Category Archives: Uncategorized

(Community Matters) I too thought the President’s inauguration address was an inspiring, bold and a defining speech. When the other side is being held hostage by extremist views which aren’t even rational, you don’t compromise and negotiate to the middle – too bad, moderate & conservative perspectives are important.

“Obama . . . . announcing his progressive intentions for a second term: to defend the aims of the entitlement state, to take on climate-change deniers, to promote gay rights and equal pay for women, to extract the country from ‘perpetual war’ and instead refashion America’s reputation at home and overseas as a ‘source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice.” – JOHN F. HARRIS and JONATHAN MARTIN

David Remnick describes the speech well too . . .

DAVID REMNICK, editor of The New Yorker : “Obama’s speech was infinitely better, more self-assured, more politically precise than his first. This was Barack Obama without apology — a liberal emboldened by political victory and a desire to enter the history books with a progressive agenda. … Gone is the primacy of compromise, which marked Obama’s days as president of the Harvard Law Review and even his first years in office. He no longer seems determined to transcend ideology or partisanship; experience has led him toward an engagement with politics in a tougher, clearer way. … There were countless touchstones of this clear liberal agenda: the association of the 1969 Stonewall demonstrations with the 1965 black-freedom march in Selma and the 1848 women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York …

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(Community Matters)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50139454n

(Community Matters) “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.” – Pres Obama

“Mentioning Stonewall in the same breath as Selma moves us beyond the era of gay rights as special pleading and into the era of full gay integration,” says Jonathan Rauch, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and author of a book about gay marriage. “The fact that he made the theme so prominent tells me that he sees gay equality as a major legacy item, which it will be. He’s gays’ LBJ.”

(Community Matters)

Happy Birthday, Tana

good gosh, just realizing Molly is her spitting image

(Community Matters) Absolutely no corroboration, nevertheless concerning: reports Marine General James Mattis being rushed out of position for challenging civilian national security leadership in Iran scenario planning

The White House view, apparently, is that Mattis was too hawkish, which is not something I believe, having seen him in the field over the years. I’d call him a tough-minded realist, someone who’d rather have tea with you than shoot you, but is happy to end the conversation either way.

CIVIL-MILITARY SIGNALS: The message the Obama Administration is sending, intentionally or not, is that it doesn’t like tough, smart, skeptical generals who speak candidly to their civilian superiors. In fact, that is exactly what it (and every administration) should want. Had we had more back in 2003, we might not have made the colossal mistake of invading Iraq.

Follow up from Foreign Policy

(Community Matters) Good wishes to all our dear friends at the inauguration. I’m going to enjoy it from the warmth of home, while someone new gets to have the spectacular experience in our places.

Remembering 4 years ago when it was way too cold and still such great fun. Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, the inauguration, a unique view. Sending best wishes to our President, his family and the entire administration.

(Community Matters) Proud of my friend Don Martin for penning such an important piece in the Austin American Statesman. Mental health disorders are one of final frontiers for public health understanding.

(Community Matters)

Not Gay – Part 1

Housemates (this week at Sundance)

Fitz

Steel River trailer

The Down Low Chronicles: The Chadwick Journals

while I should have been reviewing several documents yesterday, I had fun browsing a trail of LGBT YouTube videos

(Community Matters)

just cuz

(Community Matters) “I have seen what St. Paul describes as the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) in the married lives of two men and of two women. I have seen relationships that are loving, mutual, and monogamous and that have lasted a lifetime.” The Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely of Rhode Island as their legislature votes on marriage equality next week

(Community Matters) Jonathan Chait in the New York about David Brooks

moderate Republicans believe that Obama’s tactic of taking sensible positions that moderate Republicans agree with is cruel and unfair, because it exposes the extremism that dominates the party, not to mention the powerlessness of the moderates within it

(Community Matters) I had to post a reader’s comment to my posting on Conscious Capitalism: