Spending heaps of time at the office (people on vacation) and trying to jockey tandem reviews of A Scanner Darkly, the book and the movie. (Due up at GMR on August 13 -- watch for it/them -- I'm not sure if they'll be separate or a twofer yet.)
Another Military Victory:
This appeared among my streaming headlines from Earthlink:
A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.
This is almost as good as the training manual that listed homosexuality as a disease:
On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively. [Emphasis added.]
OK -- I've stopped laughing now. How does this military expect to win a war? Oh, wait. . . .
Interesting note: This story was covered by John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, Wayne Besen, Pam Spaulding, Spencer Windes at LeftCoastBreakdown, and of course towleroad and cabanaboyscoot. Andrew Sullivan ignored it, as did GayPatriot. So did BlackFive, which in the past has had volumes to say about DADT. So, you see, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not a gay issue, or a military issue. It's an ideological issue. Which is not the way to run an army.
Second point of interest: it appears from the stories I've seen on this that the policy was not followed.
Third point of interest: this was provided by Earthlink News, which has been more interested in Floyd Landis than in gay rights. In fact, this strikes me as being the most significant point of all: it's not a major court case with nationwide ramifications, it's not a particularly huge story at all. In fact, it's the sort of thing that's become depressingly routine: witchhunts, badly needed specialists discharged, the brass warping the policy to suit their own homophobia. But this got reported somewhere besides the gay press.
I know this was in NYT, and probably in WaPo, although I didn't have time to read the stories. Read them, if you can find them. One things very plain: this is a stupid policy, and it's not working.
Update:
Andrew Sullivan finally caught up with this one, here and here. (After I posted.)
Why Lieberman is Bush's Favorite Democrat:
From firedoglake:
i’m calling to tell you how disappointed i am that you chose to associate yourself with joe lieberman by campaigning for him yesterday. now i am not referring to his policies, but rather to the fact that his staff refused entrance to two registered democrats who had legitimate tickets to hear you speak, one of whom was a connecticut resident. their names are jane hamsher and spazeboy and they wanted very much to hear what you had to say.
while they are both active in the campaign to elect ned lamont, neither has ever disrupted a lieberman event, heckled a lieberman speech or in anyway caused problems. but since they are known to be the opposition they were excluded from seeing you and hearing your speech.
Sound familiar?
I haven't commented on the Lieberman/Lamont imbroglio -- I'm unhappy enough with my own Senators, and they're much closer to being Democrats than Lieberman is. My feeling, though, is that if the voters of Connecticut want Lieberman, they deserve him. The problem is, the rest of us don't.
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