Drivel Indeed

I was checking my blog stats a few minutes ago and something caught my eye.  A visitor was referred to my blog by way of the WordPress.Com search engine.  What term did they search for?  “big dicks”

*sigh*

Everyone is Pro-Life

A couple of my Facebook friends joined a group titled “LIFE – Let’s see how many pro-life people are on facebook,” which made me realize the stupidity and pomposity of the naming conventions surrounding the abortion issue.

The argument is primarily between two sides, those in the ‘Pro-Choice’ camp think it should remain a legal option while those in the ‘Pro-Life’ camp think that it should not.  I’ve noticed that often times this difference of opinion is frequently twisted around to make the argument about something else, be it morality, religion, faith, politics, feminism, gender equality and so on.  While these can be tools utilized by all of us to make our argument regarding this issue, all I’ve seen any of this do is further complicate the problem and the names don’t help.

‘Pro-Choice’ is fairly accurate in that its supporters believe that people should be able to choose to have an abortion, while its opponents think that the option shouldn’t be available, essentially making the ‘choice’ for those actually involved.  Rather than call themselves ‘Anti-Choice’ possibly due to the decidedly un-American vibe that phrase holds, the opposition chose a different term that sounds overwhelmingly positive: ‘Pro-Life.’

Unfortunately both sides chose titles that serve not only to strengthen the resolve of their supporters by offering what is essentially a semantically-positive rallying cry but to further polarize and confuse the issue.  How could anyone possibly be ‘anti-choice’ or ‘anti-life?’

The real goal that we should all be working toward is to reduce the number of abortions which, just like drug use and gun violence, simply can’t be achieved through legislation.  Perhaps the best first step is an overhaul in sexual education coupled with easier access to effective birth control.  We are all pro-life and we are all pro-choice, these are two of the attributes that bind us together as a society under the broader term ‘freedom.’

Midwest Gay

I wrote a new post about Ann Curry’s on-air experience with corporate censorship earlier today, and it reminded me of something funny that I experienced nearly a decade ago while I was in high school.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I attended a small public high school in a rural portion of the midwest.  Socially conservative, historically Republican and less diverse than Utah, it was a rough go for those of us capable of free thought.  Being called ‘gay’ was the worst possible insult for the males, though it never seemed to be used accurately.  Instead, it was what I call ‘Midwest Gay.’  It’s not ‘real’ gay, mind you.  The target’s sexual inclinations were presumed hetero as homosexuals were either non-existent or totally invisible.  The sight of a gay person would have probably caused the agitator’s head to explode, raining down hate, ignorance and bigotry in a bloody mess of intellectual inferiority all over the gymnasium.  I became Midwest Gay pretty early into my freshman year despite having been threatened with suspension for making out with a cheerleader on school property.  It being a small school, news traveled exceptionally fast and there was no such thing as a secret, so I’m sure everyone heard about it within seconds.  Just how did I manage to acquire the label then, you ask?

- I taped a brief and edited version of Joseph Lewis’ An Atheist Manifesto to the outside of my locker.  I wasn’t necessarily an atheist, I just didn’t like having Christian doctrine rammed down my throat every other day and I knew that such an action would at least open up a dialogue.  Unfortunately, the dialogue consisted of a few dozen juveniles calling me gay (and all of its colorful derivatives) and frequently informing me of my inevitable descent into the fiery depths of hell where I’d be spending all of eternity for hating baby Jesus.  On the upside, I hate cold weather and I’m guessing that there aren’t too many snowy days near The Lake.

- There was a display case in the hallway outside of the library that was used to call attention to different literary periods throughout history.  During the time in which the focus was on the Renaissance, a miniature version of Michelangelo’s David was prominently displayed in the case but with a tiny piece of paper taped conveniently over his genitals.  I explained to the librarian just how ridiculous it was that she felt that one of the most famous sculptures in the world needed to be censored in an attempt to protect the sensitivities of a bunch of high school students, but to no avail.  The statue had a penis and a penis is indecent.  Period.  I then got to spend the next few weeks overhearing people in the hallways saying things like “That’s the gay pervert that wants to see guys’ dicks.”

- While sitting in an English class one day I was handed a piece of paper composed by the same librarian of Art Censorship Infamy suggesting books that all of us planning to go to college should read, conveniently separated into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ sections.  Of course, the first book listed in the ‘non-fiction’ section was *drumroll* the Christian Bible.  I asked my English teacher why it was listed there when it clearly didn’t belong.  She responded by saying “Of course it does!”  I argued and was then told to either shut up or leave the classroom and report to the principal’s office for being disruptive.  I gladly left, taking the paper with me and coincidentally arrived at the office at exactly the same time as the librarian, so I asked her about the list.  I was then accused of starting trouble and stirring things up for no reason.  I assured her that that was certainly not the case, just that I felt that the book was wrongly categorized.  I even went so far as to offer a compromise: put a third section on the list titled ‘Religious Texts’ and include the Bible, the Tanakh, the Talmud, the Koran, the Book of Mormon and so on.  I wasn’t against them recommending a religious text, I was just pissed that a public high school was clearly endorsing a specific religion and presenting it as truth.  Much to my dismay, though I had predicted this outcome, the list wasn’t altered and I became Midwest Gay-er.

- I was once asked by one of my male classmates point-blank in the cafeteria while eating lunch if I was gay.  I responded by asking “Why?  Looking for a date to prom?”  In hindsight, that probably didn’t help quell any rumors.

- During my junior year a former professional athlete of some sort (Football?  Wrestling?  I can’t remember.  He was big, though.) came to our school and an assembly was held.  The first thirty minutes or so of his speech were really interesting as the man spoke of the wealth he had amassed and how he wasted most of it on drugs and women.  Then he found Christ and his life changed dramatically.  If we wanted to find similar happiness then he suggested we do the same and become born-again Christians just like he did.  It was at this point that I stood up, walked down the bleachers and across the floor directly in front of him as he continued to preach.  I was stopped by the principal, threatened with suspension (noticing any common themes?) for disrupting an assembly, then forced to stand in the hallway until the end of his speech, still within earshot.  They maintain that I was told that I didn’t have to attend, though they couldn’t find anyone who could confirm that anyone had actually told me this.  I had ceased to be Midwest Gay by this point, though, because I had become good friends with one of the captains of the football team and remain so to this day, having even been the Best Man in his wedding some years ago.

I suppose the lesson here is that all it takes to legitimize a person, product or idea is one celebrity endorsement, which is why we should all be scared shitless of Scientology.

Cheers To Ann Curry

While watching Today on NBC this morning I was underwhelmed by a couple of the stories they aired, several of which served to propagate the typical ‘doom-and-gloom’ media hype I’ve come to expect from television.  For instance, some jackass killed a bunch of people in Alabama, so did another in Germany.  These are stories that would usually be reported ad nauseam but then a bit of good news trickled in toward the end of the first hour.  For starters, Citi reported a profit (easy to do when your losses are wiped away with a magic, taxpayer-funded wand), Wall Street ‘rallied‘ yesterday, Madoff may go to prison for the rest of his life and apparently Obama told those who disagree with his stimulus plan to blow it out their collective ass.  It’s always fun to see a President say something firm when that something isn’t also retarded (I’M THE DECIDER, DAMMIT!).

Then the hosts did something fun: Matt, Meredith, Al and Ann went to the New York Academy of Art in NYC to paint.  They ‘warmed up’ by drawing a bowl of fruit, then moved on to painting a couple of nude models.  As the scene was filmed, any bit of the models’ so-called ‘intimate parts’ that happened to make its way into the shot was pixelated thanks to our archaic social rules regarding the human body.  For fuck’s sake, people, the one thing that every person has in common is a naked body…how could the most common thing in humanity possibly be considered indecent?!  I hope to god that reincarnation is real so that I can come back to this country in a few thousand years once the average level of common sense has progressed beyond that of a common house fly.  But I digress…

While the hosts were painting their works were not displayed to the television audience, presumably so that they could be revealed to us at the end of the segment with some sort of anti-climactic flourish.  It turns out that I was half-right.  The segment did end with the paintings being revealed to the audience, but there most certainly was a point where my blood pressure reached what can only be described as a climax.  The previously-mentioned ‘intimate parts’ were covered with pixelated tape.  The painted intimate parts.  The fake intimate parts.  The ones that, judging by the astonishing level of photo-realism displayed by the painted non-intimate parts, probably looked much like the bowl of fruit drawn earlier.

So what did Ann Curry do?  She reached over to her painting and ripped the pixelated tape covering the breasts of the female figure she had painted right off of the canvas as Matt gave a half-assed attempt at covering it with a red cloth.  So what did the painted breasts look like?  Grab the nearest CD or DVD and imagine it flesh-colored.  Salacious, no?

So I say to you, Ann Curry, cheers for understanding that nudity is not inherently bad – especially not an artistic representation of nudity – and for standing up on behalf of common sense!

As I was typing this, another segment aired regarding breast cancer in women.  During the segment four x-ray images of different breasts were shown, void of any pixelation.  Other than context (art versus medicine), what’s the difference?  Both are images depicting breasts, neither one looked necessarily realistic and both were created in two dimensions.  So what the hell, NBC?  Are breasts offensive and deserving of censoring or not?

PETA Confusion

Don’t bother asking how, but I ended up reading the Wikipedia entry about PETA, the animal rights group.  PETA stands for ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,’ which is certainly a noble concept.  I don’t think that animals should be treated cruelly, unnecessarily restrained or otherwise inhibited as they go about living their lives.  However, I’m confused by some of the group’s policies and positions as they are laid out in the aforementioned entry.  Their official website is similarly complex but it has less to do with their specific positions on certain issues and more to do with finding out exactly what they are, especially when the damn page won’t load properly for me.

Let’s start with the name, which acknowledges that a distinction between humans and all other animals exists in that people are the only creatures known to exist that are capable of intentionally treating other creatures in an ethical manner.  We have conquered virtually our entire planet and, by extension, every other species with which we co-exist.  While this allows us practically limitless power over our world, it is not without a large degree of responsibility.  The vast majority of us agree that human life is more valuable than that of any other persuasion, plant or animal.  This exists in stark contrast to what I perceive to be the organization’s overall message that animals are just as valuable, if not more so, than humans are.

The president and co-founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, was quoted in September of 1989 by Vogue as having said “Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.”  Allow me to reiterate my position that I am indeed against the commission of cruel acts against animals, but isn’t sacrifice in the interest of the greater good a noble act?  Perhaps she would argue that the difference lies in the absence of choice for the animal: the rat wasn’t given the opportunity to choose a life outside of a lab.  While this is true, it is so for the same reason that we travel in space shuttles to the moon while all other animals achieve locomotion only to the extent that their own biological faculties allow.  In other words, humans are intelligent, self-aware creatures while all other animals are, comparatively speaking, dumb.  If a human gets sick, we can usually make ourselves better.  If an animal or plant falls ill, it is almost always a death sentence unless we selfish humans intervene on their behalf.  Isn’t taking an animal to a veterinarian against its will the same deprivation of liberty of which this organization rallies against, despite this being – unbeknownst to the animal – in the animal’s best interest?  Perhaps the issue here is what species benefits from human intervention into the lives of animals, rather than the well-being of the animals themselves.  If PETA intends to argue on behalf of the animal, that the animal should ultimately choose its own path in the world, then that argument applies in all situations regardless of how obvious the ridiculous nature of any hypothetical situation may be.

While promoting a vegetarian or vegan diet as the best course for all to take, PETA seems to overlook one important fact: meat is delicious.  Who cares if it’s unhealthy?  This is a society that chain smokes, drives intoxicated, engages in recreational drug use, trades exercise for hours in front of the television and refuses to teach its children anything of real value regarding sex.  Personal health is of superficial importance to us, especially when the alternative is pleasurable, fun or tasty.

Perhaps most famously, PETA works to end the use of animal parts in clothing and fashion.  I had always assumed that this was because they are against the slaughter of animals, but I was intrigued to find out that PETA is far from being against killing.  During 2007, PETA euthanized nearly 2,000 animals, in Virginia alone.  If that is an average number per state, then it can be extrapolated that the nationwide number is around 100,000 animals, dead at the hands of an organization that claims to exist solely for their protection.  The organization admits that euthanizing is a necessary evil (especially pit bulls), and they claim to work toward reducing the number killed by spaying and neutering domesticated animals.

Continuing the theme of protecting animals from unscrupulous acts by humans, PETA has set circuses, zoos and the affiliated acts such as Jack Hanna and the late Steve Irwin in their sights.  While I somewhat agree with their position on this (filming is fine, touching is not), I’m interested to know what they think of the new show “The Exterminators” on A&E in which a camera crew follows around a team of exterminators in Louisiana.  The name of the show is a bit misleading, though, as the ‘exterminators’ have said multiple times on the show that they only kill animals as a last resort, instead preferring to trap the pests in a manner as humane as possible then release them as far away from humans as they can.  I’m sure they would support this as another ‘necessary evil,’ but doesn’t it also go against interfering with the animals’ free will?

I think that PETA’s sweet and peaceful bunny image on their website is meant to be ironic given their unwavering support of militant activism in achieving their goals.  The organization has supported:

• Those who throw paint on fur coats
• Those who throw pies at their opposition
• Giving animal carcasses and boxes filled with their entrails to those they oppose
• Damaging or defacing private property
• Funding the legal defense of those who have set fires, attempted murder and committed other illegal acts on behalf of animals
• The comparison between the treatment of animals in America to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, slaves and Native Americans in early America, child laborers in third-world countries and other oppressed groups

These tactics combined with their anti-meat and anti-animal testing positions are the things that keep me from supporting PETA in any way.  Perhaps there exists some middle ground in which animals are processed in painless slaughterhouses that utilize methods that cause an instantaneous death following a clean, pain-free (although relatively short) life.  We could ban the use of fur in fashion, close all circuses and zoos except for situations in which containment is the only chance for the animal’s survival.  Unfortunately, though, I suppose that these advances wouldn’t be enough for PETA because animals would still be dying prematurely.

We do have an enormous responsibility to interact in an ethical manner with the world around us but the thing I think PETA seems to be forgetting is that above all else, we have a duty to ourselves to ensure that the well-being and continuation of humanity comes first.