"Eyeoneye" - Andrew Bird
A rather cool performance I thought.
On the road, writing from Tulsa, OK, which I am in the process of not really seeing. One of those trips where you are in a place that is not conducive to walking anywhere, which I find tends to keep me stuck in the hotel -- not really my favorite way to travel.
I really liked this piece by Tim Noah on Richard Grenell's resignation from the Romney campaign. Grenell, a vehement (and rather obnoxious) neocon and right wing true believer, is also an openly gay man who unabashedly supports gay marriage. This had not stopped him from attaining a significant degree of success in right wing foreign policy circles -- he was John Bolton's spokesperson -- until now. Although it is not completely clear what led Grenell to quit before he began as Romney's foreign policy spokesperson, it seems as though the most likely reason was the objections of members of the evangelical right to his appointment. Although closeted gay men have long been part of the right wing power structure, it seems apparent that at this point in history -- one where acceptance of gays in the U.S. is a pretty mainstream sentiment -- those who run the Republican Party dare not openly accept them. As Tim puts it:
Not to put too fine a point on it, if you are gay you'd have to be out of your mind to support today's Republican party. And if you believe in tolerance, or the necessary role of government in helping others, or the existence of global warming, or Darwin's theory of natural selection, or just about any notion of equality, you'd have to be out of your mind to vote for the GOP's presidential candidate, even though Romney likely believes in all these things (except maybe equality). The GOP will eventually learn to embrace these values, but that won't change until after Romney loses in November, as I think he will do, and it may take a few more big losses after that.
I think that a Romney loss, coupled with something like a fifty-fifty congressional result, is not going to prompt any soul searching in right wing circles. I think Romney will bear the blame, largely for not being a true conservative. I think it will require many more losses of substantial magnitude to change the minds of Republicans with respect to this and many other issues.
So what else is going on out there that's grabbing your attention?