Cloud Surfing

Miss Liberty?, originally uploaded by dgans.

I am inordinately proud of this poster, designed by David Newman from a photo I took last fall in High Point, North Carolina.

My friend Scott Marley posted this in The WELL, in the media conference:
Excerpts from the speech of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, prime minister of Spain, upon the Spanish parliament’s vote to legalize same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples:

We are not making law, honorable members, for people far away and unknown to us. We are increasing the opportunity for happiness for our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and our families. At the same time, we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.
… Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who for many years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their
identity, and restores their liberty.
It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone’s triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet, because it is the triumph of liberty. Their victory makes all of us, even those who oppose the law, better people. It makes our society better.
Honorable members, there is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens gets the opportunity to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: This law enhances and respects marriage.
Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to say that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, and that its only consequence will be to avoid the senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids the senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.
With the approval of this bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had fewer rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives. Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: Every right gained, each access to liberty, has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise.
Today we demonstrate with this bill that societies can better themselves, and can cross barriers and create tolerance, by putting a stop to the unhappiness and humiliation of some of our citizens. Today, for many of our countrymen, comes the day predicted by [the poet C.P.] Cavafy one century ago: “Later, in the more perfect society, surely some other person created like me will appear and act freely.”

My letter to the editor of the SF Chronicle was published today. It was a response to a column by Debra J. Saunders which began with these words:
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha

JUST AS the New York Times reported that Bush guru Karl Rove disclosed to a Time magazine reporter that Bush-hater Joseph C. Wilson was married to a CIA operative….

Here’s what I wrote:

Editor — Debra J. Saunders led her column off by referring to “Bush-hater Joseph C. Wilson,” as if the only possible motivation for Wilson’s actions is a personal grudge against the president (“Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha,” July 14).
This seems typical of the right’s behavior in recent years, and it all seems to be getting even crazier and more juvenile as time goes by. Is it not possible that Wilson’s actions bespeak a desire to do what’s right for the world?
DAVID GANS
Oakland