We Also Like Shiny Objects

One of these Academy Awards wrap-up pieces is not like the others:

• "Alternately...a bore and a horror" - Washington Post
• "Unspectacular bordering on dull" - Variety
• "The letdown began long before the evening wrapped up" - New York Times
• "It felt more like...a PBS pledge drive" - Los Angeles Times
  
• "Plenty of fun, surprises highlight Oscar night" - The Plain Dealer

Global Warming News

True story: the earth's temperature rose enough yesterday that it uncovered the tip of some lost object in my driveway.

An expedition with my children revealed that it was indeed my Wall Street Journal from February 13, lost in the Valentine's Day Blizzard of '06.

Forunately, the paper's environmentally unfriendly plastic bag, coupled with the icy tomb surrounding it, perfectly preserved this document of an earlier and more simpler time. I'll report any findings in a press conference later this week.

Diminishing Returns

All of the emphasis placed below is mine; you're clever enough to figure it out.

Roger Ebert, alone at the keyboard, on An Inconvenient Truth:

"This film reflects the truth as I understand it, and it represents, I believe, agreement among the world's experts.

"'There is no controversy about these facts,' [Gore] says in the film. 'Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero.'

"Gore says that…there is '100 percent agreement' among scientists.

"Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be 'impartial' and 'balanced' on global warming means one must take a position like Gore's. There is no other view that can be defended."

Charlie Rose interviewing State of Fear author Michael Crichton, February 2007:

"Every good scientist that I talk to says to me, '90 percent of the scientists agree on this…. Most of the scientists say 'We all agree on this, you know, that it is catastrophic.'

"Do you disagree with the idea that the majority of scientists who are experts in this area have a different conclusion than you?"

Whoa, slow down Charlie! Let me get a notepad to write down all these big numbers!

Local Rag's Fag Hag Slags

Caution: contents may be salty.

I'm done. Yeah, I know I've just blown my chances of getting hired to blog for any presidential candidate by using hate speech like "fag," but there you go. You fag.

I just can't take the friggin' Plain Dealer and the staff's nonstop jockeying for the Most Liberal Columnist trophy (also known as the Pulitzer). I think Connie Schultz has even legally changed her name to Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist Connie Schultz, in honor of "her pungent [sic] columns that provided a voice for the underdog and underprivileged." Seems to me they provided a voice for another white liberal, of which there is no shortage in Cleveland media. Nonetheless, as the old Monty Python skit goes, I fart in the general direction of her medal. Pungently.

What underprivileged group is the recipient of PPWCC Shultz's grace this week? Let's read, shall we?

When I first heard that Cleveland was about to launch a marketing campaign to entice gays and lesbians to spend their tourism dollars here, I scratched my head and let out a long hmmmm.

Um, 'scuse me? Didn't we tell all those gays and lesbians that we don't want them here? Wasn't that the basic message after the majority of Ohio voters passed that heinous bill in 2004 called Issue 1?

Um, no. And frankly, I'm out of patience with this sort of Legislation for Dummies guilt-baiting—if you vote for Issue 1, you're a homophobe—and downright scared at the depth of thought that enables the stretch demonstrated above. No, dumb-ass, that was Issue 1.1 (Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio that We Don't Want Gays Here), which didn't pass because it doesn't exist. Nor should it. Did you vote to raise Ohio's minimum wage to $6.85? You did? Well, bite me, you cheap-ass poor-hating capitalist bastard! The push for a national minimum is $7.25! What sort of elitist prick votes for $6.85? You can't live on that!

I'd post of sample of Issue 1, but why? The whole heinous thing fits very nicely right here:

Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio:
That the Constitution of the State of Ohio be amended by adopting a section to be designated as Section 11 of Article XV thereof, to read as follows:
Article XV
Section 11. Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.

What bullshit! Are we telling teenage boys married to three sisters and a goat that we don't want them here? 'Scuse me?


So, what could the [visitor] bureau be thinking?

One word: ka-ching.

Turns out, lots of gays and lesbians make lots and lots of money.

Note to self: "underprivileged" is no longer only shorthand for "black." "Lots and lots of money" and "underprivilged"…even better together!

OK, here comes the old "Many of my friends are black, etc." appeal—you know, where Whitey McLiberal thinks back to that nice black man who served drinks on the cruise ship last summer. That counts, right? What's so damned funny is PPWCC Shultz's use of "they" and "them"—more than 15 instances. You know… them.

You can't do much business -- or even much living -- in Cleveland without coming across some annoyingly talented and generous member of the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community. The list is long in my own life, past and present: my pastor, our mortgage broker, several chefs, three florists, a former veterinarian, a hairdresser who moved away, a printer and several of my closest friends. All those friends could afford to buy houses before I did.

Wow. A gay florist? A gay hairdresser? Oh my God, stop the presses! Alert the media! Wait…this IS the media! News Flash: PULITZER PRIZE WINNING COLUMNIST'S GAY HAIR ROMP!

Big fucking deal. Do I have to make my own list to prove my "gay cred?" Oh crap, I do. (RIGHT-WING BLOGGER'S LITTLE PINK BOOK: REVEALED!) Hey, I celebrate diversity: my list even includes gays who are frankly not at all talented and downright cheap and can't afford houses. OK, I'll give: the guy who cuts my hair, our old babysitter, a couple of cousins, my old college girlfriend, a handful of professors, and so on. I've also done dance remixes—the making of gay songs even gayer—for gay bands in D.C. and Toronto and lobbied to bring them to Cleveland to perform. Thank you, you can mail the Tolerance medal to my house.

The irony, of course, is that I closet myself as a conservative among not only my gay friends, but in general. I do the remixes under another name for fear of blacklisting. I peeled my W sticker off the car after a college age girl flipped off my kids and then swerved in front of us on Cedar. You can get run off the fucking road for being a conservative in tolerant Cleveland Heights. PPWCC, meet Underdog.

The best news has been the response to the marketing plan so far. Sarah Fryberger, the visitor bureau's spokeswoman, had expected an onslaught of negative calls. Instead, a growing number of businesses and civic organizations are calling to jump on the welcome train. They want to make sure they're on the list of LGBT-friendly places.

I wish they'd been so eager in their support of the LGBT community in 2004, but let's not quibble. They're stepping up now. Welcome.

Um, what happened to ka-ching? One word, remember?

One person from New York called warning…that some gays and lesbians won't travel to Ohio because they're afraid that, should their partner get sick, they'll be banned from the hospital emergency room. Fryberger is compiling a list of hospitals where policies honor such couples.

Amen. Great. If you have to, lie. (Yeah, that wasn't really my wife's sister who took her to the ER. Shhhh…) Hell, I was pissed one time when I couldn't call to challenge our gas bill 'cause the account was in my wife's name, which is different from mine. It's a bitch being progressive like me.


Think about it. Even if I laced my husband's meatloaf with arsenic, I'd be allowed to stand next to his hospital bed simply because he married the opposite sex. Imagine the damage I could do until his blood test came back.

Well, yes, you could read your columns aloud.