Just a reminder: James has more reports from our friend Steve in Palestine.

Now that I have the new blog working, I can talk about last weekend and put up a few pictures. You’ll remember that it was 95 degrees and very humid — a lovely NYC August weekend. If we hadn’t had visitors, I would not have left my a/c-blessed apartment at all. I would have ordered in everything, including ice cream. But we did have visitors — two sets!

The first set was my friend David from high school, visiting from Chicago — a fellow “band fag” — and his friend Stacy (a charming Atlanta girl). Here is a picture of David wilting in a subway station. That orange blur on the left is James jumping out of the way to prevent having his picture taken.

Let’s just say David has grown up a bit since I knew him in high school, and I mean that in the best possible way. He was two classes behind me, and I think I was probably about 5’7" or 5’8" during my senior year. David was smaller. Now we’re about the same height, but he works out more than I and is “hunkier”.

He looked me up via Google using my real name about six months ago, and sent me an email. He was thrilled to find out that the moniker of “band fag” was truer for both of us than it was for many of the other nerdy band people. It was somewhat strange to be two homos in NYC, chatting about the world, 18 years after we last saw each other in a backward little town in Arkansas.

We went to Big Cup to eat lunch before heading uptown to the Eakins show at the Met — which I highly recommend. Big Cup managed to surprise me, as if often does. I didn’t see Edmund White there this time, but there were two men at the next table discussing the recent news that the U.S. won’t be increasing Egypt’s foreign aid because of their persecution of a democracy activist. One of them mentioned (I didn’t put this in my post), that Bush couldn’t be bothered to say anything when Egypt tried and jailed a large number of men for homosexuality. Foreign aid discussions at Big Cup!

Our other visitors for the weekend were James’s nephew Paul and his girlfriend Elizabeth, visiting from DC. She was fabulous. Imagine a family member dating someone who can chat about Donald Judd, British explorers in Antarctica, and is incredibly beautiful as well! I was ready for her to move in with us. We spent some time walking around downtown near Ground Zero, had lunch along the water at Southwest, and visited the Irish Hunger Memorial. I hadn’t realized that it talked about hunger on a more global level, and doesn’t just concentrate on the Irish Potato Famine alone. There are even quotes from reports on starvation in Afghanistan in 2001 (before 9/11). It’s an interesting piece of architecture, including the ruins of a stone cottage brought over from Ireland. I love the provenance of the cottage: it belonged to the family of the memorial designer’s (gay) partner. Elizabeth took a couple of pictures of us with Paul, so unfortunately she’s not in these:

I’ll add a vacation photo of her and Paul for the curious:

Yes, he dresses like an engineer. But he’s brilliant and speaks more languages than you do.

In honor of Philo, Chris, and the Summer of Rock, I present:

The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida:

Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race.

I didn’t know he had a web site! He is one of the only playwrights, along with Stoppard and Albee, that can get me to actually pay Broadway prices for a ticket.

OK. I’m done for now with the new and improved version. The more artistically-minded of you will notice the color scheme — it’s based on Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1921). I examined the RGB values from the image.

The blogrolling thing on the right isn’t always accurate about whether a blog has been updated recently. It’s because some programs (including the one that james is using) fail to send a “Last-Modified” header. So don’t yell at me if your entry is wrong.

Not really new, but it’s new to me. I love it!

As someone who thinks a pre-emptive strike on a country that few people other than Bush believe is a significant threat to us, I just signed Move On’s petition. This group got started during the horrors of the Clinton impeachment/Republican coup.

I will not feel safe in a world, as an American and a New Yorker, that justifiably believes that force is the only way to convince the USA of anything.

A Republican administration that has Kissinger telling it this is a bad idea is a danger to us all.

P.S. Are we really going to be safer if every country with weapons of mass destruction thinks we might attack them? It brings new meaning to the phrase “use ’em or lose ’em”.

James has posted reports from friends with Jews Against the Occupation currently staying in the Occupied Territories.

To be fair (because I’m morally superior to Republicans¹), I need to mention it when the Bush administration does something even remotely positive. Unfortunately, it only applies to new aid, not the $2 billion we currently give annually.

Bush, in Shift on Egypt, Links New Aid to Rights

The Bush administration will oppose any additional foreign aid for Egypt to protest the Egyptian government’s prosecution of human rights campaigner Saad Eddin Ibrahim and its poor treatment of pro-democracy organizations, administration sources said yesterday.

The Ibrahim case makes it “impossible” for the administration to contemplate extra money for Egypt, according to a White House official who said President Bush will soon advise Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in writing of his decision. Existing aid programs will not be affected.

¹ Just a single example: The horrible Ann Coulter, she of let’s have a crusade and convert the Arab world to Christianity by force fame (does she think we should try that with Jews again too?), says Manhattan doesn’t count as part of America. I recommend she visit NYC around the anniversary of 9/11 and say that.

Los Angeles Times columnist Jonathan Turley: Ashcroft has suggested camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be “enemy combatants”.