Final Monday Male Beauty

Obama's March, 2007, Letter to Bernanke and Paulson

Andrew Sullivan has a post that highlights the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain and the current economic crisis. In my view, in order to deal with a crisis, one has to recognize the problem on a timely basis. In the case of John McCain, a few short weeks ago McCain was repeatedly stating that the fundamentals of the economy were basically sound. Obviously, such statements were not in sync with reality. In contrast as far back as MARCH 2007, Obama showed that he recognized the nature of the growing problem overtaking the US economy. Sadly, rather than recognize the problems and formulate a way to deal with them, the McCain/Palin tickets' sole solution to everything is to spread vicious lies and half truths attacking Obama's character and/or patriotism. Here are some highlights from Andrew's post:

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I posted this rather prescient letter from Obama to Bernanke and Paulson last March. The letter itself is dated March 22, 2007. As with Obama's warnings about the possible consequences of occupying Iraq, I think this letter is worth considering as we face the consequences of the financial mortgage-rooted meltdown in the credit markets and consider the two candidates. Money quote:

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We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes. And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly...There is an opportunity here to bring different interests together in the best interests of American homeowners and the American economy. Please don't let this opportunity pass us by.

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Remember: from March 2007. Wouldn't it be great to have a president who actually anticipated problems rather than grappled with them after the fact? Read the full letter here:

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Dear Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson,
There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures. Because regulators are partly responsible for creating the environment that is leading to rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market, I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge.

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And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly. Working together, the relevant private sector entities and regulators may be best positioned for quick and targeted responses to mitigate the danger. Rampant foreclosures are in nobody's interest, and I believe this is a case where all responsible industry players can share the objective of eliminating deceptive or abusive practices, preserving homeownership, and stabilizing housing markets.

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In short, Obama foresaw what we are now reaping as far back as when I first began sounding the alarm about what was happening to the residential real estate market and foreclosure rate increase. Where was John McCain? Probably off advocating for even more deregulation and a further lessening of government oversight.

More Catholic Church Hypocrisy

As a former Roman Catholic, even though I have left the Church because of it's disgustingly corrupt hierarchy and its horrifically anti-gay stance, I none the less follow the news stories involving the Catholic Church out of both curiosity and perhaps out of the hope that someday the Church will cease being an instrument of intolerance and hate. In this vein, two stories caught my today. The first involves a Catholic priest who denounced Proposition 8 from the pulpit and outed himself. The other is from the New York Times and focuses on liberal/progressive elements within the Church that are resisting the hierarchy's efforts to take the Church back to a Medieval mindset. First, here are highlights from KFSN-TV in Fresno, California, which focus on Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center, for whom I have the utmost respect. He spoke out for what is right and moral even though it will cost him dearly given the Church's extreme homophobia and intolerance (on a personal note, I ultimately came to believe as father Farrow that God made me gay for a reason):

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Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center in northeast Fresno shocked parishioners Sunday morning when he came out against Proposition 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right for same sex couples to marry in California. . . . The homily taught of acceptance, love and rejection. But it was his closing remarks that left some parishioners stunned. "What most Catholics hear about being gay or lesbian at their parish is silence," . . . *the Father said he must go against the Bishops recommendation and instead go with what he feels is right.

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"In directing the faithful to vote yes on proposition 8, the California Bishops are not only entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements by the church itself that homosexual is innate," says Fr. Geoff.

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"I know that these words of truth will cost me dearly. But to withhold them would be far more costly and I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian couples, not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well."

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We sat down with Father Geoff before mass, and he answered the question many are probably wondering... Is he gay? "It's a secondary issue. But yes, I am. And when I was a boy I asked God please make me normal and the prayer never got answered and I realized why. Because God would've made somebody else he wouldn't have made me."

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Joshua De La Cerda, Parishioner, says "This is something Jesus would have done, or Christ would have done, spoke out for the truth." Fr. Geoff said after months of struggling with what to do, said in the end he followed his heart. "In any event regardless of what I or anyone else does in their life, one day you die, and on that day were you true to your conscience, were you true to what you believe. And I think that's the question each of us has to answer. If the answer is no, hell already began before you died."

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The second article looks at efforts by members of the Catholic laity to rebel against the autocratic tyranny of the Church hierarchy. Unlike the ECLA and other Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church is structured on a feudal model where to top reaches of the hierarchy have no accountability to anyone and are little better than willful autocrats similar to the Medieval Tsar, Ivan the Terrible (or in the case of Benedict XVI, perhaps Vlad the Impaler a/k/a Dracula). Thus, typically, only by voting with their feet and their pocket books can the Catholic laity have any impact on the arbitrary will of the hierarchy. Here are some highlights:

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As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual “respect life” Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off a round of skirmishes over how to apply the church’s teachings not only on abortion but also on the war in Iraq, immigration and racism. In a departure from previous elections, Democrats and liberal Catholic groups are waging a fight within the church, arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of church teachings. . . . The escalating efforts by more-liberal Catholics are provoking a vigorous backlash from some bishops and the right.

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In the aftermath of the 2004 election, many liberal Catholics complained that parishes had distributed millions of copies of a voter guide created by a group called Catholic Answers that highlighted five “nonnegotiable” issues: abortion, stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.

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In response, liberal groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance quickly began preparing alternative guides emphasizing a broader spectrum of the church’s social justice teachings. Then the Bishops Conference, perhaps to forestall a blizzard of competing pamphlets, all but banned third-party voter guides from parishes, requiring the explicit endorsement of the presiding bishop.

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Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance, said her organization was spending more than $250,000 on radio, print and billboard advertisements in Scranton and other heavily Catholic areas. The advertisements emphasize what Ms. Kelley described as the broader spectrum of Catholic concerns about the “common good,” including health care, jobs and home foreclosures.

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Douglas W. Kmiec, a Catholic legal scholar who was a legal counsel in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush, has been telling Catholic audiences in Pennsylvania and other swing states that Mr. Obama’s platform better fits Catholic social teaching, including reducing the abortion rate.

McCain's Real Past: KeatingEconomics.com

Inasmuch as the McCain/Palin ticket has decided to throw mud and wallow in sleaze in its bogus attacks on Barack Obama based on alleged associations, it is only appropriate that the public be reminded of John McCain's REAL past associations. Such is particularly the case when these past associations involved a previous financial meltdown and John McCain's continued failure to grasp the severity of the current credit/loan crisis.

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Fortunately, the Obama/Biden ticket is taking steps to remind voters that McCain apparently never learns from his past mistakes. As a part of this effort, a new website, KeatingEconomics.com, has been launched. Here are some highlights from the site's homepage:

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The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

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John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal . . . . At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money.

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McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

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The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.

More Monday Male Beauty

"Christian" Chaplin: Gays Should Have Sodomy Warning Tattoos

I never cease to be amazed at the hatefulness that alleged Christians demonstrate towards gays. They truly act as if we were some alien species that is clearly less than human. Moreover, they demonstrate on a daily basis that the Commandment to love thy neighbor is an unknown concept for them if their neighbor happens to look or love differently than themselves. The latest demonstration of hate comes from the Reverend Peter Mullen, chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, who according to the Evening Standard wrote the following on his blog:

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"It is time that religious believers began to recommend ... discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets. "Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS."

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I'm sure a great many of the Christianists supporting the McCain/Palin ticket harbor similar views, all the while professing to be "Godly Christians." Fortunately, the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, did not find Mullen's comments appropriate. Here are more highlights from the Evening Standard:

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[T]the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, . . . . today also rebuked Mr Mullen for his remarks. In a statement issued to the Evening Standard, a spokesman said: "While clergy are entitled to their own personal views, we recognise that the content of this text is highly offensive and is in no way reflective of the views of the Diocese of London." A source at the Diocese said the chaplain may now face a disciplinary inquiry over his comments. The source said: "These comments are now being looked at internally within the Diocese and he faces disciplinary procedures."

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When confronted over his comments yesterday at St Michael's Cornhill the rector [Mullen] claimed they were in jest.

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I don't know about you, but I don't find the comments the least bit funny and they dredge up the vision of the Nazi practice of tattooing those to be exterminated.

The Ultimate in Love

UPDATED: In reaction to this post, I received an anonymous message from a reader which read in part as follows: I think you said it best when you have to be happy with yourself to be open to a relationship. I am closeted and that has not happened to me. I feel it never will, but that is my fault. My heart goes out to this individual and I hope at some point he/she finds happiness with themself. Coming out and finding self-acceptance and comfort with who one is is not an easy process. God knows I have been through my own private Hell along the way. Nonetheless, in my view, the cost and struggle is worth the liberation and happiness that are the ultimate prize.

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My blogger friend Michael at Gaytwogether has a beautiful post today on lovGood luck. e. Michael has had the wondrous good fortune of finding a sweet and wonderful man, Steven, who has given him the ultimate gift of selfless true love. What's amazing (if you have been following Michael's diaries) is that much as happened with me and my boyfriend, Steven appeared out of nowhere when Michael was not even searching for love. People often say that you find love when you are not looking for it, and in both our cases it was true. In fact, we have joked about our "parallel lives."

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A key element, however, in my opinion, is being happy with who you are and comfortable in your own skin. If you can achieve that balance - and God knows it took me a very, very long time to get to that point - others will sense it and, I believe, it makes you ever so attractive to others. If you are not happy with your self and positive and loving in your outlook, don't expect others to want to dive into your unhappiness. In addition, it is very important to recognize the difference between infatuation and love. There is a crucial difference. One lasts and the other does not have the substance to endure.

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Words cannot express how happy I am for Michael and Steven. I wish them every joy and happiness.

Monday Male Beauty

Incredible Weekend

I had one of the nicest weekends in a very long time. Not only was the weather perfect - mid-70's by day and cool 50's at night - but the visit to Charlottesville with my boyfriend was so much fun and so relaxing. He is truly a treasure and he seemed totally comfortable with my sometimes eccentric family. Since he had never really spent any time in Charlottesville, it was fun showing him around the Jeffersonian part of the University of Virginia grounds as well as the small, charming city itself. We also made a pilgrimage to the "Winter Palace," the one time home of Anna Anderson who was once my neighbor.

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On the way back we detoured and visited Barboursville Vineyards (pictured above - the ruins are of the home a mansion designed by Thomas Jefferson for James Barbour, Virginia's first post-independence governor, which burned in 1884) for some wine tasting. Then we stopped in Richmond to see my youngest daughter who attends college there and a casual dinner in the Fan District. We had a great visit and both my b/f and my daughter seemed to hit it off extremely well.

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All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and a brief get away that I very much needed.

Palin's Alternate Universe

Bob Herbert has a column in yesterday's New York Times that looks at the frightening lunacy of Sarah Palin and her fellow Kool-Aid drinkers in the GOP base. It is obvious why anyone with a brain and capable of logical thinking patterns finds the woman down right scary - I certainly do - since she seems to have no connect with reality. Reality is whatever she thinks and feels with no need to look at objective facts. If she doesn't like a question posed to her, she just pretends something else was asked of her. I suspect that much of this phenomenon comes from her crazy religious background which believes that the earth is 6000 years old, that man and dinosaurs lived on the earth together, and that one can "pray away the gay." Science, medical facts, etc., mean absolutely nothing to the woman. The thought of someone like Palin potentially ending up as president of the United States ought to give everyone the world over cold sweats. In my view, Sarah Palin represents a clear and present danger to the nation and the world. She needs to remain nothing more than a hockey mom. Here are some highlights from Herbert's column.

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Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years. We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality: “Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.” . . . Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

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In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.” What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

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This is such a serious moment in American history that it’s hard to believe that someone with Ms. Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role. On the day before the debate, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, made an urgent appeal for more troops, saying the additional “boots on the ground,” as well as more helicopters and other vital equipment, were “needed as quickly as possible.”

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The nation lost nearly 160,000 jobs in September, more than double the monthly losses in July and August. Conditions are probably worse than even those numbers indicate because the government’s statistics do not yet reflect the response of employers to the credit crisis that has taken such a hold in the last few weeks. Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

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The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”