The beginning of summer, and pride

It's summer. It's summer because it's hot. It's summer because it's hot, and I heard a song I liked on the radio. It's summer because it's hot, and I heard a song I liked on the radio, and that's how I knew it was summer as a kid: I opened the windows and enjoyed the heat and turned the radio up loud.

I listened to Casey Kasem's Countdown. I listened to my 45s.

And life was good.

One of the few things I love about Vegas is that it's hot in the summer, and that activates my inner Stonehenge. In the summer I was free from school, and that made the milestones that marked summer all the more important.

Memorial Day Weekend.

The heat.

Pool season.

Wheat harvest.

Freedom. To do nothing. To open the windows and blast my music. To run around in as few clothes as possible (my friend Brian would wear his swim trunks for days in a row, even sleeping in them).

I loved my first decade in San Francisco, but one thing that was always difficult was the disconnect between my internal sense of the seasons turning and the external reality of a cold, foggy June. An August/September summer just isn't the same.

I want it hot, and reliably so, and I want to hear pop hits. I want to be free.

JUNE IS ALSO PRIDE MONTH, and this year is the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. I've been thinking of Pride's gone by...

1988, Stonewall 19. My first Pride. I went to San Jose Pride earlier in the month. A week or two later, I arrived in SF early to march with the Stanford contingent. I was outdoors from sunrise to sunset, and I got the worst sunburn I've ever had. I remember making eye contact with a boy on a float as it passed by. I made out at The Stud with my friend Matt. It was all magnificent.

1989. I was dating my first James. We had broken up for a week (not the first time, not the last). I went to SF with my friend Andrew, and we went to one of the first nights at Pleasuredome, the nightclub that was to become my all-time favorite. I also went to Santa Cruz Pride (once was enough).

1990. SF. I think this was the first year that Oracle Corp. had a group marching in the parade.

1991. I had just moved to SF; I think we had a party at Club Fabu. The first Pink Saturday?

1992. In SF, but my memories are vague.

1993. Uh, oh, vague again. My last SF Pride before meeting Tommy and "the new era." :-)

1994. Tommy and I celebrated SF Pride and flew to NYC the next day with Bette and Andrew for Stonewall 25. Now that was a week! We saw none of the Gay Games... but we went to a lot of great parties. Everywhere we went the streets were filled with gay men and lesbians: leathermen in chaps at the theater, boys on the subway, girls in the streets. Everywhere. Tommy and I stood on top the WTC and climbed to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. We danced in a gothic cathedral and on an aircraft carrier. Nights to remember...

1995. My friends and I danced all night, changed clothes, and rode the Club Universe float--the last float in the parade--in what was definitely my wackiest SF Pride ever. And this, the most memorable of all years, also included our first San Diego Pride. Our first zoo party: one of the best evenings with my Joy Luck friends ever! Where is the butterfly egg?

1996. SF, but a strange year. Not with Tommy, but not without him either. I think I hit Long Beach Pride as well.

1997. Jamie and I missed SF, instead spending a glorious week in Puerto Vallarta. But we went to San Diego Pride with friends from SF and Madrid.

1998. SF and San Diego with Jamie. Very good times.

1999. SF and San Diego with Jamie. More good times.

2000. San Jose Pride with a new group of friends. Then home to Kansas for a family reunion, missing most of SF Pride. Returned for Pleasuredome Sunday night; much awkwardness seeing Jamie. The beginning of a long, rough period...

2001. SF Pride. Way too excessive, though memorable. But long-lasting consequences.

2002. My first year in Portland. Marched in the parade with the Panorama float, but had a strangely lonely afternoon. Too many friends working that day...

2003. I missed Portland pride, home with a cold. But had a really fun Vancouver Pride with my friend Alex. (Or was that 2004?)

2004. Another vague year... not sure if I went to Portland Pride or not...

2005. Missed Portland Pride and what I think was the first warehouse party. Was in Los Angeles for Andrew's 40th.

2006. Back in SF, and a fun weekend celebrating pride. And back to Portland for the craziest Pride there ever! If only I hadn't lost my rental car... twice!

2007. Believe it or not, my first LA Pride at the end of the AIDS/LifeCycle. And then SF Pride... my absolute rock bottom during another difficult time. So over SF by this point. And then I met Victor at San Diego Pride.

2008. San Diego Pride with Victor. Some good moments, some very bad ones.

2009. Stonewall 40. Portland Pride... what a wonderful trip! So many good friends to see again.
Everything was just right and in balance. And a last minute trip to SF today, back to where it all started. :-)

UPDATE And to top off 2009, Tommy and I headed to San Diego for Pride. A very fun weekend... the highlight was our janitor grift... we pretended to be janitors to get into a sold-out party Saturday night!

Stars of the mortal & eternal varieties

I spent a lot of today watching television and following the reactions of friends on Facebook to the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. As I walked to the gym, I had an insight into our fascination with celebrity, and even into why we call celebrities "stars."

The ancients saw the stars in the sky and tried to make some sense of their earthly lives by looking up. They created a whole universe of characters, and myths about them, and projected it all into the night sky, along with their hopes, their fears, their yearnings.

We do the same with our celebrities. They're not simply bright, shiny objects like the real stellar bodies; they embody our dreams, and they offer escape from a daily reality which all too often seems to wear us down.

But there's more: unlike the stars, celebrities are human. And like us, they grow old. They grow old with us. And they die. Somehow in that shared mortality we manage to maintain a connection to our youth. We remember--and recreate--our capacity for dreaming of the improbable.

There is much that is cheap in a culture of celebrity. But there is something eternal, too, something deeply human.

RIP Michael Jackson

A tough day for children of the 70s...

Here's a bit of Jackson Five's "ABC" released in 1970.

Moussavi not backing down

Opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi remains defiant:

Opposition figures said Thursday that all but four of the 70 academics who had been arrested a day earlier after meeting with the main opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, had been released. There was no information about the remaining four. Hundreds of opposition supporters, intellectuals, and journalists have been detained in a wave of political arrests that has been depicted as the most sweeping since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Mr. Moussavi himself has not appeared publicly since last week, and, in a statement on a Web site maintained by his supporters, complained Thursday that his “access to people is completely restricted.” Even as fears mounted in the opposition camp that the government was preparing the groundwork to detain Mr. Moussavi himself, however, he remained defiant.

“I will not back down even for a second, even for personal threats or interests,” according to the statement.

Calling the June 12 presidential election a “big fraud,” Mr. Moussavi said government security forces had “attacked protesters inhumanely, killed, injured or arrested them.” Going further, he said, “I am willing to show how election criminals have stood by those behind the recent riots and shed people’s blood.”

Mr. Moussavi also said in the statement that there were “recent pressures on me aimed at withdrawing” his challenge to the vote. “I insist on the nation’s constitutional right to protest against the election result and its aftermath,” he said, criticizing the closure in recent days of an opposition newspaper affiliated with him and the arrest of those who worked here.

Goodbye, Farrah

When I was in the fifth grade, Charlie's Angels burst into my world. I loved that show, and I bullied my mother every Wednesday evening to make sure we were home in time for me to see it.

That year Cary, Kenneth, and I began to play that we were the angels, with sixth grader Mike serving as our "Charlie." Cary was blonde and obviously played Farrah Fawcett's character; Kenneth and I fought over getting to be Jaclyn Smith. I won.

I had the magazines, the posters, and a shoebox full of Charlie's Angels cards. And years later in San Francisco, a group of us at Oracle made two hour-long episodes of Larry's Angels, a drag spoof about "three little girls who went to work for the world's large supplier of relational database software." In 1992 and 1993, it wasn't as easy to shoot and edit your own video as it is now. I've since transferred the movies from VHS to DVD, and as dated as they are, I still feel a bit of pride that we made them. And when the new Angels movies came out a few years ago, we were all amazed by how many lines were apparently lifted verbatim from our movies.

Somehow those "three little girls" have had a far bigger impact on my life than I'm sure my mother guessed back then. They gave me the first outlet for exploring my own sexuality, but they were also just fun to watch.

FARRAH FAWCETT died today after a long bout with cancer. She will be missed.

Song for the day

P!nk's "Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)"

And for the record...

The problem I have with Governor Mark Sanford's behavior isn't so much the affair as it is the fact that he abandoned his gubernatorial responsibilities for a week. He's the chief executive of his state--experience he'd no doubt be touting if he ran for president--but he left the country without formally transferring executive authority to anyone, and he didn't tell people where he was going (and was consequently unreachable).

Is that the kind of person you'd want running the U.S. government?

Geez... the GOP class of 2012 is hurting

First John Ensign, now Mark Sanford--both potential presidential candidates in 2012--have admitted affairs. And both have given up their leadership roles in the Republican Party.

Sanford's bizarre disappearance is now being capped by a press conference in which I think he is saying way too much.

Embarassing.

The cost of healthcare in America

David Brooks tackles the issue and the prospects for real reform in his column today, noting:

There is a great deal of talk about the need to restrain costs. There’s discussion about interesting though speculative ideas to bend the cost curve. There are a series of frantic efforts designed to reduce the immediate federal price tag. Some senators and advisers suggest cutting back on universal coverage. Others have come up with a bunch of little cuts in hopes of getting closer to the trillion-dollar tab. The administration has ambitious plans to slash Medicare spending.

But there is almost nothing that gets to the core of the problem. Under the leading approaches, health care providers would still have powerful incentives to provide more and more services and use more expensive technology.

Atul Gawande explores the issue in considerably more depth in "The Cost Conundrum;" I highly recommend taking the time to read it. The article focuses on McAllen, Texas, which has the highest healthcare spending in the United States:

Americans like to believe that, with most things, more is better. But research suggests that where medicine is concerned it may actually be worse. For example, Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic dominates the scene, has fantastically high levels of technological capability and quality, but its Medicare spending is in the lowest fifteen per cent of the country—$6,688 per enrollee in 2006, which is eight thousand dollars less than the figure for McAllen. Two economists working at Dartmouth, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra, found that the more money Medicare spent per person in a given state the lower that state’s quality ranking tended to be. In fact, the four states with the highest levels of spending—Louisiana, Texas, California, and Florida—were near the bottom of the national rankings on the quality of patient care....

Complications can arise from hospital stays, medications, procedures, and tests, and when these things are of marginal value the harm can be greater than the benefits.

Until we begin to accept that more medical care is not necessarily better medical care, we're never going to reform our healthcare system in a way that lowers costs, broadens coverage, and improves lives. The incentives are pathological now: order more tests, perform more procedures, make more money. The connection between good medical practice and improving patient health has been broken. I'm not sure when or why this occurred, but I'd place a bet on an overreliance on technology and hypermarketing of the "latest and greatest" to doctors.

And we've lost all perspective on end-of-life care: we've grown accustomed to keeping patients alive at any cost but without any regard for their quality of life. (Previous post on that topic here.)

The evolution of Iran

Roger Cohen points out today in his New York Times column that the 1979 Iranian revolution took place over the course of a year, with many periods of quiescence. What is happening now will not be resolved in a week or two, and the circumstances of June 2010 are as yet unknowable. But the course of Iran's history has likely been changed in these past two weeks.

Here's video from Obama's press conference today; he also said this (transcript here):

First, I'd like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments of the last few days.

I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.

I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran's affairs.

But we must also bear witness to the courage and the dignity of the Iranian people and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore the violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place.

The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future. Some in Iran -- some in the Iranian government, in particular, are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the United States and others in the West of instigating protests over the elections.

These accusations are patently false. They're an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran's borders.

This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won't work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States or the West; this is about the people of Iran and the future that they -- and only they -- will choose.

The Iranian people can speak for themselves. That's precisely what's happened in the last few days. In 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to peaceful protests of justice. Despite the Iranian government's efforts to expel journalists and isolate itself, powerful images and poignant words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers. And so we've watched what the Iranian people are doing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(Video link)

StorageOne Self Storage in Vegas

So I rented a truck from Budget's office at StorageOne Self Storage at 3375 S. Fort Apache Blvd. this morning. I arrived back at 2:55pm to return it, only to find a "Sorry we missed you - back at 2:40" sign.

The guy who rented me the truck walked in around 3pm and proceeded to sit down and eat his lunch. It's now 3:11 and he still hasn't unlocked the door.

Niiiice customer service.

Roger Cohen in Iran

I've heard the folks at CNN repeat over and over why they are not reporting from Tehran and instead relying on YouTube and Twitter.

So it's pretty refreshing that Roger Cohen of the New York Times is actually on the streets there and continuing to do his job as a journalist. He is putting himself at risk, but he's doing something immensely important for the world.

Here is his latest column in the Times.

And here is the video of Neda Soltani that his column refers to. Neda is the young woman who was shot to death at a peaceful protest on the 20th.

(Video link)

Finally, Andrew Sullivan continues to do an amazing job of collecting, filtering, and passing on information from Iran.

Wrong diagnosis

I just realized that when I hurt my arm four years ago, two doctors diagnosed the problem. And the physical therapist missed it, too. They all treated it as a tendon issue, but it was actually my brachioradialis. No wonder nothing they tried worked. One doctor even wanted to perform surgery!

And all I've had is a year of anatomy...

This video brought tears to my eyes

Watch this BBC video showing a group of protesters in Iran who successfully turn back the police confronting them. Watch it to the end.

Iran summary from Informed Comment

Juan Cole has a comprehensive wrap-up of Saturday's events in Iran, including a link to Roger Cohen's great New York Times op-ed piece.

And there are more signs of conflict in Iran's leadership, with the speaker of the Iranian parliament contradicting the Supreme Leader.

Kissinger agrees with Obama's approach on Iran

I wish the neocon hacks would just shut up. Henry Kissinger agrees with Obama's measured approach to dealing with the crisis in Iran.

(Video link)

Quote for the day

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Waiting... and hoping...

I am awake and on the edge of my seat... hoping and believing that the people of Iran can stand against oppression.

It's morning in Tehran

Today may be a big day in Tehran. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made it clear his patience with the protests has ended. The Iranian people are now looking to Mousavi for leadership: continue to take to the streets, risking a bloody crackdown, or back off?

It looks like protests are scheduled to begin at 4:30am PDT (4pm Saturday Tehran time).

Lots of good information at The Daily Dish and Informed Comment.

I think Obama is playing this well: in other words, not playing into the hands of the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad.

Today is day for solidarity of all freedom-loving people. Say a prayer, light a candle, or meditate for a peaceful and democratic outcome.

I've got green candles burning now in my window now.

Namaste!

Two really interesting essays

From The Best American Science Writing 2002:

• "Crimson Tide" by Atul Gawande explores the nature of blushing
• "What Brings a World into Being? " by David Berlinski examines the intersection of physics and fiction

Engineering an Empire: Rome

Just saw Engineering an Empire: Rome on The History Channel. Fascinating stuff... I could just get lost in history!

When I was in Rome with my Dad in 2002, we visited the Colosseum and the Parthenon, but I feel like I spent far too little time there. In particular, we missed underground Rome which I just learned is largely the intentionally filled-in remains of Nero's Domus Aurea.

More GOP hypocrisy on "family values"

This time right at home with Nevada's junior senator, John Ensign:

“When you take the social conservative banner, there’s a higher level of scrutiny on these kinds of things,” he said. “The public comes down a lot harder on people who carry that banner,” he added.

American social mores have become more tolerant in recent decades, and in the process, voters have become more accepting of different sexual orientations (see Rep. Barney Frank); drug use (see Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama); and extramarital affairs (see President Bill Clinton.)

But there’s still one unforgivable sin: Hypocrisy.

“People have survived extramarital affairs, but he’s got a hypocrisy problem to deal with,” said another Nevada Republican operative who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a fellow Republican. “He’s got a serious hypocrisy problem.”

During his first Senate campaign in 1998 against Sen. Harry Reid, Ensign called for Clinton’s resignation in light of his acknowledged affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, saying Clinton “has no credibility left.”

Now we know that Ensign had an affair with a member of his staff. He also betrayed the woman’s husband, a close friend who also worked for him — not unlike San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Recall that Republicans like to use “San Francisco values” as an epithet.

Ensign also must now account for his prior defense of “traditional” marriage. In calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gays from marrying, he said, “Marriage is an extremely important institution in this country and protecting it is, in my mind, worth the extraordinary step of amending our constitution.”

Ensign was head of Senate Republican election efforts last year, an effort that failed badly. He tried to get Sen. Larry Craig to resign his seat after the Idaho Republican pleaded guilty in 2007 to soliciting sex from a man in an airport bathroom.

Ensign called Craig “a disgrace.”

A few months later, Ensign’s own affair began.

I've always thought this guy was an empty suit. Turns out he's worse.

Life at high volume

It's been awhile since I've written anything (my Stanford commencement post was written two or three months ago).

I've had an awesome ten days. SF, back to Vegas, Portland, back to Vegas. There have been some intense emotional moments along the way, and a lot of fun. It's been a time of re-connections and powerful new connections. Life feels good right now... and largely because I am interacting with so many great people.

And at times it's still scary, because I find myself on a path that I stepped onto somewhat hastily back in 2006. I'm still figuring it out, but a future I really like is taking form. How to clear the hurdles along the way isn't yet entirely clear.

I feel like I'm in one of those moments when the bubbles are bursting all about me... life is effervescent. But I'm also a bit vulnerable, because it's been a rough year at times, and the whole arc from December to now is a reminder of how low I can go and how wonderful life is when it's good.

I am alive. Really alive for the first time in a long time. And while I'm still groping to find my way, right now I wouldn't trade it for anything. (Which is a lie. :-)

MY FRIEND PHIL suggested I watch Central Station a few months back. I finally did tonight. He was right.

AND ONE OF THE BEST ARTICLES I've read in awhile is "The Abyss" by Oliver Sacks. It's about amnesia and music and the experience of being human.

FINALLY, from Facebook, my "15 Books in 15 Minutes":

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Copy the instructions into your own note, and be sure to tag the person who tagged you.

Dancer from the Dance - Andrew Holleran
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Chapterhouse Dune - Frank Herbert
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Querelle - Jean Genet
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Boys on the Rock - John Fox
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats from NIMH - Robert C. O'Brien
All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot

The last of your springs

Donald Kennedy was president of Stanford when I was an undergraduate there. He concluded each of his commencement addresses with this quote from Adlai Stevenson:

Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now, in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, fell the hem of heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came.

Today is commencement day for Stanford's class of 2009. Don Kennedy won't be there to share these words with them. But maybe a few of them will find their way here one day.

Congratulations, grads!

One big black pyramid

Recovery day at Luxor

Going to the chapel...

New Hampshire becomes the sixth state to legalize gay marriage. I would never have believed this even just a few years ago.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31090983/

Our not-so-rational decision-making process

I think David Brooks is on to something, not just about how judges make decisions but about how we all do:

As Dan Kahan of Yale Law School has pointed out, many disputes come about because two judges look at the same situation and they have different perceptions about what the most consequential facts are. One judge, with one set of internal models, may look at a case and perceive that the humiliation suffered by a 13-year-old girl during a strip search in a school or airport is the most consequential fact of the case. Another judge, with another set of internal models, may perceive that the security of the school or airport is the most consequential fact. People elevate and savor facts that conform to their pre-existing sensitivities.

The decision-making process gets even murkier once the judge has absorbed the disparate facts of a case. When noodling over some issue — whether it’s a legal case, an essay, a math problem or a marketing strategy — people go foraging about for a unifying solution. This is not a hyper-rational, orderly process of the sort a computer might undertake. It’s a meandering, largely unconscious process of trial and error.

The mind tries on different solutions to see if they fit. Ideas and insights bubble up from some hidden layer of intuitions and heuristics. Sometimes you feel yourself getting closer to a conclusion, and sometimes you feel yourself getting farther away. The emotions serve as guidance signals, like from a GPS, as you feel your way toward a solution.

Then — often while you’re in the shower or after a night’s sleep — the answer comes to you. You experience a fantastic rush of pleasure that feels like a million tiny magnets suddenly clicking into alignment.

Now your conclusion is articulate in your consciousness. You can edit it or reject it. You can go out and find precedents and principles to buttress it. But the way you get there was not a cool, rational process. It was complex, unconscious and emotional.

The key point, I think, it that each of us has a unique perspective on the world based on our experience and expectations, and the details that each of us fixate on are what drive the disputes that divide us.

Pretending that judges aren't human and don't operate this way--and bring their own life experiences to the job--is ridiculous.

Taking responsibility in Afghanistan

Sounds like the U.S. military is owning up to its mistakes that have resulted in civilian deaths:

A military investigation has concluded that American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the airstrikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, according to a senior American military official.

The official said the civilian death toll would probably have been reduced if American air crews and forces on the ground had followed strict rules devised to prevent civilian casualties. Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes against half a dozen targets over seven hours would have been aborted.

Another razor thin margin

This time in the Henderson mayoral race. Democrat Andy Hafen won:

With all of Henderson’s 15 vote centers reporting by about 9:40 p.m., combined with the early vote, Hafen won 9,700 to 9,655, according to unofficial figures from the Clark County Elections Department. That was 50.18 percent to 49.88 percent -- or a razor-thin difference of 0.24 percent.

Two very different movies

Last night I watched Blindness, the film adaption of José Saramago's novel Essay on Blindness. Julianne Moore stars as the wife of an opthamologist in a world where everyone suddenly goes blind.

It reminded me somewhat of Dogville and for a moment of Memento, but while all explore breakdowns in the order of things, Blindness is far more optimistic. There's a key scene in the beginning of Blindness when Moore's character wonders if agnosia--a neurological condition in which people are unable to identify objects--and agnosticism share a common etymology. I'd like to see the movie again to catch exactly what she says, but she wonders aloud about the role of faith in our everyday perception of life. How much and what do we have to believe in the world around us in order to experience it?

It was ambiguous to me whether she was speaking about faith in God or faith in ourselves--i.e. humanity--and I saw evidence for both possibilities as the film unfolded. Ultimately, the film for me was about losing and regaining faith.

It was rough to watch at moments, and I definitely would have acted against one particular antagonist a lot sooner than Moore's character did! In the end though, a very interesting and thought-provoking movie.

AND TODAY I SAW DISNEY AND PIXAR'S NEW FILM UP. It was a delight to watch but at moments unusually sad for an animated film (my friend Jill remarked at one point, "Jesus, am I going to have to cry in my 3D glasses???").

Definitely worth watching. But it's Blindness that I'd watch again. I found an interesting blog post on it here.