He won't or can't encrypt The toxic thoughts emanating From his cranium. He doesn't even try to hide them Under a bush, oh no, And attempts to radiate goodness And cloak the toxins In a warp of avuncular benevolence, But the unfeeling insect eyes Stare through and past you And the absence of humanity Burns chinks in your retinae With real and imagined thought crimes. This is no personality disorder Where something broken Might be fixed This is an actual defecit Where the soul is missing And presumed dead, Lost somewhere along the way. Maybe he scuttled his soul To the bottom of a rumbling green river. Maybe it was never issued In the first place. ---o0o---
Top ranking insiders in the Republican Party have disclosed to Vanya Newton at All This Is That's Washington D.C. desk that the party is debating changing its positions on homosexuality. The party has long battled against gays in the military, equal rights for gays, anti-gay discrimination, and gay marriage and adoptions. "In light of recent events," one official told us, "we have begun rethinking these policies." The senior official would not speak for attribution. Another top ranking Republican said, "this isn't totally foreign to us, as you well know. The Log Cabin Republicans have a long tradition in our party now."
Interestingly, the Log Cabin group may not be on board. Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon made the following statement about the resignation of Senator Larry Craig (R-ID): Senator Craig made the right decision in resigning from the U.S. Senate. He lost his credibility to serve the people of Idaho and his actions damaged the credibility of the Republican Party. Senator Craig had no other choice but to resign—for the good of his State, the good of his Party, and the good of his family."
"Of course, that's what the Log Cabin guys say," another G.O.P. source told us. "They fought for years to 'mainstream,' and these knuckleheads are ruining it for them. At least they have achieved a patina of respectability, and now they see it all falling apart."
A leading fund-raiser inside the party said, "Look, it sounds completely crazy, but it's kind of like 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do,' or even 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' I mean, just this year you've got Congressman Mark Foley slobbering all over the pages; Reverend Ted Haggard buying gay prostitutes (and snorting crank!); Senator Craig, of course...or, the straw that broke the camel's back; Congressman Bob Allen offering an undercover cop $20 for oral sex; and Glen Murphy Jr., chair of the Clark County Party, who got himself in quite a pickle fellatng a sleeping man who turned out not to be gay at all."
The Republican money man added "If this is who we are, let's accept it. Let's bring in the gay voters. God knows, we need them now. We are not going to win any elections going forward shoveling the same old s**t at the voters. We didn't know it before, but we are clearly the gay party. It's time to accept that, embrace it, and exploit it."
A top aide to Republican Chair Mike Duncan said that the high command of the Republican Party is meeting in Key West at a weekend retreat to discuss whether this change in direction is viable."That's five righteous outings this year alone, man! How many dozens more went unreported? You can see why it might be in our best interest to embrace the gay lifestyle, if not in practice, with our support for our differently swinging brothers and sisters. The outcome of all this may well be that we don't end up supporting the gays, but we need to dial back the rhetoric and the anger and the hatred. . .at the very least. Sure, we may lose a few red states. So what? Think of all those blue states out there, ripe for the plucking." ---o0o---
In Robert Draper's forthcoming book, "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," taken from several extended interviews in late 2006 and early 2007, President Bush is quoted as saying, "I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."
"I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve" or show anything less than steadfastness in public, especially in a time of war.
"I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me," he said, "I do tears."
click to enlarge - Uncle Bill with his twin sister Betty, August 18, 2007, two days before his death. Photograph by Loa Brummet Servis.
Earlier today, I gave the eulogy for my Uncle Bill Jones at a memorial service. I wrote about him a little bit and posted some pictures the day after he died. It was my birthday today, which made it all just a little bit strange. However, I did get to celebrate a bit later in the night at the Black Bottle in Belltown with Daryle Conners and Keelin Curran. We had drinks and dinner right after attending a lecture by the Buddhist guru Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong, who was fantastic! About which, more later. . .
I reprint the eulogy here because a few people at the memorial wanted a copy, and as a memorial to my Uncle
_____________________________
In this eulogy, I am going to have to call him Uncle Bill. I’ve never known him as anything else. You are his children, grandchildren, sister, friends, brother and sister in laws, daughter and son in laws. To me he was Uncle Bill, and all that entailed.
The things that seemed to matter most to Uncle Bill were, in this order:
His wife, children and grandchildren and sister. Scouting. Bowling. Work. Coffee. Ballard. And the ponies.
Since he suffered a major stroke, my family visited Uncle Bill every week or two. No matter when we came, if he had been awake or he had been sleeping, he would let you know he was glad to see you and usually tell a joke or two.
Even after his stroke, he remembered those things that gave him such great pleasure in life. And he talked about those things: cars, horse-races, his wife, work, and his kids. The details were often jumbled, but he always became animated whenever he talked about his family.
I don’t think Uncle Bill remembered lately, but earlier in our life we spent plenty of time in heated debate—the Republican vs. the Democrat, or the former sailor against the hippy, and he would explain why he didn’t like my haircut, my choice of presidential candidates, or my views on the war. He loved to yank my chain and I’m pretty sure that’s how I became a chain-yanker myself. But we always walked away friends. A lot of my memories of Uncle Bill focus on making the trek from the farm town of Kent out to the big city—Ballard, a place he loved (in fact, he regularly razzed us about living “in the sticks”). I remember his patient exasperation when he took me bowling once and I rolled about a 12, or on a Boy Scout trip when I was 11 and he had to teach me how to stay dry, fed, and not be homesick.
Uncle Bill often used my last name. In that booming voice of his, he would call out “Brummet! Come over here.” I think calling me Brummet was his way of letting me know I was by no means a pure-bred Jones, and while he loved and accepted us, there was a hint of suspicion about the Jones blood having mingled with those hillbilly Brummet genes.
Another wonderful memory I have is of Uncle Bill and our Grandpa Jones spinning their gambling stories, and how even then I wondered if they had really won all that money why they weren’t rich? They could spend hours talking about Nevada and the ones that got away…
When we walked in the door of the Ida Culver house, he would ask “What the heck brought you all the way up here?” He couldn’t sort out all the details—but he knew we were family and that was good enough. Often, we would hash out the details of who was who and even when he wasn’t quite sure, he went along with it, good-naturedly humoring us, as we were good naturedly humoring him. Even up to August 18th, when we saw him for the last time, he still had his sense of humor. The first thing he said to me was:
“What took you so long?” “You were waiting?” I asked. “I was,” he said. “Well, you couldn’t have been waiting too hard, since we had to wake you up.” “We all have our own ways of waiting.” And that was the last joke I would ever hear him tell.
Except for one person who had been there two months longer, Uncle Bill lived in the Ida Culver House longer than anyone else. He was a favorite of the nurses and orderlies, who would all stop to talk to him. He was the most radiant person in the place. The nurses liked to bring him snacks and cups of his beloved black coffee.
Despite the confusion, and confinement, and aching knees, he kept up right to the very end smiling and enduring.
One of my favorite pictures of Uncle Bill and my mom was their baby picture, taken in 1923. It’s a charming, “old-fashioned” picture [note: hold up the photo Jack!] and even 40 years ago, I remember thinking how long ago 1923 was and what a different world it was and is.
Last week, we celebrated the twins 84th birthday with him. I don’t know what he wished for, but as soon as he blew out the candles, Uncle Bill urged us on to the main event: cake and coffee. My sister gave him a new pair of gleaming white tennis shoes. He put the shoes on, and was sportin’ and totally enjoying having a new pair of kicks.
As he always did when we left, he extracted a promise from us to come back soon. My last glimpse of him was him waving with that roguish smile of his as the door closed behind us.
I know the last four years weren’t his best years, but I am glad we had them. We learned something about love and family. I know he felt the love of this entire family and took comfort in that.
And I also know that if there is a Heaven, Uncle Bill is up there, in the Grandstand, with a cup of coffee, a Racing Form, and Aunt Jean at his side, cheering on Seabiscuit as she runs against Citation, Secretariat, and Seattle Slew.
On his web site, Senator Larry Craig invites us to write him for a signed photograph, which I did, and also passed along my best wishes that he not let himself be railroaded by these trumped up charges!
Recent articles on the Senator on All This Is That:
My brother and sister in law, Dean and Mary, brought back an oil painting for me that they discovered in Masaya, Nicaragua, at one of the art markets. You can read about their trip at the notorious Almost There In No Time.
When they saw this canvas, they knew just who would love the work. As it turns out, Dean Ericksentold me there were dozens of paintings of people sitting on the toilet in the art stalls! I have researched this up and down the 'net and been unable to find any references to how this genre of painting came to be popular in Masaya, Nicaragua. I may have to travel there to find the answer. Dean did say that much of the art clearly mimicked popular or well-known painters, like Diego Rivera or Posada. Clearly there was some germination point, and I am hoping one of our readers can either find information, or may even know about this subject matter. Clearly, the palette is Mexican/Central American. The colors, tilework, and spartan furnishings of the bath absolutely remind me of baths in places I have seen or stayed in Jalisco and Nayarit.
The painting is on stretched canvas. The stretcher bars are not the traditional ones we use in the U.S., but they are mitered. The bars don't seem to be interlocking, but they are tight. The canvas itself is fairly light. The canvas, along the edges is clearly not primed, but I think it may be primed under the actual face of the canvas, where the oil paint was applied. Instead of the canvas staples we use, the canvas is attached to the stretchers by small galvanized nails or brads. The paint is glazed with some sort of medium or varnish; I can tell because they missed a very small patch. It almost looks like there was some sort of mistake that was painted over on the yellow wall, and they forgot to varnish that correction. The painting seems to have been signed by "Velasquez" and it seems to have the abbreviation "Nic."
I have seen numerous impressionist paintings focused around the bath, but none with such an explicit focus on the toilet itself. In those paintings, you usually see a zoftig woman combing her hair. In this painting however, the subject of the painting is clearly using the toilet, with her panties resting just below knee-level. I don't know how to explain this one, but I gladly display it, alongside my other treasured folk-art pieces. . .none of which I really know the provenance of. If you just winced, yeah, I know it's trefto end a sentence with a preposition. It's late and I'm feeling lazy. Selah. ---o0o---
Updating last night's story on the cork-soaking Senator, we have a couple new items to share.
1) The Mug Shot (right after he pulled the old "do you know who I am?" defense): Senator Craig's June 11, 2007 mug shot, courtesy of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport Police
2) Two TV personalities on the CBS affiliate in Sacramento perform a rather funny video re-enactment of the Senator's latrine encounter. It is as hilarious as it is bizarre.
3) At a news conference today (with his wife Suzanne, who will, of course, file for divorce in six months), Wide-stance Craig said the only thing he had done wrong was to plead guilty after a complaint of lewd conduct in a men's room. He told reporters, "I am not gay. I never have been gay." "I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport."
Senator Larry Craig, a founding member of Cork Soakers anonymous
Another member of the party of Abraham Lincoln has been outed as an afficionado of hot man-on-man action. U.S. Senator Larry Craig was busted in June by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints at the St. Paul-Minneapolis Airport. Little did the Senator know that the airport was hot—they had just begun an undercover operation investigating rampant gay activity in the airport's latrines. If you're interested, read the arresting officer's report, along with The Senator's laughable explanation [1]. While I don't think twice about a politician's proclivities—whatever way they swing—I do think twice when a vociferously anti-gay senator turns out to enjoy a touch of cork-soaking himself.
It's difficult to find the right nomenclature for an episode like this when you're publishing a story in a family-oriented site such as All This Is That. I first turned to Thesarus.com, which suggested the words I was looking for to describe one of the Senator's favorite acts was "cake-server." Now, that's actually not bad at all. . .but I decided to go with the near-homonym cork-soaker.
Senator Craig pleaded guilty this month to a charge of disorderly conduct for his actions in a public men's bathroom. Paradoxically, Senator Craig in the last couple of years: - Voted yes on the constitutional same-sex marriage ban. - Voted no on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. - Voted no on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. - Voted yes on prohibiting same-sex marriage. - Voted no on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation
The Senator appears to have soaked a large number of corks over the last few years. In 2006, a gay activist said he had spoken with men who had sexual encounters with Craig, including in the restrooms at Union Station. Craig's office told the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., that the allegations were "completely ridiculous."
As early as 1982, accusations were being lobbed against the Senator. Check out this vintage 1982 YouTube video (Frank Reynolds...wow) of the Senator denying allegations of rampant cork soaking and cake serving:
Craig, who served in the National Guard, has also spoken out against homosexuals serving in the military, despite his own service, about which no allegations have yet surfaced.
Trent Lott, Senator Craig, Senator John Ashcroft. Singing group, or gay cabal? You be the judge!
Craig was a member of the "Singing Senators," a now-defunct Republican barbershop quartet. It included Sen. Trent Lott and then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft, who broke up the group when he was named attorney general. Were Senators Lott, Ashcroft, and Jeffords also fellow-travelers in the cork-soaking world?
As of today, anyhow, the incumbent Senator Craig is still a contestant in the 2008 Senate race/ No one knows with certainty how his continuing the race might fly in his home state of Idaho, a hotbed of Mormon and ultra-conservative beliefs (not to mention the Nazis). But we can guess. Perhaps Idahoans are a less conservative lot than we've been led to believe. Perhaps Idahoans don't even mind an occassional cork soaking episode at the airport. I'm pretty sure we'll find out soon.
Other recent articles on gay Reublican politicians:
[1] According to Roll Call, the arresting officer sat in a bathroom stall as part of an undercover operation investigating previous reports of sexual activity in the bathroom. After about 13 minutes of sitting in the stall, he observed Craig linger outside and frequently peak through the stall's door crack at him. Craig then entered the stall next to his. The officer filed the following in his report of the incident as to what happened next: At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot.... The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area. Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times. Craig stated "that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine," the arrest report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor. "It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper," the arresting officer said in the report.
According to the police report, at one point Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?"
In a press release on his website, Craig said that the officer misconstrued his actions, that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct, and had failed to seek legal counsel: "In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously." ---o0o---
This is the text of President Bush's announcement today.
This morning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that he will leave the Department of Justice after two and a half years of service to the department.
Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle, and I have reluctantly accepted his resignation with great appreciation for the service that he has provided for our country.
As attorney general and before that as White House counsel, Al Gonzales has played a critical role in shaping our policies in the war on terror and has worked tirelessly to make this country safer. The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other important laws bear his imprint.
Under his leadership, the Justice Department has made a priority of protecting children from Internet predators, made enforcement of civil rights laws a top priority. He aggressively and successfully pursued public corruption and effectively combated gang violence.
As attorney general, he played an important role in helping to confirm two fine jurists in Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
He did an outstanding job as White House counsel, identifying and recommending the best nominees to fill critically important federal court vacancies.
Alberto Gonzales' tenure as attorney general and White House counsel is only part of a long history of distinguished public service that began as a young man when after high school he enlisted in the United States Air Force.
When I became governor of Texas in 1995, I recruited him from one of Texas' prestigious law firms to be my general counsel. He went on to become Texas' 100th secretary of state and to serve on our state's supreme court.
In the long course of our work together this trusted adviser became a close friend.
These various positions have required sacrifice from Al, his wife Becky, their sons Jared, Graham and Gabriel. And I thank them for their service to the country.
After months of unfair treatment, that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position and I accept his decision.
It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.
I've asked Solicitor General Paul Clement to serve as acting attorney general upon Alberto Gonzales' departure and until a nominee has been confirmed by the Senate.
He's agreed to do so.
Paul is one of the finest lawyers in America. As solicitor general, Paul has a representation of fairness and earned the respect and confidence of the entire Justice Department. Thank you. ---o0o---
