Activist Olympics

There are a few heats left for the latest addition to the Olympic games: the flame putter-outing, though a handful of nations have already emerged as top contenders. England is the European favorite with thirty-seven arrests and a fire extinguisher attack. France finished not far behind, with twenty arrests and scenes of utter chaos.

But Asia is putting on a strong showing as well, with Japan in on the act with Buddhist monks refusing to allow the thing in their temple, with some protesters taking bodily aim, and others using eggs to try to put the torch out. In India, at least one hundred and seventy Tibetan activists were arrested, though when the torch appears in early May, Hong Kong, itself a kind of Chinese protectorate, may yet surpass the others.

Judges award points, of course, not just for efficacy and arrests, but style. Peter Tatchell, on the scene in Britain, always brings his A game. He talked not just about human rights in Tibet, but queer ones in China where a crackdown on homos is well underway.

Despite days of anti-Occidental protests in China, and boycotts against French products, there are reports that China may be willing to talk with the Dalai Lama, or at least some intermediaries about improving the situation in Tibet.

Which just goes to show that the potential for continuing humiliation on a grand scale almost always pays off for activists. Especially when there's such a convenient target, a readymade stage, and a simply scripted production. Like a game almost. With rules. Like flame putter-outing.

A couple dozen pro-Tibet demonstrations held outside Chinese embassies wouldn't have gotten any response at all. Unless it was a couple of thick-headed security guards with rubber truncheons.

I envy them the ease of the sport. Queers haven't had such an easy target in years, not since Get Big Pharma used to be a favorite sport.

Mourning Aime Cesaire

At 94, the Walt Whitman of the French-speaking Caribbean is dead. Poet and politician, Cesaire was among the first not just to coin the word "negritude," but embody it, affirming black identity in art and grappling with the legacy of colonialism and race in politics.

Above all, he wrote some pretty amazing poems. His masterwork, "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal - Notebook of a Return to My Native Land" is as astounding as Leaves of Grass. Hardly anybody in the Anglo world knows about it, and far too few in the Francophone world.

We'll miss you.

BBC article on Cesaire.

Going Home

I checked my Yahoo horoscope today and got what I deserved, advice to "recharge your emotional batteries at home -- maybe even going back to the place where you grew up." Maybe they were speaking metaphorically.

Don't they know where most accidents happen? Home! Don't they know where most murders take place? You got it. Home! And if I have to listen to my mother praying over me...

Health Insurance: Who Needs it!@?

Most states pick a couple of bouncing balls at prime time and some lucky fool wins a million bucks. In Oregon, where some 600,000 people are uninsured, you can win health insurance.

Not everybody's thrilled at the solution. Louanne Moldovan, an applicant with huge medical bills from Crohn's Disease, says, "It's a symbol of how degraded our system is in this country that we are resorting to a lottery... It's pathetic and repugnant at the same time... [but it's] a necessity because I don't earn thousands each month."

Likewise, Oregon's Director of Human Services, Dr Bruce Goldberg, hopes national leaders will bring attention to the problem, but "I hope what they're working for is not a national lottery..." he says.

I wouldn't put it past 'em.

About 45 million Americans are uninsured. Complete BBC story

Paris Spring

Sap is rising. The chestnuts are blooming. And couples in the neighborhood are fighting tooth and nail. Or the drug dealers are. The long-haired person getting his head smashed in turned out to be a guy.

To celebrate the season, I went to the Salon de l'Agriculture earlier in March, where you could see enormous bulls with all their equipment just hanging there, and the resulting calves.

Last Friday, I went to see a show of dirty books that used to be hidden in the basement of France's National Library in a space called L'Enfer. A ticket to hell only cost 7 euros.

I expected the books to be, well, more pornographic. Maybe because most dated from a different era, many of the engravings were absolutely delightful, portraying the pleasure of the artist in the female body. Naked thighs had the most luscious flesh. Asses were so round they begged to be touched. They were so compelling that afterwards, I bet half the het chicks there left the place and went out to find a girl.

The men weren't as much to look at. At least in the early images, they were always fully dressed, only with their dicks sticking out like hooks you could hang a hat on. There some amazing dick-based designs. One assembled them into a wreath with a bloom in the center that was not a flower at all.

The beauty of men didn't really emerge until Cocteau did his drawings for Jean Genet and homoerotic eyes saw the splendor of the male flesh whose necks and hips and hands had as much to recommend them as their dicks. That's art, I think. When even a dyke like me wants to touch them.

Who's in the Cage?

Oh, Mama

Were you frightened when Bush announced he had a direct line to his lord and savior Jesus Christ? Get a load of Mr. Obama who delivered the following remarks this past Friday to about 150 Latino Evangelical and Catholic clerics at the University of Texas at Brownsville. As excerpted from Jacques Berlinerblau's "Huckobama" in the Washington Post, March 4, 2008.

"...And during the course of that sermon, I was introduced to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I placed my trust in Christ, He could set me on the path to eternal life...

...And whenever I hear stories about Americans who feel like no one’s looking out for them, like they’ve been left behind, I’m reminded that God has a plan for his people. . . . But it’s a plan He’s left to us to fulfill...

... I’d like to begin with a prayer. It comes to us from Jeremiah 29, when the prophet sent out a letter to those exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. It was a time of uncertainty, and a time of despair. But the prophet Jeremiah told them to banish their fear – that though they were scattered, and though they felt lost, God had not left them. “For I know the plans I have for you,” the Lord revealed to Jeremiah, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God had a plan for His people. That was the truth that Jeremiah grasped – the creed that brought comfort to the exiles – that faith is not just a pathway to personal redemption, but a force that can bind us together and lift us up as a community..."

The hairs raised up on anybody else's neck?