Dear god, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Why won't they let it die? Why, why, why? How much do the cast and crew have to savage it in public before they put it out of our misery?
Of course I'll watch. It's like a bad tooth. You know you shouldn't. You know touching it will just hurt. And yet, you've just got to stick your tongue over and see what's changed since the last time you did that, two seconds ago.
@ 01:55 PM CST [Link]
"What we need to move on to next is sheer indifference. We haven't achieved that yet, particularly in the record industry, but I think we'll get there in the end."
@ 11:04 AM CST [Link]
Booker added, "Underfunding this U.N. initiative means writing off the lives of millions of Africans and others living with HIV and AIDS, but signing death sentences especially for black people is nothing new to this president!"
@ 10:27 AM CST [Link]
Bet she'd have been fired from BYU.
@ 12:25 PM CST [Link]
Dear Agony Uncle,
I'm a deeply closeted professional athlete, somehow having a relationship with an out and professional homosexual man. I won't lie; it's been rough. It's just that I've always wanted to be a pro baseball player. I thought we were OK, but then he wrote about our relationship in public! Named no names, but still, now everyone is speculating. After all, there are only so many team in the area.
He says that it would all blow over. He doesn't understand how ingrained the homophobia in professional sports is. Both management and a lot of the athletes would have a vested interest in getting me out as quick as they could. And I'm not a star; it would be easy to just drop my contract after the season's over, and nobody in baseball would pick up my contract after the media circus that would happen if I came out. He talks about Billy Bean, but he never came out while he was playing; he walked away from baseball so that he could come out.
And, of course, right now, I'm so mad at my boyfriend that I could spit nails. He had no right to do this to me.
So what the hell do I do now?
Sincerely, Baseball Player.
Dear Baseball Player,
It's a tough one, I'll admit. And I certainly don't have any real answers for you; all I have is more questions.
How much are you willing to let your fear restrict the rest of your life? How long can you live with that fear and those restrictions? If you come out and lose your career, can you bear that? Is your dream of playing baseball worth the rest of your life, for however long your playing career lasts?
Your boyfriend probably shouldn't have published an open letter to you, no, although I can sympathise with his aims. If you sincerely feel that harmed by him, you'll need to consider whether or not you want to stay in the relationship. However, that's dwarfed by the other issues, isn't it?
As for the rest of it .... well, someone's got to be first, haven't they? I know that sounds terribly glib, but it really isn't. If someone doesn't take the first step, then nobody will ever be able to take the second. Nobody will ever have the chance to make their off-field life a non-issue. (Granting that absent actual criminal behavior, off-field life should always be a non-issue, but given the cult of celebrity in the world, that will certainly never happen.)
Put it this way: if someone doesn't take that first step, nobody will have the chance to have their relationship be just a relationship and not an issue. After all, if this were a relatively routine sort of thing, then your relationship issues would stay between the two of you, and not get aired in public. After all, who would care?
Best of luck,
Agony Uncle
@ 12:01 PM CST [Link]
Goliath versus Goliath versus Joe Schmoe. Who will win?
Whoever gets their way, I would imagine the US will opt out of this one. The US never ever signs these sorts of jurisdictional treaties.
@ 10:58 AM CST [Link]
You know, I try to be, if not quite a pacifist, then relatively calm about things. I try to keep a cool head. I try to see both sides of an issue, and all that.
But I'm sorry, this man would have to die.
After I got over the withdrawal pains and twitches, of course.
@ 03:18 PM CST [Link]
Well. My goodness. Kansas, of all places. "We won't teach evolution, but transsexuals can marry with our blessing." What a very very odd state ....
@ 01:42 PM CST [Link]
I don't know ... maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that leaving a job only three months after you get appointed is a pretty good sign that either (a) he got pressed out by the conservatives who are already somewhat peeved at George II Fraudulency, or (b) that the Pentagon, that notorious bastion of gay-friendly brass, was not too thrilled to have him there on their own account. Either way, I'd be really astonished if this was purely and completely his own idea. It seems especially unlikely since he was hired on a 130 day appointment as a paperwork consultant, for heaven's sake, and he's leaving more than 30 days early. I suppose I could be selling him short but still ....
The part I find amusing is that his mere presence was making the GOP senators slow down the confirmation process for the DoD. His presence. And then they have the brass to complain that the slowness of the process is his fault!
That guy running the AIDS office is probably thankful that he reports directly to the Shrub. At least he has a bit more protection. (You'd think an entire building full of men with guns would be some sort of symbolic protection, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong.)
@ 12:28 AM CST [Link]
Right wing religious organization the Family Research Council says Dawson's Creek's Jack is "a threat to American families". The FRC says the teen series is “an indoctrination tool for homosexual activists.,” ... [Associate Director of Media Heather Cirmo] says it's time American families stood up for their rights. She says FRC has found there are too many loving, upstanding gay people on TV and not enough nuclear families.
I hardly know what to say to THAT. Who knew that the FRC would count being loving and upstanding as a character flaw? "You're good people. That makes you EVIL BEYOND WORDS!" Now there's a logic chain for you!
And the concept that we're using as an indoctrination tool a series in which the one gay character gets to mention the fact maybe once a month, if that, and in which he gets to touch another human being in a romantic way once a YEAR ... I just don't know. Can you imagine the recruiting speech? "Really, you should be gay. Many people will hate and persecute you, you can never tell anyone, and you get to touch another person you're attracted to once per year. Really, the life is just FABulous!"
I'd also imagine that Britney Spears would be mildly startled to discover that she's supposed to represent purity. I wonder what happens after she gets married? "You're supposed to represent pure American womanhood! Get back to the kitchen! Start cooking! Have babies! Let your husband earn your living!" I mean, what?
@ 03:00 PM CST [Link]
OK, have I missed something or did I have premonitions way back when or something? Didn't Michael Stipe come out, like, YEARS ago? What the hell am I missing here?
@ 02:49 PM CST [Link]
Well, well, well. Whoda thunk?
@ 01:00 PM CST [Link]
@ 12:54 PM CST [Link]
Well ... it's certainly a ... different type of defense. Mind, I don't expect it will be a successful one--I don't know if he's guilty, but it certainly doesn't sound like he's up there on the brain power--but it's different.
@ 10:37 AM CST [Link]
So, how do we expect the administration of George II Fraudulency to address racial profiling, if at all?
Bush's new attorney general, John Ashcroft, told the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings that he would make cases against racial profiling a priority. Ashcroft said he was opposed to ''racial profiling and other abuses of civil rights by law enforcement authorities,'' he said. Although he said he would work with Congress to make new law on racial profiling, Ashcroft chaired a Senate Judiciary subcommittee last year that bottled up the Traffic Stops Statistics Study Act after the measure had passed the U.S. House. [...] Jim Pasco, executive director of the national office of the Fraternal Order of Police, says he sees the Bush/Ashcroft team steering clear of the big stick approach used by the Clinton administration. ''Bush's position is that local police department functions and conduct are best left to state and local governments,'' Pasco said. [...] Those who've dealt with the Justice Department urge other cities facing similar threats - or potetential [sic] threats - to hang on. Said Bryan Campbell, the Pittsburgh FOP attorney: ''If I were the people in Cincinnati (and the Justice Department intervened), I would stonewall until the new attorney general gets all his people in place.''
Cincinnati is, at present, in no position to judge or delay anything; the case is simply too prominent. Dragging their feet on this would virtually insure another riot.
That said, an administration that assumes that local governance and control is any sort of answer to a problem created by local governance and control (or lack thereof) is beyond stupid. Then again, this is a man who professes to believe that Big Oil can police its own prices as they soar past $3 per gallon. (Why the idiot wants to create ripple-down inflation of that sort, I have no idea, but I digress.)
In other words ... batten down the hatches.
@ 10:33 AM CST [Link]
Hmm ... Jeb Bush versus George II Fraudulency and Big Oil. Who will win? .... (Jeb could use some good news these days. And who needs a run for re-election spiked by your own brother, of all people?)
@ 10:09 AM CST [Link]
If you're a straight man ... be afraid. Be very very afraid.
@ 10:01 AM CST [Link]
"These are the new voyages of the Starship Enterprise ..."
@ 02:45 PM CST [Link]
I don't believe this. No, let me rephrase: I don't want to believe this. I don't want to believe that the man charged with enforcing separation of church and state does this. How much clearer does it need to be that he feels that church and state shouldn't be separate?
@ 11:32 AM CST [Link]
The South African government has no intention of buying the antiretroviral drugs that can keep people with HIV/Aids alive in spite of its courtroom victory over pharmaceutical companies that were trying to block the import of cheap medicines, says its health minister, reports Sarah Boseley. [...] An Indian company, Cipla, which makes copycat versions of the antiretrovirals, has offered a three-drug cocktail for $250 (£178) a year per person which would be $10 000 a year in the west, but her government cannot afford it, she says. "It is $250 times millions of people times the infrastructure that we do not have times the health workers who are not yet trained times prevention measures," [South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang] said.
Well .... in a way, I can't say I blame them. Even assuming that you could get the drugs to all the people in South Africa who need it, it would cost something like $2.5 billion per year, in a country with government revenues of $30 billion (and government expenditures of $38 billion, which is not going to be sustainable over any length of time, given the South African economy).
That said ... one of the reasons the government gives for not giving out anti-retrovirals is that they don't have a distribution network in place. Yet they're planning to use this legal position to distribute drugs to fight the secondary infections, TB and the like. If you can't distribute one set of drugs, how can you distribute the other? If you complain that you don't have the trained staff to distribute the anti-retrovirals, how can you have the staff to distribute drugs to combat TB, which has a treatment regimen equally as complex?
@ 11:21 AM CST [Link]
Members of a European Parliament committee investigating whether the United States engages in economic espionage angrily returned home Thursday after U.S. agencies declined to meet with them. [...] The European delegation was inquiring about reports of a super-secret surveillance network called Echelon that some former intelligence officials have claimed is being used to monitor billions of phone calls, e-mails and faxes. U.S. officials have not acknowledged the existence of any such a system and have said American agencies do not engage in industrial espionage.
HA! Ha ha hee! Oh, my, that's a good one, isn't it? "American agencies do not engage in industrial espionage." Almost as good as "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky."
@ 10:54 AM CST [Link]
You know, I can understand why they want to define these things; given the current legal system, it only makes a certain amount of sense. But ... "defining evil?" How do you manage this? "Well, he had this bit of that aggravating factor and this bit of that one, but none of the others, so ... he's only 26% evil. Sorry, but you need to be at least 51% evil to get the death penalty. he's just not depraved enough."
@ 10:38 AM CST [Link]
Now there's some new, bizarre thing happening in the gay and lesbian community. I'm not sure if it's happening in the straight community; I haven't done the research, but I'll get back to you. New addiction--unbelievable!--to Home Depot. What is the deal with that? Honest to god, they ought to call it the Homo Depot. Go to the Home Depot any Sunday afternoon, and it's dykes on ice, isn't it? It's like a little crack house for homosexuals!
--Suzanne Westenhoefer, "I'm not Cindy Brady"
Hum. Perhaps we should reconsider this little addiction thing.
I have to admit, I find this reluctance baffling, considering all the other things Home Depot seems to have done for their employees. The only thing that makes the least sense is that they know there are situations building within the company, and as soon as they make that anti-bias policy explicit, employees and prospective employees will be bringing actions all over the company.
@ 10:29 AM CST [Link]
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
@ 10:10 AM CST [Link]
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!