So I'm browsing the overnight and early morning comments in the Blend this morning and a fellow Blender wakes it up by saying he's going to some diner or another, presumably in North Carolina. In spite of the modest portions of BBQ that I ate yesterday, I developed a sudden craving for some biscuits and gravy.
Since it's an absolutely wonderful day weather wise in Chicago, I decided to walk to Dixie Kitchen. As you may or may not know, there was a recently unearthed episode of the local Chicago PBS show Check, Please that featured state Senator Barack Obama recommending the Dixie Kitchen as his favorite resturant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c6qzxXgV2o
The Hyde Park Dixie Kitchen is now closed but the Evanston Dixie Kitchen is still open and rather busy, from the looks of it this morning. I walked there, Sunday New York Times in tow.
I had a great Cajun biscuits and gravy with coffee as I alternated between reading the Magazine cover story on the California Governor's race and lusting after a guy sitting with a (presumably) straight couple two tables over.
I also love to travel and to try out different places to eat. In light of that, I have a few questions;
1) What is your favorite local resturant? What is your favorite dish at your favorite local resturant (my favorite dish at Dixie Kitchen is the pecan trout
2) Have you cut back on eating out during the recession? And if so, how much.
And of course anything else on food (your cooking skills or, in my case, lack thereof. yeah, teh ghey gods forgot that portion of my ghey genes).
I am home alone this weekend. Nick is out of town and we haven't been in Connecticut long enough to make many friends. So I've had time to reflect on the past 8 months, since the election, which have been rather chaotic. My emotions have been like the lines on a heart monitor; shooting from extreme highs to extreme lows and then back again. But deep in my own thoughts tonight, while walking past one of our windows, I noticed the moon over the Hartford skyline and it inspired me to write this diary.
First some background. Nick and I met about 7 years ago and were engaged four months later. Living in a suburb of Los Angeles at the time, we found we were no longer intrigued by the Southern California lifestyle and wanted to move to some place with a slower pace, less traffic and more trees. No state had achieved marriage equality at that point so marriage laws did not factor into our plans.
Within a few months we were settled into a new home in Smithfield, North Carolina (not far from Pam and Kate's home). We quickly began to fall in love with North Carolina. Not just its natural beauty, but also with its people. Expecting to be confronted with more homophobia than we had in California, we were braced for the worst. But to our surprise, it was almost (repeat almost) like being back in California. We had found a new neighborhood with a mostly progressive set of neighbors who had settled in there for similar reasons. We grew our little network of friends and neighbors; some gay, the vast majority straight; to well over a hundred.
They all expressed nothing but support and affirmation for us a couple. Nick was unofficially anointed as "The Mayor of Forest Oaks" and later became the Home Owners Association President. We started a neighborhood newsletter, hosted numerous meet and greets, held neighborhood parties, theatre nights, poker nights and more. We raised money for local charities, visited each other in the hospital, and even went on trips to Las Vegas together. It was, for us, the perfect little community. We loved it there and we loved our neighbors and friends.
We designed and built a new home in the same neighborhood. Our dream home. No expense was spared, everything was custom and we put our hearts and souls into it because we were certain we would live there until we retired. As an interior designer, and knowing this home was long term, I went all out on the interior. We had created a beautiful home. We loved it and we loved our community.
At the time, neither of us were actively involved with the LGBT civil rights movement, with of course the exception of an annual contribution to HRC and the obligatory blue and gold equality bumper stickers (you know the ones). We weren't well-versed on LGBT topics either. We didn't know about ENDA, UAFA or the Matthew Shepherd Act. The extent of our LGBT civil rights knowledge was DOMA and DADT and we for the most part assumed those would come with time and through the work of others.
But then something changed.
One evening, sitting on the back porch and taking in the news on CNN, I sat in horror as I watched George W. Bush, the President of the United States and leader of the free world, stand before the country and pronounce that marriage needed to be protected by writing discrimination, marginalization, segregation and oppression into the Constitution of the United States for the first time in its history. It was then that I began to realize how ignorant I was of politics and of our country.
I had been living in a bubble of idealism which had been spoon fed to me by my public school education. All those ideas about the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights,Rights, the freeing of the slaves, woman's suffrage, the heroism of US soldiers liberating the Jewish people from the horrors of the Nazi holocaust, and the Civil Rights Act. I was taught to be proud of my country and I was proud. But that night was when I realized that I had only been taught half of the truth - the pretty half all tied up in a bow like a present under the tree on Christmas morning.
They never told me about the dark half.
Although I didn't immediately become actively involved in politics, my mind was maturing, my eyes were opening and I was learning. It wasn't until the 2008 election that I became heavily invested in the outcome. I began the year teetering between Clinton and Edwards and settling firmly behind Clinton.
But then I read a passage from Barack Obama's book, Dreams from my Father, that completely and radically changed my opinion of this unknown candidate. That passage reads, ". . . the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us - is the struggle set forth. . ." These words had an impact on me - a deep and resonating impact.
I promptly moved into Obama's column and for the first time in my otherwise politically uninvolved life jumped full bore into the campaign. I volunteered to work on his campaign, made phone calls, posted on blogs, talked to friends, neighbors, family, and convinced others to register to vote and actually vote. And I followed the news, main stream and internet, like my life depended on it.
Then on the night of November 4th, when MSNBC announced Obama as the projected winner, I was filled with an overwhelming and overpowering joy. And relief. Not so much because my guy had won, but because the party that had eroded the Constitution, that had raped the US Commission on Civil Rights and the Department of Justice, that had oppressed all those who were not of their kind were finally and fully no longer in power. We were as a country headed in a new and better direction - a promising new course.
But as you all know, that joy turned out to be so fleetingly brief. As the election results came in, we learned that California's Proposition 8 had passed. It was a shock - a devastating shock. The big prize of California that most of us expected to win had slipped through our fingers like a precious wedding ring falls into an eviscerating garbage disposal. And what about our friends back in California who had wed over the past months - what would happen to their marriages? I was, quite literally, consumed in a state of near uncontrollable rage and grief for what would be several weeks.
Knowing that I needed to do something to channel my rage I googled "prop 8 protest" and learned about Join the Impact. That's when I met Will Elliott (it was Will that told me about Pam and Pam's House Blend) and Tom Greene, two of the thousands of unsung heros of our movement. We organized the November 15th Join the Impact Protest for Raleigh.
We started out hoping to get two or three hundred people to show up. But on November 15th, in the rain, over 1,400 people marched through the streets of downtown Raleigh around the Capitol and to the Governor's Mansion- a milestone for LGBT history in conservative North Carolina. Someone even raised the Rainbow flag on the Governor's Mansion flagpole. But while the protest was therapeutic, other events were adding to my anguish.
A very close and dear friend when listening to my rants about marriage equality and religious persecution told me I shouldn't take the actions of religion so personally. I verbally attacked her, we didn't speak for nearly a month a nd although she came to our wedding two weeks ago, I don't think I'll ever feel the closeness we once had. I still love her dearly, she is a good person, but our relationship was damaged. Other friends seemed so nonchalant and unconcerned. All of this led to my increasing frustration. Some were completely unaware of how what they were saying was hurting me even more. Like the very good friend who said she was, "all for equal rights and equal benefits but felt that marriage was a religious institution and should not be open to same-sex couples." She might as well have slapped me - it wouldn't have hurt as bad.
Of all of our friends, only two showed any real understanding toward what I was going through. One of them, Betty, was from liberal New York and the other, Connie, was half of an interracial couple. Each of them from their own unique experiences understood and offered a compassionate shoulder. I will never forget the day Connie and I sat on the front steps and cried together arm in arm carm connecting through our mutual experiences with discrimination.
Nick, recognizing how much I was struggling to get a grasp on my emotions and how much distance had been created between our friends and me, suggested we move to Connecticut or Massachusetts and get married. It did not take long to decide to leave our dream home, our neighborhood, and our friends behind and move to a state where not only could we get married, but also have our marriage recognized by our state and local governments; to a place where we would no longer have to humbly ask for our dignity and respect.
After placing the "for sale" sign in the front yard, everyone wanted to know why we were moving. Telling them why, for marriage equality, actually solidified my decision to move. Barely a third of our friends and neighbors expressed congratulations for our upcoming marriage. Most said things like, "Oh" or "Well we are sorry to see you go," never realizing that they were quietly revealing their hidden bigotry for the first time. It's that look on a person's face when their eyes dilate momentarily and they look like a deer in the headlights for about two seconds while their brain goes into overdrive trying to figure out how not to reveal their intolerance and disapproval. They can all happily vote away your rights in a private booth, but few have the courage to tell you that to your face.
On the drive to New England, I became almost giddy with a sense of liberation. I reflected on how slaves from centuries past had made similar, albeit extremely more difficult and dangerous, journeys on the Underground Railroad. At times it seemed as if weight was literally being lifted from my heart and soul. But I also still wondered if we were making the right decision. Would New England be any different?
It did not take long to get my answer. What I have found here are monuments to Abraham Lincoln and Harriett Beecher Stowe, and to Union soldiers who fought and died for the idea of liberty for all; a stark contrast to the Southern monuments of those who fought to uphold their ideas of slavery, privilege, superiority and segregation. I've found Rainbow flags in church windows; again a stark contrast to the chilling language emanating from the Baptist churches of the South. I've also found a Rainbow flag hanging beside the state flag of Connecticut inside Hartford's City Hall with a large banner proclaiming welcome to all. I've found politicians who are seemingly light years ahead of their Southern counterparts on equality. I've found marriage equality blooming in surrounding states. And I've also found a state that has every LGBT equality issue proscribed into law (except the T in ENDA but we're working on that - hopefully next year); but once again a very stark contrast to North Carolina where we had not a single one.
But most important, is what I have not found. I have not found a single person who didn't eagerly congratulate us on our wedding. Even perfect strangers on the street smile brighe brightly and say, "Good for you! Congratulations!" The healing has started.
Nick and I are married now and I love him dearly. We left behind a lot in North Carolina. I miss the home we built together; I miss the community we helped to establish in our old neighborhood; and I miss our friends so much. But I would not trade my marriage nor my dignity to get it all back.
So as I take in the view from my window, I have a deep and uplifting appreciation for what I see - equality.
Link to our wedding day: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/...
Under GM's original bankruptcy plan, the auto maker planned to leave such liabilities behind after selling its "good" assets to a new GM owned by the government. That meant future car-accident victims who believe that faulty manufacturing by the old GM caused their injuries would be unable to sue the new GM. Instead, they would have been treated as unsecured creditors, fighting over the remains of GM's old bankruptcy estate.Why is the consumer always the entity that institutionally gets the shaft? A car is the second most expensive purchase a consumer makes in their lifetime; that they select a company to do business with in good faith that the products it sells should work properly and be safe is not an incidental matter. What does all of this mean? Mike Spector at the WSJ:...GM maintained in court papers that it wasn't legally required to take on the claims, saying federal pre-emption meant the bankruptcy code overrode state laws governing the rights of car-accident victims to sue the new GM. It also noted that Chrysler Group LLC, which recently emerged from bankruptcy in a deal with Fiat SpA, wouldn't be responsible for such claims, after a bankruptcy judge dismissed objections to its plan.
GM said it ultimately agreed to take on future product-liability claims "to alleviate certain concerns that have been raised on behalf of consumers."
Car-accident victims with pending lawsuits, those who won damages against GM before it filed for bankruptcy and those who get in accidents while the auto maker is under bankruptcy protection will still be unable to bring claims against the new GM. They would remain with other unsecured creditors making claims against the old GM. Those victims are likely to recover little or nothing.
Attorneys general were expected to "keep pressing" for the new GM to take on those liabilities ahead of Tuesday's court hearing, a person involved in the discussions said. But the person said GM and the government were unlikely to capitulate further.
Q: If the new GM is operating a similar business to the old GM, does the law require the new GM to remain liable for tort claims?<ims?So with Chrysler's slate wiped clean will anyone out there drop $$$ on that company for a new ride?
A: GM's legal team anticipated this point of law. In its asset-sale proposal, GM said that "neither [the new GM] nor any of its affiliates or stockholders shall be deemed to...be a mere continuation or substantial continuation of Sellers or the enterprise(s) of Sellers...." Translation: New GM is a fresh company, not a mere continuation of the old GM.Of course, from practical standpoint, the new GM is just that: a slimmed down version of the auto maker that the Obama administration believes will be more viable. The attorneys general said certain case law requires buyers who operate similarly to the old bankrupt company to remain liable for defects in vehicles from "the same product line."
Q: Does freeing the new GM of product-liability claims for vehicles sold before its bankruptcy exit violate constitutional due process rights of people who haven't yet been in car accidents?
A: This is the question that vexed the government, and led GM to take on future claims. Many bankruptcy experts point out that so-called 363 sales are designed to be made "free and clear" of many liabilities, in part to attract buyers. If a buyer had to take on product liability, for instance, the price would be lower and not maximize recovery for creditors.Judge Richard Posner, of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, rejected that argument in a 1994 case called Zernand-Bernal Group v. Cox, arguing that "free and clear" sales harmed the rights of future claimants.
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