Susie Bright's Journal

The Devil and Mr. Lott

In Genesis 19, when God decided to overturn and destroy the five cities of the plain, he sent an escort service to rescue Trent Lott and his family.

When the sins of the Sodomites, Alcoholics, and Kleptomaniacs had called down the vengeance of God to punish and destroy them, a red-haired rent boy (or two) was sent to Sodom to forewarn Lott of the dreadful catastrophe about to happen.

The rent boys took Lott, his wife, and his daughters by hand and drew them forcibly out of their house, saying, "Save yourselves with all haste. Look not behind you. Get as fast as you are able to K Street, unless you be involved in the calamity of this administration."

In explaining the timing of his decision, Lott confessed that he and his wife, Tricia, recently attended a service at a Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss. There, the preacher cited the verse from Ecclesiastes about there being "a time to every purpose under heaven."

The senator said, "It seemed to be speaking to me and to us." 

But as a last resort, Lott entreated Larry Flynt, who only replied he was “hoping to expose a bombshell” that would stand Washington and five other doomed cities on their heads.

Tragically, Trent's wife Tricia, took one look back at the final non-denial-denial, and was turned into a pillar of salt.

If You Had to Pick the Next President Strictly on Sex...

Today, on my In Bed podcast, I begin the show with an evaluation of all the presidential candidates based ONLY on what we know about their sexual preferences and sexual politics— which true to our puritanical heritage, often have nothing to do with each other.

What are the contradictions between Obama posing Kennedyesque in swim trunks, and then applauding the endorsement of a "reformed homosexual" preacher?

Exactly how does Giuliani tell his new best friend Pat Robertson about his kinky side as a cross dresser? Why is Mitt Romney inextricably caught up in in our fantasies of Chloe Sevigny in Big Love?

Another aspect up for frivolous yet exhaustive scrutiny is the candidate's spouse. Who has more sex appeal: Bill Clinton, Jeri Thompson, or Elizabeth Kucinich?  I find it hard to resist Elizabeth's tongue piercing, but for phone sex, I don't know if you can beat Bill.

 

  Listen to an excerpt 

Listen to the whole show at Audible.com: LINK

Get the show free for a month: LINK

 

Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a listener asks: my boyfriend is really difficult to arouse, but he tells me I'm the best relationship he's ever had. What gives?

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 319, November 23, 2007)

Photo of Demi Moore in The Scarlet Letter.

What Our State Legislators Can Teach Us About Barebacking

No wonder Larry Craig feels like a choir boy.

Tap-dancing in airport stalls is nothing compared to the wasted nights of homophobic Washington state legislator Richard Curtis, who had one hell of a depraved bacchanalia before his inevitable resignation.  —Lingerie, cell phone photos, casino bingeing, tight rope, cold stethoscopes, cheap barebacking, and blackmail. He was only one diaper short of a Vitter.

By the time I finished reading about Curtis' Wild Ride, I felt like he'd given the entire Roman Empire a run for their money. Still, I insist on finding the educational value of these sad stories—  and I'll use any excuse to talk about  the much-maligned topic of ethical barebacking! Take a listen to my latest audio show...

  Listen to an excerpt 

Listen to the whole show at Audible.com: LINK

Get the show free for a month: LINK

 

Finally, in my Try This at Home mailbag, a devout and religious listener makes the case that, although he's horny and loves kinky sex, he's not feeling the least bit guilty.

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for free show coupon cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 318, November 16, 2007)

Photo: The delightful Mr. Germany, by Ralphboy

Shut Up and Bid! Support the Bridgie Chicks!

These bridge-playing champions on my left are about to be stripped like Chuck Conners in Branded because they played the unthinkable trick:

They held up a handmade sign at an award dinner, that said, "We did not vote for Bush."

And then laughed about it.  —The fiends!

Today's Times reports, in Anti-Bush Sign Has Bridge World in an Uproar , that some powerful, enraged, and unbelievably stuffy bridge players have accused the women players of “treason” and “sedition.” Not to mention being uppity bitches.

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Remind me not to invite Jan to any close Constitutional readings.

Ms. Martel said the action by the team, which had won the Venice Cup, the women’s title, at the Shanghai event, could cost the federation corporate sponsors.

The players have been stunned by the reaction to what they saw as a spontaneous gesture, “a moment of levity,” said Gail Greenberg, the team’s non-playing captain and winner of 11 world championships.

In other words, everyone had a cocktail or two at this event.

The controversy has gone global, with the French team offering support for its American counterparts.

“By trying to address these issues in a nonviolent, nonthreatening and lighthearted manner,” the French team wrote in by e-mail to the federation’s board and others, “you were doing only what women of the world have always tried to do when opposing the folly of men who have lost their perspective of reality.”

French allies, eh? These people are a hair away from Gitmo.

The proposed sanctions would hurt the team’s playing members financially. “I earn my living from bridge, and a substantial part of that from being hired to compete in high-level competitions,” Debbie Rosenberg, a team member, said. “So being barred would directly affect much of my ability to earn a living.”

A hearing is scheduled this month in San Francisco, where thousands of players will be gathered for the Fall North American Bridge Championships. It will determine whether displaying the sign constitutes conduct unbecoming a federation member.

I hope there is a whole-scale riot.

The sanction calls for a one-year suspension from federation events, including the World Bridge Olympiad next year in Beijing; a one-year probation after that suspension; 200 hours of community service “that furthers the interests of organized bridge”; and an apology drafted by the federation’s lawyer.

It would also require them to write a statement telling “who broached the idea of displaying the sign, when the idea was adopted, etc.”

Alan Falk, a lawyer for the federation, wrote the four team members on Nov. 6, “I am instructed to press for greater sanction against anyone who rejects this compromise offer.”

Sacre bleu! Has there EVER been a punishment on this scale in the women's bridge federation? What are they going to do when someone gets caught shoplifting, or shooting someone?

Many of those offended by the sign do not consider the expressions of regret sufficient. “I think an apology is kind of specious,” said Jim Kirkham, who has played in several bridge championships. “It’s not that I don’t forgive them, but I still think they should be punished.”

Would he personally like to administer the "punishment?" What a sanctimonious prig! No wonder bridge is going the way of the dodo bird.

Robert S. Wolff, one of the country’s pre-eminent bridge players, opined....

“While I believe in the right to free speech, to me that doesn’t give anyone the right to criticize one’s leader at a foreign venue in a totally nonpolitical event,” he wrote by e-mail.

Oh, Robert "believes" in free speech, does he? Is that like believing in the tooth fairy? It's not a church, you idiot, it's the law. Whatever he "believes," he is entitled to express it, just like the Bridgie Chicks are entitled to say what they like, especially over victory drinks and dinner!

As blogger Hot Air wrote this morning, "I’ve got a better idea: How about a simple press release noting that anyone who can’t get through a card game without declaring his or her opposition to the Bushitler is an abject moron?"

UPDATE: 

Jon Swift's must-read satire:

The First Amendment does not give people the right to yell anti-Bush slogans in a crowded theater, or even to talk during the movie at all. If we let a few lady Bridge players criticize the President, it could spread. The next thing you know Democrats in Congress will start opposing the President's appointments, passing laws against torture or defying him on funding for the Iraq War.

From behind the scenes in competitive bridge:

Another part of the reason I became disillusioned with bridge was the cheating. Bridge has a long history of cheating -- even at the international level...So when I read about the yahoo who held up a sign reading "We didn't vote for Bush" at an international bridge tournament, I can't say it surprised me. She was probably signaling the number of spades she was holding.

Seventh Sense examines the rules carefully:

Does any reasonable person believe the four women were speaking for the United States Bridge Federation when they said "We did not vote for Bush"?

The clear answer is "no".  They were speaking for themselves.

It also seems clear to me that the four women did not violate any rules of the USBF.  You know how you can tell?  Because as a result of this incident, the USBF Board is considering changes to its disciplinary rules to "make certain that an incident like this does not happen again".  Tell tale sign -- if you make the rule after the fact, then it clearly wasn't there before the fact.

John Aravosis points out that the USBF is defending their hardline by saying that the women were wrong to insult China's no-free-speech policies:

The USBF printed a statement on its Web site that says the reason the outburst from the US team was bad is because China is a dictatorship, and dictators don't like free speech.

Here's a snippet from the USBF's  statement about the incident:

[These players' actions] reflect a complete disregard for the fact that the Chinese government, which does not exactly have a history of sympathetic views toward political dissent, provided the bulk of financial support for both the 2007 World Championship and the 2008 World Bridge Olympiad.

Even very conservative pundits are disgusted:

...The bridge organization seems to have also overreacted. Rather than scold the players and let them absorb their due obloquy, they have decided to sanction them for their political speech. The sign did not explicitly violate any rule, apparently, but the club will suspend them for conduct unbecoming a member. In doing so, they have transformed these women from immature, sniveling examples of BDS sufferers into First Amendment martyrs.

The PrudeHacker Toolkit

Would you like to:

a) read this blog anywhere, without being blocked?

b) read this blog on your mobile phone?

c) read this blog without images, so you can load it fast, on a dialup modem?

d) swing on a star?

Finally, I have the ways and means.

The Sex-Positive Librarian Will See You Now

A couple weeks ago I invited my friend Steve Harsin, who works as both a librarian and a rare-book dealer, (not to mention blogger!) to come help me catalog and appraise my late father's library.

Finally, you can see the fruits of our labor!

We cataloged a couple thousand titles on my beloved Library Thing so far— use the tag "Bill Bright" to see everything of my dad's.

I decided to sell some of the collection, and set up "Bill Bright's Library," a rare-book storefront on Amazon.

If you are into Native languages, indigenous culture, Beat poetry, writing systems, Indian anything—East or West— botany, zoology, mushrooms, printing presses, California history, Sanskrit, typography, Aztec codices, missionary tracts from the Conquest, or the queer Berkeley literary scene of the 1940s... oh boy, are you in for a treat. I feel like locking myself into my room for a decade and reading every single one.

Steve and I worked on the books side-by-side for seven days, furiously typing and shelving. He told me so many great stories about public library patrons— either trying to FIND a sex book or trying to KILL the sex books— that I asked him to join me on my audio show to talk about the lengths people will go to the exorcise their sexual curiosity and demons at the public library.

Listen to Susie and Steve: LINK

Listen to the whole show: LINK

Get a month of my audio show for free: LINK

You all know how I feel about librarians being the ultimate-freedom-fighters, and Steve, with his great knowledge of banned books, is one of my inspirations! Take a look at his famous Banned Books and Censorship Resources site, that he created with colleague Karla Petersen.

Steve has worked with a lot of small-town, Midwest, and Southern library systems. I bet you didn't know that in Minnesota, they had to bind Madonna's scandal-prone Sex book with ice-fishing wire to keep it intact.  Or what happened when a town of white folks went a little nuts over She's Gotta Have It... And, by the way, what does the Reference Librarian do when you ask them a sex question?

Also on this week's show, I share an autopsy report about a fundamentalist preacher who was found dead in an autoerotic "wet suit" mishap. There's something so odd about reading a coroner's report that includes personal item lists like: "watch, belt, tie, wedding ring, diving mask, dildo."

Is there any way to do "breath play" without fatal risk? Obviously, Mr. Closet is not here to explain, but I am!

Then, in the "Try This at Home" mailbag, I advise a young woman who wants to turn her boyfriend from sweet thing into a wild savage.

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for girly cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 314, October 19, 2007)

Photo: After our book cataloging blowout, we rented a Mustang convertible and drove down Highway 1 to Big Sur—  the most fun I've had in WAY TOO long. What is it about taking the top off that makes you feel like you can do anything? We blasted the tunes and I go-go danced on the back seat. That's Steve in the driver's seat, Jon riding shotgun. Thank you, Steve!!!!!

When Kurt and Justin Met Debbie

Once upon a time, there was a very serious reporter for a very serious newspaper, who decided to investigate one of society’s scourges: the child pornography ring.

Two years after his exposés riveted the nation, it turned out the reporter had gone off the deep end. He’d paid his main source, become a webmaster at the very porn site he was investigating, lied and bullied anyone who questioned him, and had all but ostracized himself out of a reporting career.

But it wasn’t just him. The witch-hunters, bogeyman blamers, and moral-panic enablers— were everywhere. Our little reporter might have landed in deep shit, but the hysteria he milked became bigger than ever before.

Call him one of the most bizarre media offenders in the past two years of fear-mongering: Former New York Times and Portfolio reporter Kurt Eichenwald. He wrote two front-page stories on the subject of sex that won't be forgotten soon: Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, and its followup, Child Sex Sites on the Run.

From the get-go, both stories were creepy: the softcore sexy descriptions, the “blame the internet” righteousness, the homophobic ick factor, and the unexplained implication that Eichenwald had looked at piles of this material himself, when by current law, he wouldn't have that right, no matter how well-intentioned his purpose!

Why did Kurt portray himself as an elite one-man rescue mission, and why was he so lurid in his crusade?

It didn’t smell right.

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

Why is it— that the worst prudes have a secret contradictory sex life— that, as Henry Higgins said, would make a sailor blush?

Is it, as Doug Henwood posited in yesterday's comments, that you can't fill your shoes as a full-size prig, until you have the requisite naughty secret?

That's the question on every lover's lips this morning. We lie on our beds, reeling from the latest domino spill of gay Republicans who can't seem to get enough rough trade in-between roll call votes to crucify homosexuals.

These people defy rationality.

So what is their motive? Even after they're caught with their hard-on in the noose, they still rebuke the notion that they are anything but  a traditional, heterosexual, monogamous married man— you know, with a "wide stance."

Social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson, and his colleague Carol Tavris, have devoted their lives to such motives, which they call "cognitive dissonance."

Their new book, with the irresistible title: Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, is all about how everyone has moments when they rationalize behavior that conflicts with their beliefs about themselves.

It can be as humble as the reasons why people excuse their cigarette habit, or as jaw-dropping as when a president ignores the terrible truth of a war he never should have started. Cognitive dissonance is at its highest conceit when The Emperor Dons New Clothes.

We can't rid ourselves of cognitive dissonance— it's part of our humanity— but we can become aware of its nature, and learn how to bring it to the curb.

I asked Elliot if he'd talk with me about  Cognitive Dissonance Poster Child, Senator Larry Craig...

SB:  How does this guy manage to face the camera, not to mention his wife, and deny such egregious behavior?

EA: If there is one thing I have learned from doing experiments on cognitive dissonance it's that the human mind is infinitely flexible.  People can find a way to justify almost anything.

SB: Why do they so often get a free pass? Polls are showing that these sex scandals barely make a dent on electoral support.

There's plenty of voters who "hates gays," and  vote for this sort of bigot. Yet after their boy gets arrested for illicit gay sex, the same voter still hates gays, and still votes for the hypocrite. What is going on?

EA: Without the theory of cognitive dissonance, these behaviors would seem incomprehensible.  Even WITH the theory, they're not easy to explain— but the theory provides us with a few insights.

In our book, we make the statement that everyone can spot a hypocrite except the hypocrite himself.  We should expand that to include those who are deeply committed to the hypocrite.

SB:  Break it down for me; how do people's brains react when they get caught doing one thing they've forbidden to everyone else?

EA: Most of us are pretty good at compartmentalizing. So, for example, if a man grows up thinking that homosexuality is sinful and evil, and then begins to feel an attraction to men, he, at first, denies, it— even to himself. 

He gets married, has children, so as to convince himself that he can live a "normal" life. 

Then, if he has a few adventures (say, in a notorious airport men's room), he convinces himself that even though he did that, he is not REALLY a homosexual, he's just having a little adventure— in much the same way that an alcoholic convinces himself that he simply "likes to drink," and could give it up anytime if he wanted to.

SB: A lot of public health issues relate to this...

EA: Yes, a couple of decades ago, when the AIDS epidemic was just getting started, I was trying to find effective ways to get sexually active people to use condoms. 

In the early days, a great many people believed that AIDS was a disease confined to homosexuals.  The people who were most difficult to convince to use condoms were men who believed it was a homosexual disease AND who believed that they themselves were NOT homosexual, even though they occasionally engaged in sex with other men.

That dissonance-reducing belief was so powerful that guys were risking their lives to hold onto it! 

(If I hinted at the fact that engaging in occasional sex with other men put them at risk of getting AIDS, they got  angry and threatened to do me harm— because they felt that I was insulting them).

SB: But back to the politicians—

EA: They are examples of true compartmentalization: 

When YOU do it, it's homosexuality, but when I do it, it's just an adventure. 

This not only allows Craig, (and the others), to continue to engage in these behaviors from time to time, but it also allows him to continue to speak out against gays and against gay marriage, etc... with a clear conscience. 

He has effectively reduced dissonance— until he gets caught. 

But even when he gets apprehended, he can continue to hold the belief that he isn't really a homosexual. It is important to understand that, in most cases, the guy is not simply trying to pull the wool over OUR eyes; rather, he has succeeded in pulling the wool over his OWN eyes.

SB: Doesn't he ever have a Come-To-Jesus moment where he realizes what a fraud he is?

EA: If that self-deception begins to fray. and becomes untenable to himself— he can fall back on the position always available to religious fundamentalists— that he is a good person, but the devil made him do it.

If he prays hard enough, and seeks forgiveness, that the Lord will forgive him and cleanse him.  And, if the Lord can forgive him, he expects the rest of us to forgive him also.

SB: Yeah, and then they send out a fund-raising letter...

Is There a Republican Senator Who's NOT Having Bathroom Sex?

This has gone from novelty to nausea.

The names change, but the story's the same.

This time it's Senator Larry Craig of Idaho. In a Minneapolis Airport Bathroom Stall. With Colonel Mustard.

Fuck you, Larry.

Fuck you Bob, David, Tom, Harlan, Randall, Al, Duke, Jeff, Ted, Joseph, Mark, Edward, Jim, Matthew, and all the rest. I don't have time to list all your names and details, but other people do.

From now on, as far as I'm concerned, every single Republican legislator is a Reeking Freak Closet Case until proven innocent.

These men wouldn't know "safe, sane, and consensual" if you tied it to their weener with a red flag. I won't call them "gay" or "kinky" because that would be an insult to the healthy spectrum of human sexuality. Instead, they're the worst face of sexual repression, because they don't care who they hurt, or how many lies they tell. Their whole life is a SHAM.

The GOP Narcissists aren't the exception to the rule— they ARE the rule. They personify the very sexuality they campaign against. If they vote against gays, we know they're queer. If they're hopped up about "child porn," we can guess their internet habits. If they hold up monogamous marriage as a Christian ideal, we know they're adulterous, blasphemous fools.

Here's what they all have in common; They pretend it didn't happen. They try to buy people off to shut them up. They cry that they've been victimized. And then they continue to persecute everyone else by:

Voting YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes.
Voting NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.
Voting YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Voting NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

They generously fund the coffers of the vice squads and the surveillance creeps— the very people who later catch them in the act. And who wants to repeat all the disgusting insults and conceits they proselytize in public?

I can't take it anymore. I could spend seven days a week on this blog reporting what new dirt bag has shown his ass on the public square. But I'm fed up. Worse, I'm exhausted with the elected "liberals" and self-proclaimed "feminists" and Democrats who share offices with these pathological liars— and just bury their heads in the tearoom bowl.

There's not one prominent legislator in this country who's stood up against sex phobia, who's led a campaign to take victimless sex laws off the books, or to protect citizens' privacy. Not one. Are Hillary, Obama, or Edwards going to say one word about this hypocrisy? No.

How many repulsive liars does it take before the mainstream media, the voters, and what's left of political leadership say, "Mind Your Own Fucking Business?"

Apparently, Puritan America has infinite tolerance.

As long as they condemn their "inferiors," elitists can do whatever their budget affords. Democracy is just not as thrilling as witch-hunting.

The religious conservative voters, rather than doubt the wisdom of their biblical values, will continue to believe that they need to find one pure man to lead them. They'd rather believe in sin than sanity. Some of them even think this plague of gay GOP locusts is a "Democrat conspiracy."

I predict record highs of apathy in 2008. The common man thinks this game's a lousy racket, and he's right. There's no one to cheer, no one who brings integrity and sexual honesty to the table.

The mainstream media will treat each scandal as  another unfortunate lapse in judgment, an individual crushed by forces one can barely understand.

Bite me.

No, this is the instant snapshot of American democracy. This is what we look like; this is our Kodak Moment.

UPDATE: In a GOP love triangle gone bad, three Miami men have died in a suicide/double murder. Two of the men, "longtime roommates," were MAJOR Republican political ops— one of them the former head of the Georgia Republican Party who delighted in demonizing gay men in campaigns all over the South.

Apparently they had a third "friend," who flipped out, killed them both, and then shot himself.

This is all over the gay political blogs tonight, and I missed the breaking headline because I was so busy writing about Senator Craig's toiletries. What on Satan's great earth am I missing as I'm writing THIS?

John Scalzi on The Stupidest Cocksucker in the GOP

Let's turn to... the story of Florida state legislator Bob Allen, who was recently arrested for soliciting sex in a public restroom— specifically, that he offered an undercover cop a Jackson if he'd let the legislator blow him.

This was not a smart thing to do.

But having been caught doing something stupid, Allen, who is a pudgy white fellow, [no, it's worse than that; he's Jabba the Hut - SB] has decided to double-down on his stupidity by offering what is a truly, spectacularly -- indeed, magnificently— dumb reason for soliciting another man for sex: Fear of a Black Planet!

"When Stupid People Do Stupid Things— And Then Do Even Stupider Things," reprinted with much thanks from John Scalzi's marvelous Whatever blog

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel.

Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."

Now, if you go to either Josh's site or the Sentinel article, you'll see that according to the officer (who, incidentally, was not there originally to entrap pudgy white state legislators in public restrooms, but was instead staking out a burglar at a nearby condo), it was Allen who initiated the contact. [The cop, btw, is drop-dead handsome - SB].

So let's think Allen's rationale through:

Allen, during the middle of the work day, was at the park, just minding his own business, enjoying the Florida sunshine, when he suddenly noticed that the park was full of black men. Fearing for his own personal safety, he decided that the best course of action was to go into the public restroom, peer over a stall— twice— to locate a black man, and offer that black man $20 and a blow job if he'd just leave him alone.

Which leads me to ask: What, is this like a Florida thing?

For generations, have the white men of Florida pulled aside their sons and passed along the secret knowledge that the best way to avoid racial conflict with a black man is to offer him pizza money and a hummer? Is this part of a whole slate of intergenerational Floridian white man knowledge, up there with how to wrassle a gator and the best way to get James Baker to handle your recount?

Clearly this all needs to be bound up in a book: Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Being a White Man in Florida I Learned in a City Park Bathroom Stall. I, for one, breathlessly await its publication.

What I find rather interesting is that Allen must believe, in some dim fashion, that people will actually buy this, and more than buy this, agree with it, which is to say that Allen believes that the average Floridan would think to himself or herself, "Why, yes, when confronted with a park full of black men, a white man turning himself into some sort of ATM/suction device combo is an entirely rational response."

Now, I fully admit to not being an expert on Floridians, so maybe this does make sense to them. You hear so many strange things about Florida; Hell, it's got its own tag on Fark, for crying out loud.

Having said that, I would like to believe that the vast majority of Floridians see this for what it almost certainly is: idiotic nonsense. The only real bit of news out of all of this is that Allen would rather be seen as a terrified racist than as someone willing to solicit strangers in a public restroom to get some man-on-man action.

Well, here's the thing, Mr. Allen: Clearly, you can be both. There's a statistic for you.

You can read more John Scalzi here, and I'd especially recommend his classic essay on "Being Poor."

Ann Patchett on "My Pornography"

Ann Patchett is a popular and critically admired novelist— who until recently, was best known for her book, Bel Canto.

But now she has a new scarlet letter for celebrity: she's been Dixie Chick'ed by a Christian-tyrant-style failed gubernatorial candidate named Ken Wingate in South Carolina.

Wingate organized a massive protest against her memoir, Truth and Beauty, for being assigned in summer reading classes at Clemson University. He called the book too immoral for university students' examination, and referred to the author as "a sewer."

From Abigail Cutler at The Atlantic Monthly:

Patchett’s book, Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, which had been assigned to the incoming Clemson University freshman class of 2006 as mandatory summer reading...

But soon after the text was assigned, a handful of parents began voicing concerns that the book was inappropriate reading material. Led by Wingate, they pointed out that the book included pornography, fetish, masturbation, multiple sex partners, and anti-religious sentiments—and claimed that all of this served one purpose, and one purpose only: “The explicit message this that sends to students is that they are encouraged to find themselves sexually.”

...In fact, Truth & Beauty is Patchett’s account of her friendship with her best friend and fellow writer, Lucy Grealy, who had died three years prior at the age of 39. Author of her own memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy endured 30 years of pain and suffering as she underwent 38 reconstructive surgeries in an attempt to fix her jaw, which had been disfigured by childhood cancer.

Ann got the full "FOX" treatment:

In the face of provocative television news segments, an inflammatory full-page ad in The Greenville News, and an outpouring of letters from angry parents and alumni calling for the cancellation of the author’s scheduled appearance on Clemson’s campus, Patchett decided to speak to the Clemson class of ’06 anyway—even though that meant accepting protection from a bodyguard.

If stories about girls who are disfigured by cancer, humiliated by strangers, and turn to sex and drugs to escape from their enormous pain are too disgusting, too pornographic, then I have to tell you, friends, the Holocaust is off-limits. The Russian Revolution, the killing fields of Cambodia, the war in Vietnam, the Crusades, all represent such staggering acts of human depravity and perversion that I could see the virtue of never looking at them at all.

The Monthly interviews Patchen about what it was like going into the Lion's Den, getting confronted in the auditorium by a teenage student about her marital infidelity (!), and "What Would Lucy Do?"

It's an excellent interview and video: LINK.

Thanks to Martha Garvey for the tip! I also highly recommend Barbara Koppel's documentary on what happened to the Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, as to how self-appointed Puritan witchhunters choose a particular kind of woman to be their "condemned whore."

Segregation Now, Segregation Forever— And Pass the Bong While You're At It

Five to Four. Five to Four.

It's no surprise that every Supreme Court decision these days dismantles equal protection under the law. But it doesn't make it any less depressing, does it?

Let's see: high school students don't have first amendment rights anymore— not even the right to be sarcastic, which goes with teenage territory.

Students also don't have the right to an education uncompromised by racism. And they'd better not try to speak up about it, either!

The SCOTUS majority has a divining rod for pinpointing who the "little people" are in any given situation, and then screwing them to the wall:

Plaintiffs whose health or lifespan have been devastated by malicious products don't have the right to apply punitive damages that would make the manufacturer think twice.

Shareholders who find out that their company is guilty of of long-standing fraud can now just quietly go jump out the window. After Enron, we can't have any more whistle-blowers harshing the capitalist buzz.

Workers don't have the right anymore, according to The Fuck-You Five, to sue their employers for discrimination in pay... because if they don't discover a carefully-held secret that they've been paid less than the dude standing next to them for years, the joke's on them!

Defendants facing cruel and unusual sentences can forget the appeal process— when Scalia wants to lock the door and throw away the key, that's his prerogative. He's special... and YOU aren't.

And taxpayers— you know, those idiots— don't have the right to opt out of being fleeced for Bush's Church-Buddy Fund— also known as "The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives." You're going to pay taxes every year to support gay-bashing, race-hating, misogynist, kooky Christian cults whether you like it or not!

The SCOTUS quints have a special fire in their belly when it comes to second-class citizenship for women. Those five men— whose sex lives would no doubt turn us ashen gray— are going to decide, every step of the way, whether any American woman gets to have extra-special dispensation to have an abortion— and they don't believe all that guff about a women's life ever being in danger.

Meanwhile... things are looking better all the time for corporations. It's so much cooler to be a corporation than a pathetic individual. It's like having the Bill of Rights, for real. I bet  a corporation could even get an abortion whenever it wanted to!

If I was a high school student with a cause and a smart lip— or a woman with a insupportable late-term pregnancy—  I'd file for corporation status, and watch the gates fly open! I bet corporations can even bitch they're being discriminated against, and get special breaks and exclusive opportunities.  ...Oh yeah, they already did that. 

Let's not snooze over the recent campaign finance decision, which allows corporations to run phony "message" ads on TV as close to election voting days as they like.

This is the "control the plebes with TV" provision that's been found to work so well in the past. It's easier to control people by appealing to their hangups about race and sex than  beating them over the head with an expensive item like a baseball bat. Let FOX do the heavy lifting! Corporations want to play the tune that everyone dances to, without news or fact-filled interruptions. 

[The side note that drives me crazy on this particular decision is its framing of the notion that the court is allowing "corporations and unions" to both have this freedom to bombard television with unfiltered propaganda. The language suggests that organized workers have a scintilla of parity in their financial clout with the corporations they work for.]

You can't finish a Corporation Cocktail without price-fixing, so now the court has salted the rim on that glass too. Thanks to the Frisky Five, manufacturers and distributors have done away with nearly a 100-year-old law that prohibits them from fixing the base price of their commodities.

Ordinary human beings simply must rethink their status.

If I was a corporation instead of a person, I could call my readers and say, "Gee, I'm sorry, but the fixed price for every story you want of mine is now one million dollars! And every other writer has gone in on this, so you won't be able to find a better deal!"

That'd fix their wagon! Then I'd call the gas company and tell them my patronage is now only available at a minimum price that I'll be spelling out to them in my next memo.

No wonder all the bees left the building. You see, when The Borg gets its game on, it's just not pitiful homo sapiens running for their lives... The U.S. Supreme Court has also sided with developers and the Bush administration on a ruling that reduces the power of the federal Endangered Species Act to that of a mouse turd. Furry creatures everywhere are filing corporation papers as a last-chance attempt to hold onto their very existence. 

Porn and Booze Banned for Aborigines Only

"Pornography and alcohol will be banned for Aborigines in Australia's Northern Territory," the country's prime minister, John Howard, announced today...

Let me get this right:

1. You enter a new continent and colonize it, murdering thousands with superior firepower;

2. You steal the indigenous people's land, dispossessing them forever;

3. You rape their women, kidnap their children and put them in "homes" to rape them, too;

4.You bring the booze in, of course—

6. And you exclude "the blacks" in every aspect of your new government.

Three centuries later, what do you do for a encore?

Apparently, you announce that you're shocked— simply shocked— by the rampant violence, despair, and alcoholism, in the original people's culture.

It's got to be stopped! It's time to ban pornography! You've finally gotten to the root of the thing!

Police are hired to flush out and imprison those found guilty of "possession." By the time you round up all the offending parents, you can send a new generation into government prisons and foster homes— what a nostalgia trip! You wiped out 80% of their population in the old days, but clearly there's more work to be done.

And demon rum... gosh, it sure can go bad in the wrong people's hands, eh? As one Aborigine critic put it, "If they're going to do that, they're going to have to do that with every single person in Australia, not just black people."

I'd like to see the Prime Minister ban drinking in his neighborhood for six fucking minutes.

Here's the government's report, an epistle of liberal hand-wringing and conservative backlash in bed together at last, titled: Little Children Are Sacred. Gag me now.

Thank you to Derrick, for bringing this to my attention.

The DC Madam: Too Cheap by Half?

I love the petty-level ethics discussions swirling around the DC Madam scandal. Maybe we should call them "pathe-ethical."

I've heard many talk show hosts pose their main worry: "What if the DC Madam names a man who's innocent, who just dialed the wrong number for a pizza?"

Pepperoni with onions never came so dear.

When you think of the triple-layers of mendacity that Bush officials have used— the war profiteer cover-ups, the privacy violations, racketeering the entire Federal branch*— how does anyone have a blush left on their cheeks to look askance at a working madam who's mounting a straightforward criminal defense?

I, for one, am thrilled that Ambassador Randall Tobias was exposed as one of Madam's customers, and shamed out of office.

This guy has an ethics problem like a brick in the head. As United States Director of Foreign Assistance, and Admin of the Agency for International Development (USAID), Tobias went around the world preaching abstinence and monogamy. He denied aid to countries who provided condoms, birth control education, or outreach and health care to prostitutes. He led a Fundie Crusade with the USAID purse-strings wrapped around his nuts.

In comments to ABC News after the release of his terse resignation letter, Tobias, who is married, said that he liked "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." He insisted the massages were not sexual.

But the State Department's call for abolition of prostitution is an absolutist moral declaration, which, in principle at least, Tobias appears to have violated.

Tobias spearheaded efforts to prevent AIDS primarily through faith-based values programs that seek to delay first sexual experiences in teenagers, encourage sexual abstinence except for married couples, and encourage faithfulness within marriage...

Last year, Tobias was elevated to the position of deputy secretary of State in a move that consolidated all U.S. foreign aid programs under a single "strategic framework."

That framework, defined in the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget request to Congress, requires that poor nations receive American largesse based not on need but on their strategic value for the U.S.

You don't have to look too closely to see that sexual morality plays a role. For 2008, the administration is asking for $70 million less in international family planning funding than it did for 2007. Aid for family planning - which may include abortion services and sex education - has been cut every year since President Bush took office.

Laurie Garrett, LA Times

 

Why do so few people want to talk about the disgrace known as Bush's Foreign Aid Policy, and would rather fret that some wonk in DC ordered the wrong anchovy?

The Ambassador sure didn't have any personal budget problems. He was regularly ordering special services from "Miz Julia's" escort agency, although he allowed, as only a man of conceit would, that he sometimes "used Central American gals," too.

Sure, I have my own little curiosities about this mess. For one, I thought Madam's prices were awfully low. $275 for ninety minutes? That's an afternoon bar tab for these guys. Plus, if you were able to get a guy off in ten minutes, did you really have to sit there and play Canasta for another seventy? 

Finally, what kind of client was Randall Tobias, anyway? —Were his peers surprised?

I found answers from a couple of our dear readers here, and Miz Julia's own records.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was an experienced madam who used this pseudonym, "Miz Julia, of Pamela Martin Services" for her DC escort service. She ran the whole operation from phone lines in Vallejo, a working class suburb in San Francisco.

Deborah is an outrageous woman who loves to write and editorialize. One of her favorite parts of her business was to publish newsletters for her escorts, advising them how to act, dress, and avoid The Man. Her radical feminist rants are my favorite:

The misogynists get a real kick out of surprising (shocking) you girls, whenever you give them the opportunity!! Often, this is simply done. The motherfuckers bust through an "unbolted" (left unbolted by you) door, with video cameras in hand, while you, the escort, are in various stages of undress. Therefore, you are to lock, double lock, triple lock all doors!! Figure it out, before they "get cha"!

If only Karl Rove was as indiscreet.

Some people wonder how Tobias's protests that he did not have "sex," could possibly save his reputation.

He and "the gals" may know something we don't. They're all aware that prostitution is defined, in criminal terms, as something penetrative: oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse. It's oriented toward a penis going into SOMETHING of someone else's.

If Tobias wanted domination, if he had a fetish, if he wanted to beat off while he got a show; he'd be inside the law. No wait!— Maybe he wanted a woman to dress up like Condi in spike heels and spank him while jeering at his manhood.

As Laurie Garret wrote, "Designing foreign policy to stamp out sexual activity among consenting adults is a fool's errand and a waste of taxpayers' money."

After all that money, all we know is that Tobias never gave a fig about the agenda he was selling.

I was fortunate to get an interview with one of Tobias's staff in the US AID international offices, who we'll call "Sore Throat." The last sixteen months under Tobias, he said, "was like working for a fascist regime."

...My colleagues and I formed an underground cell of resistance, where we talked about the mismanagement of our Agency and shared our letters to our Congressmen. There was no tolerance of open dissent, different opinion, or criticism... so we passed around little barbs and stupid Tobias quotes, and hoped that it would all be over soon.

But we had no idea that he was such a naughty boy, and that his reign would end so suddenly. We heard weeks ago that Tobias would likely leave to take on a governor position in Indiana or else replace Wolfowitz at the World Bank. At this point, it looks like he won't do anything of the sort now that his name is so discredited.

...First time I saw Tobias in person was in Baghdad. He came to speak to the USAID folks there, just a drive-by. Spirits were already low at the mission, but in ten minutes he managed to torpedo morale significantly.

Someone asked how they were supposed to get by with such emaciated aid budgets for Iraq, which had forced the mission to close down our health, education, and infrastructure programs for Iraq.

Tobias answered that, in fact, there's no budget crunch, and we should be tightening our belts further. No one dared disagree. Then he went on to tell us that "all the expertise and local knowledge is in our field offices, which is why we in Washington are going to set our aid strategy." In other words, he deliberately took the people who knew best out of the decision loop.

Then again, in Cairo, he said the same stuff. This time, he didn't even bother to check in with his USAID staff or visit our office, even though he was the head of our Agency and was in town for a week! —Never even dropped by to see the two hundred people who work for him in Cairo. Amazing. It was around that period that I first heard him say, "USAID is trying to do too much for too many people. We're spread too thin. We're a mile wide and an inch deep." 

Well, now we can guess what was an inch deep... just ask his Central American gals!  Funny, though, when he testified before Congress on several occasions in the past two months, he kept saying, "I don't know" whenever they asked specifically what he was going to do that's different from the way we've done aid for decades. He also couldn't answer when they asked why he's cutting aid to key countries like India, Russia, Nepal.

Basically, he was in over his head.

Some of us have been trying to understand what was going on with those escorts. One thought was that he may have been telling the truth about the "no sex" part.

He was a tyrant in his business life, so we speculated that he needed some young smart ladies to put him in his place in his personal life. We could easily imagine that he was into spanking, being forced into submissive stuff.

That would be embarrassing enough that he'd rather resign than have the story come out— but he could honestly say he didn't have "sex." Well, it's just our best guess, knowing him from personal contact and observing him as a leader accused by Congress of 'tycoon-itis' just last month.

I have no notion of what it's like to work in a Foreign Aid office, other than what I've seen in Hollywood movies. I asked "Sore Throat" to give me some perspective... what would a decent high-level official do when visiting his staff overseas?

Ha! Thanks for asking!

Ambassador Tobias' policy was not to meet with anyone below rank of Ambassador or Minister (equivalent to our Secretary). This is why he didn't want to meet with local heads of aid offices (we call them Mission Directors), since they're not high enough rank. Needless to say, he didn't meet with their staff. He was arrogant, out of touch, as you say...  and this is not that unusual for high-level political appointees.

But I can happily tell you by comparison that other leaders are not like this. Our acting administrator is Jim Kunder. He's a political appointee, which means a friend of the White House. I've worked a bit with him and others in his group. Kent Hill, the Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Global Health is another example— a high-level, conservative religious guy who was appointed by our President.

In their cases, I expected to dislike them, since I disagreed with their politics and the high moral ground clichés —"We know what's right, and we're going to tell you and make the world live by our rules."

But these gentlemen have been excellent leaders, and even people who don't agree with their politics respect them.

Jim Kunder told a group of USAID officers in Hungary about three years ago that he was a former Marine who served in Vietnam. Because of that, he told them, he's "un-insult-able." No matter what criticism you have to tell him, he wants to hear it; he's heard worse.

Following that speech, he's not disappointed us. When Jim goes out to USAID missions, he visits our projects in the field, talks with our staff and our host country counterparts, learns about the program... that's how it should be.

Kent Hill is from a similar mold, although he's a PhD scholar and very thoughtful. He told the same group in Budapest that he wants us to find moral leaders in the culture that we're working with.

I found that this surprising, coming from a hardcore former head of a Christian college. Similarly, when Kent Hill went out to a country, he spent a lot of time meeting with staff, visiting projects, getting to meet local religious leaders... he is an impressive guy, and is still another high level official in USAID.

This gets at the core problem with the current administration. Their mistakes have resulted from failure to listen to diverse perspectives, failure to allow debate and competition of ideas. Instead, the top leaders have barricaded themselves and forced bad ideas down to lower levels to implement. It was true for Tobias, and also for all the other guys higher up. They kept denying the real world ("there's no civil war in Iraq") when the lower-level people knew the truth; but the real world has a way of catching up to us.

Make no mistake about it: we are fighting a war. I don't know if it's right to say it is a war on terror, or a war between liberalism and fundamentalism, a war against poverty and disease (that's our battle in my field), or between Western and Islamic paths... but there's a war out here. Not only in the Middle East, but mainly here.

In a war, the top brass who go out to the front lines are usually serving two main purposes: they want to ground-truth their own view of the war, and learn what they can from the grunt's perspective. They want to motivate and inspire troops. —Only two things, shouldn't be too hard. But if the leader fails to look and listen during the visit, and fails to speak in a sincere and motivational way... then s/he is not serving as a good wartime leader.

It's one thing to have incompetent bureaucrats during peacetime, they only waste our time and taxpayers' money. During wartime, incompetent leaders cost thousands or even millions of lives. We are fighting a worldwide war on HIV/AIDS, for instance; how many people may have died as a result of our administration's insistence that abstinence (not condoms) is the way to prevent transmission?  Science has debunked that approach...

Thank you, Sore Throat... talk about straight from the trenches.

It's impossible to think about this war, AIDS, or any global dilemma without seeing lots of zeros... the number of deaths, the number of dollars. It really does put the DC Madam's income in perspective. I'm sure the DC cops have already spent more money on her prosecution than she made this past year.

Being the Madam, she couldn't make tips for "extra" services. She relied on her booking commissions, so she's making about $150 for those 90-minute calls. Her newsletter spelled out what she expected from her girls:

We, here at Pamela Martin, try very hard to do things a step or two above that of our competitors. We want the client to always enjoy his appointment and to never feel rushed!

Often, an hour is not quite enough time, but an hour and a half is for completing enjoyment. Nonetheless, in the course of implementing this 90 minute policy. Management. has discovered that certain clients and even certain escorts for that matter, tend to interpret this 90 minute time frame "rather literally."

It needs to be clarified once and for all, that the client is paying for the "activity" conducted within the one-and-a-half hour period— not for the ninety minutes itself! If there is a problem, refer the client to Julia. Again, 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes is reasonable. Let's not see any 20 to 30 minute stuff, OK?

Okay! But I'm going to bring a pack of cards just in case!

I asked my friend and retired call girl, "Oakland Peach," if she could weigh in on the going rate, and my assumption that tips are where you  really make an "appointment" memorable!

Yeah, Palfrey's price sheet does seem cheap, but in all honesty, the market doesn't think much of pussy.

Madams RARELY work the very high end— and, besides, rich guys don't always play in the high end. 

It was really the L.A. girls with their coke-dealing madams in the early 90's that got the rates jacked up, and then the Internet created the independent scene.

I was in the first wave of that, which is why my rates got so high. It was pure experimentation. Those high rates were unheard of before, and are still somewhat unusual. The big money independent girls with websites is a mostly California phenom. 

The only other big money stuff, with the Arabs, is out of the modeling agencies and super, super, discreet. Those people never get caught because it's not really run like a business, and it's mostly out of Europe.

The real money is made in the mid-range— hourly fee: 150-300. That's what it sounds like Miz Julia was doing. It's your standard big-city escort service, with what I imagine are unwritten "menu options" once you get private with a girl.

I worked for a local circuit madam when I was 23.  $200/hour, 60/40 split, no upsales allowed. She had an "in" at the Republican Party gatherings they used to have up at the Bohemian Grove, so her guys were lots of big-money rightwingers.

I worked one day a week, never saw fewer than five. It was usually six or seven and that's just because I cried "uncle"— plus, I was chubby and older (!) and therefore a difficult sell.  I met very pretty girls there who would see nine or ten a day for a week, and travel city to city. There were usually two gals at her house per day. So you do the math. She was making a lot more than 150K per year, I'll tell you that much. [150K per annum is what Palfrey is claiming]. Some of her best clients were spending almost half that a year on their habit.

"So why did you finally go out on your own?" I asked.

I was really more of an opportunist than an innovator. And evidently a hell of a lay, but ahhhh, those were the days. Now I am an earnest sensual masseuse with inviolable boundaries and a much more stable love life. But as you quoted Tracy Quan saying, right on your blog, "I came about my prudishness honestly." Honey, ain't that the truth!

*Frank Rich reported this weekend:

"By my rough, conservative calculation— feel free to add— there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006.

—Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout.

I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously— an all-time record."

Superpower tshirt/poster from WhiteHouse.org. Check out Tracy Quan, on this podcast, for a insight on a sex worker's legal prerogatives in this situation!And yes, that is the panel from the old "To Tell The Truth" TV show. I just loved that program!

 

Jon Swift: Is Abstinence-Only Sex Education Too Explicit?

According to surprising new federal report— which was released late on recent late Friday afternoon so that no one would know about it— abstinence-only sex education classes have had "no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence."

Apparently, kids who enrolled in these programs were just as likely to have sex as other kids.

Unfortunately, this study comes at a bad time for abstinence-only advocates in the Bush Administration.

Wade Horn, the unfortunately named point man for the administration on abstinence-only education, just resigned after overseeing a huge increase in funding for the program to over $200 million, and already those who want to turn our kids into a generation of hos are bouyant.

"After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth. "The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that's not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics."

But Robert Rector of the Abstinence Clearinghouse cautioned that we shouldn't be worried so much about whether the program is effective, calling that a "bogus issue." Instead we should focus on the importance of the "values being taught."

He has a point. Just because the War on Drugs has been a failure, for example, that's no reason to stop it, so why should we care if abstinence-only sex education doesn't work as long as we are doing the right thing?

Is Abstinence-Only Sex Education Too Explicit?, another "Modest Proposal" by Jon Swift, the modern bloggers-day answer to Jonathan Swift.

If these programs have in fact been a failure, I don't think it is because kids were being given too much inaccurate information. I think the real problem was that they were given any information at all. We need more ignorance about sex, not less. The word "abstinence" itself is probably too explicit. Once you tell kids to abstain from sex until marriage, you have already told them too much. When kids start experimenting with abstaining, it should be no surprise that things can get out of hand and that they will move on to actually having sex.

Kids who are told to abstain from something are naturally going to start wondering what they are abstaining from. Instead of then telling them what sex is in explicit detail, and then telling them not to do it, it might be better if teachers described sex using vague, confusing metaphors the way adults used to back when teens were not having sex.

For example, instead of outlining the mechanics of sex, a teacher could say, "Are you familiar with the workings of the internal combustion engine?" After an hour of talking about pistons and carburetors and spark plugs and power strokes, the class would be over.

Typical questions such as "Where do babies come from?" could easily be deflected by talking about storks illustrated by cartoons. Cute stories like this have worked for centuries.

Parents used to be the ones to teach their kids about sex even though they usually didn't know a lot about it themselves, and most waited until the day before their children got m