Another week escaped.

More to do on Monday, though. Things are getting to the point where things will need to get done. Things are gearing up for the new school year. Here's hoping.

If you know anything about RPGs, I think you'll enjoy the list of 250 things Mr. Welch can no longer do in an RPG. Side-splittingly funny. Also funny is today's Ozy and Millie, putting in no uncertain terms the danger of spoilers.

If you want to know what kind of brain it takes to understand quantum physics, wrap your head around the concept of negative information. Now, at least on the quantum level, we can prove that some things are too smart for their own good. Such as the person who produced the 86 rules of boozing. If at any time while boozing you can think clearly enough to remember any of them, take a drink.

Plus, twenty ways to fight the new world order. He's good for about nineteen. It's on number twenty that I take a difference.

From here on out:



( What did he say? Something NC-17 )

There, with that finished, it's time to go back to the happy parts I mentioned in the last entry. The ones about how "I am a person who stood up for the rights of homosexuals and won." zieistari took a bit she found in one of her friend’s journals and added it to the segment I presented yesterday. The two fit together in such a way that I wonder whether they are the same piece, somehow fragmented along the way of its journey. For these are "I am a person who stood up for the rights of homosexuals, and was told they had no rights." (If you want to see the fragments combined, look at http://www.livejournal.com/users/zieistari/18656.html) Original in bold, commentary is not.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian. My good friend welah's parents have come to terms, I think, with his orientation, but I do not think they approve. There are more than a few stories of situations like this - this should never happen to a child.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman. I hold optimism in this species that such situations are rare.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual. The Hippocratic Oath trumps such petty conflicts! Your first obligation is the preservation of life! Who are YOU to say "This man shall live, and this one shall not." And why would anyone deny a dying man his last comforts? Surely their blood cries out to you, murderer.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me. To destroy a family because it has two parents of the same gender is the same as destroying a family because it had one parent of one race and another of a different race. They jail people who attack others based on race. Why is this different?

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again. You can find it in any text on morality, I suppose - a way to justify harming those who are different. "Brother, let me remove the speck in your eye", says the hypocrite, not noticing the beam firmly lodged in his own. Clearing one's own eyes is a lifelong task. How can you devote any time to telling other people about theirs, when yours are not clear?

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time. As a middle-school child, I heard of deaths occurring in the high school. As a high-school child, I heard of deaths occurring in other high schools. As a university student, I hear of deaths happening all over the world. We have more than enough causes of death without considering the malice of other beings. If you consider it to be a sin, then is it not a greater sin to drive them to take their lives? And the fault lies on us all, when things like that happen, because we did not produce a society that was hospitable to them.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men. Laws prohibit many of these behaviors if they are on other grounds. Why not this one, as well?

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that. Whatever happened to the encouragement that "you can be whatever you want to be"? What has become of parents conversing with their child, and providing support for them even if the child is not turning out the way the parents think is optimal? To give a child freedom to explore is great. To provide wisdom for them and a warning of the dangers is even better. Only if the child thinks that his parents will support him does he reveal himself (herself) to them. Society has much to learn about providing wisdom - they seem to have figured out how to provide warnings.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Why does society insist on minds being wasted because they don't fit the mold just so? Notice how much of your own progress has been accomplished by eccentrics and people rejected. Harness the genius of all people to deepen your own understanding. Treat them as human beings and watch yourself flourish.

Okay, enough pontification. I think this Dominion-issue soapbox has had more than enough of me.