Literature as Social Commentary

• What I'm Watching/Listening To/Reading:
• This past Sunday's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was easily one of the top five in the run of the series.
  
• Very interesting interview on "Hardball" this evening with the Lt. Gov. of California. He talked about the distraction of Bush coming to visit San Diego and how control of the disaster might be a lot easier if many of their National Guard troops were not in Iraq.
  
• Random Thoughts/Links:
• How the heck did Arnold Schwarzenegger become one of the most highly-regarded politicians in the country?
• Why does Rahm Emanuel always look/sound so defensive whenever I see him?
• Have you seen this? Is the government even crazier than we think?
• Which is the worst group of people on the planet: skinheads or kids from Kansas (or anywhere not in New England) who go to college in Boston and are now die-hard Red Sox fans?
• Am I crazy to think that this weekend will be New England's first real test?
  
• If San Diego, arguably the most heavenly place in the country, is being ravaged by wildfires, do you think that there is money falling from the sky somewhere over Mississippi?
  
• Daily Rant:
• I was going to sneak it in yesterday, but I wanted to take the time to really lay out my thoughts on this. Not since Lucas was so openly anti-Iraq War in Episode III have I been so delighted with something from pop culture. At a reading at Carnegie Hall, J.K. Rowling revealed that Albus Dumbledore was gay. Least importantly, this adds depth to his sadness over the end of his relationship with Grindelwald in the final Harry Potter book and only makes the work greater than it already was. Most importantly, it brings homosexuality to the mainstream discussion and into a place its never been quite so publicly -- the discussion with children. It's about time that kids had an openly gay role model. It shows children who may be ashamed of their sexuality that it's okay to just be who they are. It helps show all kids that sexual orientation is not a badge or a label -- it's just something that people are, like their ethnicity. The fight for homosexual rights is simply a civil rights issue. There is a class of citizens in our nation who are not afforded the same rights as others. It's as simple as that. Many people denied that blacks were deserving of full rights because of science, such as eugenics, or because of religion, by saying that they came from a heathen people. Many of my rants are tongue-in-cheek, but I feel very strongly about this. A line must be drawn in the sand between those who desire equal rights for all and those who do not. A few years ago, I had a lesbian co-worker who said to me, "I am not allowed to marry the person I love." The sadness in her eyes was gut-wrenching. I can only imagine it as the equal of the sadness in the eyes of a Cherokee, forced to leave their home of a thousand years; the sadness in the eyes of an African-American watching my grandmother, when she was young, being berated for willingly giving up her seat on a bus. Are you willing to perpetuate that type of feeling?