Russia and Egypt Refuse to Sign the Olympic Charter with LGBT Protections

One of the ways that Vladimir Putin has endeavored to retain support is by pandering to the most extreme elements of the hysterically anti-gay Russian Orthodox Church.  Here in America, Der Trumpenführer has mimicked Putin's tactic and has been dismantling LGBT non-discrimination protections to the near orgasmic delight of Christofascists.  In Egypt, increasing anti-LGBT efforts - including the arrest and imprisonment of gays - is aimed at pandering to Islamic extremists.  All three situations are examples of how tyrants - or a would be tyrant - use the toxicity of religion to bolster their own power.  Now, in advance of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, Russia and Egypt are refusing to sign the Olympic charter for the 2018 games if it includes provisions banning discrimination and abuse of LGBT athletes.  Putin's aim is to thrill the homophobes in his Russian Orthodox Church base.  In Egypt, the goal is to mollify Islamic extremists.  A piece in Newnownext looks at this disturbing development:

Russia and Egypt are fighting a resolution by the International Olympic Committee that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Since 2015, Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter has condemned anti-LGBT bias, but representatives from the two countries have issued an ultimatum at the U.N, where member nations are negotiating the Olympic Truce Resolution: Either LGBT protections are stripped from Principle 6 or they won’t sign the treaty.

“Egypt and Russia are not simply fighting over symbolic language but over the levels of violence governments are allowed to use against LGBT people,” saidOutRight International’s Jessica Stern.

The ultimatum comes as attacks on LGBT citizens are escalating in both nations.

“After systematic attacks on LGBT people in their own countries, they are now setting their sights on promoting violence and discrimination in every country of the world,” says Stern. “The Olympics Games are supposed to be a time for sport, technique, pride and community, not for politicking, hatred and violence.”

After a rainbow flag was spotted at a concert in Cairo in September, Egyptian authorities launched a crackdown that has seen dozens of suspected homosexuals arrested and detained. Last week a bill was introduced to criminalize homosexuality and support for LGBT people.

In Russia, senior officials have called for jail time for violators of the country’s infamous anti-gay propaganda ban. The Russian government has also been criticized for turning a blind eye to the anti-gay purge in Chechnya.

Protections for LGBT people were originally added to the Olympic Charter in advance of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, after the country first instituted its ban.

Said Stern, “We cannot allow this type of bullying to target LGBT people or undermine the principle of global community.”

The Ongoing Stigma of Male Intimacy

Yes, things have come along way for LGBT Americans over the last 10 to 15 years.  Perhaps the most notable, of course, being the extension of same sex marriage nationwide.  Despite these advances, there remains an effort to stigmatize same sex intimacy, particularly male intimacy, particularly by Christofascists and their "family values" organizations and their political whores in the Republican Party dating back to the days of hate merchant Sen. Joe McCarthy.  But the problem doesn't stop there.  As noted, NBC has been accused of a form of homophobia in its coverage of gay athletes at the 2016 Olympic Games.  Then, of course, there is the ongoing homophobia across Hollywood and the difficulty faced by out actors.  A piece in Salon looks at the problem.  Here are highlights:

What’s the matter with a hug? Nothing, unless it’s between two men. 

Last week, the U.K.’s Daily Mail raised its proverbial eyebrow at an embrace between Chris Mears and Jack Laugher, a pair of British Olympians who had just won the gold medal for the 3-meter synchronized dive. In a photo of the two, Laugher appears to pounce on his diving partner, wrapping his arms around Mears’ neck. The moment is sweet and a bit silly, the kind of rapturous gesture that doesn’t seem out of the question when someone has earned the highest possible honor in his sport.
But to the Daily Mail, there was something questionable — even girly — about their prolonged cuddle, contrasting their elation with a more subdued exchange from the Chinese team. “Britain’s victorious synchronised divers hug for joy after winning gold,” the Mail wrote, “while China’s bronze medalists settle for a manly pat on the back.” Twitter users decried the gaffe as distasteful, but the Mail is hardly the only outlet to express discomfort at a display of affection between two men, even heterosexual ones.
Kory Floyd, a researcher at Arizona State University, suggests that the maximum length for a male-on-male embrace is one second, and anything longer is coded as being romantic or sexual in nature.  To put it bluntly, men shy away from hugging one another not because it’s “unmanly” but because they’re worried about being perceived as gay.
 Following last week’s controversy, Laugher’s girlfriend went so far as to make a public statement about her boyfriend’s sexuality. (After all, the Olympic partners do share an apartment together.) The stigma surrounding male-to-male intimacy is a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of the lavender scare of the 1950s. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who some speculate was a closet homosexual himself, led a purge of gay employees from government offices, as it was believed that queer people were inherently communist sympathizers. In McCarthy’s America, gay people became a pathologized class of individuals, with homosexuality classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973. (In many countries, being transgender is still defined as such.)
Before the postwar era, homosexuality was on the minds of few Americans; many might have associated being gay as the effect of a biblical plague, the curse of Sodom. Gay people weren’t a real-world threat. When France decriminalized sodomy in 1791, homosexuality as a lived identity wasn’t thought of. Homosexuality was defined as a behavior not a discrete way of being. Openly gay writer Marcel Proust didn’t introduce the concept into French literature — in his expansive “In Search of Lost Time” series — until 1913.
Without the cloud of anti-gay suspicion around male friendships, same-sex intimacy was extremely common in the 19th century, when it was customary for men to walk around holding hands and even sleep in one another’s beds.

The most famous example of this is President Abraham Lincoln, who shared a bunk with his best friend, Joshua Speed. Carl Sandburg, the revered American poet, was the first to suggest that there had been anything sexual between the two men. He wrote euphemistically in “Abraham Lincoln: The War Years,” a 1926 biography of the 16th president, that their kinship was defined by “a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets.”
 Lincoln’s sexuality remains an open question, but expressions of affection that break with modern notions of homosociality were many and varied. Daniel Webster, who served as the secretary of state under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, was known to refer to some of his male friends as “my lovely boy” in correspondence.
The best illustration of changing gender mores is in “Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography,” a book by John Ibson, a California State University, Fullerton professor. . . . . Reviewing Ibson’s collection, Alecia Simmonds of Australia’s Daily Life wrote that the lack of similar patterns in relationships today is not merely a product of homophobia but the emergence of women in public life. “The photos in Ibson’s collection were taken during a time when life was incredibly gender segregated,” she said. “Your primary emotional identification was with people of your own gender.”
Women have taken the place of other men as the objects of that affection, as outlets for the male need for human touch and intimacy. A 1997 study from Purdue University showed that 75 percent of men relied primarily on women — particularly their wives or girlfriends — as their sole source of close companionship. While relationships between women were often confessional, based around conversation and disclosure, the study showed that male friendships were less intimate and more driven by activity.
These findings correlate with the overall reality of male friendships: A 2006 survey in American Sociological Review showed that adult heterosexual men have fewer friends than any other population in U.S. society. As Salon’s Lisa Wade has previously suggested, it’s not that straight men don’t want more friends. They do. “Men desire the same level and type of intimacy in their friendships as women, but they aren’t getting it,” Wade wrote.  
Not having those desires met can have a deeply detrimental impact on heterosexual males. In a 2013 essay for The Good Men Project, writer Mark Greene called it “touch isolation.”

“American men can go for days or weeks at a time without touching another human being,” Greene wrote. “The implications of touch isolation for men’s health and happiness are huge.”  Gentle platonic touch is key to the early development of infants, Greene noted, adding that it continues to play an important role throughout men’s and women’s lives for their “health and emotional well being, right into old age.”

Men’s desire for intimacy from companions of the same sex is repressed at a young age, Greene said, but this is reinforced throughout their lives through stigma — the suggestion that there’s something less than masculine or abnormal about male-to-male intimacy. When two Russian men filmed themselves walking the streets of Moscow holding hands, they were repeatedly harassed by passersby — called “bitches” and “faggots” and even told to leave the country. Another man forcibly ran into them, hoping to start a fight.
Things are changing, however, along with the advent of a new generation that views homosexuality in a more positive light, thus lessening the shame around potentially being seen as gay.

In a 2014 study published in Men and Masculinities, British researchers Mark McCormack and Eric Anderson found that 98 percent of college-aged men surveyed in the U.K. had slept in the same bed with another man. And 93 percent of those surveyed said they had cuddled a male classmate. “They don’t realize this is something that older men would find shocking,” McCormack, a professor at Durham University, told The Huffington Post. “It’s older generations that think men cuddling is taboo.”
The shifting tides are evident in the embrace of friendships that skirt the line between what might have been considered outré even just a decade ago.  Real-life best friends Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart went on an extremely affectionate tour of New York after finishing their 2014 run in Broadway’s “Waiting for Godot” in a honeymoon that inspired a million BuzzFeed lists. Members of the former One Direction boy band were often known to affectionately kiss one another or slip their hands into each other’s butt pockets. Those public displays of affection weren’t jeered. They made the band’s female fanbase go apeshit.
It might seem like The Daily Mail’s homophobic flap is a reflection of the current cultural era, but this lingering distrust of close male friendships is increasingly behind the times. Hugging it out doesn’t just feel good. Embracing the bromance makes the world a better, cuddlier place.

Sleazy Daily Beast Article "Outs" and Endangers Olympic Athletes

Douche Bag (my view) Nico Hines

Up until now, I regularly check out The Daily Beast and often have referenced their articles - I did the same with Rolling Stone until it published its fiction based story slandering the University of Virginia.  Now, The Daily Beast is going to join Rolling Stone as an outlet to be avoided.  Why? Beacuse of an utterly sleazy pieces by a scumbag (at least in my view) named Nico Hines who went around the Olympic Village with Grindr and other hookup apps and then "outed" various athletes, many from anti-gay countries where their lives might be endangered on their return home.  While the editors of The Daily Beast have done a disingenuous "We're Sorry!" piece, it is nowhere near enough and does nothing to undo thee damage done to some athletes.  Both Hines and whoever approved his piece need to be fired immediately.  Slate has a piece ripping The Daily Beast a new one and rightly so.  Here are highlights from Slate: 

On Thursday morning, the Daily Beast published an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting, which involves a journalist accessing Grindr in an unlikely setting and … seeing what happens. But the Daily Beast piece, penned by Nico Hines, is a uniquely disgusting and irresponsible entry into the tired genre. Hines entices his (often closeted) subjects under false pretenses; effectively outs several closeted athletes who live in repressive countries; then writes about the whole thing in a tone of mocking yet lurid condescension. By 10:30 a.m. ET, the Daily Beast had, in response to criticism, edited out the most identifying details about closeted athletes—but that’s too little, too late. (Update, 9:15 p.m.: On Thursday evening, the Daily Beast took down the piece entirely.)

Hines begins by explaining that his entire assignment consisted of walking around the Olympic Village while using several hookup apps, hoping to learn whether “an Average Joe” can “join the bacchanalia.” He quickly abandons apps like Tinder, which are mostly used by straight people, for Grindr, which is for gay men: “No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder,” he writes. Presumably, Hines awards “no prizes” because he believes gays are more promiscuous than straight people—a theme to which Hines often returns throughout his vile piece.

Because Hines is not gay, you might find his use of Grindr a bit dishonest. But not to worry: “For the record,” Hines writes, “I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t—unless you count being on Grindr in the first place—since I’m straight, with a wife and child.” This sentence reflects a stunning amount of ignorance, because, in Hines’ situation, of course being on Grindr in the first place is a lie. Grindr is an app for men who wish to hook up with other men. That is its purpose! To be on Grindr when you do not have that goal, and when you could not possibly have that goal because you are straight, is itself a mendacious deception.

With his dubious premise established, Hines proceeds to out athlete after athlete, providing enough information about each Olympian he encounters for anyone with basic Google skills to uncover their identities. (After several minutes of Googling, I surmised the identities of five of the gay athletes Hines described.) I’m not going to repeat his descriptions, because—as Hines himself acknowledges!—some of them live in “notoriously homophobic” countries and remain closeted at home.

Shortly after Hines’ article published, openly gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy tweeted that the author “basically just outed a bunch of athletes in his quest to write a shitty [Daily Beast] article where he admitted to entrapment.” That is correct, but it’s worth exploring why Hines embarked upon this weird, sleazy quest in the first place. I count two reasons. The first is that Hines simply enjoys tittering with condescension at all the gay athletes who take the bait and engage with him—a straight dude, as Hines emphatically reminds us. Why else zero in on Grindr? The second reason is more repulsive: Hines appears to take pleasure in luring in these Olympians then outing them to all the world.

But the offensive purpose of Hines’ article is really the least of its problems. Far worse is the actual damage it will likely cause to real, live human beings—inevitable onsequences that Hines blithely ignored. Several athletes who are closeted at home (and possibly to their own teammates) will wake up on Thursday morning to the news that the Daily Beast has outed them. Their teammates could ostracize and alienate them; their families could disown them; their countries could imprison them. And for what? A homophobic article about how a straight guy conned gay Olympians from anti-gay countries into hitting on him through Grindr? Hines’ article is a dangerous disaster, a wildly unethical train wreck that should be taken down immediately for the sake of its duped subjects. Hines may view his Grindr-baiting as all fun and games. For the victims of his unprincipled journalism, however, his nasty little piece has the power to ruin lives. 

As I said, I am saying good bye to The Daily Beast.  As for Hines, he needs to be fired and  boycotted by legitimate news outlets.  Perhaps he can get a job with FRC or AFA where lying and seeking to harm gays is an everyday mission. 

Finding "Someone who Completely Gets Me"

I have had the pleasure of meeting Dustin Lance Black - or Lance as he calls himself - on three occasions and have found him to be a sweet, thoughtful and unassuming individual.  He is also someone who has been on a mission to bring marriage equality nationwide and was a founding member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights.  Now, Black is engaged to marry Olympian Tom Daley and he has made some touching statements.  The Christofascists seek to denigrate same sex love, but Lance's statements cut through to the beauty of loving same sex relationships.  Here are excerpts from Gay Star News: 

Newly engaged, Oscar winning screenwriter and LGBTI activist Dustin Lance Black is opening up about his feelings for fiance Tom Daley and their relationship.

‘I met someone who completely gets me,’ he tells the podcast Defining Marriage.

‘I definitely know that we’re better for having each other. We dream bigger. Things seem so much more possible together. Two and a half years in and it still feels like every day is a dream.’

The couple announced their engagement with an announcement in a British newspaper last month.

He says of getting married: ‘There’s power in the word, that the word is understood by society and it means that when you say “I’m married” or getting married, it’s a promise you make to the person you love, and I think that promise creates so much. It creates so much potential, and is understood by so many people.’

Black, who won the Academy Award in 2009 for his screenplay for the film Milk, has been deeply involved in the fight for same-sex marriage in the US. He was a founding member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights which successfully fought in the US Supreme Court for marriage equality in California.

He recalls the dreams he said in his speech the night he accepted his Oscar: ‘There’s two things I said: I said full federal equality, and we have that now in terms of marriage; I also said that one day I hoped that I’d be able to fall in love and get married. I never dreamed in that time I would meet somebody and fall in love and get engaged. I just never knew if that was something I’d be able to appreciate in my own lifetime.’

I wish them both much happiness.  I was especially touched by Lance's comments because my husband often describes me to others as "Someone who Completely Gets Him."

Vacation/Cruise - Last Day at Sea

Full moon over Santorini as the ship pulled out headed for Mykonos

We had a wonderful time in Olympia, Greece and are enjoying a day at sea as we return to Venice.  All too typically, I had to review/revise/comment on documents for a client this morning.  With the truly terrible satellite Internet aboard the Norwegian Jade - I love the ship otherwise - keeping up with the office has been a major chore. 

As a lover of history, especially the Greco-Roman era, being in Olympia and walking the sacred sites to Zeus and Hera as well as the facilities for the Olympic Games was truly a dream come true.  The husband was totally caught up in the history of the place as well.  As has occurred other times when I have traveled in Europe, I have been struck by what arrogant upstarts many Americans must seem to Europeans.  America has existed for less than 300 years.  The Olympic Games began in 776 B.C.E. and continued until 393 A.D. 

I will have more post once we are back in Venice with decent Internet.

First Tourists Arrested in Russia for "Gay Propaganda"

It is time for the International Olympic Committee to relocate the 2014 Winter Games from Russia and send a strong message to dictator Vladimir Putin.  Many seemingly refused to take seriously the harsh homophobic law recently passed in Russia that can lead to arrest and jail time for even tourists.  Three Dutch tourists have been arrested and are now awaiting a hearing.  Their apparent crime?  Working on a documentary about the plight of gays in Russia.  A strong public humiliation of Russia is needed to send a message that backward, religious bigotry will make a country off limits for sought after international events.  Here are details from Gay Star News:

Three tourists were arrested in Russia for ‘gay propaganda’ today (21 July), making them the first foreigners to be officially charged under the anti-gay law.
In Murmansk in North Russia, three Dutch citizens were detained by police.
One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
It is believed Van der Veen was making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been asking children about their views.

One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, who is a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
Nos says the four were making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been questioning youngsters about their views.
The four have been released pending their court appearance and Van der Veen used Twitter to say they are being helped by the Dutch consultate.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/07/four_dutch_nationals_arrested.php#sthash.xQee8jEf.dpuf

While the three Dutch tourists were being held in the police station, authorities said they had violated the ‘rules of stay in the territory of Russia’.
They were told they had broken the law of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ propaganda among children, which was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin last month.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/first-tourists-arrested-russia-%E2%80%98gay-propaganda%E2%80%99220713#sthash.Wh79LOGP.pOADUvUb.dpuf

Three tourists were arrested in Russia for ‘gay propaganda’ today (21 July), making them the first foreigners to be officially charged under the anti-gay law.
In Murmansk in North Russia, three Dutch citizens were detained by police.
One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
It is believed Van der Veen was making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been asking children about their views.

One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, who is a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
Nos says the four were making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been questioning youngsters about their views.
The four have been released pending their court appearance and Van der Veen used Twitter to say they are being helped by the Dutch consultate.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/07/four_dutch_nationals_arrested.php#sthash.xQee8jEf.dpuf

While the three Dutch tourists were being held in the police station, authorities said they had violated the ‘rules of stay in the territory of Russia’.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/first-tourists-arrested-russia-%E2%80%98gay-propaganda%E2%80%99220713#sthash.Wh79LOGP.pOADUvUb.dpuf

Three tourists were arrested in Russia for ‘gay propaganda’ today (21 July), making them the first foreigners to be officially charged under the anti-gay law.

In Murmansk in North Russia, three Dutch citizens were detained by police.  One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

It is believed Van der Veen was making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been asking children about their views.

One of those arrested is Kris van der Veen, who is a councillor for the left-wing green party GroenLinks in Groningen. He is also chairman of the foundation KGBT Groningen, which campaigns for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

Nos says the four were making a documentary about gay rights in Russia and had been questioning youngsters about their views.

The four have been released pending their court appearance and Van der Veen used Twitter to say they are being helped by the Dutch consultate.

They were told they had broken the law of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’ propaganda among children, which was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin last month.

If convicted of the law, the three people could be heavily fined, held for up to 14 days in Russian prison and then deported back to the Netherlands.

 

Ann Romney's Horse Loses to Gay Riders

In a case of strange irony, Ann Romney - whose husband has pandered to the nastiest anti-gay elements in the Christofascist GOP base - had her horse, Rafalca, go down to defeat in the Olympics to a gay rider on the British team (pictured above) AND a gay rider on the Dutch team.  Either God (i) doesn't take sides in the Olympics, (ii) isn't out to smite gays to favor the modern day Pharisee set when it comes to athletics and horseback riding, or (iii) doesn't like the greedy out of touch Romneys.  Whatever the case, I personally found the irony most sweet.  Here are highlights from The Advocate:

Great Britain's dressage team, which includes out equestrian rider Carl Hester won gold on Tuesday, while Team USA, featuring Jan Ebeling riding Ann Romney's horse Rafalca, placed sixth. Tuesday's win earned Hester, 45, his first Olympic medal.

The German team won the silver medal and the Dutch team, featuring out rider Edward Gal, took the bronze.

Romney, wife of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, said she was not disappointed that Ebeling and Rafalca would not advance to the individual round.

If Ann Romney sees herself as a GOP version of Evita Peron who can connect with what I'm sure she sees as the lower classes, she needs to seriously think again.

Ann Romney's Horse Fails to Win But Avoids Offending British

One has to love the British sense of humor - especially when the British press is castigating Mitt Romney.  The Guardian ran a story today under the headline "Ann Romney's horse fails to win dressage but avoids offending British" - would that Mitt had the political skills of Rafalca.  And I suspect that Rafalca is for less snooty and full of herself than her owners.  One can only how many tax write offs the Romneys have taken relating to Rafalca.  Here's a sampling of the Guardian story:

Short of mocking Shetland ponies over their lack of stature or laying into zebras for their failure to make a significant contribution to the world of equine culture, Ann Romney's horse Rafalca was always going to struggle to match the sheer incredulity that her husband managed to provoke on his recent overseas trip.

And in the event – the event in question being the individual dressage – the 15-year-old bay Oldenburg mare acquitted herself rather well. True, she and her rider, Jan Ebeling, may have been left well behind by Britain's Carl Hester, Germany's Dorothee Schneider and Denmark's Anna Kasprzak but, by Romney standards, her performance was a positive triumph.

 

Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element.

She bowed her neatly plaited head on cue, trotted diagonally across the sand, did the jogging-on-the-spot thing, the skipping thing, the rhythmic boogying thing, the controlled trotting thing: in short, Rafalca did everything that the occasion and the peculiar rules of the dressage demanded of her.

While he chose not to impart any information about Rafalca's voting intentions, the 53-year-old US rider did confirm that Ann Romney had given him "many words of encouragement" before the Olympics.

She had not been in touch on Thursday morning, he added, but her last message had been full of good counsel: "Do what you know to do and do what you do best. Just ride like it's a normal day." Fine advice indeed. If only her husband had heeded it.

Mitt Romney is an arrogant ass.  I suspect that Rafalca has far more personality and is probably far less self-absorbed. 

Mitt Romney and Rafalca The Dancing Horse

After a trip to the United Kingdom which can only be described as disastrous, the specter of the Olympic Games continue to cast a potential pall over the clueless and anything by diplomatic Romney: Rafalca, the dancing horse.  The horse for which the Romneys took over a $77,000.00 business expense deduction on the one tax return that has seen the light of day.  Rafalca - and I must confess that I love horses and grew up riding when my family lived in upstate New York - symbolizes in many ways the fact that Mitt Romney is totally out of touch and clueless when it comes to how the rest of us live - i.e., those of us who don't have Swiss bank accounts, money stashed in numerous tax havens across the globe, and who would be happy to have $77,000.00 in income for the year.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Romney's efforts to duck the Rafalca spotlight:

The animal kingdom has been inhospitable to Mitt Romney in this election cycle.  First there was the damaging story of Seamus, the Irish setter he strapped to the roof of the Romneys’ car on a family trip.  Now it seems that, when it comes to Romney’s political aspirations, Seamus may not be the most dangerous animal in the family menagerie. This past week belonged to Rafalca, the dancing horse. 

Rafalca, a 15-year-old Oldenburg mare owned in part by the Romneys, qualified as a member of the U.S. Olympic team and will compete in London in the dressage competition — a form of ballet for horses and their riders in which the animals do pirouettes and serpentines.

Understandably, Romney was wary about discussing dressage when NBC’s Brian Williams asked him in London on Wednesday about his equine Olympian. “You actually have a horse in the race. 

Romney pleaded ignorance. “I have to tell you, this is Ann’s sport. I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not — be — watching — the event. I hope — her horse does well.”

It was arguably Romney’s worst interview since Chris Wallace asked him about Seamus. The flustered candidate went on to disparage the British preparation for the Olympics, setting off an international incident.
It’s understandable that Romney would be reluctant to discuss dressage. Seamus may have made him look odd, or insensitive. Rafalca makes him look like a super-rich playboy.


Nothing says “man of the people” quite like horse ballet.  Ann Romney takes umbrage at the criticism, saying that dressage has helped with her multiple sclerosis.  .   .   .   .    While it’s heartening that Ann Romney has been helped by the horses, most MS sufferers don’t have the luxury of importing $100,000 horses from Europe. And the candidate’s disavowal of dressage as “Ann’s sport” isn’t quite right.

In an interview with the Web site Chronicle of the Horse, Rafalca’s trainer, Jan Ebeling, said Mitt Romney selected the music for the horse’s routine at an international competition; Ebeling, in another interview, said the former Massachusetts governor, inspired by his wife, “really enjoys the horses.” Romney joined his wife at an Olympic qualifying dressage event in April 2008, and the couple declared a $77,731 loss on their 2010 tax returns for their share of Rafalca’s care.

 For the record, the dressage events begin Aug. 2 at Greenwich Park. You can bet Mitt Romney won’t be there.

I've been to dressage events and believe me, the participants/horse owners aren't your typical, average Americans.

Mitt Romney's Disastrous Charm Offensive in the United Kingdom

Karma can truly be a bitch as Mitt Romney found out in the United Kingdom today.  For those living under rocks, Romney is visiting the UK and other nations in an effort to build his foreign policy bona fides after mocking and deriding Barack Obama for supposedly alienating America's traditional allies.   As it turns out, it is Romney who has offended and alienated the British and as The Daily Telegraph (the UK's leading conservative newspaper) reported proved himself to be anything but charming.   Here are some highlights:

His [Romney's] derisory comments questioning Britain’s preparedness for the Olympics in an interview with NBC were a strange way to build bridges with a country that he says should be restored as the umbilical ally of the United States, and a strange way to demonstrate the persuasive qualities needed as leader of the free world. 

Not once have I heard him praise Britain or extol the special relationship he now belatedly trumpets. He even reprised his dislike of the NHS shortly before leaving for these shores of benighted, yellow-toothed natives who spend half their lives waiting in hospital, having tried as governor of Massachusetts to ensure that everyone in his state, as in Britain, had access to health care.

His current pledge to “revive” ties between the US and Britain sounds suspiciously like a talking point drummed up in a policy meeting and designed to differentiate himself from President Barack Obama for domestic purposes.

Yet there isn’t much currently wrong with the transatlantic alliance, as last summer’s exultant state visit by Obama showed.

But the disaster for Romney didn't end with the Telegraph editorial.   Romney (and Utah) also got dished by the mayor of London  as he addressed a huge crowd of Britons:

There are some people who are coming from around the world who don't yet know about all the preparations we've done to get London ready in the last seven years. There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we are ready. Are we ready?"

Here's a video clip where Romney's Olympic games are described as having occurred in the middle of nowhere:

And then there's the issue of Romney's timing" right after British Prime Minister spoke out forcefully on the need for marriage equality for same sex couples.  Among other things, Cameron has stated that he supports same sex marriage because he's a conservative - a sharp contrast with Romney's profound anti-gay bigotry.  Here are some quotes from CNN:

On Wednesday the prime minister hosted a reception for members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community at 10 Downing in which he renewed his commitment to legal same sex civil marriage.

“I think marriage is a great institution – I think it helps people to commit, it helps people to say that they’re going to care and love for another person,” Cameron said, according to text of his remarks on his official website. “It helps people to put aside their selfish interests and think of the union that they’re forming. It’s something I feel passionately about and I think if it’s good enough for straight people like me, it’s good enough for everybody and that’s why we should have gay marriage and we will legislate for it.”

One can only wonder what other disasters Romney's foreign trip will cause as he visits other nations.  His trip to the UK confirms that Romney's not only out of touch with average Americans.  He's out of touch with everyone normal who wasn't raised as a rich spoiled brat with an overweening sense of entitlement. 

Romney Hypocrisy - Claiming the Obamas Are Elitists

One has to wonder at times what planet Mitt and Ann Romney are from.  They surely are out of touch with most Americans.  They were raised cushioned in wealth and freedom from pesky everyday concerns that most of us struggle with daily: paying for food, rent/mortgage payments, the costs of raising children, etc.  Yet amazingly, they are making an effort to paint the Barack and Michelle Obama - each of who grew up in the school of hard knocks - as "elitists.  What makes the whole affair all the more ludicrous is Ann Romney and her horse.  And, despite Kathleen Parker's effort to pretend otherwise and/or that liberals are "attacking success", it's not just any horse and we are not talking about "success" as most Americans understand the term.   We are taking about a sport at a level reserved to the extremely wealth.  And we are talking about a horse that allowed the Romneys to take business expense deductions to the tune of   some $77,000.00.  That's right, more than many American families make in a year's time.  Here are highlights from The New Yorker on Ms. Romney's horse and hired rider - which by the way made the Olympic team:

This year, in London, will there be a red-state Olympics and a blue one? Ann Romney’s horse Rafalca is going, to compete as a team alongside her trainer, Jan Ebeling, whom she pays to win. They qualified this past weekend; at the event that clinched the spot, Ann Romney held up one of the foam fingers that the dressage federation had ordered to show that it could take a joke that Stephen Colbert had made about the sport’s élitism. Ann cheered; Rafalca and Ebeling came in third. On this basis, she has been called, in some reports, an Olympian. Let’s grant her that.

Ann Romney’s involvement in the Olympics, though, raises some questions beyond the obvious ones suggested by a sport that is pursued at its upper levels, or played, primarily by the wealthy and their retainers.  .  .  .   Do we have to cheer for Ann? Does Romney get to accuse Obama of a lack of patriotism if we don’t?

Dressage, too, is a tricky sport politically, in part because many people have trouble seeing the sporting part at all. What they see is the money; it is as though each of the prancing horses were pacing out the shape of a dollar sign.  .   .  .  .   It is not clear that the Romney campaign grasps that.

The Romneys reported a business loss for the care of Rafalca that added up to some seventy-seven thousand dollars. This may be entirely within the rules, but it’s a reminder of how the tax code is full of pleasant surprises if one is rich, which remain invisible if one is not.

With the stage thus set, let's look at an article in Politicususa.com  that examines the disingenuous - may we say farcical? - effort to claim that it is the Obama family, and not the Romneys who are the elitists:

 

Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential presumptive nominee W. Mitt Romney, told Detroit’s WJR Frank Beckmann that she “doubted” she and Mitt would take as many overseas trips as the Obamas, because their happiness “comes from being with our children and our grandchildren.”

Mrs. Romney probably shouldn’t be making digs about vacations, with her husband having taken off 212 days of his last year as governor. 

Frank Beckmann was a good choice for the Romney campaign to place surrogate Ann Romney, allegedly W. Mitt’s best public face. 

Thus it was Beckmann who first threw out the completely inaccurate hot potato that the Obamas take a lot of “overseas trips”. One wonders if he was referring to the President’s job, but no, Ann assumed he meant as vacations, and that choice infers her tacit agreement with the faulty premise.

How many things are wrong with this? Well, number one, President Obama hasn’t taken any overseas vacations. He does travel overseas for work. You know, as President and all. And yes, even though Cokie Roberts thought Hawaii was exotic, it is still in the United States and not considered “abroad”, and it’s where the President’s family resides.

Number two; the trips Michelle has taken have been with her kids, sorta like “happiness” coming from being with “children.”

And number three, W. Mitt Romney was basically on vacation the entire last two years of his term of Governor of Massachusetts. He pulled a Palin, only he never announced it.

Salon noted, “He spent 212 of them out of the state, racking up more than 200,000 miles in the air and traveling to nearly 40 other states to lay the groundwork for his 2008 White House campaign. He kept the title of governor, sure, but ask just about anyone in the Bay State and they’ll tell you: He walked out on the job. He quit — just like Palin.”

Ouch, but the comparisons to Palin don’t end there, “His polls numbers were dropping (by October ’06, his favorable rating was barely above 30 percent), with voters expressing regret at having elected him in the first place.”

While the GOP wants to depict Ann Romney as a hard working stay at home mom, she's more like Marie Antoinette than most working mothers in America.  One can only hope that this "elitist" ploy bites the Romneys firmly in the ass.

Oh, and I'm not anti-horse riding etc.  I grew up with horses and riding when my family lived in upstate New York.  And I have a sister-in-law from a social register family (I believe one of her relatives of some sort even used to own The New Yorker), so I've been to dressage events which are full of pomp and circumstances.  I even recall one event where a young boy in the competition was riding a horse that had cost more than my car.  It's a great sport, but not a sport for the working class.

13 Year Old U.S. Olympic Team Diver Has Gay Dads

This is a sweet and amazing store.  Which, of course means that the Christofascists will be having fits and convulsions that a boy with two gay dads is thriving and well adjusted - contrary to the lies and untruths they regularly disseminate about gays as parents.  Adding to their hysteria will be the fact that the boy, Jordan Windle (pictured above with his dads, will be the grand marshal for the Circle City IN Pride Parade.  As a gay dad myself, I believe gays make exceptional parents and if their is any downside it stems from the lies, hate and bigotry that our children see thrown at us and at them as the children of gays.  Here are some highlights from the Indianapolis Star:

Jordan Pisey Windle is used to being the center of attention.  He has been the focus of his father's life since the day in 2000 when Jerry Windle retrieved him from a Cambodian orphanage.  He has been turning heads for the past five years as a diving phenom, the youngest ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic diving trials.
 
And all eyes will be on him June 9 when he serves as grand marshal for the Circle City IN Pride Parade, an annual celebration of Central Indiana's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The young athlete's decision to accept the parade invitation -- and the fact that he has two fathers -- is sure to raise eyebrows. But what other people think isn't of concern to the 13-year-old. He views the world so unself-consciously that when asked if he ever gets tired of people questioning him about his origins and his family, he simply shrugged. "I've never actually thought about it."

Jerry Windle was raised in a Pentecostal family and enrolled in the Navy straight out of high school in 1983. He completed officer candidate training and was awarded a full scholarship to Oregon State University, where he studied education. He served with distinction -- without revealing his sexual identity -- for 11 years, achieving the rank of lieutenant. He later worked for a pharmaceutical company and owned a medical consulting firm, but for all of his professional success, one aspiration was left unfilled: "I'd wanted to be a dad for as long as I could remember," Windle said.

Then one day in 2001, Windle was flipping through a magazine and came across an article about a man who adopted a boy from Cambodia. The story never mentioned an adoptive mother, so Windle called the magazine to confirm his suspicion that the man adopted as a single parent. "I said, 'So a single man can adopt in Cambodia?' and the magazine said, 'Yeah,' " Windle recalled. "So I filled out an application, and five months later I was on my way to Cambodia to get Jordan."

After second grade, Windle enrolled Jordan in a summer camp at the Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale. It was there he caught the eye of diving coach Tim O'Brien.

O'Brien's father, Ron, had coached four-time Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis, and he saw parallels between the two. Louganis saw not only Jordan's physical ability but also the emotional and intellectual makeup of a future champion. "For an 8-year-old, he asked very insightful questions," Louganis said.

Shortly thereafter, Jordan transferred from a public school in Fort Lauderdale to a private academy, Pine Crest, that boasts one of the top swimming and diving programs in the country. He worked with noted diving coach Janet Gabriel at Pine Crest, but she and Louganis encouraged the Windles to relocate to Indianapolis and set up camp at USA Diving's National Training Center. By this time, the family of two had expanded to include Andrés Rodriguez, a soft-spoken sports lover whom Jordan was taken with immediately.

If Jordan's journey continues as expected, don't be surprised to turn on the television during the Rio de Janeiro games and see a tear-jerking vignette about the diver's adoption, his two dads and his day at the front of the Pride parade. Just don't expect Jordan to understand what all the fuss is about.

Its a long article, so read the whole thing.