Partly-baked ideas:  There was once a column (now, alas, no more) in a magazine I read entitled "Partly Baked Ideas".  These were random ideas tossed out by the writer -- not fully thought through, but put out there to stimulate further thought or discussion.  I don't know if any of them ever became fully-baked ideas or if any went on to real-world application, but I don't care.  Just the idea of someone tossing out ideas (and there were usually a dozen or so each issue) for others to pick up on was, to me at that time, unbelievably cool.

You might say Toad Hall is a place for my own partly-baked ideas.  (Actually, you might say that about anyone's blog.)  So here's one of my own.

Saving General Motors:  No, this isn't a sequel to Saving Private Ryan.  I recently read that GM is looking at going into bankruptcy.  Now, we know there are several types of bankruptcy, identified by the word "chapter" and a number.  The two this article talked about were Chapter 11 and Chapter 7.

Chapter 11 is the type of bankruptcy used by companies who want to keep in business but can't handle current debts.  Chapter 11 allows them to continue doing what they do.  Now in the case of manufacturing companies like GM, the company can continue to purchase the parts needed to make their wares via loans known as "debtor-in-possession" (DIP) loans.  Here's the problem, though:  Due to the current financial crisis, banks are either unable or unwilling to make DIP loans to anyone.  No DIP loan, no ability to purchase parts, and thus no production, and thus no income.

Which leaves Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  This is the one where the business goes out of business and sells off its assets.  The bankrupt company no longer exists.

In the case of GM, this is not a good thing, based on the number of people employed plus the number of peripheral businesses (all those parts makers, plus dealerships, plus garages, plus many others) depending on orders from GM to survive.  So what to do?

PBI:  The government has allocated $700 million to bail out the banks.  The Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, has recently decided to change the original concept of how to use this money and is starting to do something else with it.  So this $700 million appears to be in a very flexible spending account.

Take some of it -- say, $5 to $10 million -- and set up an agency that will provide the DIP loans to GM (and the other auto makers, should they need it down the road).  Set reasonable interest rates and repayment schedules.  Don't replenish the pot -- once the money's gone, it's gone.  But give the automakers the chance to change from what they've been making (which the public doesn't seem to want) to other, more in-demand types of autos.

Chrysler got bailed out, years ago.  They were able to change direction, stay in business, and repay their loan ahead of schedule.  Why not try it again?

Where were you? department:  I've recently viewed the Keith Olbermann "special comment" on Prop 8.  It's well-written, well-delivered, and appears to be heartfelt.

It was also broadcast one week after Election Day.

So where the hell were Olbermann's comments before the election, when they might have swayed some votes and done some good?

Right now, I have no use for someone being outraged over our loss in California who could have used his nationally-televised cable TV show to make a forceful statement against this repugnant referendum item.  Maybe I missed his earlier (that is, pre-Election Day) comments about Prop 8.  After all, I don't watch "Countdown" every single night.  But I was deeply involved in watching the news/comment shows on MSNBC for the two weeks or so running up to the election, and somehow I didn't hear anything like this from Mr. Olbermann.

Changing the subject (but still related to Prop 8):  It's reported that comedienne Wanda Sykes took the occasion of Saturday's protest in Las Vegas to announce that she was gay.

I've said before, the decision to come out is deeply personal.  No one has the right to insist anyone come out before they feel ready, just as no one has the right to insist anyone stay in the closet.  Ms. Sykes is a welcome addition to the ranks of openly gay and lesbian entertainers and celebrities.

Having said that, I only wish she had come out before the elections.  She is what was desperately needed in terms of outreach to the African-American community:  an out black lesbian, proud of who she is, who could put a human face on the issue of same-sex marriage and communicate what was at stake with authority within the community.

Like I said, coming out is personal, and no one -- not even me -- has the right to tell someone when and how to come out.  But oh, I can still wish.

Update on Prop 8:  They've still got 1.8 million votes left to count in California.  The Prop 8 vote stands at 52% yes, 48% no, with roughly 500,000 votes separating the two.  In my opinion (the only one that counts on here), since all the votes haven't been counted yet, Prop 8 cannot take effect.  Any same-sex couple that really wants to get married should still be able to.  After all, Prop 8 cannot take effect until the election is finally over, right?  So, go marry.

Department of Finger Pointing, Prop 8 sub-office:  Yes, they're still counting the votes in California (about 2.1 million votes are still uncounted as of the latest figures), but barring a miracle Proposition 8 -- removing the right to marry from same-sex couples -- will become part of the California constitution.  So, of course, it's time to lay blame and assign responsibility for the passage of this measure.  Let's see who the suspects are:

African-American voters.  While they make up about 7% of the state's population, they made up about 10% of the voting electorate this year.  African-American voters supported Prop 8 by roughly 70%.

Latino voters.  35% of the state population, 18% of the voters.  Latinos supported Prop 8 by roughly 53%.

The Mormons.  Reports vary, but roughly $20 million dollars were contributed by Mormons nationwide to the supporters of Prop 8.  

The Catholics.  The second largest religious group in terms of financial support, the Catholics (and Catholic-related organizations like the Knights of Columbus) contributed roughly $1.4 million.  Through what is alleged to be a strategic alliance with the Mormons, the Catholics presented a "familiar face" to those religious groups favoring Prop 8.

The "Yes on 8" people.  The wording of Proposition 8 did nothing but define "marriage" as the union of one man and one woman.  Pro-8 advertisements warned that churches refusing to perform same-sex marriages would lose their tax-exempt status, and that young children would be taught about homosexuality in school.  Both of these arguments were false, but it shifted attention away from the issue of using the state constitution to remove rights already defined by the courts as existing and towards issues that figured nowhere in the proposition's wording.

The "No on 8" people.  Ads were focus-grouped and tested to a fare-thee-well, and because of that relied heavily on arguments of fairness and equality.  All well and good, but the personal stories of those who would be affected by Prop 8 -- gay and lesbian couples and families, especially those whose relationships had existed for years or even decades before same-sex marriage was recognized as a right -- were not used.  The humanizing face that might have made a difference in the results didn't test well, or was thought to have a potential negative effect, and so was discarded.  Also, a heavy push for educating voters on what Prop 8 meant and why it should be defeated was not done.

So what's to be done?  Plenty.  Garden State Equality uses a phrase:  "All Roads to Justice".  That's what's needed in California now.  Go to the courts.  Go to the legislature.  Put forth the effort to educate.  Stage protest marches and rallies.  Block access to Mormon temples (which for now has the effect of blocking Mormons from marrying within their church rules).  Use your indoor voices and your outdoor voices.  Be imaginative, be persuasive.  Do something.

But there are things not to be done.  Do not smash property, even if it belongs to one of the opponents of same-sex marriage.  Do not think that all Mormons, or all Catholics, or all African-Americans, or all Latinos are "the enemy" -- there's plenty of evidence of members of all these groups who actively and passionately supported our right to marry.

The goal is attainable.  This is only a temporary setback.  It took some 58 years for "separate but equal" to be thrown out as a basis for discrimination by race.  It hasn't even been two decades that same-sex marriage has been a major issue.  It'll take work, lots of it, sometimes un-glamorous.  But the goal will be reached, because we've been to the mountaintop.

As some of you know, I love to ride trains.  I take them whenever possible, but most of the time I'm riding New Jersey Transit (NJT) from my local station here in Somerville to New York City.  But today I had an unpleasant trip.  The following note was e-mailed to NJT just a short while ago.

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My partner and I rode the Raritan Valley Line on Sunday, Nov. 9, on the 10:21 a.m. train to Newark Penn Station.  We boarded in Somerville.  We did not get to purchase our tickets until just outside of Union.  The car we travelled in was full, as I assume were the other cars in the consist.  There was only one conductor in our car for the entire trip.

It's bad enough that you've cut inbound morning service on the Raritan Valley Line.  However, you must have sufficient crew on board to handle the increased numbers of passengers on those trains still running on Sunday mornings.

Had I been a less honest person, I would have told the conductor that my partner and I had gotten on in Cranford or Roselle Park.  As it was, I paid the full fare and did not complain to the conductor, since I believe the poor service was not her fault.  Had we been going to any station prior to Union, we might well have ridden for free -- at least, one way.

If you're going to cut service, you must have sufficient crew to handle the influx of additional riders on those trains still in service.  Otherwise, you have to restore the service you've cut, or risk dishonest riders making part or all of their journey for free -- at NJ Transit's expense.

Election opinions.  C'mon, you thought I didn't have any?  Please.  

The new President.  Yes, I voted for Barack Obama (check previous posts for my opinions about Senator McCain and Governor Palin).  So yes, I'm happy.  But I'm also a gay man and a long-time activist, which means I have my own (small-'g') gay agenda for the incoming administration.

In the next four years, in return for the support of the queer communities, I expect to see either significant action on, or actual completion of, at least one of these four items:

1.  Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  DOMA denies legally-married same-sex couples access to a variety of rights and privileges accorded to opposite-sex couples at the federal level (including obtaining spousal benefits from Social Security and allowing gay and lesbian citizens the right to have their foreign-born, non-citizen partners stay in the US).  This Act was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by then-President Clinton, making it a bipartisan blot in the federal law books.  President-elect Obama is already on record for granting civil rights at all levels equal to opposite-sex couples for same-sex couples.  Repealing DOMA will prove he really meant what he said.

2.  Eliminate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT).  Right now we're fighting a war on two fronts, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  We need every single available member of our armed forces we can lay our hands on -- including those with training in intelligence, expertise in Middle Eastern affairs, and fluency in the languages of those two countries.  However, if they are gay or lesbian and they are found out, the need to purge homosexuals from the military trumps the country's need for all able-bodied citizens to wage these wars.  Yes, the troops need to be drawn down (and eventually removed entirely) in Iraq.  Yes, we need increased troops and intelligence to once-and-for-all capture Osama bin Laden and destroy al-Qaida in Afghanistan, so that we can honestly declare "mission accomplished" and bring those troops home as well.  But until then, it is lunacy to remove people whose talents and abilities we need in order to mollify the fears of those in the upper echelons of the military that the deadly possibility exists that somewhere, sometime, a gay/lesbian service member will make a pass at a straight one, destroying the delicate cohesion of their unit and, ultimately, the entire armed forces of this country.

3.  Pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).  This one has been promised to us by the Democrats but somehow always ends up being put in limbo.  When the Democrats aren't in control, they claim either the votes aren't there or the President will veto the bill anyway and they can't override it.  When they are in control, there are ever so many other priorities, and we can understand why ENDA just isn't a priority, can't we?  Now's the time to insist that, with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic President, ENDA gets passed into law and finally freed from the labrynthine maneuverings of Washington politics.

4.  Remove the last vestiges of the travel and immigration ban on persons with HIV.  Giving credit where it's due, outgoing President Bush did lift most of the ban, but the Department of Homeland Security hasn't been given the green light to finish the job.  This is one area where the incoming President can just say "do it", and it will be done.

And what if this is not done?  Vote the bastards out.  The Republicans have shown in this election they do not want us.  The Democrats will have shown by their inaction that they only want us as cash cows and unpaid volunteer grunt workers.  The two-party system is not enshrined in law.  Maybe it's time to give serious, massive queer support to the Libertarians, the Greens, or the Socialists.  It's not throwing your vote away if, by giving your vote to either of the two so-called major parties, you don't have your issues taken seriously.

California's Proposition 8 was passed by a favorable vote of 52% of the state's voting citizens.  But it's not in effect yet.  Why?  Well, as of this past Friday, there were some 2.7 million votes that had yet to be counted -- early voters whose votes were received on Election Day, voters who used absentee ballots, and voters who had to use provisional ballots.  It ain't over yet, and may not be over until early December.  For more information, go to http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/c-status08/total_unprocessed_ballots08.pdf

Politics, part II.  I talked about Obama and Biden last time.  Now I turn my attention to McCain and Palin.

John McCain was, for many years, an honorable Senator.  He was not a doctrinaire Republican.  He could be counted on to make up his own mind, and speak it.  Then, in 2000, he decided to run for President.  He ran up against the war machine that was Bush/Cheney/Rove.  That machine ate him up and spat him out like a half-popped piece of popcorn.  It smeared him, badly, and since he either didn't have or didn't know how to mount a spirited defense, he was defeated.

I think that defeat hurt him deeply.  Hurt him so much that he vowed it would never happen again.  And so, when it came time for him to run again, in 2008, he embraced it.  Yes, he talked about his "Straight Talk Express", and how he was bringing honesty and -- dare one say it -- civility back to national political discourse.  But once the nomination was secured, even before the last primary was held, he began to embrace the machine that had once hurt him so badly.

John McCain will be 72 if he takes the oath of office in January, the oldest President ever, even older than Reagan.  He is a survivor of multiple bouts with cancer.  He knows that for all practical purposes this will be his last hurrah, his last race for the highest office.  He may even know that the odds are good he will never survive his first term of office.

So he embraces the machine.  He puts out ads breathtaking, even among Republicans, even for (if news reports can be believed) Karl Rove, in their scope of lies and evasions.  He reiterates his defining experience -- as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, four decades ago -- as a shield against all questions, denying the voters their chance to hear his positions on substantive issues.  He seizes totally innocuous comments by his opponents and blows them up into mind-numbingly trivial complaints (lipstick on a pig, anyone?).  And the so-called liberal media, the self-defined guardians of the public's right to know, fail for the most part to call him on any of his statements, even when after being proven as false he continues to repeat them.

If this was not bad enough, McCain the exemplar of "experience" as a prerequisite for the Presidency chooses as his running mate the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.  Palin's total experience consists of being mayor of the small town of Wasilia, and less than one full term as Governor.  She was not fully vetted until after McCain chose her to be his running mate.  Her political career contains no knowledge of, or dealings with, foreign policy or the military.  She appears to have been chosen because of her gender and her appeal to the Christianists (people who call themselves Christian who believe that politics must be subservient to religious doctrine).

McCain has not only shown himself, with this choice, to be at best unserious and at worst breathtakingly cavalier about who probably would be his successor (age and cancer, remember).  He has shown his decision-making capabilities to be woefully lacking for even the first decade of a new century.  And he has thrown away one of the few arguments against his opponent that do need serious consideration:  the issue of expertise in running that large organization known as the United States of America.  For if Barack Obama has to answer charges of inexperience in governing, how much more so does Sarah Palin have to answer for?

As for Sarah Palin herself, we find someone who is almost willfully ignorant of major political issues.  We also find someone who has been caught in her own repeated lies, most famously about her now-you-see-it-now-you-don't support for the "Bridge to Nowhere".  The simple statement, "You wouldn't ask her about this if she was a man," is for now enough to silence serious questioners.  And there has been no major candidate for either President or Vice-President who has refused press conferences by whimpering that she isn't being shown sufficient deference by the press corps.

There have been -- there are -- good, qualified Republicans in all levels of government.  People who are dedicated to the cause of the country and its people, above the calls for mere party loyalty.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are, I regret to say, not among their number.

Conventional wisdom.  Or, perhaps, just the wisdom you get while you're watching the conventions.  Anyway, both the Democrats in Denver and the Republicans in St. Paul are through with their quadrennial celebrations of themselves, in which many party leaders (plus a few up-and-comers) give speeches about just how good their party is, and just how awful the other party is.  This year was no exception, speech-wise.  But during the St. Paul coronation, there was a big surprise.  More on that later...

I went through the Toad Hall archives and found words that prove once and for all that I do not have the gift of prophecy.  Waaaaaaay back when, the Human Rights Campaign sponsored a "meet the candidates" night, televised on the gay cable station Logo.  I gave my impressions on the candidates' performances, and came down hard on Barack Obama.  I thought his performance that night was not up to standards.  But apparently he can learn.  His speeches all through the primary campaign got better and better -- not perfect, mind you, but much better than the HRC/Logo stuff.

Leaving the past behind, what do I think of the four candidates -- Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin?

Barack Obama:  It was Bill-the-Honeybear who first made me aware of Obama, way before the primary race started, when Bill heard him speak at a progressives' convention in DC.  I looked, I listened, and I was won over.  I'd not heard words such as his, defiantly hopeful, coolly devastating to his Democratic rivals as well as his Republican opponents, intellectual but with pools of deep emotion lying just underneath, since last I heard Ronald Reagan speak.  (And say what you will about the man, Reagan really could make a good speech.)

He did the same at the convention.  Granted, he kept out of the spotlight, for the most part, until his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium (which is what old-time Denver people call Invesco Field).  He let the grand lions of the party -- ailing Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and many others -- take center stage at the start.  Then his running mate-to-be, Joe Biden, the Delaware Senator who takes Amtrak home each night and still remembers his blue-collar upbringing in Scranton, PA.  Then Michelle Obama -- wife, mother, tigress, proud and protective of her man and her family.

Finally, the man himself.  So what if the stage had columns that looked like leftover scenery from Spartacus?  You'd never know it from the camera angles; whenever the camera wasn't on the crowd at the stadium, or picking out a face in said crowd, it was tight on him at the podium.  And did he speechify!  Picking up the major threads of his primary campaign, giving a little more detail on how he planned to handle some major problems, and giving the Republicans (and the creators of their attack ads, with John McCain's "and I approved this ad") what for.

Joseph Biden:  The man most people figured would be chosen to run with Obama, was chosen.  For those who see this as some kind of betrayal of Obama's message of change, the truth of the matter is that Biden is the best fit for Obama's running mate.  He fills in all the perceived holes the Republican attack ads were exploiting.  Biden is solid, from a Catholic working-class background, with a strong record in the Senate for proven leadership and enormous expertise in foriegn affairs.  Think of the mix of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and how each of them made up for deficiencies in the other.  That's Obama and Biden.

I'll continue in the next post about the Republicans.

Where does the time go to? It's been nearly a year since I last posted here, so let me dust away the cobwebs and vacuum the floor...

First, education. As you may remember, long, long ago I took a class in event planning and meeting management. Not only did I like it, but I was good at it. Then along came June 2007 and with it the end of my consultant programming job at Ethicon. At loose ends, I decided this might be a good time to see if changing careers would be a good thing. So I enrolled myself back at Raritan Valley Community College, and (shortening a long story) on May 14, 2008, I got my certificate in event planning.

Next, work. Like I said above, I'm not at Ethicon any more. As part of my certificate work, I had to get an internship with a company that either did event planning or had a large event planning component. Fortunately, I got an apprenticeship (definition: an internship with pay) at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. This lasted from the beginning of February to the middle of June, when the apprenticeship period ended. I'm now on the job hunt, which I'm hoping won't last too much longer. But it's, well, discouraging.

How's Bill? Thank you for asking. He's currently working Sunday thru Thursday for New Jersey Democrats. And he'll be doing some exit polling work for an outside firm on election day, too. And both are paying jobs. But as usual, there aren't enough hours in the day for him to do everything he wants to do in the way he wants to do it.

Anything else? I'm planning to take a long weekend around my birthday and travel down to Disney World. I'm still editing Challenge, the newsletter of the Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County (GAAMC). I'm starting to get active in another gay group, the Garden State Bears, mostly setting up events -- a small group of us went down the shore in mid-August, and there's a couple of informal dinner meets in September. Not much to start with (there's also a monthly beer bash in Asbury Park), but the potential is there.

What about Mensa? I'm not active in my local group, although I do get to their RG each year. I still go to the AG every year -- the last one was in Denver, the next one's in Pittsburgh. And I still participate in GaySIG. But I'm not as heavily into it as I was, and that's a good thing. I think members need to take some time to step back, especially if they are active in Mensa governance like I was.

Any comments on the political scene? OH, yes! But that'll be for another post...