The big story of the day: anti-gay California state senator Roy Ashburn was arrested for DUI, allegedly after having left a gay bar earlier in the evening.  (Hat tip to mzrowan for bringing this to my attention and for hunting down the original story that broke.)

What's interesting to me is how much skepticism I've seen of this story.  And it's true, there are a lot of legitimate objections: they haven't named their sources.  The manager of the bar says she never saw him there that night.  He was blocks away from the club when the police pulled him over, so it's unlikely they witnessed him leaving.

Here's why I believe the story:

This morning there are lots of articles all over the news reporting that people have been asking Ashburn about his sexuality for years and getting non-denial denials. The mayor of Sacramento says he regularly sees Ashburn at gay clubs.

Why would these people let him go on like this and not say anything?  The usual reasons people let people stay closeted: he's powerful, they don't want to make waves, they don't want to invade his privacy, etc. etc. etc.  It's hard to be the first person to say this and risk being dismissed as a crank or a rabble-rouser.

What it really sounds like is that it was an open secret in local circles that Ashburn was just another a closeted anti-gay legislator and no one wanted to be the first person to address it, so no one did.  Until CBS13 printed the story yesterday.   And once someone has started talking about it, it's a lot easier for everyone else to start talking about it.  Which they now appear to be doing.

The current story of the day is: Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize!  OMGWTF?  He hasn't done anything for it yet!  He got the prize for not being George W. Bush!  This is just cheap politics!

To which I say: I am shocked, shocked, to learn that politics may have been behind the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize!

Dear Hollywood folks:

I like you.  I really, really like you.  Lots of you are really my kind of people: funny, engaging, passionate about making great movies, earnest about progressive change (if a bit shallow in your politics, but lots of us are guilty of that mistake sometimes).  I confess: I am more susceptible to show biz gossip than I like to let on, and am liable to click through on the latest celebrity news quickly when no one's looking.  I care, guys.

So it is only with the deepest sincerity and concern that I ask you today to shut the fuck up about Roman Polanski already.

Seriously!  I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's not helping.  It's not helping anyone.  It's not helping him, it's not helping the situation and it's really not helping you.

Look, I know there are complexities at play here.  I know that the victim has, for most of the last 30 years, wanted to put the case behind her, and since January has wanted the case dismissed.  I know that Polanski was on the verge of locking in a plea bargain when the judge fucked him like.... well, like a 44-year-old director fucks a 13-year-old girl, I guess.  No one, as far as I can tell, believes that he poses a threat to anyone at this point.  I get it.

But please let us return to first principles: this is a man who pleaded guilty to raping a thirteen-year-old girl.  That is not usually classified as a victimless crime, Hollywood folks!  While the judge's apparent decision to reneg on accepting a plea bargain was a rotten thing to do, it does not reduce or lessen his guilt and it arguably does not justify fleeing justice for 30 years.

So if you want to lobby for his freedom by urging that the judge dismiss the charges, or sentence him to time already served: that is a fine argument!  Go for it.

But in the meantime, kindly do not:

• tell us that he should be excused because "he's a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago"
• refer to raping a thirteen-year-old girl as a "so-called" crime
• attempt to excuse it on the basis that "it wasn't rape rape"
• dismiss the gravity of the issue because Polanski "is not responsible for killing anyone"
  

And above all, whatever you do, DO NOT allow Woody Allen within a HUNDRED MILES of commenting on this case.  I mean, Jesus H. Christ on a camera dolly.

Or, as muckefuck put it so eloquently: I ❤ Luc Besson.

I love you, guys.  I really do.  Now stop fucking up.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118780114777

Anyone else interested in coming?

For those of you following the events surrounding the revolution that appears to be unfolding in Iran, The Big Picture has posted some astonishing photos from the streets.  Some are photos you may have seen already, but now at much higher quality.  Including the heart-wrenching image of a Mousavi supporter helping an injured police officer in the middle of a riot.

IHNJH,IJLS "Republican teabagging."

Christopher Hitchens argued this week in Slate that Mumbai (the name for the city known as Bombay until 1995) is a "fake name," compares it to the Burmese junta renaming that country "Myanmar", and suggests that right-thinking people will continue to refer to Mumbai as Bombay.

I don't get it.  The opposition in Burma to the name "Myanmar" is partly a symbolic opposition to the military regime.  The Burmese protesters do not even recognize the legitimacy of the ruling party.  I don't see that the same issues apply in India.  As evidence, Hitch cites this 2006 Slate article by Christopher Beam:

Shiv Sena's leadership pushed for the name change for many years prior to 1995. They argued that "Bombay" was a corrupted English version of "Mumbai" and an unwanted legacy of British colonial rule.... The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region.... The name change didn't impact all of Mumbai's residents. Speakers of Marathi and Gujarati, the local languages, have always called the city Mumbai. "Bombay" is an anglicization of the Portuguese name "Bombaim," which is believed to derive from the phrase "Bom Bahia," or "Good Bay." (Portugal held territories in western India until 1961.)

So at least to some degree it's a top-down change.  But it's not clear to me that that automatically means that "Bombay" is a more proper name.  Why is a 16th-century Portuguese colonial name more culturally appropriate for an Indian city than a Hindu name that derives from local temples going back thousands of years?

Help me out.  I know a lot of you are smarter than I am and pay more attention to Asian politics than I do.  Am I missing something big from the backstory here?

No On 8 rally at Boston City Hall.

I've been wanting to write something more about what this year's presidential election meant to me personally.  It's not just the tremendous relief after the disastrous policy of the last eight years, or the exhilaration of actually electing an African-American president, or the anticipation of repairing our relationships with other nations.  It's all of those things, but it is much, much deeper too.

So I need to tell you all a little about Al.



Al Lowenstein was a New York congressman in the early 1970s.  He was one of the first people to try to bring the horrors of the government of South West Africa to light in the 1950s and 1960s.  As an activist in the late 1960s, he became something of a minor figurehead in the anti-war movement.  He earned himself a spot on Nixon's enemies list.

He was, in other words, our kind of people.

My parents worked enthusiastically on his Congressional campaign in 1972.  As a result of their involvement they got to know both Al and his wife Jenny quite well.  For years afterward we would vacation with their family often.  Al's kids were like cousins to me -- closer, in some ways, than my blood cousins -- and to this day Jenny is one of my mother's closest friends.

Al Lowenstein was assassinated when I was nine years old.  I was much too young to have a first-hand memory of his political work.  But I grew up hearing stories about his charisma, his energy and his optimism.  How he could arrive late for a speech, tie askew and hair rumpled, to an audience of cranky, impatient listeners who had been waiting for thirty minutes in a crowded and stuffy auditorium in the height of the summer -- and how, from the moment he entered the room, he would hold his audience spellbound, riveted, hanging on his every word.  How he could start with a room full of dispirited, dejected people and leave them pumped up, rejuvenated, and convinced they could make something happen.

I grew up with these stories in my ears.

Then, last January, when Obama won the Iowa primary -- "They said this day would never come" -- they came to mind again.  And again at his "A More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia.  And again.  And again.

Because when I hear Obama speak, I hear Al's words in my ears.  When I hear Obama talk about change, I hear Al inviting me to imagine just what we could do if we all worked together.

That is what Barack Obama's election means to me.  It is the legacy of Al Lowenstein.  Al's dream was millions of people, convinced that by working together they can make a better world.  Last week we took another step to make that a reality.  And in my mind I am thanking Al Lowenstein.