HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Family Values: Part 256

An examination of the RNC's March expenditures has revealed an interesting charge for nearly $2,000 to a club called Voyeur in West Hollywood.  This establishment is described by the website Club Planet like this:

Of course no high-end establishment with high-end backers would come right out and call itself a sex club...but, there's a guest list, the female employees disrobe, pornographic pictures double as wallpaper, and patrons are advised to be "uninhibited" in the photo booth.

Now regular readers of this blog know that I really don't care what people do.  If you're into bumping uglies with bikini clad truckers dressed as chipmonks, then hey, go for it. But if you are going to be the political party who tells the country to vote for them because they stand for moral decency and family values, then dropping two large at an upscale sex club is one thing and one thing only: hypocrisy.

I suppose it could be worse, I suppose it could be random sexual encounters with strangers in airport restrooms or getting caught with your name in a DC madam's little black book.

Oh wait...

Risqué Business

Lesbians- 1 / Uptight Southern Bigots - 0

In that town in Mississippi where the school board decided they would rather cancel this year's prom than let a lesbian student take her girl friend, a court ruled that her First Amendment rights were violated.

Yeah, I know. DUH.

But the court did not order the school to hold the prom.  In some sense, this might be best.  When this girl decides to sue the shit out of the school, she has the perfect situation. She has a court ruling and no prom.  That sounds like a jury ordered college fund to me.

Oh, and the kicker?  She also has a written memo.

"At the center of the lawsuit is a February 5 memorandum from the school to students that said prom dates must be of the opposite sex.

"Superintendent Teresa McNeece also told McMillen that she and her girlfriend could be ejected from the prom if other students complained about their presence, according to the documents."

Of course, this is Mississippi.  They don't let girls dance with girls, who the hell knows what a jury will do.

Judge: School violated lesbian's rights

Quick Hits: Now with Lesbians Getting Screwed

Prom Night

From CBS:  "Senior Constance McMillen, 18, was ready for the prom. She even had a date. But the problem at Itawamba County Agricultural High School, says Strassmann, was her sophomore -- girlfriend."


So what did the high school do?  They cancelled prom.  Now this girl's school mates are pissed at her because they blame her for the prom getting cancelled. 

Is this 1940? They'd rather cancel the dance and screw all the kids than let two girls go together as a couple.

We'll just slide this one in at number 22 on the long list of reasons I could never live in the south.

CBS: Southern School Cancels Prom to Prevent Same Sex Date.

Drummed Out of the Air Force by the Local Fuzz

Rapid City, SD police outed a lesbian Air Force sergeant to the military resulting in her getting discharged.

The cops were looking to arrest Sgt Jene Newsome's wife on an Alaskan warrent for theft. Sgt. Newsome didn't give the police the level of cooperation they were looking for, so they told the Air Force base command that the Sgt was married...to a woman. 

"Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome's home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said."

Saw it through a window? It was just sitting on the table? I know that's where I keep mine, right next to the salt and pepper shaker.

I call "bullshit" on this one.  They were pissed that the lesbian wasn't helping them so they screwed her over with the military. I hope the ACLU really porks these cops in court.

MSNBC: Cops out lesbian to military

I be Judge, I be Jury, said cunning old Fury...

Today, I, The T-Dude have been summoned by my county to sit in a room all day waiting to be called for a jury.

You would think they'd know better.

I can't decide, am I Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men or John Cusak in Runaway Jury?

Well, seeing as how I'm just as likely to make a snap decision as the next guy and I don't have a secret in my past that would make me want to publicly screw a jury consultant, I guess I'll just have to be me.

Maybe I'll just do my Fonda impression all day for the fun of it...

My new addiction...Curling

That's right, Women's Curling. You know, the sport with the brooms and the rocks and the ice.  Shuffle board of the north.  Canadian Bocce Ball.  Whatever you want to call it, I love it.

Now, I would have a hard time calling it a true sport.  I have always argued that any "athletic" activity that can be performed while drinking a Bud longneck and smoking a Camel straight isn't a sport, it's really a past time. In this category I include: bowling, golf, and for certain trailer park residents, sex.

But I loved watching curling during the Olympics.  It was more interesting that cross country skiing, less subjective than figure skating, and frankly, it was both engaging and relaxing at the same time.

Okay... and the women are kinda hot.  There, I said it.  I've always had a thing for female athletes.  In high school, I was more likely to date a girl on the basketball team than on the cheerleading squad.  Oh, I dated both, but I always preferred the jockish girls to the spankies and megaphone crowd.

To make my point, my wife and I watched "Bend It Like Beckham" together and she looked at me and said, "This is like soft-core porn for you, isn't it." 

Yeah...kinda.

So I guess what I'm saying is, curling is just like soft-core porn.  Both engaging and oddly relaxing all at the same time.

To help prove my point, the young woman pictured here is a member of the Swiss Olympic Curling team. Her name is Carmen Schäfer.  She had a great Olympics, much better than the Swiss skipper, Miriam Ott who really spit the bit after having the hammer in the final end against the Canadians only to fail to keep the rock in the house.

(I even like the lingo!)

Oh...and to prove my point on the soft-core porn thing, here is another picture of Ms. Schäfer.

When are the next Winter Olympics?  I just want to make sure I clear my calendar.

Snot

I have a head cold.

Not that you give a rat's ass, but I thought I'd share.

Been Gone

I've been gone, but I'll write in the next day or so.

Of Life, Empathy and Avian Death

I have to change my profile.

People who know me know that little things like this are exactly the things that I just can't seem to get excited about doing.  But it needs to be done.  You see, the house in which I live no longer contains all of the "things" listed in my profile.  We are now without the parakeet.

It wasn't much of a surprise, at least to my wife and me.  The bird had been pretty unsteady for several months, but a couple of days ago, it was clear that the unsteadiness had moved into something more serious.  Frankly, I wasn't about to drop several hundred dollars in vet bills to try and prolong the life of an aged parakeet, but luckily, the end came quickly.

On the unfortunate side of the coin, over the last six months, my youngest daughter had taken a real shine to the bird.  She was bathing her, feeding her, petting her little head and speaking to her in those soothing tones that only a nine year-old girl with nothing but innocence and caring can utter.  More than once she said to me, "Daddy, I feel sorry for Hedwig. She has to stay in that cage all the time.  That's why I try and play with her every day."

That is a pithy example of my youngest.  She feels for everything and everyone.  She felt sorry for the bird because she lived in a cage.  She feels sorry for the first grader with whom she has taken to playing with at recess because the other kids don't seem to like him very much.  As she said to me, "His glasses are taped together Dad.  I don't think his parents can afford a new pair. And he wanted to play with us so I said sure, but my friends didn't want him to."

So, my daughter played with him, and let her friends do what they wanted.

The morning that Hedwig passed, my daughter woke up early.  It was Saturday and she had an indoor soccer game, but she was still up really early.  In fact, she came into our room around five with tears in her eyes and woke my wife with the phrase, "Mommy, Hedwig's dying."

I rolled out of bed and came downstairs with her.  Sure enough, Hedwig was dying.  I held my daughter in my arms and tried to find the words to make the inevitable a little easier. They weren't the right ones, there aren't any right ones for someone who feels life the way she does. But being the empathetic being that she is, she let me believe that what I said made her feel a little better.

We had some breakfast, got her soccer stuff on and off we all went to the soccer game.  Afterward the game, my youngest got invited over to the house of one of her teammates for a play date and so she went home with her.  My wife, my oldest daughter and I went home.

After we went inside the house, my wife walked into the kitchen and I started to peel off my shoes and coat.  She came back immediately with a sad look in her eyes.

"Hedwig's dead," she said with a quiver in her voice.

As the tears welled up in her eyes, I knew that half of them were for Hedwig and the other half were for my youngest whose heart was surely going to break when she heard the news. After a prolonged hug, we decided the best thing we could do is straighten up the scene a bit.

I searched the house for an appropriate container for Hedwig.  My oldest daughter had a lovely box that once contained the perfume her homecoming date had given her.  It was just parakeet size.  It was black and white and contained curly-cue paper shavings that would delicately hold the remains of Hedwig.  I then took a clipping of material from the Harry Potter print fabic we used in the evenings to cover the cage. I placed it over the bird's body as if it was sleeping and slowly closed the lid.

At some point, several months ago, my youngest made a name plate for the bird from those plastic rings that you put on a pegged grid and then iron.  I took the Hedwig sign and propped it up against the box on the dining room table.  And then we waited.

She finally came home around five that afternoon.  After the usual thank yous were exchanged and the other mom and kid left, my wife pulled my youngest next to her on the love seat and said "B_____. I have to tell you something.."

With the words, "Hedwig died," my youngest started to cry. But they weren't the standard sobs of a child.  They were the mature tears of a soul who FEELS, a soul for whom the passing of a bird had meaning past a mere change in routine or scenery. But she also knew that the time had come for Hedwig.  She understood that her passing was a day that was always going to come  But that inevitability was cold comfort for someone has caring as my youngest.

As a parent, I am both thrilled and afraid for my daughter.  I am thrilled because the ability to care for others with such sincerity is a gift.  But it is also a gift that will break her heart over and over again throughout her life. But I know that if we all could have just a piece of that gift, the world would be a much better place.  We would all be more forgiving, more caring and more likely to do the things that we know we should for each other but often choose not to because they are hard or inconvenient.

Listen, she not a saint. She gets angry, she fights with her sister over stupid stuff and she's been known to ignore the voice of her parents when she knows they are about to ask her to do something she doesn't want to do.  But when it comes to her default setting for people and animals, it is to be caring.  It is to be accepting. And it is to be empathetic in both feelings and actions.

If only the rest of us could find those traits in our own hearts as well. Hedwig, you will be missed, and I won't forget the lesson that you and my youngest have taught me.

Election Night

I love election night.  But tonight, I'm a total loser.  Everyone I voted for, short of water reclaimation district is a loser. Maybe I should have picked up the Republican ballot instead.