Sticker Shock

Here is the rear bumper of the official old car of Roxie's World, about 15 minutes ago:

And here is that same bumper, about 12 minutes ago:

Yes, dears, it's official. Barack Obama has captured the prize that eluded him in 2008: the coveted endorsement of America's favorite dead dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball. What? You thought we'd stay on the sidelines, waiting to see if the rumor that will not die will come true and Obama will beg Hillary Clinton to quit trying to save the world and focus on saving his reelection campaign by becoming his vice president? That ain't happening, kids, and, meantime, here in the real world, we've got an election to win.

Yes, we support the reelection of Barack Obama. No, we don't like the drone attacks, the failure to close Guantanamo Bay, the maddening tendency to compromise. Obama is the centrist we predicted he would be when we supported his main opponent in the Democratic primary battle of 2008. On balance, though, he has been a good president in a difficult time, despite the ineffectiveness of his own party in congress and the extremism and intransigence of the opposition party in congress. His economic policies, though not as progressive as we would like, have helped the country navigate the Great Recession far better than the austerity policies that have brought such pain to Europe in the last few years. His health insurance reform, modest as it is, is a necessary step toward the recognition that healthcare is a fundamental right, not a privilege.  His picks for the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elana Kagan, show an admirable commitment to diversity and to the Constitution as a living, breathing, socially and historically situated document. On social issues, he has proven to be genuinely progressive, though his political cautiousness has sometimes made him slow to show it. Still, his decision to come out in support of same-sex marriage in an election year was a brave one, and we commend him for it. We hope he will continue to show courage and use the bully-pulpit of the presidency to lead the country in the direction of hope rather than fear and toward the expansion of rights and opportunities for all citizens.

Also: We like his dog, his wife, his daughters, and his singing voice. We'd much rather spend the next four years hanging out with all of them rather than this robot fascist dog abuser guy. In Roxie's World, the dogs ride inside and the Moms vote Dem. You, too? Go here. Give money. Dude's gonna need it. Peace out.

Carolina Moosians Oppose Amendment 1

Who's Cary WASP, I hear you muttering from behind your computer screens, and what does she have against Amendment 1? Cary WASP (not her real nickname) is the Older Sister of the Moosians. She lives in Cary, NC (Cary -- Get it?), and she is not in the habit of making signs and carrying them around at festivals in the rain, but she did so Saturday because she is a good sister and a good citizen and she knows the simple truth that there can be no classes among citizens. Amendment 1, like all attempts to grant legal rights and protections to some relationships and withhold them from others, is discriminatory on its face. Since same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, Amendment 1 can't even be justified on the usual stupid grounds of preserving the sanctity segregation of marriage from teh gayz. It goes further, banning any type of "domestic legal union," including civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Yo, Carolina, want to protect marriage? How 'bout making sure this creep never gets a license to wed again? (Cheap shot, I know. Couldn't resist. But, still, srsly.)

The amendment seems likely to pass, despite the efforts of Cary WASP and Bill Clinton, who puts on his sweetest, thickest southern drawl in these charming robocalls that are going out in the state in advance of Tuesday's vote.

Thank you, Cary WASP, and thank you, Big Dawg, for fighting the good fight for equal justice under law. We'd be proud to march with you any day, rain or shine, win or lose. Some days, if you can't be on the winning side, you console yourself by knowing you are on the right side. March on, dream on, fight on, my pretties. And if you live in North Carolina, for dog's sake get out and vote on Tuesday! Peace out.

A Picture-Perfect Week

Wednesday night at QTU, Angela Davis spoke to a huge, rapt audience on a range of topics, including the killing of Trayvon Martin, Americans' resistance to seeing racism as a structural problem, and the cause of prison abolition. (You can watch the whole event here.) The Moms were in the house and on the second row, which gave Moose a chance to snap this shot of the scholar-activist listening attentively to a question from the audience:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/18/12, College Park, MD)

Friday, as many of you know, was the day of the big gay spring carnival Moose's happy little program hosts every year on behalf of DC Queer Studies. This year's symposium was extra special, focused on honoring the life and legacy of writer/critic Samuel R. "Chip" Delany, who turned 70 on April 1. The day was drenched in sunshine, the papers were uniformly splendid, and the guest of honor was genial, generous, and wise. Moose snapped this shot of Delany getting ready to read from his new novel, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/20/12, College Park, MD)

What's the takeaway from this long, exhausting, yet deeply gratifying week? Maybe it's something as simple as the importance of finding work that feeds the soul and keeps one focused on a world larger than oneself. Both Davis and Delany have spent their lives as writers and scholars engaged with questions of race, sex, and justice, and both seem, at 70 or on the brink of it (Davis is 68), to radiate equanimity and an optimism that seems not naive but hard-won and fiercely guarded. At breakfast with a group of faculty women the morning after her lecture, Davis amiably entertained more than 90 minutes of questions on everything from prison reform to the politics of university catering. She was thoughtful, funny, generous, and sanguine about the prospect of continued, if slow, progress toward justice. She counseled patience and emphasized the importance of building movements from the ground up. She reminded listeners that the election of Barack Obama was a victory not for him but for those who voted him into office. She feels that the Occupy Wall Street movement, whatever else it did or did not accomplish, was a sign that citizens felt empowered by Obama's election to mobilize against rising inequalities of wealth and the rise of corporate power. In reply after reply, it was clear Davis refuses despair. She sees what's happening. She grasps the underlying problems with depth and nuance. And her years in the trenches tell her that it simply means we are all going to have to spend a few -- or many -- more years in the trenches. All right, then.

Look, darlings, I know it isn't always possible to find work that feeds your soul. Indeed, sometimes, to pay the rent and stay alive, you have to take jobs that make you worry you are selling or crushing your soul. You may find yourself in the devil's company, on your knees and on his payroll, but that doesn't make you a devil. Sometimes you do what you have to do -- but you do it without losing sight of what you want to do. You'll get there, my friend. Take the long view, as Davis and Delany have clearly done in the course of their own complex, amazing journeys. Keep your eyes and your heart open. You might have to do a little more than click your heels together three times, but you will get to where you want to go, even if it isn't on any map you've ever seen. Don't ask us how we know. We just do.

We'll end with what is perhaps Moose's favorite image from this picture-perfect week, because it celebrates not only longevity but clever design that tastes as good as it looks. Here is the cake she had made to honor Mr. Delany at the party after Friday's symposium. It's decorated with the image used on publicity for the event:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/19/12)

We offer a virtual piece of this pretty cake to one and all, as a way of saying, "Eat, laugh, never give into despair. That's the one thing we truly can't afford." Peace out.

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For Will Danger, who is working.

Excellence Without Money: Jersey Style

Today is my typist's birthday, so we've given her the day off and offer for your edification a very special guest post from someone we'll call Old Jersey Professor. S/he's got the scoop on some higher educational news of interest and import from the Moms' old stomping grounds, the Garden State. There's a storm raging on the Turnpike over a proposal to break up Rutgers University and merge the Camden campus with Rowan University. How controversial is the proposal? The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is calling for a federal investigation into whether the deal "had been 'crafted to benefit powerful political interests without regard for the impact on students.'" We're grateful for this eyewitness report straight from the heart of Jersey. Pay attention, kids -- Your school could be next.

Take it away, "Old Jersey Professor!"

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Excellence without money? That’s so 2011. In 2012 in New Jersey we have a new slogan: “To save education you have to destroy it.” That is the goal of Governor Chris Christie. In January his hand-picked commission came up with a proposal to hand over Rutgers Camden, part of Rutgers, one of 61 AAU universities in North America, to Rowan University, a comprehensive university over 20 miles away from the Camden campus. Why? Well, it has nothing to do with education and everything to do with, yep, money.

Rowan University, at the behest of New Jersey political boss George Norcross, absorbed Cooper Medical School and turned it from a 2-year part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into a 4-year medical school starting in the fall of 2012. (For more about George Norcross watch our former governor explain him to some Girl Scouts.) There is a reason some folks refer to New Jersey as Swamp Land.

And guess what? Cooper is broke. It relies on the state for funding and has bonds one step above junk grade.

The solution, according to the political bosses, is to take over Rutgers Camden so that Rowan-Cooper can use its cash flow to borrow money at better rates. And yes, of course, the governor and his political cronies are covering up this naked cash grab with talk of creating a bigger and better university in southern New Jersey. When politicians talk about improving education, lock up your wallet, and your children.

When folks object to us calling this move a “hostile takeover” we just switch to Anschluss. And when our friends say, "Well, that’s just New Jersey," we say, “Have you been paying attention to what is happening to public education in this country?” Your bond rating or your endowment just might be bait for some of your own political “leaders.” On March 22 Rowan released what it called a plan and we call a fantasy. It is “take the money and run” and not of the Woody Allen variety. The proposal is to grab the money (all of Rutgers Camden and its assets) fourteen months after a legislated takeover and then it promises to figure out how to create a research university -- there are no details, there is no budget, it is the land of hope and dreams . . . and not of the Bruce variety.

And hey, speaking of “the Boss,” yes, he’s a Jersey guy and the students have reached out to him with this wonderful video:

We are organized! Our wonderful students created an online petition and a fabulous website. The alumni are raising money and running advertisements, and our union Rutgers AAUP/AFT helped everyone get organized and on message and provided funds for the leaflets and the lawn signs. We’ve got faculty from four schools -- business, law, nursing, and arts and sciences -- on the job, writing briefs, digging into budgets, organizing the community, and putting out statements to the press. Our administration stood up and said “No,” hosting two town hall meetings preceded by demonstrations. The media gave us good coverage, and everyone spoke up at meetings of the Rutgers Board of Governors and Board of Trustees. Two Facebook support groups keep everyone informed. Our information page is updated several times a day (though it has been hacked, so you might not get there), and we’ve created our own not-for-profit group to raise money for our ad buys, lobbying, and, if need be, litigation.

All this has helped to bridge a bit of a generation gap. Turning to a younger colleague, I said, “This is so much easier than sixties organizing when we didn’t have cell phones or computers.” He replied, “I was born in 1970!” Wow -- where did the time go? A student asked me about my Twitter feed and I had to confess that no, I don’t tweet. Younger folks are all over social media, but everyone can give interviews, write press releases, lobby, share hugs, raise money and attend legislative hearings. Damn we are good!

But will we prevail? I think so. We don’t have lawyers, guns, and money, as the late Warren Zevon put it, but we do have lawyers, smarts, and damn good fundraising skills. Roxie -- I’ll update you on this. In the meantime, please go sign our petition. We hope to hit 13,000 signatures soon!

* * *

(Image Credit: Via)

Thanks again, Old Jersey Prof. And remember, kids, as the Boss says, "Nobody wins unless everybody wins."  This fight is our fight, too. Hang in there, Jersey boys, girls, and critters. We are with you!

Good Grief, Another Vagina Post

A Pointed Message for Bob McDonnell, Governor of the Commonwealth of Vagina Virginia, and Other Republicans Unhinged by Ladies, Lady Parts, Lady Bidness, and (Insinuations of) Lady Badness:

Translation: You will be held accountable for your actions. Or, as we used to say back in the olden days of take-no-prisoners gynocentric orneriness: God is coming, and She is pissed. The wrath of the great Feminazi Cooter in the sky shall rain down upon you. You have been warned.

Why? Because people with vaginas also have eyes, ears, memories, and the right to vote. Unless of course you decide they can't be trusted to make that kind of judgment by themselves either. Better hurry, boys. Election day is just 248 days away. And please don't ask if that's a laser between my legs or am I just happy to see you. Trust me, fellas. It's a laser.

(Credit for the Laser-Shooting Vagina: Picked up, by way of a Facebook friend, from Jessica Valenti's Tumblr, but no one seems to know where it originated.)

When You're in a, Um, Hole, Stop Digging

Or, you know, that's how we would translate this most excellent comment from poli sci prof Stephen Farnsworth on VA Governor Bob McDonnell's sudden reversal on a bill that would have required women to have, at their own expense, an unnecessary and invasive medical procedure before having an abortion:

Bob McDonnell's political future is not enhanced by vaginal ultrasound legislation.

Yes, it's only February, but can we declare this the Best Understatement of the Year and be done with it?

Also, can we say how delighted we are that this tiny victory against the GOP forces leading Virginia's war on women was secured, not only by the heroic efforts of Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live, but by lobbyists and legislators who screwed up the courage to use words like "vaginal" and "probe" in House hearings on the bill? Read to the end of that WaPo story for the details on how opponents of the bill moved from being indirect and delicate about what it would actually require -- "We had a hard time messaging why it was so bad," says the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia -- to being so clear that even people without vaginas began to grasp the intrusive nature of the procedure.

Another thing we love: Virginia sounds so much like vagina that, after all this hullaballoo, we will never again be able to think of one without thinking of the other. Thank you, Gov. McDonnell, for forging that link in our admittedly immature brains. You say Virginia, I say vagina. Virginia, vagina, vagina, Virginia, let's call this whole politically inconvenient thing off!

What a world, what a world. Be careful out there, my pretties, especially if you've got the lady parts.

Saturday Night Pink Links

I'm sure you've been wondering what the breast-equipped humans of Roxie's World have been thinking about the epic smackdown this week between the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood over grants, mammograms, and the apolitical politicization of women's health. Frankly, we've never been fans of pink, and Moose has been skeptical of the whole cancer industrial/fundraising complex since her beloved father's death from colon cancer in 1991. "Dad," she said, shortly before he died, "I promise you I will make it my mission to find a cure for this disease. Maybe I'll set up a charity race to raise money for colon cancer. Yeah, that's what I'll do. We'll call it the Run for the Bowel." Moose and her dad cracked up and spun out a crude, elaborate fantasy about all the brown products that might be marketed to promote the cause. Yes, Moose and her dad did that sort of thing. 

There's an important life lesson here about laughing in the face of death, but there's also an important point to be made about the weird economics of disease-focused fundraising. Breasts are, as Gail Collins points out in a column today, "America's most popular body part," and so Komen has raised f*ck tons of money since its founding in 1982. Nobody loves the colon, useful as it is, and so the poor little Colon Cancer Alliance toils on in relative obscurity, offering a modest array of blue products (because colon cancer is a guy thing?) and sponsoring a 5K race called "The Undy 5000" because foundation garments are apparently as close as anyone wants to get to the yucky, unloved, indispensable colon. "You can die from not pooping," Moose is fond of saying. "I've seen it happen." Perhaps you understand now why Moose is an English professor and not a marketing genius. She still worries that her dad is up in Heaven waiting for her to organize a Run for the Bowel. It's OK, I tell her from my perch in the great beyond. He's moved on.

Anyhoo: the Komen kerfuffle.

(Image Credit: Saw it on Facebook; picked it up at MoveOn.)

Other people, with and without breasts, have weighed in on this issue thoroughly and brilliantly. Go read them. It's nearly 9 PM and the Moms haven't eaten dinner or finished a scholarly article that has to be out the door by Monday. Oh, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is on the teevee tonight, too, so we'd best be moving along.

• Marcy at emptywheel (which we've never read before -- check it out!), a breast cancer survivor who also hates pink, offers some great insights about the cancer industry turning patients into consumers. She says it's time to start putting more money into prevention rather than on diagnosing and curing the disease, which has been Komen's primary focus.

• Amy Schiller has a wonderful piece in The Nation on why the Komen/Planned Parenthood breakup, brief as it appears to have been, was good for feminism. Nutshell? It exposes Komen as "the most visible symbol" of "the rise of a nominally apolitical marketing campaign masquerading as feminism." Money quote? "As the infantilizing blush-hued gear has proliferated, the pink saturation has merged the medical industrial complex with the Disney princess-industrial complex, making women’s health policy some sort of adult dress-up game."

• Journalism prof Jay Rosen is fascinated by Komen's spectacular communications/PR failure throughout the debacle. He has a detailed reading of an interview NBC's Andrea Mitchell did with Komen CEO and founder Nancy Brinker aptly titled "Interview as Trainwreck." Moose watched that interview. Mitchell has had breast cancer and worked with the Komen Foundation and Brinker. The trainwreck is a sight to behold.

Share your links and insights in comments. We know there's a lot of stuff out there -- So much that, you know, it's hard to keep abreast of it all.

See? No one makes jokes like that about the colon. We don't even love it enough to laugh about it. Maybe Moose should try to organize a Run From the Bowel. Whaddayathink, kids? Would you want that tee-shirt? Yeah, I didn't think so. Peace out. 

The Wizard of Odd

(Photo Credit: Linda Davidson, Washington Post, 1/30/12. Newt Gingrich's campaign bus Sunday in Florida.)

He does look a little wizard-ish, doesn't he, all smiling and soft-eyed and puffed up even larger than he is in his natural state? And those hand-waving Floridians make perfect Munchkins, standing there in the bright sunshine as the balloon lifts gently away from Earth bus pulls away.

Oh, good lord, will it never end, this campaign from Hades? Apparently not.

Gingrich, who, he keeps telling us, is the Smartest Man in the Universe, dreams lofty dreams of Lincoln-Douglas style debates with the brainy fellow he seeks to replace.

Meanwhile, out by the bus, here's a toxic little snippet, from Stephanie McCrummen's report in WaPo, of what Gingrich's followers appear to want:

“Oh yeah, I can’t wait — I’m ready for Newt to debate Obama,” said [Claudio] Klestel, 49. “I’m an NFL fan and now that the season is over, this is what I’m going to watch . . . Newt putting Obama in his place.”

No dog whistles or secret decoder rings needed to figure out the basis of Gingrich's populist appeal, eh? Of course, the diabolical genius of the former Speaker of the House is that he has the audacity to promote himself as the Smartest Man Alive while tapping into the basest political emotions: racial resentment rooted in ignorance and economic insecurity. That's what he's doing every time he refers to Obama as a food stamp president, which writer Walter Mosely rightly describes as an example of Gingrich's "poetry of hate."

It is poetry, yes, but it is poetry that sickens the soul. One can only hope that the author of such despicable poetry will board his well-appointed bus for nowhere soon and leave us to ponder why we tolerated him in our midst for so long.

Happy Monday, darlings. Wake this dead dog when it's over, will you?

You Can't Stop Us

Or, Another Damn Post on Marriage Equality. We'll stop writin' 'em when the homophobes give up the hate and extend the ball and chain the right to wed to all citizens.

Moose encountered and shared the vid below on Facebook the other day. It's of our Maryland state delegate (and pal!) Heather Mizeur, speaking on the floor of the General Assembly during last March's debate on a bill that would have brought marriage equality to the Free State. The bill passed in the Senate but was pulled in the House when it was clear there weren't enough votes to pass it. Gov. Martin O'Malley introduced a similar bill this week, so the whole battle is about to play out again. (Oh, goody -- Reruns!) The hope is that the bill will fare better this time around with O'Malley taking on more of a leadership role and in the wake of the passage of marriage equality in the New York state legislature. We shall see, kids. Y'all know we've been skeptical of O'Malley, pretty as he is, and now his equally lovely wife, Judge Catherine O'Malley, has ruffled feathers by speaking the truth, publicly declaring that the bill failed last year because "some cowards . . . prevented it from passing." Judge O'Malley quickly and predictably announced that she regretted her choice of words, though we happen to think she was right. Some delegates who had signed on as cosponsors of the bill ended up voting against it once churches in more conservative districts whipped up opposition. Because, you know, God Hates Fags.

In any case, watch the vid:

 

We like the rhetorical moves Mizeur makes in this brief clip, the calm yet righteous eloquence of her assertion that the bill's opponents cannot stop LGBT people from establishing marriages and families, from loving each other and declaring their love before the divine entity referred to around here as Dog. The repeated "you can't stop us from . . . " serves as a powerful anaphora that reminds listeners of how dramatically social and legal conditions for same-sex relationships have changed in the decades since Stonewall. It taunts those who would vote against the bill by suggesting that the war is in some sense already over and queers have won -- but then it pivots back to the painful reality of what the lack of full legal equality can mean for same-sex couples: "You can't stop us from loving each other," Mizeur intones. "You can't stop us from getting married. You can't stop us from pledging to forever to our God and to each other and to support each other in the toughest of times. You can't stop that. All you can do is make it really, really, really difficult for us in the worst, most challenging times."

Goose has long maintained that what fuels the right-wing hysteria about marriage equality is the recognition that teh Gayz Agenda has already captured the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Americans. As a generation of kids raised in and around and on Modern Family comes of age, the idea that civil marriage has to be protected from the assaults of creepy scary queers is losing whatever power it has left as a wedge issue. A November, 2011 Pew poll found that support for marriage equality was strongest among Millennial generation voters (born from 1981 to 1993), at an impressive 59%. Of course, Millennials seem far less invested in marriage than previous generations have been. The same poll shows that they are far less likely than earlier generations to marry when young. Currently, just 23% of 18- to-30-year-olds are married. By contrast, 49% of the Baby Boomers were married at that age. There is considerable irony in gays clamoring for access to marriage in a period when its power as a social institution seems to be declining precipitously. If conservatives had a lick of sense or objectivity, they'd realize that modernizing marriage and expanding access to it will do more good than harm. David Brooks, who has such sense, has been making that case since 2003.

As the Moms approach the 28th anniversary of their commitment to love without marriage, they are keeping a close eye on what's going on in Annapolis. They are still not chomping at the bit to run down to the courthouse and get legally hitched, but they respect the desires of those who are and they believe right down to the bottom of their ornery radical hearts that queers should have the same rights to legally wedded bliss or catastrophe that everybody else has. Mizeur is right: You can't stop us from loving each other and building lives together. You could if you wanted to build other ways to grant legal protection to relationships and to distribute the 1038 rights and benefits currently available only through marriage,  but until that day comes, a lot of us want and need marriage. You can't stop us, but you can hurt us and slow us down and make the darkest days of our lives darker still by setting up legal obstacles that make us vulnerable at moments of illness, injury, or death. You can't stop us, because the genie is out of the bottle closet. You can only make us continue to pay the price for your bigotry. Don't kid yourself that the creator of the universe is on your side in this fight. Whatever S/He is, Dog is assuredly on the side of love. Why aren't you?

Oh, we know you are on the side of love, my pretties, and we reckon some of you might also be interested in the drama unfolding in Annapolis. Want to help? We've got some ideas.

• Make a donation to Equality Maryland, the state's largest LGBT civil rights organization, which is working hard under new leadership to pass the marriage bill and a gender-identity protection bill during this session. Full disclosure: Moose is on the Board of Directors of the Equality Maryland Foundation, but if you contribute there your donation is tax-deductible. Do it -- and tell 'em Moose sent you!
• Get on the phone. Marylanders for Marriage Equality (a coalition, which includes Equality Maryland, set up to work for passage of the marriage bill) is holding weekly phone banks throughout the state to rally support. Find one near you, and start practicing your very best phone manners.
• Sign up for Lobby Day in Annapolis. It's Feb. 13. Go march around in the cold, then head indoors to give your representative an earful or a pat on the back. The Moms can't be there, because Moose is hosting a shindig on campus that day (which you should totally attend if you are not able to go to Annapolis).

All right, rabble rousers, it's time to step away from the laptop and go enjoy what's left of this lovely afternoon. We hope it's pretty in your neck of the woods and that you'll do some fighting for joy as well as justice on this last weekend of January 2012. Peace out, and play fair.

(Image Credit: Via.)

Rat Empathy

This story caught my typist's eye this morning. A new study shows evidence of empathy existing "in a robust way" among rats. Here's how the experiment works: Two rats are hanging out in the rat lab. One is free and the other is in an "unpleasantly restrictive cage" that the other rat can learn to open if he wants to release his compatriot. The study indicated that, not only would the free rat liberate the caged rat, he would also save a treat from a horde of chocolate chips to share with the captive. Wait, dude: Liberty and chocolate? What planet are these critters from and how do we get there?

Wa Po summarizes the implications of the study:

The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state. 

“There is nothing in it for them except for whatever feeling they get from helping another individual,” said Peggy Mason, the neurobiologist who conducted the experiment along with graduate student Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal and fellow researcher Jean Decety. 

“There is a common misconception that sharing and helping is a cultural occurrence. But this is not a cultural event. It is part of our biological inheritance,” she added.

Also: Rats are not Republicans. Revise your political name-calling accordingly. Henceforth, rats are the good guys. As in: Oh, that Hillary Clinton is such a rat, running around telling everybody that gay rights are human rights! Get that girl some chocolate!

What a world, what a world. Have a lovely, rat-filled weekend, my pretties. Here's hoping your cage door opens soon.

Dear Hillary Clinton,

We love you so. No, really, we adore you and totally groove on the way you have become like the Global Queer-Affirming Good Girl. Srsly, the burly women and pretty boys of the world unite in saying that you are homolicious!

Nonetheless, with all due respect, we wish you would re-think the hair. I am sorry, Mme Secretary, but we cannot love a ponytail.

Yours sincerely,

Roxie

(Photo Credit: Anja Niedringhaus, Associated Press [via]. New York Times caption: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, after her speech on human rights issues at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. [Video of the speech is here.])

It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity. -- US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day," Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 12/6/11.

You go, girl. With you till the last dog dies. Or 2016, whichever comes first.

Impossible Demands

Judith Butler speaks at Occupy Wall Street, her voice amplified by the human microphone of the assembled crowd. On the one hand, it's an academic wet dream: We all wish the masses sounded as smart and decent as Judith Butler, and it's intoxicating to see that fantasy actualized for three minutes and forty seconds. On the other hand, in desperate times, a wet dream is at least a dream, and perhaps a dream is what is needed to begin to move the 99% out of sleep, silence, paralysis, despair -- or whatever it is that has kept us so passive so long in the face of so many urgencies and obscenities, so much inequality, so little courage or kindness on the part of our leaders, even those who have claimed to be on the side of hope.

If hope is an impossible demand, Butler declares, then we demand the impossible. Amen. Watch the vid.

 

Funny how Butler takes that word hope, so drained of meaning by its overuse in the last presidential election, and makes it the linchpin of her response to those who have complained that OWS has no clear or reasonable set of goals, isn't it? And by funny we mean of course genius. Hope is a demand, not a slogan, and it arises from bodies in the street, voices on the square, in an eruption of popular will. David Axelrod wouldn't recognize it if he tripped over it.

To be honest, we don't know what we think of OWS yet. We haven't watched it closely enough to have a very clear sense of what it really means or where it might go. We passed a small Occupy Baltimore encampment when we were in town for the American Studies Association convention this weekend, but we didn't stop to check it out or get especially excited by the organization's statement of solidarity with the movement. (Sorry -- We've seen too many feel-good resolutions passed by academic orgs over the years to put much stock in such gestures.) On the other hand, we were moved and inspired by our dear friend Priscilla Wald's presidential address at the convention, which wove a brilliant tapestry of disciplinary, organizational, and cultural history into a passionate call for new stories that would more accurately and compellingly capture the realities of twenty-first century American life.

Another impossible demand? Perhaps, but again: Amen. Sometimes, you demand the impossible just in getting your a$$ out of bed in the morning, but you have to get up in order to make anything happen, don't you, darling? So do it, OK? Demand the impossible. Judith Butler wants you to, and you don't want to disappoint Judith. Peace out.

The Apparently Unbearable Un-Lightness of Chris Christie

Newsflash: NJ Gov. Chris Christie is still fat -- and it is driving some people right over the edge of decency and sense.

Consider this a postscript or an update to the post we did Friday on the heaping helping of fat hatred the Washington Post dished up in its coverage of speculation about whether Christie would enter the 2012 presidential race. Somehow, in our careful research for that post, we managed to overlook the truly appalling display of fat eliminationism posted on Bloomberg earlier in the week by Michael Kinsley (H/T). I kinda hate linking to the Kinsley piece, but it seems important to let you see for yourselves just how comfortable he is asserting that a public servant's size is in and of itself disqualifying for higher office. Why? Well, Kinsley says, because being overweight shows a lack of discipline, and "a presidential candidate should be judged on behavior and character, not just on policies." Also, presidents  set an example for the people they lead and serve as a symbol for the U.S. around the world. Fat people make bad symbols -- unlike, you know, torturers and obstructors of justice.

Here's the thing, kids: We're not wild about the term "fat eliminationism," which feels designed to shut down any kind of conversation about weight's relationship to overall health. We think those conversations need to occur. In this instance, however, the term is appropriate, because Kinsley is so unbelievably harsh and unabashed in his judgments. He has no qualms about insisting that fatness is disqualifying at the presidential level, blithely asserting that even fat people hate fat people ("Most overweight people hope to be thin eventually.") and that Christie could lose weight if he put his mind to it ("Controlling what you eat and how much is not easy, and it’s harder for some people than for others. But it’s not as difficult as curing a chemical addiction.").

The Recently Overweight Person of Roxie's World has a message for Michael Kinsley: Shut the frack up. What in dog's name made you think this was a column worth posting? It is worse than worthless as political analysis, dripping as it is with a mean-spiritedness, condescension, and -- there is no other word for it -- hatred toward those whose size you deem to be excessive. It offers nothing of value to our understanding of either politics or health. You are not a doctor, and you don't seem to have direct knowledge of Chris Christie's metabolism or genetic makeup. The last thing fat people need is one more finger-wagging thin person telling them that if they are not willing to lose weight they should just get their fat bodies out of sight. Mr. Kinsley, you are so not helping people of any size with this kind of clap-trap. So, well, you know . . .

(Image via.)

Weighty Matters

Funny:

(Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine, 9/30/11, via)

Unfunny:

(Washington Post, 9/30/11, A19)

Double Plus Unfunny:

(Washington Post, 9/30/11, A16)

Look, kids, we're no fans of NJ Gov. Chris Christie, the tough-talking Republican who may or may not enter the presidential race. (That sad, squeaky sound you hear is the air going out of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's balloon.) We agree with esteemed Garden State political pundit Bruce Springsteen that Christie's tax cuts have had a devastating impact on the poor and the lower middle class, and we think the last thing the country needs is one more foaming-at-the-mouth tax hater.

Nonetheless, shame on WaPo for the double dose of fat hatred in this morning's coverage of Christie. Yes, the governor's size is notable and possibly newsworthy, in that his obesity could create health problems that would interfere with his ability to serve. Eugene Robinson notes in the column we screen-capped above that Christie was hospitalized this summer for asthma, a condition that can be worsened by obesity, and that the governor himself has acknowledged that his "weight exacerbates everything." A candidate's health is a legitimate issue, and Robinson is generally careful to frame his remarks in those terms. However, his snarky ending -- "I’d just like to offer [Christie] a bit of unsolicited, nonpartisan, sincere advice: Eat a salad and take a walk." -- along with the punny headline and the photo of the portly gov and the skinny-as-a-rail prez, tips the scales, as it were, in the direction of fat hatred. Especially when you consider that just three pages earlier Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column had run a very similar Christie/Obama photo to illustrate a few short pun-filled paragraphs aimed at "sizing up Gov. Christie's chances," as the headline on the web version of the story put it.

Sizing up: Get it? Belt-tightening: Hilarious, yes? A fitting time: Harharharharhar! The biggest loser: OMG, I am ROFL!

OK, technically, I am not ROFL. I am dead, and my typist is banging her head on the laptop screen thinking it's probably not just fat-hating and mean but also politically unwise of Dems and the so-called liberal media to start chortling and finger-pointing and making fun of the Wide Man who might want the Thin Man's job. A broad -- get it? -- section of the electorate is overweight, underpaid, and hopping mad right now. And lots of folks seem to be under the impression that the Thin Man may be something of a lightweight -- get it? -- when it comes to the brutal business of running the country. If this election turns on questions of physique, Obama's thinness may not be as much of an asset as the salad-eating media seem to imagine it will be.

Our advice and fervent hope? We wish good health to the governor of New Jersey, and we dream of a media mature enough to keep the focus on the truly weighty -- get it? -- matters facing the country.

Because, you know, their track record in that regard is. so. impressive.

Body Matters: Short Takes

As we ease our way back toward serious blogging, we thought we'd call your attention to a few stories that caught our attention in between ocean swims and fine meals and beach reading of books Moose emphatically decided not to include in the trans lit course she'll be teaching this term.

The Aging, Vegan Ex-Presidential Body: Bill Clinton turned 65 the other day, which prompted a spate of stories on the Big Dawg's impressive efforts to manage his heart disease through diet and exercise. The former president, who has a family history of seriously bad tickers, had a quadruple bypass in 2004 and angioplasty in 2010. Since then, working with Dr. Dean Ornish, he has dropped 20 pounds  and become mostly vegan, though he confesses to CNN's Sanjay Gupta to having a bite -- one bite, he says, with a wag of his famous finger -- of turkey at Thanksgiving. Moose liked this story because she is delighted to claim her favorite living former president as a comrade in Lifestyle Adjustment. She also thinks it's good for the country to have to reckon with seeing the nation's most famous devotee of Big Macs and Krispy Kremes as a poster boy for clean living and healthy eating. Moose imagines she would choose death over veganism, because she isn't sure she could live in a world without eggs, but she was endowed by her creator with a ridiculously healthy heart and so has never had to face that choice. Mostly, though, we like this story because it offers further proof that we just can't stop thinking about Bill Clinton's body. We need to know what he is ingesting, how he is looking -- fabulous! -- and how he is feeling (more energetic than ever!). Clinton's successor in the Oval Office also turned 65 earlier this summer, and the AP story focused on the thousands of virtual birthday greetings he received through a campaign orchestrated by his wife. No one, it seems, wants to think about Shrub's aging body or what's going into it. I know: Quelle surprise. And we sincerely apologize for putting that image into your head so early in the work week.

The Professorial Body: Duke's Cathy Davidson, who is garnering raves for her new book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, did a marvelous blog post a couple of weeks ago on a Pilates class that resonated with some of our musings here about yoga, bodies in middle age, and minds/bodies in techno-culture. The post advocates balance, breathing, and compulsory dance movement in schools and workplaces as a necessary counter to the seated life of the mental worker staring at the screen. It offers compelling observations about kids' relationships to their bodies and movement in an age in which bike helmets and pain avoidance constrain them in both body and soul. It even offers a couple of simple exercises to foster alignment and deep breathing. Read the post. Try the exercises. And get Davidson's book, for dog's sake, because everyone else you know is getting it and you don't want to be out of the loop. We've got Now You See It loaded up on Kindles and iPads throughout Roxie's World and can hardly wait to read what this passionate yet practical digital visionary has to say about the world in which we live, think, work, and breathe.

The Lesbian Body: Christina Santiago was 29 years old, a lesbian, a native New Yorker living in Chicago, and manager for the Lesbian Community Care Project at the Howard Brown Health Center. She was killed in a freak accident at the Indiana State Fair on August 13. Four other people died, and Santiago's partner, Alisha Brennon, was also seriously injured when a concert stage collapsed in a strong thunder storm just before the group Sugarland was to begin a show. The story caught our eye in part because the tragedy occurred in Moose's home state but also because of allegations that began circulating on the queer interwebs that the Marion County coroner's office refused to release Santiago's body to Brennon for burial because of the state's DOMA law. First reported by Bil Browning on The Bilerico Project, the charge went viral when Dan Savage wrapped it up in a fiery denunciation of how such laws "serve to torment and persecute gay people at the most trying moments of their lives."

The problem, as it turned out, is that the story wasn't true. The critically injured Brennon had not contacted the coroner's office and appears not to have been treated disrespectfully by anybody. Her partner's body was released to an aunt of Santiago's who was listed as her next of kin. Santiago's funeral and burial were in the Bronx, but those closest to Santiago and Brennon suggest matters were handled amicably and sensitively. Brennon is still hospitalized but seems to be recovering. Bil Browning posted a lengthy apology for his poor judgment and reporting, admitting that his "history of dealing with homophobic behavior by Indiana office holders" likely predisposed him to believe the story without sufficiently verifying it. In his retraction, Savage noted that, "These sorts of things have happened -- surviving gay spouses barred from bedsides, not allowed to retrieve their partner's remains, barred from funerals by hostile family-of-origin members -- but it didn't happen this time."

Savage is right, of course. Such things do happen, and we need to work hard to reduce the likelihood of their happening by securing full legal equality for LGBT relationships. That will require overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act and every mini-DOMA on the books in states from sea to shining sea. Bil Browning is to be commended for his thorough and thoughtful self-criticism, but we can also learn something from his mistake, from his -- and our -- willingness to believe that a low-level functionary in a coroner's office would see it as his or her job to enforce a state DOMA in such a cruel fashion. (Since Santiago and Brennon were residents of neighboring Illinois, Brennon could presumably have claimed her partner's body under that state's domestic partnership law.)

Again: Such things do happen, but that doesn't mean we can assume they've happened without fully and fairly investigating the claim. Browning didn't try to speak with Brennon because she was still in intensive care and "it seemed crass to call her for a statement." Fair enough, but shouldn't the fact that Brennon was in intensive care have made him doubt that she was in a position to call the coroner's office to try to claim Santiago's body? That it apparently didn't is powerful evidence of how strongly inclined he was to believe what he was hearing without fully corroborating the charge. Yes, Indiana is full of homophobes in high places and lacks the most basic protections for LGBT citizens and relationships, but that doesn't justify jumping to conclusions and circulating falsehoods about particular offices or officeholders. Such mistakes don't serve the cause of advancing LGBT rights, as Browning knows. They also don't honor the memory of Christina Santiago or comfort her grieving partner, family, and friends.

Attention, please: This brief rant has been brought to you by Moose, who feels bad for circulating Savage's post about the Marion County coroner's office on her Facebook page without independently checking out the story. You heard it here first, folks: Not everything you read on the interwebs is true. Be skeptical. Be fair. Be thorough.

RIP Christina Santiago. Your memory will endure, and your vital work will go on. Our condolences to those who loved you and healing thoughts to Alisha Brennon for a full and swift recovery.

Peace out.

The Virtue Binge

Goose has been out of town on urgent Emily Dickinson-related business for nearly a week. Moose has been batching it, which used to mean she'd revert to grad school habits of having popcorn and beer for dinner while zoning out to really trashy movies on Lifetime. Good times, right, Moose?

Anyhoo, this week, aside from Wednesday night's decadent dinner at America Eats, in which Moose permitted herself the (now) shocking indulgence of a third glass of wine, she's been living like a freaking monk. It's been all yogurt and whole grains and farmer's market veggies. Not a beer in sight. Her big indulgence food-wise was to use half a cup of olive oil in some pesto she made. Half a cup! And pesto meant that she treated herself to pasta for dinner! Whole wheat, of course. Whoa, Moose. Way to ride the edge.

Then there's been the whole activity thing. The trips to the gym. The rides on the stationary bike in the basement when she felt too lazy to schlep to the gym. The Friday yoga class. The Saturday yoga workshop. Yes: Two and a half hours spent painstakingly refining plank and cobra poses. Srsly, kids, the fun just never stops around here, does it?

You leave town, and I go off on some kind of virtue binge, Moose quipped to Goose in a text message yesterday. The quip got her thinking, and -- Oh, heck, I think I'll just let her tell you. Being disembodied, I am less equipped, as it were, to talk about certain kinds of things these days. Take it away, Moose!

* * * 

(Photo Credit: Anon, Self-Portrait After Plank Workshop, 7/30/11)

You have to admit it's a funny line -- I go off on some kind of virtue binge -- but it's also a revealing one, loaded with assumptions and, perhaps, anxieties about bodies, behavior, discipline, moralism. It registers a certain pride, yes, but it also captures some of the discomfort I've experienced in recent months as I've tried to find ways to talk and write about losing weight without sounding sanctimonious or fat-shaming. (That discomfort is explored in this post.)

At this particular moment, the notion of a virtue binge also resonates with the political fiasco unfolding on Capitol Hill, as Republicans and Democrats battle, with nearly equal disingenuousness, to position their nearly indistinguishable plans for trimming the alleged fat off the nation's fiscal body as the morally correct one. (And how telling that the fiscal and governmental bodies are so frequently imaged, as in the cartoon anchored to this paragraph, as obese to a degree designed to elicit disgust.) The binge will end -- because binges always do -- the moment the deal is signed and there is no more political advantage to be gained by exaggerating one's own virtues and the vices of one's opponents. It will be resumed -- because binging generally is -- when new circumstances arise that once again make it expedient to demonize the opposing side as lacking in virtue. (Yes, darlings, I am well aware that one of our two major political parties is more in thrall than the other to a strategy of framing any kind of difference or disagreement as a world-threatening conflict between good and evil. I am lumping them together because everyone involved in the debt ceiling debacle has behaved so badly and because both the president and Senate majority leader Harry Reid strike me as guys whose lives have been one long virtue binge.)

Anyway: The virtue binge may be a uniquely and obnoxiously American phenomenon, a hangover of what one astute student of cultural history has described as The Puritan Origins of the American Self. That is a major source of the discomfort I feel with my own little quip. I am troubled to hear myself describe my weight loss and my recommitment to fitness in such terms because they suggest that I have internalized a set of value judgments about physical/moral fitness that I am deeply committed to contesting. (See, for example, the first two chapters of this book.) A quip is just a quip, of course, and I could take refuge in the idea that the joke mocks the tendency it names and therefore does contest the values that might motivate any kind of virtue binge. I was a firm believer in the salvific power of parody long before Stephen Colbert came on the scene.

All kidding aside, though, perhaps what really bothers me is the inadequacy of the language available for describing experiences like the one I have had over the past several months. How do we talk about weight and fitness -- especially as women, feminists, and queers -- without falling back on metaphors that equate physical health and "normal" size with moral virtue? I'm obviously a big fan of the Lifestyle Adjustment Program I used to lose weight, but I can't bear to read the "Success Stories" prominently featured on its website because they so relentlessly emphasize the virtues of being on track and in control. Success in these terms is a matter of reasserting discipline over a body defined as unruly, disorderly, and out of control.

"I feel like I've conquered the world," says my LAP's most famous current spokesperson, singer Jennifer Hudson, of her weight loss. Such language perpetuates a dualistic model of the relationship between mind and body that is both punitive and terroristic. I hate it -- even though I know full well that I had come to feel fairly out of control in relation to food, drink, and weight. Even though I admitted, right here in Roxie's World, that I had reached the point of feeling miserable in my body by January of this year and proudly offered an illustrated announcement just a few weeks ago of "what feeling better looks like." Careful and non-fat phobic as I have tried to be, my own language is as problematic as Hudson's, even without the cheesy metaphor of world domination.

I want another way to narrate this story, some alternative to the plots of conquest or redemption that have done so much damage in American culture and the world. I don't want to see what I am doing these days as either a virtue or a binge, because virtue is boring and binges are transient. I want to say to the friends and the sisters who are looking to me for advice and inspiration in their own efforts to take off weight that mind and body are one and we have to let go of self-loathing. We need to find ways to relate to our bodies, ourselves with love and compassion, whatever our size and shape. And we need to find ways to talk about the disciplines of self-care not as regimens of self-punishment and sacrifice but as forms of pleasure and play. You hear some of this rhetoric in the wellness industry's "this is not a diet" mantra, but my LAP's emphasis on tracking and control still sounds more anxious and paranoid than I would like.

The most satisfying language I've come up with so far is one that emphasizes mindfulness in relation to eating and activity. I put on weight over the course of several years because I stopped paying attention to how much I was eating and let go of a commitment I had maintained for most of my adult life to regular, vigorous exercise. In cultivating mindfulness, I've discovered new pleasure in food, which tastes better and is more satisfying when you pay attention to every bite, no matter how simply or sensibly it's prepared. And I've reconnected with the deep pleasures of working/playing in and with my body to learn new skills or to revel in the joy of movement for its own sake. Yes, I spent two and a half hours on Saturday afternoon working strenuously to improve my ability to perform what are basically glorified push-ups -- and walked out in a state of endorphin-produced bliss as glorious as anything I've felt in years. My posture was impressive, too. I don't want to underestimate the challenge of getting into shape after years of being mostly sedentary. It's been hard and humbling, but it has also been enormously satisfying and in a lot of moments just plain fun.

Perhaps what I am getting at is a model of bodily discipline or practice similar to what Foucault describes in The Use of Pleasure as "the arts of existence": "those intentional and voluntary actions by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria" (10-11). I like the emphasis here on both intentionality and artfulness as aspects of self-making. Or perhaps I'm thinking of the vulnerable, imperfect, necessary body Adrienne Rich tenderly claims in her "Contradictions: Tracking Poems (18)":

The best world is the body's world
filled with creatures     filled with dread
misshapen so     yet the best we have
our raft among the abstract worlds
and how I longed to live on this earth
walking her boundaries     never counting the cost

The best world is the body's world: Amen. This ain't no binge, friends. It's a way of life. Peace out.

(Photo Credit: Anon, Self-Portrait After Plank Workshop [2], 7/30/11)

Dear Abby

Would you please come home and raise the debt ceiling? Yours sincerely, US of A

Because, you know, I'm pretty sure she could.

(Photo Credit: Martin Meissner, Associated Press, via. AP caption: United States forward Abby Wambach celebrates after scoring the winning goal against France on Wednesday.)

Girl's got a good head on her shoulders, after all, which is more than you can say for the dudebros in DC these days.

(Photo Credit: Associated Press, via.)

Sigh. We are officially soccer-illiterate here in Roxie's World, but you know we love us any estrogen-fueled spectacle of power and grace, so we are all in for Abby and her gang o' high-kicking gal pals over there in Germany battling for the World Cup. You go, girls, and when it's over get your firm behinds home and get to work fixing any of the several. pickles. our nation. is currently in.

Meantime, whatever it is you do to win a soccer game, we hope you will do it supremely well against Japan on Sunday. Use your heads, wimmin. Right? Right! Go, team, go!

And, you, dudebros, being all preening and stupid and strateger-ic: Straighten up, fly right, and pay the bills. The clock is ticking, and your nation is sick of the dithering. Shut up and make a deal. Use your heads, if you can manage to pull them out of your un-firm behinds.

Yours sincerely, US of A

Progressive Versus Fauxgressive

A WaPo editorial on last night's passage of marriage equality in the Republican-controlled New York Senate nicely clarifies the distinction between a progressive Democrat (NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo) and a fauxgressive Democrat (MD Gov. Martin "You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy" O'Malley). Cuomo, according to the Post, fought hard for the bill, which makes civil marriage equality the law of six states and more than doubles the number of citizens who live in states that offer it: "[Cuomo] used the bully pulpit to garner public support around the state. He backed that up by using the power and prestige of the governor’s office behind the scenes. Cuomo was personally involved in securing votes until the very end."

Cuomo's high-profile activism on the issue and the legislative outcome are pretty much the opposite of what we saw in Maryland a few months ago when a marriage equality bill was up for a vote. Democrats here in the Free State control the House and Senate and occupy the governor's mansion. The Post explains how little that proved to matter for the state's LGBT citizens this spring:

The history made in New York stands in stark contrast to the disappointment in Maryland last March, when a similar effort failed. After passing the state Senate, a marriage-equality bill was referred back to committee in the House of Delegates after lawmakers who had supported the bill backed down in the face of opposition. Among those reneging on their commitment were Del. Tiffany T. Alston (D-Prince George’s) and Del. Sam Arora (D-Montgomery County), who got elected campaigning on the issue. For his part, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) supported the marriage-equality bill. He even lobbied some legislators behind the scenes. But as we learned in New York, legislation of this significance needs more than rhetorical hand-holding by the governor. It needs determined leadership.

Rhetorical hand-holding versus determined leadership, platitudes versus action, bull$hit versus the bully pulpit, losing versus winning: Yep, that sums up the difference between the fauxgressive and the progressive Democrat about as well as anything we've seen. We wish we could believe that You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy would aspire to be the latter rather than the former as he moves forward in his promising political career, but we're not holding our breath waiting for the tiger to change his stripes. O'Malley, we have learned, is less of a tiger than a pretty but ineffective kitty cat when it comes to tough fights on hot-button issues.

Thank you, Gov. Cuomo, for showing how it's done, and congratulations, New York, for bending the arc of the moral/legal universe a little further in the direction of justice here in the Weirdly Divided States of America. We heart you today and always.

(Photo Credits: Top: Nathaniel Brooks for the New York Times [via]; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs same-sex marriage bill late last night in Albany. Bottom: via; Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley looks up, in hope, perhaps, of finding his missing courage.)