When I received my latest e-mail from “Equality California,” (EqCA) the gay auxiliary to the Golden State’s Democratic Party, masquerading as a civil rights organization, its Executive Director Geoff Kors was all abuzz about “the critical fight for equality in California.”  I wondered, as I often do when I hear about such pushes for “equality,” what exactly that critical fight entailed.

And lo and behold, the contents gave me a clue.  His left-wing outfit is “sponsoring 13 pieces of groundbreaking legislation”.  Huh?  More legislation?  How many laws do we need?  How long has Kors been bragging about how many bills EqCA has shepherded through the state legislature?  And still he’s got more up his sleeve?

Deeper in the e-mail, we learn Kors real agenda, keeping government growing and Republicans from winning election.  This year, he says, they’ll be doing lots:

At the ballot box, we have an election that will determine whether we have a governor and legislature that will stand up for equality and oppose budget cuts that could threaten the health of our community. Electing a governor who supports full equality — and defeating a candidate who was a vocal Yes on 8 supporter — will be vital to our success in repealing Prop. 8.

Now, first will he please tell me what he means by “full equality.”  And when will we know it’s been achieved so we can stop legislating?

At least the above paragraph does give us an idea what he means by “equality,” linking that notion to opposing budget cuts.  In other words, “equality” is just a fancy name for big government.  (Wonder if he has any plans for addressing our multi=billion dollar budget deficit.)  No wonder he wants the state government to keep legislating.  The more bills the Democratic legislature passes, the greater power they give to the state, the less freedom we have.

It’s the same thing with other words the left uses to describe themselves and their agenda.  When they talk about progress, they mean greater government control.  ”Social justice” is achieved through state intervention.

If “equality” means greater government regulation of our lives, then it’s not what I seek nor what most gay people really want.  We want to be left alone, free from state interference.  But, those selling us equality aren’t interested in leaving us alone.  In the name of progress and “social justice,” they want to cede greater power and devote more resources to government at all levels.

And that means more meddling in our live.

If House Democrats had the votes to pass the latest incarnation of the president’s health care overhaul, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi long since have scheduled the vote.  And her minions wouldn’t be trying to figure out clever procedural gimmicks to ram it and cram it through the House.

I bet that if you had a vote tomorrow in the House on whether the chamber should push forward with some version of the Senate plan or start afresh, starting afresh would win a comfortable majority.  (I know that’s not how they vote in Congress, it’s either yes or no on a particular piece of legislation or amendment thereto.)  There would be Democrats voting to move on, er, start afresh,ssss that if you combined their tally with the Republican tally, you’d have a majority.

But, since the Democratic leadership sets the schedule in the House, they determine what gets voted on.  And they want to pass a massive health care overhaul.  It’s not that the grassroots is clamoring for it, well, some in the fringes of the grassroots are, but that Democratic leadership is insisting on it.

Americans have moved on.   We’ve made up our minds about the Democrats’ proposed overhaul.  And no matter how many more speeches–or campaign-style rallies–the Democrats hold, we’re not going to change our minds.

But, we do see what the Democratic leadership is made of–and the left-wing ideology which defines it.

Okay, it’s belated. I had it roughed out that night…and then the next morning Michelle actually called into Beck’s show decidedly NOT gloating. Ah well.

So much for Obama’s Apology Tour and bowing before world leaders.  Americans aren’t buying it.  He has become Jimmy Carter II.  (PS – This is JAMES CARVILLE’s polling firm.)

A new Democracy Corps-Third Way survey provides a wake-up call for President Obama, his party, and progressives on national security.

The national mood continues to sour, with the share who see the country headed in the wrong direction moving up 4 points since mid-January, up to 62 percent, the highest mark in a year. The survey also shows concerns about the economy continuing to grow. And even though the Republican brand remains badly damaged, with no improvement in favorable ratings for their party, the GOP continues to gain ground in a named congressional ballot, with the Democratic House candidate now narrowly lagging by 47 to 44 percent. The movement away from Democrats is especially strong among independents, and independent women in particular.

Whereas a majority of the public approves of the job President Obama is doing in most aspects of national security, a 51 to 44 percent majority of likely voters disapproves of his efforts on the “prosecution and interrogation of terrorism suspects.”

[W]e see that the public once again has real and rising doubts about the Democrats’ handling of national security issues, as compared to their faith in Republicans. This security gap, which has roots stretching back to Vietnam, was as wide as 29 points earlier in the decade. The deficit began to close in 2006, with the Bush administration’s catastrophic mismanagement of Iraq and other national security challenges. As public hopes about the Obama presidency rose and peaked, the gap all but vanished. Last May, Democracy Corps found Democrats essentially tied with Republicans (41 to 43 percent) on the question of which party would do a better job on national security.

But now the gap shows signs of re-opening, with Democrats trailing by 17 points, 33 to 50 percent on which party likely voters think would do the better job on national security. The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin.

Hey, I hate to say this.  But we told you so.  Welcome back to reality, America.  Let’s hope our majority perception of Obama Democrats’ security weakness doesn’t translate into a real threat being ignored by Holder & Gestapo Janet.  The nation is truly run by September 10th’ers.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

For Barack Obama, the time for talking never ends.  And it just ain’t doing the kind of “good” it once did.  Guess a fresh faced outsider offering vague visions of hope and change while a media-maligned mad man occupies the White House has greater appeal to the American people than a big-government loving liberal selling specific increases in government spending and federal control.

After stumping in two swing states, Pennsylvania and Missouri, the Democrat’s off to another–Ohio–next week.  Local Democrats in the Buckeye State will apparently be turning out in greater numbers for the presidential visit than they did in the Show Me State.

Even a leading San Francisco Bay Area liberal, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, doesn’t think all this talk will do much “good” (as she sees it):

“I think the entire debate that’s been going on — For what, a year or so? — has reached a point where we’re glad to hear the president speak out, and say what’s on his mind and what he wants us to do, and get the country revved up,” Woolsey said during an appearance on MSNBC. “But I don’t think it’s going to change a lot of minds.”

The president, as pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen, the latter a Democrat, pointed out in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, can’t move the numbers on health care:

One reason may be that he keeps talking about details of the proposal while voters are looking at the issue in a broader context. Polling conducted earlier this week shows that 57% of voters believe that passage of the legislation would hurt the economy, while only 25% believe it would help. That makes sense in a nation where most voters believe that increases in government spending are bad for the economy.

When the president responds that the plan is deficit neutral, he runs into a pair of basic problems. The first is that voters think reducing spending is more important than reducing the deficit. So a plan that is deficit neutral with a big spending hike is not going to be well received.

But the bigger problem is that people simply don’t trust the official projections. People in Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office, but 81% of voters say it’s likely the plan will end up costing more than projected. Only 10% say the official numbers are likely to be on target.

The president is right when he says the time for talk is over.  We’ve had this debate–and don’t want the overhaul he’s selling.  So, let’s quit the talking and cut the spending, you know like he promised in his campaign.

For a quick explanation of why California is in the mess it’s in, just follow a link on Instapundit to see the extent to which Democratic interest groups have been using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to lobby the state government.  The top two “special interest groups . . . trying to influence California public officials and voters” are the California Teachers Association and the California State Council of Service Employees.

Together, these groups spent nearly $320 million dollars, all of it skimmed off the salaries of people drawing income from Golden State taxpayers, more than three times as much as the next biggest spender, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

No wonder California is in the hole it’s in; we’ve got special interest groups using taxpayer money to lobby for greater state expenditures.  And to raise that revenue, they’re taxing those who actually produce the wealth, causing many to produce less of said wealth or leaving the state for jurisdictions, like say, Texas, where they’re not penalized for productivity.

When I first read that House Democrats were cooking up a rule to allow their chamber to pass the Senate version of Obamacare without a vote, I wondered what planet they were living on.  Are they aware that then-long shot Massachusetts Senate candidate began his rise in the polls at the same time Harry Reid (D-Mt. Crumpet) was paying off wavering then-moderate Senators with our tax dollars.

People in the home state of Teddy Kennedy, you know that champion of socialized medicine, were upset at the tactics the Democrats were using to pass health care.

In the Senate, they used payoffs.  In the House, they’re using procedural gimmicks to pass unpopular legislation which will effectively nationalize one-sixth of the American economy, giving greater control over our health care decisions to yet-to-be-created government bureaucracies.  And all this from a party which won its recent majorities running under the banner of transparency and open government, promising to drain the swamp that Capitol Hill had become under Republicans.

Procedural gimmicks and bribes–the Democrats’ means to increasing government control over our society.

If health care passes this way, ten months hence Speaker Boehner will enjoy the biggest Republican majority in the House since the 67th Congress.

Wow…

There is no bottom in determining how low the House Democrats will go to force the Stalinization of health care on an unwanting public.

Latest, it turns out, the Rules Committee is drafting a scheme that will allow them to deem the Senate bill “passed” without even voting on it.

If it seems like something odd and underhanded, I don’t know what to tell you.

NRO has a couple pieces on the Corner about it.

Here we go again.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

My second post is up at Big Journalism!  I’ll give you a preview, but you have to go there to read the whole thing.

Imagine, if you will, that the BB gun attackers [in San Fran] had been white. Or from Utah. Or from Texas.  Or Laramie, Wyoming. What kind of wild adjectives would have been applied? We can only surmise. Editorializing against mainstream Americans who are now out-of-favor by the media (whites, Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, conservatives) happens everyday on America’s front pages and network news programs. But when it comes to Arab/Muslim attackers — all silence is golden for the American media.

<…>

It is also important to note that the fundamental philosophies of a majority of the American gay activist community have been rooted with elements of anti-capitalism, anti-democracy, anti-war, and anti-Israeli sentiment for the past three decades. You could not have attended an anti-Iraq war rally in 2003-2007 without seeing many rainbow flags (the unofficial symbol of gays and lesbians) mixed in with pro-communist, anti-capitalist, anti-Bush and anti-American signs, symbols and chants.

In order to be gay and part of “the community” in America, you must first renounce “the mainstream,” your individualism, liberty, capitalism, the Constitution, the basic right to vote and your patriotism. All those checked? Join the club!

Read the whole thing.  And please let me know your thoughts.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Today marks the first day since I graduated college in 1990 that I’m not a regular subscriber to my local newspaper.  Fair enough — I had given up daily service a few years ago an only opted for Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

But it is time to say goodbye to the dinosaur.  As of today, The Charlotte Observer is not getting anymore of my money.

Why, you may ask?  Because of what is plaguing other local newspapers — editorial bias influencing their “news reporting”.

The past few days have been the last straw.  Part of the Observer’s problem is that they are a McClatchy Newspaper — a well-known liberal publisher.  And these two straws are mostly McClatchy-generated.  But nonetheless they are a symptom of the Observer’s cancer.  They do not report “news”, they advocate for their point of view.  That is fine on the Editorial Page.  But not Section A or the Local News Section.

First straw: Front Page Lies About The Iraq War in Sunday’s paper (posted on the Web last Friday)

When the Bush administration invaded Iraq seven years ago, it pledged to leave behind a democracy that would be a model for the entire Middle East. Instead, it now appears that the United States will leave behind a big question mark.

Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Iraq will start the clock on the withdrawal of U.S. troops, with 50,000 soldiers remaining in an advisory role after Aug. 31 and all of them gone by the end of 2011, if current plans hold.

The elections are, in a sense, the final act of a U.S.-led invasion that the George W. Bush White House sold on false pretenses - nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, an imaginary nuclear-weapons program and fictional al-Qaida ties – and that has cost nearly 4,400 American lives, at least 100,000 Iraqi ones, as much as $3 trillion and untold political capital.

The bolded part is not only editorializing — it is a lie.  ALL of the Western intelligence services concluded the same thing the CIA did: There were WMD, an active nuclear program, and ties to al-Qaida in Saddam’s Iraq.  The phrase “false pretenses” suggests (as most liberals do) that “Bush Lied.”  Was Iraq an intelligence failure?  Certainly.  But everyone who supported the Iraq war did so in a post-9/11 mindset and sincerely believing the intelligence they were given.  That includes Al Gore, Bill & Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry.

Second straw: A Biased Profile of the SC 2nd District Race (Joe Wilson)

You can read the story itself.  Every mention of Wilson is negative, every mention of his opponent is positive.

The Observer can print this drivel on their “news” pages and pretend they aren’t biased.  But I don’ t have to pay for it.

After all, thanks to Obama this economy is even worse than under Bush. THAT is a fact.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As details emerge about former Rep Eric Massa’s (D-NY) misdeeds, he becomes the latest embarrassment for the Democrats.  His stories about Rahm Emanuel may tend toward exaggeration, but now that he is getting attention throughout the media, more and more people are learning about the Rahm with whom we on the right have long been familiar, the ruthless political operative who swears in public meetings and sends dead fish to pollsters who displeased him.

And people are learning about the White House Chief of Staff’s novel way of doing things (that new kind of Chicago politics) the week after scandals involving prominent New York Democrats broke.  The mainstream media may try to bury the news about former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel and outgoing New York Governor David Paterson (which would still dominate the headlines if either man had an (R) after his name), but the stories remain fresh on people’s minds.

And this just days after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid boasted that we lost only 36,000 jobs last month.  Now, we have his counterpart in the House saying, “But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

How’s that for a definition of transparency?  Vote for a bill so you can find out what’s in it.  Can you imagine a car salesman telling you to agree on a purchase price for a car so you can figure out what you’ll be driving for the next seven years?

While Nancy asks Democrats to vote on faith, Politco reports that her grip on the House is slipping.  Not the kind of headline you want when you’re trying to corral votes for unpopular legislation.

It just keeps getting worse for the Democrats.  People may not believe Massa, but he sure has helped keep his party’s dirty laundry in the news.

Late breaking developments tonight from The Politico:

A week after announcing he was retiring from Congress for health reasons, New York Democrat Eric Massa finds himself in the midst of a fast-growing sex scandal involving allegations that he had improper physical contact with several men who worked for him — including at least one intern.

In a widely anticipated interview on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show Tuesday night, Massa acknowledged that he had “groped” and “tickled” a male staffer at the congressman’s 50th birthday party.

He also said he’d used rough language when he shouldn’t have and that he had jokingly told a male staffer at a wedding reception that he’d rather have sex with him than with one of the bridesmaids.

But, Massa told Beck, “I did nothing sexual.”

Now does he mean “sexual” in the Bill Clinton definition?

Moving on….

The House ethics committee has received allegations that former Rep. Eric Massa groped at least three male staffers and conducted himself improperly with interns as well as full-time aides, a source familiar with the matter tells POLITICO.

One incident allegedly occurred when Massa traveled to San Francisco with an aide for a fundraising trip, a second source said.

I have been made aware of other rumors that put the Massa scandal into a whole new orbit.  I cannot print them until I get confirmation.  But I can assure you that this man has some serious criminal charges in his future.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Please, please, please, don’t let me latest post on Rahm Emanuel obscure my criticism of this highly partisan Chicago political operative.  With all the attention focused on the White House Chief of Staff and criticism of his tactics reaching a fever pitch and going to rhetorical extremes, Jim Geraghty observes that “no one in Washington jumped up to deny” certain accusations against Rahm, notably the one about him selling his mother to get a vote.

My point is not that Rahm is a good guy nor that he’s worth defending (though I grant that some of the recent criticism has been over the top and unwarranted–and yes, you can go too far in criticizing even a man who merits criticism), but that the problem isn’t so much Rahm as it is Obama’s agenda.  He’s trying to sell policies the American people don’t want and is focusing on issues which are, at best, peripheral to the American people.

While I don’t agree with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert’s characterization of Republicans nor do I support the solutions he would offer, I do agree with his analysis of the causes for the Administration’s troubles:

The Obama administration and Democrats in general are in trouble because they are not urgently and effectively addressing the issue that most Americans want them to: the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families. . . .

Instead of focusing with unwavering intensity on this increasingly tragic situation, making it their top domestic priority, President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill have spent astonishing amounts of time and energy, and most of their political capital, on an obsessive quest to pass a health care bill. . . .

But while the nation is desperate for jobs, jobs, jobs, the Democrats have spent most of the Obama era chanting health care, health care, health care.

The president should remember that, during the 2008 campaign, the electoral tide (at least as measured in polls) began to turn in his favor when the scope of the financial meltdown became manifest.  People trusted him more than they did John McCain to focus on fixing the economy.  Save for his insistence at the outset of his Administration on swift passage of the legislation (AKA the “stimulus”) he claimed would do just that, the incumbent has spent the better part of his time in office addressing other matters.

Rahm’s only part of the problem.  The real problem is the president’s failure to focus on the real concerns of the American people.

Really, Governor Crist?  This is what you’ve sunk to?

Florida Governor Charlie Crist was on with Greta Van Susteren on Monday March 8. During the interview he accused Marco Rubio of going to salons and getting a back wax.

Sounds pretty gay, doesn’t it?  Speaking of gay Governor Crist…. is this really a topic you want to play around with?  You know there are a lot of rumors about you in the Florida gay community.

Chortling about back waxes might lead your political opponents (gay liberals) to bring up those rumors in the General Election.

So, Gov. Crist…. is this REALLY a wise move?

Republican Primary voters will be the ultimate judges…. but they should tread lightly.  We know what happens when gay liberals come after Republicans with gay rumors swirling around them.

UPDATE: Erick Erickson at RedState.com suggests we all pitch in and send Charlie Crist some back wax from Amazon.com.  PatriotPartner suggests Oompa-Loompa back wax, perhaps?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Hey folks. I’m at the Mecklenberg County Courthouse today, serving on jury duty.  I was one of the first called this morning on a civil, personal injury case.

And one of the first dismissed from that courtroom.  Never did I think my chronic back injury would have a benefit to me!  *laughs*

Anyway, I’m here until at least 4pm.  I guess there is an afternoon round.

All-in-all, it is very well run and the jury room is great.  There are even donated pinball & video games!  Woot!

PS– I need some ideas for my next BigJournalism.com piece.  Please email me some ideas.  PLEASE!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!  While you’re here, please check out my followup post, Obama’s Focus, not Rahm, is the Real Problem.

As one who first called for White House Chief of Rahm Emanuel’s resignation on this blog nearly a year ago (but have questioned his appointment since it was announced), I guess I should be pleased by the various left-wingers calling for his head and blaming the hyper-partisan Clinton veteran and Chicago politician for the president’s difficulties.

Memeorandum seems to have been linking stories about him (or accusations leveled against him) every day for the past week, with Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-NY) accusations the latest to lead the headlines.  The New York Times magazine is running a lengthy story of the “Limits of Rahmism.”

Some of the coverage seems, well, a little bit sensationalistic, as if no men ever discussed business in the locker room before. I hate to make Rahm seem any less of an nasty partisan, but, guys do this all the time.  And while we’re at it, I join Michelle in warning conservatives against trusting Massa.  He seems more interested in the attention than anything else.

That said, you gotta wonder why, all of a sudden, a lot of criticism of Rahm has suddenly hit the fan.  And, to be sure, there have been a number of news outlets defending him.  Indeed, through Glenn Reynolds, I learn the Hill has devoted an online symposium to this very matter asking, “What does all of the chatter surrounding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel say about the White House?”  Reynolds himself offers the best explanation:

Unity is easy when things are going well. Backbiting and fingerpointing start when things go badly. The leak attacks on Rahm Emanuel indicate that things are going badly.

Rahm is only to blame in that he is a hard-charging partisan political operative and not a level-headed administrator.  The president needs someone with a cooler head running the day-to-day operations in the executive branch.

All the said, Rahm isn’t the only person to blame for what’s going wrong in the Obama White House.  It’s just that certain folks are determined to make him the fall guy.  The real question is who are they?  And what do they seek to gain by attacking Rahm? (more…)

Perhaps, the most predictable thing about Republican California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, arrested last week in Sacramento for Driving Under the Influence (DUI), confirming yesterday that he is gay is the chorus of left-wing gay activists telling us that closeted gay politicians “vote against LBGT rights to squash rumors about their sexual orientation.”

Granted there is some truth to this notion, but when you read the list of legislative proposals these activists describe as “rights,” you find the better part of them are not rights as the Founders defined them, but merely government regulations defining sexual orientation as a protected class.  Certainly these activists are hoping that once out of the closet, Senator Ashburn will adopt their agenda hook, line and sinker lest he be branded self-hating.  And soon when he votes their way and changes his party registration, they’ll be feting him for his courage.

Well, he would truly be courageous if once coming out, he said, “Yeah, I was short-sighted on some issues, but I still believe in freedom, so don’t support increasing the scope of state authority to ensure that no one, nowhere, no how treats a gay person in less than a politically correct manner.”

That said, I do hope he’ll change his views of the state’s domestic partnership program (he once opposed even that) and help lobby California Republican Representatives in Congress to join their colleagues in voting to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.  But, there’s really not much else the government should be doing for gays.  It should leave us alone, treat us as individuals (and not members of a particular class) before the law, neither burdened nor benefited because of our difference from the social norm.

Government should leave us to address our problems on our own and in the communities to which we belong and which we’ve chosen.

All that said, my heart goes out to Roy Ashburn the man–and to his family.  It is unfortunate that he should have his private life made public.  But, then again, he should have known better than to drive a car after drinking to excess.

Perhaps though his coming out will help change attitudes toward gay people, particularly among the social conservatives who make up a large portion of his jurisdiction.  It is attitudes we still need to change not laws we need to enact.

With the president on the road again pushing legislation that the American people have long since decided they don’t want, we have yet another piece of evidence that the man who billed himself as a pragmatic politician on the campaign trail is anything but.  Does he really believe that endless stumping for an overhaul of our nation’s health care system will cause Americans to change their minds and suddenly see the light, realizing they had been wrong to oppose it?

What we have seen in the year since Democrats began talking about this proposal is a near-steady increase in opposition, with only an occasional uptick in support.  And we’ve seen candidates supporting the plan — or associated with the party backing their plan– lose their bids for office.

The debate is helping energize the opposition while demoralizing Democrats–and pushing independents toward the GOP.

And yet the president presses on.  His determination should silence his left-wing critics beholden to more government-involvement in health care.  He’s fighting their battle, even if hurts his party.

He may even succeed in this, but right now he seems like the singer who won’t leave the stage even after the public has tired of his music.  He keeps on singing and singing, hoping he’ll receive once again the thunderous applause that greeted his opening number.

While I understand that some in the military have been critical of the Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker, I come away from that film ever in awe of the work that men in uniform have done throughout the years, whether it be Spartans holding the pass at Thermopylae so that the remaining Greek armies and navies had time to regroup or those navies and armies which fought in the battles of Salamis and Plataea respectively, conflicts that would have been decided before they were fought had Leonidas not held out as long as he had.

The men in Hurt Locker held out as best they could under very difficult circumstances and one at least Jeremy Renner‘s William James didn’t give up until the job was done, the bomb defused and lives saved.  He failed only once, but even then, he kept trying until his time ran out.  And a woman directed them, showing a greater appreciation for the meaning of manhood than perhaps anyone (I’ve encountered) since Norah Vincent wrote of her life as a man in Self-Made Man.

To some degree, Kathryn Bigelow was like the goddess Athena who spurred men on in their martial endeavors.  Each female appreciated the man of action’s struggle and wanted to see him through to completion, either victory in battle or accomplishment of the task at hand.  Wherever, wrote scholar Walter F. Otto, “in a life of action and heroism great things must be wrought, perfected and struggled for, there Athena is present.”

Just as Bigelow celebrated the type of heroes Athena honored and assisted, so did Sandra Bullock‘s Leigh Anne Tuohy provided guidance to a young man in need of direction just as did the owl-eyed Olympian. As she helped Perseus and Telemachus, she also taught Bellerophon to master the winged steed Pegasus, much as Mrs. Tuohy helped Michael Oher learn to to master his own strength and put it to good use.

In short, this year, the Academy honored two women who appreciated the best in the other sex.  That while fully conscious–and totally unashamed of their own femininity–they valued, cultivated even, sterling masculine qualities.  As did the goddess Athena.

It is striking that the first woman to win an Oscar for her achievement in directing did so while celebrating the most masculine of activities.  A lesson for those women who see the path to success in Hollywood through through denigrating men and belittling our nature.