Ramblin' with Roger

Similarly, I wrote my 9/11 piece and expected that SOMEONE would complain about my plan to remove bin Laden from the FBI 10 Most Wanted list; no response. The point that became most a point of conversation was about donating blood.

When GayProf noted that, correctly, that gay men cannot donate, (well, only the ones who’ve been sexually active since 1977 can’t), it was an irritating surprise to some readers. It was a surprise to my wife, when I mentioned it to her. If you are a man who has donated blood regularly since 1985, when the prohibition took hold, and the vast majority of the 116 pints I’ve donated have been since then, you’d be quite familiar with the ever-changing donor deferral questions, which include, “Have you had sex even once with a man since 1977?”, an affirmative answer to which means permanent deferral.

But, why?

Should gay men be allowed to donate blood? And, Is the ban on using gay men’s blood homophobic? After reading lots of material, I believe the answer is yes.

Look at any Red Cross literature about donating, and you’ll find that only about 5% of the eligible population donates regularly. Some people are too busy, too queasy, too ill, or weigh under 110 pounds. Others don’t because of various restrictions involved with living overseas for extended periods; these include Sub-Saharan Africa (concern about AIDS), and Europe, especially Great Britain (mad cow). An avowed vegetarian who has spent five years in Europe since 1980 is permanently banned, which I think is just silly. So, the need is great, but some people, including gay men, aren’t allowed, even when they want to, even when they may have a rare blood type that could save a life.

I had thought the ban on using the blood of gay men was just based on a consensus of the scientific community. I was wrong. (It happens twice a year; this was the other time.) When the FDA met in September 2000 to decide whether to continue a ban on gay men donating blood that it imposed in 1985, the vote was 7 to 6, with 5 absent. I was struck by this article, which includes: “Dr. F. Blaine Hollinger, Chair of the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee said, however: “Personally, I’m very open to a change. It’s discriminatory. We have to see all the data first. If it can be done without changing the safety of the blood supply, it ought to be done.”

More recently, several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times on June 15, 2006 have editorialized in favor of letting gay men donate blood.

So what to do? Sign an online petition? I’m not much on the efficacy of online petitions. There are some examples, including this one suggesting that gay men just lie about their sexual orientation, though not about their HIV/AIDS status. I’m not hot on lying, though I truly understand the mindset.

Maybe somehow put pressure on the FDA? Even if we could, and “even if FDA decided to modify its policy, the [American Red Cross] can always undercut it by maintaining its own, stricter policy.”

If gay men were allowed to donate, one of the unfortunate side effects, I’m afraid, would be the increase in autologous blood transfusions. Attitudes change slowly.

So, what to do? Not donating doesn’t seem to be the right thing, as it does save lives. Besides which, I donate, at least in part, for a purely selfish reason: I have been long convinced that donating blood is a healthy habit for me. Why do women outlive men? Is it because they menstruate? Why is there such a spike in cardio-vascular incidents in post-menopausal women? I’m convinced that donating blood will keep me alive longer, so I’m disinclined to give it up.

When I was visiting my in-laws on Labor Day weekend, I saw a story about Bob Dylan playing in Cooperstown. The sentence that jumped out at me was this: “With virtuosity that showed her classical and jazz roots, this fiddler who changed her name from Elana Fremerman to James last year showed why she is the first woman star ever to tour with Dylan.” First woman star ever to tour with Dylan? Where did THAT come from? I found a couple articles indicating that Elena James was the first woman instrumentalist to play with Dylan in 30 years, but that Joan Baez had “starred” with Dylan. I received this reply: “Thank you for the information about women instrumentalists who have toured with Bob Dylan. The newspaper will correct its original story.” I assume they did, but the ONLINE story remains unchanged. Sigh.

Conversely, a nice story about some folks who keep score at the Oneonta Tigers games, including this guy Walt, who I’ve seen at the games, and my father-in-law, from that same week as the Dylan story, is not in the archives at all. Sigh again.

My friend ASP (that’s her acronym, not a reference to her character) sent me a link about Beatles Album Covers Made Into Stamps. Here’s the entire AP piece:

LONDON (AP) – The Royal Mail is saluting the Beatles in January by releasing six commemorative stamps illustrated with memorable album covers.

Others in the series include “Help!” (1965), “Revolver” (1966), “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967), “Abbey Road” (1969) and “Let It Be” (1970).

There are two factual errors in the middle paragraph. “Meet the Beatles” was NOT the first Beatles album released in the United States, “Introducing the Beatles”, on Vee-Jay Records was. “Meet the Beatles” was the first Capitol Records album, and it was the album that helped propel them to stardom in the U.S.
Also, the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” are NOT the same as “With the Beatles”. While they share the same cover photo, and nine songs, “Meet the Beatles” contains the single “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, its U.S. B-side “This Boy” and its U.K. B-side, “I Saw Her Standing There”, also found on the British album “Please Please Me”; none are on “With the Beatles”. Conversely, “With the Beatles” contains five non-Lennon/McCartney songs that end up appearing on “The Beatles’ Second Album” in the U.S.

I wrote that info to them, but then I discovered I had to register, and was too lazy to pursue it further, except that the local paper, the Times Union, picked up the story verbatim; I let them know about the errors.

Some stories you wonder about in terms of tone. The local story, Spirited couple set sights on church revival, had a picture so poor, especially as printed in the paper, that I didn’t recognize that this story was about MY CHURCH and our new co-pastors. Moreover, the headline, more than the story itself, suggests that the church has been in a sorry state; or maybe, that’s just my inference. Since that was just a matter of tone, and I actually liked the article, I made no comment.

On September 8, 1966, the original Star Trek series debuted on NBC. I must admit that I didn’t “get it” at the time, but my father did. He was hardly a “trekkie” or “trekker”, but he appreciated the fact that the stories were (quoting Brooks and Marsh) “dealing with current social issues thinly disguised in extraterrestrial settings.” BTW, Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov, will turn 70 tomorrow.

But Dad’s favorite show when I was growing up was probably the original Mission: Impossible series, which debuted on September 17, 1966 on CBS. There was Daniel Briggs, played by Steven Hill (later to play D.A. Adam Schiff on the original Law and Order series); he was replaced by Peter Graves as James Phelps after the first season. Each was the leader of the Impossible Missions Force; in fact, Graves, as Phelps, was also the leader in the 1989-90 TV series. Barney Collier was the technogeek, played by Greg Morris; Greg’s son, Phil, played Barney’s son Grant in the later series. Peter Lupus portrayed strongman Willy Armitage.

Then there was the power couple. Martin Landau was Rollin Hand, master of disguise. And the sultry Cinnamon Carter was played by Landau’s wife at the time, Barbara Bain, who MAY have been an additional enticement for my father’s viewing.

After Landau and Bain left in 1969 in a contract dispute, Landau was replaced by Leonard Nimoy, who had just finished doing Star Trek. A year later, the female role was taken over by Lesley Ann Warren. But the show, save for that great Lalo Schifrin theme was never the same after Rollin and Cinnamon’s departure. Landau and Bain perform together again in the mid-1970s series Space: 1999.

As you might have heard, or seen in the previews, Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie. In the subgenre that includes movies from Rain Man (oddly not noted in this extensive list or indeed other rosters I’ve checked) to last year’s Transamerica, a bunch of disparate people come together and learn something about each other at the end. The fact that these folks are actually related to each other does not preclude the initial mutual alienation from each other.

Little Miss Sunshine is such a film. Whether it works or not depends on the acting and script, and for this movie, both are quite good. Some of the analyses of the movie I’ve read is that it’s a bunch of “quirky” characters, which I did not find at all. Greg Kinnear, who plays the father, is a guy who thinks he knows all the answers, but doesn’t have a clue, just like a former relative of mine. Toni Collette, who plays the mom, is denial about her bad habit. Paul Dano plays the teenager who won’t talk; I can relate. I’ve known salty old men like the grandfather, played by Alan Arkin. Certainly, the desire to fit in of Olive, played by young Abigail Breslin, is a universal theme. Finally, don’t we all know a gay, suicidal Proust scholar after a failed romance, such as Olive’s uncle, played by Steve Carell? You don’t? Yet, he too rang true.

Moreover, this movie is intelligently FUNNY. Sometimes, laugh-out-loud FUNNY, especially in the second half, yet touching without being preachy or saccharine.

I must admit that when the family makes it to the contest, I was slightly weirded out. All the contestants, save for Olive, reminded me of slightly older JonBenet Ramseys.

Still, this critically acclaimed film is a must-see.
***
The Conversation (on TV)

There were two very good Francis Ford Coppola films in 1974. One was The Godfather, Part 2, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won 6, including 3 for Coppola (best picture, directing and writing: screenplay adapted from other material, with Mario Puzo). The other was The Conversation, which was merely nominated for best picture and writing: original screenplay (both Coppola), as well as sound (Walter Murch, Arthur Rochester).

I’d heard about this movie for decades, but never saw it in the movies or on tape or DVD. So when TCM was showing films by independent movie directors back in July, I made a point to record it. but I didn’t get a chance to actually watch it until a couple weeks ago.

This movie, I thought, started off slowly, with me trying to decipher just what the heck is going on beyond Gene Hackman’s character following around a young couple; the young woman was played by Cindy Williams, then recently seen in American Graffiti, pre-Laverne & Shirley. Another American Graffiti alum, Harrison Ford, comes in and plays a pivotal role. I think this review gets it right: “slowly-gripping, bleak study of electronic surveillance and threat of new technologies that is examined through the private, internalized life of a lonely and detached expert ‘bugger.’ ” The movie becomes more compelling by the second half, as the pieces comes together. Also, one can certainly discuss the film in terms of the current (lack of) privacy conversation.
***
Invincible (another in the theaters)

We had babysitting grandparents, so we went to see ANOTHER movie with Greg Kinnear, the Rocky meets The Rookie football film with Mark Wahlberg. If I say it was “pleasant”, “inoffensive”, “competent” or even “enjoyable”, it seems to damn the movie with faint praise. It’s a true story, I knew how it was going to end, one plot line was WAY too transparent, and there was TOO MUCH ’70’s music to no particular end. But you know what? I bought into the story anyway. It’s a movie I could take my mother and my niece to, even though neither of them are particularly football fans. Not a must-see, but worthy of a rental.
***
From e-week:

Not that there haven’t been earlier responses, from Macca’s well-meaning but insipid tune “Freedom” to some Michael Moore film and other conspiracy theorists. But in the last few weeks, there have been two major motion pictures and seemingly dozens of TV movies, documentaries and “specials”.

So, what I am thinking about five years on? (And how many people will be ticked off by same?)

1. Well, let’s start with an analogy. I felt really badly when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. It wasn’t because I liked him , but because I didn’t. I didn’t trust him as Attorney General, and wasn’t convinced of his transformation as a populist. So when he was killed, I felt a sense of awkwardness.
But nothing like I felt in 9/11. When the Twin Towers were built in the 1970s, I thought they were awful. Ugly. Ostentatious. Did NOT enhance the classic New York City skyline. So when they collapsed, I felt just a little…guilty. And even more so, when in coming days, I learned they were targeted precisely because of their prominence. Actually, I felt AWFUL, as though, in some small way, it was somehow my fault.

2. I believe Usama bin Laden does not belong on the FBI Top Ten list. You may or may not know that he’s on there for “MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES” (I assume this refers to the two 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa; “CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES” (ditto); “ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH” (I guess the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.)
He is NOT on the list for 9/11, because, by the definition established by the FBI, the 10 Most Wanted list “is designed to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives who might not otherwise merit nationwide attention.” People such as Bucky Phillips, who allegedly shot three state troopers, killing one, and was fortunately caught on Friday. Now, one may not have known the name bin Laden after the African bombings or after a hole was blown in the Cole, but certainly no one has forgotten him now. Or have we?

3. The near deification of police departments all across America has made me somewhat…uncomfortable. I mean no disrespect to officers who died trying to save others, but the notion that, suddenly, police officers everywhere were exempt from criticism just didn’t/doesn’t sit right with me. (Apparently, other people have their Forbidden thoughts about 9/11.

4. I can’t help but to remember that most of the headlines in the New York Post in August 2001 about Rudy Giuliani were about his messy divorce.

5. Lots of people were collecting LOTS of money – over $1 billion by some estimates – after the event. Some people, including me, were made to feel somehow “unpatriotic” for not contributing. Some of these groups I had never heard of, and I was reasonably (I thought) suspicious.

6. Patriotism is NOT defined by American flag lapel pins, bumper stickers, or ratty-looking flags on their cars (which ought to be destroyed, respectfully), but by being an informed citizen, writing letters to the editor, writing letters to one’s representatives, and especially, voting. Which reminds me:

7. September 11, 2001 was Primary Day in New York State, ultimately postponed. As the law stands now, it will be Primary Day (for all races except the Presidency) on average every seven years. Some people think it ought to be changed to a week later, in order to “Honor the dead”. I don’t. September 11 is a GREAT day to exercise one’s freedom. Besides, I think the state primary is too late anyway. At some point in my adult life, all the primaries in New York were in June, but as they moved the Presidential primary earlier, they found the need to move the other primaries later, which tends to advantage the incumbents and/or the candidates with the most money.

8. After the towers were hit, there was a call from the American Red Cross for blood, anticipating that there would be large numbers of non-fatal casualties, when in fact there were maybe a couple dozen. Then the lines were out the doors of the blood centers, and there were complaints that they weren’t “more prepared” for an unprecedented outpouring. Some of the blood ended up being tossed, which created even more outrage. In fact, I’m a regular blood donor, scheduled weeks before to come in on September 19, and I was asked NOT to come in that day, but to wait a couple weeks. They thought (correctly) that I’d come back, and that most of these folks would not. So, if you donated after 9/11, and not since, go donate again; I promise you the need is great. This is not to say that the Red Cross didn’t make mistakes at that time, such as putting money people wanted to donate to 9/11 victims to the general fund. But go donate anyway.

9. I had some real difficulty with the 9/11 fund that parced out based on the likely income potential, so the three-piece suit families fared far better than the restaurant worker families. And I wonder what the plan will be for the next disaster.

10. I don’t care how he spins it now: GWB and his administration repeatedly mislead the American public into thinking there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq. But still: In a February 2005 Harris poll, 44% of Americans thought that there were Iraqis as pilots on the 9/11 planes, up from 37% in the previous poll. (I haven’t seen a subsequent survey.) This is not Iraq/9/11 terror link opinion, some alleged (though unlikely) secret meeting between Saddam and bin Laden. This is an issue of FACT. Reading that really hurt my head.