was, "Ricky Martin or Neil Patrick Harris?"  The answer was "star gays."

Now, both Ricky Martin and Neil Patrick Harris have been quite open about their sexuality, and to refer to them as "gay" is not in any way insulting or slanderous.  It's basically the same thing as referring to Jeremy Lin as Asian or the Solipsist as brilliant and gorgeous--it simply reflects reality.  Still, there's a difference between referring to Ricky Martin as a "gay star" and referring to him as a "star gay"--or as "a gay," period.  References to "the gays" would seem more at home among the congregants of the Saddleback Baptist Church than in the pages of The New York Times--even if the page in question contains only a crossword puzzle.

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive--I would have a similar twinge if I heard someone refer to "the Jews" instead of "Jewish people."  But as a bastion of the elite liberal media, The New York Times should be careful about that kind of thing.

Give Us Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe FABULOUS!

Say this for Americans: We don't do things by half measures. Now that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been repealed, and gay servicemembers no longer have to hide their sexual orientation to serve in the military, the government has apparently decided that no one should hide their sexuality. In fact, hiding one's sexuality can get you into trouble, especially if you're applying for asylum in the US. Many asylum-seekers are running into trouble because they are not "gay enough" to qualify for asylum in the eyes of immigration authorites.

This is the U S of A, god damnit! We like our steaks rare, our beer cold, and our gays flaming! You want to stay in this country? Show us the gay!

(Too subtle)

At the same time, though, don't take things too far. When Romulo Castro applied for asylum, he considered going as his drag-queen persona, Fidelia Castro. Wisely, he decided against this. It's gilding the lily. And let's face it: Anyone can dress up as a member of the opposite sex. It hardly proves anything. Hell, the Solipsist himself once donned a black mini-dress, red wig, and high heels and marched in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. That doesn't make us gay!

It doesn't right?

(This guy's trying too hard)

Our advice to potential asylum seekers: Just be yourself--with a little extra gay. And when the immigration man asks just how gay you are, lick your lips, give a big wink, and say, "Honey, how gay do you want me to be?"

(Just right)

Solipsistography

"Gays Seeking Asylum in US Encounter a New Hurdle"

Images from: TheTomCruise.com, Examiner.com, and Entertainment Weekly.