Human Rights in the Winter of Our Discontent
10 December 1998
Dear All,
Fifty years ago today, when I was but a gleam in mother's eye,
the nations of the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
An inspiration to us, even now. Alas, this letter may be the
only place you hear of it. The world has gone on,
and wars and tyranny are much with us.
Evil has ever had the upper hand, so I guess we ought not be surprised
that it does so thoroughly now. The US ruling class evidently
believes there's a "corporate profit exemption" to human rights.
Hardly a consumer good remains that hasn't been made by slave,
sweatshop, or child labor in China or Malaysia or Pakistan.
It's briskly cold in Seattle, and yes, I'm my good old Irascible Self.
We always see lots of rain this time of year, but this year there
seems to be more, and 70 mph winds as well. La Nina, they say.
Major weather disturbances may be on the rise, The last four years
are the four warmest on record, and may be the four warmest of the Millennium.
Yes, there is danger about global warming.
So what do we brave Americans do but go out and by gas-guzzling,
swollen pig-pig-Pig-PIG-PIG-mobiles
that pollute 2-3 times as much as passenger cars, but
Oh my! don't they look ever so macho. Paint'em green,
give 'em
names like Explorer instead of Gas-Guzzler or Polluter,
advertize in National Geographic,
cut loopholes around safety and pollution regulations
(shame on you, Detroit) and people buy them in droves.
Cleopatra would call it "de Nile" and so do I.
I'm at the (long) tail end of a cold, just a singing season is in full swing. Concerts coming up this weekend, occasional caroling gigs at the Sorrento Hotel downtown, and maybe Midnight Mass again. Singing is something I get real enjoyment from. This year, Pro Musica performed and recorded the Rachmaninoff "All-Night Vigil" - a great chance to develop my religious upbringing into art and beauty. Also a reprise of Bob Kechley's "A Husk of Many Colors" written for the Washington Centennial, and Karen Thomas' Medieval Lyrics.
It's good I don't watch TV. The media seem to want to
make an Impeachment Circus, just like the O.J. Circus
of yesteryear, even though over 2/3 of the people want
this nonsense stopped. If you've read my past letters, you know
I'm no friend of Clinton, the most conservative,
miserable-on-the-environment, anti-labor Democrat this century, maybe ever.
(though still better than every Republican).
Yet the Repubs are set on un-electing him. Why? Because they think
they can. While extramarital affairs may be less than ideal,
they are not illegal, and they have nothing whatever to do
with running the government or obeying the Constitution.
Certainly his "crimes" are nothing like the Nixon break-ins.
or Reagan's flouting Congress to get cash for his beloved
Contra Death Squads.
This manufactured "perjury" is about legally
equivocating under a biased, partisan, personal vendetta,
conducted with $50M of public money.
Most investigations start with a crime and look for a perpetrator.
Starr started with Clinton and looked for a crime, found nothing,
and eventually had to make one up by dirty tricks.
Starr is slime.
He takes his marching orders from ultra-right wingers like
Richard Mellon Scaife,
who would gladly pay a quarter million out of petty cash
to anybody who'll testify against Clinton. True or not, who cares?
And how about mid-level Whie House staffers having to
mortgage their homes just to pay for legal representation
before his kangaroo court.
I guess the Repubs think their poor Nixon was framed and want to get
back at the Dems by discrediting special prosecutors by
the mockery that is Starr.
The American people showed rare good sense in un-electing some
of the worst of these bozos, and it was pure joy to see
that Newt (who brings shame on the little animals forced to
share that name) go down in flames.
And in Washington Sate, the order of business will no longer
be putting little stickers on schoolbooks
saying that evolution is "just a theory."
The "religious right" lost big every where! Calloo, Callay, O Frabjous Day!
Murders most Foul!
The most emotionally devastating event was the vicious murder of
Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in October, by two young men who
were so threatened about their own sexuality that they
crucified a gay man and left him to die for days.
This came after an equally horrible lynching of a black man in Texas.
It was a wakeup call for we gay folk in urban areas who
have been lulled into complacency.
There are deadly enemies out there,
and any one of us could have been Matt.
Most unfortunately, the heads of mainstream religions were SILENT.
See "MAtthew's Passion" by
Tony Kushner in the Nation.
And their silence gives aid and comfort to the murderers.
Just as many were silent about the Nazis, until it was too late.
Think about this. The Republicans in Congress still are resisting
needed legislation (H.R. 3081, S. 1529) to
allow federal investigation of hate crimes like these.
Give yer Congresscritter a piece of your mind!
Another willful murder: David "Gypsy" Chain, age 21, of Earth First!
killed by the minions of Charles Hurwitz (junk bond billionaire,
pension fund plunderer, rapist of the redwoods
see the "Jail Charles Hurwitz"
Web site!)
who felled a tree on this protester.
The local sheriff included the accused
in his investigation committee. Can you smell
a cover-up? And that "liberal" Clinton is prepared to give Hurwitz
$500 million to reimburse him for the government's trees
that his predecessors stole from the taxpayers a century ago. The more
it changes, the more it stays the same...
The Year in Review:
Health:
Help! The gods are angry. Two injuries the same September week. The first lower back injury in twenty years, and five days later, as I hobble out to the garden, I step on a nail! Put me out of commission the better part of a month, and of course work waits on no one. Nutritional counseling for diabetes.
Livelihood: Still at the Boeing Works. Still wishing for something more life-affirming. Massive layoffs and strikes in store for next year. The only thing management can think of in a crisis is to lay off those lazy good-for-nothing workers who actually build the planes, and give themselves quarter million dollar retirement bonuses. The new guy at commercial seems to be the right choice, though, say knowledgeable colleagues.
Love: No real prospects. Occasional conjugal visits from long distances, but I have met nobody who shares my same area code. The solitary life is respectable, but winter nights are lonely and long. An embarrassing trip to Vancouver where a potential date turned out to be a pickpocket interested in my wallet! Live and Learn.
Visit:
from Will Roscoe, award-winning anthropologist and early Radical Faerie. Joey and Jerry from SF. I've pretty much given up on the faeries as a group, as they seem to be off worshipping Barbie(tm) and I have nothing in common with a seventeen-inch waistline as an ideal, or an artifact made in a sweatshop. The Breitenbush Gathering now more a drag show than a heart space. Visits also from Paul R. from London, and Anne & Nels from D.C. Always warms the heart to see old friends.
Travel:
Quite a lot. A February trip to Curaçao to see my
third total solar eclipse. I liked Curaçao:
the island has oil, and the Dutch see that the wealth gets spread around.
All races are middle class, have cars and nice homes. Unlike the grim
scene in Haiti where Reagan's "Caribbean Basin Initiative"
provides U.S. corp.'s with labor at 30 cents an hour.
Visits to Pennsylvania (mother's home, the Laurel Highlands,
and Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater"), Maine (to play croquet
on the ancestral lawn of friend Ben Gardiner in the town that
bears his name, Orlando for a conference and a noseful of the
phony at Disney World Epcot.
Do people actually go for this stuff? The boat rides were fun, though,
and cooling on a humid day,
and Paul Bocuse's Creme Brullet was first rate.
Also spent time camping with boyfriend Kelson
around Lake Superior, and on Madeline Island in the same.
Another trip to see sister Lori's family around the
Research Triangle of North Carolina.
Choral Music:
Had to rush home from Curacao for a dress rehearsal of the Rachmaninoff. We did a fabulous job, if I do say so myself. Lidholm's work on the last few lines of Dante's Inferno, done by Choral Arts NW, a professional choir in Tacoma. Spent a gloomy winter Sunday at a performance of Handel's "Hercules." There was lots of good florid singing and lyrics that anticipate Gilbert & Sullivan (just the thing for a gay wedding if I ever have one:)
Crown with festal pomp the day
Be mirth extravagantly gay
Bid the grateful altars smoke
Bid the maids the youths provoke
To join the dance, while music's voice
Tells aloud our rapturous joys!
Opera:
The singing of a generation. Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner
in "Tristan und Isolde" at Seattle Opera in August.
I have never heard singing this good in live performance. Every cast member was stellar! Also Daniel Catan's "Florencia in the Amazon" with Pucciniesque tunes and plot a la Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Eric Pars as a hunky athletic baritone river spirit. A trip to San Francisco to see the rarely Performed "Curlew River" done with great style by Chanticleer.
Dance:
Val Caniparoli's "The Bridge" for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Powerful narrative about the "Romeo and Juliet" in Bosnia, who died in each others arms, choreographed for five couple simultaneously dancing different episodes of the story. And a sexy "Carmina Burana" in the fall, with live chorus.
Theater: Arts West, Springing up in West Seattle! An interesting "Lonely Planet" took place in a storefront made into a map store. A new theater on the site next year.
Books: Walt Whitman, A Gay Life, by Gary Schmidgall. Makes some of the backpedaling by previous biographers downright funny!
House and Garden:
Continued improvements, but This Old House has taken much more
time and treasure than I anticipated when I bought it.
Same compatible housemate. Refinanced mortgage, almost finished
fixing up the basement.
Cat:
That little Jeff turned five, but has lost none of his piquant manner.
Society:
Hang our with compatible friends among
Gay Men's Spiritual Retreat, Gay Buddhists, and Gay City.
The latter group is taking a long view of the AIDS
epidemic and sponsoring events for younger gay men to demonstrate
that, yes, despite all, life is worth living.
We older men need this reminder occasionally, too.
Prospects for Ninety-Nine:
This will be my fiftieth natal day next June, so my hope is to take a
"sabbatical" (unpaid, thanks for nothing, Boeing)
trip to Slovakia and Ukraine, visiting the Kirlik's
of Smerekova, and other relatives I can track down,
across the Black Sea to Turkey for touring,
11 August total eclipse, and some serious sun, sand, and water!
I still wait with hope for love and livelihood.
And after Tevye, the Fiddler on the Roof, could ask: "would it really screw up some great eternal plan... if I had a loving man?"
Final Words:
"The years go by, and quickly as a wink,
enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink"
Your Millennial Malcontent,
David Kerlick