Borat, Borax, Boring: I saw the ads in heavy rotation, I drank a bleach cocktail to kill the bad taste, and yet it was all incredibly tiresome.
Make it stop. Please. I know we have a jerk for a president, a bunch of thugs that make up his cabinet, use up most of the world's natural resources, and spit up the spent waste into the sky, the ocean, and the earth. But are we really so bad that we deserve the impending unnatural disaster that is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan?
Goodness, the commercials are everywhere--Rick Santorum should have so many ads on the telly at the moment. It might boost his poll numbers above 40 percent for next week's mid-term elections. Not that we should encourage that, of course, but total airwave saturation with commercials that make him look both idiotic and smug and the country he professes to love look moronic and easily duped might represent a more effective media strategy than his current one . . . which, come to think of it, is exactly that.
Oh well. Keep up the good work, Rick!
Anyway, I'm sure there are some kernels of humor on the ol' corncob of comedy that Sacha Baron Cohen's insists on wiping his ass with--in public no less. I mean, the man can be convincing in character, whether its surly Brit hip-hopper Ali G or fatuous and fey Austrian fashionista Brüno. (Editor's note: Baron Cohen does have some good lines. Watching the November 2, 2006, edition of The Daily Show, in which he was interviewed as Borat, the comedian did make me chuckle with this observation about Madonna: "It is interesting that your most famous female pop star is a transvestite, no? In my country, someone like that person would be in the circus.") Thus, there's obviously comedic talent in there somewhere.
In addition, Sacha B. C. just got paid something like $40 million U.S. to next bring Brüno to the tarnished screen. And money does equal talent and worth, doesn't it? After all, that's why we see Donald Trump and Paris Hilton ubiquitous in the media, rather than Nelson Mandela or that nice professional man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his development of microcredit in Bangladesh.
But, oh dear, characterizations of swishy Salzburg TV hosts and wild-and-crazy foreign reporters with language skills in dire need of a Rosetta Stone tutorial, well, thees comedy ees so hilarious, no? Not to the mentionableness of originalitude. Ha, I laugh, and your American national dreenk, Coca-Coly, come out, how you say, my schnozz!
Well, no, actually, it's not that original, it's only funny maybe once if you're lucky, and, come to think of it, it stopped being funny sometime in junior high.
In the pro-Borat argument I heard recently on Deutsche Welle's "Inside Europe" radio program, apparently, the "deeper meaning" behind the farce that is Borat is that the character says these rude things to show how people don't protest against prejudice, how in fact they'll often agree with it. In that same radio interview, one of the pro-Borat camp remarked how anyone who doesn't get the joke just isn't very bright.
So, silly me, it's not so much that there's anything wrong with Borat & Company's fool-me-for-eternity-on-celluloid brand of humor, that it might be considered juvenile, tacky, or offensive by some. No, what's really up is that anyone who doesn't like it is just plain stoo-pid. Not much room for negotiation on that one, I guess. Still, that's an interesting way to justify someone's public smart-assedness. He's not a jerk! He's a liberator! Nonetheless, I'm still not convinced that our dear Mr. Baron Cohen isn't doing anything more than getting noticed. Oh, and rich. Forty million dollars' worth of rich.
Yet, despite the ill-explained, post-modern, guerrilla approach to frat boy comedy, some representatives from Europe's Roma community (known most commonly in this country as the Gypsies, although some consider this a pejorative term) are apparently offended by S.B.C.'s--or rather, Borat's--negative comments about their people. It goes without saying that the Roma haven't had an easy time of it in the world, and still don't in much of Eastern and Central Europe. But what, Sacha E. Newman worry?
As it's been reported in the press, Mr. B. C. is Jewish, yet through his Borat character he makes cartoonishly prejudicial statements against Jews and Judaism. All for a laugh and no offense intended, of course. After all, no one would think that someone who is Jewish would be anti-Semitic (Hitler aside, of course). Thus we don't take it too seriously and all is forgiven, in fact, because we allow room for Mr. Baron Cohen to make fun of prejudices against his own group.
So, by that same argument then, I guess we can assume that Mr. Baron Cohen is also vaguely Muslim (Ali G), Austrian (Brüno), gay (Brüno), Kazakh (Borat), American (Borat), and fond of running around in a neon-colored sling-shot thong (Borat), too? It's only logical.
Some might dismiss my carping as evidence that I don't have a sense of humor, to which I would beg to differ. It may be alternately bad and tacky, but I got me one, nonetheless. I like a good laugh as much as anyone, even one at my own expense, and can also appreciate one even at my own tribe's expense. I watch South Park, after all, even though I think it at times is overly generous with the "faggot" perjorative.
Nonetheless, what I'm less enthralled with is making fun of others, especially historically easy targets. (Politicians and celebrities not included--I have nothing against easy and deserving targets). So me and my limited intellect keep coming back to the same point, and that is, what's the point of Sacha B. C.'s humor other than to make people look stupid? Or to show how stupid people really are with very little prompting? Or to show stupid people in their natural, stupid environments? Please, I just need to get on the freeway, negotiate a turf war on the job, or watch episodes of just about any "reality"-based TV show to know that we're all plenty stupid.
Mr. Baron Cohen's brand of comedy just all seems rather mean-spirited, not just toward suburban London hip-hoppers or Julie Andrews-loving TV personalities or Kazakh national jokes, but also toward those that Ali/Borat/Bruno are duping. Fake TV personality fake interviews real persons and makes them look really dumb. Hardy har har. Stop, plees, I no can take thees comedy styleengs.
No, really, I mean it stop. I'm bored by your act.
Canadian TV personality Rick Mercer has done it before in his CBC show, Talking to Americans, in which he travels the U.S., sticking a microphone and a camera in some clue-free citizen's face and asking him or her to agree with him on some ridiculous statement about Canada. "Senator, won't you join me in congratulating Canada on getting its first flush toilet!"
In addition, The Daily Show does this all the time, too, in the interview segments conducted by their comedy team, getting rather slow-synapsed bigots to out themselves with crazy talk on their pet hates. My personal favorite was the interview with the representative from, I believe, the Family Research Council, who kept claiming that gay men participated exclusively in water sports as a recreational activity--and I ain't talking the kind with skis and a speedboat, folks. (For the record, we don't. Ewwwww.)
Granted, these national embarrassments are hardly victims (some of them are too busy victimizing others, actually), but, nevertheless, I don't really enjoy watching The Daily Show's fake news reporters act all smug and snarky as they unwrap the rube's mental rubbish for the world to see, then proceed to prod and poke it with a stick to reveal the especially nasty bits. Firstly, it's not like we weren't aware of their idiocy already. Secondly, it's not like treating them like the buffoons they are really serves any purpose other than a cheap laugh, not to mention making the interviewer look like a self-satisfied ass.
So, in conclusion, I'm all for protecting the rights of stupid people to be really stupid . . . .
But pardon me if I don't feel like spending $2.25 a gallon on gas, $8 on a movie ticket, and $15 on soda and a "fun-sized" box of Raisinets to be subjected to more dumb Americans on the big screen in an overly long, leftover Candid Camera sketch. If I want to see that, I'll just tune into an entire season of Big Brother on my 32-inch TV.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
No school bus left behind . . . ahead . . . or to the side
Over the last few months, to remedy the malaise of middle age, I've set as a goal to do or learn something new each week I continue to inhabit the earth. In some instances, this new thing involves going to a restaurant I've repeatedly passed by but have never stopped in. In other cases, it has involved sitting still long enough to enjoy a movie from start to finish on HBO, the Independent Film Channel, or the Sundance Channel. (Of late, this has included viewings of Walk the Line, Europa Europa, and Belle du Jour. For the record, I have decided to stalk both Marco Hoffschneider and Joaquin Phoenix.) It may involve reading about a topic that heretofore I knew little, taking a different road to work, or trying a different brand of cereal. Whatever. Just something to say, in little ways, that I'm 45, but I'm not totally dead yet.
As much to the contrary as I may actually feel about it.
Today, however, was a curious one, wherein I learned something new, but something of a nature that could perhaps result in a $250 fine, 5 points on my license, and even a license suspension.
I was driving on Chestnut Street in downtown Harrisburg this afternoon, heading home after the end of a three-day conference and ready to think about something other than the three days of "visioneering" offered up as wisdom about my chosen profession. I crossed 3rd Street on a green light, heading toward 2nd, and then would move onward to the Market Street Bridge.
It's a weird intersection, where 3rd Street is one way both in both directions--meaning it switches the direction in which it is one way, and there are no turns from Chestnut onto 3rd. Honest. You know that Pierre L'Enfant, the planner of Washington, D.C., must be dreaming in heaven of such a complete and utter traffic flow foul-up. "Sacre bleu! If only I had tried that approach, the British could have easily retaken Washington in the War of 1812! European hegemony rules, bee-yotch!"
But hark! Was that not a horn I heard blowing at me as I went through the intersection with 3rd? Why yes it was.
I had noticed a school bus at the intersection--not facing me, not ahead of me, but to right, on 3rd Street, stopped at the intersection, perpendicular to my car on Chestnut. I didn't see any amber or flashing red lights, but as I entered the intersection I did notice the yellow safety bar was extended from the front of the bus to prevent children from walking too closely in front of the vehicle. I noticed some older kids on the edge of the crosswalk, who had not entered yet, but were contemplating it. Still, it was a four-lane street; I had a green light; the bus was stopped on another street; why wouldn't I move forward?
Hmmm, well, in Pennsylvania apparently I shouldn't. There is a law in our fair (but mostly middlin') Commonwealth that states that when a school bus is stopped at an intersection--no matter which part of the intersection--all traffic comes to a complete halt, no matter what the lights indicate otherwise.
Now I've been driving since I was 16, so I have nearly 30 years of driving experience in various cities, states, and two foreign countries, including a recent stint of trying to tell the difference between the speed limits from the highway numbers in Ontario. I have driven in Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and god help me, Atlanta, among other places, and I have done so with nary a mark on my driving record. In total, in 29 years, I've had two parking tickets and one minor accident and have been stopped by cops twice. In both cases, I was excused, when it was determined that I was in fact as clueless as I appeared to be but not a threat to society at large.
In no case, have I ever been ticketed for any moving violation.
Oh, I've certainly driven above the speed limit, although I do try to keep it to no more than 5 mph above the posted limit on highways. And if extending the middle finger to a driver who cut me off were a punishable offense, I would indeed be awaiting execution on death row. Dead man driving, dead man driving.
But never in my time on this planet have I heard of such a bizarre traffic rule.
Nor did I actually hear details of this particular violation at the scene, at least none that I could understand.
After the horn blowing, the school bus pulled out into the street and followed me to the next light, where I was stopped waiting to turn on 2nd Street. The driver crossed over two solid yellow lines to sidle up alongside of me and began furiously writing down details of my vehicle. She opened the bus door, and I rolled down my window, and then she began going off in full Barney Fife mode.
"You know you just committed a moving violation, don't you!" This was definitely an exclamation, not a question, despite the grammar and syntax.
"How was that a violation?" I asked, keeping my cool, but nonetheless puzzled and somewhat consternated by the incident.
"You plowed right through that intersection! That is a moving violation!" she yelled.
"HOW is it?" I asked. "I had a green light."
"You know what you did! You know what you did!" Then she drove off.
Well, no, you overcaffeinated mall cop, I don't know what I did, and I certainly didn't receive any constructive education from you in the matter. In fact, I didn't learn anything at all about why this is a violation from the Pennsylvania State Police or various other public safety websites either.
However, Wikipedia had a very interesting article on school bus traffic stop laws, that was most edifying:
I guess I would have to stand in the opponents bleachers on this one, being that apparently I just violated this heretofore unknown law. How would I know about it? It is "non-standard," as the Wiki states, plus I've only lived in the Keystone State for little more than a year. I didn't take a laws test when I applied for my Pennsylvania driver's license, just an eye test--although there certainly was a rat's-in-a-maze skills component to the experience at the state licensing headquarters downtown, wherein a customer attempts to determine the correct path to approach one of four service desks, placed back-to-back, two-by-two, in a small alcove, and separated by a complex system of stanchions and velvet ropes that would have done Studio 54 in its heyday proud in its despair-inducing byzantineness (if that's a word) and foreboding.
Try to follow this: You can only reach stations 1 and 3 from the side and stations 2 and 4 by going up the middle and around to the side; you can't reach 1 and 3 from the middle, nor can you reach 2 and 4 by going up the side. Got it? Choose wrong and you'll be bellowed at by one of the customer service (heavy irony) representatives with a malevolent "WRONG WAY!" Bad mouse, no kibble.
Thus, while in the eyes of the law I'm considered a resident and not a visitor, I would still consider the law unfriendly, not to mention completely hostile.
However, as asinine a law as I think it is, I would have been happy to have adhered to it should I have known it existed. I'm just like that. Granted, I will tend to ignore laws that make no sense to me as long as no one else is harmed by my evading them. (Thus, I can live with myself and all those "crimes against nature" violations I've committed with my fellow man over the years. Whose nature is it, anyway?) But if this is the law in this Commonwealth, no matter how ridiculous and non-standard it may seem, I will obey it.
So now what do I do? Whether wisely or not, I made a preemptive strike and called the Harrisburg Police Department with my concerns, that I had perhaps committed a moving violation, but was unsure what exactly I had done. The officer was very nice, explained to me why it was a violation, and what I should do next. "Nothing. Don't worry about it for now. If I hear more about it, I'll call you, and we'll talk further."
Which was very generous of him, but still the situation worries me. The penalties for conviction are plenty stiff--a $250 fine, 5 points, AND a 60-day license suspension. Not crazy about the fine, especially before the holiday season and with my facing some possible car repairs due to a slightly clunky transmission, which I would love to blame on the poor quality of PA's roads, but, alas, can't. But *AND* a 60-day suspension? Um, how am I supposed to get to work without being able to drive? How would anyone do so in generally mass-transit free America?
Not that I wouldn't mind a 60-day forced vacation from work, especially over the holidays and especially post professional "visioneering" event. I could take the bus to the mall and downtown; I could walk to the library, the drycleaners, and the supermarket; and I could do most of my work from home, perhaps turning myself to writing nearly full-time, minus the pesky interruptions and soul-deadening supervisory responsibilities I'm faced with daily. But it's just not exactly practical, no matter how appealing it may be.
It's one of those incidents that just leaves me feeling mournful. As the seasons change and all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, I find myself California dreaming on such an autumn's day. Except that in the dream California is Texas, where nobody gives an armadillo's patoot about traffic laws, road rules, or school children that don't have enough sense to get the hell out of an intersection in a timely manner.
Say what you will about Texas and Texans, but a state where Kinky Friedman could run for governor and potentially be elected to office is unlikely to pass confusing school bus über alles laws.
God bless 'em.
As much to the contrary as I may actually feel about it.
Today, however, was a curious one, wherein I learned something new, but something of a nature that could perhaps result in a $250 fine, 5 points on my license, and even a license suspension.
I was driving on Chestnut Street in downtown Harrisburg this afternoon, heading home after the end of a three-day conference and ready to think about something other than the three days of "visioneering" offered up as wisdom about my chosen profession. I crossed 3rd Street on a green light, heading toward 2nd, and then would move onward to the Market Street Bridge.
It's a weird intersection, where 3rd Street is one way both in both directions--meaning it switches the direction in which it is one way, and there are no turns from Chestnut onto 3rd. Honest. You know that Pierre L'Enfant, the planner of Washington, D.C., must be dreaming in heaven of such a complete and utter traffic flow foul-up. "Sacre bleu! If only I had tried that approach, the British could have easily retaken Washington in the War of 1812! European hegemony rules, bee-yotch!"
But hark! Was that not a horn I heard blowing at me as I went through the intersection with 3rd? Why yes it was.
I had noticed a school bus at the intersection--not facing me, not ahead of me, but to right, on 3rd Street, stopped at the intersection, perpendicular to my car on Chestnut. I didn't see any amber or flashing red lights, but as I entered the intersection I did notice the yellow safety bar was extended from the front of the bus to prevent children from walking too closely in front of the vehicle. I noticed some older kids on the edge of the crosswalk, who had not entered yet, but were contemplating it. Still, it was a four-lane street; I had a green light; the bus was stopped on another street; why wouldn't I move forward?
Hmmm, well, in Pennsylvania apparently I shouldn't. There is a law in our fair (but mostly middlin') Commonwealth that states that when a school bus is stopped at an intersection--no matter which part of the intersection--all traffic comes to a complete halt, no matter what the lights indicate otherwise.
Now I've been driving since I was 16, so I have nearly 30 years of driving experience in various cities, states, and two foreign countries, including a recent stint of trying to tell the difference between the speed limits from the highway numbers in Ontario. I have driven in Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and god help me, Atlanta, among other places, and I have done so with nary a mark on my driving record. In total, in 29 years, I've had two parking tickets and one minor accident and have been stopped by cops twice. In both cases, I was excused, when it was determined that I was in fact as clueless as I appeared to be but not a threat to society at large.
In no case, have I ever been ticketed for any moving violation.
Oh, I've certainly driven above the speed limit, although I do try to keep it to no more than 5 mph above the posted limit on highways. And if extending the middle finger to a driver who cut me off were a punishable offense, I would indeed be awaiting execution on death row. Dead man driving, dead man driving.
But never in my time on this planet have I heard of such a bizarre traffic rule.
Nor did I actually hear details of this particular violation at the scene, at least none that I could understand.
After the horn blowing, the school bus pulled out into the street and followed me to the next light, where I was stopped waiting to turn on 2nd Street. The driver crossed over two solid yellow lines to sidle up alongside of me and began furiously writing down details of my vehicle. She opened the bus door, and I rolled down my window, and then she began going off in full Barney Fife mode.
"You know you just committed a moving violation, don't you!" This was definitely an exclamation, not a question, despite the grammar and syntax.
"How was that a violation?" I asked, keeping my cool, but nonetheless puzzled and somewhat consternated by the incident.
"You plowed right through that intersection! That is a moving violation!" she yelled.
"HOW is it?" I asked. "I had a green light."
"You know what you did! You know what you did!" Then she drove off.
Well, no, you overcaffeinated mall cop, I don't know what I did, and I certainly didn't receive any constructive education from you in the matter. In fact, I didn't learn anything at all about why this is a violation from the Pennsylvania State Police or various other public safety websites either.
However, Wikipedia had a very interesting article on school bus traffic stop laws, that was most edifying:
In Pennsylvania, a vehicle driver approaching an intersection at which a school bus is stopped shall stop his vehicle at that intersection until the flashing red signal lights are no longer actuated [3]. Supporters of this law may argue that children may dart out into an intersection, so traffic from the left and right must stop. Opponents may blame this law for being too vague (with regard to what exactly at an intersection means), non-standard and visitor-unfriendly (as compared with laws in most other places) and question how vehicular drivers can know and see if a school bus on a side road is loading or unloading, especially if buildings obstruct their vision.
I guess I would have to stand in the opponents bleachers on this one, being that apparently I just violated this heretofore unknown law. How would I know about it? It is "non-standard," as the Wiki states, plus I've only lived in the Keystone State for little more than a year. I didn't take a laws test when I applied for my Pennsylvania driver's license, just an eye test--although there certainly was a rat's-in-a-maze skills component to the experience at the state licensing headquarters downtown, wherein a customer attempts to determine the correct path to approach one of four service desks, placed back-to-back, two-by-two, in a small alcove, and separated by a complex system of stanchions and velvet ropes that would have done Studio 54 in its heyday proud in its despair-inducing byzantineness (if that's a word) and foreboding.
Try to follow this: You can only reach stations 1 and 3 from the side and stations 2 and 4 by going up the middle and around to the side; you can't reach 1 and 3 from the middle, nor can you reach 2 and 4 by going up the side. Got it? Choose wrong and you'll be bellowed at by one of the customer service (heavy irony) representatives with a malevolent "WRONG WAY!" Bad mouse, no kibble.
Thus, while in the eyes of the law I'm considered a resident and not a visitor, I would still consider the law unfriendly, not to mention completely hostile.
However, as asinine a law as I think it is, I would have been happy to have adhered to it should I have known it existed. I'm just like that. Granted, I will tend to ignore laws that make no sense to me as long as no one else is harmed by my evading them. (Thus, I can live with myself and all those "crimes against nature" violations I've committed with my fellow man over the years. Whose nature is it, anyway?) But if this is the law in this Commonwealth, no matter how ridiculous and non-standard it may seem, I will obey it.
So now what do I do? Whether wisely or not, I made a preemptive strike and called the Harrisburg Police Department with my concerns, that I had perhaps committed a moving violation, but was unsure what exactly I had done. The officer was very nice, explained to me why it was a violation, and what I should do next. "Nothing. Don't worry about it for now. If I hear more about it, I'll call you, and we'll talk further."
Which was very generous of him, but still the situation worries me. The penalties for conviction are plenty stiff--a $250 fine, 5 points, AND a 60-day license suspension. Not crazy about the fine, especially before the holiday season and with my facing some possible car repairs due to a slightly clunky transmission, which I would love to blame on the poor quality of PA's roads, but, alas, can't. But *AND* a 60-day suspension? Um, how am I supposed to get to work without being able to drive? How would anyone do so in generally mass-transit free America?
Not that I wouldn't mind a 60-day forced vacation from work, especially over the holidays and especially post professional "visioneering" event. I could take the bus to the mall and downtown; I could walk to the library, the drycleaners, and the supermarket; and I could do most of my work from home, perhaps turning myself to writing nearly full-time, minus the pesky interruptions and soul-deadening supervisory responsibilities I'm faced with daily. But it's just not exactly practical, no matter how appealing it may be.
It's one of those incidents that just leaves me feeling mournful. As the seasons change and all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, I find myself California dreaming on such an autumn's day. Except that in the dream California is Texas, where nobody gives an armadillo's patoot about traffic laws, road rules, or school children that don't have enough sense to get the hell out of an intersection in a timely manner.
Say what you will about Texas and Texans, but a state where Kinky Friedman could run for governor and potentially be elected to office is unlikely to pass confusing school bus über alles laws.
God bless 'em.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Apple cider: America's undetected terrorist threat
Editor's note: Just a kitchen mishap--or something more sinister?
* * *
Dateline: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP)
Date: October 21, 2006
Headline: Exploding apple cider bomb injures 1, panics 300 million
An exploding bottle of apple cider--believed to be a terrorist bomb--injured 1 here today, prompting local officials to issue a warning that Al-Qaeda has likely infiltrated the region's apple orchards. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security immediately raised the terrorist threat level to orange or high, indicating that there was a strong likelihood of terrorist attack. Sales of duct tape and bottled water have skyrocketed with this news and shortages of apple juice, cider, and sauce have been reported in some states.
The chain of events that led to the explosion are still sketchy, but neighbors reported hearing a loud fizzing sound, then a whoosh, and finally a significant pop. This noise was followed by another, which neighbors now believe was the victim, Mr. Rap Licious, 45, of the Harrisburg, PA, area, falling to the kitchen floor from the force of the explosion. A neighbor heard the victim cry out for help, then silence, and immediately called 911.
"It was like a bomb went off in there," said an unidentified neighbor.
Police and emergency medical technicians arrived on the scene within minutes and discovered Mr. Licious unconscious on the floor and soaked from head to toe in apple cider. A misshapened plastic jug of cider lay next to the victim. The cap of the bottle was found imbedded in his forehead. Juice was splattered over at least half of the kitchen in a 6-to-8-foot radius from the kitchen sink.
Because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island nuclear facility, Hazmat teams responded quickly to the emergency. While the contaminated cider has been removed from the scene, a layer of stickiness covers all kitchen surfaces, prompting federal officials to dub this potential new terrorist weapon a "sticky bomb."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined local police in studying the cider splatter and debris to determine the exact nature of the explosion. A chemical analysis of the remaining contents of the jug will be conducted by the Biological Defense Research Institute at Fort Detrick, MD. Because of concerns over flammability from the sticky bomb, a 5-block area has been cordoned off and neighbors have been encouraged to evacuate.
Despite local officials' claims that the incident was caused by Al-Qaeda operatives in the Harrisburg area, both the FBI and Homeland Security were hesitant to speculate about the terrorist entity's possible role. However, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff noted that both the FBI and the DHS have been tracking an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell in the South Central Pennsylvania region for some time. Known as the "Apple Dumpling Gang," the cell was heretofore felt to be too sweet-natured and bungling to be effective. "We might have been misinformed," Chertoff stated. "The server for Homeland Security's computer network is housed in New Orleans. It's been acting funny for a year or so now. We're not sure why."
Chertoff is weighing options for counter-action to the incident and is expected to take decisive steps toward something within the next 6 to 12 months, or at least within the next couple of years. He issued a statement "assur[ing] the American people that the country's apple cider and apple-related products supply has been, is, and will continue to be safe for consumption during the fall festival season."
Nonetheless, he recommended that a national program of apple cider, juice, and sauce radiation be instituted among the country's apple growers and encouraged the Transportation Safety Agency to immediately adopt new rules preventing large gallon-sized jugs of apple cider from being placed in carry-on baggage on domestic and international flights. Pint- and quart-sized bottles would still be allowed for now.
"We can never be too safe," Chertoff added.
The National Apple Cider Organization (NACO) noted that a federal plan has been in place since shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, to begin mass radiation of apple harvests but that growers are still awaiting the arrival of equipment from Washington.
Environmental lobbyists in the nation's capital are believed to have stalled shipment of needed equipment because of concerns over the environmental and health impact of radiation on apple harvests. An environmental impact statement released in 2003, and then immediately suppressed in the interest of national security, estimated that the effects of radiation on humans, livestock, and natural resources "wouldn't be great, but it wouldn't be all that much worse than what the area already receives from Three Mile Island either."
As he headed off to Crawford, Texas, for a weekend of barbecue and brush-clearing, President George W. Bush was asked about delays in getting needed equipment to areas at risk of terrorist attack. "Environmentalists apparently hate freedom, too," he said.
Democratic leadership in the U.S. Congress did not immediately respond to this challenge. Part of the leadership was attending the National Tree-Hugging Convention in Eugene, OR, while others were enjoying a Georgia Pacific-sponsored international conference on forestry marketing at a new golf resort carved out of the Amazon rainforest.
In related news, President Bush announced that he would lobby Congress for a national relief effort to apple growers in the form of tax cuts worth $10 billion U.S. The tax cuts would be available to those growers who can guarantee that the apples used to make cider, juice, sauce "and especially pies" were picked by "all-American workers."
Mr. Evo Fidelito Hugo Castro Chávez Morales, 29, a field representative for NACO, said workers would do their best to act American, "whatever that means, Presidente Pendejo," while picking and processing apples.
Meanwhile, Mr. Licious remains in stable condition at an undisclosed location. He is expected to make a full recovery. His kitchen, however, was pronounced dead on arrival.
* * *
Dateline: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP)
Date: October 21, 2006
Headline: Exploding apple cider bomb injures 1, panics 300 million
An exploding bottle of apple cider--believed to be a terrorist bomb--injured 1 here today, prompting local officials to issue a warning that Al-Qaeda has likely infiltrated the region's apple orchards. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security immediately raised the terrorist threat level to orange or high, indicating that there was a strong likelihood of terrorist attack. Sales of duct tape and bottled water have skyrocketed with this news and shortages of apple juice, cider, and sauce have been reported in some states.
The chain of events that led to the explosion are still sketchy, but neighbors reported hearing a loud fizzing sound, then a whoosh, and finally a significant pop. This noise was followed by another, which neighbors now believe was the victim, Mr. Rap Licious, 45, of the Harrisburg, PA, area, falling to the kitchen floor from the force of the explosion. A neighbor heard the victim cry out for help, then silence, and immediately called 911.
"It was like a bomb went off in there," said an unidentified neighbor.
Police and emergency medical technicians arrived on the scene within minutes and discovered Mr. Licious unconscious on the floor and soaked from head to toe in apple cider. A misshapened plastic jug of cider lay next to the victim. The cap of the bottle was found imbedded in his forehead. Juice was splattered over at least half of the kitchen in a 6-to-8-foot radius from the kitchen sink.
Because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island nuclear facility, Hazmat teams responded quickly to the emergency. While the contaminated cider has been removed from the scene, a layer of stickiness covers all kitchen surfaces, prompting federal officials to dub this potential new terrorist weapon a "sticky bomb."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined local police in studying the cider splatter and debris to determine the exact nature of the explosion. A chemical analysis of the remaining contents of the jug will be conducted by the Biological Defense Research Institute at Fort Detrick, MD. Because of concerns over flammability from the sticky bomb, a 5-block area has been cordoned off and neighbors have been encouraged to evacuate.
Despite local officials' claims that the incident was caused by Al-Qaeda operatives in the Harrisburg area, both the FBI and Homeland Security were hesitant to speculate about the terrorist entity's possible role. However, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff noted that both the FBI and the DHS have been tracking an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell in the South Central Pennsylvania region for some time. Known as the "Apple Dumpling Gang," the cell was heretofore felt to be too sweet-natured and bungling to be effective. "We might have been misinformed," Chertoff stated. "The server for Homeland Security's computer network is housed in New Orleans. It's been acting funny for a year or so now. We're not sure why."
Chertoff is weighing options for counter-action to the incident and is expected to take decisive steps toward something within the next 6 to 12 months, or at least within the next couple of years. He issued a statement "assur[ing] the American people that the country's apple cider and apple-related products supply has been, is, and will continue to be safe for consumption during the fall festival season."
Nonetheless, he recommended that a national program of apple cider, juice, and sauce radiation be instituted among the country's apple growers and encouraged the Transportation Safety Agency to immediately adopt new rules preventing large gallon-sized jugs of apple cider from being placed in carry-on baggage on domestic and international flights. Pint- and quart-sized bottles would still be allowed for now.
"We can never be too safe," Chertoff added.
The National Apple Cider Organization (NACO) noted that a federal plan has been in place since shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, to begin mass radiation of apple harvests but that growers are still awaiting the arrival of equipment from Washington.
Environmental lobbyists in the nation's capital are believed to have stalled shipment of needed equipment because of concerns over the environmental and health impact of radiation on apple harvests. An environmental impact statement released in 2003, and then immediately suppressed in the interest of national security, estimated that the effects of radiation on humans, livestock, and natural resources "wouldn't be great, but it wouldn't be all that much worse than what the area already receives from Three Mile Island either."
As he headed off to Crawford, Texas, for a weekend of barbecue and brush-clearing, President George W. Bush was asked about delays in getting needed equipment to areas at risk of terrorist attack. "Environmentalists apparently hate freedom, too," he said.
Democratic leadership in the U.S. Congress did not immediately respond to this challenge. Part of the leadership was attending the National Tree-Hugging Convention in Eugene, OR, while others were enjoying a Georgia Pacific-sponsored international conference on forestry marketing at a new golf resort carved out of the Amazon rainforest.
In related news, President Bush announced that he would lobby Congress for a national relief effort to apple growers in the form of tax cuts worth $10 billion U.S. The tax cuts would be available to those growers who can guarantee that the apples used to make cider, juice, sauce "and especially pies" were picked by "all-American workers."
Mr. Evo Fidelito Hugo Castro Chávez Morales, 29, a field representative for NACO, said workers would do their best to act American, "whatever that means, Presidente Pendejo," while picking and processing apples.
Meanwhile, Mr. Licious remains in stable condition at an undisclosed location. He is expected to make a full recovery. His kitchen, however, was pronounced dead on arrival.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Turn the page already
It's been more than two weeks since the Mark Foley internet chat scandal hit the papers and the airwaves--although you wouldn't necessarily know it, given that such a 98-pound-weakling of a story has done an impressive job of kicking sand in the face of some other major news stories. The slaughter of Amish schoolchildren by a man who may or may not have molested female relatives two decades ago and the growing nuke-u-lar threat from North Korea, well, they've tried hard, but nothing succeeds in the American psyche like a good sex scandal. And something creepy and painful like a milk truck driver from Pennsylvania carrying out an unfathomable mass murder in a peaceful, traditional, agrarian community, just can't compare to the easy, unencumbered titillation of the continuing drama, As the Page Turns.
Now comes news this morning of another page scandal, this one, blessedly, of yore. CNN reports the death of Congressman Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts), who was censured by Congress in 1983 for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old page ten years before. Studds was censured alongside of Representative Dan Crane (R-Illinois), who apparently had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old female page in 1980.
Despite the censure and the inappropriate relationship with the page, Studds went on to serve several more terms in Congress and last year married his significant other in the Bay State (where gay marriage is legal, of course). Crane, meanwhile, returned to his old life in Chicago and his dental practice.
As far as I know, neither ever claimed alcoholism or unwanted attention from a priest was the root cause of their behavior, although I haven't read the autobiographies, should they exist.
Still, you gotta wonder what it is about these Congressman and their desire for high school-aged tail. The District of Columbia tends to attract a pretty serious, self-important crowd--I remember a Washington Post columnist once describing the city as being filled with people who were nerds in high school who finally made good--in bureaucracy. Despite the type of soul-killing "hottie" that's attracted to the policy wonk lifestyle--a lifestyle where people debate liability issues among strippers (an actual conversation I once overheard, never you mind where I was at the time when I heard it), it's not like the District of Columbia is filled with people in chastity belts, wimples, and burkhas (at least not yet anyway). From what I recall from my time there, it wasn't entirely impossible to get laid in Washington--and by/with someone of approximately your own age and lifestyle even.
So what gives? Maybe it's like what that columnist indicated, the nerds come to town--the guys and gals who never got a date with the prom king or queen, the ones who instead of hanging out with the in crowd at Friday night football games were at home having their parents drill them on Latin roots for their SATs--and they make good. Then, finally, at 40-something, everything convulses and convolutes. One sweltering spring day (this is Washington after all, we built this city on swamp and woe), they have a "What's It All About, Alfie?" moment while sweating in out solo in a wool suit at the Capitol South Metro station, watching a gaggle of teenagers in tees, jeans, and flip-flops, enjoying their easy laughter and casual camaraderie, without a care or a carbuncle. Or maybe they have a Tod in Venedig experience while watching an intern photocopy a House subcommittee on fisheries report, the blue-green glow of the tube highlighting their naturally tanned and lineless face. Snap! Crackle! Don't call me Pops! The midlife crisis kicks in, and they decide to strike back against nerdiocrity with the closest sexy young 17-year-old at hand.
At last. They have enough money, power, and clear skin (although still not the looks--as they say down around the Beltway: Washington, D.C.--Hollywood for Ugly People), not to mention wounded, festering egos and dull-ache hurt feelings, that they finally go after what they wanted all those years ago. In the mindset of arrested development, they hit on a "fellow" 17-year-old--and then end up on the front page with a page.
But holy wow! What a scandal! At least it shows all the jocks back in high school that you're a man's man after all! What a stud you are--and it only took 25 years after anyone stopped giving a rat's patoot to prove it. And never you mind about the power inequality in the relationship, that your seniority--if you'll pardon the expression--carries a disproportionate amount of influence in a relationship with a, um, kid. We're all just so proud of you, you great big stinking egocentric loser.
Perhaps a similar consciousness figured into Bill Clinton's consensual yet highly inappropriate tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Yet another goofy nerd from high school who grows up to be one of the most powerful men in the Free World, yet still can't get past being the fat kid in school (his words, not mine), so he decides to chuck it all in for a game of cigars, cigarettes, and Tiparillos with an over-eager beaver--who was of legal age but who still represented an inappropriate choice. After all, Clinton was, in effect, her boss.
Oh, and yeah, almost forgot, he was married, too, and had a daughter, Chelsea, who was about Monica's same age, but who's counting?
Does anyone else hear Sigmund Freud clearing his throat from his grave--or is it just me?
But perhaps all this psychology is just all too much psychobabble. I had a hard life as a teenager! My father abandoned me! My priest looked at me and licked his lips, then winked! "Go to Oprah! Go to Oprah!" as they chant during such moments on the Jerry Springer show.
Yet I am not here to defame Caesar nor to bury Caesar. (Caesar? I hardly know her. Wocka wocka.) I'm not even here to go all moralistic on Caesar's ass. (People who live in glass houses shouldn't invite anyone over without Windexing the place first and all that.) I may make fun of others' adult angst over childhood traumas, but I don't mean to make light of the actual trauma. Frankly, I have enough of my own to prevent me from going in high disrespect mode for anyone else's. Childhood is difficult and childhood trauma, no matter the depth or variety, stays with you for years. Maybe forever. Years and life changes later, it can bother us, aggravate us, shape us, even destroy us and destroy others around us, if the case of the truck driver and the Amish schoolchildren is to be understood at all.
Nonetheless, as much as I understand my own self at midlife, I think part of adulthood involves separating the explanations from the excuses and preventing as much as possible what perturbs us from poisoning those around us.
So Mister Congressman, step away from the page and keep you hands where we can see them. Get some counseling while you're at it and heal your inner child, instead of pawing someone else's child. And Mister Milk Truck Driver, if you molested someone--or someone molested you, which seems the likely scenario, given the rage and pain with which you approached the massacre--and are tortured by the pain of the offense, seek help, seek forgiveness, seek jail time, seek anything but firearms and revenge against a bunch of school girls who never did anything to you in the first place.
Turn the page already and close the book. You're done with that chapter of your life. Time to pick up a pen, put it to paper, and write yourself a better, happier ending.
Now comes news this morning of another page scandal, this one, blessedly, of yore. CNN reports the death of Congressman Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts), who was censured by Congress in 1983 for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old page ten years before. Studds was censured alongside of Representative Dan Crane (R-Illinois), who apparently had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old female page in 1980.
Despite the censure and the inappropriate relationship with the page, Studds went on to serve several more terms in Congress and last year married his significant other in the Bay State (where gay marriage is legal, of course). Crane, meanwhile, returned to his old life in Chicago and his dental practice.
As far as I know, neither ever claimed alcoholism or unwanted attention from a priest was the root cause of their behavior, although I haven't read the autobiographies, should they exist.
Still, you gotta wonder what it is about these Congressman and their desire for high school-aged tail. The District of Columbia tends to attract a pretty serious, self-important crowd--I remember a Washington Post columnist once describing the city as being filled with people who were nerds in high school who finally made good--in bureaucracy. Despite the type of soul-killing "hottie" that's attracted to the policy wonk lifestyle--a lifestyle where people debate liability issues among strippers (an actual conversation I once overheard, never you mind where I was at the time when I heard it), it's not like the District of Columbia is filled with people in chastity belts, wimples, and burkhas (at least not yet anyway). From what I recall from my time there, it wasn't entirely impossible to get laid in Washington--and by/with someone of approximately your own age and lifestyle even.
So what gives? Maybe it's like what that columnist indicated, the nerds come to town--the guys and gals who never got a date with the prom king or queen, the ones who instead of hanging out with the in crowd at Friday night football games were at home having their parents drill them on Latin roots for their SATs--and they make good. Then, finally, at 40-something, everything convulses and convolutes. One sweltering spring day (this is Washington after all, we built this city on swamp and woe), they have a "What's It All About, Alfie?" moment while sweating in out solo in a wool suit at the Capitol South Metro station, watching a gaggle of teenagers in tees, jeans, and flip-flops, enjoying their easy laughter and casual camaraderie, without a care or a carbuncle. Or maybe they have a Tod in Venedig experience while watching an intern photocopy a House subcommittee on fisheries report, the blue-green glow of the tube highlighting their naturally tanned and lineless face. Snap! Crackle! Don't call me Pops! The midlife crisis kicks in, and they decide to strike back against nerdiocrity with the closest sexy young 17-year-old at hand.
At last. They have enough money, power, and clear skin (although still not the looks--as they say down around the Beltway: Washington, D.C.--Hollywood for Ugly People), not to mention wounded, festering egos and dull-ache hurt feelings, that they finally go after what they wanted all those years ago. In the mindset of arrested development, they hit on a "fellow" 17-year-old--and then end up on the front page with a page.
But holy wow! What a scandal! At least it shows all the jocks back in high school that you're a man's man after all! What a stud you are--and it only took 25 years after anyone stopped giving a rat's patoot to prove it. And never you mind about the power inequality in the relationship, that your seniority--if you'll pardon the expression--carries a disproportionate amount of influence in a relationship with a, um, kid. We're all just so proud of you, you great big stinking egocentric loser.
Perhaps a similar consciousness figured into Bill Clinton's consensual yet highly inappropriate tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Yet another goofy nerd from high school who grows up to be one of the most powerful men in the Free World, yet still can't get past being the fat kid in school (his words, not mine), so he decides to chuck it all in for a game of cigars, cigarettes, and Tiparillos with an over-eager beaver--who was of legal age but who still represented an inappropriate choice. After all, Clinton was, in effect, her boss.
Oh, and yeah, almost forgot, he was married, too, and had a daughter, Chelsea, who was about Monica's same age, but who's counting?
Does anyone else hear Sigmund Freud clearing his throat from his grave--or is it just me?
But perhaps all this psychology is just all too much psychobabble. I had a hard life as a teenager! My father abandoned me! My priest looked at me and licked his lips, then winked! "Go to Oprah! Go to Oprah!" as they chant during such moments on the Jerry Springer show.
Yet I am not here to defame Caesar nor to bury Caesar. (Caesar? I hardly know her. Wocka wocka.) I'm not even here to go all moralistic on Caesar's ass. (People who live in glass houses shouldn't invite anyone over without Windexing the place first and all that.) I may make fun of others' adult angst over childhood traumas, but I don't mean to make light of the actual trauma. Frankly, I have enough of my own to prevent me from going in high disrespect mode for anyone else's. Childhood is difficult and childhood trauma, no matter the depth or variety, stays with you for years. Maybe forever. Years and life changes later, it can bother us, aggravate us, shape us, even destroy us and destroy others around us, if the case of the truck driver and the Amish schoolchildren is to be understood at all.
Nonetheless, as much as I understand my own self at midlife, I think part of adulthood involves separating the explanations from the excuses and preventing as much as possible what perturbs us from poisoning those around us.
So Mister Congressman, step away from the page and keep you hands where we can see them. Get some counseling while you're at it and heal your inner child, instead of pawing someone else's child. And Mister Milk Truck Driver, if you molested someone--or someone molested you, which seems the likely scenario, given the rage and pain with which you approached the massacre--and are tortured by the pain of the offense, seek help, seek forgiveness, seek jail time, seek anything but firearms and revenge against a bunch of school girls who never did anything to you in the first place.
Turn the page already and close the book. You're done with that chapter of your life. Time to pick up a pen, put it to paper, and write yourself a better, happier ending.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Go fish
Editor's note: Hey y'all! I'm just back from a sojourn down South, visiting family in North Carolina. Ooh, shug, have I got me some stories to tell! But first, I need to unpack my suitcases and extract from my intestinal tract the eight tons of barbecue I digested while on vacation. (And let's not forget the hush puppies and chicken pastry either.) While I do so, let me entertain you with this little exchange I witnessed on my recent trip to a big box store in Kinston, North Carolina.
* * *
Location: The check-out line at a Wal-Mart somewhere in the Southern United States.
Time: The present day.
The Cast:
* * *
Editor's note: This has been a Filmways Presentation.
* * *
Location: The check-out line at a Wal-Mart somewhere in the Southern United States.
Time: The present day.
The Cast:
- Cashier--a young, blonde, slightly worn-looking woman, a bit bedraggled, as if she'd stayed too long at the honky tonk the night before.
- Customer #1--a not-unattractive but nervous-looking man, bald, in his 40s, resigned to his fate in life.
- Customer #2--an older woman, about 60, over-dressed with a halo of blue-rinsed hair crowning her pinched face.
Cashier [to Customer #2]: Well, what have we got here? A bag a' goldfish.
Customer #2: They're betas.
Cashier: How many you got here?
Customer #2: One dozen.
Cashier: Hmmm, well, looks like you got a lot more 'n a dozen.
Customer #2 [slightly indignant]: That's what I asked for in the Pet Department, twelve betas.
Cashier: Hmmm, well, I'm gonna hafta count 'em.
[The Cashier begins poking the bag with her index finger, trying to count the fish.]
One . . . two . . . three . . . why didn't they just write the number on the bag? Four . . . five . . . six . . . stay still! How 'm I s'pos'd to count 'em if they keep
wigglin' 'roun'!
[A pause while the Cashier continues to count silently.]
. . . Fifteen . . . sixteen . . . seventeen . . . don't look to me like a dozen, more like sixteen, maybe eighteen, by my count.
Customer #2 [angrily]: Eighteen! I only asked for twelve. I'm not paying
for eighteen fish! Take the rest of 'em back!
Cashier [slightly amused, slightly sarcastic]: Well, ma'am, whatja want me to do about it? It's not like I can put 'em in my pocket and carry 'em back to the fish tank. [She snorts out a slight laugh.] Tell ya what, ma'am, you're gonna hafta go--
Customer #2 [practically in a rage]: I am not going to go back to the Pet Department with these fish! You need to get on that phone and call someone to come up here and get the rest of 'em!
[A pause while the Cashier and Customer #2 stare at each other, Customer #2 with menace, the Cashier, languidly, slightly bored and very tired.]
Cashier: [Heavy sigh, then in an amplified voice, as she speaks into the public address system] I need somebody from the Pet Department to come up to Register 23 to help sort out a fish problem.
Customer #1: [Heavy sigh; he begins quietly removing his purchases from the conveyor belt and returning them to his shopping basket. He steps out of line and begins searching for another less problematic, check-out line.]
* * *
Editor's note: This has been a Filmways Presentation.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
A real page turner
If years from now I ever become a writer of merit and someone decides to do a textual analysis of my oeuvre, I predict that the one word that will get the most hits from the software program used for the analysis will be--you guessed it--S-E-X.
A quick check of my posts since I began this blog would tell you that out of 73 or so posts (including this one), at least 21 (isn't that the age of consent in Madagascar?) have featured a significant amount of content relating to sex, sexuality, gay/lesbian folks, or hetero horny happenings that I read about in the paper or see on the news.
Given this choice of subject matter in a goodly number of blog posts (that's nearly 30 percent!), it probably does seem as though I think a lot about sex--I mean, I write about it, so I must be some ol' randy bugger, licking my lips while I use my index finger to trace the bulges in the J.C. Penney underwear ads in the Sunday paper.
Still, it's only 30 percent. There's that statistic that the normal male brain thinks about sex every 13 seconds or something, isn't there? So maybe I'm not as much of a lech as I would seem. Maybe 30 percent just says, "Hi, I'm middle-aged."
To be honest, despite whatever percentage of my blogatory output consists of sex talk, these days I feel more ABD than anything--"Asexual by default." I just don't seem to be operating at full explosive charge in a target-rich environment, as Dr. Phil might put, as if dating and lovemaking were an archery range. I don't know that my quivver is so much out of arrows or that my aim is so bad I can't hit the target. I think it's more of a case that I'm too busy, tired, and distracted to bother to lift my bow and get ready, aim, fire.
Yep, I'm middle-aged alright.
Nonetheless, I do find sex and sexuality an obviously fascinating topic for discussion and dissection. Not because of the luridness of the subject matter--not solely at least--but because of the strange things that sex and sexuality make people do, the acting out performed by those who are turned on, conflicted, or torn asunder by their sexuality, or the acting against sex and sexuality by . . . well, those same people who are turned on, conflicted, or torn asunder by the sexuality of others.
For example . . .
Meet Mark Foley, Republican Representative from Florida, once head of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and now, apparently, the pederastic swinger of Congress (at least one of the ones we know about). Unless you've been living in a cave over the last week--or merely trying to tune into non-U.S. news sources where editorial directors encourage their audiences to focus on other subjects, like war, famine, poverty, and global warming--you'll know that Congressman Foley has resigned from his post in the U.S. House of Representatives because of allegations (and apparently admitted guilt) over hitting on 16-year-old male pages assigned to Congress with Internet Messenger chat lines that would do Austin Powers proud. "Do I make you horny, baby?" he more or less wrote in one message reported and repeated in my U.S. news outlets.
Well, minus the "baby." Best not to infantalize the age of the "chatee" too much, just in case someone's reading over your shoulder.
Oops, too late.
Naturally, Congressman Foley has since checked himself into rehab, and his lawyer is claiming that Foley was molested as a young teen by a clergyman. Oh, and now Foley says he's gay, too. It's a Republican family values nightmare of the fifth dimension--Jupiter is behind Mars, and Foley's heading for Uranus--and guess what? We all get to witness the bad dream as it unfolds in the national REM phase. Can a book tour and a tearful absolution on Oprah be far behind?
And, of course, all of this has happened without any charges being filed so far, as well as any clear determination whether an actual crime has been committed. The age of consent for the District of Columbia is 16, with no distinction made for homosexual contact. In Florida, the age of consent is 18, where homosexual contact is illegal. (Yeah, I know, that's rich. Somebody be sure to tell that to the folks in South Beach.) What is the age of consent in a chatroom that exists in the ether, when all talk is just that, talk, with (as far as we know) no physical contact being made?
Please don't think for a moment that I'm excusing the congressman's behavior. I may be making fun, but I'm quite serious in saying that Representative Foley's behavior was egregiously tacky and extremely inappropriate. An adult man or woman of any age really has no business sexualizing a relationship with a person of 16, or with a person under his or her care or supervision. And a man who once headed the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children really has no business sexualizing the relationship with his charges, if for no other reason than it's just too ironic.
Sixteen may be the age of consent in some states, but it might as well be a no-man's-land for consent. A person of 16 has just gained the right to drive a car, yet cannot vote nor drink legally. (Pay attention, Michael Jackson.) When most people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond, can't make a wise decision about sex and relationships, why expect someone so young to be able to? Stop making a pig of yourself at the all-you-can-sex buffet. Just push yourself away from the table, Caligula, and have a nice sensible meal at home with a consenting adult, please.
So, tacky, check. Inappropriate, check. Disturbing and creepy, check check. But illegal? The vote's not in quite yet. But, then again, I'm no legal scholar. Thanks to Homeland Security 'n' Pals in Congress and the White House, new stuff becomes illegal all the time. For all I know, it may now be a felony to yell the phrase "hand job" in a crowded theater. And who among us hasn't done that?
But on our checklist we forgot to tick the box next to "pathetic," and it should so clearly be ticked. I mean, if you read the rather lurid transcript of one of Representative Foley's chats, you can't help but think this geezer's got the world's worst chatroom chatter. Granted, we're not talking about an epistolary form of the highest level of artistic merit, but still, could try harder, Congressman Foley. I've seen technical manuals from IKEA with better powers of seduction. I am Curious Yellow Ektorp Jennylund Chair and all that.
Plus, let's consider the visuals of a middle-aged man hitting on a 16-year-old straight boy, a straight boy who tells the Congressman from Florida that he really likes the "whole Catholic [school] girl look." (We'll ignore the "innocent" young lad's self-avowed cast fetish--dude, WTF?--and, instead smile over the significant impact on culture that Britney Spears has had.) Why would anyone but a raging narcissist (or, if you prefer, a member of the U.S. Congress) think that a kid interested in hooking up with one of his plaid-and-pleated female school friends would have the remotest interest in scoring with a gray-suited, silver-haired, blue-talking Congressman?
In my misspent youth in the '70s, I had plenty of fantasies and fixations on a wide variety of older men. There was Robert Redford, of course, and Gino Vannelli, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac (after he cut his hair), and a veritable Boys in the Sand cast of thousands of extras. Nonetheless, despite my rather catholic (as in comprehensive, not priestly) tastes in dreamboats of the same sex, I'm pretty sure I never had even the slightest fantasy about an illicit rendezvous with Richard Nixon, George Wallace, or Governor Jim Holshouser of North Carolina.
Oh, I'll grant you, the thought of it makes me feel plenty dirty--just for all the wrong reasons. However, when push comes to shove (or hand to sexual organ), the members of the triple crown of early '70s conservative power just don't qualify as fantasy material--unless, of course, you're a Young Republican.
And I think we've pretty much established already that I don't swing that way.
A quick check of my posts since I began this blog would tell you that out of 73 or so posts (including this one), at least 21 (isn't that the age of consent in Madagascar?) have featured a significant amount of content relating to sex, sexuality, gay/lesbian folks, or hetero horny happenings that I read about in the paper or see on the news.
Given this choice of subject matter in a goodly number of blog posts (that's nearly 30 percent!), it probably does seem as though I think a lot about sex--I mean, I write about it, so I must be some ol' randy bugger, licking my lips while I use my index finger to trace the bulges in the J.C. Penney underwear ads in the Sunday paper.
Still, it's only 30 percent. There's that statistic that the normal male brain thinks about sex every 13 seconds or something, isn't there? So maybe I'm not as much of a lech as I would seem. Maybe 30 percent just says, "Hi, I'm middle-aged."
To be honest, despite whatever percentage of my blogatory output consists of sex talk, these days I feel more ABD than anything--"Asexual by default." I just don't seem to be operating at full explosive charge in a target-rich environment, as Dr. Phil might put, as if dating and lovemaking were an archery range. I don't know that my quivver is so much out of arrows or that my aim is so bad I can't hit the target. I think it's more of a case that I'm too busy, tired, and distracted to bother to lift my bow and get ready, aim, fire.
Yep, I'm middle-aged alright.
Nonetheless, I do find sex and sexuality an obviously fascinating topic for discussion and dissection. Not because of the luridness of the subject matter--not solely at least--but because of the strange things that sex and sexuality make people do, the acting out performed by those who are turned on, conflicted, or torn asunder by their sexuality, or the acting against sex and sexuality by . . . well, those same people who are turned on, conflicted, or torn asunder by the sexuality of others.
For example . . .
Meet Mark Foley, Republican Representative from Florida, once head of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and now, apparently, the pederastic swinger of Congress (at least one of the ones we know about). Unless you've been living in a cave over the last week--or merely trying to tune into non-U.S. news sources where editorial directors encourage their audiences to focus on other subjects, like war, famine, poverty, and global warming--you'll know that Congressman Foley has resigned from his post in the U.S. House of Representatives because of allegations (and apparently admitted guilt) over hitting on 16-year-old male pages assigned to Congress with Internet Messenger chat lines that would do Austin Powers proud. "Do I make you horny, baby?" he more or less wrote in one message reported and repeated in my U.S. news outlets.
Well, minus the "baby." Best not to infantalize the age of the "chatee" too much, just in case someone's reading over your shoulder.
Oops, too late.
Naturally, Congressman Foley has since checked himself into rehab, and his lawyer is claiming that Foley was molested as a young teen by a clergyman. Oh, and now Foley says he's gay, too. It's a Republican family values nightmare of the fifth dimension--Jupiter is behind Mars, and Foley's heading for Uranus--and guess what? We all get to witness the bad dream as it unfolds in the national REM phase. Can a book tour and a tearful absolution on Oprah be far behind?
And, of course, all of this has happened without any charges being filed so far, as well as any clear determination whether an actual crime has been committed. The age of consent for the District of Columbia is 16, with no distinction made for homosexual contact. In Florida, the age of consent is 18, where homosexual contact is illegal. (Yeah, I know, that's rich. Somebody be sure to tell that to the folks in South Beach.) What is the age of consent in a chatroom that exists in the ether, when all talk is just that, talk, with (as far as we know) no physical contact being made?
Please don't think for a moment that I'm excusing the congressman's behavior. I may be making fun, but I'm quite serious in saying that Representative Foley's behavior was egregiously tacky and extremely inappropriate. An adult man or woman of any age really has no business sexualizing a relationship with a person of 16, or with a person under his or her care or supervision. And a man who once headed the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children really has no business sexualizing the relationship with his charges, if for no other reason than it's just too ironic.
Sixteen may be the age of consent in some states, but it might as well be a no-man's-land for consent. A person of 16 has just gained the right to drive a car, yet cannot vote nor drink legally. (Pay attention, Michael Jackson.) When most people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond, can't make a wise decision about sex and relationships, why expect someone so young to be able to? Stop making a pig of yourself at the all-you-can-sex buffet. Just push yourself away from the table, Caligula, and have a nice sensible meal at home with a consenting adult, please.
So, tacky, check. Inappropriate, check. Disturbing and creepy, check check. But illegal? The vote's not in quite yet. But, then again, I'm no legal scholar. Thanks to Homeland Security 'n' Pals in Congress and the White House, new stuff becomes illegal all the time. For all I know, it may now be a felony to yell the phrase "hand job" in a crowded theater. And who among us hasn't done that?
But on our checklist we forgot to tick the box next to "pathetic," and it should so clearly be ticked. I mean, if you read the rather lurid transcript of one of Representative Foley's chats, you can't help but think this geezer's got the world's worst chatroom chatter. Granted, we're not talking about an epistolary form of the highest level of artistic merit, but still, could try harder, Congressman Foley. I've seen technical manuals from IKEA with better powers of seduction. I am Curious Yellow Ektorp Jennylund Chair and all that.
Plus, let's consider the visuals of a middle-aged man hitting on a 16-year-old straight boy, a straight boy who tells the Congressman from Florida that he really likes the "whole Catholic [school] girl look." (We'll ignore the "innocent" young lad's self-avowed cast fetish--dude, WTF?--and, instead smile over the significant impact on culture that Britney Spears has had.) Why would anyone but a raging narcissist (or, if you prefer, a member of the U.S. Congress) think that a kid interested in hooking up with one of his plaid-and-pleated female school friends would have the remotest interest in scoring with a gray-suited, silver-haired, blue-talking Congressman?
In my misspent youth in the '70s, I had plenty of fantasies and fixations on a wide variety of older men. There was Robert Redford, of course, and Gino Vannelli, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac (after he cut his hair), and a veritable Boys in the Sand cast of thousands of extras. Nonetheless, despite my rather catholic (as in comprehensive, not priestly) tastes in dreamboats of the same sex, I'm pretty sure I never had even the slightest fantasy about an illicit rendezvous with Richard Nixon, George Wallace, or Governor Jim Holshouser of North Carolina.
Oh, I'll grant you, the thought of it makes me feel plenty dirty--just for all the wrong reasons. However, when push comes to shove (or hand to sexual organ), the members of the triple crown of early '70s conservative power just don't qualify as fantasy material--unless, of course, you're a Young Republican.
And I think we've pretty much established already that I don't swing that way.
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