Ask Not For Whom the Guitar Swings; It Swings For Thee

    Oh, I wish that I could be a grownup about this. But I can't. So I won't.
    This morning, I listened to Stephanie Miller (http://stephaniemiller.com ) on the way to walk Orion at the park. She reported on the latest political scandal involving an uber-Republican Congressional rep from California. After doing everything in his power to block passage of anything remotely in favor of equal rights for LGBTs, the rep in question was involuntarily outed. Seems that there was this little matter of a DUI as he was leaving the district's premier gay bar with a new (cough) friend.
    The choice to reveal one's orientation is highly personal and emotional. In a perfect world, there would be cake and champagne to validate and celebrate. I feel some compassion that the foot of fate booted him from the confines of the closet. However, it's tempered by his anti-gay anti-equality voting record. Some might say it's God's judgement. Other might say it's a slice of karmic pie for kowtowing to the party fringe. Freud called it a "reaction formation," where one has some component of themselves that they find so appalling that they go into total denial about having it, but see it everywhere in everyone else and make it a focal point for their self-hatred.
    I just hope he can learn to accept himself as he is. Had he the grace and courage to do that, he would have spared himself a lot of embarrassment and untold others a lot of pain.
    This may have been the first noteworthy scandal of the year, but I'll bet not the last.  Last summer, we had Gov. Mark Sanford (R-one of the Carolinas and one of the Right Wing's darlings) who'd invented the cover story of hiking in the wilderness while actually leaving the country to visit his mistress in Argentina. Thoroughly ticked, his staff pretty much threw him to the press lions in the hall outside his office as tourists looked on so he could explain himself to the world. Jenny, his wife, skipped the festivities and moved out shortly afterwards.
    Will we have anything to top the resignation of an alderman in one of the O'Hare suburbs?  Seems that there was this day when he invited two (cough) personal recreation consultants (cough) over to his house. While he (cough) received services from the consultants in the kids' playroom, his wife walked in on them. At a loss for words, Mrs. Alderman cold cocked him with a Hanna Montana toy guitar.
      I wait to see how that will be topped.
  

No, I Didn't Watch

   The State of the Union address aired last night.
    I watched "Star Trek." Both the original and "Next Generation." I needed a vision of the world that was more hopeful than what was on network TV.
    A year and a little over I week ago, I watched as President Obama took the oath of office. I wept a little. Was I naive in my prayer that this would signal a new beginning for the US, that the seeds of change and justice planted in the '60's and '70's would finally grow to fruition? The just, tolerant society where no one had to lie bout who they are to survive, where women were in total control of their bodies and destinies, where race was no longer an issue?
    Maybe. I wish I knew. Lately, I've struggled not to turn cynical. Obama's well-intended desire of inclusion may have backfired on the health care front, reducing it from a single-payer or a public option to an unworkable bill that needs to be handed over to one of them there alleged death panels itself. Iraq and Afghanistan continue to look suspiciously like the children of the last regime. Don't Ask, Don't Tell was delegated to legislature when a signature on an executive order would repeal it more quickly. We still have no jobs, and the Wall Street fat cats have grown fatter.
   As Stephanie Miller put it on her talk show fairly recently, President Obama has 100 flaming bags of dog poop left on the Portico by the Bush administration. His task has been deciding which one needs to be stomped out first.
   Just start stomping, Mr. President. Just start stomping.