The Republic of T.

It’s been quite a week. Between Rush Limbaugh’s penis and Barak Obama’s faith, I’m worn out. I guess that’s appropriate, since this week is the anniversary of the Stonewall riots which took place 37 years ago from in New York. Since then, to borrow from Lord Alfred Douglas and Pat Buchanan, the love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won’t shut up.

Poor Pat; pining away for the days when the cacophony of queer voices now heard in just about every medium were never heard above a whisper. If this week’s diaries, blog posts, and news are any indication he’s got another 30+ years to look forward to with the love that isn’t about to shut up. That is, unless we find ourselves with a lot less to talk (yell, scream, rant, holler, etc.) about by then. But that’s a bit far into the future. Let’s get back to this week.
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For anyone who noticed the lack of posts yesterday, between Rush Limbaugh’s penis and Barack Obama’s holy roll I found myself a bit worn out. That, combined with work and family, made me decide to take a day off from posting. It also gave me a day to take in the reaction to Obama across the blogosphere, and the reaction to the reaction across the blogosphere.

Having taken it all in, I’ve pretty much come to the same conclusion I did after YearlyKos. (Crossposted my Obama post to my DailyKos diary, and got further comments there.) For me it basically comes down to this being the apparent direction that the Democrats are going in, and it’s where lots of people want them to go. I don’t particularly like it, because it’s a road I don’t think I can go down with them, but — as I said before — I can’t fight everybody, let alone convince everybody. So, let the Dems do what they will. I’ll just do what I can.

Maybe I just get scared because I share the same (legitimate, I still think) concerns as others about the mingling of religion and public policy. Maybe I just get frustrated because I can see the destination, or at least I think I can, and I don’t understand why we’re taking the long way around to get there. There isn’t much more to say on the subject.

Well, maybe there is. In looking at all that was said in the aftermath of Obama’s speech, a few things occurred to me.

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In a story related to a previous post, it looks like the court won’t be supervising a Michigan teenage girl who ran off to the Middle East to meet a man she met on MySpace (and made it as far as Amaan, Jordan before U.S. authorities turned her around). Good for the the court. Shouldn’t the parents have been doing the supervising in the first place?

This is a bit of interesting news. I have a movie coming out on DVD. No, it’s not one I starred in. Just one I wrote, produced and directed. Sort of. Late last year I started playing The Movies, a movie studio simulation game, and posted about a couple of movies I made in the game. I uploaded one of them to YouTube, and promptly forgot about it until this week.

I received an email from some people in Australia about some DVD they were putting together, and would I like to have my movie included. It took a minute (and reading it a couple of times) before I realized they were talking about the movie I uploaded to YouTube back in January.

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Methinks I hear the sound of the other shoe dropping. And, as I said before, I shouldnt’ be surprised. It’s been coming for a while, and there have been plenty of signs along the way. I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it coming from Barack Obama either, given the hints he’s dropped before.

And it makes sense that he should be the one to finally come out and clarify the Democrats’ priority constituency for the foreseeable future. Inadvertently, his recent speech also clarifies for the rest of us our new place in line: behind the evangelicals.

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I may have been a little quick on the draw regarding Rush Limbaugh yesterday. I asked why a guy like Rush, an unmarried and un-paired conservative guy, would need to take Viagra to a country that has a thriving sex-trade (and, yes, some very nice resorts, as one commenter pointed out; though I don’t think anything precluded Rush from enjoying both on his trip). It seems I may have been wrong on at least one of my wild speculations.

Apparently, Rush may not be single. And he may not have gone to the Dominican Republic alone. But that still doesn’t explain why an upstanding, unmarried conservative guy would need Viagra. And, as this bit from Roll Call today explains, that still leaves some unanswered questions about the Viagra and why it was needed on this particular trip to the Dominican Republic.

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I’ve been wanting to give this blog a look of it’s own for a while now, rather than just grabbing a new theme and popping in a new header. But my design skills weren’t (and still aren’t) up to the job. So, I reached out to someone who’s done designs for blogs like Pandagon , Bitch Ph.D., and Feministe. What you should be seeing in your browser (if you aren’t, try dumping your cache and/or reloading) is the happy result.

What can I say? I love it!  The colors, the Buddha…everything!

So, thanks to Lauren for hooking me up with a hot new style! Folks, Lauren’s got skills. And, needless to say, I highly recommend her if you want a new style for your online digs.

Wow. Lots of people are interested in Rush Limbaugh’s penis, among them Wonkette (no surprise), AlterNet, Slate,  and First Draft.

I know it was only yesterday that Rush Limbaugh was held for having Viagra without a prescription, while making his way through customs at Palm Beach airport. And I know that the last thing anybody wants to think about first thing in the morning is Rush Limbaugh with an erection. But, as Todd and Ian point out, Rush has been rather hard on medical marijuana users and people who bring drugs into this country. So I’m disinclined to avoid speculation where Rush in concerned.

Besides John points out over at Americablog, it feels like there’s something missing from the story. I’ve been waiting for someone to point it out; ask the obvious question. What was Rush doing in the Dominican Republic? Why was he returning from a country known for its thriving sex trade, with a bottle of Viagra that didn’t have his name on it?

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Rush Limbaugh has been detained at the Palm Beach airport, after returning from the Dominican Republic, for possible potential of prescription medications. Without a prescription, that is. One of them was Viagra. He's on probation. Pull up a chair, folks. This just might get good.

Maybe I’m just evil, but if I were a librarian I’d order a new copy of this book every time this guy checked it out and refused to return it, until he had them stacked to the ceiling in every room of his house.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the various ways in which the shift in the party has been telegraphed of late, in everything from Hillary’s test-runs to the right to Dean’s pandering to Pat Robertson. We saw a successful dry-run of the gameplan in Tim Kaine’s candidacy in Virginia. The Democrats are hoping to win votes in Bush country.

Kansas has been an iconic state for the Republican right, a symbol for issues such as teaching creationism in schools and fighting abortion rights. The modern Republican party, masterminded by political guru Karl Rove, has harnessed fury over such topics to allow the Republicans to dominate US politics since 2000. This was the topic of Thomas Frank’s hit book of the 2004 presidential election campaign entitled: What’s The Matter With Kansas? It used the state’s falling under the spell of conservative Republicanism to explain national American politics.

But in a swath of heartland states such as Kansas, Democrats are seeing the first signs of their party’s rebirth. Parkinson is not alone in switching sides. In Virginia, Jim Webb, a one-time Reagan official, is seeking to be a Democrat senator. In South Carolina, top Republican prosecutor Barney Giese has defected after a spat with conservatives. Back in Kansas another top Republican, Paul Morrison, also joined the Democrats and is challenging a Republican to be the state attorney-general.

Democrats are hoping that the Republican party of President George W Bush has passed its high-water mark. That, faced with disaster in Iraq, a host of domestic troubles and terrible opinion poll ratings, they can start to retake power in November. From there they can start to take aim at the White House itself. They hope the powerful conservative movement born in states such as Kansas will also die there.

Like I said above, it’s no surprise. But the most telling part of the article is how they plan to win over “heartland” voters.

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Breaking: Gay marriages in the UK reach 6,500. Hetero marriages still intact. No signs of imminent apocalypse reported. Oceans not boiling. Mountains not crumbling. Civilization still stands. I guess "god" hasn’t picked up his messages yet.