Sean has many opinions and here are his thoughts about 2008...
Happy New Year everyone... almost! This Calvin & Hobbes cartoon captures my feeling about January 1, 2009 best. It not only captures my sense of nostalgia for my high school years (20 year reunion in '09), but also the idea that things can truly be renewed and improved with our once a year ritual providing a benchmark toward progress.
2008 was a year of many stresses for everyone as well as ones of joys as well. Here are the top 5 best and worst for at least me in 2008.
Best of 2009
1. Continuing to discover that Stefan and my love for each other can survive anything and our devotion to each other has reached the almighty "WE" stage.
2. Finding and putting and down payment on the location for our wedding in October 2009.
3. Realizing that Stefan and I planned well and that our debt reduction goal is only 1 month from being met!
4. Enjoying a wonderful trip to Hawaii and visiting our friends Josh and Johnathan.
5. Dropping the word "my" and "his" when discussing "our" niece Sarah and nephew Zachary.
There are little moments I am sure I am forgetting. I left off the election of Barack Obama intentionally because that was more of a national event then a personal one for me, and I am still pissed at him for Rick Warren.
Random Good Memories of 2008 I will always remember (in no particular order):
Seeing gay couples marry in California on television and reading about their individual stories online or on Vox.
Watching the Hitchcock revival with Stefan (and Julie) at The Charles Theatre.
Dessert with Alan and Christy at Vaccaro's and discussing the true meaning of 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Defeating Stefan at the annual PFLAG Gay Jeopardy Tournament (wink).
Enjoying a weak bonfire at Beth and Jon's house.
Speaking and Listening at the Baltimore protest against the passage of California's Proposition 8.
Shopping with Mikelle on Xmas Eve at Target.
Jumping off a rock with Joshy in Hawaii and earning Johnathan's respect for doing so.
Seeing two sea turtles swimming while snorkeling alone on Maui.
Witnessing sunrise on Maui from atop Haleakala Volcano.
Listening to Andy reach his dream of calling the World Series.
Sharing the films Laura, Casablanca, and All About Eve with Stefan for his first time.
Sharing a 3 hour meal with Thom, Chris, and Stefan at the Abacrombie, where we got free cheese and dessert.
Purchasing my iPhone, I don't know what I would do without it!
Standing in the snack line at The Charles Theatre with director John Waters behind me.
Scoring the Pirates/Rays game with Tim.
Drinking mai tais with newlyweds Nikki, Jeremy, Ryan and Sierra at a luau in Maui and learning that you should always bring two plates to the buffet line at a luau.
Attending church again at New Convenant.
Lighting Japanese lanterns in memory of love ones passed with Stefan, Josh, and Johnathan on Waikiki.
Discussing adoption with Maureen at The McFreed Picnic (the only thing I remember really).
Running into Karen after many years of no contact.
Laughing with Stefan over E!'s The Soup version of The Insider's Gwendolyn...and Schnapps!
Watching Battlestar Galactica, Pushing Daisies, Brothers & Sisters, and Lost on TV this year.
Democrats win big in election season full of great drama and history that lasted the whole year.
Watching Tina Fey create pop culture magic with her portrayal of Sarah Palin.
Laughing with Ramiro and Kiu on the train in the evening.
Getting to know Wendy again.
I am sure I am missing some but there are some good memories that I will never forget.
Two unexpected memories that I see as a positive one that I want to separate from the small were being awitness to the passing of two people this year.
In April, I was glad to be there for my friend Joshy and his family at the passing of his mother Faith. It is hard to see a love one pass, but this was a wonderful celebration of life to behold. And it was great to see all the love and acceptance given Johnathan at that time too.
I had the honor again later in the year to be there for Stefan's grandmother Rose on December 28. God personally chose me to be there and hold her hand as she passed from this world into heaven. It was truly a beautiful moment rather than a sad or tragic one for me. I will now be bonded to her forever.
Worst of 2008
The worst thing of 2008 was the incredible down turn in the economy which put all our pocket books, savings, and home mortgages at risk and threatened our job security. Here are my personal worst picks of 2008:
1. Any argument with Stefan.
2. Being hit upside the head by an unknown assailant and a freewheeling backpack at the Metro Station near work while 200 people watched and did nothing. Came out of that with a mild concussion and a contusion to the jaw.
3. Watching Stefan almost drown while snorkeling in Hawaii.
4. Dealing with the continual deferment of any award related to the contract I work on. The waiting has been painful for myself and my coworkers. A year and 4 months is too long to wait!
5. Being on the receiving end or watching Stefan be on the receiving end of disrespect or anger when it was not appropriate or deserved from people who shall remain nameless.
Worst of 2008 Runners Up: Watching Stefan suffer nose bleed for 2 hours at hospital, all 4 wisdom teeth being pulled, hosting a picnic for 60 with concussion and not remembering most of it, the New England Patriots losing in the Super Bowl after a perfect 16 - 0 season, having to root against the Boston Red Sox in the 2008 ALCS, and watching all 4 anti-gay measures win on Nov 4.
Here's to a better 2009!
The McFreeds share a video that really lays out the issues of Rick Warren out well...
I am not always crazy about Rachel Maddow, but this was great!
This is a post from our good buddy Frank! This Rick Warren business is just angering us more and more. Symbols are important at certain times, and the Inauguration is one of those times. We don't object to Warren being part of future debates but we would rather not have him in a position of symbolic reward as President-elect Barack Obama has just assigned him.
Sean reveals something he found Xmas shopping in an antique store...
If you had to choose a new name for yourself, which name would you pick?
Sean says: Max McFreed of course!
Sean shares some words about a fallen celebrity who makes a very good living now as a writer...
Carrie Fisher. God love her! She has had drama up and down in her life hasn't she. Coming to the bookstore this week (Stefan just told me last night he got a copy even before I saw the clip below!) is her memoir Wishful Drinking. The book dishes on everything from her parents' marriage, Star Wars, her husbands, drugs, alcohol, and mental illness. It is based on her one woman show she performed this year on stage.
Here is a very amusing clip from the Today Show where Matt Lauer gets to enjoy all that is Carrie. She is very open but she is not afraid to tell the truth with laughter. Strange enough she is beginning to look and sound like Margot Kidder lately though.
Sometimes Stefan and I remember her with the classic line in When Harry Met Sally...
"...oh! I was looking for a red seude pump!" Here's to you Carrie!
The McFreeds quote a singer from the past voicing his beliefs on Proposition 8 outloud like an American should...
We will allow these remarks to speak for themselves. It's nice to know that we and many of you out there are now seen as an American sexual jihadists!
"What troubles me so deeply, and should trouble all thinking Americans, is that there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists. Hate is hate, no matter where it erupts. And by its very nature, if it's not held in check, it will escalate into acts vile, violent and destructive."
- Pat Boone
...and they say we are weird?
Sean awards a undesirable honor...
(CNN) -- Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is in federal custody on corruption charges, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.
Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois.
Both men are expected in U.S. District Court in Chicago later Tuesday.
A news conference is expected at noon ET.
Federal prosecutors say Blagojevich, Harris and others conspired to gain financial benefits in appointing President-elect Barack Obama's Senate replacement, according to the statement.
"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement. "They allege that Blagojevich put a 'for sale' sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism."
According to the statement, Blagojevich is alleged to have discussed obtaining:
- a substantial salary for himself at either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;
- a spot for his wife on paid corporate boards, where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;
- promises of campaign funds -- including cash up front;
- a Cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.
The Obama transition team is aware that Blagojevich is in federal custody, but has no comment, according to a senior Democratic source.
The statement also alleges that Blagojevich and others tried to illegally obtain campaign contributions.
Blagojevich, Harris and others are also alleged to have withheld state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field. The statement says this was done to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members who were critical of Blagojevich.
Blagojevich, who turns 52 on Wednesday, is in his second four-year term as Illinois governor. His term ends in January 2011.
Before being elected governor, he served as a U.S. congressman for Illinois' 5th district from 1997 until 2003, according to his online biography. He and his wife, Patti, have two daughters.
Blagojevich announced last month that he was forming a panel to review candidates to fill Obama's Senate seat.
Several Illinois Democrats -- including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former congressional candidate who now serves in Blagojevich's administration -- have been mentioned as possible Senate replacements for Obama.
Sean apologizes to his friends on Facebook...
I wanted to say sorry to everyone for being so stupid and exposing everyone to the Koobface worm. I hope that everyone who got an email via Facebook deleted it and did not try to open the video in the email. I shouldn't have been so excited by my high school chum's video invite but it was a tiring day and some laughs would have been great. *SIGH* Thanks to my friend Joe who held my hand as I tried to stop the "bleeding." I now have to figure out how to get Internet access back at home. I think I figured it out but we'll see.
Some people received my email and some did not, eitehr way be on the lookout and delete it if you get it.
Sorry again.
Sean
The McFreeds share an article from Rolling Stone Magazine...
Same-Sex Setback
Don't blame Mormons or black voters - the California activists who tried to stop Prop 8 ran a lousy campaign
Posted Dec 11, 2008 11:00 AM
On election night in California, all signs pointed to a progressive tidal wave. Voters in the state swept Barack Obama to a 24-point victory over John McCain — the biggest margin for any candidate since 1936. Bucking the recession, eco-conscious Californians voted to spend $10 billion to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with a European-style bullet train. It was even a banner night for chickens, with 63 percent of the electorate approving a PETA-endorsed proposition to expand the size of poultry cages on factory farms.
Then the returns for Proposition 8 came in. The amendment to ban gay marriage — a right affirmed by the state Supreme Court in May and put into practice by more than 18,000 couples — passed by a four-point margin, as Californians voted to eviscerate the equal-protection clause of the state constitution. Along with similar bans in Arizona and Florida — as well as a measure in Arkansas that bars same-sex couples from adopting children or even serving as foster parents — Prop 8 offered hope to the Christian right that their decades-long culture wars may continue to rage, despite Obama's historic victory. All told, more than 2 million Californians who voted for Obama also pulled the lever for Prop 8.
Election postmortems have been quick to scapegoat minorities for the loss. The right pointed out that African-Americans voted overwhelmingly against gay marriage; the left blasted Mormons who obeyed an unprecedented dictate from the church's leadership in Salt Lake City and donated 45 percent of the funds for a campaign to pass Prop 8.
But evidence of entrenched homophobia and religious intolerance obscure a more difficult truth. Prop 8 should have been defeated — two months before the election, it was down 17 points in the polls — but the gay-rights groups that tried to stop it ran a lousy campaign. According to veteran political observers, the No on Prop 8 effort was slow to raise money, ran weak and confusing ads, and failed to put together a grass-roots operation to get out the vote.
"This was political malpractice," says a Democratic consultant who operates at the highest level of California politics. "They fucked this up, and it was painful to watch. They shouldn't be allowed to pawn this off on the Mormons or anyone else. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and now hundreds of thousands of gay couples are going to pay the price."
From the start, the leaders of the No on Prop 8 campaign and their high-priced consultants failed to realize what they were up against. According to Geoff Kors, who headed the campaign's executive committee, the No side anticipated needing no more than $20 million to stop the gay-marriage ban. The Yes side, by contrast, set out to change how initiative politics are played, building a well-funded operation that rivaled a swing-state presidential campaign in its scope and complexity. It also built a powerful, faith-based coalition that included the Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The direct involvement of the Mormon church — moving donors in a very short window to give early — was stunning," says Patrick Guerriero, who was called in to take over as campaign manager of No on Prop 8 in the final month. "It was unprecedented — and probably impossible to predict."
In fact, as documented in an internal LDS memo leaked during the campaign, proposals for such a coalition had been on the table for more than a decade. In the memo, a high-ranking Mormon leader discusses approaches for fighting gay marriage in California: "The Church should be in a coalition and not out front by itself," the memo advocates. "The public image of the Catholic Church is higher than our Church. . . . If we get into this, they are the ones with which to join."
It's ironic that the coalition to define marriage in California as the union between "one man and one woman" was anchored by a church whose founder claimed 33 wives. It's also ironic that the coalition — which framed Prop 8 as a fight to protect California's children — was quietly knit together by the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, who once excused the molestation of children at the hands of a pedophile priest as mere "horseplay." But once the Mormons joined the effort, they quickly established themselves as "the foundation of the campaign," says Frank Schubert, the consultant who directed Yes on 8. "We could count on their money and their people being there early."
Schubert put Mormon volunteers to work in an expansive field campaign modeled on the effort his business partner, Jeff Flint, worked on in 2004 for George Bush in Ohio. "This is the first time in initiative history that it's ever been done" for a ballot measure, says Schubert. Throughout the summer, Yes on 8 deployed an army of more than 100,000 volunteers to knock on doors in every zip code in the state.
"We had an enormous grass-roots advantage," Schubert says. "Our core was people of faith, and we were able to organize through churches." In the end, he says, the campaign visited 70 percent of all California households in person, and contacted another 15 percent by phone.
The No on Prop 8 campaign, meanwhile, was oblivious to the formidable field operation that the other side was mounting. Worse, its executive committee refused to include leaders of top gay and lesbian grass-roots organizations, which deprived them of an army of willing foot soldiers. "We didn't have people going door to door," admits Yvette Martinez, the campaign's political director. The field operation consisted of volunteers phone-banking from 135 call centers across the state, an effort that didn't begin ramping up until mid-October.
"They had no ground game," says a leading Democratic consultant. "They thought they could win this thing by slapping some ads together. It was the height of naiveté."
The Yes on 8 campaign's get-out-the-vote effort was equally prodigious. The weekend before the vote, Schubert's religious volunteers once again went door to door, speaking to supporters and directing them to the right precinct locations. "On Election Day," he says, "we had 100,000 people — five per precinct — checking voter rolls and contacting supporters who hadn't showed up to vote."
By contrast, the No on Prop 8 campaign mobilized just 11,000 volunteers on Election Day, which they deployed to polling locations to hold "Vote No on 8" signs. The campaign even turned away volunteers who were unable to attend a sign-holding training seminar. Terry Leftgoff, a veteran campaign consultant who was once the highest-ranking gay officer in the California Democratic Party, was one of those who was informed that his services weren't needed. "I was told I could come by on November 5th and help clean up a campaign office," Leftgoff says.
As terrible as the no on prop 8 campaign did on the ground, it did even worse on the air.
Until the final days, the campaign failed to take advantage of the backing of every major newspaper in the state, as well as that of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former President Bill Clinton and future President Barack Obama. In one bizarre episode, an outside consultant was forced to "jackhammer" the campaign leadership simply to convince them to make use of a robo-call from Bill Clinton. The campaign also rejected a Spanish-language ad featuring Dolores Huerta, a heroine of the United Farm Workers union.
"There were big mistakes that led to this flop," says Leftgoff, the veteran consultant. "They lacked the media messaging essential to any campaign."
To make matters worse, the No campaign refused to reassure voters by presenting positive depictions of gay and lesbian couples in its ads. Instead, in a bizarre approach, it opted to effectively affirm the homophobia of the swing voters it was courting. An ad called "Conversation," featuring two female friends looking at family photos over coffee, typified the effort:
Woman 1: And here's our niece Maria and her partner, Julie, at their wedding.
Woman 2: Listen. Honestly? I just don't know how I feel about this same-sex-marriage thing.
Woman 1: No. It's OK. And I really think it's fine if you don't know how you feel. But are you willing to eliminate rights and have our laws treat people differently?
Woman 2: No!
The awkward ads alienated gay activists. Robin Tyler, one of the lead plaintiffs in the marriage case that reached the state Supreme Court, describes the approach of No on Prop 8 as "if we hide, they'll give us our rights." The campaign, she suggests, could have picked up a few pointers from the ballot initiative to reform factory farming: "When they were trying to pass Prop 2," she asks, "did they hide the chickens
Even Patrick Guerriero, who took the reins of the campaign in October, admits that the early communications strategy was disastrous. "Those ads were perfect," he says, "if there wasn't an opponent."
But there was an opponent — and Schubert quickly took advantage of the weak ads to turn gay marriage into a referendum on education and parental rights. One spot featured a young Hispanic girl coming home to tell her mother, "Guess what I learned in school today? I learned how a prince married a prince, and I can marry a princess!" Schubert drove home the theme again with an ad highlighting a field trip by San Francisco first-graders to see their lesbian teacher get married.
The ads were misleading but devastating. Within two weeks, the Yes campaign turned a double-digit deficit in the polls into a 15-point lead. Worse, the Yes side began October with $12.8 million in the bank to spend on advertising, while the No campaign had only $1.8 million. "Our filing was so large that it literally crashed the secretary of state's Web page," boasts Schubert. "They couldn't accept it — there were over 5,000 pages of contributors." At that point, the No on Prop 8 campaign had only 6,000 donors. "We did not have the cash we needed," concedes Kors, the leader of the No on Prop 8 executive committee.
The numbers spurred a major shake-up of the No campaign, which called in Guerriero, formerly executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, to take the helm. Guerriero thought the campaign was effectively lost, but he was determined to "scramble back" — to narrow the margin of defeat and thus demonstrate progress over 2000, when California voters first outlawed gay marriage by a margin of 23 points.
And then something extraordinary happened. "Once the progressive community was told, 'We're in the fight of our lives, and we're losing,' they just responded," says Guerriero. "No one can say people didn't wake up." Volunteers from Google and eBay built a Website for online donations; money started flooding in at a clip of up to $1 million a day. By Election Day, the once-poor No campaign had outraised the Yes side by $2 million.
The No campaign also aired its first effective counterattack, running an ad that featured the state school superintendent making clear that gay marriage would not be taught in the schools. "It was their best ad of the campaign by far, but it was very, very late for them to react," says Schubert. The No campaign also filmed a powerful ad that featured Sen. Dianne Feinstein — perhaps the most popular politician in the state — appealing to voters to "vote against discrimination."
Had the campaign left well enough alone, the Feinstein ad might have done the trick. Instead, with only a week to go before Election Day, it flailed about as crazily as the McCain campaign in search of a message. After running the Feinstein ad for only four days, it recut the spot to incorporate other big-name endorsers, garbling the message. It also filmed a counterproductive ad narrated by Samuel L. Jackson that, in the course of 30 seconds, tried to connect the gay-marriage struggle to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the housing-rights struggles of Armenians in California and bans on interracial marriage in the South.
"The ad was a huge fucking mistake," says a top Democratic campaign strategist. "Any objective consultant who has done any research on this issue will tell you that the struggle for marriage equality is not accepted by minority communities to be equivalent to the civil rights movement. In fact, it pisses minorities off."
It didn't help that Barack Obama refused to support gay marriage, and voiced his opposition to Prop 8 as a narrow constitutional matter. Indeed, Obama was so weak on the issue that Schubert highlighted the candidate's opposition to gay marriage in a mailer targeting African-Americans, and used his voice in a statewide robo-call. "We were able to quote him directly on the core issue in direct mail and in calls at the end of the campaign," says Schubert. When African-Americans in California went to the polls on Election Day, 70 percent of them voted to ban gay marriage.
Civil rights groups in California have already petitioned the state Supreme Court to toss out Prop 8, arguing that revising the state constitution requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature. The fight has also gone national. On November 10th, the gay-rights group Equality Utah announced that it would draft legislation in Utah to legalize civil unions — a direct challenge to the Mormon church, which claims to support such relationships. And on November 15th, after only eight days of organizing online, more than 100,000 protesters rallied against Prop 8 in 300 cities across the country.
As the demonstrations suggest, there is a silver lining to the passage of Prop 8. Because it succeeded due to the mistakes and mismanagement of its opponents — rather than deep-seated hostility to gay and lesbian couples — it can be overturned at the ballot box. Since 2000, the margin of voters in the state who oppose gay marriage has plunged from 23 points to only four.
"The speed at which this issue is moving is unprecedented in my personal political experience," says Bill Carrick, a prominent Democratic consultant who worked on the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. "Support for gay marriage has moved so far, in such a short period of time, that I think we're going to look back at Prop 8 as an aberration. History is headed in a very pro-gay-marriage direction, and it probably is going to happen in a much shorter time than anybody imagines."
[From Issue 1067 — December 11, 2008]
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