Dear GOP, Adam and Stephen are identical twins and they deserve equal marriage rights. Fear & prejudice are no excuses for inequality

Coming home to glee!

Birds of a feather...

And this explains a lot about the editorial direction of Fox Cable News...including the absence of Ron Paul coverage on that network.

Also, Santorum told Chuck Todd that he would annul all marriage equality and same-sex civil union laws, suggesting that LGBT people "contract with each other" for these rights:

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President Obama: you can do better than this in protecting the civil liberties of American citizens. I am disappointed!

"I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law,"

--President Barack Obama, in a signing statement attached the to NDAA.

Andrew Sullivan's reaction:
This is very encouraging ... but still weak. It means that a future president could interpret this law very differently - as all the GOP hopefuls, except Paul and Huntsman, promise to do.

My reaction: This is wrong no matter what his signing statement says. It expands Presidential power at the expense of civil liberties safeguarded in the U.S. Constitution. I am very disappointed with the President on this issue. This is the kind of un-Constitutional stuff that most Republican politicians support.

Zen lesson on self

The perfect man has no self.

--Chuang-Tzu

As one of my teachers told me once, if your life is full of the words "me", "my" and "I", you will suffer. --Joe

The straight buzz about "manscaping"...

Several recent mainstream articles have appeared about this topic and the reasons why "manscaping" among heterosexual men is catching on. In short, two explanations: 1. it makes women more willing to perform oral sex on men, and 2. makes men feel more powerful because, as the Norelco razor "add an inch" manscaping campaign promises, it makes men look bigger. Two things many gay men already know.:)

A fascinating discussion about conservatism, with the author of "The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin"

Chris Hayes' Sunday morning "Up" political talk show is one of the smart forums on TV, with some of the youngest and brightest political pundits from the left and the right. Yesterday, they talked with Robin Corey, the author of this book, who claims conservatism has always been an extreme, reactinonary movement:

"Conservatism...provides the most consistent and profound argument as why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will.."

Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating people who have no power. The conservative impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality. Fascinating and heady stuff which sounds about right to me. Listen for yourself:

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This helps to explain the conservative backlashes against the abolition of slavery, worker rights, civil rights, women's rights, and the equality movement for the LGBT. As one of the panelists contended yesterday, there have been losers in these successful emancipation movements: mostly white, heterosexual men ceding some of their power and privilege. And to a great degree, the Tea Party movement with its angry GOP political base, whose battle cry is "taking back our country," is a reaction to the election of a black man as president and the advances of gay people and women.

One of the conservative panelists on the show, Noah Kristula-Green, works for David Frumm, a thoughtful conservative reformist who is trying to steer the GOP in the direction of the British Conservative party, especially on social issues. I sincerely wish them luck in their endeavor. That would be good for the GOP and the rest of us.

I am going to start reading this book.

Saw the movie "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" again...

...and deserving another look is Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays a wonderfully handsome and sexy (gay) Peter Guillam. Beautiful.

"...What you'll be is what you do now."

What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.

--Buddha

Welcome 2012!