The photo made me shiver. The boy in the picture could have been a survivor of Auschwitz. Pale, skeletal and his life slipping away, Raymond Buys, 15, was clinging to life while hooked up to feeding tubes and medical devices, but they were not enough. Buys died, his body having suffered burns, broken bones and malnourishment finally succumbed, and all because he was gay.
Yes the nightmare scenario of “camps” for gay men is no nightmare, it is real in South Africa. There a “general” was convincing parents to send their gay or effeminate young teems to his Echo Wild Game Rangers training course to turn them into “men”. Instead he turned several into corpses.
Now, “general” Alex De Koker and his assistant Michael Erasmus will stand trial for murder, child abuse and neglect. Sadly since 2006 De Koker has been bilking parents out of thousands of dollars in his twisted ex-gay therapy. Even worse he has injured or killed several boys after chaining them to their beds and torturing them.
To be sure there will be more murder charges and South African justice will prevail by putting these two monsters away forever. The saddest part of the story is that parents would subject their children to torture and starvation to try to change who they are.
Since every form of “reparative therapy” for gay men has been shown to be ineffective and downright fraudulent, it is sad that these parents didn’t get the message. To try to lay blame for this is difficult, but I would suspect that these misguided parents had been listening to some hate filled rhetoric, and I would not be surprised if it wasn’t coming from right-wing evangelicals.
The same folks who spread the hate filled message against LGBT people here in the United States have taken their “Bad News” overseas to more receptive audiences. Africa has been exceptionally fertile for their efforts though most notably in Uganda with its institutionalized homophobia. To find this madness in South Africa, a nation with one of the most progressive attitudes toward LGBT people, is alarming. The idea of “camps” for gay teens conjures up images of the kind of solutions proposed by the right-wing in our country when the AIDS crisis first hit. That horrific idea did not go away though, instead it has been resurrected by people like North Carolina pastor Charles Worley who actually called for putting “all the lesbians and queers” in concentration camps.
These kinds of messages do not happen in a vacuum. In the age of YouTube this hatred gets spewed worldwide and reinforces the fear some parents have that their children will turn out gay. It is a second front in the culture wars for the fundamentalists. They have long been active in Africa and now they are characterizing the progress made by LGBT people in the US as a new imperialist threat to “African family values”. People like mega-church pastor, Rick Warren and holocaust revisionist, Scott Lively are pumping their propaganda into Africa with renewed intensity and now it seems to have made it all the way south.
As Afrikaans buy into this misguided message it is not surprising that cases like this might pop up, but it is a sad commentary on the extent of the collateral damage from the culture war in the US that the right-wing is so fiercely waging. Their battle in the US is a losing one, but there is still fallout overseas.
The real “good news” is that these monsters are being brought to justice.
Friday, May 03, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
"Re-targeting" and the Creepy Side of Marketing Online
As a marketing guy, I am familiar with a slew of techniques that are used by companies to get their message to potential customers. It's one of the basic goals of marketing and it's the bedrock of doing business with consumers.
I have no problem with it because I see it as a service. I make my company's products and services visible to potential customers in appealing ways that entice them to do business with us. It's honest and straightforward.
Online things should be the same way, but recently internet marketers have moved into the grey area of "re-targeting" and "interactive marketing". I see this as grey because it potentially violates the implied privacy of individuals online. Here is an example.
I am an out gay man, no surprise there. I recently looked for a gay-friendly guest house for one of my trips out of town. Google efficiently found it for me and I booked a room for a weekend away.
Suddenly, on Facebook, I am getting ads for gay guest houses and the male version of Victoria's Secret underwear and even more NSFW stuff. Saw what? If I were in the closet at work, anyone who saw that screen would figure I was gay, effectively outing me electronically.
My search on Google was tracked and compared to my Facebook profile as well as the profiles of all of my friends and at the speed of light, a BIG DATA computer crunched that I am gay and therefore would like seeing ads for skimpy men's underwear and suggestive ads.
Kinda creepy, huh? Now the fallacy of this kind of mindless targeting is that first of all, I don't wear that kind of underwear, if I did I would look like the Hindenburg in a g-string. Additionally, I do not make a habit of staying in guest houses. I prefer hotels with all their amenities. Two strikes for the "re-targeting" algorithm. What's more is the fact that since I have such a variety of "friends" on Facebook, the assumptions the interactive marketing made are myriad.
The overall impression is that marketers are eavesdropping on everything I do, and they are. Privacy on the internet is an illusion, every click is tracked and analyzed by someone looking to sell you their product. This is the big difference in interactive marketing and real-time marketing.
At a mall, I may browse a lot of stores, but the clerks don't follow me around and whisper their message in my ear whenever I stop at a competition's window. They don't track me down and try to persuade me to by that shirt I passed up at their shop, if they did I'd most likely call the cops or just slug them.
Online, the rules apparently change. Just a word to the wise. If you want to have some fun, browse through sites with products and services you would never use in a million years. Watch the marketing bots try to sell you stuff you don't want. They aren't going away any time soon, so you might as well screw with them and enjoy it!
I have no problem with it because I see it as a service. I make my company's products and services visible to potential customers in appealing ways that entice them to do business with us. It's honest and straightforward.
Online things should be the same way, but recently internet marketers have moved into the grey area of "re-targeting" and "interactive marketing". I see this as grey because it potentially violates the implied privacy of individuals online. Here is an example.
I am an out gay man, no surprise there. I recently looked for a gay-friendly guest house for one of my trips out of town. Google efficiently found it for me and I booked a room for a weekend away.
Suddenly, on Facebook, I am getting ads for gay guest houses and the male version of Victoria's Secret underwear and even more NSFW stuff. Saw what? If I were in the closet at work, anyone who saw that screen would figure I was gay, effectively outing me electronically.
My search on Google was tracked and compared to my Facebook profile as well as the profiles of all of my friends and at the speed of light, a BIG DATA computer crunched that I am gay and therefore would like seeing ads for skimpy men's underwear and suggestive ads.
Kinda creepy, huh? Now the fallacy of this kind of mindless targeting is that first of all, I don't wear that kind of underwear, if I did I would look like the Hindenburg in a g-string. Additionally, I do not make a habit of staying in guest houses. I prefer hotels with all their amenities. Two strikes for the "re-targeting" algorithm. What's more is the fact that since I have such a variety of "friends" on Facebook, the assumptions the interactive marketing made are myriad.
The overall impression is that marketers are eavesdropping on everything I do, and they are. Privacy on the internet is an illusion, every click is tracked and analyzed by someone looking to sell you their product. This is the big difference in interactive marketing and real-time marketing.
At a mall, I may browse a lot of stores, but the clerks don't follow me around and whisper their message in my ear whenever I stop at a competition's window. They don't track me down and try to persuade me to by that shirt I passed up at their shop, if they did I'd most likely call the cops or just slug them.
Online, the rules apparently change. Just a word to the wise. If you want to have some fun, browse through sites with products and services you would never use in a million years. Watch the marketing bots try to sell you stuff you don't want. They aren't going away any time soon, so you might as well screw with them and enjoy it!
Friday, January 25, 2013
Footprints
In 1979, I left my footprints on the National Mall during the first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights and listened to speakers from Troy Perry to Allen Ginsberg make the case our civil rights. It gave me hope. How could the President and Congress ignore the hundred thousand plus men and women who marched to the capitol to demand equality?
But President Carter did ignore us, and so did Congress. In fact we have been pretty much ignored in the oval office until now. In his second inaugural speech, President Obama not only acknowledged our struggle, he linked it to the great civil rights struggles of the past. In one sentence he cut through the years of neglect and put our fight in perspective.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths —- that all of us are created equal —- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”
In case the listener was not a student of history and didn’t recognize those three watershed events in the struggle for equality President Obama reiterated the point.
“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.”
Finally, a president “gets it”! The women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement and LGBT rights are part of the same struggle. It is acknowledgement that we as LGBT Americans are no longer set apart, we do not seek “ special rights” any more than every other American.
His nod to same-sex marriage will no doubt have weight in the upcoming Supreme Court cases that contest the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. The court will no doubt take into account the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage and the endorsement of the President. They do not act in a vacuum.
Apparently the President does not act in a vacuum either. I know that like many folks in the LGBT community, I had been disappointed that President Obama had not pushed harder for LGBT rights. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but still was impatient for more action. Most people recall the kerfuffle of having homophobic preacher, Rick Warren at the first inauguration. Many will also recall that candidate Obama openly affirmed that marriage was “between a man and a woman” and he was against “gay marriage”.
Things change. In May of last year he stat4ed in an interview on ABC, “…over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."
And now, in the inaugural address, he makes it abundantly clear that equality will be a big part of his second term in office.
It is heartening to see that those footsteps of LGBT people who marched on the National Mall in 1979, 1987, 2000 and in 2009 have not been blown away by the political winds that scour Washington . President Obama, by acknowledging those “footprints along this great Mall” not only gives a nod to LGBT rights, he gives me hope that I will live to see those rights become the law of the land.
But President Carter did ignore us, and so did Congress. In fact we have been pretty much ignored in the oval office until now. In his second inaugural speech, President Obama not only acknowledged our struggle, he linked it to the great civil rights struggles of the past. In one sentence he cut through the years of neglect and put our fight in perspective.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths —- that all of us are created equal —- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”
In case the listener was not a student of history and didn’t recognize those three watershed events in the struggle for equality President Obama reiterated the point.
“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.”
Finally, a president “gets it”! The women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement and LGBT rights are part of the same struggle. It is acknowledgement that we as LGBT Americans are no longer set apart, we do not seek “ special rights” any more than every other American.
His nod to same-sex marriage will no doubt have weight in the upcoming Supreme Court cases that contest the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. The court will no doubt take into account the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage and the endorsement of the President. They do not act in a vacuum.
Apparently the President does not act in a vacuum either. I know that like many folks in the LGBT community, I had been disappointed that President Obama had not pushed harder for LGBT rights. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but still was impatient for more action. Most people recall the kerfuffle of having homophobic preacher, Rick Warren at the first inauguration. Many will also recall that candidate Obama openly affirmed that marriage was “between a man and a woman” and he was against “gay marriage”.
Things change. In May of last year he stat4ed in an interview on ABC, “…over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."
And now, in the inaugural address, he makes it abundantly clear that equality will be a big part of his second term in office.
It is heartening to see that those footsteps of LGBT people who marched on the National Mall in 1979, 1987, 2000 and in 2009 have not been blown away by the political winds that scour Washington . President Obama, by acknowledging those “footprints along this great Mall” not only gives a nod to LGBT rights, he gives me hope that I will live to see those rights become the law of the land.
Monday, January 07, 2013
The Great Gun Hard-On
I usually don't get blatantly sexual with my posts, but today is different.
Let's get honest for a minute. If you listen closely to the rhetoric around the idea of an assault weapon ban, you hear a lot of hyperbole and just plain silly arguments on both sides. But to be honest, the underlying love affair with assault weapons comes down to sex and more specifically "machismo".
I have been to a few gun shows in my time and when I see people, specifically men, handling weapons like the AR-15 I see their whole body language change. For me their stance gets wider, they stand taller and display a noticeable swagger.
Their speech is also a give-away. You never hear a guy describe an assault rifle as "well balanced", "precision" or even "well designed". The first words are usually "awesome", "bitchin" or "day-um". They speak of these guns with emotional terms and that tells a lot. The assault rifles are not guns to them as much as they are big, deadly extensions of their manhood. I have even heard the phrase, "who's the man?" when someone handles these guns.
America's love affair with semi-automatic weapons is driven by marketing, popular media and the gun lobby who equate powerful weaponry with manhood. They might as well say, "it takes a big dick to handle this gun!" America has a hard-on for deadly weapons.
This mental erection has no basis in statistics. The facts are that since semi-automatic weapons were legalized, the country has become less safe. Gun deaths continue to climb and no one seems willing to state the obvious except Bill Moyers when he stated that America seeks no, "redemption from its fetish with guns, its romance with the free market of violence."
The whole argument about assault weapons and the 2nd Amendment are a diversion. Americans want these guns so they can feel potent and "manly". It is just a manifestation of the whole machismo thing and the price is the deaths of thousands of people a year. It's time for this to stop.
It's high time we got honest and found another way to bolster our national case of penis envy. A country that cannot talk in an adult and mature way about sex, finds other outlets. We have chosen guns, lots and lots of guns. My suspicion is that if we had a healthier attitude toward sex, and could honestly talk about it with each other, then showing off our big guns would have less meaning.
If you don't believe me, go to a gun show and watch for a while. You will soon understand and be as appalled as I am.
Let's get honest for a minute. If you listen closely to the rhetoric around the idea of an assault weapon ban, you hear a lot of hyperbole and just plain silly arguments on both sides. But to be honest, the underlying love affair with assault weapons comes down to sex and more specifically "machismo".
I have been to a few gun shows in my time and when I see people, specifically men, handling weapons like the AR-15 I see their whole body language change. For me their stance gets wider, they stand taller and display a noticeable swagger.
Their speech is also a give-away. You never hear a guy describe an assault rifle as "well balanced", "precision" or even "well designed". The first words are usually "awesome", "bitchin" or "day-um". They speak of these guns with emotional terms and that tells a lot. The assault rifles are not guns to them as much as they are big, deadly extensions of their manhood. I have even heard the phrase, "who's the man?" when someone handles these guns.
America's love affair with semi-automatic weapons is driven by marketing, popular media and the gun lobby who equate powerful weaponry with manhood. They might as well say, "it takes a big dick to handle this gun!" America has a hard-on for deadly weapons.
This mental erection has no basis in statistics. The facts are that since semi-automatic weapons were legalized, the country has become less safe. Gun deaths continue to climb and no one seems willing to state the obvious except Bill Moyers when he stated that America seeks no, "redemption from its fetish with guns, its romance with the free market of violence."
The whole argument about assault weapons and the 2nd Amendment are a diversion. Americans want these guns so they can feel potent and "manly". It is just a manifestation of the whole machismo thing and the price is the deaths of thousands of people a year. It's time for this to stop.
It's high time we got honest and found another way to bolster our national case of penis envy. A country that cannot talk in an adult and mature way about sex, finds other outlets. We have chosen guns, lots and lots of guns. My suspicion is that if we had a healthier attitude toward sex, and could honestly talk about it with each other, then showing off our big guns would have less meaning.
If you don't believe me, go to a gun show and watch for a while. You will soon understand and be as appalled as I am.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Reality, Meet the GOP
Reality and the Republican Party are not close friends. That was evident on election night when Karl Rove blubbered and fought with his pocket calculator trying to dispute the election results his own network, Fox News was reporting.
Now, perhaps, there is a watershed event. Former House Speaker and failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was quoted in the Huffington Post as saying, “I don't think these guys have a clue.” He was speaking about the Republican National Committee and its internal review of what went wrong during the election .
Part of that interview was most relevant for LGBT Americans, when Gingrich breached the subject of Gay Marriage. He felt that the GOP needed to open their eyes and see that the majority of Americans no longer have a problem with same-sex marriage. Wow!
Specifically he made the distinction between “"marriage in a church from a legal document issued by the state". He went on to say, “It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to ... accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states -- and it will be more after 2014 -- gay relationships will be legal, period."
The phrase “accommodate and deal with reality” is what struck me most. After all, this is the man who actually thought he had a shot at the Presidency. A man who was divorced twice and has a spotty history of infidelity, as well as being reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee, seriously thought he could stand up to the scrutiny of a Presidential run? It would seem that reality and Newt were not well acquainted.
Newt was even a signatory to the National Organization for Marriage pledge regarding a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. What happened?
Well, Newt and the GOP are not immune to public opinion, and though they seem to be fighting it every step of the way, he and others on the right have seen that the age of bashing LGBT people to rally the base, no longer works. Time is marching on and leaving that sad chapter in American political history in the dust.
"I didn't think that was inevitable 10 or 15 years ago, when we passed the Defense of Marriage Act," he said. "It didn't seem at the time to be anything like as big a wave of change as we are now seeing."
This may bode well for the upcoming decision by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Perhaps even the conservative voices on the bench will see the tide turning and clear the way for federal recognition of same-sex unions. We can hope for that, but one stumbling block still stands in the way, and that’s Justice Antonin Scalia. His recent comparison of the ban on sodomy to a ban on murder might give us a clue to his thinking. Though he claims to be a “textualist” when it comes to the Constitution, he is more of an absurdist, reducing his arguments to absurd comparisons.
In the end, his absurdity may not matter. My hope is that Scalia will be writing the minority dissenting opinion on DOMA and that his words will look every bit as silly as Karl Rove on election night. The tide has turned and Scalia doesn’t notice, and when you can’t see something that is so evident that Newt Gingrich can see it, then you might end up looking as absurd as your argument.
Now, perhaps, there is a watershed event. Former House Speaker and failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was quoted in the Huffington Post as saying, “I don't think these guys have a clue.” He was speaking about the Republican National Committee and its internal review of what went wrong during the election .
Part of that interview was most relevant for LGBT Americans, when Gingrich breached the subject of Gay Marriage. He felt that the GOP needed to open their eyes and see that the majority of Americans no longer have a problem with same-sex marriage. Wow!
Specifically he made the distinction between “"marriage in a church from a legal document issued by the state". He went on to say, “It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to ... accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states -- and it will be more after 2014 -- gay relationships will be legal, period."
The phrase “accommodate and deal with reality” is what struck me most. After all, this is the man who actually thought he had a shot at the Presidency. A man who was divorced twice and has a spotty history of infidelity, as well as being reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee, seriously thought he could stand up to the scrutiny of a Presidential run? It would seem that reality and Newt were not well acquainted.
Newt was even a signatory to the National Organization for Marriage pledge regarding a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. What happened?
Well, Newt and the GOP are not immune to public opinion, and though they seem to be fighting it every step of the way, he and others on the right have seen that the age of bashing LGBT people to rally the base, no longer works. Time is marching on and leaving that sad chapter in American political history in the dust.
"I didn't think that was inevitable 10 or 15 years ago, when we passed the Defense of Marriage Act," he said. "It didn't seem at the time to be anything like as big a wave of change as we are now seeing."
This may bode well for the upcoming decision by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Perhaps even the conservative voices on the bench will see the tide turning and clear the way for federal recognition of same-sex unions. We can hope for that, but one stumbling block still stands in the way, and that’s Justice Antonin Scalia. His recent comparison of the ban on sodomy to a ban on murder might give us a clue to his thinking. Though he claims to be a “textualist” when it comes to the Constitution, he is more of an absurdist, reducing his arguments to absurd comparisons.
In the end, his absurdity may not matter. My hope is that Scalia will be writing the minority dissenting opinion on DOMA and that his words will look every bit as silly as Karl Rove on election night. The tide has turned and Scalia doesn’t notice, and when you can’t see something that is so evident that Newt Gingrich can see it, then you might end up looking as absurd as your argument.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Heading Off The Cliff
You can't turn on a news report without hearing references to the "fiscal cliff". Terrifying? Not so much, but still a real issue.
Quite frankly I don't think the Republicans have any intention of negotiating and a re perfectly willing to do a Thelma & Louise on January 1. Why? Because they can let the automatic lifting of the Bush tax cuts happen, the spending cuts and all, then they can pass a bill that cuts taxes for the middle class and still say they didn't raise taxes. They cut them!
Pretzel logic for sure, but the GOP excels at that. They can pass legislation to restore the military spending and claim they were defending the nation. More pretzel logic.
When this happens, and I do believe it is a "when" not an "if", the Democrats in Congress need to make it abundantly clear that it is the GOP 's fault. They need to control the narrative and not let the Republicans play their semantic game.
I suspect President Obama is already working on a speech that will lay out the facts for the American people in a way that makes it abundantly clear who is at fault for this mess.
In the long run it wont hurt us much, unless the stock market gets neurotic and starts kicking in some automatic selling programs. Oh and then there is the debt ceiling.... The Chinese curse is coming true, "may you live in interesting times."
Quite frankly I don't think the Republicans have any intention of negotiating and a re perfectly willing to do a Thelma & Louise on January 1. Why? Because they can let the automatic lifting of the Bush tax cuts happen, the spending cuts and all, then they can pass a bill that cuts taxes for the middle class and still say they didn't raise taxes. They cut them!
Pretzel logic for sure, but the GOP excels at that. They can pass legislation to restore the military spending and claim they were defending the nation. More pretzel logic.
When this happens, and I do believe it is a "when" not an "if", the Democrats in Congress need to make it abundantly clear that it is the GOP 's fault. They need to control the narrative and not let the Republicans play their semantic game.
I suspect President Obama is already working on a speech that will lay out the facts for the American people in a way that makes it abundantly clear who is at fault for this mess.
In the long run it wont hurt us much, unless the stock market gets neurotic and starts kicking in some automatic selling programs. Oh and then there is the debt ceiling.... The Chinese curse is coming true, "may you live in interesting times."
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Emanuel
Emanuel is translated as "God with us". That was the biggest message of Jesus and of the birth narrative. The story in my opinion was meant to give a graphic example of what Jesus taught in later life He took the idea of God being only in the Temple and moved the focus to individuals. God was and is with us, not hidden behind the veil of the Temple.
Jesus was a reformer. His path was meant to bring us closer to the divine and to free us from the rules and structures of the Pharisees. His path broke free from the rigid rules and relied on the simple commandment to love one another.
As I celebrate this season and reread the birth narratives I know that indeed a new light did come into the world. May the light of this season brighten your days.
Note: Sometimes I get off on a theological bent and I have to reassert that what I write is just my opinion. Take what you like and leave the rest.
Jesus was a reformer. His path was meant to bring us closer to the divine and to free us from the rules and structures of the Pharisees. His path broke free from the rigid rules and relied on the simple commandment to love one another.
As I celebrate this season and reread the birth narratives I know that indeed a new light did come into the world. May the light of this season brighten your days.
Note: Sometimes I get off on a theological bent and I have to reassert that what I write is just my opinion. Take what you like and leave the rest.
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