In Which Our Author Shares Something Great

I Stumbled on this article, and I think it is the best thing.  I normally don't like sharing without making some sort of comment, but I think any response I could formulate would ruin how great this article is.  That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to hear your response, though.  It's long, so I'll just link to it:   http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Toy%252BStories%252Bfor%252BHumanists%253F-a060100167

In Which Our Author Proposes a Theory

We are all shriekingly insane, and we judge others based on how closely their brand of batshit matches our own.

In Which Our Author Returns a Favor

The Internet, let me tell you about Stephanie Ann Ferrini.  Or Stephanie Elizabeth Ferrini.  I'm 95% sure it's one of those.  She's awesome.  You can read more about her here, and you can read her blog here.

In Which Our Author Revisits a Previous Post, For The Sake of Closure

You'll recall a few posts back that I got mad sometimes, and I wrote an ill-advised letter to the school paper.  The man whom I was addressing, and whom I googled, can be seen below enjoying his hobby of being an XL dickburger with fries and a drink.  He wrote back to the Exponent and was published again.  His letter is below.  If you haven't read my earlier post on the subject, you should do that.  This all happened a while ago, but I was very frustrated and didn't want to think about it anymore.  But here is the conclusion of Joe's Adventures in Idiot Town.

Hawt

Dear Mr. Flores,

You must be confusing my letter with some other letter (or you can't read very well). I never equated "statistical health risks" with "subhumanity."
As far as obesity goes, many if not all doctors look upon it as something to be avoided, a condition to be treated. They know it is unhealthy and that it directly and indirectly is costing this society millions and millions of dollars annually. They issue health warnings about it. But the activity responsible for obesity, eating, is NOT immoral. It is natural, necessary.
Regarding homosexual activity, thinking people have known for centuries that it is physiologically unnatural (even if psychologically natural) and that it is immoral. It is also totally unnecessary. We don't need it for anything. And there are health risks associated with it.
Too, for decades, until it was taken over by pro-homosexual ideologies, the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality to be what it clearly is: a disorder. Just like a male mind in a female body is considered to be a problem it is OK to fix (as via sex-reassignment surgery), so a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body - in a body clearly made for male/female sex - is a problem, a disorder.
The major arguments homosexuals use to try to justify homosexual activity are seriously flawed. For example, there are other "consenting adults who aren't hurting anybody" who would like their "rights" (e.g., exhibitionists, incestuous people, etc.). Homosexual activity clearly sets a bad legal precedent. I don't see homosexuals demanding these other sexually aberrant and immoral people get their "rights." It is evidently fine with homosexuals if exhibitionists, for example, are "discriminated against."
Wayne Lela
Woodridge, Ill.


There are many ways I could have answered him back, as he makes some downright baffling statements, starting with the insinuation that I can't read.  I'll put that issue to rest right here and now.  I can totally read.  In kindergarten, I used to go to the principal's office and read to him, and I got pencils.  I used to read to my brother in the bookstore when I was five, and a bunch of other little kids would gather, enthralled by the sound of my voice.  I can read like a motherfucker and a half.


Going back to his letter, though, I thought it was weird that he thinks sex-reassignment surgery is acceptable and necessary, but he draws the line at gay.  Not that I have any problem with sex-reassignment, but I always thought it was kind of on the extreme end of alternative sexualities.  It's like being okay with lions but thinking that kittens are abominations.  I also can't stand the "slippery slope" argument that so many homophobes are intent on using.  If we legalize gay marriage, eventually we'll have to legalize rape and/or terrorism!  It's absurd.  You can't sacrifice one group of people to protect another.  No one told women that they couldn't vote because "if we give women equal rights, eventually everyone's going to want them.  Where will it stop?  With a dog in the White House?  It's madness, I tell you."  Actually, someone probably said that.  But the point is, society didn't listen to them.
You can also get a peek into his major strategy with his example of the APA being "taken over by pro-homosexual ideologies."  He desperately wants to be the last defender of common decency, a moral crusader in a world overrun by sin, an honest man mocked by ignorant fools.  He wants to be a hero.  By using sarcasm in my first letter, I let myself be the smug villain to his beleaguered hero.  After googling him, I made sure to avoid the same mistake in my second letter, which was published a few days later.  This means that I officially had the last word.  Suck it, Wayne.


     I would like to clarify my previous letter, which suffered from a poor choice of analogies and a few too many concessions given for the sake of debate. Morality aside, the bottom line is that the originally posited argument, that homosexuality is expensive because it causes an increased risk of STI's, is logically invalid.  A man does not catch HIV because he has sex with another man.  He catches HIV because he has sex with  another man and does not use proper protection.  Therefore, it is not homosexuality that is costing society money, but unsafe sex, a problem which plagues many populations besides the homosexual one.  The economic argument is therefore baseless, and insultingly, obviously wrong.
     My original point was merely to point out this absurdity, and I got caught up in a debate on the morality of homosexuality, a debate which cannot be won through a series of letters between two individuals.  Rather than pull out the same tired arguments about the frequency of homosexuality in the animal kingdom or about the modern acceptance of recreational sex as opposed to the purely procreational, I would instead exhort the reader to do some research of his own and formulate his own opinion on the matter.  The best method I can suggest is to get to know a gay person and decide if he or she is an aberration or if the deep, abiding love you see between two same-sex partners is degenerate.
     For my final thought, I will return to my point about the difference between unsafe sex and homosexuality.  We can "fix" unsafe sex.  We cannot "fix" homosexuality.  We can ask people to stop doing what they are doing.  We cannot ask them to stop being who they are.

Joe Flores

Junior, College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Health Sciences


And that, if there's any sense in the universe, is the end of that.

In Which Our Author Continues Exploring His Fascination With Names

Hopefully this will be the last post on the topic.  I don't want to get predictable or anything.  It's just that I had my first immunology class today, and it was taught by Professor Hazbun, pronounced "Has-Been."  It's sad because as a researcher, eventually, he's going to peak.  He's going to do his best work, make a breakthrough in our understanding of yeast mitosis which leads to a revolutionary new cure for cancer, and after that people are going to start calling him Hazbun the has-been, because people love obvious nicknames.  If I were he (him?), I think I would have become a Wal-Mart cashier or something.  No one calls a career cashier a has-been.  There are no wash-outs, no grizzled veterans of the aisles, watching the eager new hirees with a bitter nostalgia, remembering the days when they could tell you the exact price of the gallon tubs of mayonnaise and where to find them, right down to the shelf.  Now they're lucky if they can remember the difference between a code 1 and a code 2, and they'll never understand why they have to say "Happy Holidays" and not "Merry Christmas," or why a 16-year-old can't buy a pack of cigarettes.  If he's old enough to fight, he's old enough to smoke.

I got carried away.  I apologize.

Along the same lines, but mixing in my second favorite topic (racism), I have to wonder why people are so intent on making fun of "ghetto" names.  First of all, I hope you don't ever use that word, the internet.  Everyone knows you really mean "black."  But second of all, I don't understand how anyone can make fun of Shaniqua, and then go home and feed little Braylynn Quinn, who may or may not be a boy.  What makes a name "good"?  Names are intensely personal things.  If a parent wants to give their child a name that has meaning to them, for whatever reason, they shouldn't worry about what other people think.

With some exceptions, e.g. a friend of a friend named Ariel Seeman.  That's cruel.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I'm asking you not to make fun of people's names.  It's sometimes racist and always annoying.