Ty's Corner

It's becoming really obvious that homophobia is not a dissident strain on the left, it's a dominant one. As an African-American, gay male, it's very troubling to watch so many White people (usually straight and usually male) rush to attack their opponents on the right by . . . calling them gay.





Tea bagging, for those who do not know, require testicles. A pair of testicles are dangled over a mouth as one would dangle and dip a tea bag into a cup of hot water. It's predominately an act that takes place between two men though it can take place between a man and a woman. Certainly, gay men have popularized the act more than anyone. Or had until MSNBC's crew decided it was funny to insult Republicans as well as gay men.

I want to thank C.I. and Bob Somerby (The Daily Howler) who led on rejecting the term and led on it when it was 'shiny and new' and the hottest fad the faux left had. I think C.I. summed it up best -- in all of her writing -- in the 2009 year-in-review:


There's a term we don't use here and no one should have been using it as an insult. If it's a sexual practice they enjoy, by all means talk about it with friends and lovers. What we do in the bedroom, all of us, what gets us off, is rather curious and rather strange. That's true even if your activities are confined to the missionary position. There's a reason, pay attention, children giggle and point when they see members of the animal kingdom engaged in sex. And jokes about sex and sexual anxiety have long been comic gold. With all that said, when you take a practice that is a predominately same-sex (male) practice and use it to ridicule people you loathe, you're engaging in homophobia.


That's just a snippet but I loved it and I loved it because C.I. was pointing out that all of us -- straight, gay, bi whatever -- have things we enjoy that are, yes, strange to those not into it.

But what C.I., Somerby and a few others rejected, so many others embraced.

And continue to embrace.

There are websites I will never visit again. They've used the t term to ridicule right-wingers because . . . what's funnier than calling someone gay apparently.

I don't take it lightly.

As any African-American surfing the net in the last ten years will tell you, you look for clues at a website to tell whether or not you are welcome. Are you issues covered? Are you treated as anyone else would be? And if you find that not to be the case, you don't visit that site. I use the same approach with regards to my sexuality.

Yesterday, I had an e-mail from a hate monger -- the idiot who runs Democrats.com -- and why he e-mailed me (me, not this website) I have no idea. But why he thought a new 'campaign' by the so-called Progressive Democrats of America was something to amplify is even more puzzling. With apologies to our readers here, I'm including the artwork of the latest PDA campaign.




Yes, the t-word.

Because the best way to attack the right-wing is to call them gay. The best way is to sneer at them with the 'utlimate' insult: Gay. Because there must be no greater shame or outrage than to be a gay man.

That's what PDA's selling.

I don't support homophobia and I'm really amazed by how many have rushed to support it. I'm really amazed by how many have refused to call the homophobia out.

Last week, Aimee Allison wanted to jump on her high horse and slam John Mayer for supposed racism on KPFA's The Morning Show. His alleged racism (Mayer castigated himself in the interview, he did not attack any African-American with racism in the interview) was just offensive to Allison. But Allison is a-okay with using the t-word on air. She's a-okay with that. Not only does she use it but guests use it without being corrected.

John Mayer's remarks were not racist in my opinion. And I'd be more understanding of Aimee if she'd ever shown the same alleged sensitivity to any other issue. But she doesn't and she continues to use the t word on air.

She continues to mock conservatives by calling them gay.

You get the feeling she'd call them f*gs if she could. On air.

I'm sick of the homophobia.

It needs to stop.

On the left, we're supposed to know better.

I also understand that PDA's average age is something like 75 and that it's the younger generation that grasps that homophobia is unacceptable. I'm not surprised that a bunch of White people, largely straight and largely male, would be homophobic. I am surprised that people who should know better would rush to amplify the homophobia. I'm surprised and I'm disappointed.

PDA sends the message that gay is "strange" and "shameful."

That's not a message that "progressives" or "Democrats" should embrace.

Shame of the week

"Shame of the week" may be too mild for what took place Friday on KPFA's The Morning Show. As Ann pointed out, Aimee Allison, co-host, became the new Laura Ingraham. She did so by declaring of John Mayer, "Can you just shut up and play guitar."




Early in the week, we thought Joe Biden might win shame of the week, then Robert Gibbs topped him and we thought we had a winner. Along comes the Clown Face of Evil Aimee Allison and we end up with a contender so strong, she may be the shame of the year.

To be really clear, the answer for those of us on the left has never been, and will never be, to become more like the right. It's a fact that continues to escape Aimee Allison.

KPFA's biggest waste of time (Ava, C.I. and Ann)

Friday, KPFA's The Morning Show served up another embarrassment via Aimee Allison. Musician John Mayer gave an interview to Playboy and Aimee and a wide ass, unfunny, male comic decided they'd spend an entire segment offering . . . nothing.




It was not a bright moment for John Mayer but if you're going to insist that it was racist, you might to explain how it was. Aimee and her guest struggled with that and then some.

John Mayer used the n-word. It's not a term we use. If it's the basis for Aimee's decision to call Mayer a racist, we're confused because Aimee's repeatedly praised Quentin Tarantion's films -- films whose only consistent theme is their non-stop use of the n-word.

The segment featured call ins including an African-American woman named Sharon who hinted that the program should address real racism and went on to declare that she blamed Jay Z and others for "letting the genie out of the bottle." Somehow, after she was off the line, Aimee and her guest turned this into, 'John Mayer let the genie out of the bottle.'

Even more hilarious was when Aimee wanted to insist that the interview was also sexist. She wanted to do that for about twenty seconds.

Possibly realizing that a comic who traffics in sexist jokes and worse ("bitch" jokes are worse, Aimee) wasn't the best person to discuss sexism with, Aimee quickly aborted that thought.

But let's stay with it for a moment. First off, if she really thought the Playboy interview was sexist, where was the female guest? It's a bit like her curious decision a short while ago to 'address' the assault on women's reproductive rights by bringing on an 'expert' . . . a male 'expert' (Dave Zirin, the sports writer). That's only surprising if you're unaware this is a program that, last month, booked 123 guests, 89 of which were male and only 34 were women.

Second of all, exactly what world does she live in that she's shocked to find people talking about sex . . . in . . . Playboy magazine.

The woman's an idiot who desperately needs an education before she tries to speak in public again and your first clue was that for a segment supposedly intending to address racism, her choice of a guest is a comedian.

A comedian.

Listeners were never going to be treated to a serious or informed look at race, race relations or racism with a Henny Youngman wanna-be going for yucks. What kind of an idiot degrades the audience and the topic by going for yucks?

---------


For more on this topic, see Ann's "Aimee Allison is the new Laura Ingraham."

Don't Miss Movie

Now Voyager, you saw it, you loved it, you know all about it.


Or do you?

Bette Davis plays a 'spinster' named Charlotte. It wasn't Davis' first time playing a 'spinster' or a Charlotte. 1939's The Old Maid, directed by Edmund Goulding, first found Davis playing 'spinster' Charlotte . . . focused on raising a young child named Tina. Also starring in the film is Miriam Hopkins as her cousin and rival and George Brent as a man that they both love.



The Old Maid is a tight film with strong visuals, amazing acting and a story that holds you until the end. For more, see Stan's Friday post. And to really appreciated one of film's best actresses, don't miss Bette Davis in this movie.

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.


"I Hate The War" -- Most requested highlight by readers of this site. C.I. was surprised and says the point of the entry was just "to focus on the elections and Nouri at a time when I don't feel many, outside of The New York Times, are even vaguely aware of what's supposed to take place in roughly three weeks."

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Stuffed Shirt" -- Isaiah on the 'relaxed' Barry O.

"Screech Olbermann" -- Ruth takes on the ridiculous Screech.

"They keep conning us" -- Marcia reminding you to that if you want to end a policy, you end it. You don't bury hope of ending by commissioning a year long study to determine whether or not you should end it.

"The Old Maid" -- Stan's Friday night movie post.


"The worst of all the beggars" -- Imagine if a complex, years long history was reduced to one sentence? That's Amy Goodman for you. The Red Diaper Baby's all grown up and spewing lies. Elaine takes her to task.

"Weekend" -- Mike shares his thoughts on the "Oh the horror!" pushers.

We're noting all of Ann's posts:

• Aimee Allison is the new Laura Ingraham
• Radio and book
• The Morning Show and gossip
• 6 men, 1 woman
• KPFA does some fine work

And we're also noting all of Wally's guest posts for Rebecca:

• Rebecca's back next week
• The selling of ambassadorships
• Union leaders are shocked, shocked!
• Heroes ends with a whimper
• People are angry

"THIS JUST IN! SNIT FIT WATCH!" & "The people? Since when do they talk about the people?" -- Imagine if the media always made a point to include just how unpopular Barack's Big Business Give Away masquerading as 'health care' 'reform' was in their stories?



"Don't Spook the Spook" -- Isaiah dips into the archives for this 2006 comic.

"Oven problems in the Kitchen" -- Trina actually enjoys cooking questions more than recipes these days. She says readers who've been reading for six months or more are now more or less handling their own recipes and seeking out new ones in books and from friends. "The cooking questions are just more fun," she maintains.



"Barbara Lee, David Paterson" and "Barbara Lee: War Whore" -- Betty and Kat on the very disappointing Barbara Lee who, for the record, many of the one-time Out of Iraq Caucus blame for destroying the caucus once Barack got the Democratic Party's presidential nomination despite claiming, during the primaries, that the caucus would hold whomever got the nomination's feet to the fire.


"Bill Clinton" -- Kat on the all the hate being spewed at Bill Clinton from "the left" that's not really Democrats but is too chicken s**t to say what they are. Closets are for hangers, kids.


"Save the grandstanding on Hiram Monserrate" -- Trina noting the laughable claims of Democratic state legislators in New York that they took a problem seriously.

"Go away, John Edwards, go away" -- Ruth on the cess pool that never stops sinking.

"No reason to make it complex" & "Barry strikes again" -- Betty and Stan on the ever disappointing Barry O.

"Fat Boy Robert Gibbs, Don't Ask Don't Tell" and "Fat Boy Gibbs and the Frat Boy administration" -- Mike and Marcia take on the embarrassment that is Fat Boy Bobby Gibbs, White House pie hole.

"Corporatist War Hawk suprises willfully blind" -- Elaine on the refusal by some to see.

Truest statement of the week

The first thing to say is that I noticed Tony Blair in his evidence to you, kept saying "I had to decide, I had to decide", and, indeed, that's how he behaved, but that is not meant to be our system of government. It is meant to be a Cabinet system, because, of course, if you had a presidential system, you would put better checks into the legislature. So we were getting -- his view that he decided, him and his mates around him, the ones that he could trust to do whatever it was he decided, and then the closing down of normal communications and then this sort of drip feed of little chats to the Cabinet. Now, that's a machinery of government question and there is a democratic question, but, also, there is a competence of decision-making question, because I think, if you do things like that, and they are not challenged and they are not thought through, errors are made, and I think we have seen the errors.

-- Clare Short, testifying to the Iraq Inquiry in London last Tuesday.

Truest statement of the week II

Don't know much about any of this? Not surprising, because the American mainstream media has practically blacked-out the story on this side of the pond. It's amazing, after seven years and a growing reservoir of evidence that the Bush administration deliberately manipulated intelligence and the emotions of the American public to invade Iraq -- for which it had no comprehensive plan to stabilize or reconstruct -- the corporate press is still doing its best impression of the debauched idiots in The Hangover:

Stu: "Why don't we remember a G**damn thing from last night?"

Phil: "Obviously because we had a great f**king time."

When the press isn't treating us all like morning-after marshmallows who would prefer a cold-compress of Sarah Palin and updates of The View on the head to a clinical X-ray of how the Bush White House marched our nation into a trillion-dollar war of choice, it takes on a gratingly condescending tone. In fact, the media view jibes quite well with the standard Republican spin: that any criticism or inquiry into party-supported policies from 2001 to 2009 is "looking backward" or "rehashing the past," or worse, "we've been there, done that," when really, no, there hasn't been any "been there, done that," not anything compared to what's going on in London right now.

-- Kelly B. Vlahos on the Iraq Inquiry, "Where is our Chilcot?" (Antiwar.com).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday. Another Sunday. We decided to wrap up early for us. Besides Dallas, the following helped on this edition:


The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And now to what we have.

• Truest statement of the week -- There were actually a lot of nominees for the truests this week, 15 in the final round, and it was difficult to cut it down to two. Clare Short's testimony to the Iraq Inquiry was very important and needed to be noted.
  
  
  
• Truest statement of the week II -- . . . and Kelly -- who I call "Kelly" because I'll mispell her name -- we're all tired -- deserved to be noted too. Also, she's a conservative, possibility a libertarian and we are aware our readership is diverse so it's about time we went with a non-lefty or non-centrist journalist.
  
  
  
  Editorial: Did she break a hip? -- At some point in the writing of this, Betty and C.I. said the same thing at the same time and it was funny (what they said). It made it into the editorial but, as Dona pointed out, if we had the time, we'd work the whole thing over to go with what Betty and C.I. had come up with.
  
  
  
  
  
• TV: Living on the fringe -- Ava and C.I. tackle the topic a number of people are talking about (on the left, writers, gas bags, you name it) but few want to discuss publicly.
  
  
• Put down the pom-poms -- What the hell is Matthew Rothschild smoking? Barack didn't do a damn thing last week but to read Rothschild, Don't Ask, Don't Tell was ended. Seriously, this is feet to the fire? Really?
  
  
  
• Roundtable -- I (Jim) suggested this because we were having so much trouble getting anything workable. When we did this roundtable we had Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary and the pom-poms feature and that was it. And we'd been working hours and hours. I would've liked C.I. to have spoken more but she was under the impression we were doing another feature that we didn't do. If she'd known it wasn't going to be done, she and Elaine would have addressed it in this. Maybe next week.
  
  
  
  
• Iraq -- Our Iraq feature.
  
  
  
• Ale for musing -- We had two short features including one we may go with next week but we felt the edition was light with those included. So instead, it was noted we always say we should highlight two periodicals because they do allow for reposting in full. We decided to do the American one this week and pick up the other in the near future . . . except Wally, Ava and C.I. pointed out the British one had a feature on the Iraq Inquiry. Okay, so we can do them both.
  
  
  
• Food For Thought -- And did. This is the American publication. Again, we have a diverse readership and we want to be sure they know they're welcome, they're all welcome. We're against the Iraq War. We hope you are as well.
  
  
• Highlights -- This is the only feature Rebecca worked on. She's very busy in London. We all miss her and look forward to her return. Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
  
  
  

And that's what we ended up with. We'll see you next week.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.