RevSpork

"But what about the children?"

What disturbs me most about the whole flap with Texas child welfare officials taking the 450-odd children away from the families at the fundamentalist Mormon compound in Texas are people's complaints about taking the kids away from their parents. "Why punish the mothers and children?" they plead. Yes, the Texas police and child welfare agencies could have handled this a little better, but they were caught in an impossible situation. How do you address a child abuse complaint when an entire religious community's laws allow, even sanction, sexual abuse of children?

Obviously, the situation is more complicated than that - far more complicated. And most people, when faced with a complex problem, tend to eliminate smaller but still critical elements of the problem in order to simplify it. I believe, however, these kids are better off in the long run outside of the El Dorado compound than inside.

Why do I believe this? First, a couple of questions:

Life in prison sounds pretty attractive, but what's the point?

CNN.com reported this morning that the cheerleaders who beat the living crap out of another girl and taped it for YouTube could face life in prison for assault, battery, and kidnapping. Sounds good to me, but it won't happen.

Already there's been a copycat crime, indicating teens are not the least bit disturbed by the possibilities of serious jail time. Come on, this is exciting, and we can get on YouTube, and people from all over the world will see it. So what if we get caught?

2007's Debbie Tye Mom of the Year Award

You have to admit, this takes some serious guile: a mother lied on her 6-year old daughter's essay to win an essay contest, which she did. What was the prize? A Hannah Montana wig, a makeover, and tickets to see Hannah Montana in Albany, New York (Albany?). What was the lie? Daddy died in Iraq.

Yes, mom made up a dead father for her daughter, a dead war hero at that, to fly to Albany, New York, to see Hannah Montana. Not Orlando. Not Hollywood. Not New York, New York. This woman sold her soul to the devil, made herself look like a jackass on national TV, for a blond wig and tickets to Albany. Fucking Albany fucking New fucking York. How freaking pathetic can you get? ALBANY, for fucks sake! Good thing they get to see the concert, because there's fuck-all else to do in Albany! Hell, *I'd* rather go to a Hannah Montana concert over anything else going on in Albany.

After taking a moment to absorb all this, the sponsor for the contest, Club Libby Lu, withdrew the prize. In other words, this woman lied about a dead soldier daddy in her daughter's name, won the prize for her daughter, who then finds her prize taken away from her because Mommy is a lying sack of shit. Now THAT'S a life lesson for you.

And the best thing of all? Mom doesn't think she did anything wrong! She felt totally justified in conjuring up a war hero so her daughter can see Hannah Montana! (In Albany!) "We wrote whatever we could to win," she said. "It said to write an essay. It never said it had to be true. I never said it was true. ... It was just an essay. We wrote whatever we could to win." Of course you know what this means: she's going to sue the store. You know it, I know it, the little birdies in the trees know it. She will actually have the gall to make money off her own stupidity. And some jerkoff lawyer will actually make a buck off this fiasco.

Priscilla Ceballos, has anyone informed you lately that you are an asshole? I really, really hope so. But I also hope your daughter doesn't get abused or insulted or otherwise humiliated in school or her neighborhood because of her asshole mother. As long as there is an internet, your name will be associated with frauds and liars, and your daughter will have a hard time escaping the toxic stench of your name. Finally, I hope you realize your wrongs and apologize to your daughter, your family, and those children who did lose a father or mother in Iraq. Otherwise, God only knows what you'll do if your daughter, years later, competes for a spot on her high school's cheerleading squad.

Yet another reason to boycott Wal-Mart

If you work at Wal-Mart...quit. I don't care if the alternative is homelessness. Heaven forbid you get into an accident. It's injustices like these that tempt me to write "ALERT!" chain letters.

I haven't purchased a single item at Wal-Mart in well over ten years, and the way they treat their employees, I never will.

I like my Southern cliches juicy and 16oz.

A Texas cliche, alive on your computer. Fight the sausage power!

Hurricane Moo-moo?

They named a hurricane after a cow?

Next thing you know, Florida is going to get hit by hurricane Sugarbelle. Then the terrorists will have won.

Shirtless at Wrigley Field

It was incredibly warm and humid, just like today. About a week and a half ago, my wife and I were watching a Cubs game and sweating through the sodas we had just drank five minutes before. Even the malt cups I bought were liquified by the time I got them to our seats. From our mid-level seats past the left-field foul line, we had a decent view of the field (actually, it's not easy to find crappy seats at Wrigley.) I looked up at the scoreboard, then down to the bleacher seats, historically a rowdier section. It was a sea of beer cups, Cubs caps, and half-naked men. A minute later, some frat-boy kid walked past my wife and I down the aisle, his shirt missing, his green and white-striped boxers peeking out from his saggy cutoff jeans.

I don't consider myself a prude. I like nudity, including my own (as long as I'm not near a mirror), and it's certainly reasonable that folks sweltering in 90-degree weather should find some relief through removing some clothing. (Personally, I prefer to keep my shirt on at Cubs games. The fear that Alfonso Soriano would lose sight of a fly ball because of the glare from my gut, costing the Cubs a trip to the World Series, keeps me awake at night. The Billy Goat curse, the Bartman curse, the Guido Gut curse...) But as I watched female fans suffering from the hot, humid air, I wondered: why can't women take off their shirts, too, and get some relief?

The issue evolved into a conversation between the wife and I that lasted nearly the entire fourth inning. After all, why shouldn't women have the right to doff their shirts if men do? (Hold on, there: I know what you're thinking: Rich the boob man makes his case with some serious ulterior motives. Nah. I still say keep the bra on. Our society ain't ready to go that far yet.)

Sure, there would be some controversy, especially if the female in question was young, attractive, and had a pleasing pair. But maybe she should pass this historic opportunity over to an older woman with a more conventional figure, someone whose partial nudity wouldn't cause as much of a scene in public. I wouldn't mind if some middle-aged lady, sweltering under the heat and sweating through her top, decided to get some relief and pull it off. Who likes wearing a sweat-soaked shirt anyway?

Let's face it: there should be some standard of fairness. Everyone can either go shirtless or they can't. Men shouldn't get away with walking around half-naked unless *everyone* can. And really, it's time to retire the baggy pants, especially if your taste in boxers sucks.

Tales of a fifth-grade orgy

Remember the good old days? You're in a fifth grade classroom, learning about multiplying fractions, and the teacher has to step out for a few minutes, leaving the entire classroom alone, which the worst thing a teacher could do, because the students were then unsupervised and could do horrible things like gossip or - horrors! - throw paper wads.

I don't think an orgy would have crossed any of our minds.

We were aware of sex at eleven years old. We all knew *something* was going on when the girls came back after Christmas break a foot taller than us boys and sprouting what look like golf balls under their Rick Springfield iron-on T-shirts. (So I'm dating myself. Sue me.) And the girls didn't exactly look they were ready to get it on, either: they would chatter away as usual, but buried beneath that composure was that awful thought: Everyone is staring at my breasts. I just *know* it. Yes, we boys were, and we hadn't quite learned the art of checking out breasts without making it so damned obvious, either. We hadn't learned the manly skills of the sideways glance, the double-blink, the [I'm not giving away all my secrets] - we were pretty much limited to the fish-eyed stare. But even then, we were only curious - we weren't quite ready to bang away at them, let alone in front of the classroom.

But this actually happened last week in a school in northern Louisiana. (Don't ya just love the Bible Belt?) Five kids have been arraigned, four for the boinking, one for acting as lookout. Three of them were eleven years old. So far, there's no indication of coersion - everyone involved were good, going, and game.

This story resonates on so many levels. It's definitely an indication of how low our public school systems have sunk. A teacher leaves a classroom for fifteen minutes for an assembly? Couldn't s/he take the kids with her/him? It's a school assembly, not a Masonic ritual. On the other hand, I'm almost relieved. At least nobody was stabbed or shot. If I had to choose between a classroom orgy and a classroom shooting, I guess I'd go with the sex. But I wouldn't be happy about it.

Oh Lord, I sued me in Lodi again

Only in America:

AP: LODI, Calif. -- A Lodi man is suing the city for driving a dump truck into his car. The strange thing is that he was the city employee driving the truck.

Lodi officials denied Curtis Gokey's $3,600 claim for the December accident because he was, in essence, suing himself. So he and his wife, Rhonda, decided to file a new claim under her name.

Rhonda Gokey's claim is for $1,200 more than Curtis'. She said that she is not as nice as her husband.

I love it!  I'm trying to figure out a way to sue myself, but I haven't had much luck.  The best method I can come up with is if I started my own razor blade company, cut myself on a razor blade, and sued my company for violating state safety regulations.  I figured if I had insurance for my company, they'd pay my legal fees, but then the state might end up fining me for violating the same state safety codes.  Unless I, the defendant, beat the lawsuit, in which case I'd have to pay myself ...umm... this isn't working out.  Perhaps I should go to bed now.

Targetting Target

The Christian right just gets loonier and loonier. Never mind that they're attempting to destroy democracy; they want to interfere in every aspect of our lives. And many corporations are all too willing to help.

As many of you are aware, Target allows their pharmacists to deny Plan B to those with a prescription based on their "religious beliefs." Now the company is defending itself by (get this) invoking the 1964 Civil Rights Act, originally designed to end discrimination against African-Americans, as their armor.

You'll note that, in their response, Target will only allow their pharmacists to invoke their religious beliefs to deny Plan B, and no other drug. That is, if you're a Target pharmacist, you can deny a rape victim plan B based on your religious beliefs, but you are NOT allowed to deny religious leaders (and congressmen) their boner-activation pills, even if they plan to use it to rape someone. Ain't corporations peculiar?

Wal-mart is an easy store to boycott. I don't even need to see the movie to know what they're about. I stopped buying items at Wal-mart (and Sam's Club) nearly ten years ago and have never gone back. But Target promotes itself as a flashier, more youth-oriented alternative to Wal-mart, and the Girlfriend and I have shopped there on occasion. Target was one of the stores on my wedding registry when I first got married. (There's nothing like running around a Target with a scan gun.) But until they change their policy towards Plan B, not one more of my dollars will be spent there. As a pro-lifer, I abhor abortion. I find the practice barbaric in the extreme. Unlike most other pro-lifers, however, I want to see abortion made obsolete, not illegal. This means that all people should have access to birth control and be educated as to their use. Denying Plan B to girls and women, particularly victims of rape and incest, practically forces an abortion on them. Target's policy is not just anti-woman, but anti-family.