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I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Friday, February 13, 2004
What Did I Tell You? (Part 2)
I remember how it felt to be alive in those last few glorious months of 1989, when walls real and imagined were tumbling like dominoes. It all happened so fast, we were all caught off-guard in the most gleeful way. You'd open the paper every morning and say something like "what, Bulgaria too?" I'm getting the same feeling now with the onward rush of the gay marriage express; events are moving faster than I can blog about them. A week ago I was going to suggest a cross-country convoy from Castro Street to Massachusetts. Then earlier this week Gavin Newsom said he wanted the city to look into issuing marriage licenses to any couple who asked for one -- because he read the state Constitution he just swore to uphold, and it says all citizens have to be treated equally. And I wanted to say, see? Didn't I tell you he seemed to me a good guy; not at all the kind of fascist he'd been portrayed as in some quarters? Didn't I post my interview with him in which he talked about his support for gay marriage? Then I came back from assignment last night -- more on that later -- and discovered over dinner that the city had married 118 gay couples earlier that day.
Reading about it in the Chronicle this morning was delightful, a moment of sheer 1989-ness. The couples and well-wishers looked as dazed, surprised, happy and tearful as east Berliners crossing through the wall for the first time -- which was, in effect, what they were doing. I found this passage especially moving:
[Andrew] Nance's hands shook as he showed a small crowd the rings [he and his partner] exchanged during the ceremony. The bands bore images from their lives together: a cup of coffee to honor their meeting place, the American Sign Language symbol for "I love you," and another symbol for "growth and forever."
Who would want to take those rings away from their shaking hands? Who can be so hard of heart to scowl at such a tender and genuine emotion? If the Christian God is love, then there can be little doubt the Christian God is moving in these couples. Some idiot from the Family Research Council trotted out the tired old line about "their agenda of normalizing homosexuality." Normalizing? For crying out loud, isn't it normal yet? They're still here, they're still queer, and you still haven't got used to it? What are you afraid of? It's not like anyone is going to force Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to march down the aisle at shotgun-point. This is about the right of everyone to pursue their own happiness -- in San Francisco, in Massachusetts, and anywhere they damn well please. There will be legal battles ahead, but for now homophobic conservatives seem like gray-faced East German apparatchiks in November 1989 -- suddenly powerless, and about to fall victim to the spread of infectious liberty.
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