I am the answer!

I just realized this morning that two days ago, I became the answer to life, the universe and everything. I turned that magic number - 42.

I always chuckled at the absurdity of Douglas Adams' assertion that 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything, not quite understanding its meaning until now.

I've discovered that 42 really is the answer the life, the universe and everything. I've never felt better, looked better or even smelled better. I think 42 is the answer to it all because at this age you can look back on life and know that no amount of money in the world would make you go back to your teens, 20s or even 30s, because you were such a putz back then.

At 42 you have the wherewithal to resist the temptation to believe your own hype, but at the same time know that there's a world of infinite possibilities just waiting for you. You've reached that magical age where people take your opinion seriously. They actually listen to you when give advice, and they don't yet cringe when you say, "Well, when I was young ..."

It's a grand and glorious age, this 42. Instead of celebrating each birthday as the anniversary of my 21st birthday, I think I'll start making each birthday the anniversary of the best age - 42 - where you become the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Woo hoo!

Religious groups no longer at the back of the parade

In every pride parade I participated in when I lived in Atlanta, the religious groups were always in the very back. We were the afterthought - the red-headed step children of the pride parade. The organizers showed their discomfort with our very presence by placing us so far in the back that most of the party was over by the time we reached Piedmont Park. They just didn't want to be bothered by those religious types.

My, how times have changed.

NEW YORK -- Religious groups led the city's gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to an often outrageous event that also featured a jumble of drag queens in feather boas, marching bands, motorcycle-riding lesbians, rugby players and samba dancers.

[...]

As in past years, exhibitionists were also on display as the parade inched down Fifth Avenue and into Greenwich Village. Some revelers gyrated in bikini briefs and pranced in spike heels.

But the placement of the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist religious organizations near the head of the march - ahead of AIDS service groups and political advocacy groups - gave them unaccustomed prominence.

This truly is a significant development in our movement. I predicted a long time ago that our push for civil right would never be won unless we gave prominence to our religious groups, and perhaps, finally, the powers that be in our movement are listening.

I hope this is and enduring trend, and religion is not just the new black - to be tossed out with the next fad.

It's Pat!

I can count on one hand the number of times I've agreed with Pat Buchanan and still have enough fingers left to pop the top off a cat food can. The cats would be on their own however, if I had to count the number of times I wanted to lob a spitball at the back of Pat's head during a live appearance he made at a TV station in Atlanta I worked for during Pat's delusion that he could be elected president. But, I had a mortgage and future cat food tins to buy back then … so, alas, they were only thoughts. But, I digress.

This rare occurrence of agreement with Pat happened as I was reading one of his latest columns entitled "Why Congress Caved to Bush." He nails it.

Why did the Democrats capitulate?

Because they lack the courage of their convictions. Because they fear the consequences if they put their antiwar beliefs into practice. Because they are afraid if they defund the war and force President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops, the calamity he predicts will come to pass and they will be held accountable for losing Iraq and the strategic disaster that might well ensue.

[…]

The congressional Democrats are cynical, but they are not stupid. If the surge works and U.S. troops are being withdrawn by fall 2008, they do not want it said of them that they “cut and ran” when the going got tough, that they played Chamberlain to Bush’s Churchill.

And if the war is going badly in 2008, they know that the American people, in repudiating the party of Bush and Cheney, have no other choice than the party of Hillary and Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The Dems know they are not beholden to the people who put them in office – where else will they go if the Dems don't get us out of Iraq as polls show most people want Congress to do? They'll vote Republican? Riiiiiight. So, while the Dems may have to take some abuse in the interim, they know they still have the vote of the poor suckers who think war is immoral, and especially immoral when it's founded on lies and out and out greed.

I pray earnestly that one day we'll have a two party system in this country – or at the very least, we'll discover either leaders with guts or be able to pull ourselves away from American Idol long enough to realize that we do have the power to change this corrupt system.