"Time" for a few facts??

Time magazine recently published an opinion piece by our BFF James Dobson, decrying the shame of poor Mary Cheney's child-to-be, entitled, "Two Mommies is One Too Many." (i don't feel like linking there and giving Mr. Dobson and Times' online advertisers even more due.)

needless to say, the serpent-tongued spin-doctor's article reeked of false facts and inaccuracies regarding the abilities of same-sex couples to raise a healthy child, in bold contravention to the actual truths of decades of studies on this same topic.

even if you refuse to read the article, i beg you like-minded peeps to sign this petition by "Soulforce" to Times Magazine to publish a counter-article accurately describing the facts behind Mr. Dobson's bigoted, wilfully ignorant and un-scientific views.

brrr!

i guess that the initial excitement of doing a january marathon in phoenix was enough to blind me to the fact that i'd eventually be doing 20 mile runs in terrible weather here in chicago.

but that's exactly what happened on saturday. although it was supposed to miraculously reach into the lower 40's, it never really got much above 25 while i ran, not to mention that stiff west-southwesterly wind keeping me cursing the entire time. no wonder i had the urge to cut off both legs after i finished.

oh well, i guess that there's only one more long run until taper!

the littlest Cheney

gotta love the irony. . . (from Salon.com, Page Rockwell):

Littlest Cheney will have two mommies

Hey, Mary Cheney's pregnant! ABC News (along with other media outlets) reports today that Cheney and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, are expecting a baby in the spring. It's hard to know how to treat the news. Sure, it's nice that the couple is expecting, and it's fun to think that their nontraditional family will be rolling up to future White House Christmas parties. Vice President and Mrs. Cheney are reportedly "looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," which is also swell. As the daughter of the Bush administration's neoconservative vice president and an out lesbian, though, Mary Cheney has long been a lightning rod for arguments concerning gays, lesbians and the Christian right wing. And as always, it's tough to reconcile the Cheneys' private pride with their public support of a political platform that seeks to deny rights to gays.

Çalışmak zordur.

off and on now for about three years, i've been trying to teach myself the tongue of my father('s)land: Türkiye.

i must say, that either i'm a bad student or a terrible teacher. while i can say (sort of) and understand (maybe) things like "Kedi uyuyor" or "Bu bir adam insan, hayvan değil," i have trouble with important things like "hi, i'm a liberal westerner, where's the nearest oil wrestling tournament?" or "how may i best insult your culture with my boorish american ignorance?"

sigh. someday, perhaps, i'll feel confident enough with my language skills to attempt to return to Istanbul and find some of my aunts and uncles and cousins.

until then: "güle güle, ülkeyim."

irrational perceptions

from a story getting only a bit of local press today (from the Chicago Tribune):

"An Oakbrook Terrace man was in custody Monday on charges he planted a bomb that detonated in a Salt Lake City library in September, officials said. Thomas James Zajac, of the 0-100W700 block of Butterfield Road, is charged with possession of an unregistered explosive device, said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent Thomas Ahern."

disturbing story, and an undoubtedly disturbed man. . . but imagine, if you will, the type of mass hysteria and seemingly unending national coverage this story would have been given had the man been named Abu al Hariri or Salem Nassim instead of Thomas Zajac.

i guess Bush's cutting back Clinton's funding of local police forces wasn't such a great idea after all.

and all guys with american flag pins look the same to me

this "quote of the day" bears repeating from america blog:

On the sectarian violence in Iraq, Sen. Trent Lott said on Thursday:

“Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”

god save america.

i've always wanted stephen colbert in my corner

i love the 'ON NOTICE' board!

get your own.

after this, no more scars, i promise (?)

there it sits on my left shoulder, bulging, seemingly breathing, pulsating, even talking on its own -- my very own keloid scar. this particular and rather noticeable addition to my body arrived in spectacular fashion, in a spectacular place, on a spectacular day.

there we were, several of us, mostly friends of nochd's Michael, racing the 2004 ralph's 1/2 ironman in oceanside, ca. i was having an okay day, after an extremely cold swim in the pacific ocean. (i was one of the only morons using a sleeveless wetsuit.) i was on the bike, and had just passed the extremely difficult climb and survived the extremely dangerous downhill descent. i was nearly at mile 49 of the 56-mile bike leg.

and then, i don't really know what happened: i blanked, or my tire got caught in a rut in the pavement, or a strong gust of wind pushed me to one side. but, as i was going fast, and in my aero bars, my reaction to the wiggle was too slow, and there i was on the ground, covered in dust and blood, and half in what appeared to be a rhinoceros-sized yucca plant. was my bike okay?? it seemed to be. . . was i okay? well, i had a huge gash on my left shoulder, another couple of huge gashes on my right hand, another huge gash on my left hip, right knee, and an awful case of roadrash on my entire left leg. so, hell yeah, i was ready to finish the race, no problems.

(now, you have to understand something about me. although as a rule i tend to overthink every step of my life, when i'm racing or training, my mind becomes the equivalent of a hamster running on a squeaky wheel: i have a goal, and i may never get there, but damned if i won't keep going until i can't anymore. this contrast with my usual way of doing things usually keeps me pretty balanced, overall.

to top off the control over my brain that the hamster wheel had exerted, i was also going through what you might call a pre-mid life crisis. the end of my first year as a lawyer was approaching, and i needed to prove to myself that i wouldn't ever let myself be overwhelmed and nearly killed by my profession, as my dad had lived his life. so yeah, at the point of the fall i was a bit crazy. but determined nonetheless.)

i only had 6-7 miles to go, right? that is, until the 13.1 miles running. . . and that would go just fine, right?

so, i hopped back on the bike, after straightening out the handle bars, and continued on -- dripping blood the whole time. needless to say, it was painful. i stayed on the bike for a whole mile before hitting a large bump in the road that flattened both tires at once.

now, i don't know if any of you have ever changed bike tires in a race, or if you've ever changed those tires with half the skin on your dominant hand missing. but, let me tell you, when the adrenaline is pumping, you feel little pain. so, i changed those two tubes, and hopped back on. now, only 5-6 miles left! so, i go literally 100 yards or so, and proceed to get another flat.

at that point, i had no remaining spare tubes. i was forced to stop. quite a lesson. it turns out that my skin wasn't the only damage i sustained that day: i had two cracked ribs and some torn muscle in my abdomen/rib cage. but, who can feel any of that with all that blood all over their hands? if i had tried to run that day, it would have most likely exacerbated my injuries.

as it was, i could do nearly nothing for almost 3 months waiting for all that to heal. by that point, there was really no point in continuing the triathlon season.

i guess, if anything, i learned that day that even four months of careful, exhausting and exhaustive preparations cannot prepare you fully for life. we're all so lucky just to be alive, with all that can go wrong everywhere. so, i guess, when i look at the monster that now lives on my shoulder, i should recognize it as the face of death, ever-present, taunting me, daring me to be alive.

a run a climb a (new) bike and some sushi

last night was one of those nights when you do more than you think possible. started out by shedding my suit at the office for some running shorts and my camel back to meet up with my "adventure" racing team. we then ran about 8 miles to one of those tall condo buildings on the north shore and proceeded to quickly climb 40 stories. then a quick view from the roof, then a quick dip in the pool. . .

at that point, i had to drag myself back down to bucktown to pick up my (new to me) tri-bike. my previous racing bike having been stolen in broad daylight from outside my gym, i needed a replacement. so i'm now the proud owner of a 2004 quintana roo "ti-phoon" that was previously built for none other than Michael Lovato. (now i'm sure to place in every race i do. . . ) let's hear it for craigslist!

then i shlepped back up to the hood for some wine and sushi at wakamono, a cool little sushi spot from the people that brought us "ping-pong."

all in all, much more fun than i'm used to these days on a school night. i'll have to enjoy these "free" nights while i can before the kid arrives!

almost as cool as GPS!

now that the "gaymes" triathlon has kicked by (seemingly) too large butt, i'm more motivated than ever to do well at this year's chicago tri. . .

and i've just discovered this site that allows me to trace my runs onto a google map and get an exact distance reading!! too cool.

low oxygen content

it seems that the worst heat wave in a decade has decided to descend upon greater Chicago just in time for gay games vii. bringing with it a hundred percent humidity and near hundred degree temperatures. . . you gotta love the midwest.

sunday morning will be spent by many, including myself, trying to replace gallons of lost water while at the same time slogging through the watery air during the triathlon. should be a blast. a part of the motto for these games is "personal best."

we'll see.

collateral damage

in March of 2003, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld said during an interview with George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week, said about the Iraq invasion:

"So it's not just that we win, it's also how we win. And if you think about it, the Iraqi people are in large measure hostages to that vicious regime. And we can do this, and we can do it, I hope and pray, with limited loss of innocent lives."

the los angeles times reported yesterday, however, that at the lowest possible estimate, 50,000 Iraqi citizens have lost their lives since the U.S. led invasion in March 2003. this number is almost certainly too low because of provinces like Al Anbar and the Kurdish territories that have reported or recorded no such data to Baghdad officials.

and, as the article also points out, 50,000 people in a country of only 29 million would here mean proportionally about 570,000 U.S. citizens, or a 9/11 disaster every 5 or 6 days since March 2003.

!!

the long way

i'm sure i'm not the first to praise my soul-group the Dixie Chicks' new album, but what a great first verse to an album:

"My friends from high school

Married their high school boyfriends

Moved into houses in the same ZIP codes

Where their parents live.

But I, I could never follow

No I, I could never follow. . ."

i urge everyone who likes the Dixie Chicks at all to purchase a copy of the album: you won't be disappointed.

49!

what the. . . ? forty-nine, (count 'em), forty-nine U.S. senators voted in favor of adding discrimination to our Constitution this morning.

of course, this is well below the two-thirds threshhold for actually amending the Constitution, but really. . . 49?! do nearly half the states actually think that gays marrying will somehow harm straight people's marriages??

more importantly, do nearly half the states actually think that putting the tom-boys and nancy-boys in their place will somehow manage to lower the divorce rate, the single parent rate, the poverty rate, the low test scores. . . ?

do nearly half the states actually think that the big gay problem is actually bigger than our montruous debt, our negative personal savings, our unwinnable and unaffordable war in Iraq, our administration that cloaks itself continually in the tragedy of 911 to get whatever it wants no questions asked Constitution-be-damned, our diminished and diminishing national status as a moral bulwark in the world, our millions upon millions of uninsured individuals, our crumbling infastructures, our rising water levels, our corrupt politicians and business leaders?

i do think the answer is NO. i truly believe that the American people are smarter than that.

i think that those pandering, smarmy senators and back-room pollsters will have a shock come November when we the people will remember them as playing that big gay fiddle while Rome was burning.

so slide over here

maybe it's because i was completely dead at spin class this morning, but when that old INXS song came on in the middle of a tortuous "hill," i was transported back nearly 20 (!) years to seventh grade.

"your moves are so raw"

in 1986-87, i spent approximately three straight months locked in my room, (ahem), "studying," and listening to two cassette tapes (remember those?): "kick" and "faith." to this day, no other albums seem so fundamentally and inherently "sexy."

". . . what do you think? can't take it all. . ."

perhaps i'm just confusing going through the onslaught of puberty with being really affected by some decent pop music. but really, what's the difference anyway? i suppose we all have those types of mental associations that can transform a multi-million dollar album into a type of ultra-personal anthem. we all, at one time or another, have a strong belief that Michael Hutchence (or his equivalent if one exists) knows every corner of our inner soul, unlike our stupid, uncool parents.

"everybody does, yeah that's okay"

remind me never to be twelve years old again.

to repeat and repeat. . .

is sometimes necessary.

if you spend any time on the Internet(s) at all, you've probably seen Stephen Colbert's closing remarks at the White House Press Corps annual dinner on April 29th. however, since the media at large is not reporting on this work of genius, i feel it necessary to increase its viewership, by however little. with Swiftian genius, (and only a few feet away from W), Mr. Colbert skewers the Man Who Would Be King with unequalled skill. this speech should live forever as the ultimate example of political satire. do yourself a favor and watch:

COLBERT SKEWERS BUSH AND THE PRESS

please also visit this site, which has great comments from people around the country and the world:

THANK YOU STEPHEN COLBERT

and, after you've watched the clip, pass it along to as many people as you can. . .

more scars

i was probably five or six when i found myself dangling from that rusty chain-link fence. in retrospect, i don't remember much about my fascination with climbing all the fences in the neighborhood, and with all the dogs and yards they enclosed. but for a summer or two, it became somewhat of an obsession. as soon as i realized that i could climb those fences, my horizons expanded almost infinitely in my mind.

but freedom comes with its costs, and these fences would not yield to me without attempting to take their pound of flesh. it is safe to say that karma was not on my mind as i hung there for those few surprising seconds, all my weight dangling from the part of my mid fore-arm that had caught on a barb at the top of a neighbor's fence.

what i remember most was the blood after i released myself. it spurted along with the rhythm of my quick heart. i was immediately sure that i had killed myself. but, the fountains of blood actually fascinated me, didn't cause me to panic or be sick. and, in a very immature and naive little boy way, i was proud of myself, as if to say: "bring 'em on" or "is that all?".

even though i was ordered never to climb that rusty fence again, i knew that i would. . .

know yourself first. . .

. . . change the world second.

sounds easy enough. i discovered this almost cliche saying while gazing through the dusk from the "L" train a few evenings ago. it was printed big as life on a billboard in maroon lettering, advertising the local Jesuit stronghold of subversive and dangerous free thought and intellectuality, Loyola University. (where would we be without those Jesuits?)

"know yourself first, change the world second."

these words struck me as very close to my heart. one of my strongest characteristics in the whole myers-briggs schema is the "I" in INTP. i have always been obsessed with concentrating on why i do things and how i do them and how i fit into different complex social and historical contexts, and why, (if at all), any of it matters.

some would call this egotism: i call it enlightenment (or at least aiming for it). i have always viewed with skepticism those people who seem to be so self-sure, who seem never to have needed to question their own existence, who have never had to justify themselves to anyone. i feel (as apparently do the marketing people at Loyola) that the world would indeed be a much better place if everyone would at least attempt that first step, self-knowledge.

all this introspection in my life, and i still have been having an incredibly difficult go of writing my 2000-word autobiography. this autobiography is a prerequisite for adopting a child through the agency we have been using. we each have to write one. how do you describe your entire life in 2000 words? how do you communicate who you are in essay form?

the more i have worked on this infernal project, the longer it gets, and the less it seems to convey who i am, or what i have done with my life.

maybe i should concentrate on changing the world first, you know, for a break. . .

d minus

i was recently graded on my upkeep of this blog, and no one could disagree with the results. . . my life has had a way of interfering with my updates. with nothing but success in mind, therefore, i promise my loyal reader that i'll try to better myself, even if it means resorting to blogging about naked venezuelans or banned cheers or even posting free randy blue pics.

scars part one

having quite a bit of semitic blood coursing through my veins, i tend to scar easily. i have scars dating back almost as far as my feeble memory. and i have scars that actually fuel my memory and my conscience, like unintentional tatoos. i have all range of scars, from red to pink to white to shiny to dull to raised to flat.

while my scars always tend to impress the ages 6-10 male audience, i think that most people are put-off by them. i get those looks. you know, the looks that will wander from your eyes during a conversation and then dart to a scar, languishing there just a bit too long, then jolting back up to meet your eyes again, innocently, as if to say: "no, it's okay, i think you're a perfectly normal human being. . . now i gotta go do something else."

one of my most noticeable scars (for the general public) is just over eleven years old. it is also the most man-made looking scar i have, as it is the result of surgery. i earned it when i was nineteen, just before my second year of college.

it began on one of those warm august nights in the st. louis suburbs, charged with the energy and sadness of momentarily-reunited high-school friends, now more strangers than anything else, fending-off boredom and the recognition that many of us didn't know who we were anymore, let alone who anyone else was. (ah, to be nineteen again!)

due to college expense situations, my old tank of a car had just been sold, and i was borrowing my younger sister's convertible for the remaining few weeks of the summer. many of the old gang had met at MMcMs house. not knowing what to do with ourselves, we decided to caravan to the regional favorite personal-fast-fat-storage-retailers to indulge in some frozen custard.

in my sister's car were myself, one of my best friends J, and another good friend D. (the convertible had a back seat, although not much of one.) one thing led to another, and several minutes later we were all three trapped under a smoking, upside-down convertible. correction: by the time i knew what was happening, only i was trapped, my left hand pinned between the earth and the car.

i did the only reasonable thing that i could do -- i pulled that sucker out fast, consequences be damned, and ran.

i remember long hours in excrutiating pain sitting in the ER, staring at the jumbled equipment bolted to the solid walls, and fearing the lack of privacy left by the retractable curtain walls. but what i most remember is the fear of my father mixed together with the excrutiating pain in my left hand.

more than the thoughts of having a crippled hand the rest of my life, i feared that my father would be mad, that he would be apoplectic, that his head would inflate to twice its normal size and burst, that he would be disappointed.

my fears were founded. upon returning to the house at approximately 3:00 the next morning, my father loudly proclaimed that i had ruined the family, left the house, and didn't come back for several days. he told no one where he was going or when he would be back. he never asked how i was or how my friends were. he didn't thank my mom for sitting patiently with me for all that time while he remained at home. nothing at all but proclaiming the ruination of the family and the disappearing act. (all that, and he didn't even know i was gay yet!)

yep. every time i look at that scar on the left hand, i see that nexus of age, innocence, ego and self-loathing that embody those few days of my nineteenth year. how just a few moments can change you forever. . . how powerful a small shift in perception can be. . .