The Dooryard

We shouldn't condone kids walking out

A friend of mine is an educator at a high school in Southern California. He texted me a message on Monday that excitedly let me know that 1,300 students at his school walked out to protest stiffer laws against illegal immigrants.

Many school administrators are tacitly giving approval for these walk-outs, failing to suspend or punish these students in any way despite the fact that they are violating school policy and the law. In an effort to protest proposed law changes that, at the ages of 15 and 16, most of them don't fully understand, they are abandoning their education. And school teachers and principals are quietly applauding them.

When I suggested to my friend that every one of those kids be suspended, he wrote: "I work at a school, not a prison." The sad thing is that if these kids were skipping school to protest something the administration didn't support, they'd be suspended in a heartbeat.

As misguided as they may be, the kids can do what they want. But, the educators should teach the kids a valuable lesson: that every action has a consequence. Babying them by not suspended them just makes them weaker.

Whose side are they on, part 2

I'm onto my favorite Sunday news show: The MacLaughlin Group. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift just gave the perfect example of the nasty attack-dog mentality most in the press have regarding the Bush Administration. This quote was in attack of Rumsfeld:

"He is responsible for us not having enough soldiers in there, for the soldiers not having body armor . . ."

This is the same woman who has said we have too many soldiers and we have spent too much money on the war. Ugh.

Whose side is the press on, anyway?

I'm watching 'Meet The Press' and the guest this morning is Condoleeza Rice. Watching host Tim Russert ask Rice questions, and reading the quotes from around the press that Russert keeps displaying and reading, it really hit me how nasty the press has been regarding this issue.

Most of what is reported on the television and in "highly respected" newspapers like the New York Times can be classified in two categories: 1) defending Saddam Hussein and 2) sympathizing with the Hussein-loyal terrorists who are trying to disrupt that new government. And that's very sad. In their attempts to discredit the Bush Administration, they are siding with very nasty people who attack individual human rights and losing sight of who exactly they're trying to defend.

I was taken back to this quote - so true and, in this case, fueled by so many in the press:

"Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding."

The ultimate sore loser

Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx offers her thoughts on the Oscars (Towleroad), and they are that of a sore loser. She rips everything from Los Angeles to the Film Academy (the same one she wanted to get an award from) to Crash, the superior movie that beat the one based on her short story.

I really think every human being should be forced to play sports until they learn how to lose. This woman, like so many gay men who have vented about the movie losing in the final act of its awards-season run, could use a serious dose of humility and grace. It's unfortunate that so many people get out of sports at such an early age. There is so much to learn there about life. While gym class in school isn't really taken seriously, more of life's lessons are learned there than any science or math class.

This will be my last post on Brokeback Mountain. I'm so tired of hearing and thinking about the movie, it's time to lay it to rest.

There's no crying in the rodeo

It's been almost 48 hours since the whining began, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. Gay people all over the media and Web are putting out every possible conspiracy theory about why Brokeback Mountain wasn't named Best Picture. Every possible theory, that is, except the one that is most likely: that more Academy voters simply liked Crash more than they liked Brokeback Mountain.

I was very happy to see Roger Ebert take people to task for attacking Crash because their beloved BBM lost. I have never seen a group of people lose their minds over not winning an award. It's like high school where the popular girl loses an election and she just stomps around the school and blames everyone but herself for losing.

Lots of gay people I know enjoyed Crash more than BBM, myself included. I agree with Ebert: Crash was the best movie from 2005 I saw. Yet, so many gay people just won't accept the idea that Academy voters liked Crash more. I cried in Crash three or four times. I rolled my eyes in BBM.

What I wish these people would realize is that BBM not winning the Best Picture Oscar doesn't take away from their experience of the movie, and it doesn't take away from the film's social impact. It won lots of best-picture awards in the last few months and did incredibly well at the box office. These are good things! Celebrate that, and allow those of us who loved Crash to celebrate that movie. Don't bitch and whine that Hollywood is so homophobic, because it's absolutely, positively Ludicris.

If Munich had won instead of Brokeback Mountain, people would be saying "homophobic, Jewish Hollywood hates homosexuals and wanted to give it to a Jewish movie." If Capote had won, it would be "homophobic Hollywood could only give it to a movie about a stereotypical gay man" (which is the laughable way some people are explaining Hoffman beating Ledger for Best Actor). If Good Night and Good Luck had won, it would be "homophobic, color blind Hollywood just wanted to give it to another black and white movie."

And if Brokeback Mountain had won, it would be "look at how wonderful all of these amazing people in Hollywood are."

Oscar gets it right

For months I have been hearing how Brokeback Mountain is the best picture of the year. I've seen it win award after award, with people saying it's all but guaranteed to win the Oscar.

In the end, Oscar got it right.

Crash was named Best Picture of the Year last night by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. It was a big surprise to many, including the people who made the movie. It seems the Academy members didn't buy into the incredible marketing machine that Focus Features had behind Brokeback Mountain, and didn't buy into the hype. The 6,000 Academy members voted individually and decided that Crash, my favorite film of the year, was the best.

It's sad now to see what sore losers gay fans of BBM can be. In talking to friends and reading several online discussion boards, most of the messages from gay people talk about being the victims of homophobia, Crash being a terrible movie, the middle of America determining the Oscars (this is the same middle of America they claimed to be winning over with Brokeback Mountain just 24 hours before). Sore winners are the worst, but sore losers are a very close second.

A gracious loser poitns to the merits of those who beat him. He lauds the excellence that it too to win and congratulates the people who were able to pull it off. It's sad to see so many of these gay people point to some mysterious Hollywood homophobia (you've GOT to be kidding me) as the reason Brokeback Mountain lost.

I'll probably post more thoughts on this in the coming days. But, right now, I'm just sooo happy Crash won. It deserved it. It affected me emotionally more than any movie in a long time. I think I'll rent it again next weekend.

Run, Condi. Run!

I'm a huge fan of Condoleeza Rice. She was a professor of mine at Stanford ("The Role of the Military in Politics" - Political Science 152, I think) and she gained all of my respect in those three months I got to spend in the classroom with her.

Thanks to Andy at Towleroad, I got to watch her exercise and talk about the importance of daily exercise. If only more Americans heeded her words, we'd have a lot fewer health problems.

I have lots of "Condi" stories that I'll share in the coming months. Despite her insistence that she won't run for President, I'm hoping she'll change her, and I'm hoping I can somehow, with this place, help her change her mind.

"Asshole"?

I watched a little video clip today that made me very sad. It's simply called "Asshole" and it points a finger at all of the Republicans in charge in this country and says, simply, "you're an asshole."

I was sad because of how nasty, mean-spirited and divisive the piece is. Of course, the people who like the clip would probably say, "but they're nasty too." Maybe they see it that way. I don't, but maybe they do. But, even if they do, being nasty back isn't the way to win over hearts, and it doesn't solve anything.

I wish people like the divisive people who made this clip would stop pointing the finger and talking about how divisive those who disagree with them are and start looking inward and sharing their hope and peace with the rest of us. The fact of the matter is, though, people in both parties can act like assholes, starting with the people who made this clip.

Another thing bothers me a lot about this. I didn't like Bill Clinton as president, but I didn't call him an asshole. I think it is troubling to label the President of the United States in such ways. You can disagree with him, you can argue with him, you can even campaign against him. But to call him names like that simply demeans the presidency, and none of us win when that happens.