Because I spend so much time now in a very professional, gender normative work environment, I have to remind myself that I love weird people, I am weird, I want to be weird, and being normal is truly horrifying. I’m thinking of that experience of seeing someone on the street or on the bus who is working some kind of weird, non-normative look and feeling some delight and relief, like the person’s existence is making space for you. I have often felt that way when I see other visibly queer or visibly trans people, or other kinds of rule-breakers. It’s beautiful to see people taking those risks and its wonderful to have those moments of mutual recognition with a stranger in the midst of a hostile world.
Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of…
Another great post from Reich… just a shame, really.
I am simultaneously the most and the least popular… I find the shrinking gap between “socialism” and “libertarian” interesting… and I wonder if they polled “socialist” and “capitalist” (so it wasn’t ideologies versus the people who have the ideologies) if that would affect the numbers. I know “capitalists” are less popular than “capitalism.” I wonder if the inverse is true for “socialists” and “socialism.”
I volunteered at the Salvation Army center around here a couple years ago, helping families pick out toys. It was really fun and I thought I was doing a good thing until two men came in. They were in poor shape, they wore a lot of layers and their jackets and pants had dirt and dust on them. I think they had been sleeping outside. They were coming in to get food from the kitchen, and one of the staff members took them to another room that wasn’t the kitchen. After a while, they were both escorted out of the building. I learned later that day they were kicked out because the staff speculated they were a gay couple and didn’t want to cater to those kind of people.
I can’t even look at the bellringers without being ashamed of them. They help a lot of people, but I don’t want to contribute to a group that still considers homosexuality to be condemnatory.
1. Ron Paul does not value equal rights for minorities. Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would repeal affirmative action, keep the IRS from investigating private schools who may have used race as a factor in denying entrance, thus losing their tax exempt status, would…
