New Acropolis museum finally opens in Greece

I was lucky enough to go to Greece three times in the last year and a half, and not once was the new museum ever open on schedule. Finally, it is, or will be. It's a cool building, unless you hate it. Which a lot of people seem to. The locals feel that it doesn't fit in. I think it's stunning. My photo above doesn't do it justice - check out the photo in the NYT story (though, granted, it does look a bit like a UFO in that pic). Read the rest of this post...

Guess who's coming to dinner? White House invites power gays to end-of-month party

Joe and I will have more on this tomorrow and through the week. But the rumor we heard last week is apparently true. We found out today that the White House has decided to throw a big gay party at the end of the month. It's clear that the purpose is two-fold. First, the White House is trying, again, to surround the president with A-list gays in order to show how "gay friendly" he is - he's even willing to give a speech in a room full of them for a full 8 minutes! And second, the White House hopes that a little champagne and fancy food will convince the A-listers to throw the rest of you overboard. Because, after all, what's two gay service members discharged a day and an ongoing effort to legally label you as akin to pedophila and incest, when there's champagne to be served.

I think it's fair to say that, unless the White House shows significant action on Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA by the time of this party, any representative of a gay organization attending this event is going to met with a swift community-wide boycott of their organization.

HRC managed to get away with attending this week's faux-benefits signing, which was, i believe, a bit mistake. The organization's president, Joe Solmonese, was on the Michelangelo Signorile Show earlier this week, and Joe said to Mike, I'm told, something to the effect of "When the president calls, you come."

No you don't.

You don't permit yourself to be used by a politician against your own community unless and until you extract something huge in return for your community. And there's been no action on DADT or DOMA or any others of the president's campaign promises since HRC accepted the invite. The president desperately needs our leaders to give him cover. Then get something in return, something huge, something we've been demanding as one of our top priorities. And that does not mean changing our married name on our passports.

I don't think the community is going to be as kind in the future if any group, or individual, chooses to party at the White House with the people who continue to stab us in the back.

And lest anyone think they're going to the White House for a "teaching moment" to educate the president on how upset we all are. You go to the party, you mingle for an hour with 150 people. The president comes in, you applaud. He speaks for 8 minutes, he then shakes about 75 hands, each one for 1 second, and then leaves. You will get 1 second to explain how upset you are.

Now sure, the big poobah leaders get a bit more time with the prez before he gives his speech. But I have a hard time believing that any of our leaders are going to be in a small room with the president, in the White House, and that they're going to lecture him about what he's done wrong. Please. He who lectures gets no more champagne.

One final point. It's getting more than a tad offensive that the White House keeps pulling these non-DOMA and non-DADT related bennies out of their hate to woo us back into the fold. First we got benefits that weren't really benefits (and which already existed anyway), then we got the passport last name thing (didn't make a lot of news because, well, it wasn't exactly near the top of our agenda), then we got the census thing on Friday night, and now we're getting a party!

All of that is swell. But none of it responds to the top two or three demands of our community (ENDA, DADT and DOMA), and none of it addresses what caused the blow up last week, the DOMA brief and the White House's ongoing insistence that it is going to defend DOMA in court even though it doesn't have to.

The White House isn't stupid. They know that a lot of our leaders would rather die than turn down cocktails at the big House, regardless of how many gay service members' lives are destroyed, regardless of how many marriages are compared to incest. But we're not stupid either. And leaders who sell out for a cocktail don't remain leaders for long.

Much more to come. Read the rest of this post...

McClatchy: In stark legal turnaround, Obama now resembles Bush

We're all gays now. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Ensign: I only went public with my affair because of blackmail

As always, what impressive family values. At least the man who blasted Bill Clinton and called for his resignation was upfront and honest about his own sordid affair. It only took a bit of alleged blackmail to get him to be honest with voters. For others (except Republicans such as Senator Vitter of Newt Gingrich, naturally) it's such an important issue that they must resign to protect the nation from shame. It's hard to say what is more pathetic here between him being a fraud or him being a fraud only because he was forced by someone else. At least he didn't drag his wife in front of the cameras, so I'll give him a small amount of credit for that.

The husband of Sen. John Ensign's former mistress made "exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits" through an attorney, an aide to the Nevada Republican said Friday. In a statement, Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said the demands from an attorney for Doug Hampton were made within the past month.

"The demands were referred to Senator Ensign's legal counsel, who is handling the matter going forward," the statement said.

Mazzola did not name the attorney nor immediately respond to requests for additional details.

Hampton's lawyer, Daniel Albregts, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Read the rest of this post...

DNC telling donors to expect protesters at gay fundraiser

Of course what the DNC isn't yet telling their donors is to expect protesters at all the upcoming DNC fundraisers, straight and gay, from now into the future. It's only a matter of time until someone organizes ongoing protests at every DNC event. Maybe we can even get the unions to join us - imagine a Democrat crossing a union picket line. Wouldn't that be a Polaroid moment.

The DNC is now telling its donors to expect protesters next week at the posh $1,000 a head gay fundraiser this coming Thursday at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington, DC. And, oddly, the DNC is trying to spin the protests as something fun that the donors can join in on.

Good luck with that.

Rather than lie to their own donors and con them into coming to a fundraiser, thinking that the protesters are going to be rooting for the donors because "we're all on the same side." The DNC should be telling their gay donors the truth: If you attend this fundraiser, you will be photographed and caught on video by the Washington Blade, and then outed to the entire community, nationwide, as a scab on YouTube, on blogs, and in the media. If you attend this DNC fundraiser, prepare to be excoriated in every gay bar, restaurant, resort and living room you ever visit in the future. Because if you go to this fundraiser you are a traitor to your community. You are no better than the people who compared our relationships to incest and pedophilia, and then didn't even have the backbone to apologize.

(I'm told that Alexander Robinson of the National Black Justice Coalition has also pulled out of the fundraiser, but we haven't been able to get confirmation.)

Here's the latest list of gay A-listers who the DNC were using to sell the fundraiser - those with lines through their names have pulled out, the rest have not:

If you can't make the date, take a rain check and help anyway? SUZE ORMAN just signed on that way. ELIZABETH BIRCH signed on that way. Lots of others.

If you CAN make the date, you'll be joining the Vice President of the United States . . .

. . . along with Virginia Governor / DNC Chair Tim Kaine . . . immediate past DNC Chair Howard Dean . . . Chairman Barney Frank . . . Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis . . . Vermont Senate President Pete Shumlin . . . District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty . . . David Mixner . . . Richard Socarides . . . The Task Force's Rea Carey . . . HRC's Marty Rouse . . . ESPA's Alan Van Capelle . . . GLAD's Mary Bonauto . . . NBJC's Alexander Robinson . . . GMHC's Marjorie Hill . . . The Victory Fund's Chuck Wolfe . . . Towle Road's Andy Towle . . . Iraq Marine vet Brian Fricke (whom you may have seen on 60 Minutes) . . . Billy Bean . . . Joan Garry . . . Keith Boykin . . . Ray Buckley . . . Brian Johnson . . . Corey Johnson . . . Dixon Osburn . . . Paul Smith . . . Bruce Bastian . . . Mitchell Gold . . . Krystal Ball . . . and so many others, like YOU, who have been pushing the ball down the field for so long. (Well, Krystal is fairly new to this, but what a kick to have a pro-marriage CPA triathlete young mom running to unseat a conservative Republican in Virginia.)

If you pony up $1,000 or more for the people who stabbed us in the back last week and compared us to incest and pedophilia, for the people who continue to discharge gay service members even though they can immediately issue a stop-loss order putting the discharges on hold, then you are an apologist.

Trust me, you really don't want to come outside and "join" in the protests. I don't think the dry cleaner can get shame off of a tuxedo.

Here's the latest email from openly gay DNC Treasurer Andy Tobias. I sincerely hope that Jared Polis and Kirsten Gillibrand are not in fact doing even MORE gay fundraiser for the DNC right after the president - right in the middle of the president - knifing us in the back (Jared has refused, along with Tammy and Barney, to stop hosting next Thursday's fundraiser):

From: "Andrew Tobias" atobias@aol.com
To: "'Andrew Tobias'" atobias@aol.com
Cc: "'Tom Petrillo'" PetrilloT@dnc.org
Subject: quick one - for New Yorkers
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009

Ah, the opportunities:

TOMORROW:
Meet our great Jared Polis tomorrow from 7pm to 9pm, along with his Congressional baseball buddy from NY s 25th district, Congressman Dan Maffei. Hope to see you there (150 Central Park South #2104). Click here to contribute ($250 / $100 young professional) and RSVP to andrew@polisforcongress.com.

THURSDAY:
Whether you come with a sign . . . (STOP FIRING ARAB TRANSLATORS!) (CIVIL MARRIAGE = CIVIL RIGHT!) (EQUALITY NOW!) . . . or come to help fund the tools we need to help move the President s agenda, which includes +our+ agenda . . . board the Acela and come to dinner with the Vice President of the United States. Click here. (Or here if you can t come but want to chip in.) Or how s THIS for a strategy? Contribute -- but stand outside with a sign! We ll keep a plate warm for you and buy you a drink afterward, when the cameras are gone. We are, after all, all on the same team.

NEXT SATURDAY:
A +very+ small lunch in the Pines with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Email me.

SATURDAY, JULY 11:
WATER VOLLEYBALL WITH THE CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE, Barney Frank. Click here. (You can just watch and drink if you don t want to play.)

Enjoy the summer -- and enjoy the progress. We re winning.

Andy

Yeah, enjoy the summer. Read the rest of this post...

Jobless numbers up in 48 states

The peak unemployment numbers have yet to arrive and again, it's unlikely the US will see a rapid recovery. Burning through credit the last few years will take a while to work out. The stimulus package may help prevent the situation from getting even worse but there's no fast track to correcting financial abuse.

Signs that unemployment pains may be easing in individual US states in April disappeared by May, when jobless rates jumped in 48 states and the District of Columbia, according to data released on Friday.

Michigan again reported the highest jobless rate of 14.1 percent, followed by Oregon, which notched 12.4 percent, its highest on record, the U.S. Labor Department said.

Not only did Michigan hold the highest spot in terms of unemployment, a position it has had since October, but the state also experienced the largest monthly increase in its rate as two American auto behemoths—General Motors and Chrysler—struggled.

Michigan has had an unemployment rate of 7.0 percent or higher since April 2007, and broke past 9.0 percent in December.

Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Right now, in Tehran, protesters are gathering, despite the harsh warning yesterday from the Supreme Leader. It also sounds like the security forces are out in large numbers. This could get ugly today. Nico Pitney is still on top of it. We'll monitor through the day. Is this the day Iran has its own Tiananmen Square?

There's no new poem of the week from the poet blogger, but we've got haikus from AMERICAblog readers. KarenMrsLloydRichards had several more haikus from her series "Haiku for the Obama administration. She's always topical:

With a great big hug,
They're a happy family,
Barney loves Barry!

Also, Iran:

They take to the streets!
Can't they just eye hanging chads
In their rigged vote counts?

And, from bbock:

Haiku for the DNC in honor of their upcoming fund raiser:

Not one pink penny.
Our wallets are closed to you.
Someone screwed the pooch.

Those few words from KarenMrsLloydRichards and bbock say a lot about the week that was.

What else is going on out there? Read the rest of this post...

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

What a great band back in the day. I'm thinking of dinner because after months of planning tonight is the night we're co-hosting a garden party with one of Joelle's sisters and we're still not quite sure who is coming or how many. It could be 50 or it could be 60 or 70. If it rains we're pretty much stuffed. We've crammed nearly 40 inside for Thanksgiving meals before and that was tight. It's only a 55m2 flat (around 550 sq feet?) so we have to be outside. Joelle's sister has been cooking cakes, crumbles and quiches for days and the cleaning...oh the cleaning. We're serving wine that our friends produce in the Mâconnais which is a favorite of ours. Time to get back to chopping veggies, making my salads and putting the wine in the fridge. Anything to avoid the dreaded cleaning duties. Read the rest of this post...

'Holy Grail' of prostate cancer treatment?

If tests continue to show positive results, this would be great news. The Independent:

Rodger Nelson and Fructuoso Solano-Revuelta were diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic.

They were told the disease had spread beyond the prostate. Mr Nelson's cancer was encroaching on the abdomen and Mr Solano-Revuelta's tumour was the size of a golf ball. Patients in such condition are told they may have only months to live, and are normally only offered palliative care. But after one infusion of the drug ipilimumab, a monoclonal antibody that stimulates the immune system, given with conventional hormone therapy, their tumours shrank enough to be surgically removed. Both men have since made a full recovery and returned to their businesses.

The pair were part of a trial involving 108 patients, half of whom received the experimental drug. The trial is ongoing but the improvement of the two patients was so dramatic and unexpected that they were removed from the study so they could undergo curative surgery.

Dr Kwon said yesterday: "Halfway through the trial we began seeing remarkable responses. Some patients had dramatic shrinkage of their tumours so practically all traces had disappeared. We had thought we might get some incremental delay in the progression of the cancer. It had not dawned on us that we might go from an inoperable tumour to an operable one. That just doesn't happen."

Read the rest of this post...

Burqa ban discussed in France

As much as I find the burqa very offensive and repressive to women, banning it doesn't solve anything. If anything, wouldn't this drive those women into even more isolation? The widespread use of such clothing for women is a new problem so it makes more sense to look at what is driving this movement and focus on that. A ban is all fine and good for stirring up the crowds but it's difficult to see how this is going to help the women it's supposed to be saving. This new political effort also suggests some are looking for a distraction from much larger issues in order to win over support. Here we go again.

The Communist MP who led the call this week for an inquiry, André Gerin, denounced the garments as walking prisons. In his request, backed by 57 other MPs, mostly from Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party, he said: "The sight of these imprisoned women is already intolerable to us when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia … It is totally unacceptable on French soil."

For a ban to be implemented, an investigation would first have to be opened and its results studied for any sign of incompatibility between secular values and the use of the full veil. President Sarkozy, who recently defended France's division between the state and religion during a press conference with Barack Obama, is understood to be in favour of the issue being explored.

Sarkozy's leftwing urban policies secretary, herself a Muslim and former president of a women's rights group, today gave her support to "a total ban" on the burka. "I am for the banning of this coffin which kills basic freedoms," Fadela Amara told Le Parisien newspaper. "This debate has to clear the way to a law which protects women."

Read the rest of this post...