I immediately congratulated her, of course. I'm a big fan of marriage, having been down the altar three times myself. I think I mentioned I was surprised or hadn't known she was getting married (or something along those lines) but that I was very happy for her. She replied that she been keeping her engagement quiet, that she and her new spouse had just come back from Connecticut where the ceremony had been performed. Since we don't live all that close to Connecticut I said something about that being a long trip to make. Knowing she had family in town, I asked why'd she gone so far away?
That was when she did a very brave thing. She told me she'd had to go to Connecticut because the love of her life, the person she married, was another woman.
First let me back up a little. Carlie (not her real name) and I are friends because she works at one of those well known establishments which specifically cater to coffee addicts like myself. She works at the one I go to nearly every day to get my "caffeine fix." Like all good elite, effete liberals I like my lattes, especially if they have lots of caramel in them. Our relationship developed because I'm a customer and Carlie is one of the many good folks who serve me these sugary, milky concoctions laced with espresso shots I've come to rely upon to jump start my morning or afternoon. In other words, I'm one of those sometimes annoying and sometimes charming (or so I tell myself) people referred to in the beverage service industry as a "regular."
As someone managing a chronic illness which forced me into an early retirement over ten years ago, I don't get out much, to put it mildly. I live at home and the person I see and interact with the most is my teenage daughter, a beautiful, int elligent and wonderful young woman to be sure (As her father you can trust me on that) but still a teenager, nonetheless. Because my wife suffers from cognitive deficits and an anxiety disorder (an aftereffect of her chemotherapy) my opportunities for adult conversation are at a minimum these days.
My trip to our local coffee bar is often the big social event of my day. In short, I'm one of those old farts (2 years into my AARP eligibility) who will chat up perfect strangers at times simply because I don't have a job anymore where I fulfill my need for social interaction by haranguing fellow co-workers. Luckily, the baristas (yes, I do love using foreign words that make me appear to be a snob) who make my Caramel Macchiato have done a bang up job at meeting my need to talk about myself. They greet me by name when I walk into their eeir establishment, laugh at my jokes (even the bad ones), ask me about my day and even listen to my answers (or give a great impression of doing so).
In turn many of them tell me things about their own lives. Their kids if they have them, the courses they're taking at college, car troubles, the weather, etc. All the mundane topics which constitute the art of "small talk." Sure, the conversation doesn't last all that long, and yes, I know it's their job to provide a friendly atmosphere so I keep coming in to buy the high priced drinks that I don't really need. I know that repeat customers like me are a direct result of their efforts to establish a certain atmosphere, that feeling of community, of a place where "everybody knows your name," that most local service businesses work to achieve, but since I've been sharing bits and pieces of my life with them over the years, and learning about each of them, I flatter myself that it's not just that. We may not be each others closest friends but we are more than just mere acquaintances. Certainly that's the case with Carlie and I.
Ever since I first met her, Carlie struck me as a generous, engaging, attractive person. A small woman with short hair that gives her a pixie-ish quality, she appears much younger than her true age. Like me, until my hair turned gray, she has one of those faces that makes bartenders ask to see your license many years after you pass the legal drinking age of 21. And unlike me, she has a naturally gregarious personality. Always talking, always in motion, always with a smile on her face which can't help but elicit a smile back even on one of my worst days. One of those people that brighten up and fill a room when they enter it without even seeming to make a conscious effort to do so. I hope she will excuse me for this, but if I had only one word to describe her that word would be adorable.
Despite my need for social interaction, I'm not a natural talker. I have to force myself to make conversation. With Carlie it never feels forced. She has that sincerity and warmth about her that makes you feel you're an old friend even if you just met. Sometimes its easy to distrust people who are so "bubbly." We all know of individuals who put on a good act of appearing generous and empathic, only later to discover it was all just a facade. But Carlie is the real deal. What you see is who she truly is. A good soul. No, make that a great soul.
Like all of us, her life hasn't always been an easy one. She has a degree she can't use because she can't find a job in her field. She was even forced to move back home to live with her parents for a while, a difficult thing for anyone, much less someone who just turned 30. She had friends and family with their own life problems which she worried about and tried to help them with. One day she hopes to work with individuals suffering from chemical and alcohol dependency, but for now, she stands behind an espresso machine, steams milk, pours shots and is happy she has a job with health benefits.
Let me put it this way. Carlie is one of us. No different. The same dreams and aspirations, the same struggles with seeking independence and establishing an identity, the same desire to make a life for herself filled with meaning and love that we all share. She's unique, but she also utterly, completely normal. Except in one thing. One tiny thing which certain people use to deny her her dignity and her humanity. One small thing which makes her cautious about who she trus trusts. One thing that forced her to wait to marry the person she loved until a few states finally accepted that this one thing should not stand in the way of granting her the same right I had to marry the woman I loved. One thing that too many people still believe entitles them to demean and demonize her, to treat her as less than a full citizen of this country, as less than human.
I was very honored that Carlie felt she could trust me and share her greatest happiness with me. I only wish I could have attended her wedding. When I asked about it, she told me it had been a small ceremony, just a few friends and family. She said both her and her wife's mothers had attended. No mention was made about her father and I didn't ask. I hope it was just an oversight, but who can know? Sometimes even those we love find little things about us make a big difference in how they view us, views of who we are that can be very wounding. And even though I consider her a friend, that wasn't a question I wanted to ask.
She did show me a picture of her beloved and her, standing side by side in a woodland setting. A taller woman, but also with a lovely smile. The two of them looked very happy together. I told her that and she smiled her usual big grin. And I smiled mine.
Lately there has been a lot of noise being made by a certain beauty pageant contestant from California, Carrie Prejean, a self proclaimed Christian who openly opposes marriage for everyone, and has filmed an ad for an organization which is campaigning against extending the right to marry to every couple. On the outside many might consider her a very attractive person, a great beauty. But to me she can't hold a candle to Carlie. Its a cliche to say that true beauty is more than skin deep, but sometimes cliches reveal essential truths. Carlie is a beautiful person. Carrie Prejean can't see that for some reason.
Carrie Prejean's ugly, hateful prejudice, and the ugly, hateful bigotry of millions like her have damaged my friend's life. That hate has made Carlie cautious about who she trusts with information regarding the most important aspect of her life: who she loves. Most people never have to think about announcing to the world that they are in love or that they are going to marry the person they love. I never had to worry that people might hate me because of who I chose to marry. And Carlie and the woman she loves shouldn't have to either. But they do, of course. They would be foolish not to in our society. Not with people like Carrie Prejean and the "good people" of the National Organization f or Marriage out there who want to shove Carlie and her wife and all the other people with that one tiny difference back into the closet of fear and loathing, denying to them the respect and equality which we all deserve.
Well, I wasn't able to attend Carlie's wedding, but there was one thing I could do for her. So the next day I called to see if she was working, and then I drove myself to her workplace, not to buy a coffee drink from her, but to give her what all newlyweds deserve: a wedding present from a friend. And I got a present back. My first hug from Carlie. Trust me, I got the better end of the deal.
Also posted at the Frog PondAnd torture is impermissible- well, with some exceptions...
From yesterday's Washington Post:
Torture? No. Except . . .By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 1, 2009Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, "You do what you have to do." And then take the responsibility.
Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.
The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. (One of the "torture memos" noted that the CIA had warned that terrorist "chatter" had reached pre-9/11 levels.) We know we must act but have no idea where or how -- and we can't know that until we have information. Catch-22.
Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding. (To call some of the other "enhanced interrogation" techniques -- face slap, sleep interruption, a caterpillar in a small space -- torture is to empty the word of any meaning.)
Did it work? The current evidence is fairly compelling. George Tenet said that the "enhanced interrogation" program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from "the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Natthe National Security Agency put together."
Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, writes (with former attorney general Michael Mukasey) that "as late as 2006 . . . fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al-Qaeda came from those interrogations." Even Dennis Blair, Obama's director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded "high value information." So much for the lazy, mindless assertion that torture never works.
Could we not, as the president repeatedly asserted in his Wednesday news conference, have obtained the information by less morally poisonous means? Perhaps if we'd spoken softly and sincerely to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, we could equally have obtained "high-value information."
There are two problems with the "good cop" technique. KSM, the mastermind of 9/11 who knew more about more plots than anyone else, did not seem very inclined to respond to polite inquiries about future plans. The man who boasted of personally beheading Daniel Pearl with a butcher knife answered questions about plots with "soon you will know" -- meaning, when you count the bodies in the morgue and find horribly disfigured burn victims in hospitals, you will know then what we are planning now.
The other problem is one of timing. The good cop routine can take weeks or months or years. We didn't have that luxury in the aftermath of 9/11 when waterboarding, for example, was in use. We'd been caught totally blind. We knew there were more plots out there, and we knew almost nothing about them. We needed to find out fast. We found out a lot.
"We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened," asserts Blair's predecessor, Mike McConnell. Of course, the morality of torture hinges on whether at the time the information was important enough, the danger great enough and our blindness about the enemy's plans severe enough to justify an exception to the moral injunction against torture.
Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a report in The Post that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she'd been "briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future."
Today Pelosi protests "we were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used." She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.
On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what's done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA's rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do "in the future."
But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying "Don't do it."
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, "on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda."
More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now "on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009" (the words are Blair's) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
I thought that Dye couldn't be topped, but Joe Sonka of Amplify Your Voice shared the talents of "sex ed comedian" Keith Deltano. KEYBOARD PROTECTION ALERT.
Deltano is a "comedian" who is paid by abstinence-only programs to perform for students all over the country. And what does this "performance" consist of? Take a look:Deltano is a psycho...a misogynist...a sad-ass extremely poor rapper...and hilarious for all the wrong reasons -- and he's earning a living on your dime.
That's right, as you can see at 1:00 into the video above, he tells (and shows) kids that if you use a condom, there is a 30% chance that your genitals will virtually be smashed by a cinder block wielding lunatic.
Deltano also insults the intelligence of young women by discouraging the use of birth control pills. He refers to oral contraception as "the wheely thingy" and suggests that they are too complicated for young women too use properly.Below the fold, a flashback to ack to Derek Dye's clown performance. You decide which is the most insane use of taxpayer dollars....Deltano also encourages the gender stereotypes of young women as disinterested in sex and only caring about being married, and young men as crazy, uncontrollable sex addicts. Women are always the passive agents when it comes to sex. They are all characterized as disinterested in sex, only wanting love and marriage. As Deltano says after describing boys as dumb, uncontrollable sex addicts, "Girls, you want a ring on your finger." Men, on the other hand, must prove their manhood by "protecting girls from their (the men's) sexual desires" and not "meeting any of your own needs until you meet your family's needs". In other words, decisions on whether or not to have sex are exclusively in the hands of men, who are then solely responsible for their family's needs. Young women are merely asexual passive beings who are supposed to stay pure, with the help of "real men" who control their dirty lustful thoughts.
The incomparable Derek Dye:
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, which has adjourned until Tuesday, and so will make no vote until at least next week. [Bangor Daily News]
If approved, the bill will move on to Governor John Baldacci. Governor Baldacci hasn’t publicly stated whether he intends to sign or veto the bill, but has hinted that he may support it.
Best of luck to Equality Maine as they work with the House e.org">Equality Maine as they work with the House and the Governor!
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