This Just In: Old, Wealthy, White Guys Retiring

No, it's not the Onion Radio News, it's just real news, filtered through the piercing, un-cataractical, weary-of-rolling eyes of My Masonic Apron.

In case you've been sitting under your refrigerator playing with yourself or watching the Tiger Woods News Network twenty-four hours a day, the news that a couple prominent Democrats are retiring has gotten everybody else's panties (crotchless or otherwise) in rather a twisty-poo.

A Democratic senator from North Dakota named Byron Dorgan, whom none of you has ever heard of, will not be seeking re-election. Neither will Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, whom some of you might have heard of, but only because he ran for President in 2008, which I was unaware of. I guess I was blinded by the glamour and manly beauty of "Law & Order" stalwart and necktie-wearing bassett hound Fred Thompson.

The news media is going crazygonuts about this. What does it fortell for the Democratic party? They're calling it "another bout of heartburn" for the Democrats. Now, I'm not as stupid as you drunk I am, I know that people staying is better, image-wise, than people leaving, but I'm a little confused about what the BFD is here.

Chris Dodd is 66 years old. He's a lawyer and a career politician, being elected to the senate in 1980, the year I was born, for any of you who are curious about such things (May 12, send pickles-of-the-month!). That means that he's been a senator for almost thirty goddamn years.

Thirty, bitches.

That's rather a long time to be doing anything, especially in an era when people stay in one job about the average length of a rodeo bull-riding session.

Byron Dorgan is old enough to have been born in an era when it was acceptable, apparently, to name your child "Byron." Okay, okay, he's actually only one year older than Chris Dodd, but apparently his parents were big Tennessee Williams fans. "Lord Byron's Love Letter?" Anyone? Oh, nevermind.

Anyway, Dorgan's been a senator for 17 years. So, he and Dodd together have a combined 47 years experience (I'm doing math, Mrs. Apron, aren't you proud of me?) Maybe the two of them high-tailing it out of there isn't such a bad thing.

I mean, it's not like either of them are strapped for cash and need to keep working to make sure their families are provided for.

I don't think.

Dorgan was a big-shit corporate executive at a Denver aerospace firm before becoming a senator, which doesn't pay too poorly either. He was also briefly entangled in the Jack Abramoff money-laundering scandal, so he's probably not doing too bad from that either. Chris Dodd lives comfortably in East Haddam, Connecticut, which isn't a shabby little town and he owns a "vacation home" in Connemara, Ireland, which just sucks for him, don't it?

Now, granted, both of these men probably wake up six times a night to pee, and they have sciatica and the mumps and gout of the head or whatever the hell old, rich, white people are getting these days, but I'd say they're doing okay, relatively speaking. Relative to the 10% of their fellow Americans who are unemployed right now.

So, why shouldn't they be retiring?

Should they be there, legislating, pretending they're reading 5,000 page bills and falling asleep at their little desks until they're in their seventies or eighties or nineties? Is that what we want on the Hill? A bunch of crinkly motherfuckers who constantly have to leave session to put in eyedrops or get an open cardiac massage in the senator's lounge?

My point is: two old sonsofbitches throwing in the towel is not news, and it's not a goddamn case of heartburn for the Democratic party. It's just two old sonsofbitches throwing in the towel. Can you blame them? Maybe Dodd wants to spend more time in Ireland. Or Connecticut. Maybe Byron wants to have his name surgically changed.

Who gives a shit?

Frankly, I wish more of these silver-haired, crumply old bastards would hit the road, on both sides of the aisle. How about getting in some young people who don't smoke so they're not as beholden to the tobacco lobby? Maybe some guys who can actually attain erections naturally so they're not totally in Big Pharma's pocket, accepting free samples of Viagra and hoarding Levitra click-pens in exchange for pushing drugs through the FDA process before they're deemed safe?

Instead of criticizing and critiquing the decision of these two Pamper-asses to step aside, we should be applauding them for leaving while they still have more than two marbles rolling around in their skulls. Americans are notorious for not knowing when to quit. Look at how many years "Roseanne" was on the air.

Goodbye, Christopher Dodd.

Goodbye.... *chortle*.... Byron.

Have a nice life, you two rich, old, white guys.

And now you know why you rarely read about politics on My Masonic Apron.

I Do in America

The whole gay marriage debate really gets on my nerves.

I'm not particularly affected by one part of it or another, being already married and decidedly un-gay in spite of my affection for Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and sharing my emotions, but the fact that there is a debate at all annoys the hell out of me.

Why?

What is it about our society that makes the masses believe that politicians or bishops should have anything to say about whether or not two people who love each other can get married? Why do we allow these people to speak? Why do we give them microphones and airtime and soundbytes? What's wrong with us?

Why do we still insist on authorizing and permitting bigotry?

That's all it is, really. The suits and the cleric collars can say whatever they want about how they're protecting the sanctity of the institution of marriage, but really it's just about bashing faggots.

Really. It is.

Don't believe me? This is a society where "that's gay" has finally become the universal replacement for "that's retarded." Well, at least they're running neck-and-neck in some areas. We don't like homosexuals. We don't understand it. We think it's, well, gay. We do not like them in our workplace, or in our subway car. We do not like them in our neighborhoods or in our time-shares.

We do not like them here, or there, or anywhere.

Though the days of homosexual panic are a kind-of-distant memory, we're still afraid they're gonna, like, hump us at the copier or something.

Like it or not, though, gay marriage is coming. It's just going to take some time, because there's a lot of foreplay to get through first, which is appalling, but it's true. Look at the end of slavery. Look at giving African-Americans the right to vote. Look at suffrage. Look at the Civil Rights movement. Look at India achieving its independence from England, for Christ's sake. These things all happen, but they take time. Lots and lots of time. But, it's going to happen. I just wish it didn't have to take so long, and I wish we didn't have to live in a country that accepts, allows and cloaks bigotry, prejudice and hatred of certain groups for a self-serving "higher purpose."

Protecting the sanctity of marriage? Please-- which one of the white-haired, buttoned-up conservative politicians beating that drum hasn't drilled his 31-year-old secretary from behind over his desk while his wife was out shaking hands on his behalf on the campaign trail? Go protect the sanctity of your own marriage, motherfucker.

100 years from now, or fewer, people will look back on our society and snicker and sneer at what a joke we were, what a hypocritical, thoroughly unfunny joke we were. Electing a black man president, and disallowing homosexuals to marry each other in every state of the union. Well, it's allowed here, but your marriage is invalid here. Well, you can have partner benefits, but you can't call it marriage. Well, civil union this, well, maybe in Vermont, well...

Well? Fuck that.

Anytime the rights of a few are suppressed, we are all diminished as a people. We in this country have a long history of speaking from both sides of our mouth. We were born bellowing liberty justice for all, but really that of course only mean white, Protestant landowning men. Today, we strut arrogantly like peacocks proclaiming to be one of the most enlightened, progressive, modern societies in the world, but we're still doing the same old tapdance over other peoples' rights as human beings.

Shame on us.