If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

A few minutes ago, I saw a breaking news bulletin on Yahoo saying that Elizabeth Edwards had died. This came just a day after announcing that doctors had advised her that there was nothing more they could do and that she’d decided to stop treatments.

After reading the short announcement, I scrolled down to read the comments. Though many people posted respectful condolences, many others saw this as an opportunity to spew hateful, grammar- and spelling-challenged remarks. For some people, everything is an opportunity for partisan politics and no exceptions are made, even to respect the grief of those in mourning. To such people, if you do not believe as they do, then you have forfeited any considerations of courtesy and common decency and it’s open season on you and yours.

I would think the old saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all”, should apply in such instances for everyone who has any character and integrity at all. If you don’t like Elizabeth Edwards or her husband, fine, but simply don’t comment on such articles at all if you can’t be respectful. A person’s death notice is not the time nor the place for partisan politics.

But the literacy-challenged trolls who haunt the comment sections of Yahoo News and other similar sites do not limit their vitriolic political spewing to articles relating to politics. They post comments trashing their political bugaboos on nearly every article posted, even those that don’t have even the remotest thing to do with politics. Apparently, no one has told these simple-minded fanatics that not everything in this world has to do with politics.

There are several ultra right wing politicians I find completely reprehensible, but I would nevertheless grant them the respect of my silence if they or someone in their family were to die and allow them to grieve in peace. Time and place, people. There are certain niceties that are the hallmark of a civilized society, and respect for the mourning is one of them.

Thoughts?

Some Thoughts on the Dr Laura Brouhaha

I've observed with interest the latest "brouhaha du jour", that of Dr. Laura Schlessinger resigning her radio show over her repeated use of the "n-word" during the course of a single call.

Predictably, she has been complaining about her 1st Amendment rights, backed up by the ever-present and ever-annoying Sarah Palin. I don't get what she's talking about, as I don't see anyone seeking to jail her for speaking her mind, however small-minded and mean-spirited it might be. What I do get is that others have been exercising their rights to free speech as well by objecting to what she said.

And in the free market economy that conservatives hold in such high regard, sometimes exercising that right in the business she's in can lead to unwanted consequences. In this case, the radio sponsors are voting with their wallets by withdrawing their sponsorship of her show. It's all about money.

Monitoring the Neal Boortz show the other day, he talked about this incident and it both surprised and amused me that he referred to her as a "vile woman" It's rather surprising that he'd hold this opinion because, in my opinion, the two are cut from the same cloth.

Apparently there's bad blood between the two for some reason because, on a previous show, he mentioned having to dance with her at some function they'd both attended and he opined that dancing with her was like holding a "dead fish".

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with Boortz' opinion of her, which is rather a frightening thing in and of itself.

Thoughts?

Different Kinds of Ignorance

Today, while monitoring the Neal Boortz radio show, he had a segment featuring a survey taken at an amusement park where random people passing by were asked very basic questions about the history of Independence Day.

None of the people could answer any of the questions correctly, except for one man at the end,who was identified as a grandfather. One woman who said she was a teacher did not get a single answer right.

As I continued to listen, I was stunned by the level of jaw-dropping ignorance. The questions asked were quite simple, on the level of a third grader. These were questions I knew the answer to when I was ten years old.

Several people had no idea why we celebrate the Fourth of July. One person when asked which year the United States declared its independence said 1922. Another person named Winston Churchill as the general who led American forces during the Revolutionary War. Still yet another had no clue as to which country we were declaring our independence from.

I was just as appalled as Boortz was by the staggering ignorance.

But then, Boortz showed his own ignorance, which was an ignorance of another sort entirely.

He said that the level of ignorance surprised him because they were "all good-looking people; mainstream Americans." He went on to say that there were no people with "pot bellies with cigarettes dangling from their lips" nor were they wearing hoodies or had tattoos.

My jaw dropped then at his staggering ignorance.

Since when is a person's appearance, level of subjective attractiveness, fashion sense, or weight a measure of their intelligence? At his age, Boortz should know what a crock of shit judging a book by its cover is.

Thoughts?

Petty Distractions

Recently, people have been making fun of Sarah Palin for writing crib notes on her palm. I even heard of someone referring to what she did as a "Redneck Teleprompter". I have to roll my eyes at this, thinking it a ridiculous thing to criticize someone about.

Don't get me wrong; I am most assuredly no fan of Sarah Palin and would never consider voting for this woman.

But fair is fair, even for Sarah Palin. Who among us hasn't written down a phone number, directions, or something else on our hands one time or another? What's it to anyone else if she wanted to do this to help her remember?

There's no need to stoop so low to criticize her about such petty things, as there are many more glaring faults that we should be calling attention to in these years before the 2012 Republican nominations for president. To concentrate on such insignificant matters distracts us from what really matters and only ends up making us look petty.

Thoughts?

A History of Lunacy

Pat Robertson's latest moronic comments about the earthquake in Haiti are just the latest in a history of moronic comments. I'm quite convinced that the man isn't entirely sane and that his lunacy is of a similar nature as what afflicts the anti-gay preacher Fred Phelps.

What follows is a list of Robertson's previous idiocy:

In light of Pat Robertson's most recent outbreak of foot in mouth disease in reference to the school board elections in Dover, PA, here is a small sampling of other moronic things he's said over the years. Makes me wonder why he's running around loose, let alone hosting a TV show.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
–Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

"Wait a minute, I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,' and 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping."
–Pat Robertson, clarifying his call to assassinate Hugo Chavez

"Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up"
–Pat Robertson, on nuking the State Department

"That was never in the Constitution, however much the liberals laugh at me for saying it, they know good and well it was never in the Constitution! Such language only appeared in the constitution of the Communist Soviet Union."
–Pat Robertson, on the constitutional separation of church and state

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."
–Pat Robertson

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
–Pat Robertson

"I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you, This is not a message of hate -- this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor."
–Pat Robertson, on "gay days" at Disneyworld

"Well, I totally concur."
–Pat Robertson to Jerry Falwell following the Sept. 11 attacks, after Falwell said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say: "You helped this happen."

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
–Pat Robertson

"Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court."
–Pat Robertson

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings."
–Pat Robertson, on the dangers of judicial activism

Book Review: Highest Duty

I was very much impressed with Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger when I first heard of the tragedy he and the rest of his crew averted back in January.

After reading this book, I'm even more impressed with him. Not just a recounting of the Flight 1549 incident, this book is a biography that highlights the many experiences in his life that served as preparation for the role he played on January 15, 2009.

His book was motivational and inspirational without being preachy or religious. It was quite obvious that Captain Sullenberger has great compassion for humanity in general, as well as being a thoroughgoing professional. And, though he'd not apply the word to himself, a true hero in a time when Americans are in need of genuine heroes.

I give this book five stars.

Thoughts on Obama and the Nobel Prize

I woke up this morning to find that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Prize, which left me scratching my head.

Don't get me wrong, I voted for the guy and think he shows a lot of promise. But I think it's premature, to say the least, to award him such a prize so early in his administration. I am sure there are others who deserve it more at this particular point in time. I'd been under the impression that the prize was awarded on the basis of actual accomplishments, rather than on the hope of promise.

It's quite possible that in a few years, Obama would rightly deserve the prize on the basis of accomplishment, but awarding it now makes me wonder if he's being given the award mainly because he's not George Bush.

Nevertheless, it's going to be amusing watching the indignant reactions from the far right wingnuts, as they get their collective boxers/panties in a wad while they froth at the mouth.

Misguided Indignation

This morning while idly surfing the net, I read one woman's rant about the latest sexual brouhaha du jour; that of David Letterman being blackmailed over the many sexual dalliances he's had over the years with women he'd worked with. In complete indignation, she ripped Letterman up one side and down the other.

She reviled him for his inability to be monogamous; that he'd been repeatedly unfaithful to his partner of 23 years. Calling him a "creepy, perverted old man", she jeered at him for his apparent inability to "keep in in his pants". And then she wrapped up with hand-wringing about the increasingly so-called "dying breed" of men who remain absolutely sexually faithful to their female partners who, unlike Letterman, in her opinion, were "upright, righteous, strong, moral men with integrity".

I won't take the time to address all her points here, because that isn't the main point of this post, save to say that infidelity wasn't something invented in the 1960s. People have been struggling to adhere to monogamy ever since it was imposed on us by religion countless generations ago.

What mainly struck me as absurd and short sighted about her post was the fact that the Letterman "sextortion" news has followed directly on the heels of the latest news about Roman Polanski's arrest.

If she wanted to vent her spleen on a "creepy, perverted old man", then she need not have looked any further than Polanski, who drugged and forcibly raped a 13 year old kid, then evaded justice for over thirty years. Polanski is the real deal when it comes to creepy, perverted old men and it's completely ludicrous to even attempt to put Letterman into the same category.

Unlike Polanski and his misguided defenders, (such as Whoopi Goldberg, who has said that Polanski did not commit "rape-rape", but "something else"), who have tried to minimize the seriousness of what he did, Letterman has stepped up to the plate like a man and openly admitted the dalliances without trying to explain them away. Unlike many other celebrity men who have been outed for adultery in recent years, was honest about his behavior.

Letterman was also involved with adult women in consensual encounters; hardly the crime of the century that will lead to the end of civilization as we know it. Polanski and his defenders, who somehow think he's special and not subject to the same laws as the rest of us, on the other hand, say something very sad about our society.

Thoughts?

An Observation On the H ealth Care Debate

The other night, I tuned into the Dennis Miller talk show on the car radio only to find a guest, Dr Drew Pinsky, hosting the show for the night. It's a conservative show, but considering that this is all that's available in my area, I listen to it and others just to see what the other side is thinking.

Dr Pinsky was hosting an open forum for those who had misgivings about the Obama health care plan to call in and voice their concerns.

I was surprised to hear the doctor state to a caller that though he had problems with the Obama plan, he did agree that our current system is broken and that the goal is to ensure that no one in the US has to go without access to health care. I don't remember his exact words, but this was the gist of it.

Though I was not able to listen to this show in its entirety, this attitude was markedly different from most other conservatives I've either read or heard.

For instance, the other night a man called the Neal Boortz show, explaining to him that he was not able to get health insurance, though he was willing and able to pay for it, because he had a chronic health problem. He challenged Boortz to tell him what he thought the solution should be in such a situation.

Boortz essentially told him that it wasn't his problem, which I hear much more commonly from conservatives. He asked the man if he actually expected him to pay for the health care of another person in such a situation, trotting out his tired complaint, "should the government be able to take away a portion of my life"(some of the money that he'd earned) to pay for stranger's health care?

The man quickly responded that, yes, that he'd be glad to contribute to Boortz' care if it had been him in the same situation.

Boortz didn't propose any sort of better solution to the man's problem, but took the attitude of "Oh, well, too bad for you." I wonder if he expects people in this situation to just shut up, go sit in a corner, and wait to die? It makes me wonder how the man can manage to sleep at night..

I've not heard any conservatives offer any workable solutions to the goal which Pinsky defined and supported. They are against the Obama plan, but they're not offering a better one, either.

The Obama plan may not be perfect, but it's a damned sight better than throwing up one's hands and telling the uninsured, "Too bad for you -- you'd better start praying that you don't get sick".

Thoughts?

A Uniter, Not a Divider

Late last night before going to bed, I heard of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. At hearing this sad news I was not shocked, as his death had been expected for some time.

Though Kennedy was most assuredly not a perfect man (who is?), he was probably one of the most effective Senators in recent history. What I most respected about him in this time of sharp ideological divide in politics, with the "Us vs Them" mentality running rampant, was his ability to reach across party lines to actually get things done that would benefit all Americans. While many politicians spend time pointing fingers, he reached out a helping hand.

With conservative Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch he worked on nearly a dozen bipartisan bills, including a federally funded program for victims of HIV/AIDS, health insurance for lower-income children and tax breaks to encourage the development of medicine for rare diseases.

According to Wikipedia:

More than 300 bills that Kennedy and his staff wrote have been enacted into law. Kennedy played a major role in passing many laws that have affected the lives of all Americans, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008, the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009

During his long tenure as a Senator, Kennedy's major legislative goal was the establishment of universal health care.

I'm sorry that he did not live long enough to achieve his lifelong goal, but we can honor Senator Kennedy's memory by working to make his dream of health care reform a reality.

Pot, Meet Kettle

Listening to the Neal Boortz show the other night, I heard him ragging on liberals who have decided to boycott Whole Foods because of an editorial Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote in the Wall Street Journal where he stated that "universal healthcare is no more a right than food or shelter."

Boortz believes the boycott is misguided because Whole Foods pays 100% of employees' premiums, but no deductibles, for everyone who clocks in 30 hours or more per week. Then it gives these workers $1,800 a year in "health care dollars" to use for health and wellness expenses.

Whether or not the boycott is justified isn't the point of this blog entry. My point is to call attention to Boortz' hypocrisy in light of a broadcast he'd made about a week earlier than this one.

In the earlier broadcast, Boortz talked about a stationery shop he'd patronized for several years. One day while shopping at this store, he noticed the owner leaving his car, which has pro-Obama stickers on them. At that moment, Boortz decided to never shop there again, despite the fact that he'd always been given good service there and had nothing to complain about. He chose to boycott this store only because the owner had voted for Barack Obama.

He went on to say that voting with one's wallet is a time-honored way of expressing one's opinion in a free market society, blah, blah, blah.

Pot, meet kettle.

I'm guessing Boortz won't be trotting out that old voting with one's wallet theme when it comes to the 36 sponsors who have chosen to withdraw their sponsorship from Glenn Beck's show, either.

Harry Truman on Health Care Reform

President Harry Truman was among the first Americans who saw a need for health care reform. Decades ahead of his time, he was unable to make meaningful changes during his tenure as president in the late 40s and early 50s, but he’s acknowledged by some as the inspiration for the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid under the Johnson administration.

Following are a few quotes that illustrate Truman’s opinions on this matter:

“We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all its citizens deserves the help of all the nation.”

“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.”

“I do not understand a mind which sees a gracious beneficence in spending money to slay and maim human beings in almost unimaginable numbers and deprecates the expenditure of a smaller sum to patch up the ills of mankind.“

True Racism vs Playing the Race Card

In a recent New York Times article, Reverend Jesse Jackson, has speculated about Michael Vick not yet being signed to an NFL team, wondering if it was a racist conspiracy among NFL team owners to keep him out of the league. Jackson even had the temerity to compare Vick's situation with that of Jackie Robinson, the first black American signed to play major league baseball in 1947.

Give me a break!

To even mention Vick's name in the same sentence as Robinson's does a disservice to Robinson's memory and place in history. The experiences of the two men are in no way comparable.

Robinson was a law-abiding citizen whose only "crime" was being the wrong color in a time when racial prejudice was pervasive in American society. Vick has known nothing of the racism in his sports career that was an everyday fact of life for Jackie Robinson.

Vick's current problem was caused by Michael Vick, not a racist conspiracy. They're not picking on him "just because he's black". To suggest otherwise and to compare him to Robinson just cheapens and demeans all that Robinson had to overcome to come out on top.

It's one thing to believe that Vick has paid his debt to society and to think he deserves another chance. That's fine.

But it's quite another thing to act as if he's an innocent victim in all of this by playing the race card.

Thoughts?

Passing the Torch

I'm pretty impressed with Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea where he successfully negotiated the release of the two women, returning them to their anxious families.

I was struck by the thought that Clinton perfect for the role as an elder statesman of diplomacy and that this trip was a kind of a passing of the torch from Jimmy Carter to Clinton. Carter, who has distinguished himself in this role since the end of his presidency, is 85 now, and no doubt slowing down. I can think of few people who are more qualified than Bill Clinton to accept that torch and to carry on the work that Carter has done.

And That's the Way It Was

Last night, I came home to find out that veteran newsman Walter Cronkite had died at the age of 92. Chosen several times over as “the most trusted man in America” in viewer opinion polls, Cronkite’s long and distinguished career extending from before World War II into the 21st century.

Morley Safer, a longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, called Cronkite “the father of television news.”

“The trust that viewers placed in him was based on the recognition of his fairness, honesty and strict objectivity … and of course his long experience as a shoe-leather reporter covering everything from local politics to World War II and its aftermath in the Soviet Union,” Safer said. “He was a giant of journalism and privately one of the funniest, happiest men I’ve ever known.”

As the anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, he brought the news of countless world-changing events to millions of Americans, from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King to the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage crisis. He ended each evening’s broadcast with his signature statement: “And that’s the way it is.”

From the perspective of a five year old in 1963, I well remember Cronkite choking up as he delivered the report of President John F. Kennedy’s death.

Walter Cronkite reports the death of JFK
November 22, 1963

His 1968 editorial declaring the United States was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in U.S. opinion of the war. He also helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

Cronkite was also an fervent supporter of America’s space program and was on hand to report every milestone in the high-coverage sixties from the first suborbital flight to the first moon landing to covering John Glenn’s return to space in 1998. His enthusiasm was evident when he exclaimed “Look at those pictures, wow!” as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface.

“He had a passion for human space exploration, an enthusiasm that was contagious, and the trust of his audience. He will be missed,” Neil Armstrong said.

I, like millions of others, grew up with Walter Cronkite bringing us the news, He was a nightly constant from my earliest memories to the time my son was born. His death is but another part of my childhood gone forever.

And that’s the way it was.

Bigger Government or Better Government?

As part of my habit of monitoring right wing talk radio as a method of knowing one's opposition, I regularly tune in to the Neal Boortz show. As anyone who has read my blog regularly knows, I can't stand the guy. He labels himself a libertarian conservative and his philosophy could be characterized as objectivism in the Ayn Rand vein. But I just call him an elitist, as one of his favorite topics to harp on is what he calls "wealth envy", which is his particular spin on justifying selfishness and his disdain for poor people and others in unfortunate circumstances.

But sometimes the man surprises me. Recently, he's been getting a spate of callers of the tinfoil hat brigade variety who call in to rant about President Obama, saying he "hates America" and wants to "destroy our country."

To my surprise, and to be perfectly fair, Boortz always corrects such callers. He tells them that the President doesn't hate America, nor does he want to "destroy" it, but rather that he's got a different idea from the caller (and him) on what makes America great.

True enough and a perfectly rational answer. It's a shame he's not as even-handed about other topics with conflicting viewpoints as well.

But then he goes on to say that Barack Obama believes that government is what makes this country great, unlike himself and the caller who believe that America is great because of its people and freedom (which he defines primarly as economic freedom, especially from the perspective of the wealthy). He implies that this also means that Obama believes the bigger the government, the better.

I find that highly misleading. For one thing, all politicians, regardless of party, "believe" in government in that they have been elected to it and seek to promote governmental policies that they believe are effective and useful. They "believe in government in that they wish to effect changes by working within the system as elected representatives, instead of through the private sector.

And it doesn't logically follow that because Barack Obama is committing to working through the system to implement his policies on how to make our great country greater, that he would automatically think that simply making it bigger would be his goal. Rather, he wants to work within the system to make government work better and more effectively, rather than simply increasing its size.

It's his perfect right to deride the role of government in our society, but unless the highly unlikely scenario occurs in that we turn into an anarchistic society, we will have a government of some sort. It seems to me that it would be better to talk about ways of improving government, rather than denigrating its role in a civilized society at every given opportunity

If the Shoe Doesn't Fit, Change the Shoe, Don't Cut the Foot

I recently read that Chastity Bono, the daughter of Cher and Sonny Bono, has decided to undergo a sex change. While I support the right of everyone to live their lives in whatever way makes them the happiest, I have to say that the notion of a surgical "sex change" makes me feel uncomfortable and frankly baffles me. What I'm about to write won't be politically correct, but is not meant to belittle anyone's experiences or concerns.

While I don't dismiss the concerns of those who are unhappy with the sex they were born as and would prefer to be the other sex, there's also the fact that "sex changes" are a misnomer. Sex change operations do not actually change a person's sex; they merely provide one with the cosmetic outer appearance of the desired sex. According to Wikipedia:

Sex in humans is usually determined by four factors:

• Chromosomes cannot be changed.
• Gonads can be removed, but not replaced
• Hormone status is easily changed
• Existing sex characteristics can to some extent be changed; existing ones mostly through surgery, non-existing ones can be induced to grow through hormones.

In other words, even with surgery, one would never be fully functional as a member of the desired sex. A man who wishes to become a woman could never become pregnant, give birth, or nurse children. A woman who desired to become a man could never naturally attain an erection, ejaculate, or sire children. This is because it isn't possible for the sex change operation to include implantation of functioning ovaries or a uterus for a male to female change, nor a fuctioning penis, testes, and prostate for female to male changes.

And even attaining a believable outer appearance of the desired sex can be problematic, especially in female to male cases, as Chastity Bono wishes to do. According to Wikipedia, changing a female genital anatomy into an even reasonably male appearing one however is extremely complicated and not successful very often; function is always limited.

The hormonal changes must be maintained by taking hormones of the desired sex indefinitely. If hormone treatment is discontinued, the person's true sex will begin to reassert itself. And this isn't even considering the heightened cancer risk.

From what I've read, people who wish to change their sex are more often unhappy with the stereotyped gender/sex roles that society has assigned to their birth sex, rather than the biological realities of being that sex, per se. We must remember that sex/gender roles -- notions of what is "masculine" or "feminine"' that are not directly related to reproduction -- are largely cultural constructs and not inherent in the biology of being male or female. They vary across history and from culture to culture.

In such cases, where the person simply wants their body to match their desired sex/gender role and has no interest in the capacity to perform in a reproductive capacity as a member of the desired sex, I don't understand why they don't simply shun sex roles altogether and live as they wish to live as an "effeminate" man or a "mannish" female or as an androgyne, rather than violating their bodily integrity for the sake of culturally mandated sex roles.

In other words, if the shoe doesn't fit, change the shoe, don't cut the foot.

Bluntly Stated

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

They'll have us living for the benefit of our fellow man instead of us living for our own individual benefit!
--Neal Boortz, in reference to liberals and Democrats.

I heard Boortz make the second comment on one of his recent broadcasts, which is but one of many illustrations of what makes the first statement true.. I'm not sure if I remember his exact words precisely, but this is the gist of them. He spoke in a tone that made clear that he found the idea of devoting one's live in service to humanity to be extremely revolting and something to be avoided.

I have to give the man credit for being totally honest, however. Most conservatives will not so bluntly admit their complete disguest for altruism.

Thoughts?

Who's Your Daddy?

Dennis Hatchett, a 29 year old minimum wage worker, has father 21 children by 11 different women. The children range in age from 11 months to 11 years.

"I had four kids in the same year. Twice." Hatchett admitted.

According to the Huffington Post, Hatchett was in court last week, appearing on the docket 11 times in regards to 15 of the 21 children who he's not paid child support for on a timely basis.

Though the guy is a Darwinian success and is assured of a large number of descendants to carry one his genes, I couldn't help but wonder what the fuck was he thinking. I do know, however, which head he was thinking with.

My comment to the Huffington Post article follows below:

Now, I can't blame the guy for wanting to get laid a lot with a wide variety of women. I've had a rather large number of lovers over the years, myself.

However, in 30+ years of being sexually active, I have only ONE child. I know what a condom is for and I'm not afraid to use them.

I raised the one child I had to adulthood, and wasn't interested, nor did I have the financial resources, to raise more. One was more than enough for me.

I'm wondering if this guy has chicken fat for brains by siring so many kids he can't afford to support.

Steroid Disaster

I have to wonder what prompts some people to turn themselves into walking freaks as this moron has. And this guy’s story is even worse than it looks. Not only has he turned himself into a living action figure, his arms actually popped from this extreme steroid-induced body modification. I’m nominating this one as a future recipient of the Darwin Award

Click below for the video.

Steroid Disaster