Sunday, July 24, 2005

Football Fans Shouldn't Marry


I'll admit I didn't write this. But I found it horribly amusing and wish I had. Read on.


You know, I'm not a racist, but I shouldn't have to
live next door to those football fans. Why is it that
if I don't think they're normal, I'm considered some
kind of hatemonger?

Sure, you tell me it's their business what they do on
Sunday afternoons in the privacy of their own homes.
But what about my property values, when they neglect
their yard work and house upkeep? Why should I, who
pay taxes and vote, be subjected to their gaudy
banners and flags, spreading their propaganda in full
view of God and everyone? "Bengals Parking Only"? Not
in MY America!

If they would just do what they do in private and keep
to their place, it would be one thing, I suppose. But
they're all over our TVs these days! I can't go to the
mall without seeing them in their "pride" clothing.
There are entire stores devoted to them now! Why are
they trying to force their lifestyle down my throat!?

I wish someone would sponsor a Constitutional
amendment that forbade these football fans to marry.
What kind of life would it be for children growing up
in the homes of these sickos? What values will they be
taught, that is, when the "parents" can drag
themselves away from their gridiron perversions long
enough to warp their little brains? Do we really want
this country to be overrun by a generation raised by
football fans, indoctrinated into their alternative
lifestyle, schooled in their arcane statistics and
rules from birth?

Let's face it. Jesus walked on water, not Astroturf.
It's Adam and Eve, not Madden and Eve! I'm not
advocating we round these people up and deport them or
anything - like I said, I'm no bigot! I just don't
think there's room in America for them to be so
flamboyant and in-your-face with their agenda. Their
moral fabric is just inferior - it's all games with
them. That's not the work ethic this country was
founded on!

In closing, this is the land of the free, and all men
are created equal. But this is also one nation under
GOD, not one nation under the Jumbotron. We owe it to
our children to keep marriage between two people who
aren't football fans. Our families, our future, and
thousands of years of tradition are at stake. If we
allow these football fans to make a mockery of our
most sacred institution, what's next? People being
married by Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas because
they like rock and roll? Marriages staged by producers
for reality-based TV shows designed to grab high
ratings? Where does it end?

I hope you'll join me in praying for these football
fans, that their souls may be salvaged and their
Sundays returned to their God-given purpose. And I
hope even more than you'll unite with me -- and the
rest of mainstream America -- in denying them the
freedom and the rights that we all hold so dear.

Yours in Christ,
K**** B******
Fellow American

Monday, July 18, 2005

Blood Matters

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us Hurricane, tornado, and wildfire season is upon us yet again. While there are many ways to aid others during this time, I’d like to focus on just one.


Give blood.


I know, I know “We’re lesbians, we can’t.” Not so true anymore. I just checked the Red Cross Eligibility Guidelines and found that they have narrowed the risk pool considerably. Such that lesbians who have not had sexual contact with gay men or Hepatitis A/B carriers, are probably good to donate.


Here in California, many people make autologous donations prior to scheduled surgery. While this is a nice gesture that may reassure them, it doesn’t put an overall dent in the need for blood. It’s the unscheduled needs that are suffering, currently.


Imagine having that once-in-a-lifetime car accident, and being put on hold while your body starts the mending process. Bodies care not for the schedule of the surgeon. A wait of a week for blood can make some serious changes in what the surgeon has to work with.


We also can’t just let someone bleed out because the hospital’s out of the red stuff. Hospital personnel sometimes are pressed into service, but they should be able to have their full attention on their job, not their need for some cookies and juice after a draining.


I know it sounds so “Lion’s Club/Moose Lodge” but blood drives are necessary, and they’re not working very well. The U.S. is running on a day-to-day supply of blood, sometimes requiring LifeFlights just to deliver a bag or three of precious cells from the donation site, to where they are needed.


See, what happens when the blood supply is short is that patients waiting for procedures that require blood are asked to reschedule for the future. Hoping of course, that either the momentary snafu will ease or more people will donate.


Imagine finally making the agonizing choice to have your knee replaced, because you’ve decided the pain is just too much to bear anymore. Then imagine being told you’ll have to wait at least a month, if not longer. People react so poorly to “Well, you shoulda called last month if you want this to happen next week.” I wonder why.


I know, I know. The blood center staff asks a lot of impertinent questions, makes you wait and serves generic “sandwich cookies” instead of Oreos. But think about it: who do you know that’s had an emergency operation at least once in their lifetime?


Now imagine if they hadn’t gotten it.


Yes, you can donate money, time, or in-kind services, but the kindliest service of all is to simply grin and bear the needle in your arm.

Forget the “Gallon Club” or “Lifetime Donator” crap. Give one pint, just one. Then go up into the maternity ward and look at the future you’ve just made an investment in. Be it used for their grandparents, parents, teacher, soccer coach, or just the convenience store owner that sells them 6 licorice whips instead of five for a nickel, it’s their life you’re enriching.


We often ask what it is we can personally do to make the world a better place. The answer is flowing through our veins.


Editor’s note: To reinforce Badphairy’s point, whole blood cannot be frozen. It has a refrigerated shelf-life of slightly more than 30 days. Platelets are the component of blood that helps the clotting process. Essential in emergency surgery, they have a shelf life of only five days. (More blood facts)

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Poor, Pitiful Me(n)


National Public Radio (NPR) reported this morning that numbers of males born in the U.S is declining faster than predicted. It got me to thinking.

The U.S. is going to seem much more hostile to men over the next twenty years or so. Fewer of them will be around, due to a combination of factors, including: prisons are packed full of males, medical training is majority female, and women are coming to control more and more of the positions of power. It’s even worse if one is white and male, because you can add “minority” to the dimension of “female” they are going to be forced to deal with as they age and become more sensitive and resistant to, change.

The whining has already begun. I read Fark.com a lot, and in every race thread, there is a sizable contingent of white males who moan and complain that either women or minorities or both are vastly favored over the poor little white male.

I can see where they’re coming from, and I have only this to offer: they did it to themselves.

Seriously. Had they treated the native inhabitants of this land well, had they not enslaved almost any other group they came across, had they followed the instructions of their gods to love their neighbors, well, they wouldn’t be in such a large vat of vinegar at the moment, now, would they?

Had they taken the time to apologize for all the crap we know they’ve been doing for lo, these X years of written history, then perhaps people would be willing to forgive and/or forget.
But, nooooooooooo. They demand we forget, “Slavery is over. It’s done with. Nobody living has ever been hurt by it.”

Really? Have you been watching the news from Mississippi this week? Forty years ago, three guys (among hundreds of others) were murdered because they thought blacks should have the ability and right to vote.

Forty years. That’s not such a long time ago, now is it? I bet there are people still alive who were hurt by this. Mickey Schwerner’s wife, for one.

It’s only slightly redeeming to realize that many of the defenders of past injustices hardly seem to know what they’re actually saying. I actually had this discussion with a Southerner once.

Southerner: “Well, had General X not screwed up, we would have won the war.”
Me: So, winning would have been a good thing for the slaves, too?
Southerner: The War wasn’t about slavery. It was about the economy.
Me: Oh, so, despite the fact that slaves were legally property, which could be sold, bought, invested in, and from which equity could be derived, they were not part of the economy? They were goods! They were what the economy was built upon. They made the Southern economy profitable. Yet the War was not about them, it was about some other economy? Which one was that?
Southerner: I was just saying General X screwed up.
Me: Had he not, the South would have won and that would be good, right?
Southerner: Right.
Me: And the slaves?
Southerner: It’s not about them. It’s the economy.
Me: (suppressing great frustration) Oh good grief, whatever. You go with that.
Southerner: Why are you mad, now?

By then I had Jack Nicholson stalking around my skull screaming “You can’t handle the truth!”
I don’t think men will be able to, either. The U.S. and much of the world will continue to
feminize, which to them will feel like all the women are against them, and not in the good way. They will have more female Senators, bosses, and most of their doctors will be female. Turn your head and cough, sir.

My personal most pleasant fantasy of this is that after years of high-decibel monster truck rallies, professional wrestling shows, concerts, and umpteen hundred dollar bass boosters in cars, my generation of men will be reduced to shriveled wheelchair occupants screaming “Wha’d you say, beeyotch!” at the (mostly male) nursing staff.

The majority of women will visit them once a week, then get back to running the world.