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23 Apr 2011

Transgender Woman Beaten at Baltimore McDonalds

This event hurts far too badly for me to comment on it right now. If you haven’t seen it or followed it, please watch the video until the end:

With that in mind, the vomitus, repugnant, shit-farming Fox News displayed this as their headline to the story:

Fox News Headline

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22 Apr 2011

Don’t Say Fiscal Note

Stacey Campfield

Stacey Campfield

Each piece of legislation that is proposed in the Tennessee House and Senate is reviewed for its financial impact on the state budget. This result of this review is recorded as a document called a fiscal note. In lean economic times, many legislators are reticent to vote in favor of a bill with a significant fiscal note because then they would have to justify the spending and may have to provide a method to fund the legislation.

Currently, Stacey Campfield’s perpetual bill that would make it so ”no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality,” has a fiscal note of “Not Significant”. Popularly known as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill”, the Financial Review Committee believes that the state really won’t have to spend any money to implement this SB0049. In their own words, “No fiscal impact on state or local government. Local education agencies teach human sexuality based on the state Department of Education’s Healthful Living Curriculum.”

And this really gets to the heart of the problem…

You see, while the bill uses the word “instruction”, a synonym for “teaching”, in their communications, Senator Campfield and representative Dunn both cleverly skip the phrase “provide material” and instead only focus on the “teaching” part.

Now imagine providing materials. The bill doesn’t mention forbidding providing materials to students. It mentions providing materials – period. Think of all the photographs, slide shows, films, card catalogs, microfiche, signage, forms, documents, monthly magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, all of the existing books in the library, all of the incoming new books in the library, and every single web page that can be accessed on the internet from the school by students, administration, or faculty would have to be reviewed and removed or censored. Every single Local Education Agency (LEA) would have to provide a full-time staff to manage every piece of information to comply with this bill. That’s just for maintenance. To initially prepare a school for this will require a team.

Cost “Not Significant” my ass! This will cost the state an untold fortune.

I’m still curious to see how Nashville and Knoxville’s previous agreement with the ACLU about filtering gay support websites will factor into this. I mean, they are going to have to go back on their word now.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous article, this will require all elementary and middle schools in Tennessee to remove the Holy Bible from everywhere in the school system, not that I am necessarily opposed to such a measure. I kind of think it is funny and well deserved. What’s more, even the legislative record for SB0049 itself will be banned.

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20 Apr 2011

Up Periscope! Colonoscopy Preparation, Part 2

*The following commentary contains some personal and candid information about the rectum, sphincter, and asshole. Please don’t read further if you are easily offended or have a weak stomach.*

Read Part 1

[9:21 am Wednesday]

Well, it was a sleepless night. I was afraid of having an accident in bed. I got up at 5:30am and prepared for a 7:00am business networking meeting. As per my instructions, I started the day with a delicious breakfast of apple juice and two laxative pills. I was so full by the first one, I hardly see how I was able to down the second!

I arrived to my 7:00am meeting several minutes late. Can you guess why? Upon arrival, I was nowhere to be found for about 15 minutes. Can you guess why? When I left the meeting at 8:30am, I drove as fast as I could to my office. Shall I continue?

I’m not so hungry right now. I had a cup of coffee at the meeting and that seemed to help. I guess the more fluids I take in, the less chance I have of getting dehydrated, but it really contributes to the phenomena I like to call “gurgly gut”. When other people in the room hear the “gurgly gut” you know that a scene from Dumb and Dumber is about to unload (pun intended).

Dumb and Dumber Toilet Scene Video

Click to Play

*Stay tuned*

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Posted in Commentary |
20 Apr 2011

Up Periscope! Colonoscopy Preparation, Part 1

anuscope

Anal Speculum (anoscope)

*The following commentary contains some personal and candid information about the rectum, sphincter, and asshole. Please don’t read further if you are easily offended or have a weak stomach.*

So, I’ve thought about live blogging my upcoming colonoscopy, but then I learned I’ll be woozy and they won’t let me play on my phone during the procedure. I would be lying if I said there is no anxiety. I mean, I did go to the doctor with symptoms of continuous rectal bleeding for the last two years, I do have a family history of colon issues, and I turn 40 this summer. For all intents and purposes, my time for an exam is due.

This is the point where I expect to be chastised for waiting two years to tell the doctor. I have many excuses:

  • I thought it would go away
  • I didn’t want any bad news
  • It’s embarrassing

My answer to answer the doctor’s questions:

  • “No. I don’t have anal intercourse.”
  • “How much? I spray blood when I sit on the toilet. Does that give you an idea of the quantity?”
  • “I came in now because I hurt.”

The doctor performed an anoscopy (he looked inside) and then told me that there was nothing impressive that he could see. I immediately took offense, “I beg your pardon, but plenty of people find my rear impressive!”

Back to that anxiety: it really isn’t the procedure that I have a problem with. Like I indicated, I’ll be given some type of twilight drug and I probably won’t care what’s going on down there. What bothers me is the preparation (no pun intended).

[7:30pm Tuesday]

It’s 7:30pm on Tuesday evening, as I type this, and I’m now forbidden to eat any solid foods. I can only ingest clear liquids until after the procedure on Thursday afternoon. That’s a long time for someone my size to go without eating. However, I am allowed to indulge in Popsicles (not red), Jell-O (not red), apple juice, water, Gatorade, and bouillon. Mmmmmmm…I’m going have a filling repast tonight!

By this time I should have already ingested the first chemical, magnesium citrate, but I’m not ready to read yet (and I just got sent on a service call). By reading, I mean I’ll be reading while my body is preparing itself. Okay, fine. I’ll be on the toilet and I’ll probably be reading The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Man in the Iron Mask). Magnesium citrate, if you’re not familiar is a liquid laxative that comes in a 10 oz bottle. It’s carbonated and every effort has been made to make it taste like Sprite or 7-Up. However, they are little off. If you took Sprite or 7-Up and made it a wee bit thicker and added about 4 tablespoons of salt and then you’d have an idea of what magnesium citrate taste like. You drink the entire bottle and (depending on how your body reacts) in several minutes you are off to the library – where you can read!

Then tomorrow morning I have to start my day with two laxative tablets – still not eating. After work I have to drink half a gallon of GoLYTELY, an industrial laxative. Then on Thursday morning I have to administer to myself, not one, but two enemas.

Can you see where my anxiety comes from? I won’t be able to wander more than five feet from the library for the next 40 hours!

[9:00pm Tuesday]

I just returned from a service call and poured myself a nice cool glass of magnesium citrate. Ahhhhhhh…(blech!).

By the way, I went to the doctor last Friday because my right kidney has been killing me. It feels like someone is just pounding on it with a baseball bat. I have a long history of urinary tract infections. I was once hospitalized overnight because my ureter had closed off. It had so much scar tissue from previous infections that nothing could get through. That emergency room visit cost me $19,000. I paid on that for years. Why didn’t I have health insurance? I had received three denial letters just the week before, when I thought I was healthy, from Humana, BlueCross BlueShield, and Golden Rule. All of them stated that I was being denied because I had “Gender Identity Disorder”.

Anyway, my doctor seems fairly knowledgeable, and I really value his opinion and advice. He went to seminary, writes Jesus and medicine books and articles and is a seemingly pleasant fellow. Even with his belief system he took me as a patient. He later told me that he made an exception for me. I don’t really know why, but he said he didn’t want anymore transpatients.

I went to see him a week earlier with the bowel problems and I think that he might think that I’m a hypochondriac or something. During this last visit, he proposed that my pain was musculoskeletal in nature. I started hurting after a brisk workout on the elliptical machine. We had a slight disagreement. I told him it was difficult to urinate and that my urine was cloudy. he relented and ordered a urinalysis, but assured me that the results would most likely come back negative for infection.

I got a call today from his office. The lab results show that I have an uncommon streptococcal B infection in my urinary tract somewhere. This is an infection that only affects 18,000 people a year – and the majority are pregnant women. Now I’m getting really nervous. I might be pregnant! (This should be funny if you know me).

No where was I? Oh yeah, I’m going to fix myself a great big bowl of chicken bullion.

Read Part 2

 

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14 Apr 2011

Pink Toenails on Boys

JCrew AdRecently, J. Crew president and creative director, Jenna Lyon’s has come under fire for an email marketing ad that was sent to customers highlighting some of her products. Featured in a photo was her son, Beckett, wearing their Essie hot pink nail polish. The quote accompanying the image reads:

“Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”

This sent Fox News Contributor and psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, over the edge. He recently wrote:

Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your “innocent” pleasure.

This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such “psychological sterilization” [my word choice] is not known.

He goes on to make more blanket actuations against society and predicts ruin for our species, “…encouraging the choosing of gender identity, rather than suggesting our children become comfortable with the ones that they got at birth, can throw our species into real psychological turmoil.”

But what are we really talking about here? What are the issues this images represents?

  • pink is a feminine color
  • wearing nail polish is a feminine act
  • environment determines gender identity and sexual orientation

The first two points are easily dismissed as a cultural construct – something that will go in and out of fashion and vary from gender to gender and country to country.

Incas decorated their fingernails with pictures of eagles. In the Chou Dynasty of 600 BC, Chinese royalty used gold and silver to enhance their nails.

Babylonian Soldier

Babylonian Soldier

Nails, an industry magazine reports that, “…at one time black was the favorite color applied to fingernails, and that men — not women — wore it. A warrior of Babylon or Homo about to go to war often spent several hours having his hair lacquered and curled, his nails manicured and colored, and his lips tinted to match.”

I’m fairly certain the Babylonian army went out to kill, not prance around in their matching lips and nails and curled hair.

Then there is our culture’s obsession with the color pink for girls. Would it interest you to know that prior to the 1940s, pink was considered a masculine color for boys – a form of muted red? Likewise, blue was the preferred color for girls. Want more proof? Watch any really old Disney movie. What color is Cinderella wearing? What color is Sleeping Beauty wearing? Blue.

Again, fashion and cultural norms change. What really gets people upset about is my last point: making your child gay (or transgender).

In response to this particular story, ABC news interviewed Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York City psychiatrist:

“Most research on gender identity and sexual orientation concludes that neither is a choice. Nor can they be shaped by a parent’s wishes.”

Drescher, who wrote the 2010 paper, “Queer Diagnoses,” which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, serves on the American Psychiatric Association’s committee that is addressing sexual and gender identity disorder for the DSM-V. DSM-V is psychiatry’s encyclopedia of behavioral diagnoses.

“I can say with 100 percent certainty that a mother painting her children’s toe nails pink does not cause transgenderism or homosexuality or anything else that people who are social conservatives would worry about,” he said.

People, you can’t make your child gay. You cannot make your child transgender. If your child is gay or transgender and your household is not approving or accepting – they will hide it, not flaunt it. Your son will go out of his way to prove that he is straight and gender conforming.

However, if you provide a loving home – with unconditional love – and encourage your child to be who they really are, they will love you more for it. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen if your son likes nail polish? Is it either the worry that he will steal yours or that he will spill some on the carpet?

Guitar Overlord Ronny North

Guitar Overlord Ronny North

 

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