Do the Right Thing

Gov. Mike Huckabee just wrote a book called "Do The Right Thing". What an ironic title, unless by "Right" he's referring to the right wing. How can someone argue that "the right thing" is that semantics are more important than people? His need to keep the definition of marriage the same as it has been in relatively recent years overrides the right of a gay man to be at his lover of 25 years' death bed, for just one example? Does the "right thing" include killing abortion doctors, I wonder?

Let's not forget what marriage began as: a business transaction. A transfer of property (i.e., the woman) from one family to another. Sometimes in exchange for a few cows. Now, I'm as glad as anyone that the concept has evolved, but then again, that's the point: it has EVOLVED. Marriage is not an institution that has been static for hundreds of years like they want us to believe. Not allowing it to evolve further is false logic with more than a dash of cruelty.

No one on the religious right has ever been able to clearly explain how gay people marrying one another manages to harm marriage. R and I don't even have a marriage license -- Colorado is a commonlaw state, so we're married if we say we are. But then again, I don't want a marriage license if all my gay friends can't have one, anyway. My argument always has been, why pay the state to ratify our relationship? Especially since 100 years ago we wouldn't have been allowed to get married anyway!

What harms marriage more: abstinence-only education causing teens to get pregnant and then married too young, or gay marriage? I would argue the former. Allowing two people who love one another to commit themselves legally and have the same rights as everyone else could only be wrong if you're crazy. And really, believing that a virgin gave birth and a man rose from the dead would be considered crazy in today's world, so why allow that mythology to influence the removal of someone's human rights?

Nathrop

Yep, it's true, I wrote a poem, my first in years. Enjoy.





It’s so quiet here, it’s loud.

That highway sound? Wind in pines. Maybe a touch of river. The high note.
Aspens shaking off their bling with a rattle. A yip in the distance.

Imperceptible snowflakes bite your fingers with a tinny pop. So icy,
They burn like a needle dipped in a candle flame’s

Dance

But not long enough for it to hurt more than my lover’s spiny beard
Against my parted lips.


The yip is now a cackle, rising
From mezzo to screeching soprano in a round of shrieking hoots.
Hyenas have more dignity. Coyotes put low rent porno flicks to shame.

Behind, the house groans and hums. Refrigerator clicks into a purr, heater rattles
A rude cacophony lobbying against the symphony outside.

But it is warmer.

Chalk cliffs draped in a thick fur wrap of dusty clouds, transferring Colorado

Into

China


I step away, fumble
With my camera for a useless
Snapshot,
Then return to find them gone. Moved on to caress Mt. Princeton beyond, to tickle Cottonwood canyon whose warm waters still rise like steam from my skin.

I am the lone witness to an infant storm.

Warmer calls.

Food for Thought

Accidental Mash-Ups

We're listening to Kurt Anderson interviewing Susan Sontag on PRI's Studio 360 podcast with Denver Open Media on in the background on teevee. They're playing A Charlie Brown Christmas, for some reason.

You haven't lived until you've heard Susan Sontag's voice coming out of Lucy Van Pelt's mouth.

Truly sublime.