Hola from Santiago, Chile

Hi kids, am in South America this week for work. First stop: Santiago, Chile. Six million chic, well-dressed people call this city, nestled beneath the Andes alongside several rivers, home. What stands out? This is the cleanest and most modern city I´ve ever seen in Latin America. Have had lots of interesting chats with the locals about gay life, politics and Madonna - more details on that to come but time is limited and I didn´t bring a laptop. Argh.

Stay tuned...

Bea, Thank You for Being a Friend

Picture it: Brooklyn, 1989. A wide-eyed Latino kid ignores the game of stickball unfolding on the street outside his brownstone to sit in front of the TV and laugh along to the salty adventures of four old ladies living in Miami. The references to Broadway and silver-screen legends fly over his head, yet, for some reason, he feels at home in a world of cheesecake and hot flahses.

Sigh. I'm mourning the passing of Bea Arthur today.

Growing up, I was the kind of kid who gravitated toward adults. Spending summers in Colombia with two over-protective and hyper-opinionated grandparents taught me to feel comfortable around older people - especially when my grandmother, to this day, dictates that one should sing or entertain her somehow for their supper. Leaving them behind after a month or two was always hard, but soon enough I'd find solace in the hijinks of Dorothy, Rose, Sophia and Blanche, otherwise known as The Golden Girls.

The show is my gay cultural touchstone. Much like queens of yore fondly recall singing along to the score of Funny Girl, it would be years before I would connect the dots between my own gayness and fondness for the Golden Girls. Little did I know that while I was sitting in front of the TV on Saturday night laughing along to Dorothy's acerbic retorts (e.g. Rose, played by Betty White, once asked Dorothy "why do people die?" to which Dorothy replies "I don't know Rose, I still haven't figured out why fools fall in love.") the boys across the river in Chelsea were watching the show at their favorite bars.

And why wouldn't they? At the height of the AIDS epidemic the show tackled the issue head on, and approached other gay and lesbian issues with frankness and compassion. In a time when the gay community felt especially marginalized, the Golden Girls provided relatable characters who also dealt with the malignment of youth-obsessed society with laughter, men, and food. The ladies were the moms we wished we had or loved to pieces, their heartaches and joys resonated at any age, and their camaraderie seemed genuine and powerful, much like the friendships gay men forge to bound against the world.

Today, years after my Saturday nights with The Golden Girls, I still stop by the lanai and prop a seat on the ladies' wicker sofa to listen to Rose's St.Olaf stories and watch Blanche's sexcapades. While I have a bit of Blanche streak, Dorothy's sharp-tongue and Brooklyn girl savvy always spoke to me.

Here's to you, Bea.

Beauty Queens, Bloggers, Hos- We're All Entitled to an Opinion

I should have jumped on the story sooner, but seeing as people are still hot over the gay marriage slapfest that ensued at the Miss USA pageant, there's room for my opinion on the matter.
Image: PerezHilton.com

Here's what went down: At this past weekend's Miss USA pageant, celeb blogger Perez Hilton asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, if she thought other states in the union should legalize gay marriage. Prejean responded that, while everyone has a right to choice in this country, she personally believes marriage should be limited to a man and a woman - and she made it very clear that she meant no offense to anyone.

How nice.

While it's certainly not the right answer to give a gay man when you're dressed like a drag queen, hers was an honest answer and she is entitled to her opinion. And so is the self-proclaimed queen of all media, Perez, who took the web immediately after the pageant to call Prejean a "dumb bitch." That's Perez, that's his brand, he will shout you out and draw a penis on your mouth. Why are we all shocked by his behavior now?

Surprisngly, CNN and Fox News have both come out against Perez, saying that his attack on Prejean was unfair. Who would have thought that sequins and some salty language would bring the two networks together?

Personally, I think both Perez and Prejean should be applauded for being candid about their beliefs. Of course I think Prejean is prejudiced and ignorant, but hey, this is a free country and she's entitled to her opinion.

Let's not forget: Bush, Obama and the Clintons all agree that marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. So our liberal champions haven't really done the gay community much good on this issue either.

What's really got the press and the public in a frenzy is a well-orchestrated stunt pulled off by Perez. Bravo to him and the spotlight he's cast on the issue - if only it were so easy for me to wrangle the media.

Yo, Rudy: Shut Your Mouth When You're Talkin' About Gay Marriage

My friends, I hope you would agree that this blog is a civil forum for the discussion of the most pressing topics affecting our planet. I am, if nothing else, a gentleman. But sometimes you gotta do like Oprah after the show and take your shoes off and just start swangin' at dumb-ass people that needle you into a brawl. Or, if you're a pansy like me, a nasty blog post.

Hi, Rudy Giuliani - welcome back from political obscurity. It had been a minute since I last thought about how stupid and slimy you are.

The former NYC mayor and clumsy presidential contender, who would scream "fire!" in a crowded theater for attention, is back to his old shenanigans, elbowing his way into the gay marriage debate. In an interview with the New York Post (snicker) this week, he addressed New York Governor David Paterson's move to legalize gay marriage in the state: "Marriage, I believe, both traditionally and legally, has always been between a man and a woman and should remain between a man and woman."

Now picture me smiling and nodding at this prick all polite and such before I throw a martini in his face and remind him of his Gay Pride marching back in the 90s.

Rudy, you dropped the ball in the GOP primaries - nobody bought your redeemed conservative act which is why the heartland gave you a pat on the bum and sent you and your honking, obnoxious wife back to the hovel from whence y'all came. But now here you are, trying to get your come-up off the gays. You're an attention-seeking, depraved starlet at best, but you're mostly a prick. Your kids told me so.

Let's not be delayed, people: Rudy is taking a shot at your life and is hinging his aspirations for world domination on the hopes that he can stir the GOP to consensus by hate.

OK Rudy, we wanted to play nice but now you're getting a little out of hand. While we don't expect your opinion to matter much we're aware of your scheming and witch hunting and we won't let you get away with it.

Narcissism: Live It

From USA Today: "In her new book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia say research shows more young people today have 'narcissistic traits' than in previous generations. Such traits, Twenge says, include a very positive and inflated sense of self, which is illustrated by a preoccupation with MySpace, Facebook and YouTube."

Well, color me not surprised. I don't need a book to fall on my head, or slap me in the face, or back me into a corner to know that narcissism and entitlement are on the rise among young adults. Hello, I work in public relations. But I don't know if I would place the blame squarely on social media platforms, I mean, let's also cast an eye of scorn and judgement upon those parents who still cut the crust off their children's sandwiches well into their twenties. They've crippled a generation of people who can can't string a sentence together or tie their sholeaces - these are also the same people who took out loans on homes they could not afford and spent spent spent money that just wasn't there and have burned our economic system into the ground. These folks didn't have Facebook pages and certainly weren't tweeting about their reckless spending, but sure enough their entitlement has become everyone's problem. And let's not forget our former president, the poster child of the entitled, narcissistic baby boomers who took us to war to make sure the Real Housewives of wherever have gas for their Hummers.

So, there's lots of blame to go around with lots of living and breathing culprits at the top of the list of suspects for the epidemic of me-me-me.

Another Way of Dealing with Chavez

A few people are ticked off over President Obama's handshakes and bear hugs with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the fifth Summit of the Americas, which ended yesterday in Trinidad & Tobago. While the sight of our president laughing it up with Chavez is unpalattable, such is the cost of Obama's New Deal: democracy with a smile, not military threats.

Leading the chorus of tea partyers and Obama haters on CNN was senator John Ensign (R-Nev): "This is a person [Chavez] who is one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world [...] He is a brutal dictator and human rights violations are very, very prevalent in Venezuela. And you have to be careful. When you're talking about the prestige of the United States and the presidency of the United States, you have to be careful who you're seen joking around with."

True, we can spend the rest of our lives talking about how horrible Chavez is. But we can also make an attempt to re-establish diplomatic relations with a country that is exerting a lot of influence in our hemisphere. As Latin America teeters dangerously toward the left and many leaders continue to use words like Yankee Imperialism, it's up to us to respect the sovereignty of these nations and their elected officials - whether we agree with them or not. Unless you think we can afford a war with Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, North Korea, and anyone else who doesn't want to play nice with us.

Our president is setting an example for the way diplomacy should work. This doesn't undermine our military might nor does it compromise our national security but places the responsibility of reciprocity squarely on the shoulders of leaders who tell their people that the U.S. is out to get them. We're certainly capable of armed combat but we're open to a softer approach - let's give that a chance for now.

The Cabal of Gay Marriage Opponents in New York

Headline from today's NY Daily News: "On first day as archbishop, Dolan says he won't 'shy away' from gay marriage fight"

That would be New York's new Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, whose first day in office (today) coincides with the introduction of a bill in favor of gay marriage by New York Governor David Paterson. Joining the cacophany of otherwise distracted public figures who have been riled from ignoring the real issues that affect New Yorkers is Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., from the South Bronx, who called Paterson's decision to introduce a gay marriage bill on Dolan's first day as Archbishop "disrespectful."

Listen Ruben, focus on the pandemic crime, high school drop out rates and teenage pregnancies in your part of the city and stop trying to deny New Yorkers their basic civil rights. As for Archbishop Dolan, whom you wouldn't know from a hole in the wall, way to make a first impression. Bravo.

Another issue in this debate - which hasn't seemed to rile up the gays I know - is Governor Paterson's ability to even see this bill turned into law. With diminishing support in general for his administration, and the lack of consensus from gay rights groups in the States, the folks at Queerty wonder if this is all just a publicity stunt that ends with a thud in the state senate?

Whether the bill goes through or not, we can certainly expect for the usual suspects, those publicity-seeking rabblerousers, to paint a grim picture for the future of the American family. Lord, I don't think I can take another 45 state debates on this issue.

The Problem With Cuba: They Don't Have Pandas

The thing about introducing bold, progressive policy is that you're never going to please everyone, not least the people whom the policy is meant to help. Case in point: President Obama's newly lifted restrictions on travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens who have family on the island. On both sides of the Cuba debate, one thing is clear: the policy is flawed, limited, and an (un)intentional endorsement of Fidel Castro's regime.

A fair enough point, so, can we talk about China for a minute and how we can't get enough of their trespasses on human rights? If we can court and applaud a regime that's one billion plus people strong and hell-bent on scorching the earth with contaminants and poisoning the world with lead-tainted products, we can surely extend an olive branch to our friends south of Miami.

You know what the problem with Cuba is? They don't have pandas. If they had cuddly, droopy eyed pandas then the US would be all over them. Alas, the island nation only has miles of sugar cane and tobacco.

People, would you like to go back to the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs fiasco?

Of course Barack isn't endorsing Castro's regime, he's not even saying that Castro was right all along. What our country is realizing, after forty years of misguided, stubborn policy, is that with 90 miles of water between the U.S. and Cuba, and lots of heartache on both sides of the divide, it's time for new thinking on the subject - and who better to guide that thinking than the U.S.? A conciliatory approach to foreign relations is not an admission of defeat, it's an acknowledgement of the fact that trying to work together toward coexistence is better than ignoring each other all together.

True, the Cuban government is going to impose a 30 percent tax on remittances - an exhorbitant fee for sure - but that's just grandstanding by La Revolucion in the wake of all this pro-USA sentiment that's likely resurged in the country now that the embargo is showing the first signs of easing up. I would expect for these fees to come down soon enough once the initial wave of media interest in this story dies down.

My take on the matter: it's time for a new point of view on Cuba. The US is finally seizing an opportunity to realign the thinking of the Western Hemisphere toward a pro-democracy, pro-US stance.

On Day 1 of Citi Field

Y'all didn't think my first post after a week-long hiatus would be about baseball, did you? Well, don't worry. I'm not going to write about cutie pants David Wright, but instead, the gross waste of money that is Citi Field (and the new Yankee Stadium).


How fitting that the Mets' new stadium should bear the name of one of the biggest culprits in the financial crash of 2008. All the greed and entitlement - buzz words tossed around in the how-could-this-happen-when-we-thought-it-never-would coverage of the recession - now have a shrine where fat, beer-guzzling, nacho-eating plebes can go worship overpaid and undereducated grown men playing a kids' game. The combined cost for both unnecessary stadiums: over 2 billion dollars. And we wonder why America is going to hell in a handbasket.

If America has been compared to an empire in decline before, then it's only fitting that our nation's greatest city should have not one, but two, Colosseums of its very own. So nevermind the homeless, or those people the presidential candidates called out during the campaign - those poor working stiffs or feeble retirees who live hand-to-mouth - they dont exist anymore apparently because corporate America, and the American public have money to spare.

Now, who was to know that by the time opening day rolled around for these two colossal wastes of private and public funds, that Americans would be trying to embrace some semblance of austerity. Now that conspicious consumption is out, we have two billion dollars worth of ego and greed to look at and remind us of how warped our values are.

The L Word

The panic over the violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has some academics, journalists and politicians making a case for the legalization of marijuana and other drugs. Yours truly supports the idea.
*Image: The Economist

During her visit to Mexico last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that Mexico's drug problem is our problem given the U.S.' demand for illegal drugs, a welcome departure from our country's usual high-handed point of view on the subject that placed the blame for the drug wars squarely on drug-producing nations. And while that gesture of humility is appreciated, the fact remains that the U.S. continues to spend a lot of money on a broken system that still yields ridiculous profits for drug cartels, corrupt government officials and anyone else who's done with trying to get by through legal means.

Calling legalization "the least bad" solution to the problem of illegal drugs, The Economist attempts to break down the process of collecting tax on cocaine while admitting the potential public health pitfalls of such a move: "Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned. Different drugs would command different levels of taxation and regulation. This system would be fiddly and imperfect, requiring constant monitoring and hard-to-measure trade-offs. Post-tax prices should be set at a level that would strike a balance between damping down use on the one hand, and discouraging a black market and the desperate acts of theft and prostitution to which addicts now resort to feed their habits."

Here in the U.S., Latino USA, one of my fav NPR programs, recently delved into the legalization debate and interviewed Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California who is open to having her homestate try a pilot program that would examine the potential gains of decriminalizing marijuana. The show also interviewed University of Miami Professor Bruce Bagley, an expert on drug cartels and violence, who said that while decriminalisation has always been an option in the war on drugs, it's a solution that most Americans just can't rally behind.
***

My take on the matter, as someone who has never tried drugs - which I'm not saying in some grandiose way, I'm just letting you know that I'm not a burnout - is that, regardless of my moral opinion on the subject, the death toll among law enforcement officials and civilians speaks to gross inefficiencies in a system that is, ironically, supposed to ensure the public's safety. And where some people may, rightfully so, see a public health challenge, I see an opportunity for our society to turn what has been the scourge of democracy and civility in many parts of the world into a vehicle for change and progress.

Michelle Obama: From Good Times to High Times

It's America's fashion moment on the world scene and girl, I love it. Europe has fallen to the charms of Michelle Obama. From the moment she set foot on Brit soil in a look-at-me yellow Jason Wu dress, our First Lady ushered in a new era of US-European relations. Yellow, the color of friendship, was amped up to a blinding, mega-watt affair that said "sorry about the last eight years," and "yeah, you want this." A demure, knee-length wrap served to elongate her ebony legs and zing! went the strings of my heart.

But that was just the start of Michelle's sartorial rapprochement with Europe. Forget the 99 cent American flag lapel pin, Michelle is unflinchingly patriotic in American designs from J.Crew and Michael Kors - yes, you can get these frocks online AND wear them for tea with the Queen. Shoppers, on your marks...

To spend this much time talking about Michelle's clothes may seem, to some misguided heathens in Birkenstocks and sweat pants, to be frivolous - even offensive - given the current economy. As one of my colleagues recently pointed out, the economy is just another fad, so you know what? Let's stop using it as an excuse to not live our lives - I love Michelle, her clothes, and I can't get enough. Besides, everywhere she goes our First Lady isn't just a representative of our nation, she's also a role model for people of color in the industrial world. From council youths in Britain to project chicks here in the States, Michelle is a walking billboard for the virtues of higher education, and that's a message that bears repeating again and again.

Now, a few weeks ago New York magazine placed Michelle Obama on the cover and included essays from a bunch of writers on the impact she's expected to have - from her curves to her Ivy League pedigree - the main idea is that Michelle can do no wrong and oh my god, I think she walks on water. I rolled my eyes at the articles, finding them trite, sycophantic and whatever other ten-dollar word you want to use to describe brazen ass kissing. However, the point I'm trying to make with my post is that I find our First Lady inspirational - yes, from that superficial gay perspective that loves all that glitters, but also from the perspective of a young man of color who applauds the example Michelle Obama is setting for the working class. Our Southside Girl is movin on up, breaking barriers, redefining style, and making friends around the world. Now that's jet set.

Guns and Knives Don’t Kill People, Gays Do

Don’t you just love the conservative agenda? Whenever violence involving guns happens, the ultra-right wing NRA takes to the streets of whatever town the tragedy takes place in, and with no regard to the relationship between guns and violence, touts Americans’ rights to bear arms. Because one never knows when the British are going to attack us again. At the same time, the murder of an ABC radio reporter here in New York last week, allegedly at the hands of a sixteen-year-old with a penchant for knives and Satanism, has given anti-gay groups the jolt of validation it needs to proclaim that yes, rampant promiscuity in the gay community can only have one violent, deadly end. So sayeth the Lord, no?

I’ll be the first to admit that it's unseemly to troll the internet looking for rough, cocaine-fueled sex with strangers. Still, in the case of George Weber, the murdered man who will be remembered not as a respected journalist but as a pervert who engaged in sex with minors, the indictments are all aimed at him and not at the tech-savvy teen who had likely been drinking and doping up long before he crossed paths with Weber. But that isn’t the point, really. The point the conservative, anti-gay groups would like to make is that this is “part and parcel of the gay lifestyle.”

Nevermind, for instance, that the spate of family homicides in the U.S. – you know, those ghastly stories of men killing their wives, children and then themselves – have been perpetrated by otherwise upstanding, heterosexual men. These are isolated incidents, right? No one would say that they’re the product of festering homicidal tendencies that all heterosexual people harbor within. Well, I would – just to illustrate how stupid and self-serving such a statement would be.

Fun Times at GLAAD Media Awards

Being gay, even in Barack’s America, is a lot of work. I realized this over the weekend as James and I soaked in the A-gayness of the 2009 GLAAD Media Awards here in New York and sat through moving speeches by celebs (Tyra! Suze Orman! Phil Donohue!) and up-and-coming leaders who work to promote “fair, accurate and inclusive representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” across all media. As I’ve said before on this blog, between the skinny jeans look-at-me-and-how-smart-I-am ways of New York and the white-capped-teeth, too-cool-for-school blitheness of Los Angeles, there are a lot of Americans who get their depictions of gays and lesbians from their churches, elected officials, and –gasp – the Fox News Channel. What that means is that, for every negative, stereotypical depiction of an LGBT person in a newspaper cartoon or for every speech by a member of our government denigrating the legitimacy of a same-sex partnership, an American stands to lose the full benefit of citizenship: employment, access to healthcare, the right to care for their partner when they are ill.

This was impressed upon me during a speech by the former Executive Director of GLAAD who said that the work of civil rights movements isn’t to bring a group over from the wrong side of equality, but to erase that divide altogether. So it was great to hear Phil Donohue talk about the importance of introducing LGBT stories into America’s living rooms when he first took to the airwaves in 1967, or Tyra Banks talk about how she relates to LGBT discrimination because not every casting director used to think she was that fierce, or Suze Orman who said she was always out, proud and perma-tanned. “I’ve. Always. Been. Out! That. Is. Not. News!” I was also struck by the fact that, beyond the parties, GLAAD is a nimble media machine that isn’t just looking for face time with Hollywood celebs, but is actually going toe-to-toe with conservative media outlets to call out biases against the LGBT community. Case in point: as soon as the NY Post cartoon depicting a dead monkey/President(?) came out, the organization was ready to address the right-wing newspaper’s past offenses against other minority groups, specifically gays.

You would think that a gathering of politically active gays and their friends in the “elite, liberal media” would be a raucous, Republican-bashing affair. But it wasn’t. With all the good work that’s been done in the past year – even in spite of setbacks like Proposition 8 and anti-adoption legislation introduced in Arkansas – the mood was hopeful and celebratory. As mistress of ceremonies, comedienne Kate Clinton pointed out, it seems the gays are thrilled to be out of the abusive relationship that was the Bush administration and in the arms of Barack Obama (though I did want to point out that our newly elected president isn’t in favor of gay marriage either).


The evening’s highlight for me: a quick chat with Boricua actress Ana Ortiz from Ugly Betty. Another fab latina who was so nice to yours truly – as soon as I mentioned that we went to the same high school she threw her arms around me, yakked away in Spanish, and posed for two pictures (the first one sucked). James and I then meandered to the Absolut Mango-sponsored after-party where we were next to another Ugly Betty star, Michael Urie. I did want to mention that his character’s mixed-matched shirt and tie combos on the show inspire my own look, but really, why the hell would he have cared? Incidentally, I had my mango-infused vodka on the rocks with a twist of lime. I don’t remember how I got home.

Pix and vids below: one is the first part of Tyra’s acceptance speech for her award, and the other is a performance by the House of Ninja.

Note: Special thanks to my friend and colleague Holly Fussell for being a lovely hostess and our in for the evening's festivities.

Today's Blog Post has crashed

thanks to ******* Blogger. I could scream.

Build Em' Up, Tear Em' Down

What I love about the post that I'm about to write is that I get to pull a Nelson Muntz on all those people who have accused me about being a wishy-washy Democrat. Yes, I had lots to say about Barack Obama right up until election day, but since then, I've been very supportive of our new leader. But the rest of the "media elite," and those ultra-liberal braggarts in their American Apparel Obama T-shirts who were really just saying :how-cool-am-I-for-voting-for-the-black-guy" well, they're pulling a reverse-GCL.

Check out today's NY Daily News where political reporter Mike Lupica calls out president Obama for being too much of an Every Man with his appearances on the Tonight Show, ESPN and pretty much anywhere else that you're likely to draw an audience of over one person. Lupica, with the headline "Hey President Obama, the campaign is over - forget the popularity contest," calls out the new president for being "overexposed."

Now, y'all know I invented exaggeration, but that last claim is a little much even for me. I mean, the guy is the president of the U.S. - if he were a recluse brainiac holed up in the Oval Office he'd be flogged for being out of touch and for rescinding on his campaign promise of transparent, accessible government.

Meanwhile, chances are your mom is on Twitter right now expressing her opinion about Obama's reference to the Special Olympics regarding his poor bowling game.

This ill-advised comment comes in the middle of that pesky global economic crisis, which is all his fault - and depending on which media you're consuming - a continuation of Bill Clinton's reckless equal opportunity lending.

Describing the experience of living in the presidential bubble, Obama sums up the public scrutiny in terms that ordinary Americans can understand: being president is like being on American Idol, except every is Simon Cowell. At least the man can laugh at himself, and you.

Decriminalize Homosexuality. Sure, Why Not?

From ABC News: "The Obama administration said today it will sign on to a United Nations declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality around the world."

I appreciate the gesture, but it's an empty one. Defending their support of the declaration, a State department official said that signing it "commits us to no legal obligations." In other words, people of California, Arkansas, or anywhere else where you should decide that homosexuality should become a government issue, this declaration is just a nice to-do that we really have no intention of supporting with progressive legislation.

That such a statement should even have to be made just proves that we still have a long way to go in this country when it comes to ensuring equal rights for all citizens.

I totally understand that the economy needs a-fixin' and there are two wars going on. The gays can (sort of) wait. But if you're going to make sweeping, international gestures claiming your commitment to human rights, then have some intention of following through. And I simply don't think the Obama administration is in a position to do that right now.

Would McCain be Doing a Better Job Right Now?

It's terribly fun to be a Republican these days. Our nation's newly elected democrat president, aka "that one" with a funny last name, seems to be messing up the economy within his first 100 days in office and our country is likely to face another terrorist attack. Bonus!

What I want to know is, would John McCain be doing a better job right now? Which of the nation's endless checklist of problems would the republican candidate have tacked off in his single-task-focused management style? As the country smarts at the thought of AIG doling out bonuses with tax payers' money, would the conservative right have applauded the promotion of capitalism, even in the wake of disaster, had McCain been signing the checks?


Conservatives are staging "tea parties" throughout the country in protest of the Obama administration's stimulus plan. Kudos for the nod to history, but, um, where have these folks been for the past eight years? Did Obama's ascent to the presidency also bring with it the global financial crisis or was trouble brewing (get it?) before? Nevermind the money that has been poured into the war in Iraq or the spend-a-dollar- save-America ethic promoted by George Bush after 9-11, today's economic downturn is all the dems' doing.

How. convenient.

Republicans and conservatives aren't the only people affected by the recession and they're certainly not the only ones who are appalled by the abuses of big government spending and corporate greed. But if they choose to believe that this issue just happened as divine retribution for our country's newly found liberal ways, well then, my friends, you're mistaken. We're all in this together, so buck up and let's let our new president at least try to fix this problem and let's save the recriminations at least until the end of the year.

The Spectacle of a Dying Mother

Over the past two weeks I've jetted between London and Puerto Vallarta. Between the two most disparate destinations on the planet- between chilly days and pints of ale, sunshine and margaritas, US Weekly and The Sun- I found a thread of commonality that cuts right through the heart of the UK and Mexico.



The spectacle of a dying mother is the ultimate tonic for the masses who crave the three C's of morbid, fetishistic entertainment: cancer, children, and celebrity. In the UK, Jade Goody, a reality TV star known for her by-the-bootstraps rise to pop culture relevance, is waging a very public, and depending on who you ask, heroic/tasteless final coup on cervical cancer. Sadly, the TV starlet isn't expected to live much longer (as I write this post some news outlets report that Jade has hours to live), so she's done what any reality TV star would do with their dying breaths and hired a celeb publicist and sold the rights to her wedding last month. OK! Magazine published photos of Jade's sobbing children, dressed in tuxes, under a hot pink headline "Heartbreaking Photos!" Along the way, she got kudos for her hustle from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

In Mexico, dead mamas mean lots of pesos at the box office. Every year around Mother's Day Univision plays a film from the 80s called Mama Soy Paquito (Mama, I'm Paquito) the story of a beggar child on the streets of Acapulco who has to step his game up after his mama dies of cancer. In an effort to win his aristocrat father's love, Paquito comes up with all kinds of songs to charm tourists, but the one he sings every night, to his mom, is Mama Soy Paquito, where he promises to be a good boy, even if he tires of scouring garbage for food, if the howling dogs at night scare him and his father loves him not.

Check it:



If the popular pejorative term for reality TV content is "car crash," let's not forget the death of Princess Diana, who not only gave us a car crash, but a dead mother, a dead Princess, two motherless sons, a man to scorn and a conspiracy to chew over until the end of time.

No matter where you are in the world, the idea of a mother leaving this world before her children, and the void that creates both in her family and in society, is the more noble explanation for the attention devoted to this particular phenomenon in pop culture. But it's a car crash nonetheless and all of us, in spite of ourselves, are brazen rubber neckers.

Green sludge in London

Apologies in advance for not embedding links in this post but am on a Blackberry and just spouting thoughts.so, kids, be good boys and girls and look up the stories and vids I suggest below.

Very well. The news of the day here in London is the sludge attack on Lord Mandelson, a member of parliament, by an environmental activist. Homegirl just walked up to the guy and threw green liquid on him in protest over the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport. Know what the cops did? Nothing. Some skinny guy sheepishly shooed her away and said "go away now, come on."

Um. Where the guns at?

Sidebar: Lord Mandelson is gay, which I only found out from a colleague. You know in the States it'd be "Gay Politico Attacked."

Anyway. I'm all about civil disobedience - I wear paisley and plaid with no compunction, afterall. But attacking people just aint right.

In an age when simple gestures can roil countries into war (think of the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark), civility must reign supreme in political debate. I'm surprised that the great Iraq Shoe Debacle didn't result in yet another surge in Iraq.

The slippery slope of fanaticism, while great for headlines and morning news bits, can be a dangerous thing. I don't want this act to set a precedent for assaulting politicians- especially when many Americans have a legitimate reason to worry about the safety of their president.

Blogging from London

Hallo, stupid Americans. Am in London this week for work and trying not to eat McDonald's (I'm sure it tastes the same here as it does back home).

Highlights from my foray across the pond:

- Over vodka-and-ginger-infused beers in Shoreditch, the city's answer to New York's Lower East Side, I learned that Americans are perceived to be especially "cute" with our eternal eagerness and conservative culture war.

- Yummy curry on Brick Lane last night

- my coat does not smell yummy today

- my company's office here is too cool - both in staff and decor

- sometimes I don't understand what people are saying to me

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Will be tweeting as well. Check it at www.twitter.com/davidperez212