Rand Paul is clueless about the Americans with Disabilities Act

I noticed just now at Memeorandum that it wasn’t enough for Rand Paul to fail to clarify the objections the libertarian philosophy has regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for Rachel Maddow. No, no, no. He was in a hole and kept digging. To wit, in an interview on NPR on Wednesday, May 19, he denounced the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 for imposing costly burdens on businesses THAT THE ADA DOES NOT IMPOSE — the quote is taken from a Yahoo News story from Memeorandum):

I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who’s handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator. And I think when you get to solutions like that, the more local the better, and the more common sense the decisions are, rather than having a federal government make those decisions.

Then he repeated these false claims the next day on CNN.

Bearing in mind that I spent 19 of the 20 years I was with my late life partner pushing her wheelchair, the antipathy of conservatives towards the Americans with Disabilities Act DRIVES. ME. CRAZY!!!!!

Yahoo News did an extremely thorough and competent job of exposing Rand Paul’s false assertions about the ADA and providing the truth about its requirements. The only important point that Yahoo News missed in its story is that it is difficult to retrofit a building to meet access standards — they really have to be designed into the building from the beginning. And frankly, that’s WHY the federal government is legitimately involved because it sets the access standards for the whole country — the Americans with Disabilities Act Access Guidelines (ADAAG) and before that the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS). It would be crazy to require each state or local jurisdiction to have to figure out how to invent this wheel. This is NOT an area of life where local solutions and small government are better.

I recommend reading the entire Yahoo News story, especially for its explanation of the requirements of the ADA and its limiting phrases, “readily achievable,” “undue burden” and “reasonable accommodation.” Here is the part the provides the truth regarding Rand Paul’s false claims about the ADA:

The ADA imposes a slightly different burden on employers, forcing them to make workspaces accessible unless it imposes an “undue hardship.” But again, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces the ADA’s employment provisions, installing an elevator is generally considered an undue hardship under the law. “We are not aware of any case where a court required any business — let alone a small business — to install an elevator as a reasonable accommodation for an employee,” said EEOC spokesperson Justine Lisser.

Robert Dinerstein, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and an expert on the ADA, concurs: “I’m not aware of any cases where an elevator had to be installed. There’s certainly no leading case out there that says that.” Indeed, courts have found just the opposite. In Association for Disabled Americans v. Concorde Gaming, a U.S. District Court judge in Florida ruled that a gambling boat didn’t have to build a $200,000 elevator to allow wheelchair-bound patrons access to the upper floors: “Installation of an elevator is, therefore, not readily achievable and Plaintiffs are entitled to no such relief.”

Not even the ADA’s most vocal opponents, who presumably would be busy collecting tales detailing the law’s onerous requirements, could point to a single case where an employer was forced to install an elevator to accommodate an employee under the ADA. “I don’t have a bunch of anecdotes,” said the Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk, who has written of the ADA’s “burdensome accommodation process.” We called the libertarian Cato Institute to ask if anyone there could corroborate Paul’s stories, and were told, “We don’t have anyone.” We eventually contacted Walter Olson, a Cato scholar who decried the legislation in his book “The Excuse Factory: How Employment Law Is Paralyzing the American Workplace,” on our own. “I did a little Google searching and didn’t immediately come up with one,” he said, “but I think you’ll find them.” When we told him that the EEOC and Justice Department couldn’t, Olson pointed out that the ADA does force property owners to bring buildings into compliance with the law when they make renovations — in other words, some building owners may have to install elevators if they are spending enough money on other repairs to render the additional cost less of an “undue burden.” But those requirements would be triggered by substantial renovations, not by the hiring of an employee with a disability, as Paul claimed.

The people who are using the ADA as an example of big government regulations run wild need to spend a month in a wheelchair. Or a lifetime.

The REAL story in Rachel Maddow vs. Rand Paul over the 1964 Civil Rights Act is that SHE does not have equality and the Left doesn't care

Here is actress Kelly McGillis, who came out as a lesbian several months ago, from a recent interview — she is about the only lesbian or gay person besides me who is pointing out that the current issue regarding minority rights is that gays and lesbians comprise the ONLY minority that is not equal:

Discrimination against lesbians and gays is not simply a matter of private property rights, it is required by federal law and the laws and/or constitutions of the majority of states.

The acceptance of discrimination against lesbians and gays as a minority by everyone means that everyone, everyone, EVERYONE!!!! missed the REAL story yesterday regarding MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s interview with Rand Paul and her question on whether he would support the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Her intent apparently was to use the almost-universal incomprehension of libertarianism to destroy Rand Paul and revive the flagging power of the race card. And certainly Maddow was successful in causing an explosion of comment on the Left and Right in both the blogosphere and mainstream media. On the Left and Right, the commentary had one thing in common that is greatly to their credit: everyone denounced racism, and the argument was about how it is be eliminated or marginalized. However, they ALL also missed the most glaring disconnect in the story: the woman carrying the Left’s water on this issue is a lesbian and she herself has no federal civil rights — absolutely NO ONE sent the argument back to the Left to have them explain how they are going to provide federal equality for lesbians and gays in the remaining months that they will hold the majority in the Congress as well as the presidency.

If we are going to talk about how discrimination should be defeated, we should be having it about how to provide full equality at the federal and state levels for lesbians and gays.

The only reasons being offered to justify the laws that deny lesbians and gays equality boil down to religiously based assertions that we are somehow intrinsically evil and to the claim that only people who make babies deserve equality. Both of these arguments should be anathema to conservatives because they violate both the separation of church and state AND the principle of individual liberty.

I am astonished that the Right is still taking the race bait for the Alinsky-prescribed tactic quoted recently by John Hawkins at Right Wing News in a post featuring the list of Alinsky’s rules for radicals and quotes from Alinsky’s book (boldfacing mine):

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. — P.116-117

So — the Left feeds pie-in-the-sky to the only minority in the U.S. that not only does NOT have equality, but is burdened with laws to enforce its inequality. Meanwhile, it uses a lesbian, Rachel Maddow, a member of that unequal minority, to rub raw the resentments of black people, who, as a minority, have more laws protecting their equality than any other minority.

Here’s an idea — why don’t we have Rachel Maddow bring Rand Paul back for a discussion of how or whether the libertarian approach to obtaining equality would work in 2010 for lesbians and gays. Get the Left to have THAT discussion — or explain why it still expects lesbians and gays to walk quietly to the back of its bus.

P.S.

I particularly enjoyed the following posts on Rachel Maddow vs. Rand Paul:

Kathy Shaidle, who has a video clip of Barry Goldwater explaining why he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act — she shellacks Ann Althouse over property rights and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Dafydd Ab Hugh at Hot Air on “The Lizards Defend that Blooming Idiot, Rand Paul“:

But just because one shallow thinker of today [Rand Paul] was unable to defend the liberty position doesn’t make indefensible a principle famously argued by Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election campaign… no matter what Hugh Hewitt says.

It’s hard to nail down exactly what Paul’s position actually is; I think it’s the same as Goldwater’s: Where state or federal policy either directly discriminates on the basis of race or else mandates private racial discrimination, it is absolutely appropriate to pass a federal law overturning such “institutional racialism;” however, such a law should not and constitutionally cannot reach beyond that point to purely private and voluntary racial discrimination, which (alas) the final version of the Act did.

That’s why Goldwater voted against it after having supported earlier versions that did not outlaw private, volunatry discrimination; and fair warning, that is my objection to the Act, as well.

Stacy McCain at The Other McCain — if you want to know the history of a political issue, he’s the man. Stacy embeds the video of the interview and links Dave Weigel, who has the transcript and additional discussion. I helped lead the counter-attack last year when Stacy was being falsely accused of racism. I thought his behavior under this assault personified class, decency and intelligence. So Stacy’s advice on how to respond to the race card is deeply informed by experience:

Turn the enemy’s attack against him — rhetorical ju-jitsu. A static defense, a stubborn insistence that you are right, is not nearly so effective as the counterattack that shows your opponent is wrong.

Rachel Maddow and the Left in general are attempting to limit the scope of debate and define the terms to their own advantage, so that they get to decide who is or is not a “racist.” Americans are sick and tired of seeing accusations of racism tossed around willy-nilly like this, and if Rand Paul would confront this tactic head-on — exposing as invalid the rhetorical gamesmanship involved — he would emerge fromn the fight as a hero to many Kentucky voters, especially independents and conservative-leaning Democrats.

Rather than whining or acting defensively indignant (“How dare you call me a racist!”), focus the counterattack on the Left’s dishonest tactic of defining “racism” in a way that shuts off meaningful political debate and categorically stigmatizes conservatives.

Prof. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection explains his own position and concludes with the following:

But I do also think there is enormous hypocrisy here, because it is Democrats who perpetuate institutionalized race-based discrimination through affirmative action programs which include the color of one’s skin as part of the decision-making process. This may be legal in certain circumstances, and may even be desirable to remedy historical imbalances, but it is discrimination nonetheless.

The irony is that it is Republicans and Tea Partiers who hold most true to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of a nation where people were not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

But you wouldn’t know it to read Memeorandum yesterday.

Moe, I LOVE bagpipes!

Well, after all, the bagpipes ARE a double reed instrument, like the bassoon, which I play.

The first bagpipes I heard in person wafted over the small campus of Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, where I spent my summers from 1968-70 when I was in high school, attending the Eastern Music Festival, which is a music camp for teen-aged orchestral musicians. It is where I learned to love classical music. I never learned to play the bagpipes, but I still have my practice chanter.

Why did this come up? Ask Moe Lane.

Update, 5/20/2010, Thurs.: Regular dear gentle reader Graumagus suggests the following videos of his friend, bagpiper Jeremy Kingsbury, and I am promoting them from the comments:

Jeremy Kingsbury on bagpipes and other American Revolutionary War re-enactors at Bloody Lake:

Elina Garanca sings 'Chanson Boheme,' 'The Gypsy Song,' from 'Carmen'

Slow version:

Fast version:

As I noted in an earlier post, mezzo soprano Elina Garanca sang Carmen in the Metropolitan Opera’s January 2010 production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, which I saw in May on PBS. I love the intelligence, humor and playfulness that Ms. Garanca brings to Carmen, that her Carmen is a woman of enormous courage rather than spoiled and defiant, and how she elevates Carmen’s sensuality — I love how she changed the opera for me completely. When Carmen is played as a cruel and capricious slut who ruins Don José and has it coming when he murders her, all we have is a musical morality play with some catchy tunes. However, with Ms. Garanca’s personality illuminating the character I see a different kind of tragedy — that at the crucial turning points, luck tipped one way rather than another, so that when Carmen was making her plays for the stronger men (Zuniga, the officer, and Escamillo, the toreador) she got stuck with the weak Don José instead, who could not admit that he was the author of his ruin and made Carmen pay for his shame, which is a different and more complex experience than “slutty woman gets killed for ruining a good man.”

As I was listening to YouTube videos featuring Ms. Garanca, I was fascinated by these two performances of “The Gypsy Song” because they demonstrate how differently conductors may interpret the same music. I see the value of the faster version, but the effect the slower one has on me is vastly more sensual and erotic. I’d love to know what my dear gentle readers have to say about the contrast.

Oh, and I can’t resist adding — how utterly beautiful Elina Garanca is! And, being me, I must add that she strikes me as having the kind of personality that will make her beautiful always.

Click the link for the lyrics of “Chanson Boheme,” or, “The Gypsy Song,” from Carmen, in the original French and an English translation by Jacob Lubliner.

Elina Garanca as Carmen unites heaven and earth

Mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca as Carmen sings the “Habanera.”

On Sunday (May 16, 2010) I happened on PBS’s series, “Great Performances at the Met,” featuring the January 2010 production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen. I haven’t seen many productions of Carmen, but I have the feeling that this is one of the best of all time because everything about Elina Garanca is suited to the role — her celestial voice, her beauty, her voluptuous and earthy sexuality that radiates joy and playfulness. Other directors and singers who view and play Carmen as a cruel slut obviously have missed the worlds of insight into the characters that are on full display here.

I am marveling at how this production of Carmen by director Richard Eyre has switched me to favoring her over the foolish momma’s boy, Don José, who never, ever takes responsibility for his failures, then blames Carmen and ultimately murders her just as she has found happiness with the toreador, Escamillo, a man whose strength and passion match her own.

Why we want to live, why we want to work, why we want to play

Last night I watched a video linked by dear Jenny, The Bloggess, on the most powerful motivators for jobs that require cognitive abilities, rather than mechanical ones. Then tonight I was looking for a few laughs before bed and after perusing LOLCats it popped into my mind to visit Cracked.com, where I came across a piece entitled, “5 Creepy Ways that Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted,” and darned if the motivators there didn’t have a LOT in common with the ones in the video Jenny linked, which I have embedded for your convenience below.

Then I thought of a realization I had when I was a guest on Talk of the Nation on NPR almost 20 years ago when it was hosted by John Hockenberry. NPR had announced it was doing a show with Jack Kevorkian, the serial killer/euthanasia advocate, and they asked for people caring for people with chronic, progressive diseases to be interviewed before the panel spoke with Kevorkian. I was one of two persons selected — the other was a gay man from San Francisco caring for an acquaintance with AIDS, who spoke first. He was in favor of assisted suicide for his acquaintance because he was going to die of AIDS — but he also remarked his acquaintance had no friends or loved ones and was frustrated with how powerless he felt as he was dying.

In a flash, I realized that having AIDS, or even being close to the end of his life, were not the reasons this man wanted to die. He wanted to die because he had no one to live for — no one he loved, and who loved him in return. And he wanted to die because he had no power over his life, in the sense that other people were making all his choices for him. People want to live — and persevere through the worst adversity — when they love and feel loved, and have some autonomy. It’s not the illness that makes you want to die!

To address why we want to work, here’s the video on research showing the most powerful incentives for people to do work that requires cognitive skills are autonomy (to do what you want, when you want, as much as you want); mastery (challenge, mastery and making a contribution); and transcendent purpose:

In explaining what makes us play addictive video games — as opposed to games that teach a skill and provide real mastery — David Wong, an editor of Cracked.com invokes Malcolm Gladwell on the three elements that make a job satisfying — autonomy, complexity, and connection between effort and reward:

And that brings us to the one thing that makes gaming addiction — and addiction in general — so incredibly hard to beat.

As shocking as this sounds, a whole lot of the “guy who failed all of his classes because he was playing WoW all the time” horror stories are really just about a dude who simply didn’t like his classes very much. This was never some dystopian mind control scheme by Blizzard. The games just filled a void.

Why do so many of us have that void? Because according to everything expert Malcolm Gladwell, to be satisfied with your job you need three things, and I bet most of you don’t even have two of them:

Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day);

Complexity (so it’s not mind-numbing repetition);

Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work).

Most people, particularly in the young gamer demographics, don’t have this in their jobs or in any aspect of their everyday lives. But the most addictive video games are specifically geared to give us all three… or at least the illusion of all three.

Autonomy:

You pick your quests, or which Farmville crops to plant. Hell, you even pick your own body, species and talents.

Complexity:

Players will do monotonous grinding specifically because it doesn’t feel like grinding. Remember the complicated Tier Armor/Frost Emblem dance that kept our gamer clicking earlier.

Connection Between Effort and Reward:

This is the big one. When you level up in WoW a goddamned plume of golden light shoots out of your body.

This is what most of us don’t get in everyday life–quick, tangible rewards. It’s less about instant gratification and more about a freaking sense of accomplishment. How much harder would we work at the office if we got this, and could measure our progress toward it? And if the light shot from our crotch?

snip

The danger lies in the fact that these games have become so incredibly efficient at delivering the sense of accomplishment that people used to get from their education or career.

I have to say I am a little huffy about the piece ending with the grandpa — Bejeweled — of the only computer game I play — Bejeweled Twist, which I bought after reading a magazine at my father’s cardiologist’s office that said it promoted synchrony in the functioning of the hemispheres of the brain so I get a tangible benefit from playing. However, I will admit that even though I play the “Zen” version, I see how certain changes and rewards pop up just about the time I’m ready to quit and I will play longer than I intended.

But I must be enjoying my work because the main reason I play is to stay awake when I’m very sleepy but Dad isn’t ready to go to bed yet, since I have to stay up to see him to bed, give him medicines, help him with his respirator mask, hold up his favorite cat so he can tell his grandpa that he loves him and receive his good-night petting, and get him settled under the covers. And, because of that interview almost 20 years ago, the last thing I always do is remind Dad of all the people and kitties that love him, of the accomplishments of which he is most proud, how much he is needed and how filled with purpose his life still is at 94.

How Maryland Democrats destroyed their state's thriving film industry

I was waiting for Dad at the dentist’s office this afternoon — there’s a root canal in his future — and I picked up the May 2010 issue of Baltimore magazine because a story about Maryland’s film industry caught my eye. Not too long ago, the Baltimore-Washington area was third in the country after Los Angeles and New York for film and TV production. However, thanks to Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democratic-majority legislature full of believers in high taxes and big government — who also, disastrously, have no comprehension whatsoever of the concept of competition, or the remotest inkling that they were in one where the film business was concerned AND WINNING — Maryland’s film industry has been almost completely destroyed (boldfacing mine):

“You just feel like screaming,” says Pat Moran, Emmy Award-winning casting director for productions like The Wire and Liberty Heights, from her Canton office. “What they’ve done is taken a viable industry and they have managed to make it go away. I cannot tell you how many people [employed by the film industry] have moved out of town or taken work somewhere else.”

The targets of Moran’s ire are the state legislature and Governor Martin O’Malley, who control the funding level for the incentive program. For the coming fiscal year, the total incentive budget will remain steady at $1 million. In comparison, nearby Philadelphia, a city with similar architecture and neighborhoods to Baltimore, provides $42 million in funds, soon to increase to $60 million.

“If we had the support of the Governor,” Moran continues, “we’d have our incentive package. If I want to retire, it’s up to me to retire and close my shop. It’s not up to a government to run me out of business.”

Shaun Adamec, the Governor’s Press Secretary, calls the cuts “unfortunate” but “necessary.”

“The fact is, we’re working inside of a budget under the most challenging economic times since the Great Depression,” Adamec says, noting that O’Malley originally wanted to keep the tax incentives program funded at $2 million for the current fiscal year, before the legislature halved it. “Obviously it’s not as much as we’d want to put in that fund,” says Adamec, “[but] we need to make the tough choices in order to balance the budget.”

There are many in the film industry though, who see this philosophy as short-sighted, noting that the state is more than compensated for its initial investment.

“It’s like, if I gave you one dollar and you gave me back 20 cents, you’d still have made 80 cents. But the state doesn’t think of it as making 80 cents. They just think, ‘Hey, we gave you 20 cents!‘” director Barry Levinson told Baltimore this past November when he was in town for a Maryland Film Festival fundraiser at MICA. Indeed, an economic report filed by Sage Policy Group in January calculates that every million made available for film rebates pumps $5 million into the local economy.

But that’s only if filmmakers shoot here in the first place. Lately, given how meager Maryland’s incentives are compared to other states, they can’t, no matter how much they want to. For instance, John Waters, a man whose entire career is based on mining Baltimore’s peculiarities, may shoot his next film, Fruitcake — a children’s movie about two runaways in Remington — in Michigan.

“The entire movie business has collapsed in Maryland,” says Waters. “I’m not saying I am [going to film in Michigan]. I had to finally, about eight months ago, say to the producers I would, if I had to. The thought of shooting in Michigan or some state that can look like Maryland is insane to me, but I’m a realist.”

The whole story is worth reading — click the link above — and pay special attention to the resourcefulness of Maryland’s Film Office’s DEEM program, which is an effort to take many of the professionals involved in film and TV production and re-direct their careers into creating video games and digital media. They’ll be fine unless they really start to thrive — under Gov. O’Malley, Maryland also has raised taxes on its millionaires, thus encouraging many of them to leave the state.

P.S.

John Waters and Barry Levinson both are from Baltimore and their careers are highly identified with Baltimore and Maryland — they are favorite sons in these parts and names to conjure with.

UPDATED: Dale Peterson for Alabama Agricultural Commissioner — and best campaign ad of 2010!

I picked this up from Allahpundit at Hot Air and don’t have any political insight to add, except that I LOVE THIS GUY!!! Oh, and for the city slickers: Peterson has the rifle because a lot of farming consists of shooting varmints that are eating your crops.

Also, on the general subject of farming and the U.S. food supply — is the U.S. Department of Agriculture keeping track of how much arable land we need to ensure our food independence?

Updated 5/16/2010, Sun.:

This story has to do with Alabama, the home state of dear Stacy McCain, whose eye is on the sparrow, so I should have had sense enough to check The Other McCain before posting to see if he had been firstest with the mostest — however, I just got a call from him and indeed he was. Peterson’s campaign spot was catapulted to national fame today with an e-mail this morning to Stacy from Ladd Ehlinger, its producer. Stacy promptly posted, “VIDEO: Best Campaign Ad Ever Produced for Agriculture Commissioner.” Then Stacy tweeted the link publicly to David Weigel. Gawker appears to have picked it up from Twitter and posted it without a hat tip to acknowledge Stacy. Allahpundit appears to have spotted it on Twitter or Gawker — I think he would have credited Stacy if he had been sure about the origin of the story.

Bottomline: Stacy McCain broke this story and deserves the credit.

Updated 5/17/2010, Mon.: Thanks to Steve Pendlebury, editor, at AOL News, for quoting this story in his round-up of blogs that helped the Peterson video go viral.

Bonus:

To get Allahpundit’s joke about Christie/Peterson in 2012, you need to see this video, which also is delightfully, two-fistedly forthright:

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his ‘confrontational tone’

I nominate Jennifer Westfeldt as Hollywood's new queen of rants

This is a scene from the 2001 movie, Kissing Jessica Stein, which wound up on the cutting room floor. It is one of the vignettes of clueless men dated by the title character, Jessica Stein, played by actress Jennifer Westfeldt, who co-wrote and co-produced the movie with her co-star, Heather Juergensen. Here’s a transcript of the rant to yoga guy on why Jessica disagrees that they have “clicked”:

You don’t appreciate the chaos and absurdity of life on this planet. You don’t understand irony, or ethnicity, or eccentricity, or poetry, or the simple joy of being a regular at the diner on your block. I love that. You don’t drink coffee or alcohol. You don’t over eat. You don’t cry when you’re alone. You don’t understand sarcasm. You plod through life in a neat, colorless, caffeine-free, dairy-free, conflict-free way. I’m bold and angry and tortured and tremendous and I notice when someone has changed their hair part, or when someone is wearing two very distinctly different shades of black or when someone changes the natural timbre of their voice on the phone. I don’t give out empty praise. I’m not complacent or well-adjusted. I can’t spend fifteen minutes breathing and stretching and getting in touch with myself. I can’t spend three minutes finishing an article. I check my answering machine nine times every day and I can’t sleep at night because I feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world, and I wonder every day if I am making a difference and if I will ever express the greatness within me, or if I will remain forever paralyzed by muddled madness inside my head. I’ve wept on every birthday I’ve ever had because life is huge and fleeting and I hate certain people and certain shoes and I feel that life is terribly unfair and sometimes beautiful and wonderful and extraordinary but also numbing and horrifying and insurmountable and I hate myself a lot of the time. The rest of the time I adore myself and I adore my life in this city and in this world we live in. This huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world.

The overall message of the movie is about becoming free of the paralysis of perfectionism in order to be able to have intimacy and fulfill your full, creative potential. After meeting so many men with whom she feels no rapport, Jessica is drawn to answer a personals ad of a woman and they become lovers. My idea of a happy ending is that they would have lived happily ever after together, but they do both live happily ever after. It is a very funny and well-written movie.

The movie also features Tovah Feldshuh WHO IS GORGEOUS AND ADORABLE AND OMG! OMG! OMG! JUST TOTALLY MELTS MY HEART!

Where was I? Oh, right — now that Dixie Carter has passed on, Hollywood needs a new queen of rants and I think this clip proves that Jennifer Westfeldt deserves the title. Also, I think listening to this particular rant will make anyone a better person. Which is, or ought to be, the main purpose of a rant.

P.S.

So many people try to bully lesbians and gays back into the closet by saying that they don’t care what anybody does in the bedroom, your sex life should be private, yadayadayada. One of the things that Kissing Jessica Stein illustrates — even if unintentionally — is how MUCH people need to know both your sexual orientation AND your relationship status — single, committed, whatever — in order to feel comfortable relating to you. It also shows how much confusion and hurt being closeted can cause — all round, not just to the person in the closet. This is why I keep harping on the point that there is no such thing as privacy about your sexual orientation. Straight people are just not aware of the myriad ways they tell people about their sex life every minute of the day: talking about a date, a spouse, their children — all of those are indicators of your sex life, which you would know if, instead of being able to use them to relate and connect to others and show what a good person you are, that revealing any hint of the role in your life of a loved one lost you your career, job, client, friends, family, home or life. Seriously, there is no such thing as privacy about your sex life.

P.P.S.

This scene may have been one of the nine scenes deleted from the movie because the World Trade Center buildings were in the shot. Wikipedia notes (boldfacing mine):

The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on April 21, 2001,[2] receiving the Audience Award for Best Feature Film and a Critics Special Jury Award.[3]

The film was next shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, with screenings scheduled the day before and the day after the 9/11 attacks.[4] According to the DVD commentary track by Westfeldt and Juergensen, both screenings took place, with the second screening on September 12th producing audible gasps among audience members at the sight of the World Trade Center. The two filmmakers decided to eliminate the nine or ten scenes featuring the Twin Towers because they weren’t integral to the story, and served to distract from it because of the attacks.

I would love to see Kissing Jessica Stein re-edited to restore the scenes with the World Trade Center buildings now that the shock has worn off. For example, the yoga guy was part of a theme in the movie and at the end, Jessica IS doing yoga, even if it she DOES keep peeking at her clock.

Crowdrise is a new social fundraising Web site

Today a friend sent me a link to Crowdrise, a new Web site to assist individuals and charities in fundraising and volunteering. It was founded by the actor, Ed Norton, and launched on May 12. My friend is promoting the page for the David Lynch Foundation, which is raising money to pay for school children to learn the Transcendental Meditation program. The TM program is not a religion and does not compete with any religion. There is a lot of research showing that it improves the ability to learn and there is new research showing that it is helpful for children and teens with ADHD and ADD. I’ve heard in-person the testimonials of a couple of teens who participated in the ADHD research when they were attending American University in Washington, D.C., and they were very moving and impressive. So I do think this is a worthy cause.

Crowdrise strikes me as an example of people on the Left not knowing they really are fiscal conservatives, not the socialists they think are. I am amused that the Left doesn’t seem to understand that one of the purposes of socialism is to kill all the projects that flourish as a result of the individual being allowed to keep enough of his or her own money to decide which charities to support and the liberty to choose which ones to volunteer for. Just in case any Lefties/liberals have stumbled in here and are puzzled by that statement, the backstory is that the point of socialism is to give the government control over most of your money and time on account of how smart people in government know better than you do how to spend your money and time. One result is that only the projects the government approves of get funded and done. The problem with this is that it causes stagnation because the distributed intelligence of crowdsourcing is millions of times more powerful and efficient than the intelligence of centrally planned anything, plus most endeavors would never get government funds. The detailed explanation is in The Road to Serfdom, by economist Friedrich Hayek.

Update, 5/15/2010, Sat.: Thanks to a post by Purple Avenger at Ace of Spades HQ on a group of students who are working on creating a site that will rival Facebook while preserving its users’ privacy, I found out about the site that allowed the young entrepreneurs to raise money for their venture online: Kickstarter.com. It allows creative people to raise money for their ventures, including publishing books, while keeping ownership of their project. I’m going to be looking into this — since my book on the conservative arguments for lesbian and gay equality is something that neither conservative nor mainstream (i.e., Leftie) publishers would be interested in, although it HAS a market, I’ve been thinking I need to turn to my readers and online marketing for the equivalent of the publisher’s advance. Dear gentle readers, what say you?