First this from Bill De Broux:
Dear Randy,
A friend of mine, Jamie Kobie happens to have a home that he shares with his wife that is about 1/2 mile from downtown Big Bay. They have a huge front yard that you cannot see from 550. This front yard has two mobile trailers (the small one is booked for this event) with a big assed firepit and an OUTHOUSE for cripesakes plus water/elec hook-ups for more RV's. There is moocho room for popups and 40' RV's and the Kobie's are totally down with loading up their front yard with mobile accommodations for, say, THE ACTS?? The main house has two bathrooms and one guest bedroom with my name on it. This would be a good place where the musicians can rehearse/relax/lodge and the price is right. Zero bucks. So we have one mobile trailer donated to the cause(it sleeps four comfortably, six in a pinch) plus, we could take some donation bucks and rent as many popups as we need and park them there. I have another friend, Rick Wester, who is tracking down RV rental places for me there in the Yoop. Can you say "Charitable Donations"? I thought you could. My intentions are to badger the Hell out of these people for donated Lodging For The Stars.
Later,Bill.
“Leonard Matlovich: He served for 12 years in the US Air Force, received exemplary ratings, and won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After revealing his homosexual orientation, he was dishonorably discharged. His tombstone reads: ‘Here lies a man who was given a medal for killing two men, and a dishonorable discharge for loving one.’"
Dear Readers:
All apologies for being out of touch of late. Attending to academic responsibilities and musical endeavors often leaves time for little else. To that end, the task I’ve set for myself today will be to assess student writing. But to make it a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to intermittently comment on papers and compose a blog posting. The issue at hand is same-sex marriage. Welcome to my world.
What I find is that regardless of the position most students adopt, whether for or against an issue, like gay marriage, their main problem has to do with providing credible evidence to support their stance. In other words, their idle opinions all too often outweigh even a gesture toward citing authoritative sources. For instance, they might claim that same-sex marriage has to do with the individual right to pursue one’s desire, and vaguely refer to the pursuit of happiness clause in the Constitution; rather than address the more central idea that gay marriage is, at heart, a civil rights issue.
Ironically, many minority students, primarily African American and Mid-Eastern, are the first to miss this connection. One of the persistent misconceptions among blacks is that homosexuality is a choice, as if someone would choose to be shunned and discriminated against by mainstream society. Another is that same-sex couples should not be allowed to raise children or adopt for fear they will influence their offspring’s sexual orientation, which makes no sense considering that most homosexuals are raised in traditional family settings by heterosexual parents. No doubt this attitude is fostered by the false stereotype that homosexuals are somehow more sexually charged than heterosexuals.
What these cultural myths have in common is this: they are reinforced by an entrenched ideology that derives its authority from an overarching fundamentalist Christian morality. If we look at an excerpt from the paper before me, this shouldn’t be surprising. A U-M football player writes: “George W. Bush finally got something right when he said, 'The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith.’ Ex-president Bush made that statement on February 25, 2004 when he endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriages.” Leaving aside the unaddressed issue of Bush finding common ground with radical Islamic fundamentalists, the student attitude displayed here is typical of a troubling trend in many otherwise liberal African American communities, that of disassociating themselves with political policies that would serve their best socio-economic interests in favor of moral issues prescribed by Biblical scripture. In fact, many blacks, at the urging of their pastors, voted for the anti-abortion candidate, George W. Bush, rather than support Al Gore’s commitment to expand social and educational programs that would have addressed the desperate problems so woefully neglected in poor urban neighborhoods.
In short, a majority of the Christian ministers in cities like Detroit endorsed a moral agenda over the material needs of their flock. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that even a man as well educated and culturally sophisticated as Barack Obama, would be against same-sex marriage. You be the teacher. How would you respond to an argument against same-sex marriage based on the premise that “The Creator of the Universe established the relationship between a man and a woman, thus it is a divine pairing, not a human one.”
Just coincidentally, I watched Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” (2008) last night. While I thought it a bit didactic, Sean Penn’s performance gives this biopic a certain life that is often lost in attempts to recreate politically charged historical moments. The interspersed non-fictional clips that depict actual raids on homosexual clubs in the 1940s and 50s, as well as key moments in the fight for gay rights (the Stonewall riots) lends “Milk” the kind of credibility that might serve it well as a teaching prompt. While I suppose the depictions of physical intimacy are meant to deconstruct the polarity between deviant sexual behaviors and culturally constructed sexual norms, I found them somewhat unnecessary; but I should say I find most sexually explicit films a bit boring (I’d rather engage in sex than watch it on screen or in magazines). It’s purely a matter of taste, but movies, like “9 1/2 Weeks” or “Last Tango in Paris,” don’t interest me, although I highly recommend “Auto Focus,” Paul Schrader’s (recall “Taxi Driver,” one of my all time favorites) 2002 biopic on the life of the “Hogan’s Heroes” star, Bob Crane.
Best - Randy
Dear Randy,
A friend of mine, Jamie Kobie happens to have a home that he shares with his wife that is about 1/2 mile from downtown Big Bay. They have a huge front yard that you cannot see from 550. This front yard has two mobile trailers (the small one is booked for this event) with a big assed firepit and an OUTHOUSE for cripesakes plus water/elec hook-ups for more RV's. There is moocho room for popups and 40' RV's and the Kobie's are totally down with loading up their front yard with mobile accommodations for, say, THE ACTS?? The main house has two bathrooms and one guest bedroom with my name on it. This would be a good place where the musicians can rehearse/relax/lodge and the price is right. Zero bucks. So we have one mobile trailer donated to the cause(it sleeps four comfortably, six in a pinch) plus, we could take some donation bucks and rent as many popups as we need and park them there. I have another friend, Rick Wester, who is tracking down RV rental places for me there in the Yoop. Can you say "Charitable Donations"? I thought you could. My intentions are to badger the Hell out of these people for donated Lodging For The Stars.
Later,Bill.
“Leonard Matlovich: He served for 12 years in the US Air Force, received exemplary ratings, and won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After revealing his homosexual orientation, he was dishonorably discharged. His tombstone reads: ‘Here lies a man who was given a medal for killing two men, and a dishonorable discharge for loving one.’"
Dear Readers:
All apologies for being out of touch of late. Attending to academic responsibilities and musical endeavors often leaves time for little else. To that end, the task I’ve set for myself today will be to assess student writing. But to make it a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to intermittently comment on papers and compose a blog posting. The issue at hand is same-sex marriage. Welcome to my world.
What I find is that regardless of the position most students adopt, whether for or against an issue, like gay marriage, their main problem has to do with providing credible evidence to support their stance. In other words, their idle opinions all too often outweigh even a gesture toward citing authoritative sources. For instance, they might claim that same-sex marriage has to do with the individual right to pursue one’s desire, and vaguely refer to the pursuit of happiness clause in the Constitution; rather than address the more central idea that gay marriage is, at heart, a civil rights issue.
Ironically, many minority students, primarily African American and Mid-Eastern, are the first to miss this connection. One of the persistent misconceptions among blacks is that homosexuality is a choice, as if someone would choose to be shunned and discriminated against by mainstream society. Another is that same-sex couples should not be allowed to raise children or adopt for fear they will influence their offspring’s sexual orientation, which makes no sense considering that most homosexuals are raised in traditional family settings by heterosexual parents. No doubt this attitude is fostered by the false stereotype that homosexuals are somehow more sexually charged than heterosexuals.
What these cultural myths have in common is this: they are reinforced by an entrenched ideology that derives its authority from an overarching fundamentalist Christian morality. If we look at an excerpt from the paper before me, this shouldn’t be surprising. A U-M football player writes: “George W. Bush finally got something right when he said, 'The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith.’ Ex-president Bush made that statement on February 25, 2004 when he endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriages.” Leaving aside the unaddressed issue of Bush finding common ground with radical Islamic fundamentalists, the student attitude displayed here is typical of a troubling trend in many otherwise liberal African American communities, that of disassociating themselves with political policies that would serve their best socio-economic interests in favor of moral issues prescribed by Biblical scripture. In fact, many blacks, at the urging of their pastors, voted for the anti-abortion candidate, George W. Bush, rather than support Al Gore’s commitment to expand social and educational programs that would have addressed the desperate problems so woefully neglected in poor urban neighborhoods.
In short, a majority of the Christian ministers in cities like Detroit endorsed a moral agenda over the material needs of their flock. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that even a man as well educated and culturally sophisticated as Barack Obama, would be against same-sex marriage. You be the teacher. How would you respond to an argument against same-sex marriage based on the premise that “The Creator of the Universe established the relationship between a man and a woman, thus it is a divine pairing, not a human one.”
Just coincidentally, I watched Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” (2008) last night. While I thought it a bit didactic, Sean Penn’s performance gives this biopic a certain life that is often lost in attempts to recreate politically charged historical moments. The interspersed non-fictional clips that depict actual raids on homosexual clubs in the 1940s and 50s, as well as key moments in the fight for gay rights (the Stonewall riots) lends “Milk” the kind of credibility that might serve it well as a teaching prompt. While I suppose the depictions of physical intimacy are meant to deconstruct the polarity between deviant sexual behaviors and culturally constructed sexual norms, I found them somewhat unnecessary; but I should say I find most sexually explicit films a bit boring (I’d rather engage in sex than watch it on screen or in magazines). It’s purely a matter of taste, but movies, like “9 1/2 Weeks” or “Last Tango in Paris,” don’t interest me, although I highly recommend “Auto Focus,” Paul Schrader’s (recall “Taxi Driver,” one of my all time favorites) 2002 biopic on the life of the “Hogan’s Heroes” star, Bob Crane.
Best - Randy
1 comment:
It always amazes me how people are conned into participating in their own enslavement. One thinks they are free by keeping other people down. How sad.
gl
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