Sunday, April 26, 2009

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Every Gay Man In The Country Mourns

Bea Arthur has died. I feel this news calls for a special tribute: a piece of cheesecake and a St. Olaf story on the lanai.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Now Where Did I Mislay That Eurpides...

The lure of the lost work is strong. How tantalizing, maddeningly tantalizing, to KNOW there were these works, but to be unable to read them, or even really know what they were about. Part of the exquisite agony that is bibliomania. To actually find one of them? I simply can't imagine the ecstasy.

(Via Books, Inq.)

Friday, April 17, 2009

"Pass The Splenda, Please! I'm Watching My Figure; This Bamboo Is So Fattening!"

Red pandas apparently like artificial sweeteners, the only non-primates thus far found to do so.

When Fetishwear Goes Very, Very Wrong

This is right here... words fail. I think the look on the guy's face says it all.



(Via Roids and Rants [NSFW])

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Questions That Trouble My Mind

Is that blonde chick in the Juicy Fruit commercials someone I'm supposed to know, or just a random actress/model/whatever? For some reason, I feel I "should" know who she is, but I don't.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Eat Your Heart Out, Octomom!

After twenty years, over fifty eggs, and forty-four chicks, this pair of ospreys just can't stop mating!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Aloha, Bo!

The First Family finally welcomes Bo, the much-anticipated First Dog! He's a Portuguese Water Dog, but not just any Portuguese Water Dog, oh no: he's a KENNEDY Portuguese Water Dog. Notice, too, that he's black and white. Damn I love the Obamas' sense of humor. I can't wait until he, like, saves the head of Hamas' child from drowning at a Camp David summit or something and brings peace to the Middle East.

(Via Wonkette)

Skimpy Sunday





(Via Roids and Rants [NSFW]; Vincent Lambert [NSFW])

Friday, April 10, 2009

Swish

Have you ever read something that hits so close to home, like someone has been rooting around in your private thoughts or reading your diary, that it's really, really uncomfortable? I just experienced such a feeling while reading Swish, squirming through a LOT of it from painful discomfort, both in seeing my own flaws writ on paper and from wondering WHAT IS JOSH DEHRER DOING IN MY MIIIND.

Though the details of our two lives are radically different, of course, his psychology and fears and neuroses are astoundingly similar to my own: the over-thinking, the need to be liked, the yearning for validation, the crippling anxiety about... everything, the insecurity, the conviction that you're just a totally crap as a gay man. Seriously, if you want to have an idea of what goes through my head, read the book. It's great anyway, BTW, by turns heartbreaking (the stuff about his mother and the ex-gay chapter? *OOOOF*) and funny, so you should read it for that, too.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Sidebar Additions

Judge A Book By Its Cover

Pretty much what the title says. A public librarian, her husband, and friends take a scathing look at the horrors of bad book covers.

Princess Sparkle Pony

I don't know why I hadn't added this before, since I read it every day at work. Anyway, a woofy Hairdresser at the National Gallery keeps track of Condi Rice, Michael Steele, and other crazy Republicans so we don't have to.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Ur-Walks Into A Bar Joke

A nun, a priest, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a rabbi and a blonde walk into a bar.

The bartender looks at them and asks, "Is this some kind of joke?"


(Via
Jokes.com)

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Oy Vey!

I'm not even Jewish, but if I had a dog, I'd still shop here. Check out the "faigeleh" bird and the moyel snipper!

(Via Judge A Book By Its Cover)

"Unnecessary" "Quotation" "Marks"

I'm so glad I'm not the only one whose ass gets totally chapped by this. Really, people, all you're doing is making me think you're really "ironic" or "something."

(Via Judge A Book By Its Cover)

Monday, April 06, 2009

Porn Depression

Is the one-two punch of the recession and tube sites killing gay porn? I sure hope not! I'm sorry, but free schmee, I have no interest in amateur porn. Watching grainy videos of faceless dudes jerking off? Not wank material for me. I need at least the pretense of production values.

(Via Towleroad)

I Hope They Smell Better On The Inside Than The Original!

Stay toasty out on the chilly glaciers of Hoth with this Tauntaun sleeping bag, complete with lightsaber and innards!

Seriously, though, is that not the geekily coolest thing ever? And the little kid in the Hoth get-up? Adorable! It was an April Fool's joke, but I'll bet you a pound of glitterstim it's a real product by the end of the year.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Friday, April 03, 2009

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Nature Vs. Nurture

There is a notion that a number of people have that finding the biological basis of homosexuality ("gay gene" or fetal hormone levels or a host of other possibilities) is the key to civil rights and social acceptance for gays. The thinking goes that if want we can say to homophobes, "See, we're born this way, so it's beyond our control! You can stop hating us now and let us get married!" But I think that is just a totally naive notion. Black people are born that way and have no control over their skin pigmentation, but plenty of people are still racists; so too would there be homophobes even if science proved homosexuality was innate. Bigotry is a stubborn, nasty thing, tenaciously clinging to the human psyche with tentacles of irrationality, fear, and hatred even in the face of empirical evidence or even simple reason. Those who already hate gay people will continue to do so. We'll just see some stunning hypocrisy about genetic engineering "to save our children!" And I can hear cries of, "People are born schizophrenic, but we still treat them!"

There is something a bit unsettling and self-hating about this notion of acceptance-via-biology, too, though I don't think a lot of people who hold this view realize it. It's like, "Yeah, it's dirty and shameful, but I was born with this affliction! Of course I'd rather be straight and normal, but I can't control my biology, so get off my case!" Not really a positive affirmation of self-acceptance, I'd say.

It doesn't matter if we're born gay or "choose" it or it's all our mothers' fault for putting lipstick on us that one time. We deserve civil rights such as marriage because we're human and we're citizens, because our love is just as real, our feelings just as valid, as anyone else's. We should be able to love who we want for whatever reason we want (within the bounds of sanity and consensuality), because we're free human beings. American history, is one long slog to live up to our extraordinary ideals, to bring what is universal, but abstract, into the realm of the particular, and actual. Those who deny the rights of gays or transgendered or any minority are on the losing side of history, betrayers of our national soul, small, frightened minds rejecting the human feeling and understanding that makes us worthwhile as a species and representing the worst impulses that make us damnable as a species.

BTW, personally, I do believe homosexuality is innate, but I think from what we can tell so far, there are a whole complex of causes, not just one "magic bullet."