Gay Pride note

While watching media reports about New York City's Gay Pride March yesterday, I was intrigued by the similarity of comments by observers. The local news media interviewed lots of people who watched the march from the sidelines, and a common theme ran through the remarks.

Over and over, I heard people say that they were straight but attended the march every year because "it's so positive" and "I love the diversity". More than one mentioned that it was a joy to "see people so comfortable in their own skin". "It's uplifting," others said as the smiles on their faces told the story.

Haters often think of "gay" as meaning white gay men. For those people, the biggest jolt on seeing a gay pride march is that we come in all colors, sexes and shapes. Gay is not white, it's human. And for this reason, gay pride marches are a sea of diversity.

A positive experience for all -- that's what defines a gay pride march. As an oldster, I don't attend any more. But I went to the march regularly when I was in my 20s and 30s. Wouldn't miss it for the world. It's a wonderful event and I'm gratified that pride marches have gone global.

Our time is now.

Public editor wary of NYT Iraq coverage

It's great to have Margaret Sullivan at the New York Times. She's done a bang-up job as public editor. Mind you, as a progressive, I want more. (We always do, you know.) But she points an accusatory finger at the Times, when merited -- and for that, I am grateful.

Her column in yesterday's NYT harkens back to the paper's terrible coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq war. That was a gutless time for all journalism but one expected more from the NYT. Amazingly, it failed to include voices against the war, while making quite sure the warmongers were heard -- every day, loud and clear. It was all hawks, all the time at the NYT. And Sullivan says it's happening all over again.

First, she reminds us of the past:

The lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003 was not The Times’s finest hour. Some of the news reporting was flawed, driven by outside agendas and lacking in needed skepticism. Many Op-Ed columns promoted the idea of a war that turned out to be both unfounded and disastrous.

Then she jumps to the present:

Many readers have complained to me that The Times is amplifying the voices of hawkish neoconservatives and serving as a megaphone for anonymously sourced administration leaks, while failing to give voice to those who oppose intervention.

I went back with the help of my assistant, Jonah Bromwich, and reread the Iraq coverage and commentary from the past few weeks to see if these complaints were valid. The readers have a point worth considering. On the Op-Ed pages and in the news columns, there have been very few outside voices of those who opposed the war last time, or those who reject the use of force now.

But the neoconservatives and interventionists are certainly being heard.

Let's hope this sends a chill into the hearts of the NYT editors. Journalism ain't much, these days. But it would be nice if the "paper of record" got it right this time. Still, I wonder if anything will change. The NYT is so in bed with whatever administration is in power, including this one. When I read their stories, it sometimes seems like they were written by White House or Pentagon staffers.

Americans don't want any new wars. Given our history over the last 50 years -- and the helpful refresher course we had during the Bush years -- we are wary of war. Apparently, this news hasn't reached the NYT.

Still, kudos to Sullivan for putting it out there. (It's also great that the New York Times hired her. They knew what they were getting: a no-holds barred, ethical public editor. So who knows? Maybe there is hope.) 

Pope makes jokes about women. They're not funny.

Over at Raw Story, we learn that for the first time, the pope was interviewed by a woman. Apparently all his previous inteviewers were male. Odd, that. So how did it go, you ask. Frankie didn't do well, not well at all.

In his first interview with a female journalist since his election to the spiritual leadership of the world’s 1.2 billion baptised Catholics, Pope Francis dodged a string of questions about whether he intended raising the status of women in his church while making a couple of jokes that some may find diminishing.

After he said a few folksy-cutesy things about women, the interview turned a corner. 

But when his interviewer, the Vatican correspondent of the Rome daily Il Messaggero, Franca Giansoldati, asked him whether he did not detect an underlying misogyny in the Catholic church, Francis replied: “The fact is that woman was taken from a rib.” Giansoldati wrote that he then laughed “heartily” before saying: “I’m joking. That was a joke.”

The 77-year-old pontiff went on: “The issue of women needs to be gone into in more depth, otherwise you can’t understand the church itself.” But did he envisage, say, appointing a woman to head a Vatican department?

“Well,” replied the pope cryptically. “Priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers.”

Ugh. It's like they interviewed a guy from one of those "men's rights" forums that are actually feminist-hating forums. Thanks, Francis, for making us ill by giving male-chauvinist-pig responses when asked serious questions about the status of women in the church. We get it: you don't care.

Thus we learn that the pope is a caveman and the situation of female Catholics will not improve during his reign. It's sad. But the church is known for this, so we shouldn't be surprised. It's just that the old fool elicited hope in so many when he was elected. Now that hope is dashed.

Becoming invisible

We're in the process of selling our house so that we can move to a horse farm. (Large photo at that link.) And this particular farm just happens to be the real-life setting for my novel, Xmas Carol. The idea of moving into my book is appealing.

However, having potential buyers tromp through my house on a regular basis is unsettling. Last night a group of people came through at 7:30 pm. On a Friday night! Oy. And of course, I have to sweep through the house and hide my existence from these buyers. The place should look clean and nice, but not lived-in. I've got it down to a system. I can literally sweep away my existence in about 20 minutes. And then after they leave, I have to put all the stuff back where it belongs. It's really creepy.

Doing this reminds me of a situation that a friend experienced when we were about 20 years old. He worked for an institution that had its offices in a lovely townhouse in Manhattan. He was basically the office manager. But no one knew that he also lived there.

This was a deep, dark secret. Each night, he let all the visitors out and said goodnight. This didn't seem odd because it was up to him to close the place up and make sure everything was ready for the following day. But of course, he never left. I'd go there to hang out with him in the evening. We couldn't even turn lights on and off unless they were in a central location that wasn't visible from any window.

And each morning, he had to tear through the place and hide all the clues that might reveal the house was occupied. No bed could be rumpled, no food could be sitting in a side-room, no clothes could be in a closet. He had to clean up all his magazines, papers, etc. He was an invisible person. It worked, too, until he opened his yap and told the wrong person. And then he was out.

Sometimes I find myself thinking of him as I wipe my existence from my house. It's a hell of a way to live. But if it gets me to the horse farm, I'm willing to put up with it. Horsies!

Waiting (forever) for Scrivener for IOS

If you're waiting anxiously for the IOS version of Scrivener, as I am, you'll probably be interested in the newsflash I received from Scrivener this morning:

We're still working on it... I sincerely apologize to all our users who have been waiting so long for our iOS version. We really should have kept it under our hats for much longer, until it was nearly ready, rather than announcing it so long ago and making wild - and wildly inaccurate - guesses about when it would be ready. Right now it is undergoing finishing touches to the interface, before we implement the Dropbox syncing code and start putting it through its paces in a thorough bout of testing. We're still a few months away from release, furiously trying to ensure we make our putative 2014 release date, but it is getting there, even if from the outside progress understandably seems glacial.

Well, it doesn't seem glacial, exactly, but it's taking more time than we'd like. And by "we", I mean all the writers who rely on Scrivener. It truly is the best writing software in the world. For me, the best thing about Scrivener for IOS will be the ability to carry all my writing projects on my iPad, which goes everywhere with me. That sounds like heaven.

So maybe by Xmas? That would be a lovely gift.

So...where are the demons?

A little over a year ago, I invited demons into my home. It was May of 2013 and I was expecting another hot summer. But then it occurred to me that, in the movies at least, demons tend to make a place feel cold. Brrrrrr. Sounded good to me.

So I went on the all-powerful internet and invited any and all demons into my home. That my public offer would infuriate the pope was the icing on my dark and daring cake. He loves him some demons. Thinks the devil is real! What a card. Always fun-loving, the new pope!

Well, here I am, more than a year later. I figure it's time to recount my extensive experiences with the demons during that time. Here goes:

Uh...well...tch. The demons that moved into my house must be the no-see-'em kind of demons. Because for the life of me, I never saw or heard them, ever. And nothing in my life changed. Well, that's not entirely true. My luck and health improved during the year -- I was even saved from a tree falling on my house! It was almost like I was protected.) And the house stayed nice and cool all summer! It worked!

My personal experience makes me wonder why people are so afraid of demons. It seems they don't do anything bad -- in fact, they sometimes help people live happier, healthier lives. I guess demons are kind of like vitamins. Protective, you know?

I wonder what religious gits think about all this. They go around blessing stuff and doing incantations to ward these demon fellers off. They seem to think demons are bad. So why did I have such a lovely year after inviting demons into my home? Is there a pastor out there who'd like to reply?

It couldn't be that...demons aren't real. Could it? Heavens!

Priests to harangue faithful more than ever

Amusing: 

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is admitting many Catholics around the world reject its teachings about sex issues like artificial contraception as an intrusion into their private lives, and are ignorant of other core doctrines about marriage, divorce and homosexuality.

The Vatican blamed its own priests for much of the problem. It says they simply aren't doing a good enough job educating the faithful about essential church teachings and helping out families when they run into trouble.

Yes, that must be the problem. The priests just need to talk more about what you can't do down there. They've been far too quiet about sex the past fifty years or so. Just imagine how refreshed Catholics will feel when priests double down on the sexy no-no's. Because we never hear priests talking about how awful gay people are. Or how you'll go to hell and never receive communion again if you get a divorce. Absolutely never.

What a church.