Back from the Southwest

We had a GREAT vacation. A quick review of the highlights of our whirlwind tour:


LAS VEGAS STRIP
A jewelry box full of rhinestones that someone has turned into an ashtray. A kaleidoscope of big hair, airbrushed, tight faces and fake boobs, together with oxygen-tank-sucking octogenarians with fingers planted firmly on the slot machine buttons.

We saw Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil. Well-done? Yes. Bawdy? Absolutely. Sexual? Slightly. Risqué? Not really. Unless you consider boobies and dirty jokes risqué. No gimps were harmed in the making of this show.



ROUTE 66
Stopped for lunch at the Road Kill Cafe in Seligman, Arizona. Their slogan--You Kill It, We Grill It. Not a vegetarian haven--even the grilled cheese sandwich was made with lard. Thank god for the salad bar.



GRAND CANYON
Absolutely grand, indeed. The early pioneers must have struggled to get here. We struggled ourselves with the brand of tourist attracted to the Grand Canyon Railway tour we took. Despite the bitchy, crochety old people on the train and the ADD-afflicted tour bus driver who told us more about herself than about the Canyon, the big hole in the ground was very impressive. I had had enough of the cheesy hotel brunch by the end of this bit of the trip. My advice? Skip the tour and do it on your own. The cowboy crooning on the train made me understand why so many were scalped back in the day.



SEDONA, ARIZONA
Although hyped up as over-touristy and overpriced, this was the highlight of our trip. We took a "Pink Jeep Tour", which had us bouncing over red rock formations and nearly knocked the chimichanga right out of me. You can go on meditation field trips to "magnetic vortices", and shop at the Metaphysical Supermarket. It's no wonder real estate prices here have skyrocketed.



BRYCE CANYON
After a long drive through Navajo country into Utah, we spent a day at Bryce, full of its famous hoodoo rock formations. Gorge-ous.



ZION NATIONAL PARK
Stayed at the Pioneer Lodge Motel, which was much better than expected. Good food, great views, easy access to tacky souvenirs and a free shuttle into the park. The park itself was wondrous, and I'd like to go back when I can hike some of it.


It was a great trip overall, bookended by some of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen in America on one side, and some of the nastiest tourists I've seen on the other. Like all places, the good and the bad intermingle, but in the end, it was an unforgettable experience, and introduced me to places I'd like to go back to again and again.

Check out our family album for more pics.

Ignorance by any other name...

I couldn't resist bringing this 1996 article by Eric Zorn from the Chicago Tribune straight over to my blog from another. I am not surprised by its existence--more frightened by the short-sightedness of individuals in today's world of sound-byte news, so easily forgetting recent history.

The article:

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MARRIAGE ISSUE JUST AS PLAIN AS BLACK AND WHITE
5-19-96

Statement No. 1: Same-sex marriage must be forbidden, said the Republican senator from Wisconsin, "simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong." No. 2. An organization opposed to gay marriage claimed legalizing them would result in "a degraded and ignoble population incapable of moral and intellectual development," and rested this belief on the "natural superiority with which God (has) ennobled heterosexuals."

No. 3. "I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose gay marriage as 'prejudiced' is in itself a prejudice," grumped a noted psychologist. "Nothing of any significance is gained by such a marriage."

No. 4. A U.S. representative from Georgia declared that allowing gay marriages "necessarily involves (the) degradation" of conventional marriage, an institution that "deserves admiration rather than execration."

No. 5. "The next step will be that gays and lesbians will demand a law allowing them, without restraint, to . . . have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters," warned a Kentucky congressman. "It is bound to come to that. There is no disguising the fact. And the sooner the alarm is given and the people take heed, the better it will be for our civilization."

No. 6. "When people of the same sex marry, they cannot possibly have any progeny," wrote an appeals judge in a Missouri case. "And such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid their marriages."

No 7. Same-sex marriages are "abominable," according to Virginia law. If allowed, they would "pollute" America.

No 8. In denying the appeal of a same-sex couple that had tried unsuccessfully to marry, a Georgia court wrote that such unions are "not only unnatural, but . . . always productive of deplorable results," such as increased effeminate behavior in the population. "They are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good . . . (in accordance with) the God of nature."

No. 9. A gay marriage ban is not discriminatory, reasoned a Republican congressman from Illinois, because it "applies equally to men and women."

No. 10. Attorneys for the state of Tennessee argued that such unions should be illegal because they are "distasteful to our people and unfit to produce the human race. . . ." The state supreme court agreed, declaring gay marriages would be "a calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us."

No. 11. Lawyers for California insisted that a ban on same-sex marriage is necessary to prevent "traditional marriage from being contaminated by the recognition of relationships that are physically and mentally inferior. . . . (and entered into by) the dregs of society."

No. 12. "The law concerning marriages is to be construed and understood in relation to those persons only to whom that law relates," thundered a Virginia judge in response to a challenge to that state's non-recognition of same-sex unions. "And not," he continued, "to a class of persons clearly not within the idea of the legislature when contemplating the subject of marriage."

To sum up: Legal recognition of such marriages would offend tradition, God, the sensibilities of the majority and the natural order while threatening conventional marriage, children and the future of our civilization.

The quotes are culled from a Boston University Law Review article and a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, though I did take the minor liberty of changing the subject of the strangled rage, fear and righteous indignation.

Everywhere I quoted the speakers referring to same-sex marriage, homosexuality and heterosexuality, they were actually referring to interracial marriage and their views of black people, white people and the proper interaction thereof. And yes, that includes statement No. 6, which in original form articulated the old white supremacist belief that offspring of whites and blacks were--like mules that result when horses mate with donkeys--sterile.

The quotes date from 1823 to 1964 and, though the sentiments look hatefully ridiculous to us in 1996, they had sufficient appeal and staying power that 15 states still criminalized black-white marriage until the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned those laws in the appropriately named 1967 case, Loving vs. Virginia.

Those whose unaltered words today resemble statements 1 through 12 above, take note. The stench is familiar. The future is listening.

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Heaven help us.

For the wonder of it all

We went to Foxwoods Casino and Resort yesterday. It's only an hour and a half from Boston, but for some reason we hadn't made it there yet. And at the age of 39, it was my first official casino visit, believe it or not. I saw every cliche known to casino lore there--grandmas and grandpas in wheelchairs and pushing walkers. The only thing I didn't see was someone with an oxygen tank, although I almost needed one myself from all the smoke.

Is this what Vegas looks like? Yes, Dennis assures me, this is a small taste-test of what to expect Sept 16-17 when we're out west. I think we'll take Koby to Circus Circus for the shows, which should be marginally more entertaining than watching the various octogenarians doing a bicep workout on the slot machines.