Injured soldiers who lost their limbs fighting for their country have been driven from a swimming pool training session by jeering members of the public.

The men, injured during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, were taking part in a rehabilitation session at a leisure centre, when two women demanded they be removed from the pool. They claimed that the soldiers “hadn’t paid” and might scare the children. (Telegraph)

Oh. My. God. I’m absolutely appalled and outraged. I agree completely with Admiral Lord Boyce:

“These people are beneath contempt and everything should be done to get their names and publish them in the press,” he said. “It is contemptible that people who have given up their limbs for their country should be so abused when they are trying to get fit again.”

I just finished sending an email to the British Ministry of Defence expressing my support for these men and inquiring if there is an established fund for the care of these vets that people can donate to. I hope they hear from people all over the world and perhaps this ugly episode can turn into something good for these men.

h/t Hot Air

– John (Average Gay Joe)

This year, a day that is important to me, George Eliot’s birthday, falls on an American holiday, so I’ll be remembering my favorite writer as I celebrate Thanksgiving with my family in CIncinnati, Ohio. Today also marks a day of particular importance to my family, the eleventy-first anniversary of the birth of my beloved Aunt Ruth Friedman, a woman who in her life, embodied the qualities of a heroine of Eliot’s novels.

In those novels, Eliot, whose real name was Mary Anne Evans (for whom my car is named), portrays characters who attempt to find meaning in life by doing something of purpose and looking out of their fellow man. Thus, I think she would understand that I would devote less time to the post than her work deserves so I can spend more time with my nieces and nephews, the youngest of whom is right now eager to play with his Uncle Danny. (He’s kind of tugging on me.)

Given that I’m particularly proud of the post I did two years ago, I will, as last year, simply repost that (with a few minor modifications).

WIthout further ado:

There are holidays we all celebrate. And then there are the personal days, the anniversary of a wedding, the day we first met our beloved, the birthday of a friend, special relative or favorite writer. November 22 is one of those days for me. Not only does it mark the anniversary of the birth of a very dear great Aunt, my Aunt Ruth, who would have been 111 today, it is also the 188th anniversary of birth of the greatest English novelist, George Eliot. Three years ago, I honored her with this post.

Born Mary Ann Evans in South Arbury, England on November 22, 1819, she was particularly close to her brother Isaac as a child. She describes that sweet relationship in her novel The Mill on the Floss. In her early adulthood, she wrote countless essays and translated several works German into English. She, however, did not become the great novelist we know today until after she met George Henry Lewes in 1851. Neither lover was particularly physically attractive, but both could dazzle their Victorian peers with their presence. When people met Miss Evans, they soon forget her looks, more entranced were they by her conversation, her intelligence and her insight, her wisdom.

Even though Lewes never divorced his wife, he and Evans lived together as husband and wife until his death in 1878. While their love produced no children, it did help her “give birth” to many great ideas which she turned into some of the greatest novels, including one which many consider to be the greatest novel in the English language. In creating her pen name, she took the name George from Lewes, the great love of her life.

Her greatest books include the aforementioned Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, Felix Holt, Romola, the touching Silas Marner and Middlemarch that greatest of English novels. There is much, so much, I could say about this great woman such that I would take up our blog’s entire home page. She had a keen sense of values, understood human psychology, could peer into the human heart and show the positive sides of her villains. Indeed, none of her characters were completely evil and none purely good. Yet, they all performed acts of kindness, nobility, cruelty and/or stupidity.

After much hesitation, the selfish Bulstrode shows some kindness to his nephew Fred Vincy. And that well-meaning Fred had previously gambled away a loan that Caleb Garth, the father of Mary, his one true love, had guaranteed for him, draining that good man’s family of money they had saved to pay for their son’s education.

She spoke of compassion and of the importance of finding that one person who could “be all” to her heroines. She, who had lived so long alone, well understand the value and promise of romance and how true love sustains those of us who recognize its power and are willing to work hard to keep it alive. She exhorted us to understand our fellow man and showing sensitivity to his difficulties: “More helpful,” she wrote in The Mill on the Floss, “than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.” “Fellow-feeling” was one of her treasured experessions.

To honor her birthday, I offer a few more quotes from the writings of this great lady so that you will may celebrate her life with nuggets of her wisdom. Then, as Glenn Reynolds might say, go read the “whole thing” — her collected works!

Happy Birthday, Mary Ann Evans, George Eliot. And thank you, thank you for the compassionate, the insightful, the profound, the wise work you left behind.

-B. Daniel Blatt (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

The quotations are all below: (more…)

Last week, while doing some cardio at the gym, I looked up at the TV monitor to see CNN’s Rick Sanchez anchor a seemingly lengthy segment about how Republican Presidential contender John McCain handled someone describing New York’s junior Senator and Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton as a “bitch.” Given the attention Sanchez was devoting to the topic, I assumed a McCain aide had so described the former First Lady.

Only later would I learn this reporter was hyping the Arizona Senator’s failure to rebuke a woman who asked him “How do we beat the bitch?” I wonder if CNN has ever devoted as much time to a top Democrat’s failure to rebuke someone who asked a question using equally colorful language to describe the President of the United States.

I mean, they’re making an issue not something a Republican candidate said, not even something one of his staffers said, but of a question a voter asked.

Combined with Wolf Blitzer’s kid-glove treatment of Mrs. Clinton in the last Democratic presidential debate and the network’s booking two pro-Clinton “analysts” (Including one who has worked on her current campaign) to provide post-debate analysis, Sanchez’s hyping of the story is just another example of CNN showing unusual sensivity to Mrs. Clinton. No wonder some claim CNN stands for the Clinton News Network.

I would daresay I’m not the only one asking whether or not Rick Sanchez hyped this story at the behest of the Clinton campaign. After all, it would make it look like the former First Lady’s opponents were attacking her personally. Mrs. Clinton and her team label all criticism as personal attacks.  It’s the crux of her strategy, discrediting her critics while making her appear sympathetic (you know, the one subject to such awful innuendo).

Perhaps, she recalls that she only recovered from her dismal polling numbers as First Lady (the highest negatives of any First Lady since pollsters started asking Americans their opinion of the president’s spouse) when the news broke that her husband was involved with a White House intern. People felt sorry for her. I guess she thinks gaining public sympathy is the key to higher approval.

Whatever the case, CNN has been made a mountain of a molehill. And while that network may try to shield Mrs. Clinton from tough questions at the same time that it provides favorable coverage of her campaign, new media will make it easier for others to criticize the network’s bias, criticism more difficult to level back when her husband was in office.

The more the Clintons try to spin, the more people will become aware of the spin. That, in turn, will continually remind people about the Clintons’ methods of media manipulation. And further cement Mrs. Clinton’s negatives.

Mrs. Clinton just can’t manipulate he media the way her husband did in his first campaign — and throughout his two terms in office. And it’s not just his personality. It’s also how the media has changed.

Kudos to John McCain for standing up to the media and refusing to apologize for someone else’s remark. It’s nice to see this one-time “media darling” take on the media. It’s a good sign that as president, he’ll show such fortitude in standing up to America’s adversaries.

And such fortitude is helping allay some of my doubts about the Arizona Senator’s presidential bid.

About the time I started seeing copies of Khaled Hosseini‘s The Kite Runner in area Starbucks, friends and family members were telling me how much they enjoyed the novel. So, while I was driving cross country, I bought a copy of the book in a Cincinnati bookstore and started reading it soon after I finished Philip Pullman’s trilogy (which I read largely because I found a preview for the The Golden Compass, the flick based on the first book in the series so captivating).

When I started the book (Hosseini’s not Pullman’s), I was immediately skeptical about its merits and wondered why so many had spoken so highly of it. Perhaps, that’s because, having written a novel myself, I always read the acknowledgments (and prefaces) which many readers neglect. In this section, Hosseini expressed gratitude to the “gang at the San Francisco Writers Workshop.” I wonder at writers who depend on a writers group, frequently finding that the writing which comes out of such workshops is processed and stale.

This would not be the case with The Kite Runner, well not entirely. I was pleasantly surprised to discover prose that quickly drew me into the story and which flowed. To be sure, there were times when the dialogue seemed contrived, characters saying things which most people keep to themselves, but, on the whole, the book read well. And yet, every now and then, I could sense that this book had been “workshopped.” He would describe a character who didn’t need description, normally in dry, declarative sentences with an excessive use of the verb “to be” in its various forms.

Such description left little to the reader’s imagination while devaluing the passages where such description was necessary. I often wondered why writing programs focus on description. It is, at times, necessary. At other times, distracting as it was here. It interrupted the flow of his prose and seemed out of place, as if air-dropped into the text. Good writers use discretion with description.

All that said, without those “air-dropped” passages, Hosseini, for whom (as I understand) English is not a first language, is a gifted writer. He has a simple style who uses his (usually) unadorned prose to tell a powerful story. From the moment I started the book, I could hardly put it down. I understood why my family and friends so loved his novel and could easily understand why Paramount was eager to adapt it for the silver screen.

Hosseini is a natural storyteller and presents a tale of adolescent insecurity, particularly a longing for paternal affection, leading to a boy’s betraying his closest friend. In some ways, it reminded me of Gene’s mixed feelings towards Phineas in A Separate Peace. Some themes of adolescence are universal. But, Amir, Hosseini’s hero, has a chance that Gene didn’t have — to find redemption for the sins (or perhaps I should say, errors) of his youth.

I would say more, but that might prevent those of you who have not yet read the book from experiencing it on your own.

It is simply put, a powerful story. I found myself tearing up as I finished the book just a few minutes ago. I will wonder why such a gifted writer would need the support of a writers workshop. Perhaps, that workshop did indeed help him shape a very rough first draft into a tale well told. All that said, despite the occasional flaws in style, those “air-dropped” passages which hinder the book’s flow from time to time, I highly recommend the book. I can’t wait to see the movie.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

Just reading about excerpts from a book by one of the men most responsible for President Bush’s rapidly declining poll numbers in the first fifteen months of the President’s second term. And it shows how this man whose tenure as White House press secretary was best defined (to paraphrase Bill Kristol’s expression) as being in a constant “defensive crouch” now accuses administration officials of being “involved” in his “unknowingly pass[ing] along false information” about the involvement of some of those officials in “outing” then-CIA analyst Valerie Plame.

I’m sure denizens of the netroots already whipping themselves into a frenzy and pulling out their worn-out old bromides about the administration’s deceptions.

While the media will focus on the alleged efforts of the much-maligned (in the MSM) White House officials to slander Ms. Plame, they will neglect an important story about Mr. McClellan’s incompetence. He was the White House press secretary at the time. And he was more interested in playing defense, handling queries about Ms. Plame rather than going on offense and challenging the credibility of her dishonest husband.

That spouse, netroots hero Joe Wilson claimed that President Bush lied in his January 28, 2003 State of he Union address when he spoke these sixteen now famous words, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” That Mr. Wilson said that he knew the president was lying because he had been to the African nation where Mr. Hussein supposedly was trying to buy Niger and reported that the then-Iraqi dictator was doing no such thing.

But, it turns out that CIA believed Wilson’s report lent credence to the notion that Hussein was indeed trying to get yellowcake uranium from Niger. (Basically, Mr. Wilson’s report didn’t say what he publiclhy said it did.) Not only that, Mr. Wilson lied about how he got his job. And he had didn’t know whether not the president (or any of his advisors) had seen his report. While he was accusing the president of lying, he was the one spreading falsehoods.

Instead of playing defense to the press’s queries, a responsible White House Press Secretary would have taken the time to discredit point by point that Democratic partisan’s deceptions.

There likely never would have been a scandal had Mr. McClellan gotten out of his defensive crouch and done his job. Instead, several conservative journals (and blogs) and at least one non-partisan web-site have done it for him. One wonders why the president did not appoint someone more aggressive for the job.

It’s too bad the president wasn’t as sensitive to his public image as was his predecessor. Or was as concerned with telling the truth about his record — and getting that message out — as he was with stubbornly standing by his staff.

So far it seems the MSM has focused on only one aspect of the story. Perhaps, when Mr. McClellan’s book comes out, people will discuss more that man’s inability to deal with an aggressive and antagonistic press corps.

By all available evidence, it’s clear that Scott McClellan is a decent man, a nice guy and loyal to George W. Bush. But, he was clearly not cut out to be White House Press Secretary at a time when the media was hostile to the administration and skeptical of the president’s every action, indeed every word that he spoke.

UPDATE: It’s almost amusing reading AP’s coverage of this. No wonder Vince P (in comment #1) called this “the story that refuses to die.” AP headlines its story (at least the version I got via Yahoo!) Former aide blames Bush for leak deceit, but the text of the article doesn’t provide any statement from McClellan allocating such blame. AP seems to have so convinced itself that Bush is a liar that it need not provide evidence to make the case.

Yes, McClellan says the “president himself” was “involved” in his passing along “false information.” But, he doesn’t show (nor has anyone showed) that the president knew any of his aides mentioned Ms. Plame’s name to the media. (If the president did know that his aides had done so and told McClellan otherwise–and McClellan said as much, then and only then would the headline be accurate.)

(For that matter, Rove never mentioned her name either, only responding to one reporter that he had heard she worked at the CIA while encouraging another to steer clear of the Wilson story because his wife worked at the CIA.)

As AP reporter Matt Apuzzo himself writes, the excerpt from McClellan’s book “doesn’t get into detail about how Bush and Cheney were involved or reveal what happened behind the scenes.” He says they were involved, so we’ll have to wait for the book’s release to see what that involvement was.

I wonder if McClellan will address in his book why he did not, as White House Press Secretary, challenge Joe Wilson’s long-since discredited statements which made him a cause celebre among Democrats and the netroots. Perhaps, he’ll reflect on his own failure to deal with that Democrat’s deceptions.

For the real issue here is the White House’s ham-handed response to a dishonest partisan. Because of that ham-handed response, this issue is one which refuses to die. And the MSM continues to dwell on the “leak” while giving short shrift (if any shrift at all) to Wilson’s deceptions.

When I learned that my friend Sean had self-published his novel, not only was I eager to buy it (review to come as I plan on reading this book over the Thanksgiving holiday), I wondered whether I should do the same with my novel that has long since lain dormant.

This weekend, after attending a writers’ conference at my graduate school, I decided to do just that. To whet your appetite for my work, for the first time since I completed my book, I will post the very first chapter on the web as I consider means to both self-publish this touching story and to promote.

Just another way I’m joining something one wise wag called “An Army of Davids.”

Without further ado:

Chapter One  

A Boy’s Best Friend

“The Child is father of the Man;”

–William Wordsworth
“My Heart Leaps Up”

“Daddy, do you have a best friend?” my four-year old son Tommy asked after I had finished reading to him and had tucked him in to bed. Generally, when Tommy asked me a question, I would answer as quickly as possible. Sometimes the question would stump me as when he asked how the telephone could transmit Grandma’s voice all the way from Arizona. But, at that moment, that question was easy compared to this one. As I write this, I can answer without hesitation, “No, not now.” But, then, now nearly a year ago, I didn’t know what to say. I hesitated and tried to think up a response. Discovering one that would work, I was about to reply, “Well, I guess, Mommy has always been my best friend,” when he began to tell me about Philip, his best friend, and how they were building a castle together out of Legos. Before I kissed Tommy good night, I had to promise my son that I wouldn’t touch the castle that he and his best friend were building in the basement of our house.

I switched off the light in Tommy’s room, then instead of returning to my room as I would normally do after tucking him in, I walked downstairs, switching on the light in the basement. In the corner of the basement, not far from where I used to build Lego castles as a child, stood a large, multi-colored, awkward-looking Lego structure. I stopped and paused, admiring my son’s handiwork, then approached in order to examine Tommy and Philip’s joint endeavor more closely. On the very edge of the base board, they had built the walls, stacking blocks of all different colors one on top of another, with no visible pattern. I was about to pick up their project, but remembering my promise, stepped back and studied it from a distance. They had used blocks of all different shapes and sizes. There were windows, not placed symmetrically, of course. On the top of one side, they had attached several Lego trees. I smiled and wondered how Tommy would respond when I asked him how the trees happened to grow out of the walls. And then as I imagined Tommy building the castle together with Philip, I remembered the hours I used to spend as a child in that basement, then my grandmother’s house, playing alone with Legos. And I wondered if, when I was his age, I had ever wanted to share that game. With that thought in mind, I switched off the light and walked upstairs.

After I had closed the door to the basement behind me, I paused. The door clicked shut and in my mind, I heard Tommy ask me again if I had a best friend. With the door knob still in my hand, I looked up through the kitchen doorway and at the door leading to the back porch. I walked towards it. I don’t remember opening that door, only know that I did because the next thing I remember is sitting on the back porch, looking out at the tops of the trees swaying in the autumn breeze. I could not see the full splendor of their fall color as I would the following morning, I could only see their black inconstant shapes against the gray of the sky. Occasionally a cloud would skirt by, as if a branch had escaped from a tree and floated on into eternity.

(more…)

Christopher Hitchens comments on some reactions to news from Iraq:

What worries me about the reaction of liberals and Democrats is not the skepticism, which is pardonable, but the dank and sinister impression they give that the worse the tidings, the better they would be pleased. The latter mentality isn’t pardonable and ought not to be pardoned, either.

While the author does express his skepticism that the good news from Iraq may not be lasting, I highly recommend his piece.

Via Instapundit.

Yesterday the Young Marine in the family ‘dragged’ all of us off to see the new National Museum of the Marine Corps. Actually, he didn’t have to convince me much to go there as I’ve seen the ‘spire’ of this structure for some time now from the highway as I drive to and from work. Just the uniqueness of the design itself, inspired by a famous photograph, was enough to pique my interest even without what and whom the museum pays tribute to. So without the trees lining the highway to obscure the view, we pulled up and were greeted with this sight:

(more…)

First, LA Times: Sects Unite To Battle Al Qaeda…

In the last two months, a U.S.-backed policing movement called Concerned Citizens, launched last year in Sunni-dominated Anbar province under the banner of the Awakening movement, has spread rapidly into the mixed Iraqi heartland.

Of the nearly 70,000 Iraqi men in the Awakening movement, started by Sunni Muslim sheiks who turned their followers against Al Qaeda in Iraq, there are now more in Baghdad and its environs than anywhere else, and a growing number of those are Shiite Muslims.

Commanders in the field think they have tapped into a genuine public expression of reconciliation that has outpaced the elected government’s progress on mending the sectarian rift.

“What you find is these people have lived together for decades with no problem until the terrorists arrived and tried to instigate the problem,” said Lt. Col. Valery Keaveny, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Airborne unit in the Iskandariya area south of Baghdad. “So they are perfectly willing to work together to keep the terrorists out.”

As late as this summer, there were no Shiites in the community policing groups. Today, there are about 15,000 in 24 all-Shiite groups and 18 mixed groups, senior U.S. military officials say. More are joining daily.

Harry Reid says “the war is lost”.  His fellow Democrats, especially those running for President, say there is a civil war in Iraq.  The LA Times doesn’t create a picture at all of “civil war.”  Obviously the Democrats aren’t reading their talking points lately from the American News Media (D-USA).

Second, Newsweek: Baghdad Comes Alive…..

For the first time, however, returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months, I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable. “It’s hard to believe,” says a friend named Fareed, who has also gone and come back over the years to find the situation always worse, “but this time it’s really not.” Such words are uttered only grudgingly by those such as me, who have been disappointed again and again by Iraq, where a pessimist is merely someone who has had to endure too many optimists.

So the following observations do not come so much from the brass: Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad. The civil war is in the midst of a huge, though nervous, pause. Most Shiite militias are honoring a truce. Iran appears to have stopped shipping deadly arms to Iraqi militants. The indigenous Sunni insurgency has declared for the Americans across broad swaths of the country, especially in the capital.

Emerging from our bunkers into the Red Zone, I see the results everywhere. Throughout Baghdad, shops and street markets are open late again, taking advantage of the fine November weather. Parks are crowded with strollers, and kids play soccer on the streets. Traffic has resumed its customary epic snarl. The Baghdad Zoo is open, and caretakers have even managed to bring in two lionesses to replace the menagerie that escaped in the early days of the war (and was hunted down by U.S. soldiers).

The nearby Funfair in Zawra Park—where insurgents used to set up mortar tubes to rocket government ministries, and where a car bombing killed four and wounded 25 on Oct. 15—is back in business. “Just four months ago, you could hardly see a single family here,” says Zawra official Hussein Matar. One of our translators succumbed to the tears of his son recently and took him to Zawra for his 9th birthday. It was the boy’s first visit to a Baghdad amusement park; the war has robbed him of nearly half his childhood.

Read the whole thing….. it isn’t all roses, but it is most certainly a different picture of Baghdad then we are used to hearing about since the surge from CBSMSNBCCNNHarryReidNancyPelosi.

But it is also most certainly a testament to the outstanding abilities of our military men and women stationed in Iraq who have turned a civil war/terrorist last stand into a burgeoning American victory in World War III.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The Homestead 400 race in Miami last night was a great way to end the NASCAR season.  And it only reinforced my increasing interest in the sport – mainly due to watching it on HDTV widescreen.  You really can’t beat it.

The race also resulted in a 2007 double-win for the Hendrick team in the Nextel Cup:  Jimmie Johnson & Jeff Gordon, Numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

Congrats to the Back-to-Back Nextel Cup Champion — Jimmie Johnson.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Nope, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth…just on our way back from the other side of it. PatriotPartner (John) and I have spent the last 10 days in paradise — the island of Kaua’i in Hawaii. We are now about to embark on the 12-hour trip back to Charlotte.

The trip was fantastic and I promise I’ll post some photos (and video clips) over the next few days.

I can happily say I’ve not checked email or used the internet for the entire trip. It wasn’t missed.

I will get back to blogging over the course of the next few days, but I also have a ton of work greeting me at home — so bear with me!

Aloha!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

When I first heard (somewhere on the road in Kansas as I journeyed cross country) that the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (for the better part of the first six books of the Harry Potter series) was gay, it just made sense. As I wrote at that time:

When I heard the news, it just made sense. There was something in the wise wizard’s manner which suggested a certain gay sensibility, but also a sense that he had somehow sublimated its sexual aspect.

As a young wizard, Albus Dumbledore had fallen for Gellert Grindelwald, his equally precocious colleague from the Durmstrang Institute, but forsook that then-fair young man, largely because of his beloved’s increasing fascination with the dark arts.

I can’t quite put my finger on it (and hope to be able to provide a few examples should I re-read the series), but as I noted previously, there was something in the wizard’s manner which suggested that he was gay, perhaps it was the avuncular tenderness he showed to Harry. Or maybe he just had a more gentle disposition than do most men, a gentleness which he manifested in a number of contexts, but particularly in his relationships with other men.

It was also a gentleness, devoid of sexual obsession*. He may have been more drawn to Harry (and other male pupils) because of their gender, but he did not see them as objects of sexual conquest. Perhaps, it’s because after turning away from Grindelwald, he had somehow sublimated his sexual longings. He had found that deeper connection and could not conceive of sexuality without such a bond.

Or perhaps it’s all just because Dumbledore’s experience seemed to parallel that of the wizards in my fantasy realm, a world I hope to reveal to others if I find myself ready to write the “epic” which has been kicking around in my head for about five years. I have a strange sense that the Harry Potter books somehow influenced my writing. When I read the first book, it struck me as odd to find a world with so many wizards. In most fantasy realms (as well as medieval legends), there are only a handful. (In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, there are only five, with two having disappeared not long after their arrival from the Undying Lands.)

In mine, there are only four alive at the time my story takes place, with one imprisoned and a second having lost his human form because he abused his power of transformation. In my realm, each wizard gains his wisdom, in large part, after losing his beloved. For you see, these wizards because of their semi-divine origin have extraordinary long life and also have a great capacity for love, but living in the mortal world, they fall for those around them.

The luckier ones fall for elves who while not immortal (unlike Tolkien’s elves), do live longer than the humans whose forms they take. But, as their beloved will die during their life times, they all must learn to live without the individual for whom they have the strongest, most passionate and most tender of feelings.

And yes, there is a wizard in my epic who does fall for another man.

Maybe it’s just the similarity between Dumbedore’s story and that of my wizards which engendered these thoughts. But, I want to offer one final thought. In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart‘s Rick finds his own redemption (in a manner of speaking) when he realizes he must forsake the love of his life for a cause greater than both of them. In that way, Albus Dumbledore has much in common with one of the great characters of the silver screen. It seems then that part of wisdom is understanding that while there is truth in romance, romance is not the ultimate truth.

- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)

*Not sure this is the right word.

ADDENDUM: And while you’re pondering Albus Dumbledore’s sexuality, take a gander at Pink Elephant‘s post on the topic. That blogger is a “little put off by the current fashion of including a stock gay character for whom sexuality just comes up constantly.” Read the whole thing so as to better understand his point.

Just over two years ago, I imagined that tomorrow, the day of the release of Robert Zemeckis‘s Beowulf, would be the most difficult day for me since I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a screenwriter. You see, several years previously, I had completed my own adaptation of that great English poem about a celebrated Geatish monster-slayer and king. It is, I believe, one of my two best scripts and the mose marketable of all my screenplays.

I have loved Beowulf since I first read it in Tenth Grade, discovering there one of the sources of my then-favorite writer‘s* own epic. So much did I love the poem that I learned Old English as an undergraduate so that I could read the poem in the original as an undergraduate.

When about ten years ago, I found myself writing screenplays, I knew I would one day attempt to adapt Beowulf for the silver screen. But, the question arose how to translate a story writtent to be told for warriors in the mead-halls of Anglo-Saxon England in the last centuries of the first millennium (of the Common Era) to a film to be shown to modern men and women in movie theaters around the world in the first years of a new millennium.

The original Beowulf story has few of the things which make a movie work today. The hero doesn’t change. The Beowulf we see at the end of the poem is virtually the same person (though much older) as the one who volunteered to assemble a troop and travel to Denmark to fight the monster ravaging Hrothgar’s hall in Demark. Unlike most heroes of the silver screen, Beowulf is not initially reluctant to face his foe(s). When Beowulf hears of that Danish King’s woes, he sets out willingingly, without reservation, because that besieged monarch was “in need of men.”

We are so used to seeing a hero, hesitating before undertaking the task that will come to define him. But, Beowulf does not hesitate.

Moreover, those movies which move us, which draw us in, have at their core, a relationship, whether it’s that of father-son (Don Corleone & Michael in the Godfather) or mentor-student (Obiwan and Luke in Star Wars) or of two lovers (Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca). The best movies, like those listed, all have a number of relationships which shift as the flicks unfold.

But, in Beowulf, there are no such relationships. Yes, he acknowledges he owes Hrothgar a debt. There is a brief spark between him and Hrothgar’s wife Wealtheow and Wiglaf, alone among the warriors who follow Beowulf to the dragon’s lair, joins his King in battling that dread beast when the hero cannot face him on his own. (The others flee.) But, each relationship belongs to a specific part of the story. None sustains the whole poem.

How, I wondered could you have a movie without a relationship helping define the story?

And then it dawned on me, create the relationship between Beowulf and the at-that-time-undiscovered Beowulf-poet. Hearing the poem as a boy, he would identify with the hero, using his example to guide his life, then, at the end of the flick, he would complete the tale he had first heard when living at home. And it would help him, finally find his place in the world.

Thus, we would have both transformation and relationship, two ingredients, essential to a good flick.

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While comparisons are seldom, if ever, so precise that one can ignore the differences, there are remarkable similiarities between the racial segregation in the military and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on gays openly serving. A reading of the history of racial desegregation in the military is fascinating in and of itself, but one finds the same prejudice, resistance to change, arguments in favor of the status quo, that the military shouldn’t be used as a “social experiment”, questions raised about unit cohesion and barracks facilities, etc., that were used against desegregation as are used now against gays openly serving. One such striking example comes from the testimony opposing full desegregation of Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army, before the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity In The Armed Forces on March 28, 1949:

At the outset I want to make it clear that in my opinion the policies which should be applied to the use of all Army personnel, regardless of race, are those policies which best promote a sound national defense. Our basic mission is to win battles and to establish an organization capable of winning battles.

Specifically the Army is not an instrument for social evolution. It is not the Army’s job either to favor or to impede the social doctrines, no matter how progressive they may be – it is not for us to lead or to lag behind the civilian procession except to the extent that the national defense is affected…

Another – and an important – factor to be considered on the question of segregation is the morale of the troops as a whole – their satisfaction with Army life, and the spirit with which they perform Army tasks. In war, when the chips are down, this morale factor may well be the difference between victory and defeat.

We must remember that soldiers are not mere bodies that can be moved and handled as trucks and guns. They are individuals who came from civilian life and often return thereto. They are subject to all the emotions, prejudices, ideals, ambitions and inhibitions that encumber our civil population throughout the country.

Solders live and work closely together. They are not only on the same drill field also in the same living and eating quarters. From the standpoint both of morale and of efficiency it is important in peace and in war that the barracks and the unit areas be so attractive to them that they will devote not only their duty time but a reasonable part of their optional time at the post – that they will not be watching the clock for a chance to get away.

In war it is even more important that they have confidence both in their leaders and in the men that are to fight by their sides. Effective comradeship in battle calls for a warm and close personal relationship within a unit…

In this connection we must remember that a large part of the volunteers in the Army are Southerners – usually a larger proportion than from any other part of the country. Whether properly or not, it is a well known fact that close personal association with Negroes is distasteful to large percentage of Southern whites.

A total abandonment of – or a substantial and sudden change in – the Army’s partial segregation policy would in my opinion adversely affect enlistments and reenlistments not only in the South but in many other parts of the country, probably making peacetime selective service necessary. And a change in our policy would adversely affect the morale of many Southern soldiers and other soldiers now serving…

[I]n my opinion – and I believe in the opinion of a great majority of the experienced Army men and officers – it would be most difficult – and unwise from the standpoint of national defense – to require any substantial proportion of white soldiers – whether from the South or from other sections of the country – to serve under Negro officers or particularly under Negro non-commissioned officers.

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A few days ago, the employer of a close friend asked him to buy a digital camera. Instead of asking the firm to reimburse him for the camera, thus making it the company’s property, my friend decided to pay for it himself so he might keep it, observing that it would allow him to capture images of his friends and family. For, he noted, he found his greatest happiness in time spent with others.

And he came to this wisdom despite his refusal to read Silas Marner, one of George Eliot‘s great novels. The power of human relationships is one of Eliot’s great themes.

At the same time as my friend offered his pearl of wisdom, I’ve been reading Anthony Kronman’s Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life. (I learned about this book one day while perusing Instapundit.) As I began to read it, I learned that Mr. Kronman is a graduate of American’s finest liberal arts college. No wonder he can offer such important insights.

I expect to have more to say about Kronman’s book as a later date, particularly about what the abandonment of the study of the meaning of life means for gay people. So far, I have really enjoyed the first third of the book. The author, the former dean of Yale Law School, provides a good background on the conversation about life’s meaning and the history of colleges and university curricula in America. He may be a little repetitive at times, but that repetition does not detract from the book’s strengths.

It stuck me as interesting synchronicity that the same weekend my friend would offer his insight on the moments of true happiness that I’m reading a book about the meaning of life. It seems to me that it is in large part through the human relationships we establish that we discover life’s meaning. Perhaps that reading has put me in a philosophic mood these past few days, hence the slow blogging.

I do hope to blog a little more for the balance of the week, as I have a few followup posts in mind on the controversy I excited in speculating about the MSM’s Disinterest in the Anti-Conservative Attitude of some gays, a piece wondering about the President’s screwups, a few ideas about men and (gay) marriage and some thoughts on the upcoming release of a movie supposedly inspired by the most important literary work in a European vernacular language between the fall of Rome and the publication of The Divine Comedy.

Oh, and in line with my thoughts on the misundertanding and loathing that some on the left, particularly the gay left, express toward conservatives, I should note that the friend whose comment inspired this post is a Democrat who has never voted for a Republican in his life. He may rib me for my politics, but it doesn’t diminish the quality of our friendship. Indeed, in some ways, our political differences strengthen that friendship.

As per Hugh Hewitt’s suggestion, I just made a donation to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund and encourage our readers to do the same to honor our Veterans on their day.

I was going to eschew politics today, but this is just too good to pass up.

Now opponents of Hillary might take this as a bad omen (paging all soothsayers – get us some entrails quick!), but for those who view another Clinton presidency as being just shy of the Second Coming I would suggest taking a page from the spurrious Gospel of Nicodemus in spinning this:

Now when Jesus entered in, and the ensigns were holding the standards, the images (busts) of the standards bowed and did reverence to Jesus. And when the Jews saw the carriage of the standards, how they bowed themselves and did reverence unto Jesus, they cried out above measure against the ensigns. But Pilate said unto the Jews: Marvel ye not that the images bowed themselves and did reverence unto Jesus. The Jews say unto Pilate: We saw how the ensigns made them to bow and did reverence to him. And the governor called for the ensigns and saith unto them: Wherefore did ye so? They say unto Pilate: We are Greeks and servers of temples, and how could we do him reverence? for indeed, whilst we held the images they bowed of themselves and did reverence unto him.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

UPDATE: Now that this video has made it onto You Tube, I replaced the photo with the video of this incident. Best comment so far: “Hillary lied flags died”.

UPDATE: Perhaps we have tie for best comment on this, thanks to someone over on Hot Air: “Looks like explosives took down the flag. Notice the steel poles didn’t melt either. /sarc”

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to attend an outstanding event that featured veterans from just about every conflict from World War II to Iraqi Freedom to speak to an audience of Young Marines, Civil Air Patrol and other interested persons. It was quite a high to be amongst all those heroes, most of whom are in the twilight of their lives, and listen to them speak about what they endured in battle for this country. What made it even more special was attending the event with my father, a veteran of the Vietnam War, along with my nephew who is the next generation of our family and one of whom the defense of our freedom may fall upon one day.

The first panel of veterans we listened to were from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 28th Marines. These men may not look like much now, but don’t let the passage of time fool you. It was these men and those like them that took Mt. Suribachi and in that iconic image of World War II raised the American flag at its summit during the harrowing Battle of Iwo Jima. Over 60 years have passed since those bloody days they spent on that tiny island fighting the Imperial Japanese but when they spoke about it, it seemed like for them it was yesterday. The details they recalled and how they felt were amazing. The character of these men still shown through and their personalities were quite apparent. The veteran at the end with the cane was a bit of a cut-up and the spark of mischief in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed.

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I was hoping to post something tonight about the fantastic veterans event I attended today, but unfortunately I forgot the USB cable to my digital camera at work and it will have to wait until Monday. A bit disappointing as I truly was in the presence of greatness today that left me still on a bit of a high as I type this. However, it’s probably better to post it on Veterans Day anyways. For now though I’d like to share something I posted on my blog the other day:

A superb trailer for an upcoming documentary about the ban against gays serving in the military. I’m not surprised to hear about some military chaplains using a hit-piece video depicting the worst aspects of so-called “gay culture” to tar everybody who is homosexual. I recall being in boot camp, standing at attention with the rest of my company, while the Navy chaplain was yelling at us to shape up and not be like Clayton Hartwig. Does the name sound familiar? Probably not. The Navy tried to cover up an accident on the Battleship Iowa by falsely accusing this sailor who died in the accident of sabotaging his gun turret because supposedly a homosexual affair he was having went bad. It has never even been shown that Hartwig was gay. They lied, flat-out and it took a few years for his family to clear this sailor’s name. I remember all of this, along with the anger and fear I had that this is what others thought of people like me. Even at that time in the fall of 1989 there were many questions about the Navy’s accusations against Hartwig yet with the flimsiest of evidence they tarnished this sailor’s name and this was used against all gays. Though the years have passed and Hartwig had his name cleared, I still remember all of this and what this kind of senseless bigotry has done to my beloved Navy. The reasons for this policy have been shown time and time again to be baseless, leaving nothing but bigotry remaining (fear of change as well no doubt). It’s time for this to go and God I hope that day is soon so those who currently are in uniform and those to come, whether they are gay or even perceived to be, can serve openly and honorably.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

Sometimes, I’ll put days of thought and hours of work into a post, thinking I’m addressing an important issue and get no links and only a handful of comments. Most people didn’t find take as much interest in the idea that I found so compelling. Other times, I’ll read some post (or encounter an idea) in an e-mail and, on a whim, whip off a piece.

Such was the case yesterday when I pondered an e-mail from a reader referencing Michelle Malkin’s on ABC “staging” news by hiring actors to engage in PDA to provoke a reaction from people in Alabama. And I wondered about the MSM’s disinterest in something we gay conservatives encounter frequently when we come out to our peers, an intolerant reaction from our fellow gays.

After whipping off the post, I went out to run some errands. I didn’t think anyone (beyond our regular readers) would be particularly interested in the piece. I mean, I didn’t even send an e-mail out to other bloggers, alerting them to the piece. But no sooner did I post it than Pajamas picked it up, then did some relatively high-traffic left-wing blog (of which I had theretofore been unaware). Before I knew it, we were inundated with comments, many of which I had to review in our spam filter.

Talk about hate speech.

It was amazing reading through those comments. It seemed half the people hadn’t even read the post, limiting themselves to responding to what the blogger linking us had said while the other half focused on my anecdote about the date. Hardly the point of the post, just an illustration of my idea.

And then when I read the comments to their post!! WOW! So much fun! Almost grateful for the misrepresentations and projection. And the repetition of empty soundbytes and stock phrases about our self-hatred! It provided a window into their worldview. This time it seems Ann Coulter got something right. These people weren’t interested in argument, but in “anathematiz[ing] their enemies.”

Most (but not all) of those commenting had absolutely no understanding of the modern conservative movement, seeing it instead through the narrow lens of the mainstream media and left-wing blogs.

Despite the meanness of many of the comments, this experience did provide much amusement. I could not help but smile as I read (and occasionally chimed in) the various comments, all too many confirming Coulter’s observation while showing their total misunderstanding of ideas and individuals they claim to abhor. (No wonder I woke in such a good mood even though I did not get as much sleep as I would have liked.)

And I wondered. . . . what does it say about these people that they so revile something they don’t even understand and repeatedly misrepresent? It is that they merely need find an outlet to express their bile? Kind of like someone lashing out at the first person he meets after being stuck in traffic for several hours?

I’m not sure what it is. But, it does give food for thought. I’ve asked it before and wonder yet again: Why do they hate so?

(This post ended up going in an entirely different direction than the one I intended when I started writing it. Funny, how I often struggle to find a good beginning for expresssing an idea and then that opening leads me to explore another idea altogether. Ah! How much fun blogging is.

In other words, there were a couple of issues I had intended to explore in this post, but didn’t get to. So, I decided to limit this post to the idea above on the hatred and misunderstanding of some of our ideological adversaries. I had intended to expand upon the point I made in comment 71, reflecting an insight EssEm offered in comment 69. I hope to do that in a subsequent post. And come to think of it, given that would deal with some broad-minded liberals, it would make a nice companion piece to this one.)