Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Gay Cowboys

The proverbial manure has hit the fan, and will continue to, over the movie Brokeback Mountain, because of its depiction of homosexuality on the open range. Queer Thoughts ~ News for the Gay Community has reviews and will have the Christian Conservative response to the movie on his blog. I left him this comment, without links, so I have added them here and expanded on it.

Whats interesting is that gay cowboy culture was first mentioned in the CD and Book Who Built America a working class history of the U.S. and caused such a fuss that Dick Cheney's wife, Lynn, when she was head of the Endowment for the Humanities under Bush I,attacked it. Now I am not saying this was the only mention, the Journal Radical History also had a good article on Gay Cowboy culture, History of Manhood in America by Bruce Dorsey in 1996. But it too came out after Who Built America. Lynns fury over the gay cowboy section of this CD caused Apple to pull it at the time, they were including it in a bundle with several other encyclopedias for the Mac.

The real Cowboys.

The truth is stranger than friction to misquote T Bone Slim, and such is the case with the John Wayne, John Ford, Hollywood and Zane Grey's fictional characterization of cowboys in the North American prairies. Cowboys are not merely an American phenomena but one that stretches from Mexico to Canada. Their real story is the story of Capitalist expansion westerward after the Civil War.


Home on the Range: Richard Phillips

The cowboy of Western mythology rode the range during the heyday of
the long cattle drives in the l860s and 1870s. Despite the individualism
emphasized in myth, most cowhands were employees of Eastern and European
capitalists who raised cattle as a corporate enterprise to serve a growing
appetite for beef in the U.S. Cowboys were overworked hired hands who rode in
freezing wind and rain or roasted in the Texas sun; searched for lost cattle;
mended fences; ate monotonous and bad food; and suffered stampedes, quicksand,
blizzards, floods, and drought. The work was hard, dangerous, and often lonely;
pay averaged from $25 to $40 a month. Many became cowboys for lack of other job opportunities; one of every three cowboys was an African American or Mexican. In
the late 1930s writers employed by the Federal Writers Project in Texas interviewed more than 400 cowboys, providing some of the only firsthand sources
about late 19th-century cowboys. In this interview, cowboy Richard Phillips
offered a firsthand glimpse of the hard life that awaited the men who trailed
cattle to market.



And like the masculine/male relationships in pirate culture why should we should be surprised to discover a gay cowboy culture, or even a female drag culture ( Annie Oakely comes to mind) in the North American west? For that matter why should we assume that all cowboys were white? In Alberta the first cowboy of renown was John Ware, a black cowboy and rodeo legend. Cowboy culture was far from the red neck stereotype so affectionately embraced today. And we can expect to hear the gnashing of teeth and the whining from the right wing as yet another historical fiction bites the dust.


For those who don't know the story of Mr. John Ware, he rightly deserves
his reputation. His cowboy skills were legendary, and contrary to the popular
Hollywood image of cowboys, he was a gentleman, led an honest, moral life, and
was a loving father. His work was extremely difficult, as the working conditions
were as harsh as could be possible, and in those days there was not much in the
way of assistance if he became injured or disabled. Cowboys were responsible for
the well-being of cattle as they were moved from ranch to ranch or from
pastureland to pastureland. They had to protect them against poachers and from
wild animals, and they had to keep them from wandering away from the herd (in
the days when the great plains of Western United States and Canada were not
fenced off).


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Take Tasers Away from Cops

As I wrote here its time to remove tasers from the cops. The Canadian Mental Health association agrees. Police training inadequate, mental health advocates say
"Certainly the use of non-lethal weapons is preferable, but here we have an incident where Tasers are not non-lethal." Yep I said that too.

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After Klander

In the aftermath of le affair Klander Paul Wells made this very funny comment:

"What can you say to stop people from extended reverie about how cowboy hats make people look gay? I mean, I'm not sure what warning would have forstalled that.''



Meanwhile the fallout from Klander has also hit the blogoshpere in general, inditing both Liberal and Conservative blogs for their intolerance and general nastiness. And the target of these attacks, are more often than not the NDP. Unfortunately giving them advertising like this just drives up their visitor numbers and puffs up their egos.

Blogging could come back to haunt some bloggers

Another blogger who describes himself as a supporter of Liberal candidate Deborah Coyne, describes her opponent, NDP Leader Jack Layton, as a "carpetbagger" that he doesn't like.
"I don't like Jack Layton, let's get that out of the way," Tyler King wrote at http://tyking.blogspot.com.
"I'll be spending as much of my holidays as possible on Deborah Coyne's campaign to unseat Jack."
A posting titled "Bye! Bye! Tommy 'Commie' Douglas!" at www.vivelecanada.ca isn't much nicer.
"Tommy Douglas was an idealist, but not a realist. This scumbag really believed that eliminating choice and taxing the crap out of the public was the best way of 'caring' for people. Douglas is a piece of crap.
Toss his 'legacy' in the garbage next to the graves of all those who died waiting/mistreated by this failed public health care system," Loonie wrote.
But the raving opinions, off-colour insults and offensive language seen in many election blogs are prime examples of what could one day come back to haunt the bloggers, many of them wannabe politicians

And even Shelia Copps got into le affair Klander, she knew the guy since he was a young wannabe politician. Her comment reflects the problem with many Liberal blogs, and of course the same can be said for Blogging Torys.

His blog struck me as stunning in its ignorance. No depth there, simply hate. Martin good, everyone else bad.

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Martial Law


Well it's not only the Harper that wants to bring in troops into Canadian cities, now its his fundamentalist backers that want to do the same thing, in T.O. This same dingbat called for the return of the War Measures Act last time there was a shooting in T.O. now he wants full blown Martial Law, to protect the (white) middle class from them (coloured) folks in the high rise crime zones.

And why is he a dingbat, cause the killers are members of his Christian congregation, so how come he ain't instilled in them the respect for the 10 comandments and moral values that he espouses. Yep he would rather blame society than his own failure to enforce the morality of his religious teachings. Gee Pastor, whats so hard to understand about Thou Shalt Not Kill.

A Toronto-area pastor says enough is enough and yesterday stepped up callsfor up to 8,000 soldiers to be deployed in Toronto to help root out gunmen
plaguing the city."We have had this scenario of killings all summer,"
said Pastor Allan Bowen, of the Abundant Life Assembly in suburban
Etobicoke. "TheBoxing Day shootings have all the earmarks of those in
the troubled areas." Bowen has attended or officiated over the funerals
of at least 10 men, somewhom were suspected gang members, murdered last
summer in the Jane-Finch area. "They (city leaders) have to call in the
army," he said yesterday. "There isno end in sight for the killings."


Instead of "turn the other cheek," this is what he wants.