Mary Cheney and Mel Gibson

Gads.  It's been almost a month since my last post.  If anyone is still reading this blog, you have my undying gratitude. 

Mary Cheney is expecting!  Congratulations to her and her partner Heather and to happy grandparents Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne.  All of the news reports on the story mentioned in their headlines "Vice President's gay daughter pregnant" or some variation but always the "gay" before the daughter. 

I for one have grown to respect and admire Mary Cheney, who has managed to piss off both Gay Activists and Evangelical Christianists by simply living her life as she sees fit and not answering or apologizing to anyone.  The good fun for gays, however, is that this story will enrage evangelical Christianists which is always enjoyable to observe.  Principally, that their precious family values party does not tow the line when it comes to gay sons and gay daughters.  For Republicans, being anti-Gay means disliking those leather clad bikers and drag queens that ride on floats in the San Francisco Pride Parade.  It doesn't include their own sons and daughters.  It is a disconnect from reality, but people like Mary Cheney are helping their conservative loved ones see the light, and all they have to do is live--but live openly and fearlessly.

Mel Gibson is back with Apocalypto.  It remains to be seen whether this all-Mayan language film will reinvent Mel's famous pathology for victimhood.  Let me explain it for you if you just don't quite get it: Mel is an unrecovered drunk.  As everyone who's had a brush with AA can tell you, unrecovered drunks see the world as largely against them--if only the world would accede to their wishes, wants, and plans, then the universe would be good and lovely place.  Whatever pain they feel is a result of being misunderstood and put-upon.  Recovered drunks, on the other hand, understand full well that they bear the responsibility for their own pain.  They are the authors of their own misery.  Dr. M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, describes it this way.  A "character disordered" person is one who sees the world set against them.  A "neurotic" person sees himself as wrong in the world.  Moving from character disorder to neuroses for the alcoholic, is a step toward wellness and reality. 

Mel, seeing himself as pilloried, victimized, crucified, drawn and quartered, remains unrecovered, unhealthy, and unwilling to accept responsibility.