From the ‘Schadenfreude’ file, we’re going to learn a couple of new words: That long file title means ‘joy at the misfortune of others’ and is the feeling of many folks at the discomfiture of the Republican right over the Mark Foley scandal.
The New York Times (10/4), referring to (former) Rep. Foley—who text-messaged a number of male teen pages with inappropriate sexual material—quoted his lawyer, David Roth, who said ‘Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false.’ That, of course, is quite true since those types like little kids and he likes teenagers; Mr. Foley is actually an ephebophile. While still an abuse of power, a number of sources pointed out that, depending on what state you’re in, the age of consent varies. His deeds may not be illegal but they are perceived as immoral and may bring down more than one conservative.
Right-wingers are attracting other critics. In the Chicago Tribune (10/4), Garrison Keillor lists all the U.S. senators who voted against habeas corpus re foreign prisoners, saying that those senators have no moral standing anymore and that while Christians are safe: ‘It’s only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies.’ The Economist (9/23-29) reviews Richard Dawkins new book, The God Delusion, in which he calls the God of the Old Testament ‘a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully’—among other things. The Chicago Trib (10/4), looking at a spate of new anti-right books, quotes Mel White in Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right: ‘Consciously or unconsciously, fundamentalist Christians are using their anti-homosexual campaign to test how much intolerance the American people will tolerate.’
From the ‘Fun-Little-History-Lesson’ file: Know who came up with the term ‘punk rock?’ Vanity Fair (Oct.), digging in its own files, re-tells the 1972 story that (gay) nightclub singer Bobby Short and (lesbian) mega-star Marlene Dietrich trotted off to an obscure club to check out a scruffy band, the New York Dolls. Seated next to the stage Dietrich was fascinated by one performer, Johnny Thunders, who had on such high-heeled boots that he stumbled and fell right into her lap and kept playing. Amused, she said he was a punk (’30s slang for a homosexual) and they ought to call this a punk-rock band.
Mary Schmich, Trib columnist and writer of the comic strip Brenda Starr, is pushing the envelope again. At the end of September she introduced another gay character onto the funny pages: ‘Gig’ is no hairdresser like a previous intro. So far, La Starr seems to have found Gig’s being simultaneously kept by an elderly female movie actress AND an elderly male actor while being pursued by hordes of young starlets yet longing for, umm, someone a tish more masculine: ‘… Am I confusing the girls with the guys?’ You go, Mary.