January is listserv drama month

Oh, the drama of late on the listservs: first there's the huge ANC 2C neighborhood upset of Theresa Sule nominating long-calcified puppet of Thorpe, Doris Brooks as chair (which she won). A shocking move considering the purported unanimous support against all things Thorpe, which includes Brooks in the package. Maybe Brooks won't be a puppet this time around, and maybe things will improve in how they do things. And maybe I just might move in June because Shaw is a hole. Too much crap to put up with to even be tolerant of a commission with so much drama. There are people being attacked and killed on the streets by roving groups of emboldened, bored kids just for fun, and all our leaders can think about is posturing, positioning, and statesmanship.

And then there's high gay drama on the International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB) listserv about the bids for the 2010 big gay rugby tournament. Only two teams put up a bid (sorta like how the Olympics does it) - Las Vegas and Minneapolis. One is a gay-inclusive rugby team but is not a member of IGRAB. I see it as a simple matter for them to sign up, I don't understand why they don't. But the issue has raised a lot of discussion about what "gay-inclusive" means on an athletic team. It seems some members of teams from the more more insular and ghettoized gay communities in larger cities aren't comfortable with "gay-inclusive" teams with a high number of straight members. Our DC team is like 50/50 gay/straight these days. Our breeders brought their wives and their children to the big gay rugby tournament in Dublin this summer. They came to our 10 year anniversary event. And all of the breeders on our team who played in our local union matches throughout a long spring season came to the big gay rugby tournament at the end of our season and I didn't hear one of them complain. They came with the gays because they love the team. If that isn't "gay inclusive" I don't know what is. I suppose you could limit your gay team to only gays, or have some sort of gay/straight quota, but in this day and age I don't think that is healthy. Frankly, it's a 95% straight world, and we would do good for ourselves to exercise our interactions with straight people more often. The days of living in an enclosed bubble in the Castro and not interacting with heterosexuals is over.

Anyway, Obama will not be able to attend Mid-Atlantic Leather this year, but here's a guide on how to tell whether you are celebrating Mid-Atlantic Leather or the Inauguration.

Unusual “gynandromorph” cardinal visits Quad City backyard bird feeder. More pictures on Minnesota BirdNerd's blog here. This is huge on the birding listservs today like a hot California wildfire.