I was rather surprised by the following news bite from the Washington Post:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that called for milk sold in the District to carry a warning label for people who are lactose intolerant.

The suit, filed by an organization that promotes vegetarian diets, asserted that Giant, Safeway and other local distributors of dairy products had been negligent in not warning consumers of the potential effects of dairy products on people who are lactose intolerant.

The suit was filed in D.C. Superior Court last fall by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and was subsequently transferred to U.S. District Court.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ruled that federal law on food labeling would preclude the action that the plaintiffs were seeking in the District.

Wait a minute. They failed to label milk so the lactose-intolerant could avoid it? Milk? Um, it’s milk. Even if someone with a sensitivity has no idea what lactose is or what other products it might be in, they know it’s in milk. Am I missing something here? Why should there be a warning on milk? The name of the group is misleading too, because PCRM sure seems to focus a lot on food and animal testing ethics - it’s like a kinder, gentler PETA that’s pretending to be a medical organization. I’m sure they have doctors on staff, and I’m sure their tactics are much more sane than PETA’s methods, but…they’re not really focusing on what they purport to be about. But anyway…milk? We have to tell the lactose-intolerant to avoid milk?

Well damn. Metro Weekly’s pictures from Pride weekend - the dyke march, festival, and the parade (which I didn’t attend) - are all online. And in the nearly 235 photographs from events I attended, I didn’t show up once! If I hadn’t specifically had my picture taken with preppyperv and boiswillbebois I wouldn’t have expected to be there, but…I did. The photographer even handed preppyperv one of those “I’ve Been Scene” stickers they give to people they take pictures of. Fortunately I made it into a dyke march picture taken by bias_cut (and also featuring boiswillbebois), or I would think the whole weekend was just a really long dream.

A friend of mine who is a resident of DC sent an e-mail to all of his non-resident local friends asking us to write to our senators on his behalf. I want to bring his request to a wider audience. Those of you outside the DC area may not realize this, but DC residents have no representation in Congress. Their only voice is Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is a “Delegate” in the House - she has no vote, meaning DC is subject to the whims of the federal government.

The latest bright idea to come up in Congress is from Kansas senator Sam Brownback, who wants to institute a flat tax for DC. As the chair of the Senate’s Appropriations Subcommitee for DC, he gets to use the city as his personal testing ground for tax reform. Both Eleanor Holmes Norton and DC’s mayor Anthony Williams are opposed to the idea, but without a vote it can go ahead anyway.

Statehood for DC may be a long time away; even getting a vote in Congress may be a long time off. This means that DC residents need our help! If you live in the United States but not in DC, you have a voice in Congress. To help those without a voice, find your Senator’s contact information and send an e-mail asking him or her to oppose Brownback’s plans for a flat tax for DC.

After several months of promising, I finally dragged myself to Dyke Night at the Eagle. I wore black jeans, my $15 Payless pumps that have lasted me a zillion years, and a tight black t-shirt that says “I do bad things” with a smiling bunny. preppyperv was the first person I saw when I got there, and she gave me a great hug. I hung around a bit and chatted with pegsioux, liquidamy, and a few other people I’d met at least once before; I also got to meet bias_cut for the first time. leatherboydre came in and went upstairs to do her bootblacking work, and I had a good time chatting with aidan_boi_x for a long time. Eventually I drifted upstairs, chatted more, and met more people; I paid $3 for a can of soda, listened to gossip, and met new people.

Finally I decided it was time to leave, and I started saying goodbye. Of course it took forever - there were a lot of people to say goodbye to - and I also got caught talking to a deaf man who had come upstairs to go to the back bar where the regulars hide out when the place is overrun by lesbians. I was starving, so on my way back to the metro I stopped at a 24-hour CVS to buy a snack to eat surreptitiously on the metro. I made my way from there to the top of the metro escalator, from where I could see…the gates were closed. I’d forgotten that it was the middle of the week and the metro wasn’t open late! I started hurrying back to the Eagle and sent an instant message to aidan_boi_x but didn’t get any response. I called preppyperv because she was the only person in my phone’s address book who was at the bar. She showed herself to be the most caring person in the world by answering the phone: “Meredith, are you okay?” She had seen me come up on her caller ID, knew I’d left about 20 minutes ago, and figured I wouldn’t be calling if there wasn’t something wrong. It turned out she and pegsioux had already left, but she suggested I go back anyway to see if anybody there lived in Virginia. Once I got there, I went back upstairs and plopped myself down to catch my breath. A woman I didn’t recognize came over to ask if I was okay, so I mentioned that the metro was closed. A woman nearby overheard me and asked where I needed to go; it turned out she was going that way anyway so she gave me a ride! It was actually a nice trip home, she was very friendly and dropped me off as near to my car as she could.

I certainly hope to go to Dyke Night again. I had a really good time, even if I did come home reeking of smoke and with sore feet. I loved seeing my friends again; I hadn’t seen anybody in several weeks. In fact the only thing I would change would be the metro mistake…next time I will have to leave a bit earlier. Other than that, though, I had a great time.

The life of one of DC’s most valuable queer assets was cut short on Wednesday. Wanda Alston, the director of the mayor’s office on GLBT affairs, was found dead by her partner Wednesday afternoon. Police have not released details, but they have stated there was blood found beside the body and that the death was a homicide. Articles are in the Washington Post (mainstream) and the Washington Blade (gay press).

I received the “Devolites Dispatch” in the mail from Jeannemarie Devolites, the Virginia state senator for District 34, where I reside. I did not vote for her - to summarize why, I’ll just mention that she’s a Republican. But included with this dispatch was the 2005 General Assembly Questionnaire, which I was invited to fill out and return by mail, fax, or e-mail. I sent my responses by e-mail, but I figured I’d share them here, too. Questions are in bold, the responses I chose are in italics.
Read the rest of this entry »

Eeeeeek! Mister Winkle is going to be in Bethesda on Saturday, November 20th! He will be at the Barnes and Noble at 1:00pm, and I am definitely going to see him. I’ll be bringing our copy of his book so we can get his pawtograph!

Ogg Vorbis Phone Post (260k, 1m13s)

[sound of motorcycles]

[counterprotesters’ chant ‘You never marched against Osama … You never marched against Saddam … You never marched against Osama … You never marched against Saddam … You never marched against Osama … You never marched against Saddam … ‘ continues in background all the way through]

Aren’t they lovely? They’ve got signs like ‘Are you Commies lost? Go home!’ with arrows pointing to Washington, and then to Cuba! ‘Freedom is not free, thank you veterans!’, ‘Where are the human shields now?’, ‘President Bush needs no permission from us to defend America’, ‘Only a traitor desecrates the resting place of heroes’, ‘You cowards have no shame’ … [pause (chanting clearly audible)] … and so on. ‘Spitting on their graves, a great way to honor them’ - that’s funny, I didn’t see anybody spitting, we weren’t even inside the cemetery.

All right. Anyway, I just thought I’d share that.

Transcribed by my mother

Ogg Vorbis Phone Post (359k, 1m30s)

Here’s an interesting phone post entry for you:

Right now I am marching down whatever road this is that leads from Arlington Cemetery, and I just got done interpreting the first half of the Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace protests. A friend of mind had contacted me about it and asked if I’d be willing to interpret, and I was willing to do it pro bono ’cause I thought they were a small organization, but they’re going to try to get me a hundred dollars, but they’ll at least get me fifty, which is really cool.

The press was extremely annoying, though. We’re heading for the White House now, and if there’s a larger stage - the stage was only big enough for one person, really, here at the Women’s Memorial, so I couldn’t - I was below everybody else. But if the stage at the White House on the Ellipse is big enough I’m going to have to get up on it because I just can’t stand all those cameras. People were - one large camera actually touched me in the back of the head, and I turned around and snapped at him. I snapped at a lot of them. *chuckle*
There’s a motorcycle police escort, there’s also a set of horses - policemen on horses, and I’ve heard that there are counterprotesters somewhere along the way. So it should be interesting.

I’m really glad I came out to do this.

Transcribed by my mother

Holy shit, this is awesome news! My beloved Bound is coming back! A and I used to go nearly every week when they were under the old Circle bar, and we went a few times to Bar None, but after that it just got too hard to keep track of. We almost never go out anymore, because the only other place that played decent music was the Jury (dyke bar), and it’s closed. But we will have gotten back from vacation two days before the grand opening party, so we will be rested and ready! I can’t wait! I have to see what fetishwear I can still fit into…they say just black isn’t good enough for the grand opening party!