Wednesday
Life goes on.
1
I am grief stricken over Michael Jackson. Here is a truly talented man, brought low by his own inability to contain his “Ache?” and the failure of his staff to protect him as well.
I do not believe he molested this boy and I doubt seriously that DA Sneddon will have much of a case, beyond some embarrassing video?’s or a few poems.
Jackson is in my opinion a ?“Emotions Predator?”(A far more dangerous damage to children) he has a deep ?“Ache?” for tender affectioaffairsffaires of the heart. This does not make him a pedophile by a long shot. Society is replete with adults who adore kids and seek out a lifetime of service to them as teachers, doctors, and guardians of one sort or another. Most Scout Masters and sport coaches generally fit a distinct archetype of the loving adult who desires the world of ?“Life Building?” that all kids are deep into. Such adults are generally well adjusted and learn early to repress or simply ignore any physical attractions. What they think or do when they are alone at the end of the day is not questioned.
There has to be a tradeoff. You can not ask any adult to care and then limit that care in such a way that innocent affection is missread as something else.
Another factor is that bonding always has a sexual component, that's life. We are sexual creatures. The key is that traind adults understand how to restrain their sexual desire and to not allow it to affect the child.
Boys can be quite sexual especially at puberty. Masturbation creates a super pleasure principal and draws even the most reticent child toward sexual activity especially with a trusted adult.
Coaches and Teachers understand channelnd chanel such desires into positive less damaging avenues.
Michael Jackson vulnerableulnurable boys at this stage of sexual development leaving unearned and damaging effects for years after.
Jackson can rationalize all he wants and fool no one. His emotional "Ache" is greater than any sexual need. The damage is just as serious.
Human beings need relationships and must feel that there is cause in their lives. Few adults can tolerate isolation for very long and even fewer ever seek the solitary existence. Even the most devout recluse creates a life through fantasy related to books or TV or radio.

Michael Jackson?’s pattern of troubles is not unusual or even strange. He is a closeted Homosexual in denial and has deep conflicts with his mother over his sexuality.
He seeks family consent even though he is generally estranged from all but his mother. His adult life has a marked curve of increasing mutilation via plastic surgery as well as evidence of efforts at identity changes through his different styles of dress and public demeanor.
His marriages followed a predictable pattern of fantasy development, leading to a super state of exhilaration and eventual crash as the fantasy overwhelmed reality and his wives.
Jackson?’s own ignorance and the inability of those around him to act, are the tragedies in his life.
Michael Jackson's tragedy is made worse by the fact Mr. Sneddon has no interest in psychology and will expose his own bigotry and failure to accurately gauge the truth.
The DA's primitive mindset will harden Jackson's rage and thus create further troubles.
The public will sense early on the vulgar qualities to Sneddon?’s antics and the case will falter or Jackson will be acquitted.
My own guess is that there will never be a trial. The appeals court will vacate the charges or the State Supreme Court will.
Jackson is a world-class celebrity. The State of California will never allow anything but an absolute slam dunk in a molestation charge against such a huge personality. Too much is at Schwarzenegger will not tolerate a circus since it would reflect badly on him.

Sadly Michael Jackson will not learn the critical lesson here. He will carry on until tragedy strikes.
I do not personally believe he is a pedophile. I do think he drains those who are kind to him with huge emotional needs and eventually someone will take exception at the effect and return to exact vengeance.
Maybe, this sad case will educate all of us to isolation and emotional needs unmet.
More later
David Crellin@Audiea.com

SUNDAY
Hello Again!
I'm still here. Recent weeks I have been wandering off in fantasy after fantasy. I admit I'm drifting. My bio-rhythms occasionally ease into a dry spell.
In the middle of all this I got a Toshiba Tecra 500 CDT. A lady received it as a gift in 1996. She never used the laptop. It sat in a drawer for seven years! After her death her son gave it to a friend who sold it to me for $50. It had everything from Win95 and all the original Toshiba material! Amazing. I will up grade the RAM this week.
Imagine putting a brand new car in a garage and leaving it there seven years!
I am having fun!
2
Iraq is a mess and now Saudi is getting the misery! This to shall pass.
More later
David Crellin@Audiea.com

Sunday
We are having an old fashion heatwave. Hot days and warm nights SF is packed with tourists and plenty of kids running about having fun. Lovers are on the street and they add charm to the moment.
Angry protesters are here as well. The war is turning sour and the country has yet to decide how to react. The protesters at present are mostly older and obviously just frustrated dreamers who have been complaining for years. But, all the while there are hints that the middle class is becoming weary. I have contended from the start that the Bush Administration has over stressed the country as it is. 911 is fading as a critical emotional issue. If Howard Dean can assure the country he is no radical he may well be elected as the country decides it has had enough of Bush and his endless rage at the world.
More later
David Crellin@Audiea.com

TUESDAY
The Iranians have started along the track used by North Korea. They are offering a suspension of their nuclear program as an incentive to the United States. In reality they have reached credibility as a nuclear power and can wait until the right moment to make the bombs. N. Korea acted the same in 2002. Once they knew they had the right ingredients to build a bomb they suspended the program. The US and Europe know this fact. But the propaganda edge goes to Iran at this time. They can claim self defense in the face of Bush Administration belligerence and the right of self protection.
In a few months the US will make new demands and the threats will start all over again.
Iran is hoping Bush will be defeated in 2004. N. Korea is hopping the same. Who ever the n ext president is, they will face a nuclear Iran and N. Korea.
George Bush's "Axis of Evil" remark has cost us dearly.
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David Crellin@Audiea.com

Hello!
I've been away for a few weeks but I'm back. My infected tooth is history and my sinus troubles have faded away.
California has a new Governor, and I'll wager he runs from exhilaration to dread several times an hour.
The Red Soxs and Cubs came so close. They were wonderful. Maybe next year. The World Series will be a bust unless the Marlins really go after the Yankees and they won't.
Life goes on. More death in Iraq and more lies in Washington.
People eventually get wise to the bullshit and vote accordingly.
More later
David Crellin@Audiea.com

Tuesday
1
the Bush Administration is responding well to the Wilson scandal. I doubt this will go anywhere.
2
Amazing stories coming from Gauntanamo. Three translators arrested on taking information out of Camp Delta. It is remarkable that the US military seems to have stumbled badly here. I don't know any more than you, but there's a whiff of real scandal here. Has Al Quada reached the detainees in Cuba? If it is possible we are in real trouble. Or is this just desperate men trying to communicate with friends and family? In WW2 Allied troops in Germany's POW camps did the same kind of thing.
3
The recall is entering it's last days. Arnold seems to be on his way to becoming governor. I do hope he can bring the budget crisis to a reasonable end.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

THURSDAY
1
Started Not Far From Here again. This time it's for real. A basic story with a savage ending. Man meets woman in 1999 at a summer camp. They have a sweet one night stand. Adults doing adult things, no complications. They meet again a week later but argue over things that are unrelated to their situation, They drift apart. The man meets a second woman in the middle of all this and he is fascinated by the "Celestial" Photos she sells. The next summer he sees the photo lady again, she is now divorced and they have a casual affair. He sees the other woman several times. They do talk and there's a bit of regret over what seems to have been lost. The summer ends and with it the affair and selling photos. The third summer comes, and the man meets the women again, both want him and he spends three months trying to decide what he wants. The summer ends but he can't let go. Great evil comes and their lives are shattered. A brother is lost and a sister is suddenly forced to see life in a radically different way. The man sees in the sister what he has always suspected. The other woman is wonderful and deserves him, but he can't give himself to both of them.
Not Far From Here has consumed me for almost three years. But now it's ready and I'll write the third and final draft.
I feel wonderful. Life has a glow, I know I'm where I was struggled to be for a long time. Let the final thrill begin. It will take four months. By January 12th 2004 I'll be finished.
Wonderful!
More later.
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY
1
Have you ever had a sinus infection? I need good information about the best method to deal with it.
If you have any suggestions send them to Star@Audiea.com

WEDNESDAY
1
A foolish man, seeking attention came to the recycle center Sunday night and did all he could to bully the Security staff. Then, Tuesday he cynically called the security company and made the usual threats. The Account Rep did exactly as expected, he caved in and the Security Officers take the fall. The bully now has full freedom to abuse as he pleases!
And people wonder why contract security is such a joke?
2
The recall games continue. The Reactionaries are frightened at the prospect of Schwarzenegger winning and taking the party toward the left or worse, Davis' being saved and the wrath of the Dem-crats. The Republicans will loose any which way. They are going to loose in 06 as well as Davis' and the Democrats have two years of portraying them as extremists and a threat to 21st century social progress. Darryl issue will be remembered as a complete disaster. He ruined the California Republican Party by creating a needless circus.
The general public has become weary of the political circus. California is maturing as were the GOP is still chasing liberals and all that. They deserve their fate.
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Star@Audiea.com

FRIDAY
Read it and weep!

A special speech to the nation
Jon Carroll
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

My fellow Americans: I come before you today to ask for all the money in your wallet, your checking account and your 401(k). And do you have one of those spare change jars on top of the dresser? I'd like that too.

I am planning to spend $100 zillion to fight international terrorism in Iraq -- and all this without raising taxes. I am therefore asking Americans to make a sacrifice. I am asking them to support their aging relatives, because I'm not going to have any money to fund Social Security right now. Or Medicaid.

Why? Because fighting terrorism is job one.

I am not asking you to do anything I would not do. Already I am sending money home to my mother and father every week. I am also supporting an impoverished Chilean general in exile. It's the least I can do.

Because many people do not have elderly relatives, I am today asking for the creation of a new Department of Old People. All Americans will be assigned their very own old person.

In addition, every American will get his or her own veteran. Veterans benefits are so pathetic anyway we might as well just eliminate them. Please remember the great sacrifice these men and women made for their country. Do you have a spare room in your home? A veteran would like to live there.

Will this be difficult for some? Of course it will. But I ask you to remember three important things about freedom: Sept. 11, Sept. 11 and Sept. 11.

The peace in Iraq is going just as we planned. The escalating violence is exactly on schedule. Our friends in Syria and Iran have allowed terrorists to flow freely into Iraq from their nations. Our friends in Saudi Arabia continue to send them money. We knew what we were doing all along, even if we didn't know exactly what we were doing.

I like to think of Iraq as a kind of flypaper. We lure all the internationalist terrorists there, and then we kill them. I have not revealed this plan before, because it would seem that I am using American soldiers as bait.

I am therefore authorizing Secretary Powell, who I believe is still the secretary of state although I have not checked recently, to ask the United Nations for a multilateral force of peacekeepers who can be used as bait. I dream of a world in which people of all nations, Poles and Turks, Pakistanis and Canadians, can be slaughtered by international terrorists in an oil-rich foreign country.

We have always supported the United Nations, even when we pretended to disdain the United Nations in order to fool Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is on the run, cowering like some sniveling rat in a Iraqi slum that we are about to locate. So our plan worked, and Kofi Annan and I had a good laugh about that just last week.

We will not waver in our commitment to make a house-to-house search for terrorists in a place 19 time zones away. Sure, there will be casualties. I am authorizing all my commanders on the ground to say, with me: Sept. 11, Sept. 11 and Sept. 11.

Our battle for freedom is already paying significant dividends. Halliburton stock, for instance, is just skyrocketing. I urge you all to invest your dividends because, believe you me, we're going to be destroying infrastructure as fast as we can rebuild it. This unprecedented breakthrough in supply-side economics will make America even more prosperous.

Certainly, we have been through some tough times. And let me just say in response to that: Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton. And there will be tough times ahead. And let me say in response to that: Sept. 11, Sept. 11 and Sept. 11.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I regret that I cannot tell you how I am going to spend your money. Trust me.
Lavender's blue, dilly-dilly, lavender's green; when I am king, dilly-dilly, you shall be jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

More later
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY
1
The Bush Administration as usual has announced it's plans in a either or stance, insulting everyone who might have honest questions or doubts. The cynical method of simply telling congress to approve eighty-seven billion dollars for Iraq with little regard to just what the true cost and eventual outcome may be. The American public is not being given a detailed report and the President implies by his manor that to ask any questions is to be a "Liberal" and we all know what those losers are about.
The United States abused it's allies in Europe and as expected by adults was that the US would get bogged down in a guerilla war and cry for help.
In a few months Democrats will start agitating for detailed reports on expenditures in Iraq and the Bushies will resist as long as they can. But as it happens every time the country will finally get fed up and the real investigations will began and in 04 the Bush presidency will start to unravel. The big question will be: can Bush and his arrogant business friends keep the game in their control until after election day or will they flub it in the late summer and go down to defeat.
The American people are not fools, they will get wise and act on it soon enough. If Bush is re-elected, he will regret it as his second term is one spending scandal after another and the War comes home to ruin his place in history.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

SUNDAY

The United States is in the process of seeking an exit strategy for Iraq. Here is a classic example of great power hubris. A smug mentality of supremacy and the inability to grasp the political reality of the modern era. Nevertheless,
GW Bush deserve substantial credit for going after Al Quada and the sinister and brutish Saddam Hussein. Good intentions created by questionable motive. The United States has attempted world police action by itself and has created planetary animus. Why should anyone bail us out? Why should the Iraqis allow all these nations under UN authority come and reduce them to consumers? Iraq has been abused by all sides, Now it is time to reconstruct the place and to treat the citizens with justice that is real. The Middle East has become a battle ground not for religious clarity but economic exploitation. The West seeks to sell them everything the east seeks to use them as pawns in the religious terror wars. Why not allow the Iraqis to decide their future? The United States will not be admired or respected for seeking simple justice, but such action will spare us a few years of Iraqi hatred and future terrorism.
In the 2070s historians will earn their keep recounting decades of violence and false promise. Think about what's coming! Dictators fronting democracy and slaughtering their enemies in secret. Baghdad turned into a twardy fast food bizarre and the whole country prostituted to whom ever has the muscle and audacity to run the place. Eventually a ruthless right wing thug will use personality to seduce the poor and stage a peasant revolution. They will end up in meager jobs with less pay and in time another revolution, foreign intervention.
Iraq will be the 21st Centuries problem child, unless we can see the future and stop it. Take the time to give the place a rest from turmoil and find it's own future and respect the Iraqis enough to allow it to happen.
In am not a dreamer or a cynic here. I know enough of history to grasp that much of what happens does so because of no planning but random circumstance and convoluted agendas all in flux. Can't we try to find a way to stop the cycle? GW Bush will never be admired and he should not even bother. Just do the right thing and have the private satisfaction that you and God know what you did. That's enough!
David Star@Audiea.com

WEDNESDAY
1
Here is a excellent article from the Sunday Ny Times.

How Vulnerable Is Bush?
The Campaign Begins

Howard Dean versus George Bush? It's a scenario to make a pundit salivate. And for the first time it seems vaguely plausible. Far more plausible than an actual Dean victory, of course. And Dean's more established rivals, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Dick Gephardt of Iowa, former vice-president nominee, Joe Lieberman, and lurking in the wings, Hillary, could eventually eclipse the peppy populist. But the sense of drift in the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policy, and the body-count in Iraq have all eroded George Bush's margin of error in the coming political season. The White House has been predicting a close election for a long time. Now it seems less like expectations-management and more like insight.

Bush, in an elegant irony, is vulnerable above all on Iraq. No, there's not some Vietnam-style groundswell of opposition. No, the anti-war movement hasn't won the debate. It may even turn out that Bush has the last laugh on the WMD issue, when WMD inspector David Kay presents his report later in September. (The impact of a Saddam killing or capture would also, in one stroke, resuscitate positive reviews of Bush's war-management.) But the public has become convinced, thanks to relentlessly negative media coverage, that the transition to democracy in Iraq is failing. In a Gallup poll last week, 54 percent agreed with the proposition that the Bush administration does not have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq. It's not that Americans cannot endure casualties; it's that they object to casualties if the operation isn't working or seems likely to fail. And on that measure, the president clearly hasn't succeeded. He hasn't managed to persuade the country that the complex and precarious task in Iraq is heading in the right direction. If things deteriorate, he will be personally and directly blamed. As he should be.

In this respect, Bush's problems with re-election are the direct reverse of his father. The first president Bush won a quick and easy victory in Iraq but then withdrew from the battle (disastrously, as it later turned out). His stratospheric poll ratings in the war then collapsed under the anemic economic recovery of 1991. His son, in contrast, is seeing the foreign policy morass through (with all its hazards) and has done absolutely everything he can to keep the economy afloat. He has borrowed and spent federal dollars in a Keynesian frenzy that would have made Richard Nixon blush. History might one day judge that, given the deflationary dangers of the world economy at the turn of the millennium, this extravagance was warranted. Or it might judge that this president mortgaged his country's fiscal future in order to boost his own chances for re-election. But either way, there seems little doubt that the strategy is working. Stiff increases in domestic discretionary spending, huge new entitlements, inflated agricultural subsidies, mammoth hikes in military spending (the increase in defense spending in the second quarter was the biggest jump since 1951) have all meant a huge boost to demand. The second quarter duly saw growth of 3.1 percent (revised upward last week from a previous 2.4 percent). The stock markets are back. Productivity is rising. And there's still over a year for all this to translate into new jobs.

Will this be enough? Maybe. But maybe not. One of the problems is the war on terror in the second phase. If another major terrorist attack hits the mainland, this administration will now be held to account for lapses in security. If such an attack is foiled, and the current domestic peace prevails, then the public's attention moves away from terrorism and they criticize the administration for its economic policies or handling of Iraq. Waging a vital but nebulous war on terror turns out not to be such a political win-win. In fact, it's coming close to a lose-lose. Bush has problems if he wins (the public moves on) and if he suffers occasional defeats (the public blames him). He cannot be blamed for this, of course - although his tacky and hubristic air-craft carrier landing was a huge p.r. error. But it doesn't make his political fortunes any rosier.

But Bush still has the trust issue in a way that Tony Blair increasingly doesn't. Most Americans like their president, even when they disagree with him, the way they liked Reagan and Eisenhower. In Texas, W won re-election as governor handily, despite a mixed record. And with grim news this summer, and constant attacks from the left, Bush's approval ratings have remained solid at around or just below 60 percent. That's a very healthy figure, and it hasn't budged since the spring. In fact, the numbers are beginning to drift toward Bush's pre-9/11 high 50s - still within easy re-election margins. Anyone who easily discounts Bush's hold on public esteem and affection is a political fool.

Can the Democrats actually hope to oust him? I'm not dumb enough to predict such a thing at this stage - but the huge story of the summer has been the emergence of Vermont governor Howard Dean to the political highground. He has been campaigning across the country in the last few months and has been greeted by massive crowds everywhere he goes. In New Hampshire, which holds the critical first primary, he is ahead of his nearest rival, John Kerry, by 37 percent to 18. National polls of Democrats show him in the 15 - 20 percent range, along with Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman. In money terms, he has destroyed the opposition. In the second quarter, his campaign raised a whopping $10.3 million - more money at this stage in the race than any non-incumbent Democrat ever. He's running television spots across the country in a manner that is more reminiscent of the final stages of a campaign than the summer before it really begins. He is the early star of the race - the darling of the prosperous, white Democratic activist base.

And critically, he has shifted his message on Iraq. He is now trying to outflank the president on sending more troops and more money to the Iraqi reconstruction. He used his opposition to the war to win over the left; and now he is using his commitment to the rebuilding of Iraq as a means to regain the center. It's a deft piece of politicking. And by all accounts, the relentless campaigning has helped him improve his stump style and political manner. I have no idea if he will emerge as the candidate. But I do know that no other candidate has excited as much interest, energy and money in this race so far.

Except one. In the last hazy days of August, rumors began flying once again about Hillary. Scared that Bush might be vulnerable and that a Democrat might win - potentially locking her out of the presidency until 2012 - Hillary Rodham Clinton's aides are apparently due to meet September 6 to review their options for 2004. Hillary versus Bush? This Labor Day weekend, it's a scenario to make a pundit drool.

August 31, 2003, Sunday Times.
copyright © 2003, 2003 Andrew Sullivan

MORE LATER
David Star@Audiea.com

MONDAY
1
No Iraq today.
2
I've been looking at Laptop computers. I have an IBM 570 and it is a dream machine, except that it does not play DVD very well. It never was intended to. So I have been cruising eBay and looking at auctions. I am impressed at how anything less than 1.2Ghtz is selling for nothing and all these over powered 2 and 3 GHTZ units are selling fast. I assume it's the super imagery and deluxe sound. I do understand. Except for DVD occasionally stopping and the smaller picture, two thirds of my actual screen, I love my IBM 570. It is slimline and looks great. A P2/366 Dated to say the least!
3
Mars was visible last night at the recycling center intermittently I watched that bright light, easily seen through the urban glare! I am impressed and regret that I haven't been out side the city to really see Mars among the many stars.
What I would give to cruise the solar system!
Oh well, it's Labor Day! Have fun!
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

SUNDAY
1
Last night, Saturday, the fog broke for about two hours and I had a chance to watch Mars. It was a strange sight. Knowing what we do about that planet. I do wonder what happened to the water and the ice that once was there? Mars suffered some kind of tragedy in the past. A huge comet? The planet has an ellicptical orbit where's Earth's is circular. The history of our Star System is almost unknown to us. In this century we will resolve most of the unanswered questions.
2
The situation in Iraq is worse than ever. 300,000 desperate walking south the Najra. The distress the civilian population is suffering is going to cause trouble fore decades to come. The United States has allowed life in Iraq to deteriorate to the point where every person child and adult has good reason to be afraid and bitter. What ever government comes it will be hobbled by enormous debt and years of struggle to create credibility. The Bush Administration knows all these things but engages in a calculated denial. Once Bush is out of office, whatever gains were made will falter as the US lurches away. The Democrats will evade any serious involvement and future Republicans will do the same.
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a worthy cause. Despite lies and a amateurishly method of getting things done, the potential for a better life exists. But it's obvious we are not up to the task. Afghanistan is faltering. American media warns us, but we are not listening.
Our enemies can see all too clearly that the best way to deal with us is to hunker down, wait two years and we will roll away like the tide. The United States must learn as the Romans did, either come to stay or do not come at all.
In three years Iraq will have a new dictator and he will employ every trick Saddam Hussein used. We will want stability and thus will look the other way. By 2013 Iraq will be poverty stricken and a ruthless dictatorship. Who ever runs the place will hate the US and probably be a threat to us. Boys on the street, hungry and afraid will grow up to be our enemies. If we had a tough heart we'd set up a dictator today and see to it he engages in public works and unites the nation behind his personality. A ruthless Franklin Roosevelt. Instead Iraq will get fueding religious leaders and corrupt bankers and local warlords.
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

FRIDAY
1
Tragedy in Iraq. Another respected Cleric killed in a bombing. A hundred dead as well as a hundred wounded. Pointless slaughter all in the name of religion. The United States should offer greater protection for these important men. We will end up with all the moderates dead and the extremists running the show.
2
North Korea is saying they have an atomic bomb and they want to test it. I can imagine them launching a rocket out over the China Sea and setting the ten kiloton bomb off in the darkest night. Everyone will be angry at Kim Jung IL and his antic!
The United States created this mess by playing to Il's paranoid fantasies. GW Bush's comment about the Axis of Evil has made life nasty for everyone. I wonder if the Bush Administration understands the psychological impact of North Korea setting off Atomic Bombs?
3
Noise over Arnold Schwarzenegger interview in 1977. People have better things to do. The man was 27 at the time. He is older and wiser. I like most of what he says. The black lady that was the object of the gang bang was paid and never complained. What's the fuss?
4
The fog has cleared and we have blue skies. Tonight I'll watch Mars at the Recycle Center.
Take a look at Rachel Lucas today, excellent entries.
Have a nice weekend.
More Later
David Star@Audiea.com

1
Rachel Lucas is helping English students, I recommend you check her blog today, there's great fun there!
2
Read NY Times editorials and op ed page. Everything there is wonderful.
3
I can't feel pity for Mr. Geoghan. He was a sexual predator. I am Gay and I love men and I look at pretty boys all the time, but the idea of touching a child and crashing their sense of security or worse bringing unwanted confusion into their lives is repulsive. Ten year olds deserve to be let alone and not burdened. I detest this bull shit about kids being sexual. They have urges and desires that are unknown and not understood. Who the hell are YOU to disrupt their orderly process of growing up?
If they are 21 and breathing they are fair game. I drool over 25 year olds. But I'm 52 and look like hell. Most guys in their twenties look at me and start giggling or just walk to the other side of the room. I never do anything because I was 25 and I hated the greasy old bulls. I know the drill.
Geoghan was a ruthless thug and a cynical asshat as Rachel Lucas says who used the church and betrayed Jesus.
I do not approve jail house executions. But this one was genuine evil. You can be sure he lusted after the men in his unit and they knew it!
Rot in hell you creep!
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY
1
Take a look at One Hand Clapping. Dr. Sensing has a smooth review for Kevin Costner's "Open Range" Dr. Sensing is an intelligent Conservative. I respect him and regret not enough folks read him. His mind reflects rational Christianity in our times. Forget the predator windbags like Bennett and Falwell or gasbags like Robertson. The only psychopath I'm interested in is Ralph Reed, he is so sinister he is delicious.
2
Warm day in San Francisco. Lots of sun. I plan to take my dear IBM 570 and walk all over, maybe meet a new friend.
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

MONDAY
1
Terrible story from Boston.
Here is the last sad chapter in the life of a sexual predator. I detest this man and feel no pity for him. And I equally detest the thugs who allowed his murder. I lived in Massachusetts fifteen years and I learned early that just as Mississippi has brutal instincts so does Massachusetts.
Mr. Geoghan was cruel and indifferent to the suffering and especially the humiliation he caused. He had decades to grasp the pain he caused and he never cared! Even at 60 he was grabbing kids and using his authority as a priest to do so!
The Corrections System in Massachusetts is loaded with patronage and thuggery.
Read it and weep!

BOSTON GLOBE (Reprinted without permission)
MONDAY AUG 25 2003
Geoghan was tied, beaten, officials say
Attacker struck when guard was distracted
By Thomas Farragher and Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff, 8/25/2003
Defrocked priest John J. Geoghan was bound, gagged, strangled, and stomped
by a fellow inmate who followed the notorious child molester into a cell
Saturday afternoon while one prison guard was distracted with other
prisoners and another officer was temporarily away from the area,
according to correctional officer union officials.
The fellow inmate, Joseph L. Druce, then jumped from Geoghan's bed onto
Geoghan's chest at least twice, the officials said.
"An officer heard a noise, went over to the cell, and he saw Geoghan on
the floor, gagged and tied," said Robert W. Brouillette, business agent
for a 5,000-member corrrectional officer union. "Druce was standing on the
bunk."
Brouillette's account of the attack comes from correctional officers who
work at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
Geoghan, hands tied behind his back, was strangled with either one of his
T-shirts or a bed sheet, and beaten, Brouillette said.
Druce used one of Geoghan's shoes or sneakers to tighten the sheet or
shirt, another union official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
"He twisted the shoe to tighten the ligature around Geoghan's neck," the
official said. "It all happened in a matter of minutes."
Brouillette said six or seven guards, alerted by a commotion in the cell,
rushed to the scene but were unable to immediately open Geoghan's cell
because, he said, Druce had jammed it from inside, perhaps with a stick.
Brouillette said there is no video surveillance inside the inmates' cells.
Union officials said inmates had finished their lunch, eaten on trays in
their cells. The inmates had returned their trays to a common collection
area outside their cells, when Druce trailed Geoghan and pounced on him in
his quarters, the officials said.
One official said Druce had been closely following the unit's staffing
patterns the last three months, apparently in an effort to strike when
staffing levels were at their barest minimum. "These guys have nothing
better to do 24 hours a day than to watch what you do and how you do it,"
said Brouillette, who represents the Massachusetts Correctional Officers
Federated Union.
Union officials yesterday said they have complained about inadequate
staffing levels in the protective custody unit, which opened earlier this
year. The area where the attack took place is typically patrolled by two
correctional officers, but during Geoghan's assault, one officer was
assigned to monitor lunch activities elsewhere, one of the officials said.
The union had been seeking to have three officers on duty.
Kelly Nantel, the state Department of Correction public affairs director,
yesterday declined to give any description of the attack.
The details about the assault came as state officials struggled to explain
how a serial pedophile could have been left alone with an inmate convicted
of a "gay-bashing" murder.
Prisoner rights activists yesterday called for an independent probe into
Geoghan's strangulation death inside Massachusetts' most modern and secure
prison.
Nantel acknowledged there are 366 surveillance cameras at the
Souza-Baranowski facility, which straddles the town line between Shirley,
which is in Middlesex County, and Lancaster, which is in Worcester County.
She would not say whether Saturday's attack, or the events that led up to
it, was captured on videotape.
"There are significant video capabilities in the facility," Nantel said.
Geoghan, whose serial child molestation offenses helped to ignite the
roiling scandal in the Catholic Church, was housed in a unit away from the
prison's general population with inmates deemed not to pose a threat to
him, Nantel said.
The state is investigating how officials could have allowed Geoghan, 68,
to share the same prison space as his alleged killer -- the 37-year-old
Druce, a convicted murderer with a white supremacist past and an apparent
disdain for homosexuals. Geoghan was accused of molesting about 150
children, mostly boys.
Nantel said the correction department's policy is to keep any two inmates
with a documented history of antagonism apart, even if that means allowing
only one into the protective custody unit.
But prisoner rights leaders said Geoghan's slaying should be the focus of
an independent probe, declaring the state Department of Correction
incapable of policing itself.
"Everybody in prison knows that prisoners who have attacked children are
hated," said Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast regional director of Amnesty
International. "Mr. Geoghan was sentenced to a long jail term. He was not
sentenced to be beaten or murdered by another inmate."
Rubenstein and Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts
Correctional Legal Services, said federal investigators such as the FBI or
the US attorney's office should open an investigation independent of those
begun by the DOC and Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte.
"Let's face it," said Walker. "They screwed up. This was a skinny old man
that they allowed to be murdered on their watch and in our name."
As the head of a statewide nonprofit law office for prisoners, Walker said
she visited Geoghan at Souza-Baranowski in April just after he became one
of the first inmates at the new protective custody unit there following
his transfer from the state prison in Concord.
"He was very relieved to be at Souza-Baranowski," Walker said of Geoghan.
"He told me he felt safe there."
As an inmate in the maximum security prison's protective custody unit,
Geoghan was locked alone in a cell secured by a wooden door with a window
cut into it except for the roughly three hours a day he was allowed out of
his cell. State prison regulations require correctional officers to make
rounds at least every 30 minutes.
Nantel said corrections officials are prepared to make changes in
procedures, if necessary, to protect inmates. She declined to answer
questions about why Druce and Geoghan shared a common area, other than to
say that prison officials assign all inmates who might be in danger to the
small, well-monitored unit known as protective custody where both Geoghan
and Druce were housed.
Inside protective custody, however, the inmates are in regular contact
with fellow prisoners also considered at risk, she said.
"Inmates in protective custody are not isolated from all others," the DOC
spokeswoman said. "They do get out of their cells and have contact with
others in protective custody."
Inmates in protective custody share recreational facilities, access to
telephones, and a visitor area, she said. The number of inmates they come
into contact with is vastly lower than in the general population. When
Geoghan was killed, there were 24 inmates in the protective custody unit,
compared with 1,200 in the general population.
Nantel said the Department of Correction considers the safety of inmates
on a case-by-case basis. While the nature of an inmate's offense might be
taken into consideration, there is no general rule for the security of all
inmates convicted of a particular type of crime, such as child
molestation, she said.
"We don't assess the safety of all inmates by a category of offense," she
said. "The process is to identify anyone who may be at risk and house them
where their safety can be assured. I don't want to get into a particular
offense as being more risky or more susceptible. The bottom line is the
safety of all."
A prisoner cannot be assigned to the protective custody unit simply by
requesting it, she said. "There has to be a documented history of an enemy
situation, for example, or some particular notoriety," she said.
In Druce's case, he was an admitted neo-Nazi who was in prison for a crime
that mirrored the attack on Geoghan. He strangled a 51-year-old man in
1988, after driving him to a wooded area. Police said Druce apparently
believed his victim was gay. A police officer who investigated the murder
said Druce "viewed it as a gay bashing."
Dana Smiledge of Byfield, Druce's father, has said his son has a
longstanding grudge against homosexuals, in addition to a hatred of blacks
and Jews.
The $105 million Souza-Baranowski facility opened in 1998. Prisoner rights
advocates have said that since the prison's opening there have been
persistent complaints of inmate mistreatment.
"What we have heard is that when one prisoner attacks another prisoner,
the guards do nothing," Walker said. "They stand and wait until it's
over."
Nantel, the DOC spokeswoman, dismissed that characterization of prison
disturbance protocol. "That is not the policy. The policy is to intervene
when it's safe to do so," she said.
Walker, the legal services director, said during her April visit with
Geoghan, he realized that he was a potential target in prison. "We talked
about how difficult it was for him being such a notorious client," Walker
said. "He was aware of his notoriety."
Geoghan's old assignment to Concord's protective custody unit was
considered too porous, according to James Pingeon, a lawyer with
Massachusetts Correctional Services. "There were serious security concerns
with the protective custody unit at Concord because of contact with the
general population," he said. "My sense is that the situation at
Souza-Baranowski was better."
Walker and Pingeon said Geoghan believed his food at Concord was being
fouled before it reached him. "He suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of
inmates and guards," said Pingeon.
Stuart Grassian, a Newton psychiatrist who has written about prison life,
said officials should have realized Geoghan was an obvious target for
violence and done more to prevent him from coming in contact with Druce.
"The risk to him was fairly obvious," Grassian said, noting that inmates
in all prisons maintain an aggressive social pecking order that shunts
pedophiles to the lowest rung.
Conte, the Worcester County district attorney, did not return telephone
calls yesterday. An autopsy on Geoghan is scheduled to be performed today.
A Worcester County grand jury will hear the case against Druce in
September.
Michael S. Rosenwald and Michael Rezendes of the Globe staff and Globe
correspondents John McElhenny and Ron DePasquale contributed to this
report. Thomas Farragher can be reached at farragher@globe.com.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

MORE LATER
David Star@Audiea.com

THURSDAY
1
The United States is attempting to get the UN to act on some level in Iraq. This smells like Sec. Of State Powell at the ramparts. He has been trying to find a wedge to use against Defense Sec. Rumsfeld. Powell has friends at the UN and they treat him much better than the old white worriers at the Pentagon. It is a interesting irony that Powell, a military man has to sek help and allies from a politicians club because the politicians have co copted him with the military he once was part of! The Bushies are angry at the Iraqis because they are proving to be such mean dogs and that Iraq is starting to look like the Balkans at the least. Nevermind Afghanistan is becoming a NATO bailiwick!
2
As everyone expected, the Palestinians and Israel's found a way off the road to peace. The Israel's have no interest in peace as long as they can assassinate Hamas or Islamic Jihad leaders. The Israel's are sure the Palestinians will eventually collapse and Israel will run the show on their terms.
Imperialism is not just a Euro thing.
3
Schwarzenegger is riding high as the general public turns against Davis. My guess is Bustamonte has a slight chance. But it does look as if Davis might be voted out. I'm stilll cynical about that! The situation is quite fluid.
More later
David@Audiea.com

WEDNESDAY!
1
Another week at the recycle center should start tonight. I hope things will be quiet. Last week was difficult because we had double coverage and some of the extra officers hated the place and did not want to be there! The job is about as easy as you can get. I really don't need the aggravation.
I am trying to write a book!
2
The storys covering Iraq are depressing. The people over there are suffering. GW Bush has AC and steaks! We were going to liberate them! The United States will buy a local loudmouth and set him up as President and then we will walk away and he wil be assassinated and Iraq will have a new Saddam Hussein!
3
Very pretty day in The City. Lots of sun, not too warm either!
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY
I have a new computer cam. Weird fun.
1
Crazy fool blew himself up on the #2 bus in Jerusalem this evening. More fuel for the right wing nuts!
2
Un Headquarters in Baghdad blown up in a truck bombing. And this will solve what?
3
Gray Davis is toast. I think most folks will tire of the Recall soon enough and vote against it. S'Negger will get the unimportant vote but will use it as a spring board to 2006.
4
Very warm in San Francisco today.
What can I say, Summer!
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

SUNDAY
Good article in Fridays NY Times by N.D. Kristof, concerning present US religious beliefs.
I personally think the current religious wave is a reaction to the millennium and the stress from the social changes in recent decades. It will pass in a few years. Secularism is not going to stop. If you ask serious questions you discover US religious views are shallow and lack a deep thinking process. Americans use religion much like Valium.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

August 15, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Believe It, or Not
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


Today marks the Roman Catholics' Feast of the Assumption, honoring the moment that they believe God brought the Virgin Mary into Heaven. So here's a fact appropriate for the day: Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

So this day is an opportunity to look at perhaps the most fundamental divide between America and the rest of the industrialized world: faith. Religion remains central to American life, and is getting more so, in a way that is true of no other industrialized country, with the possible exception of South Korea.

Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13 percent agree with the U.S. view. (For details on the polls cited in this column, go to www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds.)

The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll.

My grandfather was fairly typical of his generation: A devout and active Presbyterian elder, he nonetheless believed firmly in evolution and regarded the Virgin Birth as a pious legend. Those kinds of mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half.

The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America.

Some liberals wear T-shirts declaring, "So Many Right-Wing Christians . . . So Few Lions." On the other side, there are attitudes like those on a Web site, dutyisours.com/gwbush.htm, explaining the 2000 election this way:

"God defeated armies of Philistines and others with confusion. Dimpled and hanging chads may also be because of God's intervention on those who were voting incorrectly. Why is GW Bush our president? It was God's choice."

The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven (which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng puts it in "On Being a Christian," the Virgin Birth is a "collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary" narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world.

Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book "Mary Through the Centuries" that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).

Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.

I'm not denigrating anyone's beliefs. And I don't pretend to know why America is so much more infused with religious faith than the rest of the world. But I do think that we're in the middle of another religious Great Awakening, and that while this may bring spiritual comfort to many, it will also mean a growing polarization within our society.

But mostly, I'm troubled by the way the great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches alike are withering, leaving the scholarly and religious worlds increasingly antagonistic. I worry partly because of the time I've spent with self-satisfied and unquestioning mullahs and imams, for the Islamic world is in crisis today in large part because of a similar drift away from a rich intellectual tradition and toward the mystical. The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top

SATURDAY!
1
The Great Blackout is over! I read the NY Times marvelous section devoted to deep coverage of the entire event. I wonder if I'm the only one on the West Coast to do so? The writing was excellent and showed that the Gray Old Lady still has the power and the glory.
I read the 911 coverage for a year and I have yet to meet a single person who has done the same.
Future history students and nostalgia fans will read all of the special sections and get the full temper and flavor of our times.
Oddly enough the lack of public interest is a healthy sign. We have become adults understanding the reality of modern life. And are able to cope with stress far better than in the past. The United States is becomin g a culture that can distinguish between the important and the frivolous. The Blackout is a immediate event but not a historical event. Great technocratic civilizations will have occasional burps. Our ability to endure them without chaos is a critical part of the process. I am pleased.
2
The Democrats may have found a way to stop the California Recall. They are telling everyone who will listen that the Recall is part of a Gingrich Republican nullification scam. The line used is that Clinton's impeachment, the 2000 election as well as the Texas reapportionment fight are all connected in a GOP plan to defeat the Liberals in the courts or in special elections. This is disingenuous at the best.
Gingrich was set to impeach Bill Clinton in 1992 before he became president. The scam was that Gingrich played on the emotions of Republicans and hustled everyone! He has never been a party loyalist as much as a self promoter! Gingrich used former speaker Jim Wrights dubious book deal (1989) to take the mans career away from him. (Most GOP were unhappy with the methods of that stunt and it setback Gingrich's aspirations a few years. His predatory instincts were a bit obvious. By 1994 Gingrich had developed some polish) He used scare tactics in Georgia to get re-elected and as the House Whip he created the bogus "Contract With America" as a hustle to get money and fame for himself. He was and is "The Music Man" The great fraud! The Democrats are tuning in on these shameless Antics.
Having failed to control Gray Davis and get his administration on track, the Democrats avoided him and now the predators have arrived. A judge in San Jose might derail the Recall. But California will still be stuck with a vindictive Davis and nothing will get done. The Dems will employ court challenges and various legal tricks as the GOP taught them and reasoned politics gets lost in the shuffle.
3
Alabama Supreme Court has the Ten commandments in their building. A Federal Judge has ordered the 5000 pound insult removed and Judge Moore says NO. So the Supreme Court has to act and the hustlers Mau Mau the rabble and we get more confrontation and vilification.
4
The 2004 elections are going to be a crude brawl as the GOP smears each emerging Democrat. But the Democrats are angry and will raise hell as well. There is genuine bitterness over Bush and his phony war and the huge deficits, tax cut, and a feeling the country is being ripped off by the white collar thieves.
"When rich people have nothing constructive to do they self destruct!"
More later! David Star@Audiea.com

WEDNESDAY!
Well at least it's not Tuesday!
1
My novel "Nor Far From Here" has reached the final draft phase. A tough, not always fun read, I will not appeal to the general public. I'm not all that concerned. I do not seek wealth on this one. The Next novel "A Love So Real" will be the crowed pleaser."
2
The Recall thing is fading as reality sets in. In a Week the California Republicans will be trashing each other and will ruin their chances. Darrell Issa, the Car Alarm King who started this noise has wandered off. The state should sue him for this mischief! Davis will find a way to stop this thing if he can, or delay it. Arnold must be aware that his glory could have a sudden death. We will see.
2
Tuesday NY Times has a wonderful Science piece on the vast number of moons found around Jupiter. This is a critical bit of info because it implies a pattern through out the universe and some moons orbiting the gas giants that are close to a star might harbor life of some form.
3
The British are having fits over BBC informant Kelly's death. The reactionary are after Blair as the public gets tired of him. There is a point to limited terms. Leaders are like TV shows, they run a few seasons and then go stale. Blair has been there long enough.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

ARNOLD!
I support Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has class, dignity and grace. He is a decent moderate and will do just fine.
I loathe Gray Davis. He is a sadist who is titilated by seeing violent men humiliated. Who needs that!
Read the SF Chronicle archives or the LA Times archives about Davis connections to the Correctional Officers Union, pure corruption! He withholds parole to torment inmates and pander to right wing crazies. Davis had every chance and he screw up everything again and again.
I am a liberal, and I believe Schwarzenegger will be honest and seek a sensible solution to the states problems.
More later
Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY!
Hell of a day. I'm writing the final draft of my novel. THe task demands a distinct state of mind. I can't allow anyone or anything affect me.
Below is a remarkable article from the NY Times wire services.
The Episcopal Church is setting the way for generational changes. With declining enrollment in North America and Europe, the church is attempting to find the proper language to admit Homosexuals.
The Catholics, and other Christian sects are watching closely. By 2050 all denominations will have Gays at every level and few will care. Some of the arch conservative groups will not. But you can be certain that those who do not change will eventually wither away. Modern Times and the advance of understand humanity are not going away.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

August 5, 2003
Gay Bishop Wins in Episcopal Vote, Threatening Split
By MONICA DAVEY


INNEAPOLIS, Aug. 5 - The Episcopal Church approved the election of its
first openly gay bishop tonight, reaching the historic decision after
rejecting accusations of sexual misconduct against him that had suddenly
halted the vote on Monday.
After being called back to the floor of the House of Bishops this
afternoon, 62 of 107 diocesan bishops voted to approve the bishop-elect,
V. Gene Robinson. Moments later, more than a dozen conservative bishops,
their faces grim, marched slowly to the front of the House to denounce the
decision as an affront to church teaching that would split the worldwide
church in two.
``The bishops who stand before you are filled with sorrow,'' Bishop Robert
Duncan, of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, told the room. ``This body has
divided itself for millions of Anglican Christians around the world,
brothers and sisters who have pleaded with us to maintain the church's
traditional teaching on marriage and sexuality. With grief too deep for
words, the bishops who stand before you must reject this action.''
Bishop Duncan, one of a group of church leaders who had fought
Bishop-elect Robinson's approval for weeks, said he and his colleagues
would now call on the top leaders of the Anglican Communion - the 38
primates around the world - to intervene on the ``pastoral emergency that
has overtaken'' the Episcopal Church. ``May God have mercy on this
Church,'' he said.
But others rejoiced in the decision, praising the popular bishop-elect for
his works, and saying that the decision marked another barrier overtaken
by church leaders, another widening of the church doors.
``It's a great day for the church,'' said the Rev. Sandye Wilson, of the
Minnesota Diocese. ``This is a church which has finally understood that
men and women created in the vision of God can be the guardians of the
faith - and be gay or lesbian.''
Those who had pressed for the choice, over weeks of lobbying and days of
intense pressure at this convention of hundreds of Episcopalians, said
they were thrilled by the outcome, but also saddened by talk of a split
within the church, and the calls for help from the primates. ``I am also
mindful of the fact that our brothers and sisters are brokenhearted,'' Ms.
Wilson said, ``and I feel for them in their pain.''
Supporters say that the decision will bring new people - young ones
especially - into the church, which now has 2.3 million members in the
United States, but opponents say that just the reverse will occur: that
people will stay away from their churches this weekend, stop giving
donations, and wonder what the church has come to stand for.
As recently as noon today, church leaders here said they were uncertain
whether Bishop-elect Robinson could even be considered today - or even by
the end of the convention on Friday. Bishops had planned to make their
choice on Monday, but delayed the vote indefinitely when two accusations
were made against him late Sunday, and began to investigate.
A day later, to the surprise of many here, the investigation was over.
This afternoon, Bishop Gordon P. Scruton, who was assigned to investigate
the claims, told his fellow bishops that he had found ``no necessity to
pursue'' either complaint against Bishop-elect Robinson further.
Bishop Scruton, of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, said that he had
interviewed David Lewis, a church member in Manchester, Vermont, who sent
an email message to bishops on Sunday night accusing Bishop-elect Robinson
of harassment during a church conference in Holyoke, Mass., in November of
1999.
When Bishop Scruton spoke to Mr. Lewis by telephone on Monday, Mr. Lewis
said he ``regretted having used the word `harassment' in his email,''
Bishop Scruton said. Mr. Lewis described two conversations with
Bishop-elect Robinson during the conference, Bishop Scruton said. Mr.
Lewis said that the Bishop-elect had touched him on the arm and upper back
during the talks, which occurred in front of other people.
Mr. Lewis said gesture struck him as too familiar, and said the incidents
``made him feel uncomfortable,'' according to Bishop Scruton. But he also
acknowledged that others might view the exchange as normal and natural,
and twice told Bishop Scruton that he did not want to pursue the matter
further, Bishop Scruton said.
Mr. Lewis said he sent his email on Sunday night - after he heard that
Bishop-elect Robinson had been approved by the House of Deputies, one of
two decision-making bodies in the Episcopal Church along with the House of
Bishops. Mr. Lewis said he ``found himself late Sunday night needing to
tell someone of his experience,'' Bishop Scruton said.
Bishop Scruton also cleared Bishop-elect Robinson of a second claim, made
late Sunday night by his opponents in the House of Bishops. Bishop Scruton
said he found that the Bishop-elect had no involvement in a website for
young, gay people, which also had links to a website that included
pornography. Bishop-elect Robinson helped found the organization, Concord
Outright, meant to help gay and lesbian teens, but Bishop Scruton said
that the bishop-elect had no involvement with it since 1998. The
organization created its website in 2002.
The investigation, which had seemed so crucial a day earlier, seemed to
have been forgotten by the time the bishops began debating Bishop-elect
Robinson before voting. The discussion was quiet and civil, and preceded
and followed by prayer. Bishops rose from their seats around round tables
to address the crowd. ``He's been tried, he's been weighed, he's been
measured,'' said Bishop Jon Bruno, of the Diocese of Los Angeles. ``On the
extreme, he has been found morally capable.''
But as they rose to speak, Bishop-elect Robinson's opponents described
what they said he would bring to the broader church: schism, pain,
confusion.
``I am absolutely committed to Jesus Christ, absolutely committed to this
church, absolutely committed to this House, absolutely committed to you,''
said Bishop Edward Little of the Diocese of Northern Indiana. But, he
said, ``If we confirm Gene Robinson as a bishop of the church, the unity
of this House will be shattered forever.''
But others say those warnings are overblown. Look at earlier
controversies, they say, which were also predicted to split the church:
the ordination of women in 1976, the ratifying of a woman bishop, Barbara
Harris, in 1989.
This evening, Ms. Harris, who has retired from the Diocese of
Massachusetts, said the church had survived, and would once more. ``I
remember well the dire predictions made at the time of my election consent
process,'' she said. ``The communion, such as it is - a loose federation
of autonomous provinces - has held.''
Those who have known David A. Lewis in Manchester, Vt., described him
today as a husband, a father, a religious scholar, a lay reader at the
local Zion Evangelical Church and a man who told the truth whenever he
spoke.
Many neighbors who tried to reconcile his accusations, via e-mail message
on Sunday, that Bishop-elect Robinson had inappropriately touched him at a
Province I convocation a couple of years ago, said they had no reason to
doubt him. Others said they could only surmise he must have felt moved to
express a private thought, even in the last possible moments of a
complicated process.
Indeed, Lou Midura, the senior warden of the Zion Episcopal Church, who
was the only one to speak officially about Mr. Lewis here today, said his
friend and fellow parishioner wanted everyone to know one thing: that his
e-mail about Bishop-elect Robinson was meant to be privately conveyed to
the governing body of the Episcopal Church, at its meeting in Minneapolis,
Minn., not debated in the secular press.
``I'm comfortable saying I know David extremely well and his character is
beyond reproach,'' said Mr. Midura, a house builder by trade, as he stood
inside the white church on Main Street, founded in 1782, as a battery of
TV news trucks were lined up in the parking lot.
``For him to say it, he must have really felt it,'' Mr. Midura said.
``He's not dumb. He's a Harvard graduate and he must have really trusted
his feelings after much thoughtful and prayerful consideration.''
As the events unfolded here over the past day - the accusations against
Bishop-elect Robinson, the delayed vote, the investigation - the mood
among the hundreds of Episcopalians meeting here was shock and confusion.
``We were numb,'' said Bishop Geralyn Wolf, of the Diocese of Rhode
Island. ``We just couldn't get over that this could happened.''
In the end, though, church leaders said the events, however chaotic, had
shown the world how this church handles accusations against members of the
clergy. ``It has laid out before the world that we take these things
seriously,'' said Bishop Mark S. Sisk, of the diocese of New York.
Others, though, were left pained by so much talk of issues of sexuality,
and not enough about other questions for the church - ministering to the
hungry, fighting the AIDS crisis in Africa, reaching out to those in
search of faith.
``To my mind, this has been too much of a distraction,'' said Ed Cahill,
an alternate from the Diocese of East Tennessee. In all the turmoil, he
said, he had a dream about a house burning down. The church's efforts to
sort out its position on homosexuality, which already has lasted years,
will probably take many more years to truly resolve, he said. As an
alternative in the House of Deputies, Mr. Cahill did not cast a vote on
the question of Bishop-elect Robinson this week. That was fortunate, he
said today, because he still has not made up his mind.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search
| Corrections | Help | Back to Top

SATURDAY
1
Rachel Lucas has a wonderful page today. Next week she is moving and graduating from college. Lucas is so natural and speaks as a sensible Texan. I savor her decency and responsible attitudes. She sees life as it is and give it a firm tenderness we all crave. She is a comfort to a lot of single readers.
2
The Gay marriage thing is tiresome. I can tell the NY Times is on a jag. They hate Bush and are always searching in the weeds for something to trip him up. The NY Times is bitter over the war in Iraq and the clumsy lies we have been told. So they go after Bush as a reactionary and bigot toward Gays. Frankly, I don't think GW Bush is a bigot. Reactionary? Well, yah, but I'm a liberal and I do react toward asshats (A Rachel Lucas Term) like Tom Delay and John Ashcroft and others. But then these fools make me laugh and in a sick way I like their predatory antics. Imagine a dignified Liberal Administration, we'd all die from boredom!
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

THURSDAY!
I've been working on my novel and procrastinating about coming here.
1
Bob Hope is dead.
It is a interesting thing to watch a new generation struggle with acknowledging some old geezer they heard of but have no interest in. The America of 2020 is already here. It will be a culture where aging Rap stars will inhabit UHF TV or VH1 and it's grandchildren. All the hip starts of 2025 are alive and getting ready. They will probably be cleaner, more suburban that today's gritty urban Rap Stars. There will as always happens a rebirth of Pop and the old time Rock. Nothing ever really dies it just hibernates a few decades and then is brought out and everyone gets excited over this "New" thing.
Some where there is a guy who will be the Bob Hope of the 21st century. A sweet but sometimes tart fellow who chides us and makes us laugh.
2
Sam Phillips is dead. He was like Hope, a predictable person in history. He stood up to the stupid white bigotry in the recording industry and he enabled white men to sing black music without having to be in a minstrel show! Phillips liberated country and western and married them to rhythm and blues. He gave us a wonderful era of wild expressive and magical sound.
3
The Media is beating the drums on Gay Marriage. The GOP will use it as a wedge issue in 2004. It won't go anywhere for long. They shrillness of the debate will tire most folks and by 2008 there will be civil marriages with some religious backing. When middle class Catholics start having Gay weddings in the backyard, the whole thing will fade away.
No one under 40 gives a damn about it anyway.
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY!
Think of all theevil in the world. Think of those who live so long and thewn read this article from todays NY Times! Such tragedy!


July 22, 2003
Atlanta Philanthropist and Family Die in Kenyan Plane Crash
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN


ATLANTA, July 21 — George Brumley Jr. pioneered research that helped save thousands of tiny babies and pumped millions of dollars into this city, looking out for poor children, the homeless and the dying.

Yet, in the end, most people here had never even heard his name.

That is, until this weekend.

In an accident 8,000 miles away, a plane carrying Dr. Brumley, one of Atlanta's most respected philanthropists, and 11 of his relatives slammed into Mount Kenya. The crash killed members of three generations and in an instant finished 12 entries on the Brumley family tree.

Since then, Atlantans have learned how much the Brumleys did for their city. And how quietly.

Over the years, Dr. Brumley, a pediatrician, built a network of charities that touched nearly every neighborhood and social stratum. But he avoided publicity like a disease. His main charity was not named after himself but after a little Dutch city, Zeist, where he once lived.

"George had no ego," said Thomas Lawley, dean of the Emory University School of Medicine. "He was always focused on results, not credit."

Well bred and well educated, Dr. Brumley, 68, was known as a gentleman doctor. Each day he would show up at the laboratory in a pressed shirt and tie. He was even polite to the rats. "You could tell by the way he handled the lab animals how much he cared for life, any life," said Lou Ann Brown, a pediatrics professor at Emory University.

The crash was the top story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. The Brumleys may not have created the vast philanthropic empires of say, Robert Woodruff, the former president of Coca-Cola, or Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN. Maybe every city has people like them. But years of understated giving earned the Brumleys a special place in Atlanta.

Dr. Brumley made a name researching the weak lungs of premature babies. His studies, colleagues said, led to a new generation of drugs that have saved thousands of infants born weighing less than a pound.

His main charity, the Zeist Foundation, sponsors children's medical clinics, hospices, shelters, fathering classes, juvenile justice programs and events at which musicians would perform with inner city kids.

His wife, Jean Stanback Brumley, 67, was on the board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She had reservations about going on safari.

"She was no nature girl," said a friend, Dr. Veda Johnson.

In their Christmas letter announcing the family vacation to East Africa, the Brumleys joked: "It should be a great trip provided certain family members can adapt to the wild; stay tuned for next year's report on Jean and the bucket shower."

Dr. Brumley was smitten with Africa. Two years ago, at 66, he had scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak on the continent.

On Saturday, 12 members of the Brumley clan took off from Nairobi, headed to Samburu, a game reserve known for its stunning stocks of giraffe, zebra and gazelle.

The chartered plane, a twin-engine Fairchild turboprop flown by two South African pilots, took off around 4:15 p.m. The time is significant. Kenyan officials say it is dangerous to fly too close to Mount Kenya in the late afternoon because storms begin to lash the craggy peaks about then.

Friends of the Brumleys said the plane crashed as the pilots were pulling a tight circle around the mountain to give the family a closer view.

Chris Kuto, director of Kenya's Civil Aviation Authority, said: "This time of year the weather gets bad in the afternoon. Clouds, fog, rain. It's dangerous."

The Kenyan aviation authority requires pilots to get permits if they plan to circle Mount Kenya, which reaches to 17,058 feet. In this case, Mr. Kuto said, no permit was issued.

In Atlanta, the news has been a lot to absorb. George. Jean. Three of their five children: George III, 42; Lois, 39; Beth, 41. George III's wife, Julia, 42, and their two children, George IV, 14, and Jordan, 12. Lois's husband, Richard Morell, 43, and their son, Alex, 11. And Beth's husband, William Love, 41, and their daughter, Sarah, 12. Brumleys, 68 to 11, were on that plane.

Allison Vulgamore, president of the orchestra, said the entire family was known for giving. "When you worked with Jean and George, you always knew of their family legacies, but they did not want to focus on themselves."

Most of Dr. Brumley's family stayed near Atlanta , including Mr. Morell who quit his job as a lawyer to become a psychologist at an inner-city clinic Dr. Brumley set up.

Children were the Brumleys' key interest. Dr. Brumley, who received his bachelor's and medical degrees from Duke University, moved from Durham, N.C., to Atlanta in 1981 to become the chairman of Emory's pediatric department. By the time he retired 14 years later, the size of the department had tripled.

"We must not fail the children," he once wrote to a local paper.
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More later.
David Star@Audiea.com

Monday!
This is my saturday. I'm working on the final draft of my novel. Such fun! I am learning much and developing skills. I'm ignoring Bush etc because I need to concentrate.
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

SATURDAY!
Read it and laugh, weep, whatever!

July 19, 2003
He Conned the Society Crowd but Died Alone
By DAN BARRY


David Hampton's pursuit of a fabulous Manhattan life ended last month in the early-morning hush of a downtown hospital. No celebrities keened by his bedside, no theatrics unfolded in the hall; there was no last touch of the fabulous. Just the clinical cluck that follows the death of a man who dies alone at 39.

His name may not resonate, but his story will. David Hampton was the black teenager who conned members of the city's white elite 20 years ago with an outsized charm. He duped them into believing that he was a classmate of their children, the son of Sidney Poitier, and a victim of muggers who had just stolen his money and Harvard term paper — a term paper titled "Injustices in the Criminal Justice System."

The scam yielded a modest payoff: temporary shelter, a little cash, and the satisfaction of having mocked what he saw as the hypocritical world of limousine liberalism. He also briefly experienced the glamorous Manhattan life that had first seduced him from his upper-middle-class home in Buffalo, a city that he once said lacked anyone "who was glamorous or fabulous or outrageously talented."

"New York was the place for him," Susan V. Tipograph, a lawyer and close friend, said. "In his mind, the fabulous people lived in New York City."

But Mr. Hampton paid long-term costs for his New York conceit and deceit. For beguiling the affluent under false pretenses — the formal charge was attempted burglary — he received 21 months in prison. And for being such a distinctive character, he received eternal notoriety as the inspiration for "Six Degrees of Separation," a 1990 play by John Guare that became a hit and then a movie.

The play indeed centers on a young black man who poses as Sidney Poitier's son, and uses many details from the case. For example, it includes the singular moment when Osborn Elliott, a former editor of Newsweek, and his wife, Inger, evicted Mr. Hampton after finding their charming houseguest in bed with a man he had smuggled into their apartment. But Mr. Guare created many other details in writing a play that is a meditation on race relations, art and self-delusion.

Still, the thought that others were profiting from his hoax — his performance art, really — galled Mr. Hampton; in a way, he was the mark. He sued Mr. Guare and others for $100 million, and lost. He was tried on charges of harassing Mr. Guare, but was never convicted. He took a shot at acting, but his artistry clearly resided in the con.

Mr. Hampton continued duping others for money, for attention, and for entree into what he saw as the V.I.P. room of New York life. He would meet men in bars, dazzle them with his good looks and intellect, drop celebrity tidbits gleaned from prior scams — and then fleece them. Sometimes he was Patrick Owens; sometimes Antonio Jones; sometimes, just David.

But his name appeared more often in crime reports than in the society pages, usually for matters that fell far short of being fabulous: fare-beating, credit-card theft, threats of violence. He once told a judge that he had missed a court date because of a car accident; the ambulance report that he produced to back up his claim was, of course, a fake.

"He would often call me for advice," said Ronald L. Kuby, a friend and well-known lawyer who had represented him in the harassment case. "All I could tell him was to stop doing these things."

Something about David Hampton, it seems, prevented him from the enjoyment of simply being David Hampton. Although he felt used by the Guare play, he was using people well before and well after the "Six Degrees of Separation" phenomenon. What's more, he could be a real snob in determining one's fabulousness.

"There were times when I was socializing with people who wouldn't even dare have an Elliott, much less a Guare, at their dinner table," he told New York magazine in 1991. "But yet I had been at their dinner table. Legitimately, too."

Ms. Tipograph, who cleaned out his small room at an AIDS residence after he died at Beth Israel Medical Center, said that in the end, Mr. Hampton had a difficult life.

She said that she chooses to remember the warmth of a con artist who was also a friend. "I'm a 52-year-old overweight lawyer with bad knees; clubbing is not my thing," she said. "But we had a very regular friendship. We had lunch together. We had a very un-fabulous relationship."

Mr. Hampton, she said, "gave enjoyment, even when he did bad."

One of his last victims, at least as far as law-enforcement officials know, was Peter Bedevian, who went out on a date in late October 2001 with the man he knew as David Hampton-Montilio.

Before heading for a restaurant, Mr. Hampton said that he wanted to take Mr. Bedevian to a 9/11 celebrity benefit, but that he needed to be fronted $1,000 for the two tickets. Mr. Bedevian withdrew the money from an A.T.M. Mr. Hampton dashed into a downtown hotel to buy the tickets — from "friends from L.A. who were in town," as Mr. Bedevian recalled — and then the two sat down to eat.

They lived it up. They ate and drank, and talked about everything from the need to break out of their post-9/11 funk to the extraordinary talents of Billie Holiday. "He was able to pick out a little information, extrapolate, and use it to make me feel even more comfortable," Mr. Bedevian remembered. He added, "He knew how to tease you with `Oh, we're going to go to this benefit, and so-and-so's going to be there.' "

Mr. Hampton ordered a couple of $23 shots of fine Scotch as after-dinner drinks, Mr. Bedevian recalled. But it seemed the right thing to do; both men were living for the day.

Later would come the pain of having been suckered. Of Mr. Hampton excusing himself to use the bathroom, never to return; of getting stuck with the $423 dinner bill; of pressing criminal charges to get back his $1,000; of identifying his charming dinner date through the glass of a police station's one-way mirror.

But Mr. Bedevian also had this to say about his night with the notorious David Hampton, seeker of the fabulous. "Honestly?" he said. "It was one of the best dates that I ever went on."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top

FRIDAY!
Warm day in The City.
1
In March of 2001 I auctioned a Toshiba Libretto 100ct on eBay and it sold for $920. It was just at P166 with 64MB of RAM. This week I auctioned a IBM 600E ThinkPad that is a P2 366 and it sold for $255! Times have changed. Two years ago Laptops were a luxury and seen as a risk toy, you could loose it or have it stolen. Now, everyone has a laptop or soon will. Desktops are not so different in power and in many instances people realize the real value of having everything on one machine and then store backup files on your old desktop.
Notebook computers are the most ego stroking and personal satisfaction toy there is. Personal screen colors, the music or movies, the way the machine is part of you and a slave to whim. Wireless allows unlimited access to the Internet and there has never been a more pleasing experience that the Internet. It offers every possibility and allows you to link to the world. By 2010 cell phones will have been reduced to ear buds and laptops will be as powerful as you can imagine. Your ear phone will link to your notebook and you'll listen to music or make calls over the Internet. Cost will be cheap.
Think, a device that offers unlimited movies, TV, Cable and Broadcast, DVD storage, telephone, fax, and paging, and the Internet with it's universal library and for a few bucks a moth.
Landline phones and AM radio will vanish and then by 2020 Notebook computers will have genuine civil rights as they develop the power of thinking ands reasoning. By 2040 laptops will think, reason, communicate, and be your best friend from childhood to death. Media giants will have you on this profitable tether all your life. Loose your "Friend" the police will chase heaven and Earth to find it.
Eventually the machine will look and act like a lover, friend, advisor, bodyguard, and critic. Androids will come because they will be the ultimate ego pleaser. A machine you can love hate talk to and run through life with. Sex and violence and wisdom as well as every song, video, and bit of knowledge you ever craved. Data come to life!
Imagine that world! And you think we are fools on a rock today!
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

Thursday!
Wednesday came and went, all the better!
I have a minor rash and the medicine is $488.59 for 30 pills!Diflucan 150mg. Unbelievable!
I'll stick with Walgreens hand lotion!
2
Tuesday NY Times Science Section has a excellent article on speech and language development. There is also a fun article that details a new theory about aging and the way mothering and grandmothering prolong human life spans.
3
Tony Blair, the British PM comes to America today. The Bushies have abused him recently. He deserves better and all Americans should support him.
More later!
David Star@Audiea.com

TUESDAY!
This last Sunday I marked 13 years in San Francisco. Not too much has changed. Art Agnos was mayor, he would be defeated by his chief of Police: Frank Jordan in the 1991 elections only to have Jordan whipped by Willie Brown in 1995.
The week I arrived in 1990 a man had a heart attack while driving along a street in Noe Valley. He rolled forward hit a small Toyota killing a mother and daughter. He hit two other cars, five people died! In 1991 we had the 101 California massacre and in 1992 a 70 year old man killed a 17 year old girl and her boyfriend. Later it was learned the man was in love with the boy! Talk about jealous lovers!
During the last 13 years nothing of substance has been done about the homeless population. The actual number of street people has declined, because SF has a reputation as being unfriendly.
The City is rich, thus not very exciting. Club life shifted from 9th and Folsom to Valencia and then went to the East Bay, mostly in Industrial Oakland.
Pac Bell Park opened in 1999 and has been a huge hit. That area, China Basin was a slum for decades, now it is a rich mans haven.
We are about to elect a new mayor and the main challenge is a credible tax base. San Francisco has an aging population, few new home owners and is crippled by propositions 13.
I have had a good run. I earned $341,000 in the last 13 years and had three jobs, all security. I've been here on Post Street for nine years. My neighborhood has gone upscale and without rent control I could not live here.
When I arrive George Bush the Elder was president. Now his son is president.
Life goes on. The best part are the friends I have made. Mike Terry, Rachel Garvey, Robert wooden, they are the tops and then there are a dozen folks I see all the time at Starbucks or at work. The sex has been very good. This city nevers cools off. Everyone is on the make.
I wrote three complete novels! "Nightwalk" "Alta Plaza" and now "Not Far From Here" I'm not published yet, but well, we'll see!
Borders, Original Joes, Starbucks, Metreon, and channel 44 make The City great fun. I am not unhappy, just older.
More later
David Star@Audiea.com

SUNDAY!
Here is a delightful article from Saturday 12/7/03 NYY TIMES

July 12, 2003
The Bright Stuff
By DANIEL C. DENNETT

BLUE HILL, Me.
The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny — or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic — and life after death.

The term "bright" is a recent coinage by two brights in Sacramento, Calif., who thought our social group — which has a history stretching back to the Enlightenment, if not before — could stand an image-buffing and that a fresh name might help. Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: "I'm a bright" is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view.

You may well be a bright. If not, you certainly deal with brights daily. That's because we are all around you: we're doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies.

As an adult white married male with financial security, I am not in the habit of considering myself a member of any minority in need of protection. If anybody is in the driver's seat, I've thought, it's people like me. But now I'm beginning to feel some heat, and although it's not uncomfortable yet, I've come to realize it's time to sound the alarm.

Whether we brights are a minority or, as I am inclined to believe, a silent majority, our deepest convictions are increasingly dismissed, belittled and condemned by those in power — by politicians who go out of their way to invoke God and to stand, self-righteously preening, on what they call "the side of the angels."

A 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests that 27 million Americans are atheist or agnostic or have no religious preference. That figure may well be too low, since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one — more a matter of protective coloration than conviction.

Most brights don't play the "aggressive atheist" role. We don't want to turn every conversation into a debate about religion, and we don't want to offend our friends and neighbors, and so we maintain a diplomatic silence.

But the price is political impotence. Politicians don't think they even have to pay us lip service, and leaders who wouldn't be caught dead making religious or ethnic slurs don't hesitate to disparage the "godless" among us.

From the White House down, bright-bashing is seen as a low-risk vote-getter. And, of course, the assault isn't only rhetorical: the Bush administration has advocated changes in government rules and policies to increase the role of religious organizations in daily life, a serious subversion of the Constitution. It is time to halt this erosion and to take a stand: the United States is not a religious state, it is a secular state that tolerates all religions and — yes — all manner of nonreligious ethical beliefs as well.

I recently took part in a conference in Seattle that brought together leading scientists, artists and authors to talk candidly and informally about their lives to a group of very smart high school students. Toward the end of my allotted 15 minutes, I tried a little experiment. I came out as a bright.

Now, my identity would come as no surprise to anybody with the slightest knowledge of my work. Nevertheless, the result was electrifying.

Many students came up to me afterwards to thank me, with considerable passion, for "liberating" them. I hadn't realized how lonely and insecure these thoughtful teenagers felt. They'd never heard a respected adult say, in an entirely matter of fact way, that he didn't believe in God. I had calmly broken a taboo and shown how easy it was.

In addition, many of the later speakers, including several Nobel laureates, were inspired to say that they, too, were brights. In each case the remark drew applause. Even more gratifying were the comments of adults and students alike who sought me out afterward to tell me that, while they themselves were not brights, they supported bright rights. And that is what we want most of all: to be treated with the same respect accorded to Baptists and Hindus and Catholics, no more and no less.

If you're a bright, what can you do? First, we can be a powerful force in American political life if we simply identify ourselves. (The founding brights maintain a Web site on which you can stand up and be counted.) I appreciate, however, that while coming out of the closet was easy for an academic like me — or for my colleague Richard Dawkins, who has issued a similar call in England — in some parts of the country admitting you're a bright could lead to social calamity. So please: no "outing."

But there's no reason all Americans can't support bright rights. I am neither gay nor African-American, but nobody can use a slur against blacks or homosexuals in my hearing and get away with it. Whatever your theology, you can firmly object when you hear family or friends sneer at atheists or agnostics or other godless folk.

And you can ask your political candidates these questions: Would you vote for an otherwise qualified candidate for public office who was a bright? Would you support a nominee for the Supreme Court who was a bright? Do you think brights should be allowed to be high school teachers? Or chiefs of police?

Let's get America's candidates thinking about how to respond to a swelling chorus of brights. With any luck, we'll soon hear some squirming politician trying to get off the hot seat with the feeble comment that "some of my best friends are brights."

Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is author, most recently, of "Freedom Evolves.''
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