First the tide rushes in.

For part of the last year, I was confident in my opinions. I was not certain of them, but I thought they were respectable enough to offer. But then, for one reason or another, you slip into a re-building stage…

I saw Milk last night. As a total movie, it's not the best thing I've seen, though the acting is certainly solid.

The opening bits of old newsreel footage hit me hardest: the mixes of shame, defiance, anger, and resignation in the faces of the gay men as the police guided them out of bars and into vans. The rest of the movie wasn't straight hagiography: it portrayed Harvey Milk as a smart, brave, charismatic man, but one who couldn't always tell when he was pushing his friends and allies too far. And the poor lost boys that Milk did so much to inspire: isn't part of true religion caring for the orphans?

Traditionalist that I am, I should probably have something to say about promiscuity, or the institution of marriage, or something—but I don't, not really, not now. I don't want to argue this thing on principles. Beneath the preachiness of the movie is the struggle of what I can't deny is a real community of my friends and neighbors. And the sense that we are all in this together, even if we have to fight with each other to get through it.

EDIT: This entry, perhaps, demonstrates why you should let fresh ideas air about before typing them up for all to see.