To the Rafters

 

Sunday Surprise

Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay

About 7:30 this morning my phone started blowing up. Why, I wondered groggily, are people contacting me at this hour on a Sunday?

It turned out that the U.S. women's basketball team, the clear Olympic favorite, was losing to France. 

American lesbians were panic-texting.

White Lie

 

This Week's Quote

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I'm miserable if I'm not in love and, of course, I'm miserable if I am.

Tallulah Bankhead

Source:  Women's Wicked Wit

Walz

Image:  Facebook

Veep Kamala Harris has chosen Minn. Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, and the Human Rights Campaign is over the lavender moon.

In an email today, HRC trumpeted how Walz, as a high-school history teacher and football coach in 1999, sponsored his school's first gay-straight alliance. The email goes on to list his considerable pro-LGBTQ efforts in Congress and as governor.

But honestly, HRC had me at the first point. A straight Midwestern football coach offers to serve as faculty adviser for his school's newly formed gay-straight alliance student group? How refreshing is that?

I should add that I'm available to write the musical.

Turn Back the Clock

 

Olympics-a-Go-Go

Image:  Facebook

As an Olympics junkie, I require a daily infusion of the Paris Games, whether that means watching Azerbaijani archers, Finnish fencers or Tunisian triathletes. I'd watch Zambian zip-lining, if it existed.

But as an American, I bleed red, white and blue during these weeks. Yesterday that presented a bit of a problem.

During the women's soccer game between the U.S. and Australia, American midfielder Korbin Albert scored a beautiful long-range goal. That would normally elicit an unseemly shriek from me. Instead I managed only a muted, "Yay."

A few months ago, Albert posted on social media a Christian sermon that called being gay or transgender wrong. In addition to being simply bigoted, it was an immensely stupid move for a person aiming to play on the same national team made famous by the likes of openly sapphic Megan Rapinoe and Abby Wambach. Career counselors everywhere shook their heads.

After receiving blowback, including from Rapinoe, Albert apologized. I don't know whether the 20-year-old genuinely received an education from her teammates, or she grasped she'd shot herself in the cleat and needed to show remorse in order to make it to Paris.

Whatever's going on inside her head, Albert proved yesterday by scoring her first international goal that she's got game. Whether she has sense and compassion remains to be seen.

Now if you'll excuse me, those Bangladeshi boxers won't watch themselves.