The Cabinet From Hell Is Going To Ruin Your Life And The Lives Of Your Children And Their Children

Pruitt and McMorris Rodgers, tasked with destroying America's environment

Of Washington's 10 congressional district, there really are only 2 that are safely red-- WA-04 and WA-05. Both go from the Canadian border to the Oregon border and both are large and largely rural. The 4th, represented by Republican sophomore Dan Newhouse, is the center of the state and includes Grand Coulee, Yakima and the Richland/Kennewick metro. The 5th district, basically the eastern third of the state includes Walla Walla, some suburbs of Lewiston, Idaho, Pullman and, primarily, Spokane. Local far right politicians are always agitating for statehood for the two districts and they call it Eastern Washington (land-wise, 60% of the state). Looks like there may be a special election coming up soon for WA-05 since Trump has decided to add Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the local Congresswoman and the only Republican woman in House leadership, to his Cabinet from Hell. An advocate for all the wrong policies, McMorris Rodgers would be Interior Secretary; better than Sarah Palin, I guess.

Bill Clinton won WA-05 both times he ran, although in the middle of his first term, the local Democratic congressman, House Speaker Tom Foley, was defeated. The district has been red ever since. Obama only got 46% against McCain and 44% against Romney. Trump won both the 4th and the 5th districts and McMorris Rodgers was reelected 59.6-40.4%, with an over 60,000 vote margin against Democrat Joe Pakootas, who managed to spend just $348,873 to her $3,221,433. The DCCC took no notice of the race. We'll see if they recruit a candidate and put up a battle for the open seat next year. (It's worth keeping in mind that Spokane County, from which most of the votes come, was pretty evenly split between Democratic Senator Patty Murray and GOP challenger Chris Vance (who refused to back Trump):

• Vance- 106,555 (50.5%)
• Murray- 104,578 (49.5%)

The margin was identical in Walla Walla, the only other county in the district with any kind of population base. If it starts becoming apparent that Trump is going to be the worst president in history and that the Republican Congress is going to overreach and do things like destroy Social Security and the health care system, it will be a district worth fighting for.

McMorris Rodgers is a predictably rotten choice for Secretary of the Interior. In the words of Friends of the Earth, "In a leaked memo, Trump plans to expand oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters and lift the moratorium on new coal mining. During her time in office, Rep. McMorris Rodgers has consistently voted in favor of accelerating fossil fuel development and against the protection of wildlife and sensitive, natural areas." They refer to her as "a rubber stamp for the fossil fuel industry." Ecosystems, Environmental Defense Fund sees it much the same way, pointing out that just this week the deceitful Trump promised to follow 'the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt… one of our great environmentalists. But his nomination of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers for Secretary of the Interior does not inspire confidence that he meant what he said. In Congress, Rep. McMorris Rodgers has, among other things, voted to open up our public lands and waters to widespread oil and gas production and end the congressional ban on selling public lands for private gain. If the President-elect truly wants to claim the mantle of Theodore Roosevelt, he will need to recognize that Roosevelt built his legacy by protecting and defending our precious landscapes for this generation and future generations of farmers, ranchers, hunters, anglers, hikers and all Americans."

In a normal administration, she would be a nightmare, but how does that compare to Jeff Sessions as Attoney General? Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education? Andy Puzder for Labor? Steven Mnuchin for Treasury? Wilbur Ross for Commerce? Tom Price for Health? Ben Carson for Housing? John Kelly for Homeland Security? Linda McMahon for Small Business Administrator? Gary Cohen, President of Goldman Sachs as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors? And of course Steve Bannon as National Security Advisor? This really is the Cabinet From Hell. Oh, and let's not forget Trump's new EPA Director, Scott Pruitt, who will work with McMorris Rodgers to wreck the environment. Not familiar with Pruit yet? This week Jane Mayer, writing for the New Yorker stripped the bride bare. "Garvin Isaacs, the president of the Oklahoma Bar Association," she explained, "isn’t one for understatement, but he topped himself in his reaction to the news that Donald Trump is expected to nominate Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, to run the Environmental Protection Agency. 'It’s the worst thing in the history of our environment! We are in danger. The whole country is in danger. Our kids are in danger. People have got to do something about the Citizens United decision that is turning our country into an oligarchy, run by oil-and-gas interests.'"

Until now, Pruitt’s greatest claim to national fame was his star role in a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the Times, in 2014. The investigation revealed that a letter Pruitt sent to the E.P.A in 2011, complaining about federal regulators’ estimation of the air pollution caused by drilling in Oklahoma, was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the state’s biggest oil-and-gas companies. (“Outstanding!” the company’s director of government relations wrote in a note to Pruitt’s office.) The Times found that Pruitt had sent similar letters, drafted by energy-industry lobbyists, to the Department of the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget, and President Obama. Pruitt has also taken a lead role in coördinating a twenty-eight-state legal challenge to the Obama Administration’s regulations on fossil-fuel pollution, which are at the center of its larger effort to stem climate change.

In taking these anti-regulatory positions, Pruitt has clearly aligned himself with his right-wing campaign donors, including Charles and David Koch. Kochpac, the political-action committee of the brothers’ Kansas-based oil-and-chemical conglomerate, Koch Industries, contributed to Pruitt’s campaigns in 2010, 2013, and 2014. Pruitt has also been backed by several other billionaire oil-and-gas executives, who joined political forces with the Kochs during the Obama years, becoming “investors,” as they called themselves, in the Kochs’ anti-regulatory, pro-business political movement. Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Continental Resources, and Larry Nichols, the chairman emeritus of Devon Energy, have both supported Pruitt. Hamm, in fact, was the co-chairman of Pruitt’s 2013 reëlection campaign. This year, Hamm became an early and ardent Trump supporter and adviser on energy matters. In September, Politico reported that Nichols had become a close adviser to Trump on energy, too. It’s not clear that Pruitt will continue to take dictation from his fossil-fuel backers, but they almost certainly will have a lot more to thank him for if he enters the Trump Administration.

During the Presidential campaign, Trump signaled his support for the fossil-fuel industry and his lack of concern about climate change, which he called “a hoax.” He also echoed the industry’s calls to dismantle the E.P.A. In that sense, Trump’s nomination of Pruitt would not be unexpected. But it is deeply inconsistent with his populist rhetoric during the campaign. Trump mocked billionaire Republican political donors, including the Koch brothers. Steve Bannon, his campaign manager and now his chief strategist, derided the “donor class,” which he said had sold out ordinary voters, while Trump promised to take on corrupt special interests in Washington, and, as he put it, “drain the swamp.” With the choice of Pruitt, though, Trump appears to have once again chosen the plutocrats over the populists.

The first time I visited Nepal was in 1971 and they had just built the first paved road. The country was pretty pristine but when I was back in Kathmandu in the mid-1990s and it seemed crowded and far less pristine. I went again in 2011 and the pollution was so overwhelming that I can't imagine ever going again. I couldn't go outside without a heavy duty carbon filter mask. To turn the country into that was a decision made by people, people like Trump, Rodgers and Pruitt. Count on it.

Nepal-- An Unhappy Model For The Republican Party? Or China?

Last month I was in Nepal and writing about how deplorable their system of aviation is... as well as their environmental controls and food safety regulatory systems. Their capital, according to the UN, is now the most polluted city on earth; it was practically pristine the first time I visited. And it is so dangerous to fly on their airlines or land at their airports that you have to take those considerations into your plans. Recently the national carrier sacrificed two goats on the tarmac in the hopes it would help get a malfunctioning plane to take off. If the Republicans keep up their Terrible-Twos kind of behavior, this country will grow more and more backward and "catch up" with Nepal... maybe soon. In fact, yesterday we hear that their latest fit goes beyond taking the debt ceiling (and economy) hostage to their petulant and unpopular demands to gut Social Security and Medicare and into the realm of air safety. Now they're threatening to defund the Federal Aviation Administration if they don't get their way on their latest attack on unions. And it could shut down... tomorrow! Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the government will lose about $200 million a week in airline ticket taxes and that $2.5 billion in airport construction projects will come to a halt if Republican anarchists force the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down.

The Federal Aviation Administration could shut down on Friday because House Republicans are tying its funding to an anti-democratic (note the small "d") provision to hinder union organizing. The anti-union provision is not included in the Senate bill, and President Obama has said he might veto it. If they don't reach an agreement, the FAA's operating authority expires on Friday and it shuts down.

This is the right-wing's idea of governance-- destroy everything if you can't get your way. They're a scourge on humanity and they're always on the wrong side of history.

Only tangentially related-- after all, China is right over the Himalayas from Nepal now that they've absorbed Tibet-- I can't help bringing up China as an economic model for America, as has been publicly suggested by two of the most extreme Republican reactionaries in the Senate, Pat Toomey (PA) and Ron Johnson (WI), each of whom benefited from illegal campaign contributions from China that were funneled through the Chamber of Commerce last year. Yesterday Bird Abroad suggested that we might as well forget about counterfeit handbags from China because now there's a whole counterfeit Apple store there. I wonder if Ron Johnson is an investor in what he insists proudly is the remarkable and rapid change in the world’s fastest growing economy.

[W]hen we strolled down a street a few blocks from our house a couple weeks ago, I was only sort of surprised to see this new place, one that any American of my generation can probably recognize instantaneously:

It's an Apple Store!

Or is it?

RP and I went inside and poked around. They looked like Apple products. It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks... [T]his was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff-- a brilliant one-- the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.

Apple never writes “Apple Store” on it’s signs-- it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

The name tags around the necks of the friendly salespeople didn’t actually have names on them-- just an Apple logo and the anonymous designation "Staff." And of course, Apple’s own website will tell you that they only have a few stores in Beijing and Shanghai, opened only recently; Apple famously opens new stores painstakingly, presumably to assure impeccable standards and lots of customer demand.

Is this store a copy of one of those in Beijing? A copy of a copy in another Chinese city? A copy of a copy of a copy?! While you’re pondering that, bear in mind: this is a near-perfect ripoff of a store selling products that were almost unknown when we first came to China. My white MacBook was likely to draw only blank stares or furrowed brows as I sat gnashing my teeth trying in vain to get a piece of Chinese software to run on it.

Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple. I tried to imagine the training that they went to when they were hired, in which they were pitched some big speech about how they were working for this innovative, global company-- when really they’re just filling the pockets of some shyster living in a prefab mansion outside the city by standing around a fake store disinterestedly selling what may or may not be actual Apple products that fell off the back of a truck somewhere.


And the best part? A ten minute walk around the corner revealed not one, but TWO more rip-off Apple stores.

In Kunming!

And the White House responded to the Republican tactics on closing down the FAA:

The Administration strongly supports passage of a clean extension of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs, as the Congress has done 20 times without controversy, in order to allow bipartisan, bicameral negotiations to continue on a full reauthorization.

H.R. 2553 includes controversial provisions that, because they have not been negotiated, needlessly threaten critical FAA programs and jeopardize thousands of public and private sector jobs. Without timely passage of a clean extension, all of FAA’s capital accounts (Grants-in-Aid for Airports, Facilities and Equipment, and Research, Engineering, and Development) would be shut down, and approximately 4,000 employees would be furloughed. FAA’s ability to award new grants, including for infrastructure upgrades at airports across the country, as well as to move forward with vital testing and implementation of the Next Generation air traffic control system, would come to a stop.

After the debate yesterday, the Democrats offered an alternative measure that "prohibits air carriers from charging a fee for four or fewer items of baggage checked by a member of the Armed Forces who is traveling in scheduled air transportation on official military duty." This is a real problem, as we saw last month when Delta was caught ripping off active duty servicemembers again. Although every Democrat voted for it, so few Republicans crossed the aisle-- just 3-- that it was defeated 187-233. The Republicans then went on to ram through their crazy turn-America-into-a-third-world-hellhole bill. It passed 243-177, only 6 Republicans with the guys to oppose Boehner and Cantor. Thirteen of the worst Democrats let their freak flags fly and voted with the GOP, reactionary a-holes like John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), and Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC).

"Failed States, 2011" -- No, Not Wisconsin, Ohio Or Florida (Yet)... The Ones Surrounding India

In some ways India and its neighborhood is about as different from the U.S. as you can possibly be. I've been writing about that since I first went there in 1969. But viewed from Kathmandu, Nepal-- where the tourist scene these days is almost all Indian and where the English-language TV channels are all Indian-- India is very much like the U.S.

Oh, not that India. The other one, the 21st-century one, the one that watches Glee, How I Met Your Mother, HBO and Indian TV shows that display a culture so disgustingly celebrity-oriented that it even puts our own to shame... well almost. I don't know what they call Madison Avenue in Mumbai, but God, do these guys ever run the show.

I just watched an episode of a popular show, India's Most Desirable. I don't recommend it... but go ahead:



India has (another) problem. It's surrounded by the world's most-failed states. True, Africa's worse. Somalia's No. 1. But Chad, Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Niger, Burundi, Kenya, Guinea Bissau, even Ethiopia are right up there among the world's most vulnerable countries. However, none of those places are as much like our country as India is. And India's neighbors... no fewer than seven of them made the Top 50 of the most-failed states index:

#7 -- Afghanistan
#12 -- nuclear-armed Pakistan
#18 -- Myanmar
#25 -- Bangladesh
#27 -- Nepal
#29 -- Sri Lanka
#50 -- Bhutan

India doesn't have any other neighbors-- except Tibet, which isn't considered a country, but a region of China. But the occupation forces there apparently feel there's a problem. They just pulled all foreigners' visas for a month. I know. I was supposed to be there now.

On Pakistan, the report said, "Pakistan has long been dubbed the world's most dangerous country in Washington policy circles" and "yet Pakistan isn't just dangerous for the West-- it's often a danger to its own people."

On Bangladesh: "Two of five Bangladeshis live under the poverty line. Any improvements will also be fighting the environmental clock. If sea levels rise just by 1 metre, scientists warn, 17 per cent of the country could be submerged."

On Nepal: "Nepal is the poorest country in South Asia, according to the United Nations, and that's unlikely to change until the peace process is implemented and security restored. There are signs that the Maoists may be losing patience-- and thinking about going back to the trenches to fight for more."

On Sri Lanka: "The government's final push against the rebels relied on the shelling of civilians and other atrocities, according to a 2010 report by the International Crisis Group. . . . The most recent statistics from last year indicate that some 327,000 are still displaced from the conflict. . . . Despite the pronounced fractures still lingering, the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo seems eager to forget the past."

Nepal Heading Backwards On Same-Sex Marriage?

I was especially glad I've been taking my Rhodiola Force 300, which purports to help you feel more energetic and improve your mood, mental alertness, memory and physical endurance but was recommended to me by an L.A. herbologist as something to help with altitude sickness. It's derived from Rhodiola rosea or Rose Root, an exalted herbal stress “adaptogen.” It thrives in high altitudes and in nature’s most challenging climates and is supposed to enhance concentration and endurance and support optimal immune, adrenal and cardiovascular function under conditions of severe stress. It's advertised as being "widely used by Russian athletes and cosmonauts to increase energy," and "delivers the promise of an inner oasis of peace and energy in our hurly-burly world... Those phytonutrients include numerous and unique anti-stress compounds like rosavins, salidrosides and other biologically active compounds."

I spent yesterday trekking in the Himalayan foothills at around 8,000 feet, and I felt great, even in the rain. We were wandering around, looking down at the clouds, in knee-high rubber boots, sure we were protected from the leeches. That was why we came to Nepal. That and... well, this very accurate description by Frommer's which updates my own first memories of the place from a far more tranquil (and less "developed") 1971:

Kathmandu. The very name conjures up images of snow-covered peaks, snake charmers and mountaineers, holy men and sacred cows. Perhaps no other city on earth has seemed so mysterious. This city, capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, lies in a wide valley hidden behind a wall of nearly impenetrable mountains. Today, winging into Kathmandu on an international flight, the Mahabhaharat Range slides by below as the Himalayas shimmer in the distance. The jumbled landscape doesn't give the appearance that it could ever provide a level surface large enough to land a Boeing or Airbus. Then, as the peaks below grow uncomfortably close to the belly of the plane, mountainsides give way to gentler slopes and terraced hillsides, which are dun-colored in the post-monsoon months favored by trekkers. Brick houses dot the fields of a seemingly idyllic rural setting. Suddenly the city comes into view-- uniformly brown and low-rise, it sprawls across the valley floor. There's a quick glimpse of a huge white hemisphere in the distance, and suddenly the plane is on the runway. The passengers breathe a communal sigh of relief for having safely landed amid the Himalayan peaks. The excitement is palpable as passengers wait to deplane. Through the door lies Kathmandu, city of mystery, the most exotic city in Asia.

However, as feet hit tarmac, the reality of modern-day Kathmandu immediately comes to bear. The arrivals hall is a zoo and no one seems to know what to do. Guards want to inspect your bags as you leave the arrivals hall. Outside, hordes of taxi drivers, porters, and hotel touts block the exit door. Beyond the airport gates, the streets are chaotic at best. Clouds of blue-black smoke billow from diesel trucks, buses packed like sardine cans stop in the middle of the road, cows wander aimlessly, and horns blare incessantly. The smoke of funeral pyres mingles with the stench of garbage. Women in colorful saris dash out of the way of your careening taxi as it bounces upon potholes large enough to swallow a car.

However, once you have settled into your hotel, you can venture out onto the streets of old Kathmandu, where a different picture slowly begins to emerge. Kathmandu is a city of alleyways leading into the unknown, a city where roadside shrines are sprinkled with marigold petals and aging temples double as produce markets. Strange odors--a melange of incense, cow dung, and rotting garbage-- drift through the streets. Eerie discordant music-- the tinny jangling of cymbals, the drone of a harmonium, the pulse of drums-- might fill a nearly deserted square at nightfall as musicians sit hunched over their ancient instruments on the floor of a tiny temple. In the market, vendors swaddled in woolen shawls sit behind baskets full of mandarins and radishes. Kathmandu has been called a medieval city, and it is hard not to think of it as such as you wander its back streets. The lanes are narrow, and in the oldest parts of town, there is little traffic (though the few cars and motorcycles that venture into these ancient alleys make frequent use of their horns). People do the heavy work here, not vehicles. They carry heavy-laden baskets on their backs or slung from poles across their shoulders. Perhaps time has not completely stood still in Kathmandu, but it certainly has not passed as swiftly as it has in other parts of the world.

For more than a hundred years Kathmandu was cut off from the outside world by a government that wished to keep the country isolated. When the royal family was restored to power in the mid-1950s, Nepal opened its borders and the painful process of entering the 20th century began. Today, Kathmandu has much of the Western world's technology, but alas, many of its environmental and social woes as well. There are cars and computers, fax machines and factories, cellular phones and satellite TV. There are also traffic congestion and smog, deforestation and unemployment. However, with the help of the West, Nepal is working to overcome these problems. Kathmandu is certainly no Shangri-la, but it is one of the world's most fascinating cities, nonetheless.

Last year we saw how Nepal had moved so far as to legalize same-sex marriage after the people dumped the monarchy, like anywhere a bastion of conservatism, and embarked on a new progressive path. Well, we're not here to get married and it probably wouldn't have even crossed my mind except when I was in our hotel's business center I tried to access a post Ken wrote at DWT about the politics of same-sex marriage in the New York State Senate, a place not nearly as advanced as Nepal. There's nothing "sexy," let alone prurient about the post. But it was auto-blocked on the public internet. (I can access it in my room over the same wireless system.)

There's a Communist prime minister, a Maoist revolutionary opposition and one of the world's most vibrant revolutionary atmospheres in Nepal now. But there are also second thoughts about the legalization of same-sex marriage, now three years old.

Gay rights activists are alarmed by a new bill that could become law soon if approved by parliament as part of the government's bid to modernise the legal code-- Muluki Ain, or law of the land-- formulated in 1854 first.

The law and justice ministry, in consultation with judges, has completed the drafts of a new criminal code and a civil code of law, which were submitted in parliament recently after being approved by the council of ministers. ... The marriage clauses in the new codes define the union as only that between a man and a woman, treating homosexual unions as "unnatural sex offenses."

"The proposed civil and criminal laws contain provisions to re-criminalise so-called 'unnatural sexual offenses'," [said Manisha Dhakal, a transgender and senior member of the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's pioneering gay rights organisation]. "These attempts by the law ministry are a clear sign not to follow international human rights standards, a clear intention not to implement the Supreme Court's decision and also go against the spirit of the interim and new draft constitution of Nepal."

In November 2008, Nepal's Supreme Court recognised homosexuals as a "natural people" and asked the government to ensure that they received the same rights and considerations as any other citizen. In the landmark judgment, the court also ordered the government to enact laws to allow same-sex marriages.

...Since 2008, Nepal has established itself as a gay rights haven with people flocking to the Himalayan nation for same sex unions.

In the past, couples from India and Britain have tied the knot in Nepal and during the monsoon, the Blue Diamond Society has planned a public wedding between a lesbian couple from the US.

The weddings are part of the community's effort to draw gay tourists to Nepal and have been welcomed by Nepal's tourism ministry, which is celebrating 2011 as Nepal Tourism Year with the target of bringing in one million air-borne visitors.

On my way to Nepal, I stopped over for a couple days in Hong Kong, one of the world's most modern cities. In many ways it's more modern, at least superficially, than any city in the U.S. But not in a gay way. There was a big to-do over the city-state, a semi-autonomous part of China, hiring a "gay conversion expert" to "cure" government employees.

Hong Kong has hired a prominent local psychiatrist who claims he can "re-wire" homosexuals as a trainer for its social welfare staff, sparking outrage among gay rights activists on Friday.

Critics said the move could be the world's first government-sponsored training session on gay conversion therapy, which includes prayer, cold showers and practising abstinence as a way to avoid same-sex relationships.

"The government seems to think that homosexuals are possessed by evil spirits and needed to be 'cleansed' or 'cured' through conversion therapy," Joseph Cho, a spokesman for gay rights group Rainbow Action, told reporters during a protest outside the city's Social Welfare Department Friday.

"They are criminalising people with same sex orientation-- this is an international joke," he added. ... Despite its reputation as an international financial hub, critics said Hong Kong remains a conservative city when it comes to gay rights, only decriminalising homosexuality in 1991.

A government survey in the 1990s concluded that most Hong Kong residents were "not ready" for laws banning discrimination against homosexuals, and the city had made little headway since to protect gays, said Dora Choi, director of the Gender Studies Committee at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"(But) this is very bizarre that the government would sponsor classes like these," she told AFP.

"It is the first time the government has publicly taken a stance on this issue. (It) should be neutral but it is obviously taking sides," she added.

Maybe both these countries are ready to write off gay tourists and eager to invite evangelicals instead-- or maybe ignorant bigots and hatemongers like David Tyree. Good luck with that!




POSTSCRIPT: Wedding Bells In The Himalayas

This week Courtney Mitchell and Sarah Welton, both of Denver, tied the knot in Dakshinkali Temple, just south of Kathmandu. It was front page news in the English-language newspapers here. The Himalayan Times:

It was a monsoon wedding indeed, albeit with a whirl.

An American professor and her compatriot lawyer today tied the knot at Dakshin Kali temple as per Hindu rituals, making it arguably the first lesbian marriage in Asia.

It was one proud moment once again for Sunil Babu Panta, Nepal’s only gay lawmaker, who had taken the charge of helping Courtney Mitchell (41) and Sarah Welton (48) get spliced today.

Up to 60 gay rights activists and other onlookers on the temple premises cheered as a Hindu priest chanted final mantras to declare the two women a couple. Courtney was dressed in Nepali Daura Suruwal and Topi as groom and Sarah was clad in a red sari, drawing the attention of quite a many around and making them guess whether a film shooting was going on.‘Which film is being shot?’ or ‘What a marriage between woman and woman!’ were some of the comments with which the surrounding was abuzz.

Courtney, who had earlier lived in Nepal for six years, said they chose Nepal for the marriage and hoped their country would recognise their nuptial as Nepal does. Same-sex marriage is not recognised in her homeland Colorado. The couple later threw a party at a nearby resort.

Panta and his Blue Diamond Society, an organisation advocating gay and lesbian rights, had earlier hosted a gay wedding for British citizen Sanjay Shah and his Indian partner, who had refused to be identified.

Nepal hopes to become Asia’s biggest hub for gay and lesbian tourism and improve the country’s economy by tapping into this multibillion-dollar market. No one seems to know if the country will enshrine marriage equality in the new Constitution or abolish it.

Same-Sex Marriage In Nepal, A Very Different Kind Of Attitude In Morocco-- And The Importance Of Women's Empowerment

I'll never forget the first sight I had of Morocco as I approached on a ferry from Spain early in 1969. I was in Africa! The smells, the sounds and the sights all hit me at once, and I fell in love with it-- even though I wasn't really in Morocco yet, but approaching Spain's last toehold in Africa, Ceuta.

Funny how I've been back to Morocco a dozen times since then, but never to Ceuta again. Even the first time I got there, I left almost immediately, anxious to get to "real Morocco," hightailing it out for Tetouan and then on to Ketama in the Rif Mountains with its infamous kif (a kind of hash) fields; never been back to that part of the country either. I always gravitate to the south: Fez, Marrakech, Essaoura, Taroudant.

Earlier this year I read about the life of Moroccan ex-pat writer Abdellah Taïa in Out. Taïa's from Salé in the north; he's one of Morocco's best-known writers, and he lives in Paris. He's openly gay, and living in Morocco would be uncomfortable.

Last year, when Morocco’s interior ministry announced a crackdown on writing and books “seeking to attack the moral and religious values” of Moroccan society-- code for supporting gay rights-- Taïa responded with an open letter, “Homosexuality Explained to My Mother.” “There is a generation of Moroccan people trying to express itself, and the government’s response is aggression,” he says. “I knew I couldn’t write to a minister-- he wouldn’t respond because they don’t recognize people like us-- but I could write to someone related to me.”

Taïa’s campaign goes beyond gay rights. After two young brothers died in a suicide attack outside the U.S. consulate in Casablanca in 2007, he wrote an editorial for Le Monde titled “We Have to Save Moroccan Youth,” in which he addressed the exploitation of teen disaffection by Islamic extremists. “But I realized I had to go further than that,” he says. “I had to break the isolation of young Moroccans.” Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet-- a series of 10 letters written to a young man entering the German military-- Taïa approached artists and writers of his generation to contribute essays for an update. Eighteen responded, including Tahar Ben Jelloun, one of Morocco’s most famous writers-- a measure of Taïa’s success in transcending knee-jerk prejudice. “Books have given me a legitimacy that I might not have had without them,” Taïa says. “That a homosexual writer-- the one who is demonized, criminalized-- can unite these forces behind him is amazing to me.”

Letters to a Young Moroccan was published last August, but Taïa didn’t stop there. Aware that his target audience could not afford books, he approached millionaire philanthropist Pierre Bergé, who had owned a home in Marrakech with his lifelong partner, Yves Saint Laurent. Bergé agreed to fund the printing and distribution of 90,000 copies of the book in French and Arabic-- the kind of bold gesture Taïa himself would never be able to make if he still lived in Morocco. “They would say I’m crazy, and who do I think I am-- a political leader? Life is when you can think of something and make it happen.” He pauses and shrugs. “But maybe I’m talking too heroically.”

His newest book, a kind of autobiography, is Salvation Army, his first book to be translated into English. "Taïa has defied Moroccan society’s don’t-ask, don’t-tell attitude toward homosexuality-- and prison sentences that are still on the books in the North African kingdom-- to write five autobiographical novels about growing up poor and gay in the northern coastal city of Salé."

The novels, peppered with sexually explicit passages, have catapulted him to fame in his native country and made him the de-facto poster child of its budding gay rights movement.

His work has sparked harsh criticism. Taïa said some outraged critics have called on him to renounce Moroccan citizenship so as “not to bring shame” on the country.

It’s also alienated him from his parents and eight siblings, who figure extensively in the books and complain that Taïa has publicly humiliated them.

But the 35-year-old author insists he’s never been cowed by fallout from his work.

“When I write, I feel a sense of urgency, as if my life depended on it,” Taïa said in an interview in Paris, where he has lived for almost a decade. “When I first started writing, it never occurred to me to invent some fictional character and talk about made-up things.”

His latest novel, L’armee du Salut, or Salvation Army, focuses on his decision to move to Europe. An English translation recently came out in the United States, with an introduction by author Edmund White.

Though Taïa immigrated legally-- he was awarded a scholarship to study in Switzerland-- his experiences in Geneva paralleled those of thousands Moroccans living in Europe without papers.

After his older Swiss lover who was supposed to pick him up at the Geneva airport never shows up, a penniless Taïa seeks refuge at the Salvation Army, where he lives among illegal immigrants from throughout the developing world.

...Like nearly all Arab countries, Morocco considers homosexual relations a crime, punishable by fines and prison sentences of six months to three years. Such penalties are rarely applied, though, and in practice Morocco has a long history of leniency toward homosexuality and other practices forbidden by Islam.

Last week my friend Danny, knowing of my affinity for Morocco, sent me an article from Carnal Nation, First Arabic-Language Gay Magazine Scandalizes Morocco. The name Mithly has a double-meaning in Arabic: "homo" and "like me." It was published this month-- in Rabat... and in secret. "The editors and publishers of this bold new publication emphasize that Mithly is first and foremost a forum for those suffering under Islamic laws that criminalize homosexuality. Indeed, the appearance of the magazine has so incensed conservative officials that some have called upon the government to hunt down "sleeper cells" of homosexuals like terrorists.

Gay pride parade in Kathmandu

A couple of years after my first visit to Morocco, I found another country I fell in love with and have returned to many times, Nepal. It's more remote and, in many ways, even more foreign. But very live-and-let-live, at least in practice, and not homophobic, at least not for foreigners. It's a Buddhist kingdom that is mostly Hindu and now-- as of 2008-- a republic. And now live-and-let-live has turned into a gay-oriented marketing theme as tourist-promoting Nepal looks for gay dollars by offering same sex-weddings... on Mount Everest. I sure hope the grooms don't have to trek to the base camp the way I did in 1971.

“We’re completely changing this country. It’s a newborn republic-- and we want to showcase this change,” Sharat Singh Bhandari, the Tourism Minister, told The Times. “We also want to re-establish tourism as a major industry.” He aims to attract one million tourists in 2011, more than double the number last year.

He kicked off the marketing campaign in October with a written message to the International Conference on Gay & Lesbian Tourism in Boston-- an unprecedented gesture for an Asian minister. “As the world knows, Nepal is the land of Mount Everest, world’s highest peak and the birth place of Lord Buddha, light of Asia,” the message said. “I, therefore, would like to take this opportunity to invite and welcome all the sexual and gender minorities from around the world.” ...The tourism board is already talking about same-sex weddings on Everest, elephant safaris for gay honeymooners and other specialist activities.

So all the above was originally written for my travel blog but I decided to crosspost it here because of some discussion I've been having with friends about Threshold, Thom Hartmann's newest book, a unifying principle of which is an updated Mathusian concept that overpopulation is the root of our problems. And religion is a big stumbling block in coping with that one.

[I]t can be argued that if the biggest problem facing us-- the one driving all the other problems ranging from climate change to energy shortages to famine to pollution-- is overpopulation, and the single most powerful solution to that problem is the empowerment of women.

Interestingly, in some religions this is clearly happening, and happening rapidly. Numerous Protestant denominations and Jewish synagogues, have ordained women, and many are also blessing the marriage of women to each other (as well as men to each other, the oppression of gay men, historically having been culturally associated with the oppression of women). Italy-- historic home of the Vatican-- has one of the highest rates of birth control use in the world (behind highly Catholic Spain).

...The question of whether culture is driving change in religion or vice versa is one that probably tilts in the direction of the former, but regardless of the process, the outcome is that both culture and religion are changing in ways that give more power to women.

The problem is that not enough of the world's religions and cultures are changing this way, and the ones that are changing aren't doing so fast enough. The catholic Church, for example, no longer functionally punishes its members for divorce (at least not in the First World), although it still maintains the forms and functions that would appear to... And many largely Islamic nations have taken on largely secular governments.

...[F]ifty-one million unintended pregnancies every year worldwide is not the driver of a billion people being added to the planet every decade and a half. While it's true that there's a worldwide crisis associated with a widespread lack of modern family planning, it's the intended pregnancies that are driving the population explosion. Looking again at wealthy Middle Eastern countries, where birth control is widely available, we still see huge families.

It turns out that there is one single variable that consistently-- from country to country, culture to culture, for tens of thousands of years of culture and history-- determines whether a culture's population will explode or be stable. That variable is the empowerment of women.

As Sadia Chowdhury, senior reproductive and child health specialist at the World Bank, noted, "Promoting girls' and women''s education is just as important as reducing birthrates in the long run as promoting contraception and family planning." Education, said Chowdhury, "gives [a woman] the power to say how many children she wants and when. And these are enduring qualities she will hand down to her daughters as well."

The worldwide movement to educate and empower girls and women is the most important part of cultural transformation necessary to bring us through the current crisis and into a stable and sustainable future.