Posts - June 2006

The 2004 election was stolen.

This article depresses me – not just because of what it says about 2004, but because of what it means for the future. If Republicans can rig any future election to come out in their favor no matter what the voters want, then we’re screwed.

The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system. If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded, they will abandon the ballot box. Nothing less is at stake here than the entire idea of a government by the people.

Voting, as Thomas Paine said, “is the right upon which all other rights depend.” Unless we ensure that right, everything else we hold dear is in jeopardy.

Audio versions of a bunch of New Yorker articles. Good for the iPod, I imagine.

Good. The opponents of gay marriage couldn’t even get a majority of the Senate to support a vote on a marriage amendment. Only 49 senators voted to close debate.

I can’t express how disgusted I am at Colorado’s Wayne Allard, whom Time named one of America’s five worst senators, and those who agree with him. That includes the President, who hasn’t even discussed the issue since he was re-elected but now sees fit to use us in order to help his party.

As Michael Scherer points out, opponents of gay marriage rarely talk about actual gay people anymore. While it’s nice that insulting gay people directly is apparently no longer a respectable component of mainstream political discourse, it also means we’re left out of the equation completely.

But rather than talk about gay marriage, a dozen speakers, including Colorado GOP Sen. Wayne Allard, took turns expounding on the importance of loving, two-parent homes for children. They talked about the damage done by deadbeat dads in the inner city, and the importance of family in minority communities. As the Rev. Eve Nunez, an Arizona pastor put it, “America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration.”

The press corps who had gathered for the event appeared universally baffled by the argument being made from behind the microphones. “How would outlawing gay marriage encourage heterosexual fathers to stick around?” asked the first wire service reporter to be called on for questions. “Why not outlaw divorce?” another scribe asked Allard later.

They can’t answer these questions because it’s not about “strengthening the family.” Or if it is, they’re too timid to take steps that will affect a majority of their constituents; they’d rather pass a law that they know will never affect them. People don’t want to criminalize adultery because someday they might be adulterers; they don’t want to ban divorce because they might want a divorce someday. But they don’t mind banning gay marriage, because hey, they’ll never be gay.

This is a complete failure to try and see the world through the eyes of a human being who is different from you. That’s the root of the world’s problems, really. It’s been true throughout human history and probably even before then. It takes effort to see the world through someone else’s eyes; it’s easier to just be ignorant and afraid of those who are different. People don’t like to leave their comfort zones.

So we’re seen as The Other. We’re expendable. Who cares that a gay marriage ban will prevent certain people from achieving full protection for their relationships? I’m not gay, so I don’t have to worry about it. It affects them, not me.

People are so ignorant.

On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart debated Bill Bennett on gay marriage. (That’s a link to the video.) I always root for Stewart when he debates conservatives on social issues, but I always wind up frothing because he leaves out certain arguments that I would have made, or he misses an opportunity to make a good point about something and instead makes a joke. I always wish I could butt in.

For instance, Bennett brought up the common “slippery slope” argument that gay marriage might lead to polygamy. I LOATHE slippery-slope arguments. Here’s my response: issues should be argued on their own terms. Look – if you can’t think of valid, independent arguments against polygamy, then maybe polygamy should be legal. Oh? What’s that? You argue that I’m being ridiculous, because polygamy is sexist and creates economic inequality among husband and wives? Well, there you go! There’s your argument! Now, how exactly does legal gay marriage invalidate that argument?

For the record, Stewart did point out (although he didn’t say it very well) that homosexuality is part of who a person is, while polygamy is a choice. But I don’t think that’s a valid argument in and of itself. You can’t just argue that polygamy is a choice, because someone could respond, “It’s not a choice that I love all three of these women.” You have to argue about the effects of polygamy, not about the cause of it. It can be fun to watch Jon Stewart debate someone, but it can also be frustrating.

Awesome.

Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?

An “instant classic” (how I hate that phrase) about freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

We’re heading south this morning for a long weekend with Matt’s family: we’re going to the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee to stay with Matt’s parents, with a side trip to Auburn, Alabama for his brother’s wedding reception – more of an informal party, really, with a Hawaiian theme. I might blog, I might not. We’re back Tuesday. (And on Wednesday night we have tickets to this, where we’ll be up in the balcony with all the D-list gays.)

Have a nice weekend.

My second cousin is marrying a former reality-show cast member and having a sponsored wedding next month at a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game. Imagine my surprise at seeing the New York Times pick this up. So cool.

[Update: Gothamist has it too.]

We returned last night from our long weekend in the South with Matt’s family. It was lots of fun.

One way to sum it up is: wedding barbecue with Hawaiian shirts and leis in Opelika, Alabama; a visit to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga; dinner at a house filled with Disney memorabilia; an addictive card game.

Another way to sum it up is: Hardee’s, Dairy Queen, Golden Corral, Wal-Mart, another Wal-Mart, Chick Fil-A.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the gym.

We went to Carnegie Hall last night to see Rufus Wainwright reprise Judy Garland’s legendary 1961 concert in that same venue. I had a really good time – I’d never been to a Rufus Wainwright concert before. The audience was filled with gay men, which made for longer lines at the men’s room. On line behind me for the bathroom was a man who was in town from San Francisco for his 45th anniversary high school reunion, which means that he graduated the year the original concert was performed. He didn’t know anything about Rufus Wainwright and had bought a ticket on a friend’s recommendation. He asked me what the rest of Rufus’s music is like, and I couldn’t really describe it other than “eclectic,” “lush” and “musical.”

We were up in the balcony on one of the side aisles. Directly across the aisle from us was a very strange middle-aged man who showed up by himself and really got into things. He was snapping and closing his eyes and waving his arms in the air. I think I heard him singing along with Rufus a few times. His wristwatch had these stalks on it that glowed with red and green lights right before the concert began. After the show was over, he probably went back to his lonely apartment to resume being Man in Chair.

Rufus himself, in addition to intentionally repeating Judy’s famous flub on “You Go To My Head,” forgot a couple of lyrics himself. There were also a couple of minor technical incidents. But this all made him that much more endearing and human.

The concert repeats tonight – if it isn’t already sold out.

The concert repeats tonight, so maybe you can get a ticket – if it isn’t already sold out. (Thanks, F.B.)

James Wolcott writes about The Complete New Yorker and gives a nice, concise history of the magazine. (For anyone who’s interested, About Town by Ben Yagoda is a great book-length history of the New Yorker.)

I went to the Museum of Television and Radio today. It’s not a typical museum with exhibits; rather, its centerpiece is an enormous radio and television broadcast archive with tons of items for your viewing pleasure, from the birth of broadcasting to the present. After paying the $10 admission fee at the front desk, you go up to a room with lots of computer consoles from which you access the archive database. Once you find a few things you want to watch, you go to a desk where someone prints out your list of programs. The list includes an access code for each item you’ve selected. Then you go down one floor and someone sets you up at a TV console with some headphones. You punch in the number of your selected program and you watch it. You can rewind, fast-forward, et cetera. Unfortunately, there’s a two-hour time limit for viewing.

The whole process is convoluted and the employees are kind of high-strung.

I went there with the purpose, for some reason, of watching NBC’s live television coverage from the morning of 9/11. I know, that sounds morbid. But I’ve always been interested in news coverage, and I was interested to see how everything unfolded that morning in real time. There’s some archived morning news footage online from various programs, and there’s an article about how the morning news shows reacted, but I wanted to watch the coverage unfold in real time.

At 8:50 a.m., on Today, Matt Lauer is interviewing an author named Richard Hack, who’s just come out with a biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. They’re discussing how crazy Hughes was. Lauer interrupts Hack mid-sentence to say that something has apparently happened at the World Trade Center but there’s no footage yet. After a commercial, we see live footage of the towers, one emanating smoke, and Katie Couric is narrating. We briefly see Lauer and Couric sitting on the couch, looking very concerned, before we return to footage of the towers. For at least the next two and a half hours, we will hear the anchors, correspondents and interviewees, but the screen will be filled with images of the events unfolding.

Lauer and Couric don’t know what kind of plane hit the tower. At 9:00 a.m., Lauer gives a recap of the “accident.” An eyewitness, Jennifer Oberstein, comes on the phone and Katie Couric interviews her. Then an NBC producer is interviewed by phone. As this is happening, out of nowhere we see the second plane hit and explode as the interviewed producer exclaims, “Oh my god!” We hear similar shouts coming from the studio crew. As things continue, everyone voices suspicion that this was terrorism.

Eventually we see President Bush giving a live speech from Florida about what has happened. Holy crap – this isn’t just a news event. The president is involved. This is serious.

NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewksi reports from inside the Pentagon that the building just shook and he sees people outside but doesn’t know what’s happening. Cameras are still focused on the World Trade Center while he speaks. A few minutes later, the anchors are interviewing a former State Department official about terrorism when we see, without warning, a sprawling suburban building with a huge cloud of smoke. The former official is still talking. A few seconds pass before someone tells us that we’re looking at the Pentagon.

After about ten minutes, we hear Matt Lauer telling us that Tom Brokaw is with him. It’s 9:47. Then we actually see the anchors for the first time in almost an hour. Lauer is no longer on the couch but sitting at the Today news desk, and Brokaw is sitting next to him with a very concerned look on his face. Presumably, in the last 45 minutes, Brokaw has been alerted, has put on a suit and has been whisked to the studio. It’s odd to see him appearing in the morning and to see him sitting silent as Lauer speaks.

It continues from there. Shock as the first tower collapses, more shock later as the second one falls.

I wasn’t watching TV that morning, so I don’t know if the New York’s local NBC station, WNBC, was showing national coverage or local coverage, or if WNBC was even still on the air here, given that its transmission tower had been destroyed.

Yup. Like I said, morbid.

Right now there’s a crew on a rooftop two buildings down from us setting up to shoot scenes for The Nanny Diaries.

I don’t know who will be filming, but listed in the cast, among others, are Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Donna Murphy, Alicia Keys, Chris Evans, Nathan Corddry, and Cady Huffman.

Me, I’m hoping to see some Chris Evans.

My wish was granted: pics of Chris Evans.

Another pic of Chris Evans.

Yet more pics of Chris Evans. (Note: My pics this afternoon were taken with three different cameras: my digital, until my batteries died; Matt’s digital, until his batteries died; and my cell phone.)

Yesterday I saw Wordplay, the new documentary about crossword puzzles and the people who love them, featuring Will Shortz, New York Times crossword puzzle editor, and including appearances by Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton and others. (The trailer is on the website.) Crossword nut that I am, I’d been waiting for this to open. Happily, I enjoyed it as much as I’d hoped.

Even though this is opening weekend, the theater was nearly empty – there were 10, maybe 12 people in the audience. Perhaps there’d been more people at the premiere the night before. The small number was actually great, because the director, one of the producers, and one of the cast members (Ellen Ripstein) were there to take questions after the movie was over. I asked how they got Bill Clinton to be in the movie – it turns out that on a trip to Stanford, they met someone who knows him, and he conveyed to Clinton their desire for him to appear in the movie. By the time they made their formal request to his office, he’d decided to do it.

The heart of the movie, though, isn’t the famous people, but the people who attend the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut. There’s Ellen Ripstein, the “Susan Lucci of crosswords”; Tyler Hinman, 21-year-old two-time tournament winner; Jon Delfin, pianist and multiple tournament winner (we get to see him performing as an accompanist at theater auditions); Trip Payne, crossword constructor and multiple winner; and others.

I was most interested to learn that Trip Payne is gay. I was familiar with his name – he occasionally has crosswords published in the Times, and he appears in Marc Romano’s 2005 book, Crossworld. The movie was the first time I’d ever seen him, though. It was odd – I was looking at him on the screen, and there was something about him that ever so slightly triggered my gaydar. So I looked at his finger – no wedding ring. Then I noticed there was a little bit of highlighting in his hair. In the next scene, we see him playing pinball with another guy. Then Trip addresses him as “dear.” Dingdingding. Then we hear that he’s Trip’s partner and that they’ve been together for a few years. They smooch. It’s cute.

I was surprised to learn that he was gay. Then I was surprised that I was surprised. The thing is, even as a gay man, I’m used to hearing about gay people in a gay-related context: gay rights, gay bars, the theater. I usually learn someone is gay before I know anything else about them. So it was cool to learn about someone being gay in the context of crossword-puzzle enthusiasm, of all things. It’s like when I was younger and I used to think pessimistically that there was nobody else like me. Then suddenly there was.

The first audience member to speak after the movie told the director that he hates crosswords even though his girlfriend and his ex-wife were both crossword fans. But he said he loved the movie, because he used to be a prizefighter and he felt that the movie captured the same sense of excitement and competition that he used to experience in the ring. It was a great comment – the director loved it.

Anyway, Wordplay is highly entertaining. I may have to attend the tournament next year. But I have a feeling attendance is going to be WAY up after this movie.

This blog really used to be something.

However, several things have happened.

(1) My life is not as exciting as it used to be. (This is not necessarily a bad thing.)

(2) I am not as neurotic as I used to be. (This is a good thing.)

(3) There are way more blogs than there used to be, so there are way more gay blogs than there used to be, so it’s harder for any one blog to stand out.

I’m sure there are other factors as well.

Anyway, I don’t have anything approaching the devoted readership that I used to have. I certainly get way fewer comments than I once did, leading me to believe that most of my posts elicit no more than a collective *shrug* from the homoblogosphere.

To be a popular gay blogger these days, it seems like you have to be a bear or hang out with bears. I’m not a bear and I don’t really hang out with bears much.

I’m not a very witty writer. The people need their wit quotient. I can’t really provide it.

I don’t stick to one topic, so there’s not really a built-in audience for my blog. This isn’t a gay rights blog or a “here are the adventures of my crazy life” blog or a theater blog or a blog about history or politics or crosswords. It’s an everything blog. (Like an everything bagel.) I write about whatever interests me at any given moment. And sometimes I’m interested in some obscure things. For instance, I just finished reading the second volume of a three-volume series written in the late 1960′s about the history of radio and television broadcasting in the United States. I think it’s fascinating stuff.

I don’t have photos of me on my site anymore. I took them down because of my job search – I didn’t want potential employers to be able to confirm that this was my site. But as I shift focus in my search, maybe it won’t matter so much if potential employers find my blog.

I really shouldn’t dwell on this, and I won’t. I’ll just continue to write about whatever the hell I want to write about. Fewer people read my words than in the past, but I guess that’s okay. Not everyone can have the popularity of JoeMyGod.

“Yes, Oregon’s lovely, but we’re just here for the suicide.”

Um… I thought we were fighting them there so we wouldn’t have to fight them here?

I’ve begun working with a career counselor, and she thought it would be helpful for me to take two standardized tests: the Strong Interest Inventory, which evaluates your career interests, and the MBTI, which evaluates your personality type along four dichotomies: introvert (I) vs. extrovert (E), sensing (S) vs. intuiting (N), thinking (T) vs. feeling (F), and judging (J) vs. perceiving (P). I’ve taken abbreviated forms of the MBTI in the past, twice, a long time ago: the first time I came out INTJ, the second time INFP.

I just took the full MBTI for the first time, and it’s so frustrating. It’s a bunch of theoretical questions followed by two alternatives. For instance, do you prefer a schedule or do you prefer to be spontaneous? Do you usually introduce people at parties or do you usually get introduced? Do you prefer a boss who is good-natured and inconsistent, or one who is sharp-tongued and logical? (Can I pick good-natured and logical but also compassionate?)

I had a hard time with many of the questions. I don’t think I have a consistent personality type. I’m a ball of contradictions. Sometimes I want to be alone and sometimes I want to be around other people. I’m more social than I used to be, but it was something I had to learn. Am I more open or more reserved? It depends on how I’m feeling. Do I prefer a schedule or do I prefer to be spontaneous? It depends. Does my head usually rule over my heart or vice versa? No clue. My head and my heart are in constant conflict. I think too much and I feel too much. Do I prefer logic or emotion? Coldly logical people bother me, but I don’t like mawkish sentiment either.

Grrr.

You know, if I were on the Supreme Court I’d be Justice Kennedy. No, O’Connor. Or maybe Breyer.

Granted, this test doesn’t determine the outcome of my life, or anything, really. It’s just supposed to be insightful. But it still pisses me off because it tries to pigeonhole me into categories, and I don’t like to be pigeonholed. I mean, look. Once I came out INTJ and once INFP. And on the I/E questions 10 years ago, I came out almost equally introverted and extroverted.

Anyway, I’ll see how I wind up scoring this time. It will be really interesting. Or maybe not.

This weekend is one year since Matt and I moved to the Village. We moved on Friday, June 24, and two days later the Pride Parade went right down our street. (Photos.) I’ve just looked out the window, and they’re already setting up the barricades for this weekend.

This is a great apartment in a great location, and it looks like we’ll be here for just one more year. I hope it doesn’t go by too quickly.

In the meantime, to combine an adjective and a noun, representing related emotional states, into a semi-redundant, awkward-sounding phrase:

Fun Enjoyment

Merry Proudness

Proud Happiness

Happy Pride.

Chris Evans says:

Best date: “We sat on the Santa Monica Pier on a bench from 9 p.m. until 4 in the morning. In one night I felt closer to this person than with some of my best friends.”

This person?

How pronoun-free.

[via PEN15 club]

People getting ready for the Gay Pride Parade, West 8th Street, from our window.

Hillary Clinton

I watched the entire Pride Parade from the comfort our 8th-floor apartment. I didn’t feel like going down and dealing with the crowd (there were summer students moving into the building today – yes, today).

I decided to take some photos.

I got a little out of hand. I took more than 300 photos.

What can I say. I got compulsive.

They’re all from a bird’s-eye view, and unfortunately, I don’t have a very big memory card for my digital camera, so I put it on a somewhat lower setting and the photos didn’t come out all that sharply. But you can see them here and here. I know, it’s a bit much. Nobody said you had to look at all of them.

But I can now appreciate how a shirtless, in-shape man looks from above. All broad shoulders and back muscles tapering down narrowly to the ass.

(And starting here you can see our good friend Andy marching with Lambda. He’s got the blond hair and the backpack and a purple balloon, right behind the people holding the banner.)

Some people have voiced expectations that the New York Court of Appeals will issue its same-sex marriage decision in Hernandez v. Robles soon – “as early as this week” (see here and here).

This is how rumors get started. As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no basis for these conjectures. I don’t know if New York law has a deadline by which an appellate court must rule on a case that’s been argued before it, but even if New York has such a law, the case was argued less than a month ago and I doubt any deadline would be approaching. I think some people are really eager for a court decision and are engaging in some wishful thinking. (The Empire State Pride Agenda might just be trying to be well-prepared, though.)

It’s not even guaranteed that the decision will be in favor of same-sex marriage. But if it is, I hope they wait until after the November elections. The last thing we need right now is another pro-gay-marriage court decision to rile up social conservatives.

Also pending: New Jersey and Washington decisions, the latter of which has been pending for a year and a half. That seems a bit extreme to me.

There’s a great piece in this week’s New Yorker about a man everyone should know about: David Addington, Dick Cheney’s right-hand man. (The piece isn’t online, unfortunately, but there’s this Q&A with the author that effectively summarizes it.) Addington is an extremist bully who thinks the President can do anything he wants in a time of war and that the two other branches of the federal government can do nothing to stop it. Worse, he essentially controls the legal aspects of the so-called “war on terror.” He was responsible for creating the so-called military commissions (which even many high-ranking military officials disagre with, and the constitutionality of which the Supreme Court will decide this week), and he has taken presidential signing statements, a dicey concept to begin with, to an unconstitutional extreme. In the 1980s, in Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, he argued that rather than the Reagan Administration overstepping executive authority in the Iran-Contral scandal, Congress overstepped its authority in prosecuting people in the scandal.

Adding to his mystique, David Addington refuses to be interviewed or photographed. But one of the many people that Jane Mayer interviewed for her article did indeed refer to him as “a bully,” and another said that in meetings discussing what to do about presidential power after 9/11, he was “very insistent and very loud” and got his way.

This man is scary.

One hopes that if the next President is a Republican, he or she will be less foolish than George W. Bush and won’t allow things like this to happen, or people like this to work in the White House. I’m (rightly or wrongly) optimistic that this will be the case, that George W. Bush is just a horrific aberration in American history instead of the harbinger of a new era.

For the past few days I’ve been trying to e-mail a copy of my resume to a family friend, but it kept getting stuck in his company’s spam filter. We kept thinking that my last name triggered the filter. (Ah, the perils of having a last name that contains the string of letters “s-l-u-t”.)

Turns out we were wrong.

The problem was that my resume says I graduated cum laude.

Think about that… it took me a moment to figure out why that was a problem.

I can’t believe we might have a flag desecration amendment to the Constitution soon. The proposed amendment wouldn’t directly outlaw desecration, but it would empower Congress to outlaw it. The House has already passed it by the necessary two-thirds, and the Senate, which will vote on it this week, apparently has 66 potential votes in favor. That’s one less than is required, so it could go either way. If one more senator decides to vote for it, or if Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia can’t make it to the Senate because of his recovery from back surgery, then the amendment will pass Congress and it will move on to the states. Apparently, all 50 states have passed resolutions endorsing such an amendment, so it’s very likely that 37 states would vote to ratify it, meaning that this stupid law would be enshrined in our constitution.

The practical consequences don’t seem particularly horrible – people don’t typically burn the American flag in protests anymore, and there are countless other ways to protest without burning a flag. And (I say with trepidation) it’s doubtful that Congress would impose a very large penalty for desecrating the flag. But screw the practical consequences. It’s the principle that matters.

From Wikipedia:

The Report of the 108th Congress, in proposing this amendment, stated:

“…’desecrate’ means deface, damage, or otherwise physically mistreat in a way that the actor knows will seriously offend one or more persons likely to observe or discover his action…”

This seems to suggest that the amendment will only apply to acts where the actor intends offense.

Could there be a clearer instance of creating a category of “thought crimes”?

(This is the same reason why I’m uneasy about hate-crimes legislation, by the way.)

As Justice Kennedy stated in his 1989 concurrence in Texas v. Johnson, which held flag burning protected under the First Amendment:

Our colleagues in dissent advance powerful arguments why respondent may be convicted for his expression, reminding us that among those who will be dismayed by our holding will be some who have had the singular honor of carrying the flag in battle. And I agree that the flag holds a lonely place of honor in an age when absolutes are distrusted and simple truths are burdened by unneeded apologetics.

With all respect to those views, I do not believe the Constitution gives us the right to rule as the dissenting Members of the Court urge, however painful this judgment is to announce. Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt.

The flag-desecration amendment failed. Good.

It’s a travesty that Congress is wasting time on such a frivolous issue when there are so many other important things to deal with: Iraq, post-Katrina fraud, and an overreaching executive branch, for starters.

Thanks to Joe for the reminder that tonight is the anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall riots. Joe has reprinted a contemporary New York Post story about the riots.

As much as Stonewall was a watershed in the history of the American gay rights movement, it’s important to remember that gay activism didn’t begin with Stonewall. It had been going on for at least 20 years before then: Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society; ONE, Inc, which brough a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court about obscenity and the postal service; and Frank Kameny, who is still alive and who organized the first public gay protest, a picket line in front of the White House in April 1965. John Loughery, in his terrific history of American gay life in the twentieth century, The Other Side of Silence, describes Stonewall as “a culmination rather than an isolated uprising.” Nevertheless, Stonewall marked a new assertiveness – not just in gay activism, but in gay culture and gay people’s sense of themselves.

Loughery also writes:

The mythology of the riot… in its crudest form, implies that gay life in America was immediately and dramatically transformed one summer night. In reality, most gay men and lesbians in the United States did not hear anything about Stonewall until years later, if only because the media outside New York City did not cover the riot.

He says that it did get almost immediate coverage in New York, though. While the mainstream New York Times gave it only scant mention in a short article in the back of the paper under the headline “Four Policement Hurt in Village Raid,” the Village Voice gave it in-depth front-page attention.

Out of curiosity, I looked for Stonewall coverage in the Complete New Yorker and found a Talk of the Town piece in the issue of July 11, 1970, describing the first gay pride march in the city, held in commemmoration of the first anniversary of the riots. It begins, “On June 29 [sic], 1969, city police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar on Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village. A gay bar is a bar frequented by homosexuals.” (Not sure if that’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or not.) One man at the beginning of the parade route is quoted as saying, “Homosexuals are very silly. They congregate in certain areas and then spend all their time walking up and down the street ignoring each other.” (Sounds like a gay bar to me.) Later on, one marcher says, “Would you believe it? It looks like an invading army. It’s a gay Woodstock. And after all those years I spent in psychotherapy!”

Gay men still go to psychotherapy, but at least they’re no longer in it to try to “cure” themselves.

Thank you, Stonewall rioters.

Congrats to Homer, who has a letter in tomorrow morning’s New York Times – and the top letter on the page, at that!

Downloadable hack: a 3-D representation of the former World Trade Center towers for Google Earth. See what the towers looked like in actuality, from any perspective or distance, from any part of the city, on the ground or in the air. I know Matt has wondered what they realistically looked like up close. You must already have Google Earth installed.