Reviews in Brief: Shungiku Nakamura's Junjo Romantica (anime), Season One

The anime of Junjo Romantica, the very popular series by Shungiku Nakamura, is one of the delights of the medium. It sticks fairly closely to the original manga and, once you've accustomed yourself to the differences in character renderings (and there are differences, but not deal-breakers by any means), it's a delightful few evenings -- although I'll admit I have reservations about some of the characterizations. This is going to be a longish "Review in Brief" because there are three story arcs in this one and twelve episodes. (And note we're doing Japanese usage in names.)

The first, the "main" story, is "Junjo Romantica," about the bizarre and tempestuous affair between Usami Akihiko, 28 years old, famous award-winning novelist (and also the pseudonymous author of a very popular series of BL novels), and over-the-top eccentric, and Takahashi Misaki, 18, a freshman in economics at a prestigious university (although Misaki is no intellectual heavyweight). Usagi is best friends with Takahiro, Misaki's older brother -- and also happens to be in love with him. When Takahiro brings his new fiancee home to introduce her -- and also announces that he is being transferred to Osaka -- Usagi is quietly devastated. Only Misaki picks up on it, and drags Usagi outside on a pretext. He himself is in tears out of sympathy for Usagi, and it's then that Usagi falls in love with him. Most of the rest of the first season for "Romantica" is built around Misaki's denial of one simple fact: he's in love with Usagi, too.

It's not quite denial that fuels the second story, "Junjo Egoist," which begins several years before the Usagi/Misaki arc. Kamijo Hiroki is a literature student who, when his story opens, is reeling under the failure of his overtures to Usami Akihiko (the very same Usagi), his childhood friend with whom he's been in love. He encounters Kusama Nowaki, an orphan who only completed middle school but who wants to go to college to become a social worker. He's also a real go-getter. And he decides that Hiroki is the perfect tutor for him, over Hiroki's vociferous objections -- Nowaki is nothing if not persistent. (Do I need to say that Nowaki has an ulterior motive?) Their affair is as tempestuous as that between Usagi and Misaki, mostly because Hiroki can't bring himself to say "I love you" to Nowaki, although he soon realizes he can't live without him. It doesn't help that Nowaki is a little too reticent about what he's up to at any given moment -- the two don't seem to communicate very well at all.

It's not until episode 8 that we start the third story, "Junjo Terrorist," portraying the romance between Miyagi, a literature professor and Hiroki's office-mate, and Shinobu, his ex-wife's younger brother. Miyagi is taken aback when he runs into Shinobu, who has returned from school abroad and who takes the opportunity to confess that he's in love with the older man.
It's the "older" that bothers Miyagi, perhaps even more than the fact that they are both men. And then his former father-in-law, who also happens to be the dean of Miyagi's college, asks if Shinobu can stay with Miyagi while he is traveling; Shinobu's sister will be home, but she's bringing in her boyfriend. It takes Miyagi a while, but he finally realizes that the boy has wormed his way into his heart.

As I noted, the character renderings do differ from the manga, but I got used to them fairly quickly, and they do have their own appeal. The visuals are generally excellent. The acting is superb: voices are uniformly appropriate, and Usagi in particular is a gem. My major problem with this one is that the uke -- especially Misaki and Hiroki -- are idiots. You want to grab them and shake them for being such twits, although I find myself, on watching it through a second time, having a lot more sympathy for them. It just takes a while to develop. The seme, on the other hand, more than make up for it. Miyagi, I think, shows the fullest development and goes from being a not-very-sympathetic to someone you're rooting for. I love Nowaki just because he's so strange. Usagi, though, is really the prize -- he's a complex and subtly drawn character, spiky and difficult but also vulnerable and utlimately tremendously appealing. There are beautiful, affecting scenes between each couple, but Usagi's are somehow a little bit more so.

There's a second season, which I'm going to go back and watch again. The series is terrific -- I don't even mind the chibi passages (well, not too much).



Junjo Romantica is licensed in America by Kadokawa Pictures USA.

Director: Chiaki Kon
Series Composition: Rika Nakase
Script:
Michiko Yokote (ep 10, 11)
Rika Nakase (ep 1-3, 5, 7, 12)
Yoshiko Nakamura (ep 4, 6, 8-9)
Music: MOKA*
Original creator: Shungiku Nakamura
Character Design: Yoko Kikuchi
Art director: Junko Shimizu
Sound director: Hozumi Gôda
Art Setting: Takeshi Takahashi
Theme Song Performance:
pigstar (OP)
SCRIPT (ED)

Cast:

Daisuke Kishio as Shinobu Takatsuki
Hikaru Hanada as Akihiko Usami
Kazuhiko Inoue as You Miyagi
Kentarou Itou as Hiroki Kamijou
Nobutoshi Canna as Nowaki Kusama
Takahiro Sakurai as Misaki Takahashi
Kishô Taniyama as Takahiro Takahashi
Noriko Namiki as Eri Aikawa
Ryotaro Okiayu as Kaoru Asahina
Toshiyuki Morikawa as Ryuuichiro Isaka
Ai Hayasaka as delivery clerk (ep 12), girl (ep 7), Shinobu's mother (ep 10), shop clerk (ep 8)
Daisuke Matsuoka as old man (ep 3)
Daisuke Sasaki as Dean (ep 10, 11), old man (ep 3),
Eiji Takemoto as professor (ep 6)
Eri Kitamura as Hiroki Kamijou (young)
Eriko Matsushima as Miyagi's mother (ep 10)
Gen Nakano as old man (ep 3)
Hiroka Nishizawa as Cleaning shop clerk (ep 5)
Hiromi Sugino as Sensei's father (ep 11)
Isshin Chiba as Keiichi Sumi
Kei Shindou as teacher (ep 9)
Kenta Miyake as Tanaka (ep 9)
Kumiko Hashimoto as Kajiwara Manami
Mami Shitara as female student (ep 2)
Mayumi Asano as Risako Takatsuki (ep 11)
Miki Suga as female student (ep 2, 5), Kamijou's mother (ep 9)
Reiko Sasakawa as Sensei's mother (ep 11)
Rina Satou as Akihiko Usami (young)
Shintaro Nakano as man (ep 5)
Shinya Fukumatsu as old man (ep 3)
Shizuka Minamori as shop clerk (ep 8)
Sora KUWAKADO as female student (ep 2)
Yuki Masuda as Sensei (ep 10, 11)
Yuuko Nishihara as clerk in charge (ep 6)

Anime Break

I don't think I've posted this one here before. The soundtrack is another Evanescence song that might have been released on a CD I haven't been able to find anywhere. The anime is Ai no kusabe, which I haven't watched in full yet, but which looks terrific.

Enjoy:

Tuesday

That's when the California Supreme Court is handing down its decision on Proposition 8. Here's a thorough legal analysis of the issues at trial, as well as some commentary on how various justices are likely to vote.

My problem with this analysis -- and it's really not a serious problem -- is that it doesn't address the arguments presented by the proponents of Prop 8. I'd like to see those shot down, but don't know where to look. (This is not a problem from the standpoint of the law, but from the standpoint of how those arguments might have been received by the justices -- it seems Ken Starr did a bang-up job, which is not what I wanted to hear.)

Ask and ye shall receive: here's a lot more information from Melissa Griffin at Sweet Melissa.

Hey -- somebody in California e-mail me Tuesday, OK? I'll be at work and won't be able to keep checking. Here's the Court's website.

Joke of the Day: Michael Steele

The joke is this. From Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, the quote of the day is Steele making himself look like an ass (again):

"The problem that we have with this president is that we don’t know [Obama]. He was not vetted, folks. … He was not vetted, because the press fell in love with the black man running for the office. 'Oh gee, wouldn’t it be neat to do that? Gee, wouldn’t it make all of our liberal guilt just go away? We can continue to ride around in our limousines and feel so lucky to live in an America with a black president.' Okay that’s wonderful, great scenario, nice backdrop. But what does he stand for? What does he believe? … We just don’t know," -- Michael Steele.

If you've been following Steele's career to date as chairman of the RNC, you will see the humor here: Steele doesn't know what he stands for. How can he expect to know what anyone else stands for? (Actually, it's been sort of sad to watch Steele flailing around trying to find something firm to stand on.)

And how typically Republican -- "he was not vetted"? By whom? Seems to me he was pretty thoroughly vetted by the people who cout.

Siberia

Latest favorite song, from Never Gone (which also starts off with my first favorite Backstreet Boys song, "Incomplete"). The live videos all suck, which is why you're getting a slide show:



My one major problem with BSB is that they'll take a song almost as far as it needs to go, but they always pull back too soon. Check out the end of this one to see what I mean -- this could get crazy, but it doesn't.

Friday Gay Blogging

This may be brief -- this is one of those short mornings -- but a couple of things I wanted to comment on. This may become a work in progress, as I discover things to include over the course of the day. (Sorry, it's also a busy writing time -- I'm buried in comic books right now, all of which I have to read and write about by Sunday. Yes, comic books. Don't ask. Just be sure to tune into GMR on May 31.)

First, via Digby (who has a good, strong post on it), the Dallas Principles. I actually saw this on Pam's House Blend the other day (Pam Spaulding was one of the participants). Digby, as always, goes for the heart of it:

Keep the pressure on. This is an issue that affects every single person in this country, no matter what your sexual orientation or attitudes about marriage and the military. The simple fact is that until all Americans are are treated equally, none of us are.

There is the statement of principle:

The following eight guiding principles underlie our call to action.

In order to achieve full civil rights now, we avow:

1. Full civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals must be enacted now. Delay and excuses are no longer acceptable.

2. We will not leave any part of our community behind.

3. Separate is never equal.

4. Religious beliefs are not a basis upon which to affirm or deny civil rights.

5. The establishment and guardianship of full civil rights is a non-partisan issue.

6. Individual involvement and grassroots action are paramount to success and must be encouraged.

7. Success is measured by the civil rights we all achieve, not by words, access or money raised.

8. Those who seek our support are expected to commit to these principles.

I'm going to join Digby and urge you all to sign on.

One thing about this that I find very interesting: the mainstream liberal blogs are picking up on gay issues now -- along with the MSM. While they've been sympathetic in the past, and there were one or two commentators you could figure were going to be paying attention, it's really been a sometimes sort of thing. Until now. I'm seeing more coverge of gay issues in places like Hullabaloo, Obsidian Wings, Crooks and Liars, and their ilk. There's some sort of critical mass that's been reached here. Good.

A note from overseas:

I have a correspondent from Singapore who provided some information on the status of gays there. Although he was not terribly positive about it, this article seems rather more judicious than the sort of crap we get here. I think the government's stance is really quite reasonable (I mean, think about what's happening in Jamaica and Uganda). I'm particularly impressed by this:

He added that as Singaporeans become more educated and informed, and more space is being opened up for people to express alternative views, there will be more tussles between people holding different points of views.

If any group pushes its agenda aggressively, there will be strong reactions from other groups.

As for the AWARE controversy, the government was worried about the disquieting public perception that a group of conservative Christians — all attending the same church, which held strong views on homosexuality — had moved in and taken over AWARE because they disapproved of what the organisation had been doing.

Hence, he was gratified that the National Council of Churches of Singapore issued a clear statement that it does not condone churches getting involved in the AWARE dispute, and that leaders of different religious faiths came out to reinforce the NCCS message.

Mr Wong said the government has to maintain order impartially. It encourages the development of civic society, and gradual widening of the out—of—bounds (OB) markers. But it will not stand by and watch, when intemperate activism threatens Singapore society.

It's a message that I've been espousing here for quite some time: you're free to believe what you will. You're not free to use that as an excuse to make me a second-class citizen.

I'm also impressed by the fact that the Prime Minister actually made a definite statement rather than dodging the issue, which is what we're getting from Obama.

New Hampshire note:

Timothy Kincaid has a post at BTB that echoes my thoughts on the New Hampshire situation:

It may well be that they objected to what they saw as partisan support for protecting a Democratic Governor from risk while they shouldered threats from within their party. They too may be chaffing at being handed wording from the executive office and told to rubber stamp it.

But from the words of these “no” votes, it seems likely to me that wording can be achieved that meets Gov. Lynch’s requirements but also can be seen as originating in the legislature. I think that the delay is simply that - a brief delay in passage.

I've said before that Lynch's move was purely CYA, and that legislatures don't particularly like being dictated to by governors. This seems to bear that out. Also note the quotes that Kincaid includes from some Republican legislators -- very interesting.

Squeaky wheels note:

Looks like it's still true that if you kick and scream, you get results. From AmericaBlog:

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, who earlier in the week said that DOD wasn't doing anything at all with regards to the President's promise to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), yesterday reversed course:

"President Obama has been clear in his direction to Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen that he is committed to repeal the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy. He has also been clear that he is committed to do it in a way that is least disruptive to our troops, especially given that they have been simultaneously waging two wars for six years now. Although this will require changes to the law, the Secretary and Chairman are working to address the challenges associated with implementation of the President's commitment."

It's like what Digby said in the post I linked to earlier: keep applying pressure. It's the only thing that's going to work.

Break Time

Probably NSFW -- depending. (I'd play it at work with no problem, but then I work with a bunch of dirty, gay-friendly, liberal hippies.)

This is, somehow, so '70s, even though it's not. The music's OK ("Later When You Look My Way" by Gabrielle Anderson), the anime is Mirage of Blaze, a BL piece I haven't managed to see completely yet.

Oops!

This story's a couple of days old, but I've finally decided to comment on it.

New Hampshire lawmakers unexpectedly rejected a bill on Wednesday that would have made the state the sixth in the United States to authorize gay marriage.

The state's Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted down the bill in a 188-186 vote, hours after its Senate approved the legislation 14-10 along party lines. An earlier version of the bill passed the lower chamber on March 26.

The legislature had been asked to approve language that would give legal protections, including the right to decline to marry same-sex couples, to clergy and others affiliated with religious organizations.

That wording was added by Governor John Lynch, a Democrat who promised to sign the bill if those changes were made.

The House vote against the governor's amendment means the bill will be sent to a committee that will try to resolve the differences between the two chambers. It remains unclear how the governor would respond to any changes to his wording.

It's interesting to me that the sticking point is the religious exception wording the governor insisted on, which I would have expected to be swallowed whole, flawed as it is. In a way I'm sort of glad to see the NH House balking at that: Lynch's intereference in the intent of the bill is reflective of a trend in this country over the past few years, which is the attempt -- so far successful, unfortunately -- by the religious right (and forgive me, but I think I have ample cause to doubt their sincerity) to make their warped and arrogant concept of "religious freedom" the trump card. Following their logic, any other fundamental right is secondary, and I think if you look carefully, "religious freedom" only applies to those who espouse the sick version of Christianity being touted by the Dobson Gang.

Sorry, that's not the way the country works, nor should it be. Once again, class, there are limits on all rights and freedoms. There have to be, otherwise you can't come up with a society that's actually going to function. I'm not real enthusiastic about living in a religious dictatorship.

I'm also happy to see the NH legislature telling the governor to stick it. Let's face it, Lynch's move was pure CYA, and he doesn't deserve to get away with it.

Footnote to "Profiles in Courage"

A reader at Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish had a reaction to Harry Reid similar to mine, but it took me longer to see the humor.

I have had a bit of a rough week, haven't smiled or laughed nearly as much as I usually do, but that changed when I saw video of Harry Reid maintaining that you can't put accused terrorists in prison without releasing them. I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt afterward and my patient husband had to put up with me backing up the Tivo several times just to see it again and again.

I am in awe over the scaredy-cat crap coming out of our senators' mouths (with the excellent exception of Dick Durbin). What is wrong with these people? They act like the detainees have crazy superpowers, like they are going to transform into a millimeter-high insect and crawl out under the cell door into the shoe of a correctional officer and then ESCAPE.

I have to confess I didn't have much faith in Harry Reid to begin with, but his recent statements on closing Guantanamo just finished it off. WTF?

For some real thought on that whole issue, see this post by Digby.

To say that the "evidentiary thresholds" for trying the detainees in civilian court is "too high" is another way of saying there isn't sufficient evidence on the face of it for the constant invocation that the detainees are terrorists. If it can be proven that a detainee has given material support to terrorists or contributed to an illegal act, he ought to be convicted. If it can't, then a detainee ought to be freed. What would happen in that case? Someone who isn't a terrorist would be free.

The detainees, according to the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision last year, have the right to habeas corpus, full stop. There's no putting that bit of juridical toothpaste back in the tube. As a result, they have to be provided with some sort of trial. Everything else is denying reality. The military commissions represent a method of getting convictions rather than a method of getting justice. Just saying someone is a terrorist over and over again doesn't make it the case.

See also this one. Digby's been on top of this one, so pay attention.

Maybe Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats should remember that they're siding with a group -- Republicans -- who don't believe in things like evidence and facts. Doesn't make them look good, does it?

I think I'm back

It certainly looks like it. We'll see.

Thanks to all of you who stuck with me.

More Questions Than Answers

This post by Victor Maldonado at Pam's House Blend is, as is pointed out in the comments, a little off. It concerns Witt v. United States Air Force, a challenge to DADT that has just had a decision by the Ninth Circuit that looks like a win for Witt: the administration will not appeal that ruling and will allow the case to be retried at the District level, with the requirement that the government produce evidence that Maj. Witt's sexual orientation itself produces problems for her unit.

However, Maldonado is giving Obama too much credit here, as pointed out by commenter Michael Bedwell. It's not Obama who is giving Witt her day in court, but the court itself. Yes, the administration could challenge that ruling, but I suspect it doesn't want to drag this before the Supreme Court yet. Yet.

What bothers me about it is that Obama -- or his Justice Department -- are not only throwing this issue to the courts -- the right's favorite target on alternate Wednesday -- but that they are promsing to defend DADT. Yes, I know Obama's supposed to uphold the law, but he has plenty of options for not doing so when it's a bad law.

Of course, this could be Bush holdovers in Justice -- notoriously politicized under Bush -- running amok.

Interesting to see how this plays out, particularly given the fact that the MSM has finally noticed gay issues. (But really, that's probably only because they see it as a way of sticking it to Obama, yes? Otherwise, they could give a s**t.)

Special Message for The Dobson Gang

And Sarah Palin, and Orson Scott Card, and Ann Coulter, and Michael Steele -- and all your "gay friends."

I love this thing. I just love it. (Definitely NSFW)



From Joe.My.God via AmericaBlog.

This one will go viral, watch for it.

(Did I mention that I love it?)

Profiles in Courage

From Joe Klein:

The Senate Democrats' apparent decision not to fund the $80 million closing of Guantanamo links them, inextricably, to the cheap politics being played by Senate Republicans, especially the most neolithic member of that august body, Senator Jim Inhofe, who has submitted a bill that would prohibit any of the Guantanamo detainees from coming to the United States to stand trial or serve their sentences.

Guantanamo is a symbol of American brutality that needs to be expunged to the extent possible by closure, as soon as practicable. We have a system of military prisons that would be perfectly adequate to handle the detainees who are not returned to the home countries. Apparently, President Obama is going to give a speech on this topic on Thursday--but the Senators just couldn't wait 48 hours while the Republicans and cable newsistas were scaring their constituents. Yet another profile in courage.

OK, Klein's overstating the case just a bit, but it's these damned Blue Dogs who are going to sink the country even further into the muck. With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

Here's a more balanced report from Andrew Taylor at HuffPo:

And in a further break with Obama, the Senate's top Democrat said he opposes transferring any Guantanamo prisoners to the United States for their trials or to serve their sentences. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said 50 to 100 Guantanamo detainees may be transferred to U.S. facilities.

"I can't make it any more clear," Reid said. "We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States."

When did James Inhofe start writing Reid's scripts? And Why is Reid still majority leader?

Dday has more background at Hullaballoo. Let's face it, Reid is a freakin' idiot:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared in a press conference today, “We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” In several tense back and forths with reporters, Reid said he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil, saying flatly, “We don’t want them around the United States”:

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? …

REID: I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

Later, Reid repeated that he would not support Guantanamo detainees being transferred to U.S prisons:

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it’s not that you’re not being clear when you say you don’t want them released. But could you say — would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

Dick Durbin, my own senator, seems to have come down firmly on both sides of the issue, if this report is correct.

"The administration has not come up with a plan at this point," said Durbin, who is the whip, or No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. He added that Democrats are likely to address the issue on later legislation. "I think Guantanamo should be closed and we have to wait for the president's direction on what happens to the detainees."

Durbin said that he could support transferring detainees to U.S. prisons. "Our prisons are filled with dangerous people, including terrorists. And not a single one has escaped," he said.

So what's your position, Senator? I'm really not sure what these comments actually boil down to, which is probably why Durbin's a senator and Im just a schmoo. (The irony here is that, after eight years of rubber-stamping whatever Bush wanted, all of a sudden the Democrats are showing some "independence." Jeebus. I mean, if Mitch McConnell thinks you're "heading in the right direction", you kow you've fucked up.)

Update: Some amelioration for Durbin. He seems genuinely interested in seeing something concrete from Obama, and is not just jumping on the bandwagon.

Preliminary Analysis

I seem to have gotten on e-mail lists for several so-called "conservative" bloggers and commentators -- or just call them "agitators" -- who periodically send me alarming e-mails that I seldom bother to read. However, I got one today from Adam Bitely decrying one of Obama's appointments. Get this:

KOH FAVORS FOREIGN LAW OVER AMERICAN LAW

Koh wants the Supreme Court to misinterpret the Constitution to embody rules of foreign and international law. He objects to America's "distinctive rights culture," which he complains gives "First Amendment protections for speech and religion … far greater emphasis and judicial protection in America than in Europe or Asia." He also wants to invent new constitutional rights favored by leftist elites—for same-sex marriage and against the death penalty, for example. Under our Constitution, these are matters for us citizens to decide through our elected representatives. But Koh wants to impose on us the views of foreign and international bureaucrats.

Sounds pretty desperate, doesn't it?

That bastion of wild-eyed leftist radicalism, Forbes, has recommended his confirmation, as have such dangerous liberals as Kenneth Starr and Ted Olson.

Per Forbes:

A string of prominent Supreme Court cases dating back more than 100 years is testament to that; on the current court, justices across the political spectrum, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Antonin Scalia, have cited foreign law. His stance is, if anything, strikingly orthodox. Koh is an embracer of a storied status quo, hardly the judicial revolutionary he's been made out to be.

The chaos spurred by Koh's nomination has less to do with his own views than it does with his critics' long-term fears. Koh's oft-vaunted potential as a Supreme Court nominee has triggered a frenzied attempt at preemptive discreditation. It has made him an unwarranted symbol in the broader debate over the Obama administration's increasing push against Bush-era isolationist tactics.

Sounds pretty terrible, doesn't it.

When one considers that Koh is being attacked by the likes of Glenn Beck, it makes you want to support his nomination all the more, don't you think?

Maybe I should read these e-mails more often -- sounds like some good snark fodder. Adam Bitely, be looking over your shoulder.

Hell Week

I used to use that term to describe the times we were hosting traveling exhibitions when I was at Sotheby's -- at least one night during those weeks, I wouldn't bother to go to bed: no time, and I would be at O'Hare in the wee hours collecting the show anyway. (I was told after one reception that I was very charming and gracious and helpful in talking about the art. I don't remember that evening at all -- I was completely on automatic.) This week is slightly different: I have a horrific writing schedule over the next couple of months, and right now I'm on deadline for way too many reviews. (But remember to check out Green Man Review on May 31 -- lots of reviews of neat stuff, and the best continuity I've written so far.)

However, I did run across a couple of interesting things at AmericaBlog, both related to health care -- and the site, by the way, is a good place to keep up on that whole issue. Both Chris in Paris and John Aravosis are pretty much up on it, and Aravosis has some personal horror stories that I can relate to very easily.

Read and get mad.

Can You Say "Blind Partisanship"?

There is a certain black humor in this story from NYT:

While conservatives say they know they have little chance of defeating Mr. Obama’s choice because Democrats control the Senate, they say they hope to mount a fight that could help refill depleted coffers and galvanize a movement demoralized by Republican electoral defeats.

“It’s an immense opportunity to build the conservative movement and identify the troops out there,” said Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative fund-raiser. “It’s a massive teaching moment for America. We’ve got the packages written. We’re waiting right now to put a name in.” (Emphasis mine.)

In other words, it doesn't matter who the nominee is or what his or her qualifications might be. It's all politics, all the time -- Karl Rove style. There is something really wrong in getting ready to smear a Supreme Court nominee before you even know who it is.

The so-called "conservatives" just don't get it: they've lost the last two elections and are desperately trying to regain some power without, apparently, ever looking at the reasons they lost -- one of which is public disgust with the very tactics that they're preparing to use once again. If anything could convince me that the right wing is completely bereft of any ideas or any real philosophy, this is the sort of thing that will do it. The open cynicism about their motives is enough in itself to turn me off. Couldn't they at least pretend to have some principles and standards?

Reviews in Brief: Hinako Takanga's Love Round

It's no secret that I've been very favorably impressed by the yaoi of Hinako Takanaga. I've commented on several of her works here ("Reviews in Brief" here, here, and here) and at Epinions (see sidebar). So, I was looking forward to sampling her lighter works, starting with Love Round

Kaoru Komatsuna is small, very pretty, and has a "girly" name ("Kaoru" is one of those names in Japanese that may belong to either a man or a woman). The school boxing champ, Kubo, happens to pick up Kaoru's dropped notebook and makes a comment about his name that sends Kaoru over the edge: Kaoru turns around and floors Kubo with one punch. Kubo won't rest until he persuades Kaoru to go out for boxing. Kaoru is finally persuaded -- he's been a boxing fan for some time -- and then Kubo finds himself drawn more and more to Kaoru until he finally confesses that he loves him. And then things get really edgy.

As I noted above, this is a light comedy, without the depth of other works such as You Will Drown in Love or even Little Butterfly. The running joke of Kaoru's one-punch KOs gets a little stale after a while, and the characters don't display the depth one finds in her other works. It's an earlier work (first published in 2003) and, I think, simply lacks the polish of later books. This is also true of the graphics: Kubo and Kaoru fit into her usual character types but lack the intensity and range one finds in Tsukasa or Reiichiro.

It's not up to later works, but is still entertaining enough. The age rating is 18+, which I think is too conservative. There is one sex scene which is not at all revealing, and in general the story seems aimed at younger teens. (Keep in mind that this age rating is for an American audience; my understanding is that the Japanese are rather more relaxed about things than Americans, who tend to be extraordinarily hung up on sex.)

This one's from Deux.

"Offending" People

Vis-a-vis yesterday's FGB post, I noticed again this comment by Andrew Sullivan:

I don't want to offend anyone's religious convictions or in any way intrude on anyone's right to regard me and my civil marriage as an abomination and to stay as far away from it as possible.

I have no trouble with the second part of that. With the understanding that all rights have limits, I agree. But -- and I'm picking nits here -- "offending" someone covers a lot of territory, and if there's anything that represents a slippery slope, it's the concept of offense as something unthinkable. (And please, can we note how the religious right has co-opted offensiveness as something that's impermissible? At least, for those who don't agree with them.)

Excuse me?

Anyone's religious convictions are their responsibility, not mine -- I'm not a babysitter. My very existence offends some people's religious convictions. Too bad. Odds on that their convictions offend my sense of decency at least as much as mine do theirs.

They can maintain their right to think I'm scum. I will maintain my right to think they're assholes. But "offend"?

Sorry, Andrew, but that's part of the deal in a democracy -- you're going to be offended. Cope.

Insanity Break

There is something terribly appealing about this one, I'm just not sure what it is. "Azis, 'Bulgaria’s answer to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Boy George, Liberace, and Marilyn Manson all rolled into one colossal glitter-dusted, KY-oozing jelly roll'?"



Via Andrew Sullivan -- of course.

Sanity Break

A group I haven't listened to in far too long. Enjoy:



With thanks to Chris in Paris of AmericaBlog.

Light

I got a new lamp, and now I have to go out an buy a light bulb. It will, of course, be a new, energy-saving compact fluorescent. Something occurred to me as I'm considering this venture: they do burn out, and I have no idea how to dispose of them. They have mercury in them -- I can't just throw them in the trash.

And do you think vendors provide any sort of information like that? Of course not. I realize "corporate responsibility" is an oxymoron, but they're selling the damned things -- I think it's to a certain degree incumbent on them to make sure we know how to use them and dispose of them, which is much easier for a local seller than a national manufacturer.

I'm sure the information is out there somewhere, but I have to dig it up, as soon as I figure out where to look. The problem is that most people won't bother -- they'll just toss the dead ones in the trash and they will wind up poisoning the landfill, of which there is too much to begin with. At least the city, which regulates these things, should be a little proactive on it.

Why is life so damned complicated?

Friday Gay Blogging: (Gasp!) Friday Edition!

Two topics today. The first is "The fierce urgency of whenever" (and thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the title).

This is quite possibly the strongest post I've ever seen from Andrew Sullivan. He echoes most of my own feelings on Obama and gay rights:

As for the HIV ban, legislatively lifted by overwhelming numbers of Republicans and Democrats almost a year ago, this is the state of play from an Obama HHS spokesman:

“The Department of Health and Human Services has submitted for OMB review a notice of proposed rule-making to implement this change.”

Translation: we're doing the bare minimum to make us look no worse than Bush, but we have no real interest in this and are letting the bureaucracy handle it, and we guarantee nothing. On gay servicemembers, the president is writing personal notes to those he has fired and intends to continue firing. Will he write some personal notes to the people with HIV he deports? Will he write personal notes to the gay spouses suddenly without a home or their late spouse's savings or forced by his administration to relocate abroad because he has no intention of actually fulfilling his promises?

I recall my old, now dead, friend Bob Hattoy, who toiled in the Clinton administration. He was going to write a memoir of working with people who thought of homosexual rights as wonderful things to say you support (especially if you're fundraising or at a Hollywood dinner party) but far, far too controversial to ever do anything about, let alone risk anything for. In the end, of course, the Clintons enacted a slew of brutally anti-gay measures - passing DOMA, doubling the rate of gay discharges from the military, signing the ban on HIV-positive tourists and immigrants - and expected standing ovations as pioneers of civil rights. The pathetic gay rights leaders gave it to them, so delighted were they to have their checks cashed. The proposed title of Bob's book was a summary of the priorities of the Clinton years:

It's The Economy, Faggot.

As you might expect, most of us in Gay Blogistan are agreeing with Sullivan. Just a sample: John Aravosis:

I disagree with Andrew about the value of the Hate Crimes amendment. Having said that, he's right about one thing. It's the least important of our civil rights priorities at the moment, and I fear it may be the only thing we get in the next 4, or 8, years. And rest assured, it will be lauded over our heads to show us "how much" has been done for us, when in fact, it isn't that much compared to DOMA, DADT, ENDA and marriage - all of which, I fear, will be abandoned.

Pam Spaulding:

What would be welcome is a president willing to discuss our issues openly so they can be debated honestly. He's now silent. On purpose. Or worse, sending out his press secretary to fumble before the press corps with bullsh*t answers.

Here's Dan Savage:

See? Obama has acknowledged the breakthroughs in civil rights for gay Americans! He told a joke about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend. (You were there, Andrew, didn't you catch it?) Barack Obama condescended to use marriage equality as a punch line; he made, essentially, a Chuck & Larry joke about two straight dudes—Obama and Axelrod—running off to Iowa to "make it official" with the queers and their "partners." And that's hilarious, you see, because Obama and Axelrod aren't actually homos! So they don't need to go to Iowa to make it official! They can get married—to women—in all fifty states! HA!

The more I think about the joke Obama told at the WHCD the more ticked off I get. We're witnessing rapid and historic progress in the fight for gay equality and Barack Obama, who campaigned on our issues and described himself as a "fierce advocate" of gay and lesbian equality, hasn't acknowledged the breakthroughs in Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in a setting or a with comments that are in any way equal to the significance of this historic moment. The best he can do—all he's willing to do—is toss off an Adam-Sandler-level joke.



Frankly, I think an "F" is too generous.

The question here, by the way, is not that Obama has not repealed this, that, and the other during his first hundred days, but that he is backing off of gay issues -- and his campaign rhetoric about them -- at full speed. Thanks to Sullivan for calling bullshit on that whole scenario.

In case you missed it, here's my previous post on this issue, with particular reference to DADT.

The second topic is New Hampshire, same-sex marriage, and the drive to expand already adequate protections for religious organizations. This is one where I don't agree with Sullivan:

Readers know I favor strong legal language to ensure that no one's religious freedom can in any way be curtailed by civil equality for gay couples. That's why I think governor Lynch of New Hampshire is right to sign on to marriage equality - as he just did - as long as the following language is attached.

Sullivan includes Lynch's proposed amendment (which it appears the legislature has accepted) in his post. It strikes me as overbroad and loaded with the potential for litigation in aeternam. Dale Carpenter also sees some problems:

Here are a couple of initial thoughts. First, as broad as it is, the governor's proposed language does not apply to state workers. Second, it does not apply to "any individual," but only to those individuals "managed, directed, or supervised by or in conjunction with" a covered religious entity. Both of those are commendable limitations on the reach of the exemption, for reasons I've discussed previously. But the "in conjunction with" phrase — covering individuals and nonprofits associated in some way with covered religious entities — is potentially quite broad. Unlike other exemptions, it's not clear to whom it's supposed to apply.

Trust me -- the anti-gay right will try to make that section as broad as possible, enough to include anyone who ever set foot in a church. Scott Lemieux has, I think, the right take on Lynch's maneuver.:

And I think there's a strategic lesson here: just add some language to legislation ensuring that things that nobody was going to do anyway can't be done, and there goes the emerging silly pretext for opposing SSM.

Jeremy Hooper points out something that puts the whole thing in perspective:

Weird, str8 atheists have been civilly marrying for eons without special stipulations

The best footnote I can think of in this week's marriage notes is this one from Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend:

We're all the same people, it's just that we think differently or we were born differently, and these people should be treated the same way as you would treat somebody else.

--Ethan, an eight year old organizing a marriage equality rally in Denver, Colorado

Aargh!

There actually was an FGB post in process which I lost. (I really need to get a new computer -- this old warhorse just is not up to it any more.)

Maybe I can reconstruct it later. Right now, I need to get moving.

"The fierce urgency of whenever"

The Obama administration is taking it on the chin on gay issues, from a surprising quarter: the MSM. Yes, boys and girls, the actual mainstream media -- Time's Jake Tapper, CNN's Jill Dougherty, and Bill Press, to be exact. From Pam Spaulding:

President Obama's absurd strategy on LGBT issues has left his press secretary Robert Gibbs completely unprepared to handle questions from journalists about marriage and DADT. At today's press briefing Gibbs was hit yet again with questions about the administration's untenable, illogical position that our Constitutional scholar President believes that separate is equal when it comes to marriage.

And DADT fares no better:

. . . President Obama has the power by executive order to cease the witch hunts, and to stop the discharges until Congress takes legislative action, as the Palm Center at UCSB report released this week, "How to End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': A Roadmap of Political, Legal, Regulatory, and Organizational Steps to Equal Treatment," outlines.

Andrew Sullivan has a follow-up on Lt. Dan Choi that sort of summarizes the president's position on gay issues -- now that he's gotten our votes and our money:

Lt. Dan Cho [is] another patriot who served his country with honor and with skills the military desperately needs, whose reward is to be stigmatized and persecuted for his integrity as a human being. Choi served in Iraq and speaks Arabic.

He was discharged by president Barack H. Obama, whose attitude toward the civil rights movement of his time appears to be "the fierce urgency of whenever."

Obama is a very cautious man, but that can backfire. He is already in danger of losing the leadership position on DADT to Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, who has introduced a bill to repeal the policy in the House. (That bill will be interesting to watch: I'm suspecting it will pass in the House, but Harry Reid is even more cautious than Obama, and certainly displays much less in the way of leadership ability.)

His position on marriage is going to prove embarrassing in short order: Vermont and Maine have legalized SSM in the past month, New Hampshire's bill is awaiting the governor's signature, the New York assembly has passed a bill, with a pledge from the senate leader that it will be introduced as soon as it looks as though they have the votes to pass it, Rhode Island is holding hearings, Washington state has done it's "in all but name" dance (and I expect that to last less than two years: marriage will come to the Pacific Northwest), and even Illinois is working on civil unions legislation (it's iffy here, but we'll have marriage within five years -- there is already pressure to alter the c.u. bill to marriage) -- and Obama and his spokesman are repeating "civil unions" as though it were some sort of magical formula. Sorry -- that's reaching the point where it won't even play in Peoria.

There has been a tendency among Democrats to take the gay community for granted, one that's been abetted, I think, by the national rights groups, who have, when it comes right down to it, allowed themselves to be co-opted. We got results when we hit the streets and started yelling, and stopped getting results when we started attending the right cocktail parties. The grassroots is beginning to take control away from HRC and its brethren (how pathetic is it that I can't even remember the other names and/or acronyms -- and I'm not what you'd call ill-informed; gives you some idea of their presence), and if Obama doesn't want it to get edgy, he'd better move. There's only so much time you can spend catering to panty-waisted old generals who get the vapors at the thought of young virile men in the shower and senators whose constituents believe in keeping sex within the family. They are, when it comes right down to it, a historical burp at this point, and maybe it's time Obama realized that.

(Geez -- I'm really pissy this morning. Who knew?)

Pathetic

I wish I could say I'm surprised: Obama's waffling on DADT. Looks like the radical Christianist generals are winning. from John Aravosis, it appears that no action is going to be the default:

Stephanopoulos asked Obama's National Security Adviser, General Jim Jones, if Obama will overturn the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy during his term - something Obama has repeatedly, vehemently, promised.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it will be overturned.

JONES: I don't know. We'll have to - the president has said that he is in favor of that. We'll just wait - we'll have to wait and see - as a result of the deliberations and as a result of the - in the months and weeks ahead. We have a lot on our plate right now. It has to be teed up at the right time so - to do this the right way.

Aravosis says "not a ringing endorsement." To me it reads more like "I really wish you hadn't asked that question." (Remember, this comes hard on the heels of the flap over the administration altering the website language on DADT from "repeal" to "change." Not the same thing -- verbs are important, y'know?.)

It gets worse. Again from Aravosis, SLDN weighs in:

When asked this morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos if "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will be overturned, the president's national security advisor, General Jones, responded, "I don't know."

" 'I don't know?' The answer should have been a one-word answer ‘Yes,' said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

"Jones's answer, along with Secretary Gates's remarks to the Army War College on April 16, make it clear that a calculated political decision has been made that the President is not going to take ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell' on publicly-himself-and instead his defense team is doing it."

There should be no waffling in this Administration-whether from Jones or Gates, on whether repeal is going to happen. The discussions should be when and how. Recall what Obama said on the campaign trail in 2007:

America is ready to get rid of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. That work should have started long ago. It will start when I take office. America is ready to get rid of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. All that is required is leadership.(Fall 2007 to Human Rights Campaign)

That was then. This is now. The Center for Military Readiness (CMR)-which wrote in Human Events recently, "Obama administration officials appear equivocal on this issue"- is boasting about "changing the debate" and taking credit for intimidating the White House to back off DADT. Phyllis Schlafly, grandmother of the conservative movement, sits on the CMR Board.

Gay and lesbian soldiers continue to get fired on this President's watch, most recently Arabic linguist Army Lt. Dan Choi and 2nd Army Second Lt. Sandy Tsao. At the end of the day, this is what the debate is about-them and their families.

Also on ‘This Week', Senator John McCain indicated that a study or review should be conducted.

"A protracted study or National Commission is a cop out," notes Sarvis. "It is the way Washington ignores something it doesn't want to deal with. We hope Obama is not going along with this."

There have been almost a dozen studies on the topic. Going back to 1993, RAND did a study on the impact of openly gay and lesbian soldiers on unit cohesion. Their conclusion: no negative impact. Every scientific, credible study since then has come to the same conclusion.

SLDN had hoped this president would offer leadership, not give in to some throw away study or commission. The right approach would be a presidential working group that focuses solely on implementation and reports back to the president with recommendations within 90 days.

For a gay group, as Aravosis notes, or even a progressive group, this is pretty strong. Maybe people are finally getting fed up? Not with Obama specifically, although he's going to be the catalyst, but with the Democrats as a whole.

I sometimes wonder if I've gotten too cynical about saviors. I guess not.

Lt. Dan Choi

Read this post by Susie Madrak at C&L on Dan Choi -- one of the latest gay servicemembers to be kicked out under DADT. It's pretty powerful.

The core:

Two weeks after I appeared on the show, we had National Guard training. Basically, we went to marksmanship qualification. We shot our rifles. And I was leading some of the training as officer in charge, telling them to cease fire or fire, and I thought, for four days, nobody was saying anything, so maybe they don't watch TV or maybe they don't read the "Army Times." But at the end of the training, so many people came up to me, my peers, my subordinates, people that outranked me, folks that have been in the Army -- and this is an infantry unit, infantry men that -- coming up to me and saying, hey, sir, hey, Lieutenant Choi, we know, and we don't care. What we care about is that you can contribute to the team. And what leaders do, they look to see how can they make the best team before they go to war.

That's what they care about.

Sorry -- DADT is wrong. It is wrong in practical terms, it is morally wrong, it is wrong for Americans. Just wrong. And I'm pretty well convinced that Obama's going to need a fire lit under him to do anything about it.

Mr. President, if your ranking generals -- the same generals who OK sending Bibles to war zones to convert the natives and filming Christianist recruitment videos in the Pentagon -- are resistant to change, maybe you need some new generals.

Reviews in Brief: You Higuri's Gakuen Heaven (anime)

I've been indulging myself over the past few days with a bit of boys' love fluff, Gakuen Heaven, one of the most light-hearted and delightful anime I've run across. (Yes, I finally found the whole series online.) It's based on the PC game Gakuen Heaven Boy's Love Scramble, which has become a franchise that includes three PlayStation 2 games, drama CDs, a manga series, and this anime.

There are several interlocking story lines here, all centered on the story of Ito Keita (Japanese usage here), a fairly average boy who, out of the blue, receives a letter of acceptance (the "platinum paper") to prestigious Bell Liberty Academy (nicknamed "BL Academy"), a school that only accepts boys with special talents. Interwoven with the story of Keita's acceptance at the Academy is that of his growing relationship with Endo Kazuki, his neighbor in the dorm and his first friend at the school. Keita is also intimately, although unknowingly, involved in a power struggle between the school's new and very young Chairman and its Vice-Chairman, Kunanuma, who fears loss of his influence on the Board and sees Keita as a weak-point in the Chairman's defenses: Keita was admitted on the Chairman's special recommendation. (I should also point out that this thread involves a lot of behind-the-scenes activity, which adds depth to the story.) And, there is a mysterious agency that is stealing research data from the computer used by the biology teacher, Umino Satoshi, who is doing some important research on viruses.

The main idea here is to have fun, and fun it is: I'm not sure where to start. The characters -- and there is a large cast here, all of whom have important roles -- are a delight: clearly portrayed, each is a rather quirky individual, from the wild-man student council president, Niwa Tetsuya, to the most beautiful man on campus, Saionji Kaoru, cool, collected, and very, very shrewd. The character designs fit right in: these are all appealing young men, and there is a great deal of subtlety in the portrayals.



The subtlety extends to the BL aspects: they're very low-key, with only the occasional suggestive remark, but we do get a clear idea of some of the relationships here: they are not plainly pointed out, but through some scene openings (suggestive dialogue that resolves itself into perfectly innocent situations) and some backstory, we know who's with who. There are also a few pointed remarks directed at Kazuki to get his act together and stake his claim.

The general pace of this one is high-key, including the delivery of dialogue. Keita, in particular, seems to talk as though he were a machine-gun. It's not something that bothered me at all, and it sets a very different tone than what I've become used to: very upbeat and, as the subtitle notes, "Boy's Love Hyper."

The one major problem here is Kunanuma: like most cartoon villains, he is a bit much, and I find myself skipping his scenes on second viewing. (I think villains should not be allowed to laugh, and certainly never ever be allowed to gloat.) There are one or two places where it could be tighter, but on the whole, it's a winner: drama, suspense, romance, and a healthy dose of charm.

Licensed in North America by Media Blasters.

Crew:

Director: Yukina Hiiro
Series Composition: Natsuko Takahashi
Script: Daisuke Watanabe, Natsuko Takahashi, Yoshifumi Fukushima, Yukina Hiiro
Music: Kazuya Nishioka
Original Character Design: You Higuri
Character Design: Yumi Nakayama
Sound director: Hiromi Kikuta
Key Animation: Akiko Kawashima, Chiyuki Tanaka (OP), Hisami Teshima, Junko Abe, Keiko Nagamine (OP), Setsuko Unno, Yoshiko Nakajima (OP), Yuki Nomura, Yukie Akitani
Theme Song Performance: Masaaki Fujioka (ED), YAMOTO (OP)

Cast:

Jun Fukuyama as Keita Ito
Takahiro Sakurai as Kazuki Endo
Hirofumi Nojima as Takuto Iwai
Hiroshi Kamiya as Kaoru Saionji
Katsuyuki Konishi as Tetsuwa Niwa
Ken Narita as Jin Matsuoka
Ken Takeuchi as Kakeru Ozawa
Kenichi Suzumura as Shunsuke Taki
Ryotaro Okiayu as Koji Shinomiya
Shinichiro Miki as Yukihiko Naruse
Takahiro Mizushima as Wataru Ozawa
Tomohiro Tsuboi as Omi Shichijo
Tomoko Kawakami as Satoshi Umino
Toshiyuki Morikawa as Hideaki Nakajima
Ayumi Tsunematsu as Kazuki Endo (child)
Daisuke Kirii as Hiroya Yoshizumi (eps 12-13)
Masayuki Katou as Watanabe
Shigenori Sôya as Kuganuma
Takashi Oohara as Nagahara
Touko Aoyama as Keita Ito (child)
Yasuhiro as Construction Worker, Naoi, Track Team Captain
Yuuichi Nakamura as Ishizuka (secretary)

Am I Too Cynical? -- an FGB Post

The problem with reports like this is that you start to wonder what kind of game they're playing -- at least I do:

"I don't think a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified per se for the job,” Sessions tells Mark Halperin on Morning Joe.

That doesn't really answer the question of whether he thinks somebody who is openly gay, as opposed to struggling with those "tendencies," is qualified, though I think he meant to indicate he wouldn't pick that ground to fight on.

It gets even more knotty when you mix this into the recipe:

In a move that will surprise gay activists and liberals, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, a top religious right group, tells me that his organization has no problem with GOP Senator Jeff Sessions‘ claim today that he’s open to a Supreme Court nominee with “gay tendencies.”

The spokesperson confirms the group won’t oppose a gay SCOTUS nominee over sexual orientation.

“We agree with Senator Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which was founded by top religious right figure James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.”

Their sexual orientation “should never come up,” he continued. “It’s not even pertinent to the equation.”

I don't know that I'm as willing as John Aravosis to take this at face value, but it's sure an interesting development.

And maybe Aravosis is right: the right is beginning to realize that their anti-gay stance is turning rancid and that most people in the country don't agree with them in the least on most issue relating to gays. But to admit it publicly? (Which is what this amounts to.)

What's happening in the world?

(The issue, of course, is what factors are going to go into Obama's pick: I'm going with Ben Smith and figuring that he's going to avoid the openly gay candidates, simply because that seems to be the issue he's most frightened of, even though it's a winner for him.)

(Sessions' comment gives a clue, I think, and it's something that Ben Smith touches on: they're recasting the whole issue, downplaying the sexual orientation bit, because it has backfired badly. The tactic now is going to be, once again, to blur definitions. The "gay tendencies" comment is indicative: to the Christianist right, no one is really gay, everyone is really straight, although one can be tempted into homosexual behavior. Watch for it -- it's going to be entertaining.)

Footnote:

Even Tony Perkins is avoiding Teh Gay. Must be hard when your trademark issue is a big negative for you.)

Torture Note: Better Late Than Never

This is interesting. I won't comment on the lateness of it -- the two commenters so far (as of this posting), as well as the reporter, have done that.

But what I find interesting is that Land refers solely to our founding documents, and not any teachings of Christ. I'm not sure what that means.

(There doesn't seem to be a link anywhere to Land's full statement -- otherwise, as you know full well, I would have included it -- so my comment about the content of Land's remarks has to be taken as provisional, although I'm sure if Land had made any reference to the basic beliefs of Christianity, it would have been reported.)

Marriage in Maine

It's a done deal. Gov. Baldacci signed the bill.

Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog has a good report with Baldacci's statement.

Note: Take today's posts as "Friday Gay Blogging: Early Edition." I probably won't have time tomorrow.

Worth Reading

A review by James Davidson of Alan Bray's The Friend, a follow-up and in many ways a defense of John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. Lengthy, detailed, intelligent, and well worth reading, but leave yourself some time.

Marriage Note: WTF?

Heather MacDonald over at Secular Right has come up with one of the most bizarre arguments against same-sex marriage I've ever seen. This is pretty much unbelievable:

If the black illegitimacy rate were not nearly three times the rate of whites’, I would have few qualms about gay marriage. Or if someone can guarantee that widespread gay marriage would not further erode the expectation among blacks that marriage is the proper context for raising children, I would also not worry. But no one can make that guarantee.

Why might it further depress the black marriage rate? There is a logical reason and a visceral reason. First, it sends the signal that marriage is simply about numbers: it is an institution that binds two (for the moment) people who are in love. It erases completely the significance that marriage is THE context in which the children of biological parents should be raised. And there are undoubtedly many other subtle meanings and effects of gay marriage that we cannot even imagine at the moment—which institutional shift is something that conservatives should be most attuned to.

Why don't these people just admit that they don't like fags instead of engaging in these double back-flips to try to come up with "rational" reasons to limit marriage to heterosexuals? (Which they never seem to manage anyway.)

First off, she's taking a severe problem in the black community, making some assumptions that may or may not be justified, not examining the factors that contribute to the problem (does she mention poverty? Does she mention the role of welfare, which actually penalizes married couples? Does she mention the role of matriarchy in black culture? No, of course not.), and using it as a springboard to condemn same-sex marriage, which has absolutely nothing to do with the rate of illegitimacy in the black community.

Second, she makes completely unwarranted -- and insupportable -- statements about same-sex marriage: marriage does not become "simply about numbers" if same-sex couples are involved. It certainly does not erase the significance of marriage in raising children. And note that she's pounding on the biological parents drum here, which is largely irrelevant to the argument: people don't need a marriage license to make babies, as her comments about the illegitimacy rate among blacks point up. I agree, however, that a stable home with married parents is still the best way to raise children, no matter who gave birth to them. Nor, as we know from legitimate research, does it matter whether the parents are a man and a woman, two men, or two women -- although there is some slight and probably not statistically significant evidence that two women are the best at it. There's something really primitive about this "conservative" insistence on biological parents. Sure, in the usual course of events, that's what's going to happen. About 25% of the time at present. Think about that. (That's an old number and may not be accurate, but it was an appalling statistic a few years ago: about 25% of families in this country fit into the fringe right's definition of "traditional.")

Fortunately, I don't have to dissect MacDonald's post in any detail -- her readers have already done that, and pretty much raked her over the coals. (It's worth reading the coments on this one -- quite good across the board.) Reader willybobo eviscerates MacDonal's conservative stance:

Or perhaps it’s that you have a different framework for considering the role of the government and individuals. You seem to speak of marriage as if it’s a benefit that the government discretionarily hands out to individuals. Therefore, before we extend that benefit to more citizens, namely gay citizens, we ought require a compelling case to be made that such citizens are worthy of the right, including proper consideration of the potential negative consequences a detailed plan — a guarantee in fact — that these consequences can be avoided.

If that’s your default operating framework for government, it seems to me decidedly not conservative. For I believe the conservative position starts from the basis that individuals have a natural right to freedoms in their affairs, and that the essential role of government is to protect these rights, imposing limits upon them only when such rights can be shown to interfere with the rights of others or the collective good.

In the case of marriage, then, I think your assumed default position is exactly counter to a conservative stance. The onus should be those who seek to restrict an individual’s right to marriage to demonstrate why such a right interferes with the liberty or well being of the collective as a case against it. Failing such a compelling argument, the government ought take no position. Here you seem to be arguing for the opposite: an activist role for the government in regulating marriage, with your fundamental point being that we ought subject the freeing of some of the regulation (the prohibition against same sex partners) to higher scrutiny prior to agreeing to it.

However, my bottom line remains the same: this was a particularly brainless post.

Bits

Don't have the focus for my usual penetrating, incisive post today, but I keep running across things:

Via Booman, this (quoting Byron York):

The accusations of racism seem to come from a single sentence in the piece: "But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are." I wrote my post because of the striking numbers in the New York Times poll. Those numbers raise a question: What if a president were wildly popular with one group, and only middlingly popular with another group and yet was often portrayed as being hugely popular with the whole group?

Aside from the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the whole statement, it's obvious that York doesn't get why he is being called a racist: he is so blind to it, in fact, that he doesn't see how nonsensical his original statement was. I'm not going to harp on the "racist" aspect of it, but the semantics: I guess my point is, looking at the highlighted text, this is empty noise: if the numbers are reporting a certain degree of popularity, then that's the degree of popularity, by definition.

Baca!

Orrin Hatch (R-Guantanamo) is against empathy.

Hatch found fault with a 2005 floor statement by then-Senator Obama on the requisite qualities of a Supreme Court justice. Obama said that a justice's "deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy" come into play in deciding some cases.

"The real debate is about whether judges may decide cases based on empathy at all, not the groups for which they have empathy," Hatch wrote.

It gets worse:

Hatch raised concerns initially that Obama was using “buzz words” for a liberal activist justice by suggesting he wanted someone who had “empathy” for the country’s problems. But Obama told Hatch “that was not what he meant, and I take him at his word ... and that he assured me that he would not be picking a radical or an extremist for the court that he was very pragmatic in his approach and that he would pick somebody who would abide by the rule of law.”

First off, like Hatch or any other Republican has any concept at all of the rule of law. Right. Second, "empathy" translates to "extremism." WTF?

I seem to remember hearing that the ideal was justice with mercy.

In spite of pressure to drop the matter, Spanish Judge Garzon has decided to pursue a war crimes invstigation against Bush administration officials:

In a ruling in Madrid today, Judge Baltasar Garzón has announced that an inquiry into the Bush administration's torture policy makers now will proceed into a formal criminal investigation. The ruling came as a jolt following the recommendation of Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido against proceeding with a criminal inquiry, reported in The Daily Beast on April 16.

Good. At least someone's doing what needs to be done.

You Have to Wonder: The Obligatory Torture Post

After reading about people like this -- the most successful interrogators in WWII who never even raised their voices against their subjects -- what kind of sickos did we have in the White House for the past eight years? And I mean sickos.

John Cole got the info from Sullivan (which somehow I missed), but runs with it:

Via two posts from Sullivan, I have learned that the two most successful interrogators and spybusters from WWII, one German and one British, never harmed an inmate.

No German won as many intelligence coups as Hanns Scharff. Scharff worked for the Luftwaffe interrogating allied pilots and bomber crews, so successfully that the U.S. military taught his methods decades later.

Colonel Robin “tin eye” Stephens was a “bristling, xenophobic martinet” who ran a famously successful counterinelligence operation for MI5 out of a basement in London.

Neither of them ever harmed a subject, committed to physical violence against them, no degradation -- the sort of thing that became routine during the Bush administration just wasn't on their list of working methods.

Look, it's common knowledge -- since the heyday of the Inquisition -- that the only information you get from torture is whatever the victim thinks you want to hear. Everyone knows that, everyone knew it going in, so what's the fascination with hurting people who can't defend themselves? (I won't go into the latest poll that shows that regular church-goers think torture is OK: there's this whole thing in Christianity about physical torment that I think is kind of sick to begin with. There's also the fact that there's only a twelve-point spread, which I find appalling in itself -- what have we become?*) I suppose from a frat boy who thinks blowing up frogs with firecrackers is funny, that's maybe par for the course.

So now, of course, the Republicans -- and certain Democrats -- don't want to turn this stinking muck heap because it will be "divisive." This from a bunch of jokers who live on divisiveness -- they don't have any other strategy. (The Democrats, of course, are just trying to cover their asses -- they're as culpable as anyone on the right side of the aisle on this.)

Listen up, boys and girls: you punish war criminals. You investigate and you try them and you punish them. Calls to "move forward" are merely demands that we validate this status quo -- we'll torture people if we feel like it -- as acceptable behavior for America, and I ain't buying it.

* Update: A little amplification on this: My own opinions of Christianity and its focus on death and mortification of the flesh to the side, I've noticed several posts citing this poll, all dwelling on the fact that the more conservative and observant the respondent, the more likely they were to condone torture, but no one seems to have mentioned the fact that the spread is not so wide.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

"Only" 42%? ONLY? In total, half the people in this country think that torture is often or sometimes justified. Only a quarter think it is never justified. And this is somehow OK?

What the hell have we done to ourselves?

And Now For Something Completely Different

And really nice:

Babatunde Olatunji, Akiwowo



Thanks to Chris in Paris, of AmericaBlog.

Reviews in Brief: Hyouta Fujiyama's Pure Heart 1

I put off buying Hyouta Fujiyama's new one, Pure Heart for some reason that's a mystery to me. Then I got that fateful Border's coupon, and pounced.

It's a real departure for Fujiyama. Tozaki is a freelance writer who winds up interviewing his high-school crush, Kurata, for a design job for the magazine Tozaki works for. Kurata remembers him -- and in fact, remembers a bit more than makes Tozaki comfortable: Kurata knew who it was looking out the library window at him every day while he was practicing with the track team. Kurata, however, isn't given to romance -- it's just sex. Then Tozaki's ex -- also his boss at the magazine -- Miyata, inserts himself into the picture, telling Kurata that he might try to get Tozaki back. And then another voice from the past, Yoshioka, who was in love with Tozaki in college, calls him to offer some work -- and himself. And it doesn't really matter this time that Tozaki has a boyfriend.

This is Volume 1 of a new series, and it's great. Kurata is a very different character for Fujiyama -- hard, difficult, not really a nice guy, but we can see the soft spots that he's trying so desperately to hide. She's doing it again with character -- this one rides on it, and it's really well done.

The graphics are superb. She's built on previous characters -- Tozaki is going to look very familiar to anyone who's read Sunflower, and Kurata will to anyone who's read Freefall Romance -- but she's taken them up a level. In fact, the book as a whole starts at the place Sunflower left off and goes upward from there. (Take a good look at the cover illustration: it's pretty accurate, and gives a good glimpse of what's in store inside.)

From Juné. (And, a sign of the times, Juné has dropped the separate jackets and is now only doing a simple color cover.)

Friday Gay Blogging

Marriage Notes:

An update/survey of what's been going on the past week or so.

New Hampshire and Maine seem to be in a race to become the fifth state to legalize SSM. From DSW at Lawyers, Guns & Money, a fairly good report. I love this:

Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which was established to fight same-sex marriage around the country, said the group would intensively lobby Mr. Lynch to veto it. "This vote is in no way representative of what folks in New Hampshire want," Mr. Brown said, adding that the Senate leadership had used "arm-twisting" to change the votes of a few crucial Democrats. "If the governor is going to stand by his words and his stated position, he will veto this bill."

The only problem with that is that, according to the latest poll, New Hampshire voters favor SSM 55-39 percent. Can't trust those undemocratic, elitist elected representatives now, can we?

The bill has to go back to the House because it was amended in the Senate.

However, it looks as though Maine may win: yesterday, the Senate passed the SSM bill, which was to go to the House. This may be a done deal by next week, and it looks as though Gov. John Baldacci will sign it.

And New York is now on the bandwagon -- Gov. David Paterson introduced a bill legalizing SSM. Chances are ???.

So the tally now stands at: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont (as of Sept. 1). New Hampshire, Maine, New York are in the running, and I'll bet that a bill is passed in New Jersey by this time next yer. Looks like NOM has lost the Northeast.

Can I make a prediction? The Upper Midwest -- Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota -- will be the next battleground.

A Tangential Note:

To those of us in the science-fiction/fantasy community, this is old news:

In response to the launch of the Carrie Prejean ad campaign against marriage equality, People For the American Way president Michael Keegan issued the following statement:

“If the National Organization for Marriage wants to make the comments of a gossip columnist and a beauty queen the subject of a national debate, then it should answer for the bizarre and troubling remarks of its most prominent board member – best-selling science fiction writer Orson Scott Card.

“The NOM has argued that it is not a homophobic organization, but Card’s remarks suggest otherwise. Card, who represents the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the board and received an effusive welcome last week from NOM president Maggie Gallagher, supports criminalizing sex between same-sex adults."

The article quotes extensively from an OpEd that Card wrote some time ago for the Mormon Times a wholly-owned subsidiary of the LDS Church. It's completely unhinged -- I mean, serious intervention is required here.

Way back when, Card was a decent if somewhat talky writer -- I read a lot of his books back then. The Alvin Maker series started off very strong, as did the Ender series. Both lost focus and direction as they went on. I'm not sure if that correlates with Card losing his mind (or maybe he was always like that), but I can't read his stuff any longer -- it just goes on and on and on and never seems to get anywhere. Even Speaker for the Dead was a bit of a trial to get through.) I should have realized when I reviewed Posing as People that something was up: the adaptations were better than the original stories. (I have to admit, though, Magic Street was excellent.)

Is this politics talking? I don't really think so -- I enjoy Wagner, although his politics repulse me. It really is, I think, that Card's ability as a writer has degenerated to the point where I'm not all that inclined to pursue his work. (It may be, though, to be as objective as possible, that the politics proved the tipping point, although he hasn't been high on my list of favorite authors for quite a while.)

Anyway, this is the new board member at NOM. Tell you anything?

An Even More Tangential Note:

NOM continues to make problems for itself: how far gone is an extremist, militantly "Christian" group that has to rely on a beauty queen with breast implants as a spokesperson?

Can I point out one thing? The Miss USA pageant, like all such pageants, is as much a popularity contest as anything else. Her opinion on same-sex marriage is increasingly unpopular. Can you connect the dots?

Dessert this morning is courtesy of Queerty:

Sullivan on Hate Crimes Laws -- Again

I've already made my views on Andrew Sullivan's opposition to hate-crimes laws known -- many times -- but it seems appropriate to revisit this issue again, in light of the current status of the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Act. Sullivan is still pounding the same broken drum:

I'm for getting rid of all of these laws, as attacks on freedom of thought. I also think the current proposal is a bit of flim-flam that will likely make no difference in the real world. But the GOP hysteria over this hate crime law, as opposed to all the others, seems obviously a case of prima facie homophobia. That bigotry obscures the serious case to be made that all these laws are unnecessary infringements on freedom of thought and corrosive of equality under the law..

Hey, Sully -- you're free to think what you want. No one's going to put you in jail for it. They may laugh at you (which is what I think Sullivan fears most), but you ain't gonna be prosecuted. That's straight out of the wingnut right hymnal. (I find the idea that you should be able to advocate weird ideas without consequences -- i.e., public scorn, for example -- to be a bizarre twist on "freedom of speech." Excuse me -- the government didn't stop you from saying it. If your peers think you're a screwball, maybe you should re-examine your opinions, but you really do need to get rid of the idea that no one's allowed to criticize you for expressing them. That's called "the free marketplace of ideas.")

Did I mention overstating his position? "Corrosive of equality under the law?" How, pray tell?

As is typical of Sullivan on this issue (as so many others), he doesn't even attempt to present any substance. He's never demonstrated, to my knowledge, exactly how enhanced penalties for hate crimes -- i.e., crimes motivated by prejudice and directed against a class of people -- affect freedom of thought. (Reductio ad absurdum: By Sullivan's standard, any argument against his position on anything represents an attack on freedom of thought.) He titled this post "The Case Against Hate Crimes Laws," but he doesn't build any case: he merely asserts.

And also, by extension, we should eliminate any distinctions between Murder 1 and Negligent Homicide: after all, the difference is in motivation, and by Sullivan's standard, we're not allowed to consider that.

What we're talking about here is enhanced sentences for the commission of what are, in essence, terrorist acts. I doubt that Sullivan would oppose that. (I could be wrong, but I doubt it.)

Is this lame, or what?