So sue me.
Well, I just finished my first week of my masters program. First impressions? Oh, my God, the eye candy!
Oh, stop rolling your eyes. Even if I were single I wouldn't be interested in pursuing anything with the young 'uns, but they sure are nice to look at.
"What!?" some of you might be thinking. "You've just started a Masters of Social Work program and all you can talk about is the cute boys?" Oh, please. It's a little early to have much to say about the program. I'm pretty satisfied with my instructors. They all seem knowledgeable, personable and easy to listen to. (Better be. All the classes are three hours long.) The amount of reading that is assigned is insane. I'm already behind. We'll see if I can catch up and stay on top of it.
I've also started my internship at the county Juvenile Receiving Center. It's basically where cops bring teens they pick up for truancy or minor offenses that don't warrant Juvenile Court. Parents are also welcome to bring their kids their for a "time out" or for free counseling. It's funny how some parents think it's a babysitting service. They're going on vacation, don't want to take little Johnny with them so they try and drop him off at the country for a few days. Yeah...no. It doesn't work like that.
I got to sit in a couple of therapy sessions. Of course I'm not at liberty to discuss them in any kind of detail, but lets just say after listening to one teenager talk about his home life, I walked out thinking, "Well, duh. It's no wonder this kid has issues."
I'm excited about this. People ask me if I'm nervous and I'm not really. Stressed, yes, but that's not the same thing.
Wearing a “Kick me.” sign.
OK. I know I just said I'm religion neutral. I should probably make clear that I mean I'm neutral toward the abstract idea of religion and its place in human culture and society. Having said that I must also confess I think a good many "religious types" are full of shit and use the Bible and God to absolve themselves of personal responsibility and morality. Take this little gem from New York.
The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on August 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."(1)
My first comment upon reading the article was, "They only found that passage of scripture because they were already looking for a reason to fire her." Then I watched the news clip that accompanies the article and what do you know! Mrs. Lambert has had disagreements with the church's Pastor, one Timothy LaBouf.
In one final twist to the story, the Rev. LaBouf is also a member of the city council. You think the Bible will be big enough for him to hide behind when election time rolls around again? Not likely.
What an idiot.
The unnecessary loss of life.
I am, by and large, religion neutral. Few, I think understand their own belief systems and many do more harm than good. We are, for example, always hearing about how the Koran preaches tolerance and peace. That may be the way Islam is practiced in some communities in western liberal democracies, but that is certainly not the status quo in the Middle East. Jesus Christ said not one word about homosexuality, but had plenty to say about the evils of wealth, a fact over looked by fat cats such as Pat Buchannan, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Roberston.
It is perhaps unfair to blame the Mormon church for its gay members who commit suicide. There are, after all, plenty of us who have not taken such drastic measures and suicide is a complex issue. Nevertheless, despite recent speeches and statements stating love and inclusion for the church's gay and lesbian members, out reach to those members remains miserable and misinformed and offers little, if any, hope to those who find themselves caught between their religious beliefs and their sexuality. Other sentiments I have heard expressed "off the record" seem to suggest that, in the minds of many Mormons, the public position of the 70s still holds sway: "It were better that a mill stone be hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea." In other words, gay men and women are better off dead.
In the five and a half years that I have been out, I have been aware of two suicides close to people I know, men I had dated for a time. Today I learned of still one more. The difference this time is I knew him myself. I wish that I could say I am shocked, but I can't. Doug never did seem to me to have as good a grip on life as he wanted everyone to believe. It doesn't change the fact that he was a talented man who will be missed by his family and friends, and the world is poorer for his loss.
An Inconvenient Truth
One of the trailers shown prior to "Another Gay Movie" was for "An Inconvenient Truth", which reminded me of a post at Coyote Blog a friend pointed me two a few weeks a go, but which I didn't have time to finish reading. Overworked as I am right now, I'm just this morning getting around to finishing it.
Titled, "A Skeptics Primer for 'An Inconvenient Truth'," Mr. Meyer, a.k.a. Coyote, outlines several problems with current climate "science." If you think the scare quotes unjustified, read the post. The first issue raised is the fact that the most oft quoted scientist by global warming advocates refused to release his data or his methods for review.(1) Any rational human being and anyone who dares to call herself a scientist should be saying, "Excuse me? Aren't review and repeatability among the foundational tenants of science?" Apparently not in the climate "science" community.
That single fact alone is enough to make any honest human being view any claims based on that research as suspect, but it gets better. After Congressional subpoena, Mann, the scientist in question, grudgingly released his data and methods. We now learn that his data for cataloging climate change over the centuries was based on one, single tree. Any statisticians out there? Several statisticians have apparently come forward and debunked Mann, et.al.'s statistical models, one claiming you could run random noise through his model and get the same output.(1) I have to wonder to which inconvenient truth the title of Al Gore's film is referring.
Also interesting is a link in Coyote's post to a USA Today article. Coyote's issue with the article is the graph which purports to give us the world climate for the last 2000 years to four decimal places of accuracy. So in the year 600, there were instruments sensitive enough to record a shift of 1/10,000 of a degree. Uh huh. A common statistical boondoggle is to give highly precise numbers where such precision is not reasonable to infer from the data. Greater precision implies greater accuracy, but unless the data you start with was that precise, you can't confer that precision on your results.
What caught my interest was the focus of the article of the plight of California wine growers. Grapes are quite sensitive to climate, at least grapes that produce drinkable wine. This explains why wine producing areas of the world are limited to very specific locales. Should the current warming trend continue, California wine country may no longer be able to produce wine. (2) Now, that would indeed be catastrophic for owners of vineyards and the economies that have built up around them. On a global scale, however, I don't see the problem. If it's too warm to grow grapes in California, then somewhere it was previously too cool will be the new wine country.
So it seems that all the doomsday predictions about climate change are more about preserving the status quo than anything else. One of the scenario's spun by Al Gore in the trailer is the polar ice caps melting and putting most of Calcutta and a large part of Florida under water. "Imagine 100s of millions of refugees." Well, if the polar ice cap melted completely tomorrow, that could be a problem. If, on the other hand, the ocean levels rise slowly over a span of several years, a much more likely scenario, people will simply move. If the worst thing that happens to New York is the Trade Center Memorial will be underwater, some enterprising entrepreneur will bring in glass bottom boats, or, more likely, we'll just build a sea wall to keep the water out. Can you say New Orleans?
The only constant in the Universe is change. It seems a human imperative to try to create stasis. It is an endeavor at which we have never succeeded. Indeed our survival as a species is due to our adaptability. I'm not saying we shouldn't be paying attention to the change in climate. I'm not saying it won't create hardship for humanity, some more than others. I do think that running half-assed into policies designed to prevent something we haven't even discovered the cause for seems...ill-conceived. If we want to do something to mitigate the effects of global warming, fine. But let's make our plans based on science not wishful thinking.
Weise, Elizabeth "Wine region feels the heat" USA Today June 1, 2006, www.usatoday.com.
Another Gay Movie
Went and saw "Another Gay Movie" last night. I didn't go with real high expectations. Teen sex movies aren't generally my cup of tea. I watched about 20 minutes of "American Pie" before I got bored and turned it off. Still, when you work from home, sometimes any excuse to get out of the house is welcome.
"Another Gay Movie" is exactly what the title suggests: a gay rip off of all the straight teen sex movies that have been produced over the years. Apparently part of the reason I've never found them even slightly entertaining is because I couldn't relate. Yes, the movie is inane, predictable, and way over the top (some guy behind me kept saying, "Ohhhhh! That's just wrong!"), but I nevertheless found myself laughing, pretty hard in a couple of places. The scenes lifted directly from other productions such as "The Edge of Seventeen" and "Queer As Folk" were fun. I suspect if I had seen more gay themed movies I might have caught onto more of them.
Intellectual stimulation it's not. Profound explorations of the human psyche should be sought elsewhere. Still, there are worse ways to kill 80 minutes. If you're just looking to check out for a few minutes, get a peek at some cute butts and have a few chuckles along the way, I'd recommend the movie. If potty humor and non-stop raunchy sex references is beneath you, then stay home.
Speaking of gobsmacked…
An article over at the International Herald Tribune speaks of converts to Islam, in particular British converts. As one might expect, there seem to be many reasons for converting.
...there are widely varying reasons why people convert in the first place, including an admiration of Islamic texts and practices; a desire by women to remove themselves from what they perceive as the sexualization and sexism of Western life; a rebellion against parental liberalism; and a sense of political outrage at Western policies in, for instance, Iraq and Lebanon. But among young people in Britain, a common theme seems to be adolescent anomie, a longing for answers in a world achingly full of difficult questions. (2)
It's fairly well established that human beings need structure. Childhood developmentalists have been saying for years that a child does better in a world where boundaries are set. Many adults turn to religion in their quest for answers and for structure to a seemingly Brownian existence. Many like to blame Western liberalism for society's ills, but I remain unconvinced.
Take, for example, the experience of one British convert, Yvonne Ridley, a journalist for The Sunday Express, who began studying Islam after she was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
I was gobsmacked by what I was reading," said Ridley, who was raised a Protestant. "The Koran promotes peace and tolerance and understanding, and the esteem in which it holds women is breathtaking." (2)
That the Koran promotes peace and tolerance doesn't exactly square with the public image of Islam. Nor does it square with the nearly universally accepted view of women in Islamic nations as oppressed and exploited. Indeed, the ritual suffocation of a teenage girl by her three older brothers under the watchful eye of her mother for the heinous offense of kissing a boy on the cheek (1) is a rather jarring disconnect between what may be written in the Koran and practice of its adherents, where women seem to be viewed as wicked seductresses who must be ridgidly controlled by men to keep their base nature from corrupting society. The burkha may be mean to "meant to protect women from men's desire" (2), but when it's the woman who is punished for tempting a man by revealing herself, I don't see how that is anything but a patriarchal system steeped in misogyny.
Ms. Ridley's experience seems to be somewhat different.
Now the host of a daily current-affairs talk show on the Islamic Channel, Ridley, who wears a hijab that covers her hair and neck, said that Islam for her was a welcome antidote to Western libertinism. Since her conversion, men are more respectful, she said: They don't tell dirty jokes around her, they don't touch her, and they don't hit on her.
She explained: "What's more liberating - being judged on the size of your IQ or on the size of your bust?"
Divorced, with a 13-year-old daughter, she has stopped drinking and having flings. "I never sit in, waiting for the telephone to ring," she said, "and I'm never dragged in to immaterial rows by inconsiderate, useless men." (2)
Let's set aside for the moment that her role as a talk show host is the direct result of her living in a liberal Western society, and that she would never be allowed such liberties in any country ruled by Islam, and take a look at her personal ife and experiences. Is the fact that she is treated with more respect the result of her conversion to Islam or more the result of her having changed the people she associates with?
She was "dragged into immaterial rows by inconsiderate, useless men"? It takes two to argue. It was presumably her choice to be in the company of such men. Why did it take a conversion to Islam for her to change the type of men she spent time with? Is not that more a personal failing? I am happy for Ms. Ridley that she has found greater purpose to her life than "[sitting] in, waiting for the telephone to ring." However, I remain unconvinced that her liberal Protestant heritage was the reason she was wasting her life in the company of inconsiderate, useless men, nor does it take a conservative religious outlook for men to treat women with respect and dignity. In my experience, education has more of an effect than a conservative belief system.
Lyall, Sahrah "British converts to Islam face 2 kinds of hurdles" International Herald Tribune August 16, 2006 www.iht.com.
Satan Disavows Gay Marriage
I know there is are a lot of people who might think I'm in favor of this," he said, "but you couldn't be more wrong. My perfect world involves the fevered debasement of flesh and the absolute corruption of the spirit, not two happy people living out in the suburbs building a life together. Frankly, just the thought of these "families" hosting barbecues and going to baseball games makes me sick." 1
To Infinity and Beyond!
There has been some general grousing about the gay rights movement's seemingly myopic focus on marriage. You can count me among those who question the apparent strategy of straining at gnats and crying wolf. "We must defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment!!" Defeat it? It was DOA.
Some have taken their grousing one step further. The folk at BeyondMarriage.org have released a public statement more or less stating that marriage is too narrowly defined and GLBT folk should be pressing for broader definitions to allow for a wider variety of living circumstances including, but not limited to, "Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner."1
Oh, yeah. That will mollify the religious right. You thought they were hysterical before, they'll be positively apoplectic now.
Just from the first few paragraphs—I'll admit I haven't read the entire statement—it sounds like a revival of the 60s free love movement, a movement which, in case no one has been paying attention, fell flat on its face. Maybe it will succeed this time, because, you know, the current socio-political atmosphere is so conducive to such an idea right now.
I guess this could be some sort of subtle reverse psychology strategy. BeyondMarriage.org actually makes gay marriage look good.