This I Believe

This is what happens when I work the midnight to 6 am shift; I think of inane things like formulating personal creeds. This all was prompted by a discussion in anthropology class about the notion of world view and that silly NPR series

So here goes.
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I believe in one God; and that said God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. I believe that God is protean in nature. That s/he is shaped by context to suit the limited needs of humanity and that this shaping is to the greater adoration of God.

I believe in context. I believe that there are universal truths but that those truths are ultimately valued in different ways in different settings and that those truths remain undiminished.

I believe in the benevolence of God and that creation in whatever form it may have occurred or is occurring was/is an act of love. This being said I believe that the love of God is not limited to the act of creation and is in fact limitless.

I believe in a hierarchy of being.

I believe in glory. I believe that the echoes of past glory sound down the corridors of human consciousness and that the pursuit of glory is a road to the divine; I believe there is truth in glory.

I believe that mankind is glorious, that every person has the capacity for greatness and that glory can be found in any place.

I believe in the value of hope. I believe in looking to the horizon at all times.

I believe in prayer. Regardless of its origins, execution or actual potency I believe it is integral to humanity; it is what we do.

I believe in love in all its forms.

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Everything else I believe in stems from these statements. I think I would have burned a few centuries ago.

Puppy!!!!!

We got a Puppy!!! His name is Elias and he is beautiful.

MY Adorable Baby Amongst the Ruins of Pompeii

Could that man perhaps perchance be Mac the Knife?

Sharks. Oh heavens above and all the realms below I hate sharks. Now for an exegesis on what the shark is please consult the song "Mac the Knife"

Hey that shark has pretty teeth dear
and he shows 'em pearly white
Just a jackknife has Macheath dear
And he keeps it way out of site


When that shark bites with his teeth dear
Scarlet billows they begin to spread
Fancy white gloves has Macheath dear
So theres never, never a trace of red

Sharks prey on the weak. Oh and they are so charming, ever so charming. My greatest rage is reserved for the gay shark though. The man who preys on the weaknesses inherent in the queer male condition. The man who refers to men as meat. The man who hunts for new prey. Better to spend the night inthe arms of a predator than alone or so the thought process of the meat goes. That is of course if he realizes that he is being hunted.

The most disgusting thing about the shark is the level of deceit. After all its just a meaningless fuck right?

There is no Meaningless fuck.

Callous? Yes. Self Serving? No Doubt. But meaningless? Never.

I hate sharks. I detest anyone who refers to "new meat"

Dear semper augustus posted this to his blog.
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Open Sexuality
Posted protected on 2006.04.12 at 09:44
I find I do not express my sexuality openly, through clothes, speech, or in my hot-button issues, as most others, who identify the way I do, do. While some of this comes from my natural reticence to display sexuality amongst strangers, I find it mostly comes from a strong sense of my identity. I refuse to let my sexuality be a primary-characteristic!

I find that other touchstones serve better when it coes to discovering who someone is. Do they like hugs? What books do they read? What is their overall aesthetic sense trying to create in their lives? What are their choices of friends? What do they do with their free-time? To proclaim sexuality as a primary-characteristic of one's public identity, I find, is a poor indicator of who one is.

The question them remains, why would one do this, as so many do?

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IN RESPONSE

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I'm a faggot and a queer. I prefer those terms to gay because they are less apologetic. My sexuality is as important as any other descriptor about me. You're voicing the same opinion as many of my closeted at work friends.


My dignity demands that I be accorded the same respect that any straight boy would get. Should I not mention JM the most important person in my life for fear of reprisal? Excuse me if I don't play Uncle Tom to the hetero majority.

Have you ever been persecuted for the sake of who you are? Most of our faggot brethren have been. Life is much easier coming from a liberal house in the suburbs. Ponder for a while what it must be like to be a gay man from a poor minority background that rejects him, to be scorned by your family for who you love and by the majority for who you love and your complexion.

Why should one do this? You ask and I will awnser.

Because it has been denied us for so long. Look up the sodomy laws, recall the pink triangle, take a long deep breath and see the persecution that is heaped upon gay men the world over. In over 60 percent of the countries of the world it is illegal to engage in male/male sex. Look to the eighties when Legionaires Disease got swifter attention then HIV. While young men died by the thousands and tens of thouands and bigots bearing crosses prclaimed that God had finally struck down the sodomites.

BECAUSE WE CAN BE QUEER.

Not just hiding in the shadows and furtively feeling for signs of others like us but open, honest, and proud.

I know men who did not have the capacity to be open. I know a man who buried his partner of 40 years last year. He sat opposite his partners family in church and in the entirety of the funeral no one mentioned him. 40 years of devotion and love shat on because the family were assholes, the priest didn't dare speak out, ad my friend saw no reason to make his sexuality be a primary characteristic of his public persona. They lived on 17th street and never were part of the gay community they lived there before 17th street was gay. David still has never been to a pride parade and is 72, it has passed under his window for twenty years. We just got him to go to Dignity recently and as I understand it it was the third time in his life that he had been to a gay event, the other two were in France in the 60's.

Silence denies us our place in history, it denies our communities ever knowing us, and it denies us as actual human beings relegating us to the level of animals in hiding.

That is why this one proclaims my sexuality as the primary characteristic of my public identity. I will not be silenced.

The Coal Region

I lurk this week in the coal region of Pennsylvania ; it is a nice break if intensly boring in nature. Luke and Dan are always fun. I suppose I should gird myself against boredom as we will be in Minnesota in only 2 months.

I'm Being Dumped For Cosi Fan Tutti

Apparantly JM will be quasi directing another opera :(

An Eventful Weekend; New York and Cuddling

Since last friday JM and I went to New York. In rder to avoid the expense of a hostel we took the 3 am us from DC. Arriving at just after 7 we took the subway down to St. George's cathedral in the East Village on 7th off 2nd Avenue and caught a lowwwwwwww mass. Cantored by an obnoxious ukrainia baritone while little old women tried to sing along; JM gets upset when he doesn't know the language. Alas the Kiev was not et open and so instead of getting pierogies we wandered up to the Strand which was also not open Having realized that we were in town far to early we went for a walk across town to the Village and ate a lovely little cafe for breakfast. We then went to a yarn shop known as the Point on the reccomendation of Corbeau. JM got two hanks of Misty alpaca blend and I got two hanks of manos in the colour "Fire"; we are both working on scarfs for them and have started to learn how to cable. After the yarn store we wandered up to Times square and were terrified by the line along the TKS booth and so opted to visit theatres; Sweeney Todd had standing room; and a girl mislead us into thinking that there were rush tickets available for the Color purple; the rush tickets were for the evening performance and so upon learning this we left. Up Broadway we wlaked into the Met and got tickets for the afternoon performance of Cosi Fan Tutti which gave us an hour and a half to wander. I wanted to see the natural history museum but when we got there did not want t spend 28 dollars to walk arounfd for 45 minutes and so contented myself with the rather stunning dinosaurs in the foyer. We then went to the opera which was standing room because in JM's zeal to save money he neglected to ask what the next pice up would be; still three hours of opera for 20 dollars is rather nice. I disliked the opera, there wasn't any particularly impressive music, though the staging was fabulous and the Met is a wonderful space (see picture) Standing room was cordoned off by an usher who informed us that management did not want us to take a seat during the perfirmance; she then clipped a raggedy rope across to prevent us from taking such liberties. If we had not alread walked a few miles it would have been a more enjotyable experience. We ate Thai on the way back from the Port Authority and were whisked back to DC via Greyhound. The reason for the trip was oour 2 year anniversary which was today. We watched movies and cuddled the majority of the day and now JM is beckoning for me to go to sleep. Silly baby.

Men Knit

Today was the once every two weeks meeting of Men Knit at Caribou off Logan Circle. As per the norm the knitting was good and the wit was acid. A new fellow popped up named Jason whose punk/emo/indy/queer (very ambiguous really) style and Mario Brothers ring tone I found most endearing. Hopefully he will return. Dan posted this very amusing picture of John Mark yesterdayy where in he pretends to be an orchid. Corbeau nearly called down the wrath of Aubergine via the repetition of a interview between said eggplant and CBC in the midst of the coffee house. I found the exchange quite amusing; they are both dears. Tommorow I go to take care of my research paper for this block with AALEAD.

Orchids

I love orchids; and according to the lovable Corbeau a code word for queers ages ago was to mention orchids because the word is derived from the greek for balls. "Does he eat orchids?" We went to the US botanical Garden today to view the orchids which are showing there and it was a rather impressive showing. We then ate at the Native American Museum where I had a lovely trout sandwich. Apparantly the largest pyramid is in Mexico whereas I thought it was in japan; however I still think that the stone pyramids of Giza are more impressive. Ask yourself pile of quarried rock or pile of dirt?