CE - Volume 2

[stratman19]

Yes Chris, the whole uproar is rather ridiculous, but amusing too. All this hue and cry about insensitivity, slurs, etc. If the politicians don't want to be called names, pass a goddamn budget. Arnold's playing them and the press like fiddles.

And as we all know, that line he used comes from a SNL skit that made fun of him! Gimme a break. Just pass a budget, you prima donnas.

[chrisfan]

I did love Rush Limbaugh's point though, about how Conservatives are always stereotyped to be stodgy and humorless, while liberals are accepting of everyone and fun loving ... until a Republican cracks a joke, and then they're terribly offended and demand an apology.

[Proud]

everyone in the political world's been uptight lately, for the most part.

politics are a great way to learn to hate people. political disagreements are enough to make you want to...

*gets cut off*

[stratman19]

They are a little hypersensitive, aren't they?

Damn shame when the shoe's on the other foot!

[Proud]

doesn't matter what foot the shoe's on... you need two of them for a whole pair.

*hugz all around! omg! like, kewl! yes way!*

[stratman19]

Is now the time that we're supposed to break into a rendition of kumbaya, Proud?

[Proud]

yes. or proud with the illness! i hear that's becoming quite a popular tune around here.

*plays the harmonica and the triangle at the same time*

jimi hendrix, best musician ever? psh.

[Meursault]

Planet Earth
RIP
Few Million Years Ago - ??

[Mary]

JesusLooksLikeMe said:

Actually, I don't know about in the States, but in the UK it's not "straight" couples that get all the benefits, but specifically married couples. All those rights should be extended not just to gays, but to hetero couples who cohabit, and even perhaps, say, two elderly spinster sisters who've lived together for ages, and so on...

It's another thing I fear - that if gays get their right to lawfully wed and acquire these benefits, then the issue of cohabitee rights will go away (without the help of the powerful gay lobby), and us unmarried hetero cohabitees will again be left pissing in the wind.

Agree 100% (or 1000%, if that were possible!) on the issue of rights for cohabitees, jllm. And on your concerns about gay marriage obscuring broader issues of civil union rights for various kinds of partnerships - absolutely including siblings who live together. I don't know if it's possible to track down without just buying the book it's in, but there's a brilliant article by Michael Warner called "Beyond Gay Marriage" which raises this issue and presents the system of civil solidarity pacts in France as a better approach to the whole marriage issue for everyone, not just gays. These pacts (PACS, in French - Pacte Civile de Solidarite) confer a variety of standard civil benefits upon any registered unions, which include gay couples but also any pair of individuals whose lives are substantailly intertwined (I believe there are various rules for establishing when this bar has been passed). You might find the article interesting; it's extremely critical of gay marriage and I agree with it 99% - the only reason I disagree is a matter of sheer practicality in the U.S., as I said before, involving the distinction between federal and state benefits and how this affects unions which are not officially designated marriages.

Thing is, everyone here thinks I'm the big champion of gay marriage, but fuck, I think people like Andrew Sullivan are scary and I think it's very sad that the gay rights movement has become almost synonymous with the gay marriage movement, whereas in the 70s and most of the 80s, the gay rights movement made a conscious decision not to pursue marriage as a fundamental part of gay liberation. That's actually where my sympathies lie. But I do think as long as the instituion of marraige remains bound to the state, then as a simple matter of equal protection, its benefits need to be conferred on gay couples as well. In the long run, though, I'd infinitely prefer civil pacts for absolutely everyone, and allow "marriages" to persist entirely and exclusively as a private matter in the appropriate religious institutions. I don't think the state should have anything to do with marriage - gay or straight - and I think gay marriage actually just further normalizes an institution that I largely reject.

It's funny to hear people talk about the "radical gay rights" movement for marriage. I'm sorry, but no - the radical gay rights movement rejects marriage on principle and absolutely disdains and laments the way in which gay rights has become almost synonymous with gay marriage today. The gay marriage movement isn't the radical gay rights movement - it's the moderate, if not conservative, wing of the gay rights movement. It's amazing how effectively left-critique has been squeezed out of the mainstream, such that people actually think the moderate position is opposition to gay marriage in the name of safeguarding the sanctity of traditional marriage, and the "radical" lefty position is the fight for gay marriage. That's unbelievalbe - the radical positon is just as bitterly opposed to gay marriage as the conservatives - but for entirely different reasons, which come from a left-queer critique of marriage itself. But these voices are completely squeezed out of the public sphere. People don't even realize that a large portion of the gay rights community is opposed to gay marriage.

aaaah, sorry.... i don't know how i got off on that tangent. it's just something that i've found aggravating lately. when i went to the gay marriage symposium in berkeley, i was practically irate when i left that they dind't invite a single speaker who opposed gay marriage from a left perspective.

M

[rockysigman]

I don't think it was so much the words of Schwarzenegger's insult that bothers me. It's not PC thing so much as it is the fact that making statements like that does absolutely nothing but antagonize an already resistant political opposition even more, making whatever disagreements they have even less likely to be resolved.

Yes, politicians throw around petty insults all the time, but there's usually at least the illusion that they're talking about issues and policy rather then just a blanket insult with no substance to it whatsoever.

Not to say that the California legislature is necessarily entirely justified in its resistance to Schwarzenegger's proposed budget (honestly, I don't know enough about the issue to really have an opinion one way or the other), but it just seems completely obvious that statements like that are going to bring the level of discourse down to a substiantially lower level at a faster rate than leaving out statements like that and trying to stick to specific criticisms of the opposition's policy rather than name-calling.

[JACkory]

Anyone see this story from the Las Vegas Sun?

Aladdin expels Ronstadt after political remarks
By Jerry Fink
LAS VEGAS SUN

Aladdin President Bill Timmins ordered security guards to escort pop diva Linda Ronstadt off the property following a concert Saturday night during which she expressed support for controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

Timmins, who was among the almost 5,000 fans in the audience at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, had Ronstadt escorted to her tour bus and her belongings from her hotel room sent to her. Timmins also sent word to Ronstadt that she was no longer welcome at the property for future performances, according Aladdin spokeswoman Tyri Squyres.

How much weight that carries is debatable, since the bankrupt Aladdin is in the process of being sold to a group headed by Planet Hollywood International Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Earl.

Near the close of her performance, Ronstadt dedicated the Eagles hit "Desperado" to Moore, producer of "Fahrenheit 9/11," and the room erupted into equal parts boos and cheers.

She said Moore "is someone who cares about this country deeply and is trying to help."

Ronstadt has been making the dedication at each of her engagements since she began a national tour earlier this summer, but it has never sparked such a reaction.

Hundreds of angry fans streamed from the theater as Ronstadt sang. Some of them reportedly defaced posters of her in the lobby, writing comments and tossing drinks on her pictures.

Timmins told Las Vegas Sun gossip columnist Timothy McDarrah: "We live in a city where people come from all over the world to be entertained. We hired Ms. Ronstadt as an entertainer, not as a political activist.

"Whether you are politically on the left or on the right is not the point. She went up in front of the stage and just let it out. This was not the correct forum for that."

Timmins said she was wrong to bring her politics to the stage.

"Our first and only priority is the enjoyment of our customers," he said. "I made the decision to ask Miss Ronstadt to leave the hotel. A situation like that can easily turn ugly and I didn't want anything more to come out of it. There were a lot of angry people there after she started talking.

"If she wants to talk about her views to a newspaper or in a magazine article, she is free to do so. But in a stage in front of four and a half thousand people is not the place for it."

Squyres said half the audience walked out, an estimate that might have been high. But the number was substantial, nevertheless.

"The hotel's policy is that we hired her to entertain guests, not to express her political views," Squyres said.

According to Squyres, the 58-year-old singer did not create a scene as she was escorted out of the hotel and to her tour bus.

"She wasn't happy, but she was cooperative," Squyres said.

Attempts to reach Ronstadt and her manager were unsuccessful Sunday and this morning.

Squyres said a number of ticket holders had asked for their money back after an article appeared in a local newspaper last week quoting her making disparaging remarks about Las Vegas.

"She said Vegas isn't the best place to perform anyway," Squyres said.

Other fans asked for their money back shortly after the Saturday night show got underway, when Ronstadt informed the audience that ads publicizing the concert were incorrect. The advertisements called it her "Greatest Hits Tour."

Ronstadt started the evening with her 1983 hit "What's New?" and then set her fans straight about what they might expect during the concert.

"In case you are wondering what I'm going to do," she said, "Driving into town I saw this big billboard up there with my picture on it saying 'The Greatest Hits Tour.'

"That was news to us. We didn't know it was 'The Greatest Hits Tour.' "

Squyres said Ronstadt was wrong.

"Her management gave us the information and approved the ad," she said.

According to Squyres, Ronstadt lopped off about 20 minutes from the show, walking away from an encore portion of the concert, which I attended as the reviewer for the Sun.

The incident capped a generally lackluster, unenthusiastic performance by one of the top singers of the '70s and '80s.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra opened the concert. The highlight of the 30-minute segment was a rendition of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," featuring pianist Terrance Wilson.

Ronstadt began with several songs from the 1920s, '30s and '40s she and arranger Nelson Riddle recorded, among them "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Straighten Up and Fly Right."

She performed Cole Porter's "Get Out of Town," Frank Loesser's "Never Will I Marry" and jazz great Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life."

And then she gave fans some of what they came for, several of her hits from the '70s and '80s, including "Just One Look" (1979), "Ooh Baby, Baby" (1978) and "Somewhere Out There" (1987).

Although she still has that powerful, distinctive voice, Ronstadt was merely going through the motions.

The only song she had trouble with was "Blue Bayou." She stumbled over the lyrics, seemed to gasp for breath at one point and ended the song in Spanish, screaming the words rather than singing them.

Her performance was uninspired and generally flat. She lacked stage presence, doing little more than sleepwalk from song to song.

The fiasco at the end was the most exciting part of the show.

[JACkory]

" It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know." ---Linda Ronstadt (during an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune conducted by George Varga and published on July 15, 2004)

Hmmm...that must be why she sucked so bad when I saw her in concert at the Mabee Center in Tulsa several years ago. After all, the Mabee Center is part of ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY, and it doesn't get a whole lot more "fundamental Christian" than that, does it?
Of course, that was before she developed a penchant for deriving amusement from the "polarization" of her audiences brought on by the expression of her unsolicited political views...
But you'd think that someone who has such animosity for Republicans and Christians would do their level best to avoid performing at places like ORU. I mean, you don't see Slayer booking the Mabee Center, do ya?
Then again, when I saw her back then she was riding high on what was basically the last tour she's been able to do in support of a hit song ("Don't Know Much", her duet with Aaron Neville), so I imagine the money was sweet enough to dispel the horrid thought of all those Republicans and Fundamentalist Christians "in da house".
And of course, she had to have known, and that's probably what "clouded her enjoyment" of the evening, which in turn produced a "domino theory" effect of how bad she sucked clouding everyone in the audience's enjoyment, Democrats and atheists included...


I'll say this much...every time I've been unfortunate enough to have had to listen to "Desperado", the LAST person I would associate with anything about that song is Michael Moore.

[Mary]

re: the article on linda ronstadt...

Only this one part of it I wanted to comment on. If her performance was lackluster or she didn't perform as long as she agreed to or whatever, that's a separate issue. But this really bothers me:

"The hotel's policy is that we hired her to entertain guests, not to express her political views," Squyres said.

Just to be clear, the hotel can set whatever standards it wants for performers, provided it's a private entity. So I'm not saying there's any constitutional or legal issue here. They're not Congress, they don't have to respect free speech.

But I just find the policy itself objectionable, narrow-minded, and dubious. This hard and fast line between entertainment and politics just doesn't exist. What if Linda Ronstadt wanted to perform a song that had political lyrics - would she not be allowed to? What if she dedicated the song to "the brave men and women and the U.S. military" - would that be construed as an unacceptable political view? What if they invited a country singer who wanted to perform a cover of Proud to Be an American - is that too "political"?

Anyway, we're talking about a one sentence dedication - this is hardly some endless political harangue that took up half the performance. If the rest of the performance was crap, fine, that's a problem, but the rest of the performance stands on its own artistic merits. Anyone whose enjoyment of a concert is completely shattered by one sentence that they disagree with really needs to work on their anger management skills. How much of a horrible imposition is it really to hear one sentence that you don't like?!

And JAC, there's nothing in that article that suggests Ronstadt offered that dedication for the purpose of "deriving amusement from the polarization of her audience" - for one thing, the article explicitly asserts that she has been offering this dedication at every show she's played and Las Vegas is the only place it inspired this reaction. So it's unlikely that Ronstadt even expected such a reaction, let alone specifically planned for it. There are numerous other plausible reasons for offering such a dedication beyond just some kind of weird malicious pleasure derived from polarization. Maybe she really sincerely means it, whether or not you like Michael Moore. Maybe she's hoping it will encourage people in the audience to see the movie, which she thinks is worthwhile. Both explanations are perfectly plausible, and neither one assumes she's trying to be willfully polarizing. Granted, none of us have access to Ronstadt's inner life, so we can't really know what her intentions were, but I see no reason to assume they were as dubious as you do.

Again, the hotel can do whatever it wants, I just think people need to grow thicker skin. Yes, this would also apply if a bunch of leftists freaked out and defaced posters of a performer who endorsed George W. Bush as well. If I ever go to see the reformed Misfits, I'm aware that one member of the band (at least) is a conservative Republican and if he makes some kind of pro-conservative statements to the audience, I'll shrug it off. So someone onstage has expressed a view you disagree with - how can adults be so immature that hearing a view they dislike compels them to deface a poster? Sounds like a bunch of second graders.

M

[strat-0]

Hear, hear, Jac. Time and a place (for either side). This ain’t the Summer of Love, and performing at a mainstream venue means being professional to the venue.

I don't think it was so much the words of Schwarzenegger's insult that bothers me. It's not PC thing so much as it is the fact that making statements like that does absolutely nothing but antagonize an already resistant political opposition even more, making whatever disagreements they have even less likely to be resolved.

Yes, but Rocky, it wasn’t a true insult – it was obviously a joke, and a self-deprecating one at that. C’mon, who hasn’t seen the Hans and Franz skits? For the opposition in Colliefornia to try to seriously say it’s homophobic or the like is completely disingenuous. It’s just an opportunity to throw the PC card. If they don’t “get it,” then they really are out of touch. Arnold was the brunt of that skit, but he’s good-natured enough to go along with it. And if you disagree, you must be a girlie-man. Girlie-man, girlie-man!

I'm curious about your assertion that only straight couples should receive the benefits associated with marriage. Does this really apply to all the benefits? I mean, there's a list of several hundred of them, and it seems hard to think of reasons why some of them should be denied to gay couples. For example, should gay couples really not have next-of-kin status at hospitals?

I feel they should, if the patient puts that forth in advance.

And is it really OK, if one partner dies suddenly, unexpectedly, and young, that his or her partner not receive anything in the absence of a will?

Damn right – get a will.

They shouldn't get sick leave if their partner is drastically ill, or wrongful death benefits?

No.

These pacts (PACS, in French - Pacte Civile de Solidarite) confer a variety of standard civil benefits upon any registered unions, which include gay couples but also any pair of individuals whose lives are substantailly intertwined (I believe there are various rules for establishing when this bar has been passed).

Now, this makes sense to me, Mary. In reading the rest of your post, though, perhaps I should just admit that I’m not as well informed on all of the nuances and the yardsticks involved in gauging the different stances within the gay rights community, particularly as it pertains to the larger cities in California or maybe New York. It really doesn’t involve or concern me too much. I can tell you that we have a very robust and sizable gay community here (which may come as a surprise to some), which is pretty well assimilated and a working part of the larger community, in quite good harmony. I sure hated it when the only neighbors we were friendly with moved out. But we keep in touch.

I thought there were some other comments about marriage in general here today, but I can’t seem to find them now, so I’ll just wind this up.

I’d better go back into my Libertarian shell, and remember personal freedoms, before Mary single-handedly turns me into a Republican.

[stratman19]

Ol' Strat19's take on the whole Linda Ronstadt debacle. I will say that I think most people go to a concert to relax, to get away for awhile, etc. I don't really think they go to hear some performer's view of politics, but that's just my opinion.

First, I think Ronstadt's "dedication" was dopey. I also think her assertion that "Moore cares about this country, and is trying to help", is extremely naive and misguided. However, I support her right to express her point of view. Had I been in the audience, I would have boo'ed. That's expressing my right to free speech. I think the people that threw drinks on her posters, ripped up her posters, and defaced her posters, etc., were just acting like idiots.

Second, I also feel the Aladdin Hotel was perfectly within their rights to dismiss her. I do think the hotel over reacted, but again, they were well within their rights. I do have one problem with the hotel. I think it was wrong for them to escort Ronstadt to her tour bus, then enter her room and gather her belongings without her presence. They should have, at the very least, escorted Ronstadt back to her room to gather her own belongings. If they had been very gracious, they would have allowed her to spend the night. It means nothing in the great scheme of things, but a sorry episode all the way around.

And finally, the Left is so vocal in pointing out the perceived bigotry of the Right, but comments such as this by Ronstadt, prove that bigotry is alive and well on the Left as well, no matter what they say.


" It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know." ---Linda Ronstadt (during an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune conducted by George Varga and published on July 15, 2004)

And that's all I have to say about that!