Tag: Twitter
The “Terror” of Gender-Neutral Toilets
Not since the Satanic Panic of the 1980s have we seen as much moral alarmism and fear mongering as we’re now enduring, with today’s terror over gender-neutral toilets.
Texas and 10 other states filed suit last week challenging the U.S. Justice and Education Departments’ issuance of an Obama directive instructing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.
Supporters of the lawsuit, filed in a Texas federal court, say the move is designed to protect women and children (presumably from “unemployed homosexuals, deviants, rapists, transgenders, and other sodomites from every state”). Though the actual threat from these jobless homo-nazis is practically nonexistent, according to the Justice Department and others, Texas says it will forfeit $10 billion in federal funding for education rather than carry out the so-called “bathroom law.” BTW, asked if he knows of any instances in which a child’s safety has been threatened by transgender bathroom rights, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has replied, “there’s not a lot of research.”
But foot-stomping is so much more fun (and vote-garnering!) than adaptive social functioning, isn’t it?
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Christmas Cards My Ass
There are many excuses for not sending holiday cards. Here’re mine:
Christmas cards, holiday cards, greeting cards – whatever people wanna call ’em, I don’t care.
It’s been many years since I purchased a greeting card, because the greeting card industry has become insulting. It pushes homogenized sentiments and condescending condolences that are marketed as if buyers were monkeys. While card aisles and displays are perfectly convenient and, yes, could come in handy someday, I must say I did better in a prison cell with magazine collages, glue sticks, and agitated screamers to my left ‘n right.
Yes sir or ma’am: I heavily promoted my “John has turned over a new leaf” brand by mailing handmade greeting cards to friends and family who were on the fence about me. For one, I was determined to prove that my imagination would never be replaced by swastika tattoos and institutionalized hatred. Watching the arrival and transformation of so many gullible young men into seething and explosive monsters positively inspired me to trade even my meals for whatever I needed to stay creative, expressive, and weird.
And there were just certain things I couldn’t re-embrace upon returning to the civilian world. First among them, coincidentally, was store-bought greeting cards. Why? Because I was fresh out of the joint one day and nudged toward a cousin’s birthday party the next. I looked at the clock, gathered the things I’d need (accessing real scissors was a plus), and never looked back.
All these years and hundreds of greeting cards later, the only downside has been visiting my parents during the holidays to find my own card among their others, displayed writing-side out (as if the interior sentiment were the thing!). Apparently my mom is uncomfortable with the idea of guests commenting on the one that’s “different.” My cards are as professionally made as the Thomas Kinkades, yet the images I choose are antidotal to forced-marching-to-the-glowing-Christmas-cottage.
But never mind all that self-congratulatory poo, here are my excuses for not lifting a finger this year: Read more
A Twitter Pill to Swallow
The social networking functionality of this blog is horrendous, I know, especially on the cusp of a book launch. But that’s about to change. The new whereexcusesgotodie.com will launch at the end of this month, incorporating everything from Feedburner to Facebook connectivity. And the publicist with whom we’re working recently informed me that my head-in-the-sand days are over. “It’s time to open that Twitter account you’ve been avoiding,” she stated.
She’s right, I know. My excuse has been that a person’s journey, abilities, and goals should matter more than following trends. Besides, whether published by a major or self-publishing, the whole experience feels like standing at the bottom of a freeway off ramp rattling a foam cup at cars: Twitter and the like will only exacerbate that.
But the real question is, do I want the public to decide the value of Where Excuses Go to Die (the book), or do I want to wind up bitter ’cause I was too good to play the game – or failed to do everything I could to tell the world what it has to offer?
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
What if PFC Bradley Manning one day declares, “I did it to get famous?”
Original story: The Christian Science Monitor | Monday, August 2, 2010
It seems like damn near every month we’re forced to endure a new personality that ascends the national escalator to become a media focus. Read more