BuggBlog

Oh, the shame of heritage

Via Andrew, a Kentucky Democrat voices an opinion to The New Yorker on Clinton v. Obama:

"I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people," - a Clinton supporter in Eastern Kentucky, to George Packer of the New Yorker.

I'm not sure what's sadder, the attitude represented by the thinking or the fact that my home state seems determined to be as embarrassing as possible these days. Perhaps I could take refuge in that I'm only half-Kentuckian if you look solely at my paternal lineage.

Unfortunately, my maternal lineage is in Indiana, and Hoosiers have their own problems lately.

My, what a queer little boy you are!

Via Towleroad, I caught wind of a new book, You're Going to Be Gay!, that features photographs of adult gays and lesbians alongside childhood pictures that should have announced to the world at large  their upcoming homo-tude. Like any gay man who looks back fondly at the days when friends and family refused to see the flaming truths in front of them, I love these sorts of pictures.

Luckily, when I was last at my mom's house going through two big boxes of old photos I managed to begin a long-term scanning project that, in addition to chronicling the history of my family, will show exactly how nelly a little boy I was. For example, here's a shot of my sister and me with our Grandpa Joe (actually our great-grandfather) circa 1975:

Honestly, the gunpowder horn, rifle and miniature football jersey aren't fooling anyone -- maybe it's the way I'm striking a pose. Although those pants would have made anyone look gay. Just FYI, despite her hair and the big animal trap she's joyfully carrying, my sister turned out straight.

School pictures and other portraits seemed bring out some of my best unintentional swishiness, but I haven't gotten the chance to scan some of the more obvious evidence. I do have a couple instances, though, including this one from a couple years before my rifle-totin' pic:

It may not seem obvious in these more enlightened days, but I took huge amounts of shit in elementary school for having such long hair, and was called "hippie" with some regularity. I, however, loved my hair. It was very luxuriant and lustrous and felt good in the wind -- I was an early connoisseur of such things as Body on Tap. Interestingly, my shirt appears to be a prescient Native American interpretation of Space Invaders. But even before my locks grew long, I think I looked pretty gay. In fact, I couldn't even be bothered to wear pants:

As opposed to my sister, who though sleepy managed to maintain a sense of propriety. Of course, all this nelly-ness may be mostly in hindsight, at least as far as the photographic records go. Then again, I know my parents never ran to grab the Kodak when I donned my sister's clothes or commandeered her Barbies, so my pool of evidence is limited.

My old Kentucky...oh, no

There seem to be two ways for Kentucky politicians to get themselves mentioned in the national news:

1. Be Mitch McConnell.

2. Say stupid shit.

So Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) is just the latest example of why my home state pride cringes in expectation every time I see the state mentioned in a headline. As for Davis, well, stereotypes aside, Kentuckians are not stupid in general. They're not stupid about race. They know calling a black man "boy" is racist. They know that even a racist doesn't use "boy" in public unless he really, really means it.

Judging from his "apology," I'd guess that Rep. Davis really meant it.

Be careful what you put in your mouth

I have watched my dinner die.

To grow up in farm country is to have a better understanding of the connection between the meat on your plate and the animal you see grazing in the field outside the dining room window. While my parents weren't farmers, my grandparents and aunts and uncles were, and our rural Kentucky home was surround by fields: an uncle's field across the road, my grandfather's pasture along the creek, a second cousin's rows of corn out back. We all had gardens, from which we all traded fresh vegetables -- and, yes, home-grown tomatoes are superior to the generic ones you find stocked in your grocery's produce section.

I never saw a cow slaughtered -- though I did have a small hand once in helping convert a bull to a steer by slicing off his testicles -- but I understood the cow-to-hamburger process. Chickens, though, were a food source I understood even better. Granny had a chicken coop behind the house, where I would sometimes go with her in the mornings to collect the big brown eggs from the nests. And I watched from the kitchen window as Granny took a hatchet to a chicken's neck and the headless bird briefly ran around the yard in a bloody slapstick routine.

It really is the kind of chore where you want to be sure the dogs are put up before you start.

For Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, this up-close experience of the food chain should make me -- potentially, at least -- a better, more careful eater.

Hillbilly morality

No, I'm not talking about Hillary and Bill again. I'm talking about my home state -- the home of horses, whiskey and women, at least as they would have it -- Kentucky. Although last November Kentuckians performed admirably in voting out a particularly idiotic and homophobic governor, the state legislature still has its fair share of backwoods moralizers. The state senate has just passed a bill banning public universities and state agencies from providing benefits to gay and lesbian partners. If passed, it would effectively strip benefits already offered by the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky.

How idiotic are some of the bill's sponsors? Let's take Sen. Vernie McGaha (R), who says, "I do not recognize domestic partnerships as being a correct thing....My Bible teaches against it." As to the argument from university administrators that this legislation would make it more difficult to recruit talented teachers and others, McGaha thinks the answer is simple:

"Keep recruiting," he said. "There's plenty out there."

I'm sure that's just what Jesus would do.

As Towleroad notes, Courier-Journal reporter Stephanie Steitzer*identifies Democratic opponent of the bill Sen. Ernesto Scorsone as "a homosexual," a rather surprisingly archaic and offensive usage from a newspaper that should know better.

Anyway, every time I visit home I get a bit wistful about all the things I miss about my native home. Then the people who actually run the place open their mouths and I thank god all over again that I moved the hell away. I just wish all the people who've chosen to stay could have an easier run of it.

*Based on a very nice e-mail from the reporter in question, I've struck my original reference. Sometimes what a reporter turns in isn't what makes it into print -- which still makes it a surprising moment for a respected paper such as the Courier-Journal to use "homosexual" as a noun as opposed to an adjective.