Cyber Bully Pulpit

     Last week Tyler Clementi, 18 and a Rutgers University student, took his own life after his roommate and a fellow dorm mate used a webcam to stream a sexual encounter between Tyler and another male.  After he found out about this betrayal, he posted to his Facebook page that he was was jumping off the George Washington Bridge.  His personal effects were found on the bridge, and his body was found on Wednesday.  His roommate and the other student face invasion of privacy charges, among others.
     This follows a string of well-publicized GLBT children suicides in recent weeks.  Billy Lucas hanged himself after enduring years of bullying.   Seth Walsh passed away this week after trying to hang himself in his family's backyard because of other students telling him he didn't deserve to live because he was gay.  It's not exactly a secret that GLBT youth are at higher risk for suicide than any other group.  But why is it that way?
     Focus on the Family, the religious group founded by James Dobson that advocates against gay rights, thinks this is just fine, thank you very much.  They have been active in trying to take homosexuality out of anti-bullying measures. This is a group that is tax-exempt and pushes anti-gay policy in Congress and the White House, during conservative administrations. 
     So basically, what they are saying: We don't want your kids to be bullied.  Unless they are gay.  Then, feel free.  Bully the kid til he kills himself.  It's on less homo we have to worry about oppressing! 
     When I was a kid, the older brother of a classmate shot himself in his family's home.  I remember years of hearing rumors about him being gay.  That he had a gay relationship with his uncle.  That he was a perv or a fag.  I didn't put the two together til much later, when a student at my college killed himself, and someone said he did it because he was gay.  People kill themselves every day, for a variety of reasons.  But for a tax-exempt religious group to try and say that cyber-bullying is only okay if the student is gay is unconscionable.  
      Dan Savage has started a new YouTube project, called "It Gets Better."  Look it up.  If you are GLBT, please take part.  It's important that we let kids know that it does get better.  Do you know a kid who is struggling with being bullied?  Let them know it's going to be okay.  Not everyone has a support system that they can talk about everything with.  Focus on your family!

Fair & Balanced

     Fox News claims to be fair and balanced.  The President called Fox News "destructive" to the country.  I wholeheartedly stand behind Fox's freedom of speech, even though much of it is in my opinion racist, derogatory, insane and yes, destructive.  I believe Faux News to be strictly opinion.  We have a free press in America.  We have freedom of speech.  This does not ONLY apply to Faux News. It applies to the liberally slanted MSNBC (Full disclosure, I love love love Rachel Maddow. She is a penis away from being the man of my dreams! I think she presents facts in a truly balanced way, and calls out the hypocrisy of the conservative media, without having to scream at her guests to shut up, like Slantity and Bill O' Reilly do)

     The problem I have with the President saying what he said was that he has opened himself up to criticism.  Now we will see (mark my words) people saying that Obama is agaisnt free speech, freedom of the press, etc.  Obama is NOT against free speech.  Fox News has it. So does the President. So do you and so do I.

    I am enclosing a definition of 'fair & balanced'  I have edited it the way I believe Fox must have when they came up with this tagline.

     Enjoy!

 Definition of FAIR

1

: pleasing to the eye or mind especially because of fresh, charming, or flawless quality

2

: superficially pleasing : specious <she trusted his fair promises>

3

a : clean, pure <fair sparkling water> b : clear, legible

4

: not stormy or foul : fine <fair weather>

5

: ample <a fair estate>

6

a : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism <a very fair person to do business with> b (1) : conforming with the established rules : allowed (2) : consonant with merit or importance : due <a fair share> c : open to legitimate pursuit, attack, or ridicule <fair game>

7

a : promising, likely <in a fair way to win> b : favorable to a ship's course <a fair wind>

8

archaic : free of obstacles

9

: not dark <fair skin>

10

a : sufficient but not ample : adequate <a fair understanding of the work> b : moderately numerous, large, or significant <takes a fair amount of time>

11

: being such to the utmost : utter <a fair treat to watch him — New Republic>

— fair·ness noun

Examples of FAIR

1. That's a fair question, and it deserves an honest reply.
2. He is known as a very fair man.
3. I try to be fair to my children.
4. He claims that the competition wasn't fair.
5. It's not fair that she gets to leave early and I don't.
6. a fair and impartial jury
7. a bargain that is fair to everyone
8. “What a bad movie!” “Be fair! Parts of it are actually pretty funny.”
9. I can't say I liked the movie, but, to be fair, parts of it are pretty funny.
10. She did poorly on the test, but, to be fair, so did a lot of other people.

Definition of BALANCED

1

: nicely or evenly balanced, arranged, or regulated <a well–balanced diet> <a well–balanced attack in football>

2

: emotionally or psychologically untroubled

In DEFENSE of Christine O' Donnell

     Okay it took me 45 minutes to type that headline.  I was just laughing so hard...defending Christine O' Donnell? 
     What do you call someone who thinks evolution is a myth?  What do you call someone who thinks there are mice walking around with fully formed human brains?  What do you call someone who tells you masturbation is adultery?  Apparently, Faux News thinks you should call her Senator O' Donnell. 
     Where I come from (sanity) we call those people whackjobs.  Okay, she is against whacking it, so maybe that would be offensive to her. So we can call her a fucking whackjob. (That's ironic, because she is against having sex too.) 
     I understand the Teabaggers stated goals.  Smaller government, lower taxes, yadda yadda yadda.  What I do not understand is their electing people with horribly radical 'Christian' value systems.  I will get to the simply awful Sharon Angle in a different post. We are here to talk about Christine the teenage witch.  Bill Maher has stated that unless she comes back on his show, he will release tapes of her saying stupid things on his shows.  I pray she never comes on his show.  Monday mornings are much more fun when you see her spouting off that she had a date on a Satanic altar, or that she thinks evolution is a myth.
      Let's start with evolution.  Some people think that the world is less than 20,000 years old, and that dinosaurs are either a giant hoax, or they coexisted with man.  I saw Jurassic Park.  Those velociraptors would have kicked the shit outta humans!  Someone needs to buy that bitch a box set!  O' Donnell said that evolution is a myth because 'you don't see monkeys turning into humans."  Strange, I see a human turning into a monkey (albeit a really retarded special needs monkey. Sorry don't want Sexy Sarah to call for my execution for saying retarded.) before my eyes.   Chrissy, I hate to break it to you...evolution takes time.  Not the time it's taken you to find a real job.  A LONG FUCKING TIME!
     Okay so the masturbation/sex thing.  I am a big fan of masturbation.  Not that I would EVER have to do it, because I have so much sex.  Oh wait, can't do that either.  In the 90's on MTV's "Sex in the 90's" television special, Chrissy, then a fresh faced girl of indeterminate age, espoused the belief that masturbation was adultery.  "If my husband knows what pleases him, what does he need me for?"  she said.  I am guessing a good old-fashioned hatefucking, Chrissy.  The holier-than-thou attitude she comes across with is not really astounding.  More sad, because you know if she just got some, she might not end up a prissy, prune faced hatemonger like her clone host Sarah Palin. 
     Red state red suits notwithstanding, Christine is basically a joke.  She has become a perpetual candidate.  I personally think that this whole teabagger thing is just her way of getting a Faux News talk show.  think about it...She would be the perfect talking head for the network.  she has the same vacant expression and false indignation as the vacuous Gretchen Carlson.  And she is pretty.  She can go on and talk about stuff she knows little or nothing about.  Like say, the Constitution. Or sex.
   I beg someone to buy this woman a copy of the constitution and a vibrator.  Please, your country is counting on you!

The Comedy of Politics vs. The Politics of Comedy

Okay so everyone has heard about Stephen Colbert testifying in front of Congress about migrant farm workers, right?  If you haven't, go watch the video.  I'll wait.  Okay, done yet?  Anyway, when Colbert got there, he had submitted some remarks, then went into his character from his TV show.  For a few minutes I just sat there and went 'oh my god, is he seriously doing this in character?'  Then later on, after he had apparently exhausted himself trying to keep up the blowhard act, he had this exchange with Rep. Judy Chu:

CONGRESSWOMAN JUDY CHU: Mr. Colbert, you could work on so many issues, why are you interested in this issue?
COLBERT: I like talking about people who don’t have any power. And this seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave. And, you know, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, these seem like the least of our brothers, right now. And I know that a lot of people are the least of my brothers because the economy is so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that, but migrant workers suffer, and they have no rights.”

So Colbert, a comedian, went to Congress and 'made a mockery' of the process, according to some politicos.  What they fail to see is that Colbert's impassioned speech about 'the least of his brothers' proved the point all the immigration reformers have been trying to do for years.  That these are real people, and we treat them as a means to an end.  Even his comedy bits pointed out the hypocrisy that many anti-immigration citizens show when they are speaking out.  'll let Steve have the last word:
"This is America. I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, then served by a Venezuelan, in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian."