RevSpork

America askew

I like to babble a lot on my blog, but this time I'd like to make my case using the wonder of maps.  I admit these pictures may oversimplify, perhaps even slightly distort, my point.  Even if moderated, however, I think many of us can agree that there's something very, very wrong here.

I am a supporter of gay marriage and have been since college.  I've recently swung toward a more libertarian bent; instead of legalizing gay marriage, I think states should get out of the marriage business altogether, allow civil unions for any adult couple, and if they want to get "married," whether in their church, a meadow, or a pet cemetery, that's hunky-dory with me.  I'd prefer legalized gay marriage, but I think the latter may be a lot easier for more conservative folks to swallow.  Then again, some folks will never be happy until the U.S. bans not only gay marriage, but gay civil unions, gay adoptions, the Gay Nineties, nosegays, and writer Gay Talese. 

Okay, I've babbled enough.  Here's my proof that America could use a stiff drink and a psychotherapist.  My first map displays which states not only ban gay marriage, but also prohibit civil unions, domestic partnerships, or both.

My second map shows states where zoophilia (bestiality) is technically legal.  Yes, legal. 

Now, let's merge the two maps.  The brown states (green+red) are with the most restrictive gay marriage laws, plus where bestiality is technically legal.

Lotta brown there, eh?  Finally, on my fourth map I include the states with the most restrictive gay marriage laws and where bestiality is technically legal, and the states where gay marriage is legal:

Number of states with the most restrictive gay marriage laws, but allow bestiality: 7

Number of states that allow gay marriage: 5

Is America askew?  I rest my case.

Ten reasons I cannot wait for the Rapture

Lemme tell ya, I don't believe in the Rapture, where all the saved get lifted up to heaven while the rest of us losers have to cope with all hell breaking loose.  In fact, I'd like to think the Rapture already happened, that God only saw fit to lift two crazy homeless people and a nun, and nobody noticed. 

However, every once in a while I learn of some new bit of news that makes me really, really root for a full-blown Apocalypse, even though I'm fairly certain I'm not among the chosen.  Because even if I have to endure trials, tribulations, bleeding moons, etc., at least people will turn their attentions away from coming up with bizarre shit like the following:

1. Personalized vagina pendants.  Lookie here, it's truck nuts for girls!  That they can wear around their necks!  Potential purchasers are told to "celebrate their beauty."  Fine, but I'd like to see what would happen if I sported a personalized pecker pendant while walking about town.  On the other hand...no, no I wouldn't. 

2. The continuing persecution of domestic abuse victims.  Get beat up by your boyfriend?  No problem!  Get thrown out of your home, get threatened with arrest, lose your health insurance.  What next?  Branding "punch me" on their foreheads?  Come to think of it, that actually seems kind compared to the other three punishments. 

3. The fact that people actually care about these people more than they care about their own families.  Jon's a slimy moron, Kate's emotionally stunted, and the kids are going to be so fucked up by the time they grow up, they might not even notice Armageddon.  They're already living it.  What these people need is not more publicity, or even less publicity, but no publicity. 

4. Sexy Smurfette Halloween costumes.  Was I the only 11-year old boy who watched the cartoon because he liked the show and NOT because of a crush on Smurfette?  I just thought she was another cartoon character, not the first step towards a serious Jessica Rabbit / Heavy Metal addiction.  And hasn't the costume industry squeezed the "sexy employee" concept dry yet?  What's next, sexy cabbies?

5.  Douching with Lysol.  Yes.  Because douching with Coca-Cola wasn't gross enough.  

6.  This.  The GOP doesn't harbor racists.  Really, they don't.

7. The perils of online dating.  It only took me eight months and 65 rejections to find the lady who would become my second wife online; if I were as paranoid as this woman, I'd still be single, and good for the rest of the world.  You don't want to pass these paranoid genes to another generation. 

8. I can't deny my own beliefs.  Yes, I consider myself a pro-lifer.  Yes, I believe in some restrictions.  However, I also support universal access to birth control, RU-486, Plan B, and allowing gay adoptions.  I don't even necessarily want to see abortion become illegal: I want to see it become obsolete.  Some freaking pro-lifer I am.  So when I read about jackasses like Randall Terry attempting idiotic publicity stunts like this, I want to respond with a "Randall Terry is a Shit-Spewer" YouTube campaign.  Simply blow up a photo of Mister Operation Rescue, cut out his mouth, and attach it to your favorite mammal's rear end so that any fecal matter emerges out Mr. Terry's oral cavity.  Record and pass it around. 

9. Bob Dylan's Christmas album.  The release of this album is well-hidden but very much present in the Book of Revelations.  If Mannheim Steamroller releases an album of Dylan covers, you'll find me reading the Left Behind series very, very thoroughly.

10. The A-Team movie.  Enough said.  Bring on Armageddon!

Now that he's in the ground...

I suppose some folks were right about the Michael Jackson coverage - too much of it, of course.  It blocks other, more substantial news coverage.  But that's always been the case with Michael Jackson; he was that kind of personality.  The world couldn't help but pay attention to everything he did, for good or ill.

I was twelve years old when Thriller hit the record shops.  For the next few years, there were no junior high school classrooms without a student in a Michael Jackson T-shirt.  I was not one of them.  I was one of the guys who joked that MJ and Boy George were lovers.  In short, I was not a fan.  I'm more charitable now, but not much.  Other than Thriller and Off the Wall, his albums didn't strike me as impressive.  I think his skills as a songwriter were overrated.  As a showman, however, he was unparalleled; only Elvis Presley could match him.  For good or ill (mostly ill), every pop, R&B, and hip-hop icon can trace their stage show to Jackson's, but none will come close to him in terms of sheer stage presence.  

So why am I, a non-fan, writing about Michael Jackson?  Because of the Republican Congressman Peter King's attack on Michael Jackson, calling him a "low-life," "pervert" and "pedophile."  The Long Island right-winger has had a reputation in the past of being a blowhard, but something about the attack rubbed me the wrong way.  

Do I believe that Michael Jackson molested children on more than one occasion?  Yes.  Was he a pervert, a sexual predator?  There's the rub, right there.  Yes, I believe that Jackson molested children, but I don't think he was a sexual predator.  Legally, of course, there's no distinction, and there shouldn't be.  If Michael Jackson was guilty of child molestation, he should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  But this isn't about law; this is about the man, or rather the boy.  Because Michael Jackson was an adult only chronologically.  He was a child to the day of his death.  If his voice hinted at it, his behavior and habits confirmed it.  Not only was Michael Jackson a child in a man's body, he did everything he could to maintain his childhood, largely because it was the only thing about himself he had full control over. 

When I was a kid, I saw other kids' genitals, and other kids saw mine.  The circumstances were innocent, of course: two kids taking a bath, my cousins and I using the bathroom, a friend and I play the "you show me yours, you show me mine" game.  As for touching, my mother loved telling my old girlfriends - to my horror - one of my female cousins and I were caught playing doctor.  But we were four years old, so it was written off as kids doing what kids do alone.  Other than that, I recall no other instance of any similar exploration as a child, although I'm sure other children have gone further.

I suspect Michael Jackson's activities with children fell into that category.  He thought - and explored - as a child.  It doesn't excuse his behavior at all, but it does explain the paradox of a child molester who is not a sexual predator.  It's an incredibly fine line, and for that reason the behavior should not be seen as acceptable, whether the motive was innocent or not.

So I don't hate Michael Jackson for what he did.  In fact, I feel an incredible amount of pity for the man.  His childhood was distorted and twisted beyond endurance by fame and a psychotic and cruel father.  He was babysat his entire life, never had to want for anything, and became fatally dependent on others.  He was American culture personified, taken to a sick, sad end.  Worst of all, he lived the ultimate American dream: he never grew up, and he never grew old.

How paranoid are you about Obama's speech to schoolchildren? A quiz

Later today, President Obama will officially begin a new phase of his life, that of Socialist Baby-Eating Dictator and Probably the Antichrist, through the fiendishly clever method of making a speech to schoolchildren.  By the time he's finished, the children will no doubt take over the country and send those of us over thirty into concentration camps where we'll be forced to listen to Noam Chomsky lectures while smoking Hawaiian high-grade marijuana.  Hopefully there will be pizza. 

The White House, attempting to lure us into a false sense of security, released Obama's speech to the general public.  I have read it a couple of times, and I conclude it only looks innocuous.  I invite you to read the entire transcript at the White House website and try to prove me wrong.  When you're finished, feel free to take my 100 percent Reverend-written quiz.  

Here are the directions: I will present a certain fragment of Obama's speech.  I will then offer three interpretations of each fragment.  Choose the interpretation that you believe more closely represents your point of view. 

None of yer business - right?

Maybe it's not privacy that's dead in the water.  Not yet, anyway.  What worries me more - far more - than losing the right to privacy is that we're being socially engineered to accept it.  Privacy in the 21^st century is less than quaint: it’s unfashionable.  In an era when twenty percent of American teenagers send nude photos of themselves to their friends with nary a twinge in their souls, and when reality TV routinely presents the most inconsequential goings-on of people’s lives, who wants privacy?  Blogs have turned every human being with the faintest dreams of writing fame (yes, including yours truly) into a memoirist.  Podcasts have done the same for the DJ dreams of the world.  MySpace and Facebook introduced to modern society the very odd concept of informing your friends of your every move.  Getting up?  Going to bed?  Eating dinner?  Brushing your teeth?  Proclaim it to the masses!  Nothing adds allure to the most mundane details of your life like a Facebook status line.  I’m not sure how Marcel Proust would have reacted to this had he been exposed to such avenues, but I suspect he either would have withdrawn into reclusiveness or put out the most amazing blog in the world.

Maybe I feel left behind.  Or perhaps I’m even envious.  I spent chunks of my childhood with therapists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, being a screwed-up child.  My confessional needs became so hard-wired, I required hours to answer the question, “so tell me about yourself,” no matter who the question came from.  A nun, a tutor, guidance counselors  (Yes!  I talked to guidance counselors!) – I confessed to all.  Remember sitting in our dorm rooms with friends or people you really wanted to make out with but fell short, talking about – you know, life – until 6am?  I think I had one of those chats every night.  I have more self-control now, and I only let loose when in front of my current therapist or (occasionally) my wife.  However, I fear society has passed me by, as with pop music, technology, and porn. 

I worry about this: by the time the first generation of internet addicts (read: people my age) reaches their 70s, general communication will have become so highly personal that our status lines will be filled with detailed reports of our bowel movements.  Ever stood in line at a grocery store behind a couple of old Jewish women?  That will be us in just over thirty years.  My only hope is that the teenagers sending nude photos of themselves today will be so appalled and socially damaged in thirty years that privacy will make a comeback.  Knowing how things are progressing, however, my guess is they’ll reminisce about it during parties.  (“Remember when I used to shave my crotch in the shape of Kanye West?”  “Oh, wow, that looked soooo cool!”  “Yeah, I got it on my flickr account now!”  “Oh.  I just looked it up on google.”  Is it too late to return to the caves?

Ummmm...

Two questions:

Has anyone heard about this?

And...why hasn't the media said a peep about this?  I didn't hear about this until last night, on Rachel Maddow's show.

More signs of the decline and fall of the American Empire

--- Christian T-shirts that go a wee bit too far. Wanna tell everyone you're an ex-masturbator? Buy now!

--- They're bringing back The Newlywed Game. Again. Guess who's the new host? Hint: it's someone as close to being the opposite of Bob Eubanks as possible.

--- This simply creeps me out. (Perhaps the church that sells the "ex-masturbator" T-shirts can give out Jesus M&Ms)

--- The economy is so bad, even the college campus gossip sites are closing down. Tragic, I say.

--- And finally, the next time you go to Paris and visit the Eiffel Tower...you might not want to touch it. Trust me.

Signs of the decline and fall of the American Empire

--- Selling your phone number on eBay because it's the title of a 27-year old pop-rock hit.

--- The Super Bowl interrupted by porn.

--- Lying to poor people to kick them off welfare.

--- There may be a time, very soon, when Starbucks cafes will not be located across the street from each other.

--- Everyone's going apeshit because the world's best human swimmer got baked.

--- And finally (for this week), my adopted city lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vaccines, birth control pills, and controlled substances.

2012 cannot arrive soon enough.

The $3.8 million maidenhead

I've been following this story for a while, and I've read the opinions of this young woman (mostly negative), and for the life of me, I can't understand what the fuss is about.  Neither can she.  After all, she's only putting up her virginity to the highest bidder so she can afford graduate school.

Before we set forth, let us define female virginity, at least for the sake of this blog post.  Since it can be determined so easily, the physical definition dominates in most societies: once a woman's hymen is broken, she is no longer a virgin.  However, as gynecologists (and ladies) are aware, a broken hymen can occur from non-sexual activity: an accident, horseback riding, or a medical problem.  (The writer Florence King once described a trip to the gynecologist when she was a teenager; she was suffering from unusually painful menstrual cramps, and the doctor decided to break her hymen [not in the traditional way] in hopes of correcting the problem.  So that her future husband wouldn't be offended by the lack of blood on the wedding night bedsheets, the doctor presented her with a certificate of virginity.)  The converse of this is that sexual intercourse doesn't necessarily break the hymen.  Although there are other common methods of sexual intercourse that do not involve the vagina, the broken hymen through sexual intercourse is still considered the symbol of lost female virginity, so for the sake of this post, we'll go with that.

"Natalie Dylan" (not her real name) has the religious right all worked up, probably because there's absolutely nothing they can do about this young woman and her auction.  Everything about this auction is completely legal: the transaction would take place at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.  The auction itself is private, handled by the Bunny Ranch.  Ms. Dylan announced the auction on (where else?) Howard Stern's radio show last September, and it's been garnering publicity ever since.  And everyone involved benefits: Ms. Dylan makes a few million for less than an hour's worth of work, the Bunny Ranch gets a ton of publicity, and the winner gets laid. 

In a country where virginity pledges are frequently made (and just as frequently broken), where teenage girls kneel before their fathers in purity balls, I find it almost refreshing that someone placed a value on female virginity.  (Male virginity, of course, isn't worth a nickel.)  On the other hand, one should ask the question: what's the big deal about female virginity?

There are several theories out there about the value of female virginity, from sociological to anthropological to theological.  And I could write an entire book about the subject if there weren't already more than a few out there already.  One could ask the owners and ex-owners of "their virtue," I suppose, but one will probably find just as many reasons as there are theories.  I've had my share of girlfriends as well as two marriages and dozens of female friends, and their own reasons (and, by extension, how they valued their virginity) vary widely.  Some just wanted to get their virginity out of the way; they found it little more than a nuisance and decided to lose it quietly and quickly.  Others placed a certain value on it, waiting until their wedding night to lose it.  Many others were somewhere in between, waiting for the "ideal boy," or offering it to a long-time boyfriend, or sleeping with an acquaintance in their dorm room.  Some were cold sober, others drank or otherwise medicated themselves to fight off their unease.  Some planned it weeks or months in advance, others succumbed to a whim.  There are also the tragic instances of rape or other sexual abuse.  Whatever the circumstances, they placed a certain value (presumbly non-monetary) on their virginity, and I'll bet none of them thought $3.8 million. 

Why is Ms. Dylan doing this?  Her stated reason is to pay for her graduate school studies, but given her appearance on Howard Stern's radio show, her motives do not strike me as (forgive the pun) pure.  She picked her publicity well; she chose a high-profile brothel with national exposure (it had been featured on HBO's show "Cathouse") as her sponsor, she chatted with Howard Stern, shrewdly tapping into the obvious audience to promote her and her auction.  She is not a poor little lady desperate to pay her bills.  There are other ways of paying for graduate school.  Is Natalie Dylan a fraud?  After all, it's a private auction.  It's quite possible.  I doubt it, though.  

In my opinion, when you tear away the publicity, the morals, and the sociological implacations of placing a monetary value on a maidenhead, what you have is a simple transaction.  And if our society values capitalism above other institutions, this transaction should have no more sociological, moral, or publicity value than purchasing a tangerine at the grocery store.  And maybe, just maybe, if more young ladies sold off their virtue to pathetic millionaires, folks would see the loss of virginity not as some holy icon on the mantle, but as a perfectly natural activity on the road to adulthood.  Or at least the price might go down.

The difference between white-collar and blue-collar crime

For all the massive crimes Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly committed, his bail was set at a whopping $4500.   I could swipe an old lady's purse and cough up a higher bail than that.