Americans Longing for Political Change

While who will be the winners in the presidential primaries starting in Iowa is still up for grabs, one thing that the latest DesMoines Register poll (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071231/NEWS09/71231044/1001/NEWS) appears to indicate is that voters are fed up with the status quo and want someone who can move the country forward on a new basis. On this issue, Obama seems to be viewed as the best hope of change. Personally, I feel the same way - unless there is a dramatic shift in leadership and the way business is conducted, I am very pessimistic about America's future. The way of governing and the political atmosphere must change. Here are some highlights:

In an indication of the Obama's appeal in Iowa, Democratic caucusgoers say they prefer change and unity over other leadership characteristics. Selecting a candidate who represents a sharp departure from the status quo is 56-year-old Lansing Democrat John Rethwisch's priority, and his main reason for backing Obama.

"I have been seeing more and more something Kennedy-esque coming from Obama," said Rethwisch, Lansing's water and sewer administrator. "But it's always a gamble when you get somebody in there who hasn't got a proven track record."Thirty percent of the poll's respondents said a candidate's ability to bring about change is the most important, followed by 27 percent who said their priority is choosing a candidate who will be the most successful in unifying the country.

Asked which candidate would do the best on these themes, caucusgoers most commonly name Obama. The first-term U.S. senator has argued in the closing weeks of the campaign that his newness to Washington, D.C., would help him bridge a politically divided nation and improve its standing overseas.

Obama is the clear choice of caucusgoers who affiliate with neither the Democrat or Republican parties, with roughly 40 percent of them backing him in the survey.The support from non-Democrats is significant because a whopping 40 percent of those planning to attend described themselves as independent and another 5 percent as Republican. Only registered Democrats can participate in the caucuses, although rules allow participants to change their party registration on their way in to the caucuses.

As for the electability of a black to the presidency (which Hillary keeps talking about), the Iowa demographics are perhaps instructive based on the racial make up of the state: White alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 91.0%; African Americans: 2.5%

More Tuesday Male Beauty

The Demise of Privacy in Face of Growing Surveillance

This report by US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International is a bit shocking in some ways, but not surprising in others. The USA, the self-styled land of liberty ranks right up there with police states when the privacy of its citizens is taken into consideration. Moreover, as shown by the map above (black denotes the poorest ranking), countries that have had the closest ties with the Chimperator over the last few years score poorly as well, the UK in particular. Here are some highlights:

Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.

The most recent report published in 2007, available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/phr, is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice.

Summary of key findings:

In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the "black" category, denoting endemic surveillance.

The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the "black" category along with Russia and Singapore. However for the first time Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England & Wales.

Argentina scored higher than 18 of the 27 EU countries.

For more details see: http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

Log Cabin Republicans Are Wary of GOP's Future

This op-ed by Deb Price in the Detroit News (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071231/OPINION03/712310351/1272/OPINION0310) looks at issues that the Log Cabin Republicans should have been focusing on years ago. There are many of us who were once Republicans before the party became an extension of the Christian Right wingnut organizations. I can only wonder what took these folks to wake up to reality. When you are dealing with the Christianists, "working from within" is not a serious option since you are dealing with irrational people motivated by fanatic religious beliefs. Reason and logic get you nowhere. Hence why I have been saying for some time that the only cure for the GOP is to allow it to crash and burn so that hopefully in the rebuilding process the nutcases will be driven from the party. Currently, it is only the non-nutcases leaving the GOP. Here are highlights from Deb's column:

For more than three decades, Brian Bennett threw himself into Republican politics, including serving as a delegate to five national conventions. The pro-life, fiscal conservative was also part of the "Austin 12," a group of 11 gay men and one lesbian who, in an historic meeting in 2000, shared about the joys and difficulties of being gay in a session with George W. Bush, then the presumptive Republican nominee. But when Bush made a sharp turn away from earlier gay-supportive words and deeds, most notably by pushing for an anti-gay constitutional amendment, Bennett got fed up and cut back on his time and money commitments to the GOP.

Bennett is among the 25 percent of gay Americans who vote Republican. I caught up with several Austin 12-ers as well as other gay Republicans just before the kickoff to the caucuses and primaries that will select the GOP presidential nominee. I heard a lot of pain, frustration and dwindling patience. Most, like Bennett, said they are backing Rudy Giuliani. As mayor of New York, he pushed for and signed a sweeping domestic partnership law in 1998.

Gay Republicans view the next few weeks as directing their party down one of two fateful roads. As one predicted off the record, picking Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney, who are intensely wooing religious conservatives, would be "the Thelma and Louise moment" that would send the Republican Party off a cliff. Or as Jim McFarland, an Austin 12-er who is vice president of the gay Log Cabin's Wisconsin chapter and a Giuliani backer, puts it, "The future of the Republican Party depends on who the nominee is. We could see the demise of the Republican Party. If it continues down the road of focusing on motivating fundamentalist Christian voters, that will fail."

Tuesday Male Beauty

2007 - A Personal Retrospect

With the year 2007 having come to a close, I look back on a year that overall I see as one that I am glad to have behind me. While a number of things in my life were ultimate resolved or moved toward closure, I will remember it generally as a year of much unhappiness and negatives.

While my divorce finally concluded in early November, it was not without much drama, nastiness and financial devastation. The cost of gaining my freedom to be truly who I am after many years was very high. Worse yet for a time it caused great alienation from two of my children. Thankfully, those relationships seem to be on the mend and headed back to some normalcy. It is surely NOT an experience I would want to relive or wish upon anyone.

Similarly, I saw my relationship with my b/f (http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/2007/05/meet-my-readers-part-5.html) of over three years come to an end, in part due to the drama and unhappiness spun off from the divorce war and financial difficulties, but also due to other unresolved issues that both of us were dealing with. I wish him well and want him to find much happiness. He has a heart of gold in so many ways and I will always love him and look back with humor on some of our crazy misadventures, including the Katrina evacuee adventure back in 2005 (http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/2007/07/hurricane-katrina-evacuee-adventure.html). It truly could be the basis for a movie comedy.

The third huge negative I will remember 2007 for is the financial hardship following the melt down of my former law firm and the launching of my own firm (which actually began in 2006). With the collapse of the residential real estate market, my timing certainly could have been better. The significant increase in my gay client base has done much to help keep the firm afloat to date. My therapist’s emphasis on focusing on the present and not obsessing about too far in the future has been invaluable in helping me work through this experience which I will extend into 2008.

On the positive side of the equation, 2007 saw me finally become fully comfortable with being a gay man and achieving an attitude of “if you don’t like me, it’s your problem” which is essential to living in this area with local neighbors like Pat Robertson and CBN and Regent University.

Another big positive was the beginning of this blog on a dedicated basis. It has been a wonderful outlet for my thoughts and passions and more importantly a way to meet wonderful people literally around the world. When I feel down or depressed, supportive friends are just a phone call or e-mail away. My support network extends from Canada, Australia, Portugal, Kenya, and numerous points across the USA. I have also enjoyed the wit, humor and intellectual powers of fellow bloggers and some of my regular readers who have likewise become friends via their regular e-mails.

One of my proudest achievements in 2007 – other than the achievements of my children – has been the launch and success of HRBOR. True, it has been a collaborative effort with the other original members of the board. Yet, each of us has played a role and been there to encourage the others to pursue the shared vision. I truly hope in the coming year HRBOR will continue to unify the local LGBT community and begin to cause the gay business community to be taken seriously by the larger community. I also hope that in time it will serve as a role model for young gays and encourage them to pursue their dreams in the business world without feeling the need to be in the closet.

As for 2008, among the things I hope to find are closer relationships with my children, romance in my life, increased opportunities for activism (my dream job would be as a full time activist) and continuing to build my law firm as the area’s first firm run by an openly gay attorney. Perhaps in time some of the closet cases in larger firms will find the courage to come out at work. It is long overdue in this community.

Final Year End Male Beauty

Looking at George Bush's America

As my last political comment post of 2007, I want to call attention to this New York Times editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) because it does a great job in call attention to what this nation has become under the Chimperator's regime. It is not a pretty picture and one that I wish more U.s. citizens would focus upon. This president has usurped for himself powers akin to some dictator in a banana republic when it comes to the rights of individual citizens. Without a sea change after the 2008 elections, American democracy as it once was will be a thing of the past. Bush has made it nearly impossible for a thinking person with a conscience to be proud to be a citizen of this nation. Here are some highlights:

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001. . . . there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them. We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.

Movie Premier Party Photo

As I described previously, before the screening of "One Crazy Night the Sequel" at the Naro Theater in Norfolk, the cast, production staff, and friends gathered at No Frills Grill for food, adult beverages, and general merriment. Numerous photos were taken that night by sometime intoxicated photographers. Posted above are (1) a photo of the movie box office window with the movie listed for the 29th, and (2) a photo of some friends at far left and Josh, who plays the cub paparazzi news reporter who I have to reprimand in the movie due to his harassment of my client, London Hilton, a make believe cousin of Paris. Yours truly is at far right.

More Year End Male Beauty