Another Busy Day, a Hat for Dulaan, & a Bit of a Rant

Today was mostly filled with various small tasks and busy work. David's new office manager has been keeping him busy decluttering for the past week and a half, so while they were sorting through several years' worth of accumulated boxes I did a couple minor IT tasks David was afraid to take on. I finally decided to sit down, though, and finish up a hat for Dulaan I've had languishing on the needles for nearly two months now, I think. I particularly like the little I-cord nubbin on top.



Dena asks on her blog today, "Where do you get your patterns?" I have to say that I make them up myself, probaby better than 90% of the time. Even when I use a published pattern, I usually only use it as a basic template and make my own adaptations to it - much as I do with my cooking. The hat above is fairly basic - seed stitch band, stockinette with double decreases, etc. - but I basically decided how I was going about it as I went along, and it turned out rather nice, I think. More importantly, it turned out warm.

Scapegoats-R-Us

It is no surprise that the Republicans are turning to their tried-and-true method of bashing all queer folk to deflect the hypocrisy of their turning a blind eye to the closet case in their midst. Of course, I'm talking about the Mark Foley case, or as the press has now dubbed it, "Foleygate" (Why in the hell do they feel this compulsion to try to make everything sound like Watergate? It annoys me greatly).

Of course, right-wing pundits have trotted out the same-old, same-old argument of homosexuality=pedophilia. True, at least some of these pages were apparently below the age of consent in this country, but they were not pre-pubertal, which to me says what he did was not pedophilic. Stupid, yes. Highly inappropriate, yes. But not pedophilia.

That's about the only thing I can say in Foley's defense. Age of consent laws are, at best, problematic, as they are an arbitrary construct. I've known some 16-year-olds who were more grown up than some 50-year-olds (Foley is a good case in point, actually). Adding one more candle to one's birthday cake does not magically bring maturity fully-fledged, but the law is designed to protect children from predatory adults and on the whole there tends to be a correlation between age and emotional maturity, so some sort of line has to be drawn somewhere. Clearly, though, Foley was in a position of power and abused that position at least to engage in overtly sexual conversation with boys/young men who were more than young enough to be his children.

What is more disgusting to me, though not particularly surprising, is all the patently feigned horror coming from the Republican leadership. It is fairly clear that they knew what Foley was up to and they just let it slide. As long as he was a self-hating homo who voted to bash the homos along with them, then they were content to pretend none of it was happening. Now that they've been caught out, however, it's a mad rush to see who can bash the most and the loudest.

Just how morally bankrupt do they have to be before people stop voting for them?