Ellen and the De-Glamorization of the Oscars

The Oscar selfie retweeted by several million people
 including me.

Right after the Oscars, I received several Facebook posts from detractors of this year's host Ellen DeGeneris. I absolutely loved her. I thought she hit exactly the right note between cynical debunking of Hollywood and acting as a surrogate for crazed movie fans. It was clear she loved being there close to the stars and enjoyed kidding them gently. Her whole shtick was to tell the audience, see these big film people are just like you and me. They get hungry, they eat pizza, they pose for selfies. It was a big improvement over last year's snarky Seth McFarland who was determined to be as nasty and lowbrow as any of his Family Guy characters. I'm still cringing from the "We Saw Your Boobs" choral number and the endless, unfunny opening bit with William Shatner.

Marriage Equality Is Inevitable

When even George Will admits that opposition to gay marriage is dying (literally), you know there's been a major cultural shift in America. This morning on This Week, the owlish Mr. Will, who always reminds my of a stiff-necked high-school math teacher chiding the country as if we were his inattentive students, stated the consensus was moving towards marriage equality. Not one of the politically diverse panel incl. James Carville and his lovely wife Mary Matalin, Paul Krugman and that right-wing-like bald guy from ABC disagreed or supported the idea that traditional marriage should be preserved for straights only. They were responding to the announcement on Friday that the Supreme Court will take up two cases concerning gay marriage: Prop 8 and DOMA with regard to the federal government recognizing state gay unions.

Will also stated the Supreme Court had inserted itself in the abortion issue with Roe V. Wade and unbalanced the democratic process and that the debate was civil and everything was going along just fine on that issue. (Yeah, right!) He put forth the idea that the Supremes may want to step back and not insert themselves in the debate and allow the states to decide (that worked out so well for women who needed abortions in states like Mississippi and for slaves who wanted to be free.) Or the high court may realize the tide is turning given the recent pro-gay votes in Maine, Maryland, and Washington. What Will does not want to say is that leaving the issue up to voters is akin to Stephen Douglas' argument that slavery should be a matter of popular sovereignty. The question should not be a matter of popular vote--although I am happy about the recent outcome in those states. Sidenote: Interesting that Clarence Thomas will probably vote against marriage equality, even though he, with his white wife, benefits from the SCOTUS decision that declares anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

Other signs that the country is more gay friendly include a shift in policy from the Mormon church. In a statement, the church officially concedes homosexuality is not a choice and all Mormons should be more understanding of their gay brothers and sisters. Acting on your sexual impulses is still a sin, though, so they're fine with gays conducting the local choir and doing the wife's hair, but marriage is still a no-no. Gee, thanks, Mormons.

One Million Moms is still in the homophobic club (I'm still using that word, take that, AP!) These nasty mothers are upset because JC Penny has DARED to air another commercial with Ellen DeGeneris. In this holiday ad, Ellen is sitting in a dinner with three CGIed elves and they're discussing holiday bargains. I guess the Moms are pissed off at the idea that gay people shop at cheap stores, too. What is their problem?

There has also been progress from John Irving. I'm reading his latest novel In One Person on my Kindle Fire. The plot follows a writer and his sexual history (of course). Only this time, instead of the usual Irving stand-in, we have a bisexual whose tastes run the gamut from transsexuals to older men to women. As in almost every other Irving novel, there is wrestling, an automobile accident, cross-dressing, more than a hint of incest, and a sojourn to Vienna where the hero spends some formative years (sometimes it's Amsterdam, but here it's Vienna). From his earliest works, Irving has espoused tolerance of sexual minorities. But I can still remember the gay brother in The Hotel New Hampshire as a shadowy figure with no real connections. The narrator even says he was thankful the gay character (his sibling) didn't bring around any boyfriends home--and none ever appear in the book. I think this new work is Irving's attempt to portray gays as fully-dimensional, but it still comes across as a straight man's desire to show what a tolerant guy he is. It's entertaining as all of Irving's books are, but it feels somewhat forced.

Santorum Surges and Dems Rejoice

I haven't written a blog in weeks and the politcal situation has totally changed. Newt is out and Rick Santorum is in. Can you believe this? Well, actually I can. I didn't think Republicans would be dumb enough to vote for Rick "Man-on-Dog-Sex" Santorum, but they just can't stand Mittens. Newt ran out of money and starting running off at the mouth about sugar subsidies and moon colonies, so his Las Vegas sugar daddy cut off the purse strings. That left Ricky as the only alternative to Mittens--I saw a post on the CNN website calling him Flipper the Elitist Robot, I like it. So Ricky won three states last week--Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota--while Mittens fumbled.

What's amazing is that anyone with a brain in their head would acutally think Santo Claus could beat Obama. The Prez would crush him like an ant. Evidently there is a school of thought among right-wingers that if they nominated a moderate they will lose, as they did with Dole and McCain. But Santorum is so far to the right it's absurd. He raises incredibly retro issues like women in combat, gay marriage, the dignity of being a housewife, and contraception--not just that Catholic-affiliated employers shouldn't be forced to cover it in their health plans, but that anybody should be able to deny it to women. My God! What is this, the 1950s? I can see objecting to abortion, but birth control??? And another thing, you know the tide is turning in our favor when Bill O'Reilly defends Ellen Degeneris against a group who wanted her fired from JC Penny for being gay. It's no longer mainstream to be homophobic, but Rick still thinks it is.

Mittens is in a fix now because he can't squash Ricky as he did Newtie. Both anti-Romneys are far-right extremists, but Ricky is an honest extremist. Newt is a lying, lobbying, adulterous, ethically challenged blowhard and Mittens could launch millions of negative ads against him and be perfectly justified and have them resonate. There is not as much ammunition to use against Santorum who actually believes everything he says. You may not like what he says--and I don't--but he's never changed positions as Mittens and Newtie have. I don't see Santorum getting the nomination, but it's telling that after all this the inevitable Romney is trailing in the polls behind him, even in Michigan, Romney's home state. Even after all this time, Mittens still can't get the base to like him.