But he isn't, and for that we are very happy. This story about Detective Francis Coppola and his firefighter partner Eddy appeared in The Hartford Courant this week. Maybe it's a little hokey, but that's part of its strength.

Divorced, Coppola discovered his soul mate in an old friend, Eddy, a firefighter separated from his own wife. After some fits and starts, they began a life together. Not an easy life, for it included all the tidal waters of a modern relationship. Eddy insisted they conceal it from most of the rest of the world.

Thanks to Dennis for the story tip.

For a face to go with the story, here's one picture, and another.

____________________

After posting this, I searched for more sites with the story. I found stuff from the media in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, but not New York. Coppola lives and works in New York City, but he testified in favor of a same-sex marriage bill in Hartford, not Albany. There is no such bill being discussed in the New York legislature. For me however the story is not about marriage but rather the respect owed to human difference and human relationships. The states surrounding our own have for some time been way ahead of us on this measure civilization by most any standards of law.

In fact he has always been truly free, but the great and tender soul of Reza K. Baluchi was officially granted political asylum yesterday by U.S. immigration judge LaMonte Freerks. Today his body remains in jail, because the INS itself hasn't yet decided whether they will appeal. They have 30 days to decide whether they will try again to throw him to the tender mercies of the Iranian government which had tortured him and from which he fled 6 years ago. Iran, of course, is part of the administration's own invention, the "axis of evil," regardless of the merits of that designation.

During his asylum hearing, which began Monday, Mr. Baluchi was nervous, said his lawyer, Suzannah Maclay of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.

"He was clearly very anxious," Ms. Maclay said. "He had expected to get a final decision, and instead he's taken back to detention."

But Baluchi is definitely not down yet.

"Today I'm happy," Mr. Baluchi said with his customary optimism after the hearing. Once he gets out, he said, he plans to ride to Los Angeles. From there, he will run across the country, eight hours a day, to New York City — and ground zero. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Baluchi wrote that he would conclude his voyage at the site of the World Trade Center, "so that my message of peace and love can reach the whole American people."

Nicolás Dumit Estévez and his performance piece, his art, was assaulted by New York City Police on Valentine's Day. They succeeded in shutting down his activities for the day, but the artist and the work somehow survives. Here he describes the project which he began and which the police concluded. The art survived the experience, and was made more powerful for having been so outrageously challenged, but the honor of our Police Department was again compromised, and in the same degree.

NOTES ON "LOVE IS BLIND" An intervention developed by Nicolás Dumit Estévez and modified by the New York City Police

On February 14 I left El Museo del Barrio blindfolded, unaware of what I would see at the end of a performance piece that I called "Love is Blind," which was part of "The Love a Commuter Project." This project consists of a series of site-specific performances and interventions that take place every year on Valentine's day in the New York City subway system. In 2003 the project was presented in conjunction with "The S Files" at El Museo del Barrio. Besides watching out for some icy spots on the sidewalk, my job during the performance was to locate pedestrians who would help me find the way to the subway station at 110th and Lexington Avenue in exchange for a white carnation. The plan was to save the remaining part of the bouquet to share with subway commuters. Along the way to the subway station a policewoman helped me cross under the tunnel below the train tracks on Park Avenue, and an older woman who spoke Spanish proffered a blessing "Dios te bendiga mi hijo," after making sure I was going to be ok. Someone who I perceived as a strong man grabbed me by the arm to help me walk from 108th to 109th Street, while a disgruntled pedestrian tried to confuse me when I asked him for directions. "You're at 125th St.," he said, while my Samaritan told me that we were crossing 108th. Another man helped me make it all the way down the stairs of the subway station. I remember feeling his hand as he took mine and guided it to the cold metal railing. I then proceeded to use the white cane I was carrying to search for an empty spot near the token booth. I found one on the north side of the station. Two children initiated the first underground interaction as they detached several carnations from the bouquet. "Take another one for your mother," yelled a commuter, perhaps from the other side of the turnstile. "Don't touch them," said an adult to a child who insisted on having one of the carnations. What felt to me like a rushing commuter snapped up a flower without giving me time readjust the bouquet in my hand. Then there were the predictable quiet moments between the departure and arrival of the Number 6 train. All of the sudden, the hissing sound of police walkie-talkies invaded the space. That day the city was under Code Orange, raised from Yellow by the Department of Homeland Security. Sensing what might be happening, I took the blindfold off and walked above ground to find that three uniformed officers were questioning my colleague Manuel Acevedo, who was videotaping the project, as well as a friend who came to watch the piece. After several attempts to explain what we were doing, we were ushered into the back of a car and driven to the precinct, where I managed to make a quick phone call from my cell phone before one of the agents confiscated my phone and Manuel's video camera. We were not permitted to contact anyone else. At the precinct I glanced at a booklet on fighting terrorism and the snapshots of several individuals who were wanted by the Law. We had plenty of time to kill as the agents busied themselves swiping our ID cards and figuring out what was recorded on the video camera they could not manage to operate. About 40 minutes later, an officer came to us and asked us to show him the video. He later return with our IDs, shook our hands and apologized. We could go. I remember shaking his hand while holding the bouquet in my other hand, when suddenly the friend who came to watch the piece took the flowers and tossed them into the trash, perhaps trying to rid himself of the memories of the incident. I rushed to retrieve them. The carnations still looked fresh, ready for other commuters to pluck them from the foam that held them in place. Instead, they ended up in a glass vase at home, as a reminder of how current law enforcement in the name of "safety" has reconfigured the use of the spaces we share in the city, not to mention the interactions we forge with one another in these so-called public places.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez
February 21, 2003, New York City

The little big brother* just doesn't quit. Yesterday Bushie announced once again that we are going to war to make peace.

*

The three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

George Orwell "1984"

The Blue Button Project is beginning to take on a life of its own.

I've watched it as it evolved out of frustration and horror into a resolve and finally a tool with which to do something about the terror U.S. policy is responsible for around the world. I'm exhilarated to be now regularly running into people on the streets and elsewhere who are wearing the Blue Button and willing to express resistance to the injuries being done to all of us around the world, supposedly at our own bidding and for our own good.

Check out the site now, and see how or where you can find the Button, and please let us know if you have any ideas for increasing its visibility.

I do look at the sports pages! It's just that I don't look for what most everyone else looks for. Sometimes it's an item about culture, the large-mouth bass, a really hot photograph, a heart-warming human vignet, and sometimes it's about freedom.

Yesterday I first read in the NYTimes Sports pages about what many had already heard, that a young woman at Manhattanville College, Toni Smith, was bravely exercising her freedom of speech on the floor of a basketball court.

It was the smallest of gestures inside the tiniest of college basketball gymnasiums, a half-revolution of the body that had gone unnoticed for months.

But a few weeks ago, people at Manhattanville College's women's basketball games began to recognize that the senior guard Toni Smith would quietly turn her back to the American flag during the pregame playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner," a silent protest, they learned, of America's potential involvement in an Iraqi war.

Two nights ago her stand, and the enormous outrage it provokes among Americans who wrap themselves in the flag rather than defend the liberties it represents, came to the attention of the world.Smith's noiseless protest led to a clamorous, sellout crowd for a game inside Manhattanville's 50-year-old, 300-seat, cinder block gym tonight in the middle of the college's leafy campus 25 miles north of New York City. It brought 15 protesters outside the college's main gate waving flags and placards, and a retinue of police officers and security guards to watch them. It attracted 20 photographers and a handful of national television cameramen who encircled the Manhattanville bench to get a glimpse of Smith as she turned her back and stared at the floor.

A very impressive letter in today's Times represents a sharp understanding of the significance of Smith's gesture and why we should be very concerned about those who are so outraged by it.

THE ATHLETE AND THE FLAG

To the Editor:

Re "Player's Protest Over the Flag Divides Fans" (Sports pages, Feb. 26):

On the one hand, patriotic Americans appear obsessed with the flag as a symbol of cherished freedoms. On the other hand, many of the same Americans are angry and intolerant when Toni Smith exercises her right to practice the most fundamental of those freedoms.

Toni Smith, a senior guard on Manhattanville College's women's basketball team, turns her back to the flag during the pregame playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to silently protest America's potential involvement in a war on Iraq.

The rancor exceeds mere disagreement. The patriots are offended by Toni Smith's observance of a First Amendment right.

Because free speech is so fundamental to American notions of freedom, the act of protest is inherently patriotic, regardless of the point of view or substance. If that is not the case, it is immaterial whether the military has fought and sacrificed for the First Amendment freedom to protest.

MICHAEL HEILBRONNER
Portland, Ore., Feb. 26, 2003

Some mornings really manage to do what mornings are supposed to do: restore your faith in the world, its beauty and its possibilities.

Today I read a NYTimes follow-up on the story of the Michigan high school student who is paying attention to his world and who knows his (theoretical) rights.

Bretton Barber, a high school junior in Dearborn Heights, Mich., who is deeply interested in civil liberties, knew what to do when he was sent home from school on Feb. 17 for wearing a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the words "International Terrorist."

First, he called the American Civil Liberties Union. But it being Washington's Birthday, no one answered.

Next he went on the Internet to re-read a Supreme Court case from 1969, Tinker v. Des Moines, that supported students' freedom of expression. Then he called the Dearborn High School principal to talk about his constitutional rights. And then he called the news media.

Barber had been told by the vice-principal that he couldn't wear the shirt because it promotes terrorism. Go figure.

Norman Mailer argues in the International Herald Tribune that "the Bushites" really believe that the only way to save America (from the decadence whose mention makes their "conservative" partners slaver and drool) is to build a military empire. That our own democracy will be destroyed in the process is of no concern to these interests.

He recognizes that in the end we may not go to war against Iraq, and he believes that if that happens, "Bush is in terrible trouble." He's not optimistic however.

My guess though, is that, like it or not, want it or not, America is going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see.

The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in Americans' lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.

Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already.

A charming and winning young Iranian who knows about war was arrested in Arizona last November as an "illegal" after pedaling around the world for six years in the name of peace. He may be deported.

Originally, he planned to end his trip in Canada, but while standing on the Champs-Élysées on Sept. 11, 2001, his mission became clear: ride to Ground Zero on the first anniversary of the attacks and present to the American people the good wishes that he had collected on his travels.

Then he got caught on Nov. 10. Immigration officials confirm that Mr. Baluchi had applied for a visa in Monterrey, Mexico. He was found with little beyond a tent, the binder of clippings, some personal effects and a mass-produced bicycle. The little man with the big heart can be persuasive when he starts to cry. "I sorry. I make mistake. I love America."

He doesn't seem to understand his situation, as he runs circles around the exercise yard in the detention facility where he currently resides.

"I go Ground Zero," he said. "I have something for people. Love."

This week Reza K. Baluchi had his opportunity to explain himself in fededral immigration court. The judge is expected to rule on thursday whether he will be sent back to Iran where he has already served 18 months in prison for association with "counterrevolutionaries."

For for more about this "idyllic wanderer who thinks one man can change the world," but at the risk of breaking down while reading it, see The Arizona Republic story I found on the interesting, "The Iranian," website.

Instead of bicycling from Los Angeles to New York, Reza Baluchi intends to run the final 2,500 miles.

"I cannot stop me," he says. "I run for peace."

For great pictures and stuff see this website and this one, apparently the work of admirers.

A really snappy OP-ED piece from a, er, Frenchie, was jumping off the page in Sunday's NYTimes. Régis Debray asks when will Washington learn to count to three.

["Old Europe"] now knows that the planet is too complex, too definitively plural to suffer insertion into a monotheistic binary logic: white or black, good or evil, friend or enemy.

Debray warns that a U.S. which misunderstands its real interests will, like all empires, coast, from military victory to military victory, to its final decline.

"Old Europe," the Europe of Crusades and expeditionary forces, which long sought by sword and gun to subjugate Jerusalem, Algiers, Timbuktu and Beijing, has learned to distinguish between politics and religion. In 1965, one of its old champions, de Gaulle, loyally warned his American friends that their B-52's would not be able to do anything against Vietnamese nationalism — and that to devastate a country is not the same as winning hearts and minds. Europe no longer takes its civilization for civilization itself, no doubt because it is better acquainted with foreign cultures, notably Islam. Our suburbs, after all, pray to Allah.

Europe has learned modesty. A civilization that believes itself capable of making do without other civilizations tends to be headed toward its doom. To be sure, in defending its interests a great nation may end up promoting freedom. Such was the situation with the concentration camps. It will not be the case for the $15 barrel of crude.

The stakes are spiritual. Europe defends a secular vision of the world. It does not separate matters of urgency from long-term considerations. The United States compensates for its shortsightedness, its tendency to improvise, with an altogether biblical self-assurance in its transcendent destiny. Puritan America is hostage to a sacred morality; it regards itself as the predestined repository of Good, with a mission to strike down Evil. Trusting in Providence, it pursues a politics that is at bottom theological and as old as Pope Gregory VII [11th century].

Europe no longer possesses that euphoric arrogance. It is done mourning the Absolute and conducts its politics . . . politically. It is past the age of ultimatums, protectorates at the other end of the planet, and the white man's burden. Is that the age America is intent on entering? One can only wish it good luck.

Harvey Wasserman, activist and longtime leader of the anti-nuclear movement, says that, "in terms of basic legal rights and sanctuary from government spying, Americans may be less free under George W. Bush than as British subjects under George III in 1776."

Though the trappings of free speech remain on the surface of American society, the Homeland Security Act, Patriot I, Patriot II and other massively repressive legislation, plus Republican control of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, plus GOP dominance of the mass media, have laid the legal and political framework for a totalitarian infrastructure which, when combined with the capabilities of modern computer technology, may be unsurpassed.

Wasserman's list of the administration's assaults and treasons is awesome, and it's not even exhaustive.

President Bush has asserted the right to execute "suspected terrorists" without trial or public notice;

The Administration claims the right to torture "suspected terrorists," and by many accounts has already done so;

Attorney-General John Ashcroft has asserted the right to brand "a terrorist" anyone he wishes without evidence or public hearing or legal recourse;

The Administration has arrested and held without trial hundreds of "suspected terrorists" while denying them access to legal counsel or even public notification that they have been arrested;

The Administration has asserted the right to inspect the records of bookstores and public libraries to determine what American citizens are reading;

The Administration has asserted the right to break into private homes and tap the phones of US citizens without warrants;

The Administration has attempted to install a neighbors-spying-on-neighbors network that would have been the envy of Joe Stalin;

The Administration has effectively negated the Freedom of Information Act and runs by all accounts the most secretive regime in US history;

When the General Accounting Office, one of the few reliably independent federal agencies, planned to sue Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal who he met to formulate the Bush Energy Bill, Bush threatened to slash GAO funding, and the lawsuit was dropped;

After losing the 2000 election by more than 500,000 popular votes (but winning a 5-4 majority of the US Supreme Court), the Administration plans to control all voting through computers operated by just three companies, with code that can be easily manipulated, as may have been done in Georgia in 2002, winning seats for a Republican governor and US senator, and in Nebraska to elect and re-elect US Senator Chuck Hagel, an owner of the voting machine company there;

FCC Chair Michael Powell (son of Colin) is enforcing the Administration's demand that regulation be ended so nearly all mass media can be monopolized by a tiny handful of huge corporations;

Attorney-General Ashcroft has assaulted states rights, a traditional Republican mainstay, using federal troops to trash public referenda legalizing medical marijuana in nine states;

Ashcroft has overridden his own federal prosecutors and assaulted local de facto prohibitions against the death penalty, which has been renounced by every other industrial nation and is now used only by a handful of dictatorships, including Iraq.

After describing the overseas record of previous administrations and the cynical devices and shameful depredations of this one, Wasserman concludes,

In other words: the media hype about bringing democracy to Iraq is just that. There is absolutely no reason to believe a US military conquest would bring to Iraq the beloved freedoms George W. Bush is so aggressively destroying here in America.

A regime that so clearly hates democracy at home is not about to wage war for one abroad.

In an open letter to the online magazine, Atrios shows that he understands at least part of the reason they aren't making enough money to survive.

. . . I have to say that your continued promotion of incoherent lunatics such as Andrew Sullivan doesn't help the cause much. Aside from making Salon look completely foolish, Andy's presence in your magazine really destroys whatever warm fuzzy feelings your supposedly liberal readership might have. I mean, hey, I could be wrong - I don't have information about your subscribers or your site traffic, but I have a hard time believing that people are really going to pay to read essentially the same drivel - "LIBERALS STUPID AND BAD AND TREASONOUS" - that they can read for free over in his own little sandbox. I subscribe, I encourage others to do so, but I can't really fault their reasons for not doing so.

And those who live in New York City are the smartest of all.

Recent Gallup and Siena polls, when compared, show that the prospect of bombing and invading Iraq is less popular in New York State than in the nation as a whole, and still less popular in the city whose losses of September 11 are the White House's excuse for the war.

The concept and call, "not in our name" started in New York and it's support still remains strongest in this most American of places.

Musicals bore me, but I love Keith Haring.

I also remember the Paradise Garage.

So I went to the spanking new musical, "Radiant Baby," last night at the Public Theater. Second row.

One of the characters in the production yells (I think twice) "Paradise is closed!" Well, it re-opened last night for me. It probably re-opened for everyone in the audience, even if they had never been there or even never heard of it, and it wasn't just the over-the-top production number, "Paradise/Instant Gratification," that did it.

The whole thing isn't perfect, but the cast is!

Does it mean anything that I couldn't let my handkerchief back in my pocket during the entire second act?

Don't miss it. Instant gratification.

See Barry for more.

Joe Ovelman opened a really, really great photography and video show at Daniel Silverstein Gallery last night.

We've followed Joe's work, and enjoyed living with a lot of it at home from the very first time he exhibited, so we were not surprised by the beauty, the intelligence, and the sometimes barely controlled, exhuberent queer wackiness, but the individual and total effect of his images in that space is spectacular.

The installation is brilliant, and, as in his studio layouts and his extraordinary but ephemeral indoor and outdoor and guerilla installations, his redefinition of Silverstein's white box on 21st Street is clearly a part of his art.

I went to the INS Building this morning to be a part of the demonstration against "Special Registration."

What I really did was join about two hundred people who are willing to make at least a small fuss about the fact that our government is now practicing de jure racism, establishment of religion, and age and sex discrimination.

Most everyone there this morning and well into the afternoon were what some call "brown people." They were bright and beautiful people from proscribed muslim countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, and from North Korea [I don't think I could have pointed out anyone from North Korea today, but that is another story] whose boys and young men have been ordered to "register" with the federal immigration authorities.

If they don't show up they are subject to prosecution and deportation (if they are found). If they do show up to register it means that, after standing in the cold for hours, they are subject to being photographed, fingerprinted and interrogated. Hundreds have then been incarcerated (many flown out of their states for the lack of large enough detention facilities), some for various minor infractions, others for being a couple of days late in registering and many because of administrative errors or backlog within the INS itself. Many of those in these prisons who have been able to communicate with people outside have reported being strip searched, held in crowded and unheated quarters and denied food and medicines. Most have had no access to an attorney.

Their offense was and remains that of not being American citizens.

There were few "American citizens" among those protesting on lower Broadway on this, or on previous occasions, in front of the sad line of INS "clients" which winds around the corner on Federal Plaza every day. This is a terrible indictment of the city to whom the French nation made a gift of the Statue of Liberty.

If we all understood that there really is no such thing as "illegal people," and that there are no "aliens" anywhere on the planet, there would not even have been the need for a protest today.

All this should be especially important for Americans to remember today as our Constitution is being disassembled.

A young man handed a blue triangle emblem to me this morning. Seventy years ago the Nazis had designated a blue triangle as the identification of "stateless" people of all descriptions. My plain triangle bears the text,

ABDOU TAGELDIN
35 YEARS OLD
EGYPTIAN
DISAPPEARED
IN THE USA

There are many, many other identities on many, many of these triangles.

This monstrousness must be stopped.

This administration does martial plans, not Marshall Plans: billions for offense, not one cent for reconstruction.

Paul Krugman speaks of the proud, generous and sensible postwar U.S. which, yes, reconstructed Europe and Japan from ashes, disgrace or penury, bringing victors and vanquished together to the very highest level of friendship and cooperation. He compares that accomplishment with the cowardly, stingy and very stupid U.S. which is now throwing its weight around the world thrashing every friend in sight, imagining enemies which aren't and encouraging those which are, to bring the world to the brink of anarchy and disaster.

We've already failed the test in the eyes of the world. The Bush regime is offering grand promises and monetary handouts to create and maintain a domestic and a foreign "coalition of the willing," but the world has seen the White House abandon its promises and withhold its subsidies once it has gotten what it wanted, whether the victim has been the Kurds, Afghanistan or New York City. Turkey and democracy in Iraq will be next.

If this all sounds incredibly callous and shortsighted, that's because it is. But then what did you expect? This administration doesn't worry about long-term consequences — just look at its fiscal policy. It wants its war; there's not the slightest indication that it's interested in the boring, expensive task of building a just and lasting peace.

Barry posts this tonight:

I think the logic of all of the people who say anti-war protesters are coddling (or appeasing) a dictator boils down to this: "If those Iraqis knew what was good for them, they would let us bomb them to rescue them from Saddam Hussein and bring them democracy."

Isn't there another real New Yorker out there right now besides Jimmy Breslin?

Today he writes, just before citing Wayne Barrett in this week's Village Voice, that he usually doesn't quote other people, "because as I have just said, I am interested in my own voice." And what a voice! For very good reasons, I'm not very interested in my voice, so here are some quotes from Jimmy's column today, on the subject of Mayor Bloomberg's idea of free speech:

[Bloomberg had said after the march on saturday that people who wanted to protest certainly had the ability to do so. Breslin quotes him here as the Mayor elaborates.] "Maybe not as much as they'd like, but given that this is a dangerous world, I thought the Police Department did an excellent job of balancing the rights of people to say what they want to say with the needs of all of us, and all of them, to provide security for everybody."

I don't know where Bloomberg gets that from.

I don't know where he gets the idea that anybody can be pleased with any situation in which the right to assemble can be blocked and the right to speak can be thwarted.

I don't know where he gets the idea that he can judge how much free speech I want.

The answer is, all that my voice can stand.

We can't help Dan'l. Dan'l can't help us.

It turns out that he was not being sarcastic when he ended his account of being handcuffed and searched by subway soldiers with assault rifles sunday night by saying, "anyway, i have to say that i feel safer after all this than i did before...."

Barry and I, and many others who read about the incident on his site or on mine, had a different take on his experience and we wanted to report it, make a formal protest and get it to the media, believing that there was still a possibility we could make a difference amid the ruins of our republic.

But without Dan'l we can't help him and he can't help us.

We're scared to death and the bad guys are way abead.

Giving it one more try, this afternoon I got through to Councilmember Chis Quinn's office [in whose district our sightings and Dan'l's assault and arrest occurred] to ask what the office knew, and to seek her help, but they knew less than I did and told me what I already knew, that if my friend was not interested in complaining there was nothing they could do. Her assistant, Jeremy Hoffman, is however going to consult with Congressman Nadler's office and make serious inquiries with the Mayor's office, the Police Chief and the Office of Emergency Management. Continued silence is our most formidable enemy.

If we can't have a role in the decisions which direct our fate, we can at least hope to make those decisions more visible. Let's at least throw some light on the fungus while it is working its destruction.

Speak up, act up, fight back, fight tyranny!

Great! You still have a chance to see David Neumann's brilliant creation, "Sentence," at P.S. 122.

We were there tonight and I can honestly tell you that it was one of the richest theatrical performances I have had the fortune to witness. But it's not really just theatre, and "witness" is not the right word. I suppose David is technically a dancer and choreographer, yet what he creates even goes beyond theatre. It's really more like literature, but experienced, not read, with music coming out of nowhere and everywhere.

And very very smart.

If you have ever seen anything like it, and I really doubt you have, it was not done nearly as well. If you haven't seen Neumann, and cannot imagine what I'm talking about, imagine going to the theatre in a country you love very much but whose language you do not know, yet you leave with the feeling that you have been a full participant in the experience, nothing was missing, and it was very beautiful.

Oh heck, just go!

From a "the dance insider" review of an earlier version of the work now at P.S. 122:

"Sentence" is loosely based on Donald Barthelme's Joycean prose/poem (an eight-page sentence.) In and around the Whitney's atrium, "Sentence" became in moments a wild and wily romp through interactive pedestrian performance and at other times clever, well executed site-specific choreography. Andrew Dinwiddie's security guard is calmly surrounded by track suit clad dancers. We gaze beyond the subtle shifts of Erin Wilson and Neumann to see a pink, velour clad Orlando Pabatoy riding his bicycle. Adrienne Truscott leads a group of tourists outside, a few other people stop to look through the glass at us and we begin to see narratives in every passerby.

Neumann weaves together fleeting dances, momentary encounters and brief passages of spoken word written by Will Eno to unravel his ephemeral world. Here nothing fits together quite naturally and nothing ends finite. Truscott leads her group into the atrium, discovering the dance already in progress. Her performance is fully successful as she bridges the outer and inner worlds with poetic commentary on the action of the dancers. She is both cliched cruise director and thoughtful connoisseur as she scolds her uninterested, exiting wards. Here we witness a beautiful moment of performance supported wittily with a self-conscious commentary on itself.

What an incredibly powerful piece! Nathan Newman compares the new Israeli wall separating Arabs from the Jewish part of Bethelhem to the Warsaw Ghetto.

When the Nazi comparison is made, Israel defenders mount the barricades, since the Palestinians are not being gassed in ovens. But the horrors of Nazism started much earlier, as the Jews were stripped of their humanity and autonomy long before they lost their lives.

Newman does not let us off easily.

No, it is not Nazi Germany circa 1943.

It is Nazi Germany circa 1938.

Those who can defend Israel on that basis should be ashamed.

The Israeli author Amos Oz explains why "many decent people of enlightened and pragmatic views oppose an invasion against Iraq."

And I do object to an Iraq invasion — because I feel that extremist Islam can be stopped only by moderate Islam, and extremist Arab nationalism can be curbed only by moderate Arab nationalism. America, Europe and the moderate Arab states must work to weaken Saddam Hussein's despicable regime — but they should do so by helping those who would topple it from within.

An American war against Iraq, even if it ended in victory, is liable to heighten the sense of affront, humiliation, hatred and desire for vengeance that much of the world feels toward the United States. It threatens to arouse a wave of fanaticism with the power to undermine the very existence of moderate governments in the Middle East and beyond. This pending war is already splitting the alliance of democratic states and cracking the ramshackle edifice of the United Nations and its institutions. Ultimately, this will benefit only the violent and fanatical forces menacing the peace of the world.

Allow me to digress a bit. While he doesn't say it himself here, there is of course no way to avoid including the Bush administration as among the most deadly of those forces.

Think about it. When has one man been able to threaten the peace and security of the entire planet on his own? No, Osama Bin Laden doesn't cut it, even Hitler couldn't stride the geography our very own madman does, and Napoleon's brief European hegemony, Mr. Blair, at least brought many of the blessings of the French Revolution permanently to parts of Europe still suffering a plodding medieval system.

The crowd count?

I thought that I had already mentioned the really extraordinary absence of any aerial photographic evidence of the size of the massive New York anti-war protest saturday. I just checked however, and it seems that I had not, as bj reminds me this morning in his comment.

In this commercial media-mad world I think there can be only one reason why we see nothing.

I've seen aerial photos of rallies all around the world, but, in spite of the obvious presence of helicopters over our heads all day, not one shot of the New York protest taken from the air. A single photograph of hundreds of thousands of people standing in the perfect line-graph-like grid of Manhattan would just about end arguments about whether we were 100,000 strong or closer to one million, and these numbers do matter.

I am certain that the reason we are seeing nothing reflects the continuing deliberate cover-up of the anti-war movement by both government and the U.S. media.

Europeans aren't just being obstructive. Paul Krugman points out that it's just that they can see what is being kept from us. [That man is asking to be sacked!]

There has been much speculation why Europe and the U.S. are suddenly at such odds. Is it about culture? About history? But I haven't seen much discussion of an obvious point: We have different views partly because we see different news.

. . .

So why don't other countries see the world the way we do? News coverage is a large part of the answer. Eric Alterman's new book, "What Liberal Media?" doesn't stress international comparisons, but the difference between the news reports Americans and Europeans see is a stark demonstration of his point. At least compared with their foreign counterparts, the "liberal" U.S. media are strikingly conservative — and in this case hawkish.

I'm not mainly talking about the print media. There are differences, but the major national newspapers in the U.S. and the U.K. at least seem to be describing the same reality.

Most people, though, get their news from TV — and there the difference is immense. The coverage of Saturday's antiwar rallies was a reminder of the extent to which U.S. cable news, in particular, seems to be reporting about a different planet than the one covered by foreign media.

What would someone watching cable news have seen? On Saturday, news anchors on Fox described the demonstrators in New York as "the usual protesters" or "serial protesters." CNN wasn't quite so dismissive, but on Sunday morning the headline on the network's Web site read "Antiwar rallies delight Iraq," and the accompanying picture showed marchers in Baghdad, not London or New York.

This wasn't at all the way the rest of the world's media reported Saturday's events, but it wasn't out of character. For months both major U.S. cable news networks have acted as if the decision to invade Iraq has already been made, and have in effect seen it as their job to prepare the American public for the coming war.

So it's not surprising that the target audience is a bit blurry about the distinction between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda. Surveys show that a majority of Americans think that some or all of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi, while many believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11, a claim even the Bush administration has never made. And since many Americans think that the need for a war against Saddam is obvious, they think that Europeans who won't go along are cowards.

Europeans, who don't see the same things on TV, are far more inclined to wonder why Iraq — rather than North Korea, or for that matter Al Qaeda — has become the focus of U.S. policy. That's why so many of them question American motives, suspecting that it's all about oil or that the administration is simply picking on a convenient enemy it knows it can defeat. They don't see opposition to an Iraq war as cowardice; they see it as courage, a matter of standing up to the bullying Bush administration.

Breslin says that George Bush, the Mayor and the Police Chief's "only excuse could be that they were practicing for the Republican National Convention. That one is going to be the great one." And, "They penned in throngs [Breslin says "almost a million," while Chief Kelly still insists it was only a hundred thousand] of smiling people as if they were cattle. It wasn't the cops' idea to do it. All they did was carry out orders as poorly as possible."

The idea of rebuffing and then penning people up is the responsibility of Mayor Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly. They decided to suffocate free speech and right of assembly and block the march. They did it to stop the one picture that would have had the most impact of any in the world, that of an immense crowd in New York walking against war.

It was done to help George Bush have his war. Deny it if you can.

Cardinal and his court

The lake at rest

Barry as Russian poet

Is it really so dificult to get a picture of the man that doesn't shout his stupidity? Or, is the media finally trying to warn the world? [Make sure you click onto the image for a larger, more delicious version.]

Oh yeah, this is from the story that accompanies the wonderful photograph:

In a huge wave of demonstrations not seen since the Vietnam War, more than 6 million peace protesters took to the streets in 600 towns and cities from Cape Town to Chicago on Saturday.

Bush told reporters that "democracy is a beautiful thing and people are allowed to express their opinion" but that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a risk to peace.

Broadway is experimenting with earlier showtimes, meaning 7 rather than 8. The change might catch on and become general.

Personally, I think 7 o'clock curtains are great! Lunch is normally between 2 and 3 for us, and I couldn't possibly eat dinner at 6. But under any circumstances whatsoever I wouldn't want to sit through an evening of theatre on a full stomach, even if the choice were 6 or never. Of course for us the choice is never never.

But you don't really think this piece is just going to be about curtain times, do you?

Years ago performances, whether theatre or concert, normally began at 8:30, even 8:45, making possible real pre-theatre dinners, rather than exercises in expensive fast food. Also years ago, ordinary New Yorkers enjoyed going out after their entertainment, whether it was for dinner or drinks. How do you share the impact of the music or theatre if you can't talk about it after?

So what happened? The NYTimes article doesn't begin to tell us. Once upon a time the people who worked in the City lived in the City, but beginning after the Second World War the middle class, which still feeds Broadway and Lincoln Center, opted for the suburbs. Their rapidly increasing numbers made the morning commute more and more dificult and, lacking the imagination as a class for anything better, their solution was earlier and earlier drives to the office. Real nightlife all but disappeared, except for the creative diversions of the Bohemians who never left and the youth who continually reinvent it.

I moved to New York in 1985 and was absolutely shocked to discover that my bosses, who rose in New Jersey and Long Island as early as 4:30, insisted that everyone had to be at the desk at dawn, regardless of their living arrangements. Of course these same dedicated industry servants generally slipped out of their offices sometime after 3 and fled home to 5 o'clock dinners. Until I actually showed up here for good, my New York was the New York of history and fiction (but also the New York of my New York friends, one which still persisted in their really-not-so-rarified, in Gotham, environments: fashion, publishing and the arts). No one was at work before 10, and just getting in sometime before lunch might be acceptable, but clearly the insurance industry was not one of these creative holdouts.

Years ago the work day ended in the late afternoon (or usually in the early evening for the elves toiling in culture), just in time for a drink and the scoot to a darkened auditorium. Afterward there was dinner, maybe dinner and dancing, maybe something else, but turning in early was just about out of the question--and I'm talking about working people, of all ages, not just club kids.

Some people are welcoming the 7 o'clock curtain for reasons very unlike my own. The suburban model encourages neither culture nor joy.

"When you have to go to work by 8 o'clock on Wednesday morning, you don't want to be out until 3 o'clock in the morning the night before," said Mr. Stavrides, an assistant district attorney in Queens, who saw "Urinetown" with his wife, Nicole, also a lawyer. "Not only that, we're commuting. It's not like we can jump in a cab and be home in 10 minutes. We've got a 50-minute subway ride home if the express isn't running."

Mr. Stavrides is the kind of theatergoer Broadway producers hoped to reach when they decided to raise the curtain an hour earlier than usual one night a week, on Tuesdays, for more than 20 shows.

They figured that the theater crowd no longer keeps hours that are Runyonesque, or even Conanesque; midnight is late for an audience that has a boss, a paycheck and a W-2. Mr. Stavrides, after looking at his seat mates in Henry Miller's Theater, said that an audience that can afford ticket prices of at least $80 a seat probably has all three.

And the suburbs certainly don't encourage dining.

The New York Philharmonic, which in the 1950's began concerts as late as 8:45, switched its Monday-through-Thursday curtain time to 7:30 this season. (Friday and Saturday concerts still begin at 8, as they have since the 1979-80 season.) Brasserie, on East 53rd Street, was once a 24/7 place but now closes at 1 a.m. The restaurant Around the Clock, on Third Avenue at East Ninth Street, is no longer open around the clock, either. It closes at 3 a.m. four nights a week.

"If you read E. B. White's essays, he makes the observation about how appalling it is that people have started to go to lunch at 12:30 in the afternoon," said Jed Bernstein, the president of the League of American Theaters and Producers. "Going to lunch at 1, which he was used to, made sense because they didn't get to the office till 10, and in those days, theater started at 8:30.

What was the best part about the 7 o'clock curtain for the show Mr. Stavrides attended on a recent tuesday?

"The show was mediocre," he declared. "At least I got to bed on time."

Well, he wasn't the one who established the court's work hours, and besides, he did go to the theatre, and he didn't drive.

He's a Brit addressing the Brits, but the argument and the message is the same for us Yanks. John Pilger [excerpt]:

First, let us stop calling it a "war". The last time "war" was used in the Gulf was in 1991 when the truth was buried with more than 200,000 people. Attacking a 70-mile line of trenches, three American brigades, operating at night, used 60-ton armored earthmovers to bury alive teenage Iraqi conscripts, including the wounded and those surrendering and retreating. Survivors were slaughtered from the air. The helicopter gunship pilots called it a "turkey shoot".

Of the 148 Americans who died, a quarter of them were killed by Americans. Most of the British were killed by Americans. This was known as "friendly fire". The civilians who were killed, whose deaths were never recorded by the American military because it was "not policy", were "collateral damage".

Today, after 13 years of an economic blockade that has been compared with a medieval siege, Iraq is defenseless, no matter the discovery of an odd missile that can reach barely 90 miles. Its ragtag army is woefully under-equipped and awaiting its fate, along with a civilian population of whom 42 per cent are children. They are stricken. Even the export of British manufactured vaccines meant to protect Iraqi infants from diphtheria and yellow fever has been restricted. The vaccines, say the Blair government, are "capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction".

This is the nation upon which the Bush gang says it will rain down 800 missiles within the space of two days. "Shock and awe" the Pentagon calls its "strategy". Meanwhile the weapons inspectors and their morose Swedish leader go about their treasure hunt and a cartoon show is hosted in the UN by General Colin Powell (who rose to the top by covering up the notorious My Lai massacre in Vietnam).

It is all a charade. The Americans want Iraq because they want to control and reorder the Middle East. Their once-favorite dictator, Saddam Hussein, made the mistake of misreading the signals from Washington in 1990 and invading another favorite American oil tyranny, Kuwait. So belatedly, Saddam must be replaced, preferably by another Saddam, though more reliable and less uppity. There is no issue of "weapons of mass destruction". That is a distraction for us and the media.

The wider significance of the promised attack is the rapacious nature of the American state. As Tony Blair has confirmed, North Korea is likely to be "next". I think he is wrong and that Iran will be next. That is what the Israeli regime wants and Israel's wishes are as important to influential members of the Bush gang as oil. Thereafter, there is China. Says Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Institute in Washington: "What radical US nationalists have in mind is either to 'contain' China by overwhelming military force or to destroy the Chinese Communist state."

ONE of the Bush gang's planners, Richard Perle, has said: "If we let our vision of the world go forth and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

See Barry's magical picture of the view out of our breakfast room window.

Barry and I saw soldiers in the subway on Valentine's day, in "camouflage" [no, they weren't wearing tar paper] and armed with assault weapons, but we thought they were, what, just window dressing for the White House's orange alert games? Or, whatever. Nothing surprises us any more. Tonight we heard in a blog from a friend who found out, the hard way, that we are actually under an occupying army. Dan'l describes his evening in his own words:

if you live in new york city you've probably seen the (hot) national guardsmen taking up residence in our subway stations lately... i have to admit that i was a little unnerved the first time i saw assault rifles on the platform, but i was just starting to get used to it... until...

tonight i entered the ACE station at 34th street carrying an overnight bag (containing my computer, clothes, and personal hygiene products) and a shopping bag with groceries i'd just bought for the making of peach cobbler... i was gonna travel up to 103rd street to stay the night with charlie... we'd be waking up late, cooking all day and eventually going outside to play in the blizzard that's hitting the city right now... anyway, as i approached the edge of the platform, one of these camouflaged yummies steps in front of me and asks me to step aside... "we're going to ask you to set your bags down and remove your coat and hat..."

[hmmm,] i think, [are we doing random security checks now like they do in airports???] yes sir, of course...

i do as instructed and then am handcuffed... now i'm a little freaked out...

what's going on???

"sir, we'd like to examine the contents of your bags... will we find any weapons inside???"

no... i have some clothes and my computer...

i looked down at my bag and saw that the power cord and battery were hanging out of the top... [of course that looks suspicious, you idiot!!! not to mention i had a bunch of metal cans and flour in my food emporium bag...] to make what is a very long (an hour spent with these guys) story a little shorter, i had to:

explain traveling uptown so late...
explain my computer and cell phone cords...
explain the workings of a laptop computer
explain the workings of a sprint phone...
explain pajamas with monkey print and two pairs of socks...
explain what q-tips are used for...
explain what it takes to make a peach cobbler...
prove that i'm not a terrorist and that i have no intention of building any kind of weapon...
do i look like him or him or him??? what the???

anyway, i have to say that i feel safer after all this than i did before...

Yipes! I hope Dan'l is just being sarcastic, but the important question is, does anyone know this shit is going on?

Ok, for the curious, and for those who want to know what a terrorist suspect looks like, here he is. Oh, and our monster is 5 feet 6 inches tall and 130 pounds. Cute as the dickens, but don't let that fool you.

I just want to make it perfectly clear, and right now: I can't speak for the rest of the Northeast, but there is no "havoc" in Manhattan. There is only a beautiful winter wonderland and zillions of people outside enjoying it and each other.

We have to gasp involuntarily, both for our history and for our future, reading Maureen Dowd today as she attempts to describe why we will be going to war in Mesopotamia.

The painful parts of Washington history have often been about men trying harder to save face than lives.

This sentence, which already looks like an old maxim, appears in the middle of the concluding paragraphs of an essay arguing [perhaps not convincingly] that the administration is pursuing its Iraq war course only to avenge what the Right thinks was the emasculating legacy of its withdrawal in '91.

I realize that my blogs about the antiwar events of yesterday may have sounded a bit grumpy all around, so I want to take this opportunity to say that we had a blast!

Demonstrations are always good for both the body and the soul, but this was one of the most exhilarating experiences in my memory, being out there in the streets with so many kinds of magnificent, happy people [we spent much of the day in the block Jimmie Breslin describes, though we did not see him], and I believe actually making a difference this time, because we were so many.

I can understand a thinking American's considered decision to not cast a vote in the elections which have been entirely arranged for us by undemocratic process, especially in recent years, or recent decades. Our democratic institutions are an absolute mess right now. What I do not understand is the refusal of that same person to walk into the street on an occasion like yesterday, in the purest form of democratic expression. If I walk to the barricades, literally and figuratively, I'm walking with millions; if I stay away, no one is there. I cannot expect my neighbors to save the world for me on their own.

At the end of the day, we went to a performance of "Brundibar," Hans Krasa's charming children's opera which was performed dozens of times at Terezin, until the child performers were sent to the gas chambers. The opera is about the strength of numbers overcoming evil. Unfortunately those numbers never accumulated in the 1930's. We can have them today, but we're not there yet.

There I go again, grumpy.

My nephew, who regrets the limited instrumental recital opportunities available in his home in Brownsville, writes about something like a voice debut, in southern Texas streets February 15.

HEY, WHAT ABOUT MY OTHER TWO SECONDS?!

Among the millions of peace demonstrators out in the streets today, about 250 (of us) were marching on the scene in McAllen, Texas, the nearest rally to us in the Rio Grande Valley [about 50-60 miles from Pete and Michael's house]. With Michael's reassurance, I overcame my stage fright and agreed to an interview by a local television reporter, which lasted for about four minutes in front of the camera. I had a small degree of satisfaction (and immense relief) immediately afterward, feeling it had gone OK and musing that it might possibly help awaken others to understand and protest the recklessness of Bush's headlong rush into war.

My "interview" did air, but was distilled to 6 seconds of footage on the local ABC news channel tonight. (Isn't a sound bite supposed to be at least 8 seconds long ?) Fortunately for my vanity, there was nothing bizarre or embarrassing in my appearance or speech as captured on TV. However, considering how nerve-wracking it was to psych myself up to articulate my views like that publicly, it was frustrating watching the shallowness of the local news coverage; nobody is going to have their mind changed by 6 seconds of "discussion."

I'm left only with hoping that as a result of the novelty of my brief TV appearance, some of my neighbors or coworkers will be more curious about my convictions and ask me for more detail the next time I bump into them.

Take heart, I tell myself; it's good to face your fears, and stage fright has always been a big bugbear for me. Maybe this will help my poise someday during my next recital or concerto.

Peace,
Pete

We love Pete and Michael.

That's it? That's the story?

The subject of the lead story at this very moment on the CNN site, which is viewed all around the planet, is the millions of people around the world protesting the imminent American war against Iraq. The CNN site's headline reads,

ANTIWAR RALLIES DELIGHT IRAQ

It looks like Rupert Murdoch's NYPost!

The first paragraph:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq was gloating Sunday over the global outpouring of opposition to a possible U.S.-led war against the country, saying the rallies by millions of people signaled an Iraqi victory and "the defeat and isolation of America."

For any sceptics about the political agenda or incompetence of the American media, does this finally send a message? [CNN is actually a world news medium, but it's still the creature of its commercial American birth.]

I confess. [But is it ego or wanna-do-good works?] I've always felt that if I'm going to a protest or a demonstration and I don't intend to do something which would risk arrest, I've got to sport a good hand-lettered sign. For lots of people, costume or line dancing would be other possibilities, but I have a congenital problem with the concept of flashy, and that certainly limits the attention-getting options.

For the massive anti-war demonsration in New York today I decided to hoist a sign invoking the exhaustively repeated, truly magnificent cri of one of my French heroes [France was not an accidental reference in a week which saw the government of the American republic refer to the country which guaranteed our independence, our oldest and most loyal ally, as "old Europe" and a proper object of our disdain and scorn].

My shield read, "Écrasez l’infâme!," and I wore a Jacobin cap. Pretty esoteric? Yeah, tons of people seemed totally nonplused by the foreign arrangement of letters, and the hat was just a stocking cap for most fellow marchers, but early in our progress up Fifth Avenue from the Public Library I was approached by a French Television crew and asked why I was carrying that sign.

Like a smart-aleck kid, I was delighted to be able to explain the English translation, "Crush the infamous thing!," and went on to describe my understanding of what Voltaire meant by "L'infame." I held it to refer to unreason, superstition, fundamentalism, arbitrary authority and the Bush White House. I admitted that Voltaire had been remarkably prescient 250 years ago when he included in his list of iniquities the current administration in Washington, and that my gratitude was accordingly that much more profound.

They asked more, about my current attitude toward France and toward the position of the French people and the French government on the subject of an Iraq war, and most significantly, about what I thought of the performance of the American media [ok, I admit I provoked that one].

They were very impressive. They had been following the legendary Florent Morillet and the GLAMericans since nine in the morning, and I'm very sorry I won't be able to see the product of their labors on French public television [The program, "Envoies Speciales," is something like the American institution, "60 Minutes." If anyone sees this segment somewhere in the french-speaking world, please let me know.].

My sign and I were hailed and saluted by a number of people all afternoon, many who understood the words and their origin, but many who did not and asked for particulars. The most gratifying encounters were with French citizens, but the most charming exchange may have been with the very attractive, young, Hunter College-type couple who asked. As soon as I mentioned "Voltaire," the woman gasped, blushed and shyly sighed that she should have remembered, since she had just read about him.

Thank you, La France.

Whether there were half a million or a million out there in the sub-freezing wind of the Manhattan canyons today, we should be enormously proud of the achievement, but we can only be horribly ashamed of the city's role in diminishing that achievement.

First "they" decided that the people could not walk past the U.N., then that the people could not get near the U.N., then that the people would be put into animal pens, then that the people would not be permitted to bus all the way into the city, then that the people could not be trusted with portable toilets. [When I heard that piece of news at home this morning, I was ready to piss on a police officer's shoes, even though I would eventually remind myself that decisions about porta-johns were not made by the rank and file.]

Governments and police are only too eager to tell us where to go and what to do, but if you were out on the street for the incredible anti-war demonstration today, or trying desperately to get to it, you saw how far they went this time and you probably have an idea of how much farther they will go the next time. In the rest of the civilized and democratic world, and even in those parts which are regarded as neither, huge numbers of people were able to assemble freely today where they chose to. They were not restricted and discouraged by the obsessive minutiae of bureaucratic and police concerns about order--and control. Americans in New York City today were confronted by a significant threat to their rights of assembly and speech.

This was a massive grassroots, democratic, political demonstration of the highest order and probably of the greatest consequence for the history of the world. It was not a sports event attended by mindless yahoos and it was not a arbitrary holiday driven by a drunken, nativist mob. Assigned and barricaded pens, totally inappropriate movement restrictions, and the threat from the visible presence of thousands of armored and helmeted police were totally out of order.

Do not trust a government which does not trust you.

____________________

For more on our own experience of today's events, see Bloggy's, "DISSENT IS HOT."

I'll be starting here.

If you're interested in getting a Blue Button, we just updated the web site with more information on how to get one, including a list of galleries that have them. More to appear on the site soon.

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

Yup, this really is the front page of The Mirror today.

[Thanks, Otto, John and Howard.]

Gads, I wish I could have heard the hoary stentorian himself, Senator Robert Byrd, when he was delivering this oration!

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.

Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events.

And that was only the beginning of the speech he delivered in the Senate Chamber yesterday; Byrd had not even started on his indictment, but ultimately he reserved the heavy guns for an attack on the administration. An excerpt:

Here at home, people are warned of imminent terrorist attacks with little guidance as to when or where such attacks might occur. Family members are being called to active military duty, with no idea of the duration of their stay or what horrors they may face. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection. Other essential services are also short-staffed. The mood of the nation is grim. The economy is stumbling. Fuel prices are rising and may soon spike higher.

This Administration, now in power for a little over two years, must be judged on its record. I believe that that record is dismal.

In that scant two years, this Administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the eye can see. This Administration's domestic policy has put many of our states in dire financial condition, under funding scores of essential programs for our people. This Administration has fostered policies which have slowed economic growth. This Administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This Administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. This Administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders.

In foreign policy, this Administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This Administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, International order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This Administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned, peacekeeper. This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come.

Calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil, denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant -- these types of crude insensitivities can do our great nation no good. We may have massive military might, but we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and friendship of our time-honored allies as well as the newer found friends whom we can attract with our wealth. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages our economy. Our military manpower is already stretched thin and we will need the augmenting support of those nations who can supply troop strength, not just sign letters cheering us on.

Why are we expecting an imminent low-tech assault, a missile-launcher, a piloted plane missile, an atomic or radioactive dirty bomb, a chemical or biological attack at this time?

What has happened to this country that we could completely lose our sanity and our soul in just two years? Ok, maybe it took longer, but they are both definitely missing at this time. If the danger now being evoked is not all just a fabrication of a regime in Washington which needs to warn of an imminent threat in order to justifty itself, could it be a consequence of our doing something horribly wrong as a nation? Think about it. What happened to reason, to intelligent and generous policy, to a real connection with a larger world, one which does not consist only of violence or the threat of violence? Where is the courage and the conviction of the ideals which once shown as a beacon for much of the world?

Forget the plastic sheeting and the duct tape. Let's drive the darkness, the real terrorists, out of the White House, and let us go back to the business of being Americans!

"Écrasez l’infâme!" [with eternal gratitude to Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)]

We saw Lanford Wilson "Fifth of July" in a wonderful production at Signature Theatre tonight. It's just a magnificent play, and it still stands tall and bright in the strength of its political conscience even twenty-five years after it was first performed.

That relevance is unfortunately largely because the 60's ultimately failed, and it is that remarkable era which functions as the leading character in the play. Peace, love, sex, racial harmony, women's liberation, gay rights, recreational drug rights, tieless office workers, the elimination of stupid politicians: we aren't there yet. I've been in shock since the late 70's when I began to realize that the revolution had not stuck. I never ever expected it to be reversed.

There is one line in particular which somehow anchored the play for me. In the midst of a reunion with her former Berkeley hippie menage, fifteen years after and thousands of miles away from their youth, a mother almost screams a reproach to her teenage daughter who has just shown disdain or scepticism about the friends' radical history: "You've no idea the country we almost made for you!" I cried.

The march.

Barry and I will be here, in front of the Main Branch of the New York Public Library late saturday morning with the fabulous people of the "CARNIVAL BLOC FEEDER MARCH."

If any of our friends are going to be there [and why not?] and want to meet up with us, bring your cellphone so we can find each other. Call or email me before saturday if you don't already have one of our mobile numbers.

Oh yes, I'll have plenty of extra Blue Buttons with me.

It's almost certainly not what you think. GAY SHAME is actually the provocative name of a beautiful group of radical queers in San Francisco which opposes the mainstreaming of the gay community, or what they call "the gay shame." The Statemant of Purpose which appears on their website reads:

GAY SHAME is the radical alternative to consumerist "pride" crap. We are committed to a queer extravaganza that brings direct action to astounding levels of theatricality in order to expose the evildoers who use the sham of gay "pride" as a cover-up for their greed and misdeeds. We seek nothing less than a new queer activism that addresses issues of race, class, gender and sexuality, to counter the self-serving "values" of the gay mainstream. We are dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist monster of corporate gay "pride" with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance. GAY SHAME is a celebration of resistance: all are welcome.

By Jupiter! Politically radical queers who actually show up in their finest frocks and skins for demonstrations! Their New York cousins should be mortified. GAY SHAME may have been born in Brooklyn, but in fact here in New York we're still happy with the shame it now fights so nobly from the West Coast, or at least we aren't making enough noise to indicate the contrary.

Yes, San Francisco has its own Chelsea in the Castro, but New York has no Mission. In San Francisco queer activism goes beyond issues like bashings or the police regulation of clubs, and even beyond issues directly related to the queer community.

Tonight [thursday] in front of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center in the Castro police attacked 40 members of the radical anti-capitalist queer group Gay Shame that gathered to protest the policies [attacking the homeless, among others] of Supervisor Gavin Newsom. Two lesbians were visibly bleeding from the mouth after being beaten by the San Francisco Police Department. An Indymedia correspondent was on the scene and witnessed the events. Gavin Newsome was ushered in the doors of the center by Police escort. Gays then tried to enter their own center to voice their opposition to Gavin's policies. The police began beating back and blocking the door to the activists. Police pushed the activists into the oncoming traffic on Market Street and began aggressively hitting the queer activists some of whom were dressed in drag.

The internet shows gay conservatives, especially on the West Coast, going nuts over the audacity of their activist brothers and sisters. [Members of GAY SHAME were entering a closed $125 per person fundraiser at the public Center thursday night when they tried to speak to Newsome, who had earlier slipped by them without being sighted.]