La Misa

Jorge tithes
a tenth to the church.
He tithes another
tenth to himself
and confesses to his priest,
My soul must burn in hell
because I sacrifice my life
so that others may live.

He recites:
For my love, I sacrifice life;
For their freedom, I sacrifice love.
At lunch he sits aside
others on flawless girders
awaiting shipment
to the war effort

Pale cheese. Brown bread.
Mud coffee. Salt cod.
Tastes like torta,
like sweat off a woman after
love tastes like thin confection
of night shirt between them.
We are pressed meats
and butter cakes!
Come, let us make
another perfect girder
before the whistle ends
our grazing asses.

For the workers
there is a country
of bakers between
the foreman and themselves.
Dunes of flour,
seas of vinegar.
They crossed into famine
where Jorge crossed
into a woman
who bakes money
in this factory

The foreman drinks
wine of their blood, eats
the bread of their flesh.
Between them is money
thin as a wafer.
We are the pressed meats,
they say, butter cakes! Come,
we make another perfect girder.

The wet dough of their asses
arise after their arms
suddenly gently spread almonds
across their memory
of how they came to suffer.
Their sons must steal sweets.
Mi abuela says, Do not strike.
Dios castigara.

Ahora, ahora, Jorge sighs,
hay que trabajar.
The whistle screams.
The oven is now hot enough.

The Cave, Part 2

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:–Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. — from Republic, Plato

* * *

In retrospect, my childhood was both unusual and perfectly ordinary.  Unusual in the sense that in many ways, I was ignorant of many cultural attitudes that most children in the United States in this day and age seemingly take for granted.  Ordinary for the speed in which I became assimilated into American society.  Having emigrated to the States in 1974, within five years’ time, I could have been mistaken for an ABC — “American Born Chinese”.  Yet, I lived a relatively sheltered existence.  It’s as if my mother, faced with the ways and wiles of the world tried to protect me in her own fashion from being corrupted.  Well, you know what they say….even if you try your damndest to prevent something from occurring, don’t be surprised when the results of your endeavors become undone in the process.

My family was raised in the Catholic tradition.  Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, Christmas.  You went to Mass on Sunday, you observed rituals each week and at certain times of the year.  Oh sure, my grandmother was (and is) a strange hybrid of Buddhist and Catholic but things more or less fell into a predictable pattern, day in and year out.  Looking back, I often marvel at my experiences because it’s as if I were another person.

I’d say that in my years in Bayonne, that was when I first started to question why it was that I was supposed to believe in something that, for me, seemed to have less and less meaning.  I noticed things around me that didn’t seem to fit.  Why for instance, being in a parochial Catholic school – though we were supposed to be perfectly behaved angels – the kids seemed jarringly at odds with expectations.  A math teacher in sixth grade who had the foulest manner and coarsest mouth I’d ever encountered at that time, yet became professional whenever a nun happened to walk by her classroom.  Going to church on Sunday — faith in God notwithstanding — became a tedious exercise in boredom.  It wasn’t just that I chafed at having to spend an hour in a place that I didn’t want to be.  It was that I was mouthing words and parroting actions that I didn’t really put much stock in.  I was well on my way to becoming the godless heathen that I am today.

I graduated from eighth grade in 1984.  That year was particularly hellish because of a drive by my mother to get me into a Catholic high school in Jersey City whose name escapes me now.  Math was never my strong point, so I spent numerous afternoons and weekends doing makework and perusing study guides, all in an attempt to ace the SRAs that were given in November of the previous year.  I managed to get accepted but you can imagine my relief when I learned that we’d be moving from Bayonne to the wilderness of suburbia.  I’d no longer have to endure attending Catholic school; instead, I was about to be introduced to adolescence, American style, as only public high schools can.

(to be continued)

August

He kicked up dust in the gravel parking lot,
half-drunk, waiting for her to wipe down the tables,
count her money and change. My mother walked out,
locusts droning, junebugs and fireflies
peppering the late night air.
 
They are about to make it six nights
in a row, they are about to forget condoms,
they are about to get married. All they know
is they aren’t lonely anymore.
I want to walk up to them
and say you’ll be sorry

he’s a drunk and forty,
leave him alone, you’re half his age.
You’re going to hate
each other, you’re going to make
your children hate you, you’re going
to wish each were dead. I want to
tell them right there at three in the morning
in the stillness of August.

Her pretty face turns to me,
her beautiful virgin body,
his arrogant handsome face turns to me,
his sturdy aging body.
Like wooden puppets, two
dumb sticks, they strike,
rub themselves together until they start to smoke.

The Cave, Part 1

New Jersey, 1988. 

I graduated high school in June 1988.  I was seventeen at the time.  I don’t remember the exact date, except that my mother skipped my graduation ceremony.  She was at work and I, out of a class of 400 some-odd students clad in green and gold trimmed robes, had to trudge home alone.  Try imagining not having the pleasure of sharing one of the seminal moments of your life at that time with your parents.  Try explaining to your classmates and coming up with a miserable bullshit excuse as to why your mother wasn’t there.  Try to block out all the drama that occurred the night before and all that would come after, barely 24 hours after the big event.  Yeah, man, it was rough.  I’d stuffed most of my belongings in garbage bags and tossed them to the curb for the trash guys to pick up that weekend, knowing that once I graduated from high school, I’d be thrown out of the house.

In retrospect, I had it coming.  My relationship with my mother wasn’t the best thing in the world growing up.  To this day, there’s still a lot of latent anger that I have….but that’s a tale for another time.  This is the story of an only child of a single parent growing up gay and not coming to terms with things until much later in life. 

* * *

Bayonne, New Jersey, 1981.

“Go blow.”

“If you do it too much, hair will grow on your palms.”

I’d hear about this stuff from kids at recess.  I was, what, ten years old at the time.  I’d look at them with a puzzled expression on my face and say…”um, huh?”  It’s impressive to know that even then at that age, that my peers knew everything they needed to know about sex while I was this sheltered Asian kid who’d never heard of the Village People much less what the word “faggot” stood for.

I used to joke that my mother worked more miraculous wonders on me than Nancy Reagan could ever hope to do.  “Just say no.”  Who doesn’t remember the media campaign that the Queen of America championed at the time?  And I did.  It worked so well that although I burst out of the closet shortly after I left home for good, I didn’t really develop a sense of comfort about myself until well into my early 30s.

(to be continued)

Sweaty Chocolate

This is old news by now but I still get a kick out of watching Mr. Sulu setting his phaser on stun.

Now if only Captain Riker was gay, then my world would be complete.

Blah…

25+ years of living in the New York metropolitan area and I *still* hate winter with a passion.

Saturday I had planned to attend my first ever blarg hop and hopefully be the meat filling in a bear sandwich but that didn’t happen. Instead I’ve been dealing with a cold for the past week, downing massive quantities of chicken soup, tea, orange juice, water, congee and generally trying to get as much sleep as possible.

When I wasn’t sleeping (or zoned out at work due to the effects of Nyquil), I was playing World of Warcraft in my jammies.

* * *

Overheard while noodling around yesterday online:

“Condoleeza Rice sounds like a side dish at Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
“That’s how her career got started.  George W came in for chicken one day…”
“Then she said that Donald Rumsfeld sounds like a drink that will fuck you up….”
“I’ve had 4 Donald Rumsfelds and its gonna clean out my Colin Powell.”

Credit to Loni Love for the original material.

P.S. I know I haven’t been posting as much as I used to in this blog. Eh, it comes and goes. That being said, I have a few things in the works that need to see the light of day. There’s nothing as entertaining as airing out dirty laundry.

Judicial Roundup: Military Commissions Act, Big Tobacco et. al.

In a little over a week, I’ll be in sunny O-Hi-O where there’ll be more eye candy per square inch than a local Gay Pride parade.  Meanwhile I’ll stare at my dessicated body and cry.

Oh right, this reminds me that it’s been ages since I’ve done one of these SCOTUS/legal issues roundups so here we go.

* * *

Recent cases of interest include:

In a 5-4 ruling issued earlier this morning, the Supreme Court nullified a multi-million dollar judgment against Phillip Morris in a litigation that arose out of the death of a smoker who died from lung cancer, Jesse Williams of Portland, Oregon.  Justice Breyer, writing for the majority, ruled that it is it is unconstitutional for a jury to award punitive damages out of a desire to punish a company for harming individuals other than those directly involved in the lawsuit — that is, “strangers to the litigation.”  The case is Phillip Morris USA v. Williams Estate (05-1256).

I don’t know…would it be too “Chicken Little-ish” to declare this the beginning of the end of class-action lawsuits?

The Court denied certiorari in Skoros v. City of New York (04-1229), a case involving First Amendment issues as applicable to the Establishment Clause. A previous post summarizing the case can be viewed here.

* * *

Previous posts in reference to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 can be found here, here, here and here.

In an update to the ongoing challenges surrounding this codswallop twaddle that was pushed through Congress last year by the Great Decider, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled today for the Bush administration in denying the Guantanamo detainees access to the federal courts.

Here are the texts of the majority opinion and the dissent.

Here is the beginning of what promises to be a lively thread at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Marty Lederman opines on the issues at hand over at Balkinization.

An appeal has been made to the Supreme Court and will most likely be heard in the Term beginning in fall 2007, unless an effort is made to facilitate a hearing on a fast-track basis.

* * *

Commentary Roundup

Click here for an op-ed piece by Rick Nagel in relation to Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (05-908).

An article at CNNMoney.com discusses one of the major corporate litigations to be decided this Term, Microsoft v. AT&T (04-1285). The case will have widespread ramifications in the realm of intellectual property and copyright as applicable in the software and telecommunications industries and in general terms.

At the Los Angeles Times, David Savage has raises an alarmist point of view regarding Antonin Scalia’s moment in the sun. While I’m not certain that the end of the world is at hand, the rightward tilt of the Court is indeed troubling. Hopefully by the time the next conservative revolution rolls around, I’ll be pushing up daises (or barring that, on some other planet).

Election 2008: Rudy Giuliani

The moment of truth has arrived.

Yesterday, Hizzoner declared that he would be running for president in 2008, thus putting an end to the “will he?”/”won’t he?” dance of coyness that’s been a news footnote for the past two months.

Watch, darlings, as the New York mayor we queers loathe with a hundred yard pole begins a not-so-subtle transformation from ‘Republican moderate’ to political opportunist of the moment.

Rudy on Crime Reduction

“Public safety is a fundamental civil right. When you reduce crime, you restore people’s freedom.”

Sure, but what he doesn’t tell you is that during his tenure as Mayor, crime was on its way down via efforts that were begun by the (gasp!) Koch and Dinkins administrations. Let’s also not forget the tragic cases of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo, two scandals that I’m sure Hizzoner doesn’t want to be reminded of as he stumps around the country looking for votes.

In a perfect Giuliani world, police brutality doesn’t exist and Ozzie and Harriet are the perfect American role models.

Rudy on Welfare Reform

“At the core of our approach to welfare reform is the basic concept of a social contract–that for every right, there is a duty; that for every benefit, there is an obligation.”

Looks good on paper but he doesn’t disclose that his mayoralty was notorious early on for overemphasis of workfare and sanctions as opposed to a structured program that involves education and training as a supplement to the basic requirements.

Rudy would like potential voters to ignore the inconvenient truth that during his administration, the courts blocked plans to require homeless adults to work as a stipulation of being granted housing in public shelters. It probably didn’t occur to Hizzoner that New York state has a clause in its constitution that mandates the providence of shelter without qualification to the needy and the homeless (Article 17, Sections 1 and 3 (scroll down), from which the Callahan Consent Decree was derived).

In a perfect Giuliani world, homeless people are unseen, much less heard.

Rudy on Education and Quality of Life

“As the arts capital of the world. New York City is proud to give our children the opportunity to nurture a future in the arts…New York City, which is blessed with boundless treasures of art and culture, and is filled with millions of the most talented and creative people on the planet, should have the best arts education in the world.” — Giuliani, in a press release declaring 18 May 1998 — 22 May 1998 ‘Arts Education Week’

The rules for food vendors will also affect street artists. Robert Lederman, a leader of the artists who has called for Mr. Giuliani’s impeachment, said he was alarmed by all of the solutions being considered by the Council. Each, he asserted, would lead to the replacement of today’s vendors with well-financed companies that could afford to buy the newly rationed right to sell on the sidewalk. “For the past 100 years, vendors have been poor immigrants who were struggling to establish themselves”, Mr. Lederman said. “Anybody could get their start on the street. Now we’re headed toward the privatization of public space” — excerpt from an article in the New York Times on 26 June 1998 on banning sidewalk vendors.

“Mayor Rudolph Giuliani…proposed cutting the library budget by $15 million — even while trumpeting a $2 billion budget surplus — and asked the libraries to make up some of the shortfall through private fund-raising. Librarians say this is the first time the city has asked the system to raise money for basic operating expenses.” — an excerpt from a Times article published on 20 May 1998

Because in a perfect Giuliani world, he’s all for the arts and humanities as long as the state doesn’t have to pay for it. Those topics just aren’t basic necessities when it comes to human existence. Music and art aren’t requirements when it comes to putting together a resume, so why should these subjects be taught in schools?

Cracking down on “quality of life” issues like panhandling and sex shop zoning is a great way to show the public that you’re serious about tackling crime without actually doing anything substantive about it. Never mind that these are policies violative of the First Amendment.

And while we’re ripping Hizzoner to shreds, here’s Rudy on freedom of speech:

“If you want to desecrate religion in a disgusting way, if you want to promote racism, if you want to promote anti-Semitism, if you want to promote anti-Catholicism, if you want to promote anti-Islamism, then do it on your own money. Do not use the taxpayers’ money to do that….There is nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects” –Giuliani on the Brooklyn Museum art controversy in 1999.

Memo to Hizzoner: The First Amendment applies to everyone, not just those viewpoints you happen to agree with. Maybe a course in Civics 101 would do you some good.

So yeah, do what any sane, normal American would do. Vote for Giuliani to retake the White House from the oppresive Democratic tide that threatens to overwhelm America two years from now.

In a perfect Giuliani world, the only thing that matters is that might makes right.

Next: Ralph Nader.

Hearth Restaurant

Dinner at Hearth Restaurant tonight.

Click here for a dinner back in November 2006.

Amuse: Smoked lentil soup

Shakespeare’s Falstaff: Palo cortado, white wine-poached pear syrup

Rabbit terrine, foie gras; frisee and prosciutto salad, olive tapenade
2003 Riesling Spatlese, Haardeter Burgergarten, Pfalz, Germany

Red snapper, fingerling potatoes, celery root, sunchoke chips, black truffles

Duck tortelli, borlotti beans, hen of the woods mushrooms, cabbage

Prosciutto wrapped monkfish, escarole, black olives
2003 Cotes du Rhone-Villages Cairanne, L’Exigence, France

Venison loin, venison sausage, parsnip puree, roasted pears, pine nuts

Passionfruit semifreddo, tropical fruit salad

Coffee mascarpone pudding, chocolate tuille

Under the Microscope

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes.The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. –from this article in today’s New York Times.

If anyone thinks that data mining of biometric and genetic information by the government is a good thing because it has the potential to weed out undesirable elements from the population, then you need to have your head re-examined. With the way things are proceeding, it won’t be long before your entire life will be on display in a literal fishbowl. Whatever happened to privacy rights or are they an antiquated notion?

Am I being too much like Cassandra? Possibly. I just find it amazing that legislation such as the above could be slipped in without so much as a blink of an eyelash from our elected representatives.

Update: It appears that search results in the Library of Congress are temporary so linking to the text of legislation doesn’t result in a permanent link. The amendment in the above-referenced article is Title X of House Resolution 3402, otherwise known the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005. The relevant portion is Section 1004 which authorizes the Attorney General of the United States to “collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested or from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States. The Attorney General may delegate this function within the Department of Justice as provided in section 510 of title 28, United States Code, and may also authorize and direct any other agency of the United States that arrests or detains individuals or supervises individuals facing charges to carry out any function and exercise any power of the Attorney General under this section.”

You can view copies of the law as a pdf document here.