Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

Today's meditation is on the longstanding problem: majoritarianism. When you are part of a minority, what do you do? When the rich thought they were under attack during FDR's New Deal, there was that famous Peter Arno cartoon in the New Yorker. It showed two rich couples, the men in tuxes, the women in ermine and pearls, as they dropped in on a rich neighbor. The caption? "Come along. We're going down to the Trans-Luxe to hiss Roosevelt." The rich were never under attack in the good ole USA, even though, sad to admit, they are a minority.

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I'm more interested in my minorities-- all of them. I read with curiosity a statement by some Belgrade big-wig after the recent war by NATO against Serbia. He said: "Perhaps Serbia has been cursed with too much history. Look at the Americans! They have no history at all and they live in peace and prosperity."

No history. I don't often have the occasion to see my Father and my Mother, but recently I did. My Father, 81, told me how much he had enjoyed seeing Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello. He asked me: "John, do you think he ever finished building that house?"

"No, Dad. I suspect the day he died he was still making doodles for some sort of change." Don't get me started on Jefferson; he sets off all sorts of buzzers. I told Dad: "Peter Jefferson was Thomas's father. Peter was a rough man, never had ruffled wrists or collars as did his son. Peter was a surveyor and a building contractor, much like you Dad. I think Peter gave that land to Thomas for Monticello. I don't think Thomas ever earned anything in his life. He died a bankrupt."

Dad was surprised to hear that all the founding fathers, excepting Adams and Aaron Burr (who, late in life married a rich widow, Jumal) had died bankrupt. The good high school teachers in the civics classes at Butt Munch High (Montana?) don't bulletin such news.

When I think Jefferson, I think of the man who brought democracy to this new country, excepting all women, black folks, the native Americans, and others. It was a white-guy entitlement program, got really crazy under the even more awful Andy Jackson. Get used to it, the future. That's why DeToqueville slogged over and traipsed about; to see which new beast was slouching towards Bethlehem, waiting to be born.

In 1977, the lovely washed-up pop star Anita Bryant went on her campaign against the faggots and lesbians (more fags than lesbos). She got a ballot referendum in her backwater, wanting to repeal the Dade County protection of sexual minorities. Anita's people carried the day. As did others of that same persuasion in half a dozen other cities, sweeping away municipally guaranteed protections for those other than heterosexual. That mania sort of wound down, and then made those dullards in the Supreme Court deal with the issue in the Colorado matter (if the "English Only" people win, Colorado will have to be renamed "Colored").

As I saw my mother in the city of Cincinnati ("The Queen City"), the issue of gay/lesbian civil rights was uppermost in my mind. Persons of Appalachian origins are protected from discrimination under the city's municipal ordinance. Gay men and lesbians were removed by a referendum. Show hands. The same city that regularly prosecuted Larry Flynt, and the city that put its museum on trial for the Robert Mapplethorpe show (happily, at trial, the good jurors in Cincinnati acquitted). Show hands.

While in Cincinnati I drove back into town and parked the car. I walked down to the Roebling Bridge, clearly the most beautiful creation in that city, gussied up since with gold orbs and blue paint-- it's just too amazing for such a town-- and I wanted to see if there were a plaque which might have some information. It was a warm, clear summer night. A baseball game was about to start at Cinergy Field. Many folks park in Kentucky and walk across the Roebling Bridge, and it was these I encountered as I went against the stream to see history. All those washing into the game were young, white, and pretty in that sense that the dominant breed is pretty. I found the plaque. It said the bridge had been finished in 1866 (I had thought later). Roebling then went to New York to build the Brooklyn Bridge-- Cincinnati was his try-out. Looking at that stretch to Kentucky I thought of Hart Crane, he from Cleveland, looking at his bridge, I back in Cincinnati, looking at mine. One blond boy-and-girl couple walked past me and asked why I was hunched down. I was reading the history of the bridge; I told them it the model for the Brooklyn Bridge. The blond boy said: "That's too bad!"

Back at the hotel-- there was some sort of young-guy golf-camp thing going on-- and all the white guys in their golf shorts were in front of the huge TV in the hotel lounge. They were watching the helicopters and boats looking for the remains of John F. Kennedy, Jr. I looked at them looking at the screen, scratching crotches. It was scary. I fled to my hotel room,

Final thought. Gore Vidal once commented that Phillip Rahv, editor of the Partisan Review, ran into him and mentioned-- this was in the 50s-- that he had been invited to speak in LA. Rahv had never been out of the New York area and was going to drive out to LA and back. Months later, Vidal ran into Rahv in New York, and asked him how his trip across America went. According to Vidal, Rahv got a serious look on his face and said: "Gore, I never realized there were so many of them." **

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com