Radio Silence at the Daily Dish

Uncharacteristically, the wire has gone dead as Sullivan & Co. try to make sense of Palin's book, Going Rogue:

This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it - and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided - is a bewildering task. . . .

There is a possibility here of such a huge scandal that we would be crazy not to take our time either to debunk it or move it forward for further examination.

Even without reading the book, it's always been obvious that she just makes shit up; and then can't keep her stories straight.  Sullivan has been on her case from day one, and it will be very interesting to see the results of his analysis.

Sullivan also explains the results of a survey that shows significantly fewer women than men have a favorable opinion of Palin:

Because they are not blinded by starbursts. Women always saw through Palin in ways that men didn't. That was most evident in the vice-presidential debate. Because many (straight) men found it hard to see past the boobs. Let's face it: if Palin looked like Golda Meir, there's no chance McCain would have picked her. And no one would currently give a damn. She is the Carrie Prejean of politics; and like the Ailes-tested fembots on Fox News. Women are not so dumb as to buy it. Men: well we all know what our weak spot is. We do not always think with our heads.

No shit, Sullivan.  At least not with our big heads.

Meanwhile, Baby Daddy Levi has this to say about his not-quite ex-mother-in-law's lies:

I just look at her in disgust. ... It's almost funny, that she's like, 46 years old, and she's battling a 19 year old, and I'm winning. And I'm telling the truth. She's lying and losing. ... If you look at her face, she's got -- she's really -- you can tell her mind's going 100 miles an hour when Oprah asked her those Levi questions. ... I've got a lot more knowledge and credibility than she gives me credit for.

The pics from his Playgirl photo shoot are due to be released this Saturday. I know you fellas just can't wait to see what Alaskan cod looks like . . . but Joe.My.God. says don't get your hopes up for full disclosure.  A teaser shot Joe posted:

Hmm, this just might be worth looking at after all.  Check back on Saturday for your Head Trucker's definitive opinion.

Mormon Turnaround on Gay Rights?

It's a very stressful time in my life right now; one of those bottleneck moments when everything seems to be piling on top of you, and more every day.  And then Murphy's Law kicks in, and all your efforts to dig your way out of the pile seem futile.  So you whittle away at what little you can accomplish and wait for things to ease up, as they always do.  Eventually.

So I haven't been paying as much attention to the news lately as I usually do, but last week's groundbreaking decision by the LDS church - which led the fight for Prop 8 last year in California - to support a gay-rights ordinance in Salt Lake City is worthy of mention.  The New York Times:

The Mormon Church has been a target of vituperation by some gay rights groups because of its active opposition to same-sex marriage. But on Wednesday, the church was being praised by gay rights activists in Salt Lake City, citadel of the Mormon world, for its open support of a local ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment. . . .

The ordinance, which passed unanimously Tuesday night, made Salt Lake the first city in Utah to offer such protections. While the measure probably had majority backing on the seven-member City Council anyway, the church’s support was seen by gay activists as a thunderclap that would resonate across the state and in the overwhelmingly Mormon legislature, where even subtle shifts in church positions on social issues can swing votes and sentiments.

“It’s the most progressive and inclusive statement that the church has made on these issues,” said Will Carlson, the manager of public policy at Equality Utah, the state’s largest gay rights group. “What they’ve said here is huge, in protecting residents in other municipalities, and statewide.”

Andrew Sullivan:

It is possible to be cynical or begrudging in reacting to the LDS Church's unprecedented public decision to support civic protections against discrimination in employment and housing with respect to homosexuals in Salt Lake City. I think that is a temptation to be resisted. . . .

What the LDS church has done in Utah is an immensely important and positive step and places the Mormon church in a far more positive and pro-gay position than any other religious group broadly allied with the Christianist right. They have made a distinction - and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction - between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting - with total justification - on the integrity of one's own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution's right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions. . . . 

For this degree of respect - even if it is not fully what I want or what gays truly deserve - we should reciprocate with respect as well. This is a moment of genuine dialogue and civil compromise. And it was accomplished in Salt Lake City among gay and straight Mormons and gay and straight non-Mormons in a way that other Christians in other places have been unable to replicate.

Leadership comes in the unlikeliest places. And when it does, we should thank God and be glad.

Is the beginning of a thaw in the anti-gay attitudes of the religious right, or just a CYA after all the heavy flak the Mormons caught for their Prop 8 support - what do you say?

Picture Contest: Thirty Years Ago - and then some

Finally my new printer/scanner is hooked up and working.  Now I can do business.  Examine the pictures below carefully, then answer the contest questions correctly to win a prize from my toolbox, personalized with your name on it.

 The 24-year-old virgin.  Well . . . sort of.  But not for much longer.  This is the look I was going for (and - shhh! - had a major crush on): the studly Lindsey Buckingham.

 

Shorts were, well, short; you'd have been laughed to scorn if your shorts came down to your knees like Grandpa's.

My senior class photo from college.  I paid $15 a month on layaway forever, it seemed, to buy this gorgeous sportcoat, much bluer than it looks here, shot with random threads in all colors.  Still have it somewhere, can't get into it, though.

By 1994, I'd finally figured out by trial and error what hair/beard length looked best on me, and about damn time, too.

Contest Questions

Pic #1 - your Head Trucker on his birthday in 1979.  Would you believe this still-closeted guy thought he was too ugly to get a date?

Pic #2 - who's got better legs, me or Brad Pitt?

Pic #3 - my senior class photo from college.  Did you laugh?  Tell the truth.

Pic #4 - this picture was taken at Lover's Leap, Rock City, Tenn., only 15 years ago - which way would you have jumped?

Essay question for bonus points:  So what did you look like back then, and why did you ever change?  Picture, please:  I showed you mine, now show me yours.


As usual, you must be an adult to play.  Prize must be received in person, no delivery to PO boxes or street addresses.  For entertainment purposes only - I'll say.

Yikes Again

From the Yahoo news page, photo of generic shoppers somewhere in the USA.  Do my old eyes deceive me, or do I really see a young woman wearing high heels with big rolled-up jeans cuffs, a la the 1950's?  Is this a joke, or is this really the current fashion?

Once upon a time, in the days of my (sadly) well-spent youth, your Head Trucker was known for a snappy dresser.  But I haven't really paid much attention to the details of fashion since graduating from college, which was about the time Urban Cowboy was the current picture show, and yeehaw! - suddenly it was cool (as it had never been in my young lifetime) among city folks to go everywhere in your boots and jeans and cowboy hat.

And I still do.  It suits me.  And the cool, the very cool thing about Western style is that it's timeless, pretty much always the same.  You can dress it up or dress it down.  Here in Texas, where it's the national dress, so to speak, you can wear it 24/7 anytime, anyplace:  hell, with a decent sportcoat and bolo, you can wear cowboy boots and jeans and cowboy hat to dinner at the Adolphus in big D, and nobody will look twice at you. (But take your hat off when you get to the table, son; were you raised in a barn?) 

And speaking from my own point of view, it's a very masculine look.  Which some of us old boys think is kinda important when it comes to clothes.

But who can keep up with the ins and outs of women's styles, even if you wanted to?  A while back an elderly cousin wrote me that her granddaughters used to tease her about her bright red lipstick in old photographs; now the young'uns are in college, and wearing bright red lipstick themselves, just gotta have it.  It's just so cool, you know.

Which just goes to show, as I made remark in a comment post the other day, fashion is silly.  Damned silly, much of the time.  The herd instinct, first of all:  and deeper than that, the desire to fit in.  Deeper still, the terrible, blinding fear of being rejected - and worst of all:  ridiculed.  Physical courage is an admirable trait, but relatively common; very few people, however, have the moral courage to endure the ridicule of their peers.

Which is why the fashions you laugh yourself silly at today, you'll be wearing tomorrow.  And vice versa.  Your very own opinion of yourself, which at this second you think is entirely the product of your own judgment and reason, will be changed for you, 180 degrees.  It has nothing at all to do with what looks good on you, what flatters your face or your physique, what's convenient or comfortable.  And everything to do with what the people whose opinion matters most to you - and despite all your protests, that's usually not your nearest and dearest - what they are wearing. 

In other words:  the cool people; depending on the decade and the century, they might be rich or they might be poor, but they are always the people you would give your right arm if only you could be like them; better yet, please God, be one of them.

Right there is the ultimate, though often unconscious, motivation that underlies half the human activity on this planet at any given moment.  Think about it. 

Continue reading after the jump . . .

Yikes

Can't sleep, so I got up and made coffee, pulled up the news.  Looks like summer is sure 'nuff over in Texas.  40 degrees outside right now where I live. 

A sign of the season:  tonight I brought I brought all my pot plants in from the front porch to their winter roost in the dining nook window.  They're all comfy now and settled in where they will stay until April.

No, no, no, it's not at all what you yankee boys are thinking.  Pot plants is what we have always called our houseplants down here in the South.  And this is not Willie Nelson's house.

Today's Quote: Sir Ian McKellen

From the L.A. Times via Towleroad:

I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims. But the leaders. . . . Why should I take the judgment of a declared celibate about my sexual needs? He's basing his judgment on laws that would fit life in the Bronze Age. So if I'm lost to God, organized religion is to blame.

What I say:  I always loved church, from the time I was a little boy.  But I finally realized, much later than I should have, that I really am not wanted there.  Not as I am - only as a silent, shut-away little boy, sexless and alone.

So I've stopped wishing and hoping to fit in where my presence as a fully human, fully adult, fully sexual man will never be welcomed.  But that's cool - God knows where I live, we visit all the time.

Sorry, Charlie

I know, I'm disappointed too.

Ask the Expert: "Is it true some herbs will increase the size of your penis?"

Posted using ShareThis.   Photo from Homotography.

Lovelight: Need You Now

Love doesn't always turn out like it should . . . .

 

Another shot of whiskey, can't stop looking at the door.
Wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before.
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.
For me it happens all the time.

It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk,
And I need you now.
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control
And I need you now.
And I don't know how I can do without,
I just need you now.

Been there, done that.

Goodnight, guys.



(The official music vid - unembeddable -is here if you want to watch.)

Of Shepherds and Sheep

Truckbuddy Sebastian over at Suffer the Arrows has a great post today on recent events in the nation's capital:

The Archdiocese of Washington has announced that if the DC city council enacts the proposed civil marriage law that would permit marriage between same sex couples, that the archdiocese will terminate all contracts with the city because it would be obliged then under the law to offer spousal insurance and other benefits to same sex spouses for those who work in Catholic Charities and other Church entities that receive city money.

This is completely disingenuous, for four reasons.

First, if the Church believes that it ought not provide spousal insurance and other benefits to those employees who are married outside the Church, then why does it currently offer such benefits to those who are in non-sacramental marriages. For example, a Catholic Charities employee who is divorced and has remarried civilly is entitled to full spousal benefits for his or her spouse who are legally married, but whose marriage is not recognized by the Church. Why a different standard for gays than for straight couples? . . .

Go read the rest of it, his points are all dead center on the target.  He knows what he's talking about - he's a Catholic priest.

Sunday Drive: More to Life Than This

Sometimes there's really only one person in the world you can confide in about certain things, ya know?

So I wrote to my oldest friend from college days, E., telling her what a mess I've made of things lately and what a fuck-up I've been my whole life.  Not that she needed to be told; being smart as a whip, I'm sure she clued in to that long ago.

And she, bless her heart, wrote back with these comforting words:

As for screwing up your life, who hasn't? Isn't that the point? To screw up your life and then die? Gosh, Russ, where've you been the last 50 years?

[And then, talking about a duet by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson:]  Their obvious delight in this foolishness will make you smile. Except when you remember the tragic way each died. And then you might have to cry.

Until you remember that they simply fulfilled life's purpose: they screwed up and died.

And then you can smile through your tears.

You screw up your life and then die:  believe it or not, fellas, that really helps me right now. I hope it helps you too, if you need help.  There's a deep point of wisdom and even theology in there, if you look for it.

Thanks, E. - you're the best.  Hugs.



Note:  E. recommended the duet "State of Shock," which some of you might want to try out, but for this post I've substituted the above song, which clicks more with me.

The Man on the Moon

And other studly things.  Fabulous torch-cut steel art from Wim Griffith.  Have you written to Santa Claus yet?  Time you did.  I'm adding these to my list.