Halloween

Its been a while since I posted some pictures. Haloween is upon us. Staci and i went to a nice party thrown by a fellow econ. faculty. We went as the Black Eyed Peas. Few got it. Pictures of the party and other recent events are available.

Moving

Well my last blog was a bust. Too much to read I hear. So for this one I want evryone of you to leave a comment. Its an easy one. Tell me a story of when you moved and how you adjusted. How did you find new friends, restaurants, etc...

Gay Republicans????

So by now everyone has heard about this Mark Foley thing. One of you even had him as a congressman. Today's blog is not about him or what he did but the very idea of gay republicans and the fact it seems that there are a number of them and they or generally unknown to the public. First lets look at why one would be a gay republican. My former congressman Jim Kolbe, the Times article points out, is the only openly gay republican in Congress. I can respect that to some extent but I don't understand why he is a republican. I had hoped to ask him once over dinner but a friend refused to bring him to my dinner party as a guest. Anyhow back to my point. I don't think I need to explain why a gay person would not be republican. Understatement is not strong enough to express my opinion of this quote from the article: "Even though the G.O.P. fashions itself as “the party of Lincoln” and a promoter of tolerance, it is perceived as hostile by many gay men and lesbians." Perceived???? So we all know why one WOULDN'T be gay and republican but why WOULD they? People interviewed suggest that they "remained fundamentally in sync with the small government principles of the party and its approach to national security". The Republican Party has not been one of small government for years. This graph is telling. What it shows is that the republican party is the party of small taxes. They do not, however, cut spending. One can debate whether government spending should be more or less. But my point is that republicans have not been low spenders for decades. Instead they cut taxes and rack up huge debts that are left to democratic administrations to deal with by raising taxes. Which makes them look like big spenders and in turn makes the republicans look like nice guys. Just the opposite is true. As far as national defense... I will leave someone else to explain to me the difference between republicans and democrats. But to be trite and a bit Fox newsish... Who won WW2 and Korea? Who "cut and ran" from Vietnam? Who traded arms with middle east terrorists in the 80's? Who didn't finish the job he started by leaving a cruel weapons of mass destruction building dictator in power? Now to the second and more interesting question: why doesn't the news media out these republicans? Yes you heard me out them. Normally I am not for this. For example, if Tom Cruise doesn't want people knowing he is gay that is his business. He is an actor. In fact his job is about being someone he is not. The same applies to nearly any other profession. Even for politicians, specifically republicans, I don't think we need to know any details beyond the fact that the person is gay. It’s none of our business who they are dating, where or when. I don't need pictures of them vacationing in Miami Beach. But I think we should know they are gay. Why you ask? I will tell you. These people write policy and laws that affect gay people. Just as we have a write to know how much oil stock a policy maker owns we should know if they are gay because it directly relates to policy being created and debated. Do we need to know if someone has been divorced? is cheating on his or her wife? No. There is no policy there. Divorce is legal. But a whole bunch of issues dealing with gay rights are up for grabs. I want to know what conflicts of interest these people have. All this is besides the obvious point that republicans profess to be the party of values. Why don't they out these gay people like the bible says they should and drum them out of the party? The fact they don't tells us voters something about the republicans' values and I don't think its that they are compassionate conservatives.