Growing Up Gay 50 Years Ago

This posting represents a departure for Mourning Dove Hill. My profile lets on that I am gay but I have not discussed that or any gay matters in a post. So here goes:

When I was growing up—my teen years were in the 1950s, a time that, strangely, is often romanticized—the word gay was never heard. (I first heard it in 1963, when it was explained to me as a code word, a word that you would slip into a conversation to let the other person know you were gay; and if he understood, of course he was gay too.) The popular culture of the time—songs and so forth—depicted a world in which 100 percent of men were attracted to women. In other words, gays didn't exist. For that reason I, and thousands of other young males growing up in small towns in that era, were able to believe, each of us, that we were the only ones in the whole world who were "different" in that way.

Heterosexual males have 50 percent of the population that they can pursue. (Well, we have to exclude the women who are too young, and I was going to add "and women who are married," but let's not be naïve; that doesn't stop a lot of men.) On the other hand, a gay man has to find a partner among the three or five or whatever percent of the male population who share his sexual orientation. I, like millions of others, learned that the major cities had significant gay enclaves, and so wanted to move to the big city. The pickings are a little better there!

The social conservative/Christian/evangelical community keeps insisting that being gay is a "choice." (Here, and in so many other cases, I have become more and more convinced that they do not really believe what they say. They really just are repelled by the idea of gay sex and will find any reason whatsoever—for instance that it's a choice, or that the Bible proscribes it—to justify a prejudice which at heart is disgust stemming from their sexual puritanism.) If you examine this idea with a modicum of reason, it can't possibly hold up. Why would someone choose to be gay when

1. People like them revile us.
2. It's harder to find a partner among that much smaller population.
3. There might be discrimination in finding a job, etc. In spite of all the progress and nondiscrimination legislation passed in many jurisdictions, it's still a disadvantage to be gay.
4. Gays and lesbians don't have equal rights, including the right to marry their partners (in most jurisdictions); their partners may not be able to visit them in the hospital when they are gravely ill; and their partners don't automatically inherit property or Social Security benefits as do spouses in married heterosexual couples.
5. Many gays and lesbians were raised in, and still wish to be affiliated with, churches that tell them that they are sinners. What damage does this do to one's psyche?
6. It's well documented that GLBT teen-agers are subjected to verbal and physical harassment by their peers and even teachers. And there is a higher rate of suicide among GLBT teens than among their straight peers.

If there is a greater incidence of alcoholism and other such problems among gays and lesbians, it very likely is due to the burden we must cope with, that of dealing with society's homophobia. The 1968 play (and 1970 movie) The Boys in the Band—one of the first plays to depict gay characters—leaves us with the sentiment, voiced by one of the characters, "If only we didn't hate ourselves so much."

The San Francisco Chronicle said, when the film version of The Boys in the Band was revived in 1999,

. . . in the attitudes of its characters, and their self-lacerating vision of themselves, it belongs to another time. And that's a good thing.

Of course it's a good thing, if it's true. I believe the Chronicle is saying that gays and lesbians growing up today do not have the baggage of internalized homophobia. I am sure it is correct that it's easier for young gays and lesbians today: there is greater societal acceptance of homosexuality and certainly it's a subject much more out in the open. A young GLBT person today can find others like himself or herself far more easily.

But not all of us of the Boys in the Band generation are yet gone from this Earth.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Arms Race on Four Wheels

An article I read recently blames our federal government for the high price of oil (and thus gasoline). The argument does like this—and it's an indirect chain of causation.

The so-called CAFE—Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards—have not been raised by the government in 20 years. This has enabled Americans to buy large and thirsty SUVs.

So maybe we should blame the owners of SUVs—who are likely to complain the loudest about gas prices. They're certainly not aware that they have themselves to blame.

Readers of this blog know that I hate SUVs. I used to think that owning and driving them was a macho thing. But it's incontrovertible that an awful lot of women drive them—especially great big ones, with only themselves in them (so don't tell me that people buy them for the capacity). I know that they often say that they like the high driving position and the good view of the road that that provides. I think also they own them because they perceive them to be safer.

Well, it is true that, in a crash between a large and small vehicle, the driver of the larger one will fare better. So the SUV driver looks out for his/her own safety and does not care that, in a crash, he or she may inflict fatal damage to the other car. So it's selfish. But hey, let's acknowledge that we're not all Mother Teresa. And the the SUV owner/driver would say, Well, let that other guy drive a big vehicle instead of the small car that he's got. Thus a kind of vehicular arms race.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

We Just Keep Getting Fatter

A news item about a week ago said that furniture manufacturers are bringing out wider chairs. Why? Because Americans are getting so fat, they can't sit on normal chairs anymore.

And airlines have official policies, now, for passengers who are very heavy and need two seats to accommodate them: the passenger now must pay for two seats.

These facts should be sobering to all of us, to put it mildly. Not to mention that we keep hearing the dismal statistics: two-thirds or Americans are overweight, and 38% are obese.

There is no mystery behind these phenomena. With the exception of a few individuals who have a glandular condition (e.g., hypothyroidism) or a genetic defect, the reason is very simple: we eat too much. Okay, to be a little more precise: we eat too many calories relative to the calories we burn. This means that we need to eat less (or eat less calorie-dense food), move around more (exercise), or both. And stop believing in any magic pills, either literal pills or magical diets.

Our food portions have gotten larger (think "supersize") and we are eating more food that is simply bad for us. I've blogged about America's overweight kids before. If you let them, kids will subsist on pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, and junk food. And then sit and play video games or tweet on their computers.

I don't know if parents give their kids 5 bucks and say "go to McDonald's." I do know that too many moms take their kids to McDonald's, for lunch and even for dinner, or bring McDonald's or KFC home for dinner. Who wants (or has the time) to cook? So goes the argument. If you care to look into it, a food item like a double cheeseburger has an astonishing number of calories. Bad enough two meat patties, instead of one; but we want to make it quite a bit worse with a slice—no, two slices--of cheese.

Start reading the nutrition information labels on the food you bring home. Request (if necessary) calorie information at McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks. Know what you're putting into your body. Besides calories, we are taking in way too much fat, sugar, and salt. These food components are in a sense addictive, and fast-food vendors and junk-food makers have made us into unhealthy-food addicts. On the addictiveness of junk food, see this link:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/study-says-junk-food-is-as-addictive-as-heroin-or-cigarettes/19417741/

or this British article about a book by David Kessler, former U.S. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/7541646/Old-fashioned-hunger-doesnt-come-into-it.html?msource=MAG10

The nutritional advice, which (if we've been listening at all) we've heard over and over, is to eat more vegetables. And it's true. I guarantee (or any diet/nutrition professional can guarantee) that if you eat plenty of celery, carrots, and other fruits and veggies, you can't possibly be fat. Note, salad is not okay if you're going to pile on the dressing, nor veggies if you're going to drown them in butter.

Yogurt, a few decades ago, was usually eaten only by "health-food nuts." Today it is very popular. But will it help us to slim down? Those flavored yogurts are sweetened and have twice the calories that plain yogurt has. Eat plain, fat-free yogurt. Personally, I like the taste of plain yogurt. I never eat those flavored ones because I don't think that the sweeteners go well with the natural tart taste of yogurt.

People tend to think that anything healthy has to taste bad, or that healthy eating habits are too austere and their food just won't taste good. It's not true. There are plenty of books, magazines, web sites and so forth that can show you how to have tasty but healthy food.

And don't forget that eating less calorie-dense food is only half the story. The other is more exercise. I notice how many people take the elevator instead of climbing the stairs in, say, the public library. Even to go just one floor. There's the amusing but all-too-true story of the thirty-something who takes the elevator to his/her health club and then uses the stair-stepper machine. And he or she never even thinks about the contradiction there.

And don't drive around and around trying to find the closest parking space at the mall or supermarket. Make a point to park a little further away. You need the exercise. Believe me. Or believe your mirror.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

The New Health Care Bill

A survey finds that most Americans don't understand the new health care reform bill (which should be called the health insurance reform bill). That's not surprising, since the bill is supposed to be some 2,000 pages.

So many people opposed the bill, presumably while not understanding it. Hardly anyone knows how the bill will affect him or her (which seems to be people's main concern). So maybe they are just fearing the worst (again, as I stated or implied in earlier postings, I think people have been stirred up to believe that passage of the bill would mean the worst).

For many people, the new bill will be a good thing. How can you think that prohibiting health insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions is anything but good thing?--unless you are a health insurance company, and most of us are not.

It also removes the lifetime cap, which had meant that some people with serious illnesses that required long courses of treatment or long hospitalizations could exhaust their benefits, and then be on their own for paying all their medical costs. How can that be anything but a good thing?

And more people—young people who have not yet gotten their first job, people changing jobs—will have or keep their insurance. How can that be anything but a good thing?

I will tell you who has a right to not like the bill—besides the insurance companies. No, not even small businesses, because they will receive tax credits for offering health insurance to their employees. It's the wealthy, who will now pay a tax on their investments, and who will pay more Medicare tax.

And—I hope this does not surprise anyone—the Republican party is the party that looks out for the interests of the wealthy, and always tries to help them hold on to their money. That is why the Republicans have so strenuously opposed health care reform.

But the little guy needs to realize that this is a good thing for him (or her).

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

As if We Didn't Already Know

Florida and Texas are backward.

www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/filming-in-florida-so-wholesome-only-a-5-year-old-could-enjoy/19397043/

www.aolnews.com/nation/article/texas-removes-thomas-jefferson-from-teaching-standard/19397481

And yes, what Texas specifies it wants in textbooks, it gets; and it not only may influence textbooks for the rest of the country, it definitely does. Because Texas has state-wide adoptions (that is, a state body specifies what textbooks are acceptable for the entire state), and textbook publishers can't afford to make different versions for Texas and for the rest of the U.S.--what Texas will buy pretty much dictates what the books are going to be like--what they may or may not contain--for the whole country.

Trust me on this: I've worked in textbook publishing.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Is Our Food Bad for Us?

Today, unless your head is in the sand, you hear that a lot of our dietary habits are bad for us. We eat too much salt, sugar, fat, red meat, processed meat—the list goes on, and it seems like it's added to every day.

When I was a kid you never heard of anyone worrying about what they ate. We ate lots of sugar and fat and salt. All the cake we wanted, and ice cream, and cookies. Ah, the good old days! My mother, who cooked with chicken fat (I hear you going, "Yuck!" but that was normal Jewish cooking, which would not use lard), was concerned that I did not eat enough fat, as a kid, and, to seduce me into taking in more butter, she added it to tomato soup!

You have to wonder what's changed, and, logically, you'd think the answer would be "nothing."

However, that might not be correct. That farm hand or cowboy of 100 years ago who ate steak and eggs and ham for breakfast didn't develop clogged arteries and coronary disease because his work was heavily physical. Today we are all couch potatoes who don't even get up off the couch to change the channel on our TV.

And, although you hear more about heart disease and cancer, and the incidence of diabetes is going through the roof, some rates of cancer have actually gone down. But I would not disregard or downplay all the advice to be concerned about what we are eating and drinking.

As I say above, one thing which has changed is lifestyle. We are too sedentary. Also, food vendors (think fast-food chains) and food manufacturers are providing us with unhealthy food. And we are eating in those fast-food places more, and eating more processed food. How much of our food is made from scratch? I for one, can cook and do, at least sometimes; but if you look at my garbage (or what I recycle, to be more correct), it seems as though an awful lot of my food comes in boxes. Not good. Too much sodium, too much artificial ingredients. Have you heard of the dietary advice to never eat anything that has more than five ingredients? There's probably nothing that comes in a box that's got only five ingredients.

All of what I say above is well-established science; but I'm going to plunge ahead into some ideas that are more speculative. Our dietary intake these days has lots of toxins (poisons), in the form of pesticides and chemical additives in our food. It's been at least tentatively suggested by scientific studies that some of these substances, like bis-phenyl A (BPA), found in food cans, for example, are harmful.

The verdict is still out, largely, on what harm some of the man-made chemicals in our food are doing to us. It may be that they make our bodies less able to handle the more natural—and now thought to be "bad"—food ingredients like fat, sugar, and salt. Not to mention causing diseases like cancer, autoimmune diseases, and so on by themselves.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

There Are No Cheap Cars (Thanks to U.S. Government)

Fifty years ago it was fairly simple for a foreign car manufacturer to sell his cars in the U.S. Any car sold in the U.S. had to meet U.S. federal government standards, but they were fairly simple (I've tried, as best as I'm able, to list these in approximately the order in which the standards went into effect):

• Sealed-beam headlights
• Safety glass

and maybe one or two more.

Then more requirements were added:

• Seat belts
• Exhaust emission standards
• Bumper crash resistance

and then:

• Air bags
• Engine computers with diagnostic readouts

and fairly recently:

• Tire pressure monitoring system

and, soon to come:

• Vehicle stability control

And I'm pretty sure there are a lot I have left out.

A lot of the required systems are electrical. Thus the following became necessary, even though not required by law:

• Larger battery
• Larger alternator
• Larger engine, to provide the power to drive the alternator, etc.

Add to all this the fact that there are a great many amenities that American drivers expect and even demand:

• Automatic transmission
• Air conditioning
• Innumerable power assists, electrical gadgets, "convenience features," etc.
  

The result is that there are no cheap cars. You take even a tiny and cheap (to begin with) car, and by the time it's been "Americanized" (actually, the term "federalized" is used), it has to sell for $20,000 in the U.S. A modern car has to have more "systems" than a house, so it's not surprising that a car costs a significant fraction of the cost of a house.

I am (as my faithful readers know) generally very liberal in my views; and I certainly don't want to start sounding conservative. Many, even most, of the above car features are very worthwhile, and they protect us and the environment. But I do have to say, I do wish that maybe some of these could be matters of the buyer's choice. I for one don't really like having to have the tire pressure monitoring system. Yes, it keeps us from driving on under-inflated tires, and that has safety implications. A great majority of drivers don't monitor their cars' tire pressure systematically. But I find any and all little amber warning lights on my dash to be a pain in the keister.

As to the bumper standard: Once upon a time, cars had these great, heavy, chrome-plated steel bumpers. They could contact another car and not be affected at all.

The new bumpers absorb shock and prevent damage to the rest of the car in low-speed collisions. However, the bumpers themselves, in minor encounters with another car, are too easily damaged. They are essentially plastic (with energy-absorbing blocks or a honeycomb structure behind them), and they dent, cave in, gouge, and scratch quite easily. Of course the "bumper covers" (as the body shop will call them) could be made of black rubber. Some cars have had that, and it's practical. But those big, black rubber bumpers are ugly and car buyers don't want them.

Still, makes me yearn for the old chromed steel bumpers.

Should You Buy an American Car?

It's commonly thought that if you buy an "American" car, you benefit American companies and American workers.

Well, it's not quite that simple.

Many cars made by American companies are assembled in Canada or Mexico. Furthermore, lots of the parts—including pretty major parts, like transmissions—might be made outside the U.S. The sticker might indicate this.

Every car sold in the U.S. has a sticker on the window, as required by law. One bit of information given by the sticker is "domestic content." This shows what percentage of parts and components are in fact made in the U.S.

I just saw a Ford Taurus on display at my local mall. The domestic content was listed as only 65%. On other Ford models I have seen on display, the transmission was Mexican-made.

So, the people who buy an "American" car may actually be getting a car with less American-made content than a "foreign" car. This is because many of the "foreign" makes are assembled in U.S. plants. These foreign models assembled in the U.S. often have pretty high domestic content, maybe 90%. There is no need for the makers to bear the expense of importing batteries, tires, headlights, electronic modules, and many other components, so they buy them in the U.S. You might be surprised at how much of your "foreign" car is actually domestically manufactured.

You might say, Well, if you buy an American make, you're giving profits to U.S. companies and American stockholders. Well, that may be true but, again, there's more to it than that. When a particular car model has higher domestic content, that's more American workers in the parts plants that produced that domestic content, and more profits for those parts-manufacturing companies as well as wages to their workers.

And if Ford is owned by American stockholders—well, who says that Toyota, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or Volkswagen do not have stockholders who are Americans? I can tell you that they do. By means of mutual funds, it's become much easier for millions of Americans to be invested in overseas companies.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Hell-Louise's Helpful Household Hints

This posting represents a major departure for Mourning Dove Hill, an excursion into a very different subject area.

1. Ever notice that, when you put spaghetti sauce from a jar onto a plate of spaghetti, you get a pool of watery liquid, almost water, on the bottom? And you blame the sauce for being watery or not thick enough. (It's probably the same story with homemade sauce; and you wonder why your sauce just is never thick enough!)

Well, here's what to do about it (rather than unjustly blame that sauce): When your spaghetti is cooked, of course you pour it from the pot into a strainer or colander to drain it. If you use one of those sort of crescent-shaped pot strainers, what I say still holds.

Well, that doesn't drain your pasta well enough. From the strainer or colander, put that pasta on a plate or platter or in a bowl—and then put it in the microwave. Heat it in the microwave for maybe 20 or 30 seconds. You'll drive off all the extra moisture and, voila! – no more watery residue at the bottom.

2. Got a banana that you want to eat but it's not quite ripe enough yet? The microwave to the rescue—again! Just microwave it for 10 seconds before peeling.

3. Twist-off jar lids hard to open? There are so many jar openers out there to help you; but I've found absolutely the best and simplest, too. It's called JarKey. It's a very simple device that pries up the edge of the lid just enough to break the vacuum (the button in the middle of the lid will audibly pop up). Then, miraculously! it's easy to open the lid with your hand. You can find the JarKey on the Internet, and it's inexpensive. (I have no connection with the maker of this device and I don't gain anything if you buy it.)

Note added later: There is evidently a pretty much identical product called JarPop sold for $4 at
The Container Store.

4. Yet another use for the microwave: I cook an ear of corn in the microwave. The recipe calls for peeling back the husks, removing the silk, and then recovering the ear with the husks. But you don't need to do that. (I do take my kitchen shears and cut off the husks and silk at the top of the ear.) Also sometimes it's recommended that you soak the ear of corn in water first. When the husks are wet, then the ear will steam—so the theory goes. Well, you can do that, or you can hold the ear under running water in the sink for a little while; but I think both of these are unnecessary. If the narrow end of the ear is not covered well by the husks, wrap a little plastic wrap around it. Then microwave for 3 minutes 20 seconds (for one ear). Trust me, this works beautifully.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Some Thoughts on Drunk Driving

Most everybody agrees with the idea that drunk driving is a bad thing. We've all seen statistics that show that drunk drivers kill and injure large numbers of people. So we have organizations like MADD--Mothers Against Drunk Driving--and so forth.

But I'd like to throw out this thought: Has anybody noticed that bars have parking lots? Maybe some urban bars do not, but in less congested areas, they all do.

And what scenario does that envision? Someone comes out of the bar—after drinking, I dare say. And gets into his car. And drives.

Hey, what kind of logic is this? Am I the only one who can see that Bars + Parking Lots = People Drinking and Driving?

Maybe an effective approach to curbing drunk driving would be to pass laws forbidding bars from having parking lots. Of course I can hear the bar owners howl over that one. Maybe consortiums of bar owners could provide some type of shuttle to the nearest bus stop.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein