On Katrina and her aftermath

I've never been to the Gulf Coast. And I tend to look at human disasters in relative terms. So as horrible as terrorism and domestic natural disasters are, they do pale in comparison to the kind of things most of us really only see on the news if we get images of them at all: famine, civil wars, massive earthquakes that kill tens of thousands of people, Indian Ocean cyclones, and of course the tsunami of late 2004 in which nearly 180,000 died. Yeah, these things are all bad, but how can you compare what kills 3,000 people (regardless of how dramatically) with what kills 30,000? Except on the individual level, maybe you can't. But what happens closer to home hits all that much harder.

What we tend not to see at all is the suffering experienced by the survivors. But something about this week's catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida has struck me in a way that even these massive death-causing events have not. Maybe it's the proliferation of amateur video and right-on-the-spot reporting, but putting myself in the shoes of the survivors I can't help but hurt for them. So what tears us apart so much more about what happens in the U.S., compared to something of an order of magnitude worse that happens in a faraway land? Is it really just the proximity to us, happening here in our own country, even in a part of it where I've never been and where I personally know essentially nobody? I dunno.

How would I respond if, God forbid, I found myself in that situation? Already it seems like I am in such a "privileged" position that would, unlike we fear for so many of those in MS, AL, & LA, probably allow me to survive such a calamity. I have a car. I've got no financial concerns that would prevent me from filling my gas tank and getting out of town, maybe even with my most valuable material possessions. But if I were stranded, with no power, no transportation, running out of fresh water and edible food? My situation could be as precarious as that of anyone now hanging on to life in the Gulf Coast, I guess. Will these realizations change the way I live my life? Probably they should - I ought to be more thankful, for one thing. Not thankful that these other people I'll never know are suffering instead of me. What a horrible thought! No, just thankful every day for the very basic things that I am so often overlooking while obsessing over such frivolous things that I have no business complaining about not having.

No doubt, though, I'll have these suffering people heavy on my mind and in my prayers as I go on pilgrimage this coming weekend. A much more appropriate thing to have on my mind than my own petty little annoyances.

If the spirit moves you and you're wondering what we might do, I guess a good start would be to donate the cost of a nice restaurant meal to a reliable charity. Here's some possibilities:

Catholic Charities, USA
Phone: 1-703-549-1390
www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

International Orthodox Christian Charities, Inc.
Phone: 1-410-243-9820
www.iocc.org

American Red Cross
Phone: 1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669) English
Pnone: 1-800-257-7575 Spanish
www.redcross.org

Hang on out there, everybody. And take care of each other, no matter where you are today.

The Bike Lady

This is just too cute not to share. (And it has some personal relevance too...)

Finding 'Liberation' on Two Wheels
NW Bike Lovers Never Owned a Car

By Lindsay Ryan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 28, 2005; Page C04

Gas prices have climbed to more than $2.60 per gallon for regular unleaded fuel. Experts estimate that up to 30 percent of urban traffic at any given moment is looking for a parking spot. Those seeking to escape find that the most popular getaways for D.C. residents include six of the 10 worst vacation drives in the nation.

To drive or not to drive?

Karin Vartowski and Gerald Wartofsky made up their minds decades ago.

The couple, who use their slightly different family names, have never owned a car, they said. A bicycle is Vartowski's primary mode of transportation. The 2000 Census showed that about 37 percent of Washington households are without motor vehicles.

"You're out in the open. You stop at your own pace. It's liberation. Sometimes I think a car is like a traveling coffin," said Wartofsky, 70, an art teacher at Georgetown University who takes the train or bus but also bikes.

Vartowski, 66, is a familiar figure in Northwest Washington, and many know her simply as the woman in the floppy, wide-brimmed hats decorated with fresh flowers and in the full-skirted dresses that balloon in the breeze as she pedals down the street. Rain or shine (or sleet or snow) she bikes. Many days she goes from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., hitting any stores she needs and frequently the Capital Crescent Trail.

She likes the tempo, the time for solitary reflection and that "you don't have to be in a certain place in a certain time," she said.

Gas station attendants wave. Homeless people say hello. A family with a stroller shouts greetings. When her son Gabriel, 24, struck up a conversation in a store a couple weeks ago and casually mentioned where he lived, he said, the first question asked was, "Oh, do you know the bike lady?" "Yeah," he said he replied. "She's my mom."

When he and his two older brothers were growing up, their parents took them to preschool and kindergarten in child seats on their bikes. He has vivid memories of the dark green Raleigh that Vartowski, a dancer and former dance instructor, owned at the time. They transported all their groceries by bike, went to the hardware store by bike, lived their lives by bike.

Gabriel Wartofsky is now headed to auto design school, and his brother Mischa, 28, who studies criminal justice, is a car mechanics whiz, his family said. The third brother, Ben, 38, is a stand-up comic. A calendar of vintage motorcycles hangs on the basement wall of the family's home, along with Gabriel's stylized paintings of cars. The Wartofsky sons, their parents admit, have rebelled from their car-free childhoods, although they still like to bike.

Family albums show photos of Vartowski grinning on her bike. Cumbersome loads are tied to the rack, balanced painstakingly on the handlebars or leaning precariously over the front.

At the house are cast-iron chandeliers, chairs, a trellis, sets of shelving and a tall wrought-iron gate. Vartowski salvaged these and more from thrift stores, dumpsters or roadsides. Then she brought them home by bike, with the help of bungee cords she keeps in a leather bag wrapped around the handlebars. She can balance just about anything, she said.

"That's her magic," Gabriel Wartofsky said.

On a recent afternoon, Vartowski got on her bike and meandered down Brookville Road NW, toward Connecticut Avenue. Noticing a patch of sunflowers by the roadside, she stopped to pick one, tucking it into her hat as the driver of the black sport-utility vehicle behind her leaned on his horn at the short delay.

She wound through some alleys that she thought looked promising for discarded treasures, then cut across S Street to loop up Massachusetts Avenue NW, past the Kahlil Gibran memorial and Washington National Cathedral. Unfazed by the blazing sun or heavy car traffic, she biked without rest or water, taking in the cityscape: a jogger wiping sweat from her forehead, a couple arguing, two women reading novels at a bus stop, a road crew at work. She bought a peach and sandwich at Safeway and kept going.

She had ridden about 10 miles when she pulled up to her house to find a tow truck parked out front.

Her son's friend was having car troubles.

Epilogue: Now it's over.

I'm afraid if I don't post something about this, a few of you who are watching what happens will think that it didn't go well. Actually, it went as well as I realistically could have hoped.

What went well was my "goodbye Gabriel" visit to the bar last night. It's good I didn't wait another week, because he's leaving town on Wednesday to start a new life as a student (again) in California. At a very prestigious school for transportation design (I think that's what it's called).

The Cliff's Notes version is that I had a few drinks (including one that maybe for sentimental reasons was "on him"), got to chat with him not nearly enough, and when the time came to say goodbye I pulled him off to the side, and we had a genuinely tender moment where I told him how special he was (yada, yada) and we exchanged hugs & cheek-kisses goodbye.

After I left, I broke down several times -- first in the supermarket (how embarassing! what drama!), and later again, and again, at home -- when the emotional gravitas of what I'd done and been feeling finally caught up with me. But today I'm a lot better. Still kind of blue, because things never turned out the way I truly wanted, and because I am really going to miss him, but I'm actually OK because I made the best of what was, and left him with the impression I wanted to leave him with, regardless of everything else. For that I'm very thankful.

So that's that. I may never see him again, not in this life, anyway. You never know. But I do know that I'll never forget him.

Back to the Bordello!

Last night Gogol Bordello made its 3rd appearance in DC at the Black Cat. Of course, I went. I'm like a GB groupie now. Sort of. (I wasn't sitting on the violinist's lap before the show by the bar, which is more than I can say for some people!)

Vitya managed to round up some AIHA-ers to come along: Alexandru, Sona, Olga, and Frances (a veritable parade of nations). And our beloved recently-ex-AIHAer Jason. We didn't really stick together much; Vitya was way up front in front of the stage, I was splitting my time between near-the-stage, back a bit with Jason, back further with Frances, Sona and Alex were off to the side, and Olga was way in the back (I think).

When it was all over, I was pretty exhausted, and drenched with my sweat and that of maybe a few dozen other people. But once again, it was an exhilarating experience. And for the first time at a GB show, my glasses didn't get knocked off! (Something about it seemed a little less...violent... this time. Vitya thinks it's cause the peeps were packed in so tightly up front that nobody was really able to fling themselves around.)

So the little cold I had before the show got a lot worse after all that (but I would say it's worth it). I had a helluva sleepless night, but managed to drag myself to work on time this morning.

I didn't take pix this time, but at the Baltimore show I did. Here's some of the best ones.
GB frontman Eugene Hutz downs a couple at the bar before going on to get rid of his stage fright... (as if!) (He did this at the Black Cat, too.)

You go, Prof. Carpenter!

I'm gonna wade into the political maelstrom for a bit. The recent nomination of John Roberts for the SCOTUS has brought a lot of muck to the surface, including those fetus-hating miscreants of NARAL (recently rechristened the feel-good pseudo-patriotic "NARAL Pro-Choice America") with their downright libelous ad against the nominee. Even though the only evidence of the nominee's stance on gay rights is something rather positive, the gay-rights spokesbots and membership organizations have fallen in lock-step opposing him, because of his supposed stance on Roe v. Wade and by extension, privacy rights. I've about given up on hoping those organizations can manage to more than feign impartiality on anything like this where abortion "rights" are even tangentially concerned, I suspect not out of reasoned conviction but for fear of alienating their supposed "allies" on the left (such as NOW, the ACLU, and the all-holy Democratic Party, all of whom would sell gay men & women out in a minute if it meant choosing between us and their unholy grail of abortion).

But last week i was astonished -- astonished! -- to come upon an actual well-reasoned, informed, legal opinion from the gay middle (still awaiting such from the gay left) that debunks the apologia for the gay left's allegiance to the abortion lobby in the name of privacy rights. From law professor (and gay man) Dale Carpenter:

While gay-rights groups have not yet announced their opposition to the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, that declaration is only a formality. They will politely wait until the Senate has conducted hearings and then come out swinging against him. Whether or not they are right to oppose him, one basis for their likely opposition should be dispelled. Abortion rights are not gay rights. And when it comes to constitutional law, Lawrence is not Roe.

Typical of gay activists’ reaction to the Roberts nomination was that of Joe Solmonese, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign. Writing for the online edition of the Advocate, Solmonese warned that Roberts “has an extremely disturbing record in opposition to Roe v. Wade,” the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision announcing a constitutional right to abortion. Indeed, abortion has become the litmus test for gay groups in deciding whether to oppose him.

Yet abortion is not a gay issue in practice or in principle. In practice, gay couples are the least likely in the land to produce unwanted pregnancies. Procreation for gay couples typically involves months of planning and thousands of dollars in investment, requiring the use of sophisticated reproductive technology or the cooperation of a surrogate parent. “Oops babies” are simply not a phenomenon common to gay life. Gays thus have less practical need for the option of abortion than do heterosexuals.

Yes, a gay woman could become pregnant through rape or consensual heterosexual sex. She might then want an abortion. But this no more makes abortion a “gay” issue than the fact that gay people die in plane crashes makes aviation-safety regulation a gay issue. Not everything that could conceivably happen to a gay person is thereby a gay issue.

Why then do gay groups make abortion a test of a politician’s or a judicial nominee’s commitment to gay rights? One answer to this question is that there’s a demonstrated correlation in polling between opposition to abortion and opposition to gay equality. When a person is silent on gay issues, the next best indicator of his likely views is his stand on abortion. There are people who oppose abortion and support gay rights, of course, but these are the exceptions.

But gay-rights groups go further than this, insisting that there’s a connection in principle between abortion rights and gay rights. That supposed principle is the right to privacy. “The privacy rights decided in Roe were at the core of the landmark Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case,” Solmonese argues, referring to the 2003 decision in which the Supreme Court declared sodomy laws unconstitutional.

This is wrong. True, the constitutional right to privacy underlies both Roe and Lawrence. But the mere fact that both opinions spring from the same root does not mean the loss of one will erode the other.

For starters, it’s remarkable how little the decision in Lawrence relies on Roe. The Lawrence opinion called on a phalanx of earlier privacy precedents and other authorities but mentioned Roe only sparingly, and never for a crucial point. The reason is obvious. Even for many liberal scholars, the reasoning of Roe is an embarrassment.

Want to read more, or do you already want to revoke my gay card? Whichever, I'm sure that by now HRC (now headed by former chief of the pro-abortion Democratic PAC "Emily's List") and NGLTF have elevated Prof. Carpenter to public enemy #1. I, on the other hand, nominate him for independent gay thinker of the year!

A Bit of the OC in DC

Someplace that's always intrigued me in DC the few times I've gone there is the waterfront in Georgetown, aka Washington Harbor. It's a (Potomac) riverside promenade and office/residential/retail complex off of K Street. (I've heard that Liz Taylor has a condo there.) The "retail" is, for the most part, a bunch of bars and restaurants, most of them with outdoor seating. There's also a "boardwalk" of sorts stretching for a few hundred feet along the river. It's pretty cool.

On a typical summer evening, the place is literally packed with the DC area's "pretty people" -- privileged, pretentious, and preened. Oh, it's not as bad as it sounds. It's actually a little bit of faux-Hollywood glam right here in button-down stuffed-shirt Washington. As S&BS in straight DC goes, nothing beats it. And the boats, oh, the boats! That's where I really felt the lime-green envy. The coolest party scene, evidently, is on the boats.

Finally last week the Post picked up on the buzz, putting the harbor and the party-boat culture on the front page of the Metro section. Check it out:


And don't miss the video!
Oh, to be middle-aged, single, straight, and wealthy enough to have a boat to moor at the harbor.

Summer's parade of hotties ("reality" check)

So who do I have my eye on these days? As I am wont to do, I tend to pay most attention to the famous and semi-famous that parade across my TV screen some nights. The last couple weeks I've zeroed in on a couple of lovelies that happen to both be stuck in the world of reality TV (I'm sorta there too, I think).

Exhibit A comes to us from a little show called Big Brother, that's now in its 6th incarnation. I've only really watched this show one full season (#2) but caught part of it last season, when a super-fine (though slippery-smooth as a seal, by choice!) identical twin came out on top. (Season #2 was notable for the amazingly beautiful Hardy-Ames Hill* who hails from York, Pa., not too far from my homestead.

Now then, submitted for your approval, from Big Brother 6:

Kaysar Ridha, age 24, an Iraqi-American from Irvine, California.

OMG. What a sight! I have to confess, I haven't really been watching this show, but have instead kept up with it via my fave TV site, TVgasm. And yeah, he's an observant Muslim (yech!) but he's really smart and seems like a good guy. He's a real fan favorite, and even though he got "evicted" from the house last week, there's a very good chance that he's gonna be voted back in by the viewing public. He's being roundly acclaimed as the most-skilled BB player ever. Meanwhile, I'm voting for him so we can see more of this:


Exhibit B is somewhat of a reality TV veteran. He got his start in a little show called The Real World: Las Vegas (where, truth be told, I probably would hardly have noticed him even if I had watched that season) and moved on to MTV's Battle of the Sexes 2 (where he sported a buzz cut and had morphed into somebody completely delicious) and this summer can be seen and admired (seriously!!) on Kill Reality on E!. His name?

Steven Hill.

(What is it with me and guys named "Hill"?)

No good photos yet of the latest and hottest incarnation of Steven. So wanna see? Watch the show. (Oh yeah, like you need more reasons to watch, Reichen Lemkuhl is also on the show, but besides being a pretty face and a guy who's actually openly gay, doesn't do much for me. But you may feel differently.)

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*In case you're wondering, here's Hardy. Actually he's probably my all-time favorite. And now that I look at him, he really reminds me of somebody. (Any guesses? duh...)

Fridays at Cobalt: we were SO there.

A bunch of us AIHA-ers were planning a night out for dancing for a couple weeks, and (perhaps because of my incessant raving about a certain bartender there), the idea was put out there (not by me!) to go to Cobalt. At the time I certainly had nothing but good things to say about it, and it's still a good scene with some poundin' tunes and a not-too-small and not-too-huge dancefloor. And the fact that my (straight) friends wanted to check it out was certainly an exciting prospect for me. Even though there was the slight problem that developed between me and the G-Man, we weren't about to let that stop us.

What sort of place is this Cobalt, you ask?

Well, you get the point.

The place opens at 10 and I got there about 10:20, and managed to locate my friends on the 2nd floor (aka 30 Degrees -- yes, we've been through this before, weren't you paying attention?). There was Natasha, and Victor, and Julia (Natasha's friend), and Natasha (Natasha's friend. Wait - isn't that an endless loop or something?), having their cognac and other assorted beverages awaiting my arrival.

After a drink or two more, we headed upstairs to funkytown, took our seats in the seats-'R'-us corner, and started taking in the scene.

(Note to the peanut gallery, G-Man was working; though I had resolved not to speak to him, he did make eye contact, smile, and wave. I of course did the same, and eventually my disposition toward him softened to the point where I wasn't mad at him anymore - but still sad. But if nothing else I decided I am going to go see him once more to say goodbye before he ships out to LA, or Detroit, or wherever.)

I gained a new appreciation of the charms of my friends V & N that night. Natasha is a very good dancer! and she certainly caught the eye of one particular dancer (the one who was first to take off his shirt and start twirling around the pole). They had some PG-13-rated fun around that pole (well, Natasha didn't leave the floor and shirtless dancer-boy didn't come down from the pole position, but that didn't matter). And Victor -- hoo, boy! (I know he's reading this so I'll keep it clean) He's got a really good attitude and an open mind, to let me paw him and "funk" him the way I did... ha ha, he was giving it as good as he got. Yeah, "V", any time you want to do that again, just say the word... heh.

Natasha's friends seemed to have a really good time too, and made for a fun larger-than-usual group for taking the club by storm.

Most-fun song of the night: dance mix of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone".
Second-most-fun: Jessica Simpson's "These Boots are Made for Walkin'".

On that new attitude...

Yes, or at least a better attitude. I suggested in a previous post that this summer was sucky. Oh, I was just feeling sorry for myself. Actually it's been pretty good, even all the time spent with/around/thinking of you-know-who.

Let's start by revisiting some of the cool and fun stuff. My birthday, that had some coolness to it. Here's a selection of cards that I got from my peeps.

This one is from Dave, who has a twisted sense of humor when it comes to cards:


OK, I don't know what to make of this one from JimB. Yes, it's very wrong, but I can't come up with even a single reason that makes any sense. Why is this wrong? Tell me (and use that dang comment feature already)!


Last, but not least, this gem from Lara.

No comment necessary, except: sweet!

Between the cards, the meals, the drinks, and the company, this was one of my better birthdays in recent memory.

By the way, this is a DC blog. Sorta.

You may have forgotten that this is the blog of someone who lives in the moral and ethical center of this nation. No, not Greenville, South Carolina*.

The exact locus of that center is known as "The Hill". Now, for you foreigners, that doesn't really mean the neighborhood known as Capitol Hill (which is nice, quaint, and all), no, it really means the only place here that really matters - the actual buildings and the throngs of humanoids that work in them. It's so important that it has its own newspaper (well, two of them, actually) named for itself. So imagine our shock that this newspaper would plumb the murky depths of frivolity in naming its "50 Most Beautiful" on the Hill for 2005.

Evidently, this has been going on for a few years already. (You see what happens when I leave the Republican-heavy world of transportation building associations for the apostasy of liberal international development non-profits? I completely lose touch with everything that makes this place tick.)

I love these kinds of lists (People magazine tops among them. So intriguing, yet so irrelevant). But this one you have to see to believe. Rather than make fun of anybody for their looks (I'm a bitch, but I'm not a mean bitch), I'll just refer you to the list itself. These are the people who are running your country, people! (Or they are cleaning up after those who are. Whatever.)

Oh, screw it, here's the top gal and the top guy (actually Barack Obama was top guy, but I don't think he's all that, not compared to guy #2 below).

Much more entertaining is the expected reaction from the blogging heads (the bitchy, the mean, and otherwise).

Wonkette gets the ball rolling with an overview of who's busting on whom about the silliness (and the not totally surprising homelyness) of this list.

Of these, my favorite is the "Boi From Troy" analysis. Frankly, it's a scream. You get to vote on/guess the Kinsey score of some of the cutest boys that made the list (though it's a dang small group).

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*home of Bob Jones University!

I've got a new attitude... and a thinner wallet

(I'm not referring to my lost credit card. That's another story!)

This is my first blogging from my new laptop! Too cool. Somewhere I got the bright idea that I needed yet some more equipment to take up space in my place. So I started checking out the deals from Dell, and I found a super-SWEET one on an Inspiron 2200 that's pretty loaded. Still the damage was about 800 smackers. Even with a couple accessories I got setup for under $1000. Not too shabby! AND I've got a couple free wireless net connections floating around here. They aren't that good, but for right now, I ain't complainin'!

As if that wasn't enough, around the same time I caught a vibe that I was being left behind from this brave new world they call "iPod world". Mainly I wanted something small and with no moving parts to help me work out without having to suffer through the completely useless music they've always got on at the gym. And I have more than enough tunes to keep me entertained. But I couldn't see getting a hard drive-powered thing, and some of the smaller things just didn't have enough memory. Enter the iPod Shuffle...

They just lowered the price on the 1GB Shuffle, and it seems like that will do for me everything that I could hope for (within reason). I'm still waiting for it, but already I'm going thru my CD collection ripping all the suitable trance, techno, and generally pumping vibes into mp3s. (What a drag...) Actually, going thru the tunes and picking out what to load the Pod up with will be pretty cool.

So what does this mean for my lifestyle? Will I become a "Pod person" with the little white earbuds, oblivious to all the wondrous humanity around me? Will my laptop turn me into a blogging maniac who's never more than a minute away from my latest eBay bidding war or senseless e-mail listserv?

Time will tell. But if I start changing for the worse, be sure to slap me around first. But do it via a Podcast, please - otherwise, I might miss it!