Thursday, April 30, 20091:02 AM - yay, it's politics againan open letter to North Carolina Representative Virginia FoxxRepresentative Foxx, Recently, you stated that the 1998 torture and murder of Matthew Shepard has been inaccurately labeled as a hate crime in order to support hate crimes legislation. Your statement has left me a bit confused, and I have some follow-up questions for my own clarity. In 2002, when Gwen Araujo was beaten to death with a frying pan, was that also a "robbery" in your view? When Angie Zapata was bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher, was that simply a "hoax?" When 14-year-old Brandon McInerney brought a .22-caliber revolver to his junior high school and killed his classmate, was that simply a misunderstanding over lunch money? Representative Foxx, you are a well-educated person. You have a doctorate degree in education and were a professor for several years before entering the North Carolina legislature. I refuse to believe that you are simply unaware of the basic facts of the Matthew Shepard case. Your statement serves to spread ignorance and confusion, but it also protects those who would commit hate crimes against LGBT people. North Carolina has no hate crimes legislation, which certainly works to the advantage of homophobic arsonists in Catawba County. Your work protects gang members and violent bullies. You stand arm in arm with the Tampa, Florida father who beat his three-year-old son to death because he might grow up to be gay. In fact, Representative Foxx, you might explore an opportunity to confer with your counterparts in Iran, where the government takes a more active role in the persecution and murder of LGBT people. You sicken me. Wednesday, April 22, 20098:50 AM - oh the realismthis morning's hilarious dreamThe dream starts, and I'm in the bunk of an all-boys dormitory. Apparently, I'm a student. I immediately see another, more individual bedroom, and hope that when I'm an older student that I can have one of those instead of the bunk. Also, there are snow boots by the door, so it must be winter. Suddenly there's an emergency and we are under attack, so we are conscripted into the army and told to pack. Next, I'm on a large, luxurious plane on my way to (probably Iraq?) to serve in the army. In retrospect, it's some kind of passenger plane, because my friend Matt is a few rows away, and he's not going to be in the army. Then a blond woman who I vaguely recognize comes and sits in the row facing mine. She's clearly one of the leaders of this army thing. I'm trying to figure out how to get in touch with this guy who I had a crush on 10 years ago and was in ROTC, because... I'm sure he can get me out of the army. Then we are driving down a dusty path with "army" buildings on one side. Everything's yellow terra cotta, so supposedly we are in Iraq now. And... I get put in my bunk. I wake up in my bunk (which is more spacious than the school dormitory bunks, by the way), and everyone else is awake and out the door and doing their army thing. I'm probably in trouble. Maybe if I keep getting in trouble, they'll kick me out! I hear a gunshot, and remember that things here are dangerous, so I should try not to get shot. So I start going through my suitcase trying to figure out what to wear. In the army. --cutscene-- The blond woman from before is Catherine Willows from CSI, and she's just entered a small abandoned shop among the army buildings. She's also in charge of this army thing. Inside the shop, she discovers that the villain (and her personal rival) has created a fake identity for himself and operated out of this shop while coordinating the kidnapping her daughter. She knows this because there is a poster of his face on the wall with his new identity. She gets angry and breaks a mosaic peacock ornament in the shop. This matches peacock feather headpiece that is in her hair... and she is wearing a blue empress gown. meta-dream Tony: You're so gay. Even your dreams are gay. --end cutscene-- As I'm figuring out what to wear from my suitcase in the bunk, I realize I'm going to have to go get food. What do they have in the army? I make up all these crazy things in cans and think, "I can't eat that, because I'm vegetarian. I hope they have something for me to eat. Wait a minute... I can't be in the army... they don't let gay people in the army!" meta-dream Tony: It took you this long to remember that you are gay?? So I pull out my laptop and start to... My alarm goes off. meta-dream Tony: I'll wake up in a minute, first I have to figure out how to get kicked out of the army for being gay. hits snooze... So I pull out my laptop and of course there's wireless internet so I type into Google: How to get "Stupid third-world internet..." I think to myself, and then, "Maybe the army doesn't allow you to search for how to be discharged on their networks!" I get back to Google and think, "I'm using Safari, and usually Macs aren't vulnerable to those kinds of manic Javascript pop-up spam..." and then, "Hey, this is a dream! I can get out of the army by waking up!" real-life Tony: wakes up. Yay, I'm awake, and it's my real-life comfy bed! checks clock. Yay, I'm not late for work! Monday, April 20, 200911:37 PM - bring out the tiger in you!best birthday everSo it looks like seven-year-old Kendra is going to receive the best birthday cake ever. She's going to grow up to be a drag queen. Wednesday, April 08, 200911:16 PM - snarky as usualmy rant about "traditional marriage"100 years ago, you couldn't marry someone of a different ethnicity. 300 years ago, your wife was property and arrived with a bundle of goods from her family. But 2000 years ago, I could marry another man and have our same-sex relationship acknowledged, peacefully, in any major culture around the world. I'm all for "traditional" marriage, I just don't think most people go back far enough. |
