Newsworthiness or Prejudice?

I posted a first version of this article last week in French. After the situation evolved, and considering my international readers (yes, all two of you), here is an updated version in English.

When I received the e-mail notifying me of the publication of the newsletter of the French Consulate in Houston, Le Trait d'Union (the title means "The Hyphen," but the French phrase evokes the sense of "connection" better than the English word, and therefore implies that it is a means to connect the local French community), I was surprised that one of its articles was entitled Portrait of Annise Parker, First Homosexual Woman in the Houston City Hall.

Upon reading the content, it was clear that while it stated her history, competence, and summed up her campaign, the newly elected mayor's sexual orientation was indeed a key aspect for the author. The article was certainly positive in its tone, but I tended to dismiss this as rather insignificant, because how else was an official publication of a foreign government going to talk about the mayor of its host city anyway? But the tabloid title rubbed me the wrong way.

I then discovered that the newsletter contained no link to respond to the editor, which made me feel like the Consulate only cared about one-way communication, a very "regal" French way of doing things (the French actually use the word régalien to refer to things that authorities do in a way that is reminiscent of the omnipotent kings).

So I composed my very critical (surprise!) response to the Consulate as an open letter, which I posted here and was reflected in my Facebook status. A local French friend saw this, and sent me the contact information for the Consulate's press service, to which I sent the same message in an e-mail. I very quickly got an e-mail back from an official, containing a personal response from the Consul General, Mr. Grandjouan, and I had a nice phone discussion with the gentleman who had relayed the response.

The gist of the reply was that many publications has focused on the new mayor's orientation; that she was very open about being a lesbian; and that it was important to mention this because people tend to have a false image of all Texans as very conservative people. Therefore, the argument went, the article was trying to point out how positive and progressive her election was.

While I acknowledge that there was probably no actual prejudice at work here, and I appreciate the communication effort and the personal attention the Consul gave to my criticism, I still think that the focus on "first gay woman in City Hall" in the title was inappropriate. It would have been fine to talk in the article about the "conservatism" issue. For example, the writer could have written that Ms. Parker has long served the local community as an openly gay woman, that her sexual orientation was not an issue in the campaign (until a last-minute desperate maneuver by her opponent), and that her victory demonstrates that Houstonians are not as socially conservative as people tend to depict Texans in general. This would have been fine in the body of the piece — but you can't claim that something is a non-issue... then try to grab the reader's attention by making it an issue worthy of the headline.

It is also a little ironic that a French publication refers to the sexuality of the Houston mayor in a headline in 2010, given that in 2001 Paris elected a mayor whose homosexuality was public knowledge since 1998. It almost sounded like the author of the article on Ms. Parker had not heard of Mr. Delanoë.

More generally, this reminded me of the general debate about invisibility vs. recognition in the LGBT community. Some people might point out that we are in general trying to be recognized for our presence, contributions, and need of equality. But equality precisely implies that our sexual orientation should not be newsworthy — it is its still-rampant denial that should be.

Of course, what is and should be much more important to the French representatives in Houston, and was completely omitted from the article, is this: in the current climate of a still lingering recession, what will the new mayor do to control its impact on her city? And incidentally, how can the strong French community in Houston, including all the French who work in the Oil & Gas industry, be involved in a mutually beneficial manner in the economic workings of this city?

Apollo, Hush, and Fancy Free

After a bit of a dry spell, I went to the Houston Ballet tonight and saw three good pieces. And since the season's Playbill has Connor Walsh on the cover, about whom I wrote before ("Arts and Politics, part II" on February 23, 2008, and "Icing on the Cake" on November 7 of the same year), I came back with a little prize besides having seen a great performance:

All three pieces had the common quality of combining great choreographers with great musicians. Apollo is by George Balanchine, on music by Stravinsky. However, composed in 1928, this is both relatively early Stravinsky and very early Balanchine. Interestingly, this means the score is more classical — not sense-jarring and almost cacophonous like the Rite of Spring — while the choreography is more modern than what Balanchine became known for later, even though it is based on Greek mythology. At least I was positively surprised.

Hush is by Christopher Bruce, who also choreographed Swang Song, the piece danced by Mr. Walsh that I commented on in my post two years ago. The dancing, while inventive, did not strike me as particularly extraordinary, but the accompaniment by Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma, with McFerrin's amazing ability to make his voice sounds like various sorts of musical instruments, added an extra dimension.

Fancy Free is a fascinating piece, not only because of its inherent qualities, but because it was premiered in 1944, and one might have almost found it sacrilegious to feature sailors on leave while WW II was still going on. But the other interesting aspect is that while it is a very traditional "boys chase girls" story, the guys try to win the girls by demonstrating their not-very-macho footsteps, there are gestures that hint at the traditional semi-funny, semi-homophobic jokes that guys can make about each other... and then both the music and the dance were composed by two of the biggest closet queens in New York's so-very-gay artistic world, Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein!

I got my autograph in the Wortham Center's Green Room after the performance, and had time to chat a little with Mr. Walsh. I complimented him on giving a very complex dimension to his character in Fancy Free: especially during the duo dance with one of the girls, his sailor had at times the cocksure attitude you would expect of a slightly drunk sailor on leave in New York; at times, the hesitancy and shyness of a corn-fed boy who doesn't know what to do in a new world; and finally, a big grin on his face that says "I can't believe what's happening to me!" He said, in different words, that there was indeed a conscious attempt to layer several personality aspects onto the character, and he seemed genuinely pleased to be told that it had come across successfully.

Unholy Mix

A few months ago, I joined a LinkedIn group of small business owners in the "Houston Bay Area" — which means the area between Houston and Galveston, including places like Pearland, Clearlake, and the rest of the area around NASA's Johnson Space Center. I'm not based in that specific suburbia, but it's only a 25-mile drive from my Houston location to NASA, which depending on the time of the day can take between 30 minutes and infinity. As a fledgling independent consultant with existing connections in Houston, I figured the networking could be useful.

The group leader soon started organizing in-person meetings at a Mexican cantina near NASA. After missing the first opportunities, I went to a happy hour in January. My initial impressions were cautiously favorable: while many people were in unrelated fields (construction, real estate, insurance) there were a few members doing IT work. They were not directly competing with me, so there seemed to be good cross-selling opportunities. There were also contract personnel agencies, and while they typically deal with clerical and accounting positions, I thought they might occasionally need to find a part-time IT expert for a client, which I could do for a few days, even if it was "filler work" at a lower rate than usual. Business cards were exchanged, and I went to a second time for a luncheon meeting in February. I volunteered to give a not-too-geeky talk about IT trends at the March 11 lunch, a proposal which was accepted with very positive feedback.

About a week before my talk, as I was putting the finishing touches to my presentation, I got e-mails telling me that a couple of new posts had been added to the group's discussion board. I went to the site, and discovered a message from a pastor, asking the rest of us something about how we would answer God if he met us at the "pearly gates" and asked us some question I have now forgotten. The second post, by the group's manager, Mary Sullivan, was to re-emphasize the pastor's message and tell us to re-read it and think about it. And then there was a third message, by another member who said that yes, he had re-read the question, and would still be able to answer God in the affirmative.

At that point, I wrote a polite but a bit "challenging" message, saying that while I respected everyone's beliefs, this discussion had nothing to do with the purpose of the group, and that it should be taken offline. I remarked that I was aware that some Christians tend to assume, in this very religious country, that everyone else is one too, and that it is okay to mix religion and work. However, I pursued, this is not okay because people from other religions, or with no religion at all, would feel discriminated against, and at any rate this was the "Houston Bay Area LinkedIn Group," not the "Houston Bay Area Christian LinkedIn Group."

At this point, Mary Sullivan replied that she wasn't going to change the direction of the group (which she did not restate, which was convenient since she would have been hard pressed to find any mention of a religious focus or assumption in the group's mission statement). She stated that my remarks indicated that I was intolerant of Christians. She informed me that she had asked the pastor who has posted the initial note to open the next meetings with a prayer; and that, since she did not want me to feel "uncomfortable" at that point, she had already secured an alternate speaker to replace me on March 11.

I sent a quick reply, where I remained polite but pointed out her hypocrisy (she had cancelled my talk, so who was being intolerant of whom?) and immediately thereafter I left the LinkedIn group, as it seemed the most appropriate course of action to avoid further confrontation and move on to more productive things.

As far as I am concerned, the incident is closed. I actually hope their group falters because I think it is a disservice to its members to have hijacked it for a hidden religious agenda. It was dishonest to create the group and invite people in the first place without clearing stating the assumption that members were Christians who wanted to discuss their business in the context of their faith (or vice versa). It may seem mean-spirited to wish them failure, but my point is that the sooner the group makes itself irrelevant, which may or may not happen given that this is Texas after all, another group can be formed to fill the void — one that will be unrelated to the practice of any specific religion and will serve its stated business networking purposes directly and honestly. If such a group gets formed at some point, I am certainly interested in joining it.

Oh, and my slides on "IT Trends" are ready, and will remain current for a little while!

I have an amazing friend

Well, okay, before you all explode in recriminations, I have lots of amazing friends.

But today I want to talk about one of them specifically. We are both on the board of Stanford Pride, and he is a third-year medical student at Columbia University in New York. His name is Bryan McColgan.

Bryan finds the time, even on days when he spent many hours in the pediatrics department or in the emergency room, to share his life as a medical student, and the important things he is learning, with anyone who cares. He does this on Twitter (his feed) a few times each day, and he also has a video log on Blogspot (here).

I'm almost addicted to his tweets, because they make me realize how complicated medicine is, how intimately connected it is to our society and civilization (e.g., his posts about how parents who look up symptoms on the Internet bring their children to the emergency room convinced that they have an extra rare serious disease, or the way overweight teenagers are victimized by their peers instead of getting encouragement), but also because on a personal basis I am discovering that Bryan is an exceptional individual.

He spent several months in Zimbabwe a couple of years ago, and has developed a deep appreciation and compassion for the plight of people who suffer from bad health care, malnutrition, and a criminally negligent, incompetent and/or corrupt government. And he so much wants to help, that I'm sure he'd go back to Africa in a heartbeat when he finishes his studies... except for the slight problem that he will be at least a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt from the cost of his medical studies. When you watch his videos and read his tweets, you really feel the goodness of this guy coming at you through the screen, and the next minute you're laughing when he tells you how cool it is when urologists blast kidney stones with lasers as if they were zapping aliens in a video game!

Anyway, instead of me continuing, you just need to do yourself a favor and read his tweets or watch his video clips. I guarantee you'll learn something, and one of them will be how immensely talented and generous some people can be.