Beeping Homosexuality

It's hard to say who I'm more disgusted with at the moment, CBS or my radio station.

As I'm sure you've heard, CBS blurred a kiss between Adam Lambert and his male keyboardist at the American Music Awards.

If that's not bad enough, they left a simulation dance move of oral sex between Adam Lambert and a dancer unblurred. If you're going to blurr something, blurr something that's, you know, actually inappropriate under broadcasting standards. As opposed to kissing. Which you can probably find on one channel or another at ANY hour of the day.

What makes this even worse, they had previously showed footage Madonna and Britney Spears tongue kissing. Their excuse is that the Madonna image has been seen frequently, but the Adam Lambert image is of "current controversy". Oh please, a seven year old could come up with a more believable excuse than that.

Political correctness aside, in terms of acceptance, girl-on-girl stuff gets off easier than guy-on-guy stuff. I don't know why this is, perhaps the long-standing unreasonable loathing of sodomy (despite the fact an awful lot of straight couples participate in that as well) or the equally long-standing ridiculous connection of gay men with pedophiles. Maybe it's the double standard that girls are allowed to break gender stereotypes as much as they want, but if guys do, they're "weird". Maybe it's all of them. Can we get a sociologist in here?

The point is that I have little doubt the blurring of the kiss was based in homophobia, and that's wrong. Hopefully CBS will take note of the public reaction.

Now, about my radio station (That's misleading, it's not "mine" it's just the one I listen to).

Just today I was listening to it and Hedley's Cha-Ching was playing. The song is a riff on reality TV and the stupidity of it. One of the shows it references is A Shot At Love with Tile Tequila, the specific lines being "Pretending to be lesbians/and Tila's playin' all of them". The word lesbian was beeped.

Yep, I didn't know it was a swear word either. (End sarcasm)

I do not know if this was a decision by the station itself or higher up, but you can be sure that they will be receiving an angry letter from me very soon. I'll update you with the results of this. Cheers.

Home for The What Now?

Before I begin this blog I would just like to say sorry for the inactivity. Kitty and I are very busy with schoolwork and other things. We'll try to be a bit more regular. It'll be a short one today.

In addition to my "Pink BullShirt Day" blog from a while ago, here is an excellent essay by a friend of mine on the same subject (I have to say, she said it way better than I did): http://thetwilightrouge.deviantart.com/art/The-Magical-Pink-Shirts-141308749

Today I am blogging about a rather unique debate going on in light of the upcoming holiday season. A few people have complained about some stores' usage of the word "holiday" in place of "Christmas".

I could be wrong but this seems to be more of an issue in the U.S.A. than in Canada but that isn't really relevant.

The people in question are saying that if a company uses "holiday" it means they are "against Christmas".

I don't think the companies that are making/have made the switch to holiday instead of Christmas are trying to exclude people who celebrate Christmas. Actually I'm quite sure they're including them.

Many, many cultures and religions have holidays that fall within the month of December. Just to name a few: Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Sinterklaas, New Year's Eve, HumanLight, Eid al-Adha, Solstice, and a heck of a lot more.

Canada and America are both patchwork cultures with exceeding amounts of diversity. So when large companies that have stores all across America and Canada use holiday instead of Christmas, they're just trying to be inclusive to everyone. When you just use Christmas, sure you may be including a large group but you're also leaving a lot of people out.

And I don't see how the word "holiday" is "against Christmas", it includes Christmas just as it does all the other holidays. Christmas IS a holiday, I really don't see the issue here. I, personally, celebrate Christmas and I don't feel offended by any of this. In fact, it makes me happy that big companies are being inclusive and tolerant.

That's all for now folks, we'll hopefully get back to you shortly.

Rant Saturday!!

God, I'm changing days of the week each time I do this, eh? Hehe...

So this time's topic? Meh...Let's go with The Eagle Forum!

Alright, it's pretty much their Mission Statement that pisses me off the most. So here I go!

"...Our first task is to assimilate the millions of non-English-speaking foreign born who are legal residents." Yeah...take out the different culture from the states. That fixes every one's problems. Yup. 100%. (That's not xenophobic at ALL)

"We support the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed in the Second Amendment." Because, you know, it's good to keep guns in your homes nowadays when the Amendment was written WAY BACK WHEN THE BRITISH WERE GOING TO INVADE!!!

"...and the equally important roles of father and mother." What about Mother and mother, or father and father? Wait..they don't want gays getting married or being together because gay parents only raise gay children, just like straight parents only raise straight children. (My voice is just dripping with sarcasm.)

"...defeat the misnamed Equal Rights Amendment with its hidden agenda of tax-funded abortions and same-sex marriages." OK...So they're saying they don't support pro choice and gays at all....yeah. Great. Freaking great. What if there's a single mother with 5 kids and she's pregnant again and if she has that last child she'll be put out on the street? Then what? 'Oh don't worry about being homeless, as long as you don't have an abortion it doesn't matter that you're out on the street with all you kids, because you didn't get an abortion!'

Now to move onto other things with them...and my always loved sarcasm. Let's move onto their little things with feminists!

From one post about how the move Juno explains feminism. "...what the feminists call an unplanned pregnancy after initiating a loveless one-night incident with a classmate named Paulie" Well...when a female has sex with someone and gets pregnant and not meaning to...it's kind of is and UNPLANNED PREGNANCY.

"The movie's message is that no man should have anything to say about a baby for whom he is financially responsible." ..........Not even if he's the father? What troubles me the most is what the title is 'The Movie Juno Explains Feminism.' Let me make one thing clear MOST FEMINISTS AREN'T AGAINST MALES OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT! They're just pro-female. Like "We can do most things, just as well of guys even though we have a vagina!"

"...triumph of feminist ideology, i.e., the irrelevancy of men, especially fathers." Read what I have JUST written on the above comment.

"...feminism has made fatherlessness acceptable in our society." No...it's all the DIVORCES that have made it acceptable, because of all the stupid people who can't make it work with one another and want to take the easy way out.

"...this movie reflects today's high school culture: sexual activity without marriage, crude pictures on the walls, vulgar language, a girl smoking a pipe, unattractive clothes, uncombed hair, enjoyment of slasher movies and weird music..." So, the lady who runs the Eagle Forum thinks we aren't allowed to like that stuff or be different? Man...even some ADULTS like weird music, slasher films, have sex without marriage and use inappropriate language. What do you classify them as then? Outcasts? Not adults?

I would like to end this off with a final note: The lady who runs the Eagle Forum has some SERIOUS issues that could be helped with therapy. Thank you, and have a great f'en day.

Pink Bull-Shirt Day

I would like to mention that this blog was inspired by a well-written rant-turned-essay by a very good friend of mine, who I'll call L. Thanks L, I hope this measures up to yours.

Once upon a time(September 2007) in a far away place(Nova Scotia) there was a ninth-grade boy who wore a pink shirt to the first day of school. Most everyone in the school couldn't care less about what he wore on his own person but two other boys decided to go up to him, call him gay and threaten to beat him up. A truly lousy start to high school if I've ever heard one.

But two kind souls by the name of Travis Price and David Shepard heard this decided that they couldn't just sit by and do nothing. So they marched down to the store and picked up 50 pink shirts to pass out at school the next day, they also emailed hundreds of students to participate. The result? A sea of of hundreds of pink shirts meeting the eyes of the boy and the two bullies the next day. The ninth-grader was overjoyed and the bullies never came near him again.

Now before I go on, I would like to express how UTTERLY AWESOME I think this is and I would be if I was ever to meet these two boys or someone like them. I believe they got some sort of award for their efforts, they better have. Talk about fighting for what's right.

But moving on, this wonderful event has caused many many schools across Canada and the States to adopt a yearly "Pink Shirt Day" where students wear pink shirts and usually get a group yearbook photo taken.

Nice concept, but something about this rubs me the wrong way.

Probably because that wearing pink shirts is ALL they're doing. I haven't heard of any exceptions to this(there probably are and if so, I apologize). And if students individually chose to wear pink shirts on a specific day to commemorate the wonderful thing those boys did, or if the school held seminars or a huge assembly to watch a documentary about Columbine or any other bullying-caused school shooting then I would be totally behind this.

But when the school just goes "Yeah let's all wear pink shirts to fight bullying! WHOO! SCHOOL SPIRIT!" it becomes a huge joke: "LOOK AT ME, I'M LIKE, WEARING A PINK SHIRT AND I'M A GUY LOLOLOLOLOL!!!"

Or in the very least, similar to wearing a political button because you thought the button was cute.

And I'm sure a lot of kids wearing the shirts are doing it in support of the anti-bullying campaign but it just isn't actually DOING anything.

Allow me to make an extended metaphor: When I was in eighth grade, my teacher was picking on me and being mean to me for no reason whatsoever (She also did lots of other things like verbally sexually harass a male student and make us have silent reading for two hours while she went on Facebook on a school computer, but that's another tale for another day) so my mother and I did what we were supposed to and called the school to discuss what to do about the issue. Their solution was to send me to the guidance counsellor every day for an hour or so and they apparently reprimanded my teacher.

We talked a lot.

The teacher continued to make me miserable for the rest of the school year.

The closest thing to a solution that was ever offered was "Try to look at her in a different light" (I'll write a poem about that, and I'll call it "Different Ways of Looking At Being Humiliated in Front of My Class").After a month I said "To heck with this" and stopped going to the counselling sessions.

So really all it was was a whole lot of talking and not a lick of doing.

And that's what "Pink Shirt Day" is now, a whole lot of students prancing around in pink and not doing a bloody thing. Not even talking about it.

Single Sex Classrooms

Recently there's been some debate about single sex classrooms. For anyone who doesn't know, single sex classrooms is the general term applied to segregating schools by gender. Girls in one class, boys in another.

There are a lot of good arguments for single sex classrooms. The biggest one being that girls are two years ahead of boys in terms of development so segregating would allow more individualized attention to the different developmental stages. And that it would help subvert traditional gender roles because students would feel more free without the opposite sex around.

I have also heard of but cannot confirm the existence of a study that showed segregated students doing 10% better on tests. This was said by my slightly sexist English teacher from last year so I wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

I acknowledge the value of these arguments, but I have to disagree very strongly.

I've been a student for quite a while now, my academic progress has been hampered by bad teachers, bullies picking on me, and the crappy IEP system(I'll rant long and hard about this in a future post), but I cannot say that my academic progress has ever been hampered by the presence of males in my classroom. In fact, it probably was better but I'll explain that later.

Single sex classrooms worked just fine back in long-ago times when there was a San Andreas Fault between the sexes in society. When girls stayed home and sewed and cooked and cleaned and boys went out and worked. Society isn't like that anymore. Both sexes can go into the exact same careers. There's no reason to have separate education except for Physical Education in high school because of physiological differences.

We'd be doing all kids a great disservice if we had single sex education. Whether we like it or not, segregating schools will only cause tension and division in the student body.

While students may (I say this hesitantly because I don't believe it to be true) feel more willing to break free of traditional sex roles in the class room, being almost entirely separated from the opposite sex students in the school will the make them this unknown enigma that they don't get the opportunity to try to understand. And as we've seen many times, people often react to what they don't know about with fear and anger.

Socially it's a very bad idea. Most school-age students don't get much interaction with their peers outside of school. If they don't get opportunities to learn about the opposite sex while they're in school, even though they get recess together that's less than two hours out of an entire day, they'll probably never grow out of the "boys are stupid/girls are icky" thought process and we'll re-open the San Andreas Gender Fault even wider than it was originally.

And perhaps coeducation is slightly detrimental to their academics, BUT:
A) Everyone has to eventually LEAVE SCHOOL and go live their lives and whether you got an 80 or a 90 on your math tests isn't relevant to the big picture.
and B) Isn't this a bad attitude to enforce? "These people work differently than us so we won't work with them at all." Great life skill to teach there.

And let's be honest here. This environment will only breed extreme sexism and turn out a bunch of kids (unless they're parents teach them VERY strongly otherwise) who see the opposite sex as "less than".

More honesty: A large amount of middle school and high school age girls are extremely catty. Shoving 20-30 of them in classrooms together all day, with no balance of boys(who usually aren't catty, someone should do a scientific study on this. Or at least a documentary on The Passionate Eye.) will only amp up the social drama and decrease academic proficiency. Like girls don't get picked on enough.

As a female student, I would never ever EVER want to be a in a gender-segregated school. What may be slightly good academically speaking, is a horrible idea socially speaking. Life is all about balance, let's keep taking steps forward instead of taking 20 steps back.

Also, if your child is doing badly in school because there are members of the opposite sex in their class, you have bigger issues to sort out.

Homophobia and a bit of book banning.

(Kind of switch topics on you Meghan...Sorry! ^.^'' love you!)

So most people have probably heard at least someone say once (wither it be in the class, or outside of school) "That's so/ your so gay."

Well, what does that actually mean? Why do people use that sexuality to offend others?

Well...To answer the second question: Because people in schools (though it isn't As frequent nowadays) get harassed because of their sexuality, so others (usually the ones harassing people) then use that to offend others, who are most likely perfectly straight.

Now for the first question: What does being homosexual actually mean? Well..It means liking the same gender. Is that so horrible?

Well, I guess it is to a lot of people. And books with even a bit of "Sexual content" (I.e: A 'Disney' type kiss) is horrible and should be banned.

It's like "Yes children being exposed to pornography damages them BUT THIS ISN'T PORNOGRAPHY IT'S WORDS! JUST WORDS! Not even the whole book! Just a few select pages! If you have a kid who reads this books purely for the sex scenes, you have bigger problems! And to be blunt, most kids who are reading books usually aren't the "WOOHOO! DRUGS ALCOHOL SEX PARTYYYYYYY" crowd!" -Meghan (Over MSN today)

But honestly, back to the homophobia issue: Meghan found a few stupid posts by Ginny (cant spell her last name) on twitter...

"Being bombarded with taxpayers who are ready to come and fight against gay/porn for youth in our library tonite.8:53 AM Mar 3rd from web
Networked with many today. All on board regarding local library issue. Homosexual books for teens on shelves. Lots of reinforcements.2:52 PM Mar 1st from web
it gets worse
# Meeting with library director tonight to discuss homosexual books for little kids in our library. Step 2 in complaint process.3:38 PM Feb 25th from web
# Sean Penn must be proud of his win so he could advocate for gay marriage. ICK. Shut the TV off after THAT one.6:12 AM Feb 23rd from web
Referring to Sean Penn's speech when he got Best Actor Oscar for Milk." (sorry for the big clump of it.)

And she says it's not about homosexuality...Yeah...sure.

Anyways, I think I have tackled this issue enough and shall hopefully blog again soon! :D

Rant Saturday!!

(Kitty is staying over at my house and forgot her password, so this is actually her post.)

Instead of ranting this Monday, I (Kitty) shall rant on Saturday this time! Again: Please be warned of...uh...coarse language.

And the topic?

Very simple: Ginny Maziarka.

Her posts relating to "Inappropriate" books is really pissing me off! I mean honestly! Like Boy Meets Boy (Refer to Meghan's previous blog post) It's more PG then most DISNEY MOVIES!!!

And her view on Obama? "So here's the deal. Compare the above and the following with a leader from past history. Pick anyone you like. I'll pick......Hitler." (Referring to the I pledge Video)

Pretty soon she'll be wanting to ban children! It'll go like this: Because of our children and wanting to protect them, we'll have to rate Disney movies 'R' for having a kiss scene, put certain stickers on Cd's for saying 'shoot', and National Geographic magazines will need parental permission for buying them!

So, why bother with it? Why don't we just ban children? I man, it would solve all our problems. We could actually be fully free after banning children! They're the source of the problems!

Anyways, back to the Obama problem. In the I Pledge video, she tells us how controversial people are with their pledges:
"To reduce my use of plastic … use less bottled water … plant 500 trees this year … to be more green … to no longer use plastic bags at the grocery store" Because helping to save the environment is soo horrible.
"I pledge to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid." Yup, helping the environment and economy is the worst thing in the world.
"I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama." Yup, that's controversial all right...Promising to be of service to Obama. That makes perfect sense.

Back to the Hitler issue,

WHY THE HELL IS SHE COMPARING HIM TO FREAKING HITLER?!?!?!

Right, because the similarities are immense.:
"The evidence that Obama = Hitler is pretty convincing. Consider: they both have brown hair, two syllables in their first name, and are taller than 5'5" yet shorter than 6'5". If that isn't evidence enough, consider that both men, celebrated Christmas, wears glasses, gives flowers to their wives, and so on. Srsly, folks, you don't have to be a dining room table to make the connection."
From Sleepless In West Bend.

"As I said earlier as well... The Nazi's also liked labeling things (Jews with the Star of David) and putting them in their own sections (concentration camps), just like Ginny."-DanBack.

"Ginny thinks any comment that doesn't buy the line of crap she is selling is disrespectful. I have a screenshot of some of the comments she has deleted - things as horribly disrespectful as' The 2nd open challenge has been issued: Please explain your objection to the completely non-sexual "Heather Has Two Mommies", and tell us what you want the library to do with it.

Pretty tame, huh? It's not like the person called her a fat homophobic Nazi bookslut. Which she totally isn't, and it would be totally wrong to call her that."-DanBack (again...Man I love that guy.)

Now back to the rant.

She says she's protecting our children from things like gays, lesbians, and all those good people, and prevents children from being exposed to things that aren't good for children in PUBLIC libraries.

She needs to think, just once about what she's doing. A library is for everyone not just for her. If she doesn't like what books are in the library GET THE HELL OVER IT! If one book may not be good for her, may help someone else. But she never thinks about that. I bet she doesn't even bother reading any of the books she tries to ban. (Or 'challenge') She just reads the blurb and says "Oh, this seems bad...I'd better try and get this banned."

And now for my conclusion: Thank you very much for reading this (If you haven't stopped half way through) and have a good...few days? Week? Whenever Either me or Meghan decide to post next. (hopefully soon) So now..Goodbye!