Someday
I'm strong I'm sure
I'm in control
A man with a plan
Believing that life
Is a neat little package
I hold in my hand
I've got it together
They call me the guy
Who knows just what to say and do
Still I stumble and fall
Run into the wall
'Cause when it comes to youI'm just another fella in love
A kid out of school
A fire out of control
Just another fool
You touch me and I'm weak
I'm a feather in the wind
And I can't wait
To feel you touching me again
With you I'm just another fella
Just another fella in loveSo pardon me if I should stare
And tremble like a child
That wanting me look
All over your face
Is driving me wild
I'm just what you make me
Can't wait till you take me
And set all my feelings free
I know that you can
So come be my man
Tonight I want to beJust another fella in love
A kid out of school
A fire out of control
Just another fool
You touch me and I'm weak
I'm a feather in the wind
And I can't wait
To feel you touching me again
With you I'm just another fella
Just another fella in loveApologies to Patti Ryan and Wanda Mallett"Just Another Woman in Love" performed by Anne Murray
Oh, gimme a break!
Today in the Washington Post:
...Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba attributed the [Abu Ghraib] scandal to the willful actions of a small group of soldiers and to "a failure of leadership" and supervision by brigade and lower-level commanders. ...
But several senators challenged the notion that low-ranking soldiers could have devised the particularly humiliating measures on their own...
What planet do these people live on? Human beings don't need to be coached on how to humilate others. It seems to come naturally to most. I still remember vividly a boy named Phillip in my Jr. High gym class. Phillip was a couple inches taller than the rest of us, gangly and uncoordinated. The "cool" guys in the class seemed to think it quite entertaining to snap Phillip on the butt with their wet towels as he bent to put on his underwear. They found great amusement in listening to him yelp in pain. Once was rarely enough and Philip was often in tears with multiple red marks on his butt and legs before he was dressed enough to be protected. One could hardly blame the coach for this behavior. They certainly didn't learn it from him. One can blame him for not intervening since I find it hard to believe he couldn't hear Phillip's cries.
Unbelievable, Outrageous, Criminal
I read today about David Reimer, a man who had been raised as a girl after doctors botched his circumcision and then convinced his parents to simply cut the rest of it off and raise him as a girl, claiming that gender and sexual identity is determined by environmental factors. He committed suicide last week at 38.
I'm not sure which emotion is strongest: sympathy for the poor man and what an incredibly difficult life that must have been, or outrage at the cowardice and ineptitude of his doctors and the arrogance of one man who put his own agenda over the well being of a fellow human being.
There are a couple lessons to be learned here. First, if nothing else this should make quite plain that you can't "teach" someone their sexuality. The tragic irony here is a conservative agenda—sexuality is a learned behavior—was actually trying to teach a straight man to be gay, they were trying to teach a man to be attracted to men. It obviously backfired, and David is the one who paid the price.
Which brings us to the next lesson. The conservative agenda with regard to sexuality has nothing to do with love or compassion. Paramount is proving that their archaic ideas about human sexuality are True, never mind the cost. They are even willing to sacrifice their own principles to achieve that end. How many more people get to have their lives confused and scrambled? How many more people live with guilt and uncertainty about their own identify and battle depression their whole life? How many more people have to die? David isn't the first. Sadly, he won't be the last either.