MUGWUMP

What Rock was I living under?

Leave it to me to comment on a fad as it's reached its end (I think) but I just wanted to take a moment to say... "What the fuck?" Over the last year I've seen these Lance Armstrong bracelets on just about anyone I could imagine. If you're like me and do not own one, they are simple little yellow plastic band with the word "LIVESTRONG" embossed on them and apparantly they sell for around 1 or 2 dollars with the money going towards cancer organizations -- since Lance beat cancer (not to mention all the other Tour de France competitors). These things are even showing up in online porn! LIVESTRONG indeed. The thing that baffles me though, is that I've never, not once, seen a single store selling these bracelets. Not that I want one, mind you. I just don't understand how everyone else has got one and I've not even come across a point of purchase. This conumdrum naturally leads me to question what OTHER pop culture trends am I missing out on? I need to know this stuff people! Otherwise I'll get NO enjoyment from watching VH1's "We Love the 00's" since I won't know diddlely about what they're referencing.

Grumpiest Old Man

I've had a soft spot in my heart for George Carlin ever since I took Radio and Television Communications in college and our professor played Carlin's "7 Dirty Words" routine. He's always been sort of crotchety but his heart and head have always been in a good (insightful, reasonable) place and he's ALWAYS reliable for some smart laughs. Now he's starting to insult his audiences in Las Vegas which I'm not so sure is a good move. Shouldn't he be commending them for spending their money on an evening where they might actually THINK or come away with a lesson or two rather than blowing it on some one-armed bandits or twirling topless feather-headressed tarts? I know he's starting to get up there in age (67), but let's hope this isn't the beginning of the end.

Time to Stop Pussyfooting

In this story, a 7-year-old Louisiana child who has two gay mommies was punished for explaining to a classmate (who asked) that gay meant "when a girl likes another girl."

I hope I'm not alone in getting fed up with this crap. These bigoted fuckers need someone to hate, and right now we're the only ones around who it's still legal to discriminate against. This is a public school, paid for with my tax dollars as well as yours, and they are TEACHING HATE.

For years we've had to tip-toe around and say that we're not interested in converting people's kids into 'the gay lifestyle' and numbly nod in agreement that gay people shouldn't shove their behavior in society's face since it's more than fair that we can do whatever we like in the privacy of our bedrooms.

Enough! I, for one, think we should begin to actively try to convert as many young minds as possible and make no apologies for it. I'm not speaking in sexual terms, but in an EDUCATIONAL sense. We need to be "in your face" if we're ever going to defeat this narrow-minded back-woods attitude of segregation. Parents, you'd better lock up your kids, cause if I get a chance to talk to them about the good things this world has in it, as a fortunate result of having homosexuals as a part of it, they're gonna get a lesson.

I said "DANCE!!!"

The short of it: 13-year-old boy holds stripper at gunpoint and orders her to perform.

Seriously..., I can't make this stuff up.

A prediction.

So, after slowly pushing and prodding for years, we gays had an almost surreal summer of '04, what with all of those marriages from coast to coast where same-sex partners received legal status (albeit most of them temporary, save Massachusettes).

So what happened? Well, on November 2nd, according to the fine folks that run those apres-voting questionaires, the religious right of the country pushed back. In all 11 states where banning same-sex unions was on the ballot, all 11 measures passed overwhelmingly. The message to us was, 'the country is NOT ready for same-sex marriage so just stop PUSHING'.

But watch what's going to happen next. The religious right, thinking they've received a clear and decisive mandate at the elections will make the same mistake that we were making and they'll start pushing their own agenda without regard as to whether the country is ready for it or wants it. Just last Friday Reverend Donald Wildmon's American Family Association got thousands of it's members to ludicrously file grievances to the FCC complaining that ABC's Veteran's Day airing of an uncensored 'Saving Private Ryan' flouted any regard for decency standards even though the movie had previously aired uncensored on network television.

They will find many fronts on which to wage their crusade, pushing and prodding and gaining a lot of ground along the way. But one of these days, they will push too far and the pendulum will swing back in the other direction.

I'm not so much worried about my fellow gays and lesbians during this tug-of-war because a.) we're used to it and b.) we always knew that it was going to get much worse before it got better. My sympathy mainly goes out to those poor folks in the middle, whose real concerns about education, and health care, and tax reform are getting the short shrift by politicians trying to cater to the extreme right or left. Wouldn't we all be better off if these folks in the middle started screaming to be heard like the rest of us?

No wonder they named him Dick

I know this is getting posted all over, but I couldn't refuse. Click the pic for a closer look. 

I think this explains a lot... like why he has the confidence to take over the world, and also why he has so many heart attacks (takes a lot of blood to fill one of those up)