At that November 5th anti-Prop 8 rally on Sproul Plaza, they had an open mic, and one speaker had a lasting impression on me. She took the mic and said something like, "I am a straight Latina Catholic, and I voted against Prop 8. The Bible says 'Love thy neighbor,' and people who use the Bible to discriminate make me sick." I think those words were the start of my born-again phase.
A few days after the rally, some nuns from LA mailed me a small metal cross. I recycled their plea for money to indoctrinate orphans. Why should I donate to Archbishop George Niederauer's minions, after he orchestrated the lucrative and successful Catholic/Mormon Prop 8 campaign? But I do wear the cross (thanks, nuns) as a reminder of my rebirth as a Christian. (But I am still Buddhist too.)
We saw Milk at the Embarcadero theater, and there was an amazing number of seniors. Before that screening, I was embarrassingly ignorant of much of the history in the film. I didn't realize how big the gay rights movement was, and how much media attention it commanded.
"Sad" movies don't really make me cry. But movies where people endure lots of hardship because of what they believe in make me cry. Sacrifice, bravery, heroism. So my eyes got wet a lot during Milk. Again, in the bathroom line after the movie, my eyes got wet when I saw all the seniors. These people must have been involved in the struggles going on in the late 70s, when I was a wee lad. After the crushing approval of Prop 8 by the 65+ crowd (see my graph of the CNN exit poll), it was nice to see individuals who break the stereotype.
Like me. And that speaker at the rally.
As Christians who support same-sex marriage.
The night I accepted the Lord as my savior is a powerful memory. My grandfather was a pastor. My brothers and I used to worship with his congregation in Sparks, when we went to visit for holidays. Years later, we were visiting his house in Yreka, during the final days of his battle with cancer. Grandpa woke my brothers and I, and we gathered around the kitchen table late at night. Tearfully, he said that it was his final wish to be comforted by knowing that we had taken Jesus as our savior. This man whose body was wracked with self-consuming pain had seized one of his moments of lucidity to care for our eternal souls, and it touched me as an act of pure compassion. Although he was too deaf to hear our tearful pledges, he saw us nod and gave a smile of intense relief.
They say the average male thinks about sex once every seven
seconds. But today I was walking around thinking "Obama is
president" every seven seconds.
It's great that he is considered African American. It's even
better that he is truly multicultural. He used to live in
Indonesia with his Indonesian step-dad, and he has a hapa sister.
When Bush stole his elections, he said "mandate" about 50,000
times. He didn't have a mandate; he didn't even have the popular
vote. I didn't hear "mandate" from Obama yet, but he's the one
with the real mandate.
- - - - -
Xylar took me to a rally on Sproul Plaza at noon today,
and one of the speakers said that he was disappointed in his
African American brothers and sisters who voted 70% in favor of
Prop 8. These are the people, he said, who benefitted in recent history
from the civil rights movements of the 60s, and now they are in
favor of restricting rights from a minority group. There was a
lot of chanting "F@*%% PROP 8 !!" at the rally.
But enough negativity. My days and weeks leading up to the
election were full of energy shared among the NO on prop 8
volunteers, and so much building of community with straight
folks--family, friends, and coworkers--whose consciences
drove them to stand on the side of equality and fairness.
At the rally today, Phillip brought up something that we
can do to keep making progress, now that the election is over:
Come out. He spoke about how the simple act of coming out causes
those around you to vote in favor of same-sex marriage rights,
because "they can see that we're normal. A little bit crazier,
but normal."
Several speakers also brought up the youth vote: Californians
under 29 voted 61% NO on prop 8. If we wait long enough, they
said, these younger voters will eventually dominate public
opinion. Here are the voter pies by age group (orange is NO on
prop 8), according to the CNN exit poll that Claire Max sent me:
I think the effect of coming out is clear here:
- 18-29. It's still not easy, but queer people in this
age group have had the easiest time in history coming out. Enough
of them are out that most people this age know someone queer, and
prop 8 failed by a wide margin among this population.
- 30-39. People in this age group had a harder time
coming out, but some still did so. Most of their children are so
young that they're all assumed straight. Prop 8 narrowly passes
in this population, thanks to Mormon lies.
- 40-49. It was extremely difficult for these people to
come out, so many of them may not know out queer peers. Some may
have children who recently came out, but they have probably not
yet dealt with it.
- 50-64. This generation includes people who were
teenagers in the 60s, but I doubt they had an easy time coming
out. Any of their out children have probably been out for a
while, giving this group time to develop tolerance.
- 65+. This hopelessly old group is probably seen as so
conservative that their grandchildren haven't come out to them
yet. Kids, come out to your grandparents !!
Overheard in the main plaza of Columbia University:
douchebag1: ...Kyoto Protocol levels are fixed by... climate change... the Chinese are being douchebags.
douchebag2: The air quality there is supposed to be really bad.
douchebag1: Yeah I heard it is DISGUSTING. That's why there are so many birth defects.
douchebag2: And generally low IQs.
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The essay contest deadline has been extended to Tuesday 30 September at noon PDT, due to the low volume of contestant entries.
Win a free or discount ticket to see MBV at the Concourse in SF, Tuesday 30 September, by writing a prize-winning essay!
Grand Prize (1): Free ticket.
Consolation Prizes (6): Discount ticket, only $40 each.*
Contest deadline: Monday 2008-09-29 at 12:00 PDT / 19:00 UT.
Essay title (required): "MBV are awesome and this is why I need to see them:"
Essay length: Maximum length 500 words. No minimum, but essay must be detailed enough to fully explain the two themes expressed in the title.
Other
rules: Email contest entry to michael.h.wong (a Gmail
account) with the subject line, "MBV." Or, post contest entry to
my guestbook. Writing style is not restricted,
but please use English to ensure consideration of your
entry. Text only. Contest judging will be entirely done by me
(with no guarantee of fairness), but these tickets are NOT
reserved for anyone and are truly available to win. One entry per
person. Winners will be announced by 2PM Monday, and tickets will
be awarded in person at about 8PM Tuesday outside the Concourse. Please
include phone number with entry.
* As of this post, tickets are no longer available on Ticketmaster and are going for $50-60 on Craigslist. Save up to $10-60 by expressing your love for the music in words!
I started off the Labor Day weekend with Ethan's housewarming brunch, where we could watch the wild parrots flocking from the balcony. Later that night we discovered havoc on the 101, some kind of TV 2.0 where you can chat and vote (by texting) to influence the video playlist. One user said they spend $50/month on havoc on the 101.
A little while ago I was doing something that kept making my computer beep, and I got annoyed and wanted my old beeps back. I found them on an old HD, but they were in some weird System 7 format that I could play but not convert. So I had to use the Microtrack II to re-digitize them. Many of these ancient beeps are noisy, but I think they all post-date the MacRecorder (although only by a couple of years). So I can't blame the MacRecorder.
The vintage beeps are available as a 4.3MB zipped collection of WAV files. On the modern Mac, install them by dragging to the "/System/Library/Sounds" folder (or if you don't have privileges, then the "Library/Sounds" folder in your home directory). If you have a PC, you know better than me.
There are samples of Crouton, Gabriela, James, Laura, and Marcy, as well as a bunch of fair use samples and synthesized noises. It was so nostalgic to listen to these old sounds.
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