Supreme Court tries to touch me

When yesterday's news came out about SCOTUS' intention to consider gay marriage, I felt anger. I always have this reaction when strangers think they have have a right to say anything about my life and my rights.

I won't go into a big harangue here. But how is this different from the U.A.E. making decisions about what women can and can't do? No one has the slightest right to tell anyone else how to live his or her life. If you're not harming others, you're free to engage in any action you choose. This is the basis of human life.

Honestly, I get sick each time this comes up.

Interesting choice

There's an interesting AP article this morning about the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Go read it. He's a strange mix of things. I'll give one small excerpt:

In 2007 he was appointed dean of Liverpool Cathedral, Britain's largest church. He caused a bit of controversy there by allowing the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine" to be played on the cathedral bells. 

He also approves the ordination of women and says his notions about gays are "evolving". (I think he cribbed that line.)

Good news on the election front

I'm glad Obama was re-elected. But only because he was the lesser of two evils. The drone-killer incumbent beat the onrushing emperor of greed. Whoopee, sorta.

But of course the other election results were uplifting. Women, gays, pot and health were all winners. I'm very happy for Elizabeth Warren. Beating her male-model opponent was huge. Tammy Baldwin is another major win. And dog bless Claire McCaskill. I won't list all the uplifting wins. It's enough to say that the good guys won and the bad guys lost (with the exception of that damned idiot, Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of ugliness). Back to the good stuff: Gay marriage won a popular vote! First time ever. And hey, pot is legal in Washington state. That's going to help to turn the tide nationally. The time for viewing marijuana through a clouded rightwing lens is over.

And let's admit there's great joy when pondering some of the losses. Linda McMahon can suit up and hit the wrestling mats this morning. She's a free woman (with a lot less money). It's also gratifying to see Allen West lose his election. Sanity won out! And in a way, it's fun that Michelle Bachmann was re-elected. She's comedy gold and after all, it's only the House of Representatives. Everyone sees the House as a freak show these days. It's where she belongs.

I went to bed at 11 last night, figuring the results would still be there when I woke up. When I got up this morning, I reached for my iPad and asked Siri who won the election. She had no clue. She can tell me the score in the Giants game in a split second, but this question threw her. She asked me if I wanted her to look for an answer to that question on Google. I said no, I want you to answer it. She then asked if I wanted to look up "I want you to answer it" on the web. Oy.

But my computer revealed the truth and it was a sight to behold. As I say, Obama? Meh. But everything else was fabulous. Even the Macaca guy, George Allen, lost his election. There is a god. (Just kidding.) So how are the rest of you feeling about the election this morning? Are you watching Fox News to suck up the Schadenfreude? Mmmmmm. Smells good.

PS: And a huge middle finger to the Roman Catholic church, the greatest loser in this election. How'd all those illegal political entreaties from the pulpit go for ya? Not too good, huh? You and your evil minions, like NOM, look like cesspools this morning. How's that feel? Oh, and is the pope a little dyspeptic this morning? Good!

The damn robe

Last weekend I watched "Carnival of Sinners" -- not to be confused with "Carnival of Souls". It's a French horror movie made in 1943 and there were subtitles -- which I don't mind as long as I can see them. Anyway, it's one of those pact with the devil movies. I enjoyed it.

Watching this old movie reminded me of something that always irks me. In movies from the 40s, there are often scenes where a woman goes to bed. Of course it's a canopied bed in a palatial room. And just before she tucks herself in, she lays a perfectly folded, diaphanous, multi-layered robe across the bottom of the bed.

And then she slips into bed as easily as if she was a record slipping into its jacket. (Old time reference; seems suitable. Look up "records", kids.) There is no friction. She lays still immediately and goes to sleep.

Later, she's awakened by a sound. She's still lying in exactly the same position. She slips out of bed and reaches for the robe -- which is lying in exactly the same place and position on the bed. This really bothers me.

I'm lucky if the mattress is still on the bed when I wake up in the morning. A robe laid carefully across the foot of my bed? Hah. It'd be on the floor, and somehow would have pulled itself half-under the bed.

But everything was perfect in those old days, and the most perfect thing of all was the women. Women never move when they sleep. They don't perspire. And they wake up with perfect make-up and hair. Super women, that's what they were.

Iran snubs half its population

Today's NYT:

Subjects now open only to men include accounting, engineering and pure chemistry, according to the Iranian news Web site Rooz Online. The University of Tehran, for example, will now accept only male applicants for subjects relating to natural resources, forestry and mathematics. Most petroleum-related subjects have also been made exclusive to men. 

“Some fields are not very suitable for women’s nature,” said Abolfazl Hasani, a senior Iranian education official, according to the Rooz Online report. 

Also note:

Women account for nearly 60 percent of university students in Iran.

Religion poisons everything.

Popey guy spouts more nonsense

Vatican (oops) GOP panel.

You learn something new every day. Here's the lede for a popey guy story in the Times:

Vatican City (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has called on infertile couples to shun artificial procreation, saying such methods are a form of arrogance.

Are you roaring with laughter yet? Arrogance? This, from the prime agent of human arrogance. They really have no sense of irony. The story goes on:

Benedict spoke Saturday at the end of a 3-day Vatican conference on diagnosing and treating infertility. Reiterating Vatican teaching, he called marriage the only permissible place to conceive children.

Two things here are funny. First, the very fact that the all-male vatican loons held a conference on infertility. It's just like the recent Republican panel on contraceptives: a bunch of pinhead men focusing on matters that concern women. It's rich.

The other thing is this idea of referring to marriage as "the only permissible place" to conceive children. Now, I had no idea marriage was a place. I really didn't. Now everything makes perfect sense! They don't want gays to marry and have children in this place that is marriage. On account of, you know, it'll get crowded there. I really, really didn't know that marriage was like a city or a country club. Silly me. I thought it was a simple, straightforward arrangement between two like-minded people.

Thank dog we have the popey guy to clear stuff like this up for us. Thanks, popey guy!

Are gay men similar to straight women?

I know, I know: stereotypes. But what the heck, let's play with the idea. I'd say gay men are like straight women in certain ways, but like straight men in others. People don't notice the last bit but it's true, too. We're guys and that means we share many innate traits with virtually any guy we meet. It's not PC to say this, but men come in a mold; women's identities are much more individual. Hey, I said we'd mess around with stereotypes.

As for the similarities between gay men and women, they're of two kinds: real and perceived. We do share traits with straight women -- it's ridiculous to argue otherwise. Let's cite an obvious example: we know how we look and how others look. Straight men have no clue how they or others look. Tiny example (and I know it doesn't apply to all women or all gay men; let's not quibble) but I don't want to go into the similarities at length. I've got other plans.

The second way we're similar is in the way we're treated. Gay men and women are perceived to be similar, regardless of the truth of the matter. It must be the G -- straight guys figure gay, gal, girl and G-string must have a similar meaning. Sigh.

That we suffer the same fate because of this perception is easy to illustrate. Women, if asked, will tell you that many straight, male doctors consider a woman's health complaints to be "hysterical". This is the straight, male nincompoop factor in action. But when I tell a straight male doctor that I'm gay, I am also consigned to the "hysterical female" category. As of that day, I no longer have a doctor who can hear me. 

Meanwhile, languishing on the sidelines unnoticed are the traits that gay men share with straight men. Because we're guys, we have the same guy ways. For instance, it's the easiest thing in the world for two guys of any sexual orientation to start a conversation when they find themselves waiting in front of a doctor's office for someone. Men are comfortable with men; we can always talk to each other. It's just the way it is. Yet this is not something most women would say about conversations with strange women.

Guys have rules and every guy knows them -- like the most crucial one: how far away from each other we should stand when peeing. But it's all worked out. We just consult the Guy Schedule and there's the answer, clear as day. That's why we know how to talk to each other -- we just follow the guy rules. Easiest thing in the world. And that only scratches the surfaces of our similarities. We're men.

Chime in, readers. Do you find gay men and women to be similar? Do you detest me for bringing it up? Do you care? Are you there?

Men are less responsible than women

I've been planning to write a post about this for some time. You know, it was hard to tell who was responsible and who wasn't, way back in the days when I lived in a largely gay community. Gay men weren't pushing to have babies in those days, or marry. Our lives were totally about fun. (Well, we worked too, but fun was a major driver in our lives.) So in that era, I wasn't aware of the differences between men and women.

But after I moved out of NYC and into the rural area in which I now live, I met a ton of straight people with children. And one thing that has come through loud and clear to me is the childishness of the men, and the responsible nature of the women. I don't know what to attribute this to, other than obvious child-rearing differences, but it's a stark fact. The straight men I've met up here are much, much less responsible than the women. They're children, really, and the wife or girlfriend is the only one who holds things together. In many relationships, it seems the men have a mommy rather than a life partner.

What prompts me to write today is an article in the New York Daily News today about a book that takes an absurd tack in analyzing this situation. Oh, no, it's not the men's fault -- it's the damn, uppity women. Mind you, the book is being excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, so it's not surprising that the book's message is warped. Here's an excerpt:

"Hymowitz's book, "Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys," is excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, and discusses the "novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance" that characterizes many young men in today's society. 

Though she attributes a number of elements to the notable emergence of this boy-to-man subculture, chief among them are financial stability and changing sexual hierarchies."

Uh, huh. "Changing sexual hierarchies." It surely has nothing to do with the stupid, irresponsible nature of the men themselves. Nope, it's the uppity women. Sigh.

Put that cup down, pardner

I think the results of a new study from the UK are funny. They tested male and female reactions to caffeine. The results? It turns out the men can't handle it but the women thrive. Apparently the men's fight-or-flight reactions are triggered when they drink coffee. It actually lessens their effectiveness! I'm not sure why I this so funny but I do.

Here are a couple of take-out paragraphs from the above-linked article:

The results, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology showed that pairs of women drinking caffeinated coffee completed puzzles 100 seconds faster than those on decaffeinated coffee, while men on caffeine completed the puzzles 20 seconds slower than those on the decaffeinated. Men drinking caffeinated coffee were “greatly impaired” in the memory tasks.

The researchers pointed out that many high-level meetings are male-dominated and concluded that unlimited supplies of coffee at such meetings might not be a good idea, at least for the men attending them. They said men might even “unintentionally sabotage the partnerships forged to solve stressful issues.”