5-Year TIPS November 28, 2008March 12, 2017 MOVIES You must under no circumstances see Role Models if you are offended by crude and sexual content, strong language and nudity. Or if you have no sense of humor. Otherwise, it’s great fun. The word on Sean Penn’s Milk is U.S.D.A. Grade A. AND SPEAKING OF MILK: “I DO” BUT YOU CAN’T You will recall that on November 4, Californians narrowly passed Proposition 8, rescinding the recently-granted right of same-sex couples to marry. (Both the California Supreme Court and the California Legislature had affirmed this right.) According to one poll, the resulting 300 protests around the country have persuaded 8% of Prop 8 supporters to regret the way they voted. (As in, ‘Huh. If I had realized so many people would be upset at having their rights rescinded, I would have voted ‘No.’ ‘) Had they voted the other way, the results would have flipped: instead of 52%, just 48% would have voted yes and marriage would still be legal in California. This piece in the Christian Science Monitor asks ‘When should a majority have the power to take away a constitutional right granted by a court? It’s a question that forces us to think about why we have constitutional rights in the first place, and why they are enforced by judges.’ 5-YEAR TIPS Earlier this week, I put some of my retirement fund in 5-year TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities). The price has come up a hair since then, but I think they still offer a safe haven for money you can’t afford to risk. Closing just under $930 per bond (I paid $921.56), they pay a paltry $6.25 a year in interest (give or take) but will be redeemed for $1,000 April 15, 2013, plus any increment by which the CPI may have risen since they were issued. This is no way to get rich – it works out to a ‘yield to maturity’ of about 2.3%-plus-inflation – but it protects, at least pretty well, against three things: deflation, inflation, and losing your money. If we have extended deflation, which I doubt, you will be very pleased to get $1,000 back for your $930 bonds: $1,000 will buy more than it does today. If, as is more likely, we have significant inflation, your bonds will be redeemed for a price that reflects much of it. And while other bond issuers may go broke, the U.S. Treasury is unlikely ever to default outright on its debt. (That’s what inflation is for: a face-saving way to stick it to long-term debt holders without having to declare bankruptcy.) So you won’t get rich, but you won’t lose your money, either. Meanwhile, the 30-year TIPS have come way back down in price, too, now yielding a hair above 3%-plus-inflation. They are worth a look as well. Bear in mind that TIPS are best held in retirement accounts, because the inflation adjustment is taxed as income even though you don’t actually get it until you sell (or redeem) the bonds. Also, that there will come a time – possibly a couple of days ago, more likely some time in the future (but we won’t know that until way in the future) – that it will have been tragic to invest in something safe like TIPS when, it will be clear with hindsight, you could have made double and triple and ten times your money taking more risk. Five-year TIPS selling under par are for money you can’t afford to lose. Click here to learn lots more about TIPS. Coming Soon: I have discovered a terrific way to cook eggplant
Flying Carpets Again November 26, 2008March 12, 2017 NEW YORK CITY – UNDER $100 Half a block from the subway and just a ten-minute walk from Charles Nolan or Penn Station, Leo House is an astonishing New York City bargain. Say hi to the nuns. BOREALIS Well, at least Motor Trend’s technical director is buying the story. That is hardly ‘dispositive,’ as the lawyers say – dispositive will be when you or I are on a Delta flight that backs out of its gate under its own power or, better still, when we get a Borealis dividend check that doesn’t bounce. Still, stories like this keep hope alive. THANKSGIVING As I’ve said so often in this space, almost all of us live better than the kings of England, czars of Russia, pharaohs of Egypt ever did. We have magic carpets with seats that recline; we have jesters, bards, gladiators and orchestras on instant call (with remote control, volume control, pause, fast forward and reverse). We have cell phones, antibiotics, zippers – Velcro, even – Google, anaesthetics, and aspirin. We have air-conditioning. We have each other.* Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.** * Oh, my God — I’m having a Hallmark moment. Shoot me before I insert a smiley face. ** Seriously.
Flying Carpets Again November 25, 2008March 25, 2012 NEW YORK CITY – UNDER $100 Half a block from the subway and just a ten-minute walk from Charles Nolan or Penn Station, Leo House is an astonishing New York City bargain. Say hi to the nuns. BOREALIS Well, at least Motor Trend’s technical director is buying the story. That is hardly ‘dispositive,’ as the lawyers say – dispositive will be when you or I are on a Delta flight that backs out of its gate under its own power or, better still, when we get a Borealis dividend check that doesn’t bounce. Still, stories like this keep hope alive. THANKSGIVING As I’ve said so often in this space, almost all of us live better than the kings of England, czars of Russia, pharaohs of Egypt ever did. We have magic carpets with seats that recline; we have jesters, bards, gladiators and orchestras on instant call (with remote control, volume control, pause, fast forward and reverse). We have cell phones, antibiotics, zippers – Velcro, even – Google, anaesthetics, and aspirin. We have air-conditioning. We have each other.* Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.** * Oh, my God -I’m having a Hallmark moment. Shoot me before I insert a smiley face. ** Seriously.
Watch the Radio Address November 24, 2008March 12, 2017 THE REALLY IMPORTANT THING – II Friday, I argued for really big deficits – but purposeful ones. In case you were not persuaded, here is Matt Miller’s take on the same issue. THE ORDER OF EVENTS First deflation – we’re in that now (falling gas prices, falling home prices, falling stock prices, falling Christmas-gift prices; falling spending, falling profits, falling payrolls) – then, someplace down the road, inflation. I was wrong to miss the deflation part; I thought we’d avoid it because of the Fed’s very-easy money policy . . . and because of the huge deficits we were running. But the cash inflow from expansive fiscal and monetary policy seems to have been overwhelmed by the cash outflow of ‘deleveraging’ – namely, when debt balances are reduced, voluntarily or involuntarily, and the money supply contracts. Picture a swimming pool with a garden hose running water into it full blast . . . but the pool pump set to ‘backwash.’ The pool level falls instead of rising. Or picture a bank getting $25 billion in new cash from Treasury, but its credit card customers deciding to pay down their credit cards by $50 billion. IN CASE YOU MISSED THE PRESIDENT ELECT’S WEEKLY ADDRESS Click here. The times ahead are tough, but plans are being formulated to get us back on track. PROP 8 COMES TO PRINCETON Have you seen what they’re doing at Princeton? Inspired by the recent California precedent -where a slim majority succeeded in taking rights away from a minority (who’s next?) – students are looking to clear their sidewalks of freshmen. ASK, TELL – WHO CARES? Reports the Associated Press (and CNN): ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press. . . . “As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality,” the officers wrote. . . .
The Really Important Thing November 21, 2008January 3, 2017 86 HANDBAGS LEFT ON THE WALL, 86 HANDBAGS ARE LEFT . . . . . . if one of those handbags should happen to fall, 85 handbags are left on the wall. Here‘s the website where you can read about the woman who made your bag. Here‘s where you find out how to buy one for your mother, daughter or bride at 20% off the already-too-low price. ‘While supplies last.’ BOROWITZ TAKES A SHOT AT OBAMA Here. CNN TAKES A SHOT AT BUSH Here. RSW Up from $83 to $200 since April . . . if you haven’t already sold perhaps a third of it or so, I would. But I’d hang on to the rest. TREASURIES, TIPS AND MUNIS A friend who specializes in the ‘long bond’ says he’s never seen anything like it. Look at this chart to see the gap in what the bond was yielding Wednesday to where it opened Thursday (with yield continuing to fall from there). This is not business as usual. People are scared. There is an extreme flight to safety going on (no news there, obviously, but still). Even tax-free triple-A ‘general obligation’ municipal bonds (the ones backed by the full taxing authority of the state or city) – bonds which you might expect to be attracting interest from wealthy investors worried about an impending hike in their tax rates – are offering a dramatically higher yield than Treasuries, 5.14% for the 30-year muni versus 3.57% for the 30-year Treasury. Usually, munis yield less than Treasuries. People are worried that states and cities will go bankrupt. And here’s one: the 5-year Treasury yields 1.98% to maturity, while the 5-year inflation-adjusted Treasury (TIPS) yields 2.36%-plus-whatever-inflation-there-may-have-been-between-now-and-five-years-from-now (even if some deflation comes first). There may be other explanations for this (like the relatively small size of the TIPS market, or investors’ lack of familiarity with them), but one explanation is just that people don’t want to take the time to be clever, they just want to be safe. THE REALLY IMPORTANT THING For all the economic turbulence ahead, one core principle is worth highlighting. Having millions of talented, willing workers idle – whether in the U.S. or Mexico or China – can’t possibly help when there’s so much that needs doing in the U.S. and Mexico and China (and everywhere else). Mindless massive deficits can’t do us any good. But purposeful massive deficits focused on productive ends – like building tens of thousands of windmills and an electric grid to support them to save $700 billion we would otherwise need to send abroad each year – those are deficits that will employ millions of people and provide a return on investment for as long as the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. (We know we belong to the land . . . and the land we belong to is grand . . . but I digress.) I am oversimplifying. It’s not just windmills. And finding reasonable ways for government to help without disincentivizing private enterprise or skewing the free market too badly is unquestionably a challenge. But does anyone doubt that the massively expensive Interstate Highway System was a good investment? The same would be true of energy independence. And a great time to make such a big investment is when there are talented, able-bodied people with nothing else to do. Another example – if harder to quantify its payback and doubtless thornier to effect – would be redirecting a million talented, college educated people losing their jobs in department stores, brokerage houses, and auto dealerships (for example), toward an educational Marshall Plan. At its core, our future rests with the talent, health, and character of our kids. (Check out Democrats for Education Reform. Check out Harlem Success Academy. Check out PS 65Q.) I’ve been telling folks I want to see Bill Cosby named Secretary of Education. But maybe it should be Colin Powell. Either way: I’d love to see a hugely high profile appointment, because nothing is more important. The Federal Government has no separate ‘capital account.’ It treats $1 spent on rations for the troops – necessary, but here today, gone tomorrow – the same as it treats $1 spent on a windmill that will last 30 years or aid to education that will last a lifetime. We need to do all we can not to borrow for ‘operating expenses,’ just as you or I should not borrow to buy dinner. But if you’re borrowing to buy a sewing machine that will allow you to start your own little business, or borrowing to get an education – that’s okay. Indeed, nervous-making, but more than okay – in the long-run, that’s the borrowing that offers the promise of a brighter future. So the really important thing to keep in mind these next few years, I think, is not the size of the deficits incurred here and abroad (they will be huge, and should be); but to make sure they are incurred with a clear purpose, for investments in our future that cry out to be made.
Dress for Duress November 20, 2008March 25, 2012 Tell me you wouldn’t look great in this coat – reduced for the recession, like several of the other items at Charlesnolan.com. What’s more, I have been authorized to share with you a secret promo code which gives you a further 20% off anything you buy. Just enter FF20 at checkout. It even applies to this bright silver handbag, bringing your price down below $75 – the perfect gift for the woman in your life. You’d never know from looking at it, but it’s made from hundreds of soda can pull-tabs that would otherwise have become litter or landfill. Oprah featured it. Inside each is the name of the Brazilian woman who made your particular bag and the website to visit to read about her, and how this crafts cooperative is changing her life. The women I’ve shown it to love it. I think we should be selling it for $400, but what do I know.
I Got Nothing November 19, 2008March 12, 2017 Roses are red, Violence, appalling. With a rhyme such as this one, I’m obviously stalling. Peppers are green, Great Mozart, enthralling. Does poetry pay well? Have I missed my calling? Oceans are blue, Investors are bawling. Four oh one K’s Just keep falling and falling. This, too, shall pass, The storm and the squalling. But don’t hold your breath; Prepare for more mauling. No column today. Sorry.
Getting Back to Finance for a Minute November 18, 2008January 3, 2017 GOING TO THE SUN In 1961, we set out to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. It was a supremely cool thing to do – read President Kennedy’s rationale here – and it had lots of indirect benefits, like these. In the decade ahead, we will go to the sun. Not literally, of course – for energy. And if we do it as successfully as we went to the moon, the benefits will be even more tangible. By replacing fossil fuels with solar energy and other inexhaustible, nonpolluting energy sources, we’ll save $700 billion we send abroad each year . . . $7 trillion per decade . . . and set a course for a more nearly sustainable economy. Plug your car in when you get home, and let the sun’s rays (one way or another) recharge it. Cool. GARRISON KEILLOR Lisa Strong: ‘I’m disappointed. You offered Keillor’s article as a positive thing. 1) How dare Keillor suggest that previously ‘we’ pretended to be Canadians. Maybe he did. But he should speak for himself. I’m offended at the idea. Canada is a fine country. Please Garrison, move there. (Are you sure this is an article you wish to promote?) 2) The Swedes and French are happy?? Why is that a plus? What about these socialist countries makes them superior judges? Their government system? Their economic system? Maybe Keillor sees these as superior, but I do NOT want to use these as our models. (Are you sure this is an article you wish to promote?) 3) But most importantly, Keillor is promoting that Obama immediately abandon his promises. Ok, so which is it: Is Keillor suggesting that Obama should abandon his heartfelt promises to those who faithfully elected him? Or is Keillor praising Obama for winning the game for the Democrats by deceiving the voters about what he can and will do? Or is Keillor suggesting that Obama didn’t understand the current circumstances under which he would be operating? Pick any one. Keillor is so blinded by his politics that he doesn’t even see anything wrong with this. He sees this as a success. Aghhh! My team is my country. Clearly Keillor’s team is his party. My country is in big trouble, and this kind of party politics that is at the root of it. (Are you sure this is an article you wish to promote?)’ ☞ Thanks for your perspective, Lisa. I do think having the most of the world cheering for us again is good for the world, good for our national security, and good for our (eventual) continued prosperity. All positive. I think Obama will be far less partisan than his predecessor, and that we’ll all join you in being pleased by that. And I think Garrison Keillor is one of our country’s great teammates – but that sometimes teams do screw up, and that his point is that our team, these past eight years, has not been at the top of its game. MONEY Alan S.: ‘Getting back to finance for a brief moment: The Dow averaged 5.3% compounded annually for the 20th century, a record Warren Buffet called ‘a wonderful century’ – when he calculated that to achieve that return again, the index would need to reach nearly 2,000,000 by 2100. The way the stock market is presently going, this of course will be impossible. Will stocks ever thrive again, even if only at a 5.3% annual rate of return? (This return seems puny, considering that some 1 year CD’s are paying the same thing.) Am I missing something?’ ☞ Do we have to get back to finance? Not a cheerful topic. (Which is to say: if you’ve been using it to hedge your portfolio, don’t sell your RSW.) For the Dow to compound at 5.3% through the end of the century from its 13,850 high a year ago would be to have it climb to 1.7 million. Give it a full century instead of 93 years and you’re at 2.4 million. Go nuts and compound it at 5.4% and it’s Dow 2.7 million. That’s quite a jump. And we may be alive to see it. A couple of points on the math. First, not to quibble, but I think the one-year CD rate is more like 3.45% than 5.3%. Second, most people use more like 9% than 5.3% for the expected return on stocks. But that’s before adjusting for inflation (is it really 9% if prices have been going up by 3%? no, it nets out to 6%) . . . and before adjusting for dividends (traditionally that 9% came in the form of roughly-vaguely 3% dividends and 6% stock appreciation). And, yes, despite two world wars and the Great Depression the Twentieth was a good century for American equities, and this Twenty-First century could be equally good. To answer your question (‘will stocks ever thrive again’): it seems to me they are closer to a level from which they can thrive at last night’s 8273 than they were at last year’s 13,850. (Right? The cheaper they are, the more room to thrive.) If Ray Kurzweil is right, and technological progress over even just the next 50 years is 32 times as fast as it was over the past 50 years, it could be a century of astounding economic progress. But getting from here to there is going to be painful. We have years of readjustment to get out of this mess. And there’s no guarantee that today’s shareholders are likely to wind up doing well. Take the example of GM. Even if it’s rescued and goes on to thrive, who’s to say how much of the company today’s common shareholders will own? The taxpayers might get 90% of the equity in return for a bail-out. And/or the employees and pensioners might get 90% of the equity in return for agreeing to deep cuts in pay and benefits. And/or the bondholders may wind up owning 90% – or 100% – of the equity if the company goes through a bankruptcy restructuring that allows it to get out from under unsustainable obligations. And it’s not just GM. Just as homeowners can see their equity wiped out and ownership transferred to the mortgagee (note that the house itself does not disappear), so common stockholders in lots of companies may see their equity wiped out and ownership transferred to the bondholders. Or not. But to a lesser or greater degree we could well see some of this. During which time investors might get more and more disgusted with stocks and more and more partial to bonds. Bizarre even to contemplate, I know; but in the (very) old days, stock dividends used to be higher than bond interest payments – a stock might pay an 8% dividend while its bonds paid 6% – because investors demanded very high cash returns from stocks, relative to bonds, to compensate for their greater risk.* If that did happen, it would likely be a great time to buy stocks. We’re a long way from its happening, if it ever does. But it might. My point: what the heck do I know? My subsidiary point: because a number of scenarios are possible, it’s wise to be cautious; to diversify; and to live frugally (but joyfully), saving as much as you can and investing it across several asset classes. *The more modern argument has been that stocks are more volatile, i.e., risky in the short-term; but that they are a safer way to beat inflation over long-term. So investors were delighted to forego dividends for hoped for (and lightly taxed) growth.
Chicago Deeply Held Religious Beliefs November 17, 2008March 12, 2017 CHICAGO – I Give it up for Garrison Keillor. Wow! America is cool We are being admired by Swedes! We don’t have to pretend we’re Canadians. We elected Barack Obama! By Garrison Keillor Nov. 12, 2008 | Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn’t gloating, it’s satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!! We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor — he said, “I’ve got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I’ve got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher.” The French junior minister for human rights said, “On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes.” When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment. The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He’ll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. He looks good in the kitchen. He can cook Indian or Chinese but for his girls he will do mac and cheese. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can’t imagine anybody cooler. Look at a photo of the latest pooh-bah conference — the hausfrau Merkel, the big glum Scotsman, that goofball Berlusconi, Putin with his B-movie bad-boy scowl, and Sarkozy, who looks like a district manager for Avis — you put Barack in that bunch and he will shine. It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he’s going to see “United States of America” and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian. And the coolest thing about him is the fact that back in the early ’90s, given a book contract after the hoo-ha about his becoming the First Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review (FBEHLR), instead of writing the basic exploitation book he could’ve written, he put his head down and worked hard for a few years and wrote a good book, an honest one, which, since his rise in politics, has earned the Obamas enough to buy a very nice house and put money in the bank. A successful American entrepreneur. The last American president to write a book all by his lonesome self, I believe, was Theodore Roosevelt, who, on graduation from Harvard, wrote “The Naval War of 1812,” and in my humble opinion, Obama’s is the better book for the general reader, but you be the judge. Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. The country is sunk in debt. The Treasury announced it must borrow $550 billion to get the government through the fourth quarter, more than the entire deficit for 2008, so he will have to raise taxes and not only on bankers and lumber barons. His promise never to raise the retirement age is not a good idea. Whatever he promised the Iowa farmers about subsidizing ethanol is best forgotten at this point. We may not be getting our National Health Service cards anytime soon. And so on and so on. So enjoy the afterglow of the election a while longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails — imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes the First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels. Have a good day. CHICAGO – II Saturday, there were ad hoc rallies in 300 cities to protest California’s Mormon-backed Prop 8, which – at least for now – overturned the ruling of the California Supreme Court and the twice-passed will of the California legislature, thereby taking away rights that had been granted to a minority. The biggest rally seems to have been in San Diego – 25,000. Here’s a post from the one in Chicago: Jinx Titanic: I have never seen ANYTHING like this in the city I call home! The march was infectious and it is true, the police and onlookers were stunned. The most fantastic moment was the taking of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. It was, in fact, taken; and though traffic was at a standstill, I did not see an angry motorist. Instead we were greeted with honking horns and cheers. Most remarkable was that the march grew, and grew, and grew and grew. I am still stunned and so proud. I want to send the Mormons and the Knights of Columbus a big thank you letter for getting our movement back on track! FINALLY A REAL PRIDE PARADE IN CHICAGO! ☞ Click here for a report on one of the many smaller rallies – this one, in Grand Rapids. And here for Harvey Fierstein’s take on marriage equality. But since it’s pretty much all about religion, here is an article that ‘Frasier’ co-creator David Lee wrote for The Advocate six years ago. It was based on a speech he gave to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force when he got their leadership award. It remains relevant today. DEEPLY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS by David Lee I used to think of a leader as someone who heeds the call to pick up a sword and lead the charge. For me it has usually been a little different. Picture a group of people in a line. When volunteers to lead the troops are asked to take a step forward I usually stand firmly in my place. Then I turn around only to find that everyone else has taken a step backward. That’s how I come to leadership. The Laura Schlesinger incident of a few years ago is a good example. Early on no one, not one gay person, who worked at Paramount – and, trust me, the place is crawling with us – objected openly to their own studio producing her TV show. Of course, I said to myself, ‘Boy, what we need is somebody to stand up to Paramount, somebody the suits can’t fire, somebody they have to pay attention to.’ Then NBC picked up FRASIER for another three years and all of a sudden I fit my own description. I think I muttered something leader-ish like ‘Oh, s–t’ and soon found myself outside those famous Paramount gates with a picket sign and bullhorn. I now find myself in a similar position around another subject: the anti-gay bigotry of some of our major religious institutions. I keep looking around for someone, anyone to say something, anything in response to the incessant bile about of gay and lesbian people that is spewed forth daily by the some of the world’s so called spiritual leaders. I keep looking around for someone to finally say ‘Enough. This has got to stop!’ And what I see when I turn around is a bunch of folks who have taken a step to the rear. Sadly and shockingly our major gay political groups are the most conspicuous in their silence. And so I mutter ‘Oh, s–t’ and forge ahead. First, let me make it absolutely clear that this is not an attack on religion. I am on a spiritual path myself. I’m sure many of you are too. What I am attacking is homophobic bigotry that justifies itself in religious belief. And the free pass that we in the gay community have given much of this stuff over and over again. Folks, the time for polite silence is finished. We have got to start defending ourselves when attacked. And we are under a massive attack. The Mormon Church is the fastest growing cult in the world. Every year they send out 30 to 40 thousand new missionaries. They are not trying to convince people that gays and lesbians are cool. As late as the last decade this group was attaching electrodes to gay men’s testicles trying to shock them back into the hetero fold. There is a task to be tended to here, yet the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has said nothing. Evangelical Christians and Southern Baptists – the largest religious group in the US – are snatching up television stations by the handful. They are not doing this so that they can air Queer Eye. Have you watched these guys? We are defamed loudly and repeatedly by bible thumping bigots and yet the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is silent. My writing partner, David Angell, with whom I produced CHEERS and created WINGS and FRASIER, and his wife Lynn, were in the first plane to hit the World Trade Centers on 9/11. I received, in my grief, an e-mail that began with the following words: Islam Is Not the Enemy. As an American I had to agree. Despite my personal loss, I knew that it was proper and good to discourage an unfair backlash against innocent Muslims after 9/11. As an American I understand that Islam is not the enemy. But what about as a gay man? Have we have forgotten that there is no sect of Islam worth noting that even tolerates homosexuality, and in countries where Islam predominates punishment can be anything from imprisonment, to torture, to disfigurement to death. Islam may not be the enemy of my country, but I’d be hard pressed to find a bigger enemy of gay people. Human rights transgressions are being carried out daily in its name, but what do we hear from the Human Rights Campaign? Nothing that I know of. The number of Catholics in this country is increasing by leaps and bounds, mostly by immigration. The leader of this sect now sends “instructions” (his word) to Catholic politicians on gay issues. He has told them that it is their ‘moral duty’ (his words again) to oppose any gay rights reforms. This is absolutely outrageous. The sovereign head of another country giving instructions to our government officials. Yet have you heard one word from our national organizations? Has anyone quizzed these Catholic congressmen, senators, judges and justices about whether they intend to follow these orders from the Vatican? I’d love to hear if they have. Don’t get me wrong. The NGLTF, GLAAD, and HRC are amazing vibrant organizations who have made tremendous contributions to the cause. But on this issue these groups are asleep at the switch. Why? Here’s what I think. We as a group have become tolerant of intolerance. Whenever anyone justifies their bigotry with what I call DHRB (deeply held religious beliefs) we roll over as if that were the end of the discussion. We have confused respecting a persons right to hold whatever religious beliefs they chose with respecting those beliefs. The truth is there are plenty of DHRB that are simply not worthy of our respect. Can we start with the ones that have no respect for us? Can you imagine an African American respecting someone’s DHRB that the Bible justifies slavery? The right to believe it, yes. The belief itself? No way. We are terrified to call a bigot a bigot if the bigotry is a result of DHRB. We are horrified that we might be accused of attacking someone’s religion. As if attacking bigotry hiding behind the skirts of religion and attacking religion were the same thing. The church homophobes have it easy on this one. They say the most vile, cruel, untruthful things about us, usually to raise funds, and then use their tax exempt dollars to promote anti-gay legislation. If we dare to defend ourselves we are accused of assaulting their faith. They even use the word ‘bashing’. What an insult. Try telling Trev Brody or any of the thousands of other gays who have seen the wrong end of a baseball bat, that someone taking issue with your religious views is equivalent to their experience. Why are we not talking about this? Is there no one who has the guts to stand up to these bigots? Is no one willing to say forcefully that homophobic DHRB have no place or value in a civilized 21st century? What happened to the gay movement’s “bad cops”? We seem to have evolved into nothing but a bunch of flabby “soft cops.” I find myself missing those bad cops from a decade ago, the Act Up folks. More than anything we need to be reminded once again that ‘Silence Equals Death.’ It is as true about homophobic religions as it is about AIDS. We have got to start talking about religion. All of it. The good guys – and there are many – and the bad guys. It must be a compassionate discussion but we must not in our compassion shy away from the truth. Yes, it is a dynamite issue. Yes, people will take offense. Yes, the opponents are formidable. But I hope respectfully that the NGLTF, GLAAD, the HRC and our other leaders will jump into the fray. I hope that when the call comes for volunteers to lead the charge, they do not take a step backward. ☞ One organization currently working to generate that discussion: Faith in America.
Michael Lewis Explains It All November 14, 2008March 12, 2017 CARTOONS Yesterday’s links somehow led to the wrong cartoons. Doh! The ones I liked were: a Mike Luckovich drawing of Lincoln sitting, as he does, at the Lincoln Memorial, but with his two thumbs up (Obama has just secured the nomination) . . . a Tom Toles drawing of the White House beneath the phrase, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and above the phrase, “Ratified November 4, 2008” . . . a double-pane Jack Ohman drawing of a black woman gazing out a bus window in the pane labeled “1955,” and a black man in just the same pose gazing out the window of the Presidential Limo in the pane labeled “2008.” NEW YORK TO DC: TAKE THE BUS! The Delta Shuttle is rolling out wifi this Spring for an extra $9.95 a flight. Add $339 for the flight itself, $35 for the cab to get to the flight (LaGuardia) and $20 for the cab when you land at National – all in, $405, give or take; $810 round trip. (Unless you want a wider seat – Delta adds a First Class section December 1 that adds another $170 or so each way: $1,150.) Door-to-door travel time each way – when traffic to and from the airport, weather, air traffic control, and so forth, are all cooperating: around two and a half hours. The Acela offers no wifi and takes four hours, door-to-door, but you don’t have to take your shoes off to go through security and the round-trip cost, with cabs to and from the station (you could take the subway) is a more modest $450 or so. You can even plug in your laptop. The slower train adds half an hour, so all in you’re at maybe four and a half hours – and there’s no electrical outlet at your seat – but round-trip is about $215(because I know you’ll take the subway). But . . . ta-da! . . . these express buses between Washington (Dupont Circle) and New York (Herald Square) have free wireless for the approximately five-hour door-to-door journey, at less than $60 round-trip. Some of the buses allow riders to vote on which movie to watch, and to offer free water, and I’ve heard some of the buses even have AC power at the seats – none of this is stated on the web site, so it may depend on which bus you happen to catch. Bring a very good book in case the wireless is on the fritz. Or just bring this: MICHAEL LEWIS EXPLAINS IT ALL This is the piece everyone is reading to see the sweep of what went wrong in our financial markets. You may enjoy (?) reading it, too. Have a great weekend.