Columns
Bark o' the Banshee
| Bark o' the Banshee To Agree or Disagree? |  |
by Pat Robinson
Things change slowly in this country. We are still along way from true fairness and equality. There is still much ground to cover.
Regis Philbin made a statement on Live this morning (August 15, 2001; repeated) that gay men are only making 86% of what straight men are making. Gee, just like all women, huh? Nothing has changed there except women have company at that economic level now. Welcome guys!
Poor neighborhoods are still just that, poor. Poor schools, housing, hospitals, businesses, and people that struggle everyday to come home with enough to feed, house, and clothe their families. I know that the neighborhood I grew up in looks just as dismal and defeated as it did in 1967. I left it for the tiny balconied streets of Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. At 16, I was barely able to make enough to pay my way but, I was out of the project, out of the urine-stenched halls, and out of the gutter and with a future afforded me in the Bill of Rights.
How was I to know that the Bill of Rights doesn’t really apply to me or to many others?
In poetry, less is more. Nowhere else is less a blessing; except crime and pollution. Less money, housing, jobs, education, opportunities, promotions, rights, white, Christian, civilized, sophisticated, people do NOT get the top shelf chances at anything.
Karin Kerin suggests (‘Things Change, Sometimes’… August, Out in the Mountains) that Republicans should be angry at the good senator that switched his party affiliation. Are you suggesting that we should wait till an election to switch things? If you are not happy with your local pizza maker, do you wait till the pizza makes you sick or till an election is held? If your long distance telephone company raises it rates, do you wait till someone else agrees with you to switch companies? NO! You make a decision based on your needs and wants. So did Senator Jeffords. He saw the brink of disaster boiling up at the edge of the pot and he made a choice. Where would we be if the political enemies of King George had faltered? We would be calling trucks lorries, and singing the praises of the Queen, and that ain’t Latifah honey.
So Karen, what do you think we should do? How do we fix the messes that have been a mess for a long time? How do we get your side of the aisle to finally accept us at work, at play, at church, and most decidedly, the armed services where people are NOT required by law (like ALL other occupations) to support this country as a cohesive unit regardless of sex, color, age, place of origin, or sexual orientation?
And you make so much of your marriage, not a CIVIL union, as a glove in our faces. I have been married 3 times, and divorced 3 times, too. Is this a victory for you or only a mere date in the path you have walked? Karen, have you taken a good long look at who sits on the boards of directors that have to explain or justify costs to the many stockholders in major corporations like the insurance companies that will lose millions of collected funds from single people vs. domestic partner coverage? Have you looked at who sits on the boards of companies that own hospitals?
Are these the people that get to decide if I go into the ICU to see my partner? Of course, you who are legally married don’t have this dilemma, do you? NOPE, and this I know from MY experience as a wife.
And you of course get to have one 401K account and pay one commission for stock trades, not the separate accounts we have and of course the two commissions we pay either. Does that justify this veiled con George Dublya called a tax relief?
And you the transsexual has openly signed up to help your local Republicans get re-elected? Do you think you will be welcomed whether your name is Karen or Charles? I bet dinner at the restaurant of your choice that you will be more than just the “joke of the day” but proof positive to them that we are an absurd group of confused people that don’t even know what sex we are or who to love. This I hear all the time from the almost totally Republican population that surrounds me. But of course, it’s always: “Nothing personal, Pat. I love you and Rho. I want you to be happy, too!” Yet sadly, they still don’t get it.
I wish for you the same love, happiness and success we all deserve, but do you wish the same for me because I am a Democrat? I thank God, or the Goddess if my readers prefer, that we all have the singular right to speak our minds, vote our conscience, and live our lives as United States citizens do, one and all. And that goes for Senator Jeffords of Vermont, Mark Noel of New Hampshire, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, William Weld of Massachusetts, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, and Karen Kerin of Vermont.
So Karen, choose your restaurant and lets have at a column or two?