What Is A Blogger?

From the good folks over at Switched, this is precisely why I do not refer to myself as a "blogger". When necessary, I will mention that I have a blog, but I never refer to myself as a "blogger". Though after witnessing this man-on-the-street video, I might have to start mentioning my blog more often, if for no other reason than to simply let people know that not all blogs (albeit most) and not all bloggers (albeit most) are moronic. Or I might just keep going about things the way that I have been and continue to behave as if I am in the blogging world, but not of it, as it seems to be working out just fine this way. (As always, if the video doesn't load, you can try clicking here and hope for the best.)

Sphere: Related Content

Is it Because of All the Fat?

I guess I didn't really envision the United states as a country that would be overly concerned about who the Surgeon General is going to be. Then again, I didn't really envision the United States as a country that would, in 1994, practically run an acting Surgeon General out of town simply because she stated that PERHAPS masturbation should be taught as something that is an ALTERNATIVE to having sex. But if you'll fast forward to 2009 you'll find the same sort of folks who were up in arms about Joycelyn Elders are gearing up their fake outrage for President Barry's nomination for Surgeon General, a one Dr. Regina Benjamin. Behold!


She seems to be ridiculously qualified for the position. Then again, what I know about the requirements for being Surgeon General is just a little bit more than what I know about being either a surgeon OR a general, which is to say "very little". I do know that she wasn't President Barry's first choice however. No, he had originally gone with Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN. Not sure why Dr. Gupta decided to turn down that position, though I speculate it might have something to do with the guy from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle getting placed in a position as the liaison to the Asian American community right around the same time that Dr. Gupta was tapped by President Barry.

So what's the problem? What's the fake outrage? The fakerage. Well, if you ask those over there at ABC News you'll see by their headline that "Critics Slam Overweight Surgeon General Pick, Regina Benjamin". Below that it reads "Leading Experts Say Dr. Benjamin, Though Stellar Nominee, Gives Wrong Message". Why do I have the feeling that the story from ABC News is going to give the wrong message? Oh, that's right. Because it does!

Dr. Benjamin is not a svelte woman. That being said, she is not an obese woman either. When I first saw a photo of her, the one thing that I did not think was, "Oh, my God! She's HUGE! How can SHE be Surgeon General with all of that girth to lug around?!" Her weight never entered my mind. I was too busy being impressed by her credentials and how she rebuilt her southern Alabama health clinic after it was flattened by Hurricane Katrina. But apparently people are thinking that she shouldn't be Surgeon General because of her weight. Um, what?

For some reason, the story seems to center around the opinions of, yes, you guessed it, BLOGGERS! WHY on earth ABC News is turning to the opinion of a random blogger is beyond me. (And if you think about it, another word for "blogger" would be "human". So random humans don't like this woman potentially being the next Surgeon General. Yawn.) Not even just RANDOM bloggers, but random AND anonymous bloggers that ABC News feels the need to cite as if they are the "leading experts" that we read about at the beginning. They actually have this as part of their story: "The job of surgeon general is to make health care and policy decisions for the country -- not to look hot in a pair of skinny jeans," said one blogger on Frisky.com. "Perhaps her size could actually be an advantage -- she's in a better position to understand obesity and contemplate out-of-the-box ways to roll back ever-expanding American waistlines." Good Lord.

I realize that we'd dropped a notch or two as far as our dignity as a nation overall goes, but I had no idea we'd slipped to this level. Quoting anonymous bloggers from Frisky.com. (What is that? Pet food?) But the Frisky bloggers weren't the only ones typing anonymously about this subject. The bloggers at Salon.com were going at it as well. They weren't quite a subtle as I would have liked, with a one Francis Kissling writing "From her photos, it appears that Dr. Benjamin will need a generous size 18 military uniform." I'd really wish that, instead of discussing what this woman weighs, if they need to discuss the inane, could explain to me why the Surgeon General is a General at all? Do they really need a military uniform? Aren't they just a "general" in the same way that Cap'n Crunch is a "captain" (or cap'n)?

As far as those "leading experts" go, they talked with a one Dr. Marcia Angell who is a lecturer at Harvard, and she said, "I think it is an issue, but then the president is said to still smoke cigarettes. It tends to undermine her credibility." I noticed that she didn't say that smoking cigarettes undermines President Barry's credibility. Maybe because in both cases, it doesn't! What else lady? "We don't know how much she weighs and just looking at her I would not say she is grotesquely obese or even overweight enough to affect her health, but I do think at a time when a lot of public health concern is about the national epidemic of obesity, having a surgeon general who is noticeably overweight raises questions in people's minds." What?!

No, we don't know how much she weighs and we don't need to! And of course she's not grotesquely obese! Did you think that President Barry had appointed Manuel Uribe, the world's fattest man, to be the Surgeon General? OK, THAT I could see some outrage over! But THIS? Come on! Besides, if the public was really concerned about the "national epidemic of obesity", don't you think that there wouldn't BE a national epidemic of obesity? The obese are not the ones who are concerned, that's why they're obese!

This insulting article went on to quote the next "leading expert" that they could find. This time it was a one Lillie Shockney, the administrative director of the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center. She sounded off with, "When a teenager listens to this person I want them to listen and respond in a positive way. Not say ho-hum and then drive to a fast food place." Oh, boy. OH, no. Allow ME to take care of this one!

First of all, if this woman is thinking that the teenager today would say "ho-hum", that shows you her level of being in touch with things. Next, how many teenagers are going to be listening to the Surgeon General? Just wondering. Because I don't think it's going to be all that many or at least enough that would make it an issue for someone in that position.

So now we're deciding whether or not someone should hold a certain position of employment based upon their weight? Aside from it most likely being discriminatory to not select a qualified individual for a position based solely on how much they weigh, are we doing this with everything else too? So if you're a large individual, you shouldn't work in a grocery store because you'll give the impression that food makes you fat? If you're a large individual, you shouldn't be a psychologist or mental health counselor because you can't even control your own eating, how are you possibly going to be able to get other people to control their own lives? You probably also shouldn't be working at a clothing store (unless it's for the big and the tall), a sporting goods store, a book store (all of that reading when you should clearly be exercising, that sets a bad example), and a host of other places as well, right? NO. Of course not.

But what I find completely amazing about all of this is that I haven't seen ONE person mention or question as to whether or not Dr. Benjamin's extra poundage is a result of the eating happenings more than the exercising or whether it's some sort of a genetic condition. You know, like Oprah and her thyroid (or whatever she blamed her latest sweet potato pie binge that lasted four months on). All of these people are just assuming that she's overeating. Nice. I'm glad this is being looked at so reasonably and rationally by folks. What a bunch of morons. Nice job, "leading experts". Couldn't at least ONE of you have brought that up?

After reading some of the comments over there at Salon.com I became pretty discouraged (yet again) about society in general. Reasonable people, like you, like me, can see the weakness in this even being an issue for people. But when I read comments like this one below from commenter Edward Noodleburg is when I realize what we're really up against. Behold! Idiocy!

"In a nation plagued by overweight-related health problems, the last thing we should do is have an overweight person as Surgeon General!

"This reminds me of the outrageousness of Michael J. Fox advocating for research towards a cure for Parkinson's disease! When he himself perpetrates that very disease by having it! What a hypocrite!" Oh. My. God.

That's it. We're doomed. People are actually engaging in discussion as to whether or not someone should be Surgeon General if they are overweight and not one person can see how such an action or decision would be discriminatory. None of them paid any attention to whether or not this was a genetic issue or something else. And not only do they not see the discrimination, they advocate for those very actions! And then we have the comment from Mr. Noodlehead up there that equates the argument to that of Michael J. Fox perpetuating Parkinson's Disease. Good Lord. Just shoot me now.

Naturally, we can't see pictures of any of these people, but I'd have to guess that a fair amount would fit into that "grotesquely obese" category (if there were any room). She's going to be Surgeon General, so I would suggest that everyone who is expressing their fakerage over it just start getting used to the idea. But don't despair. Maybe she'll talk about masturbation and then you guys can run her out of town just like the other one.

Sphere: Related Content

I Am Not A Pilot

Today, it's all about strange news out of China! How exciting! Yes, indeed. OK, maybe it's not as exciting as, say, sitting around and watching the seemingly incompetent (or at the very least, extremely naive and borderline clueless) US government spend this fine country into oblivion as quick as the possibly can, but exciting none the less. Would you settle for interesting?

Good! From China Daily, over on the Zhongshanyi Road in Guangzhou's Yuexiu district (sure, easy for them to say!) it's reported that "Traffic came to a standstill after a driver fell asleep at a stoplight." I know! Can you imagine! (Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a country where that makes the news? I....can not. I.....would like to.) But wait! There's more!

"More than 100 vehicles honked their horns after the light turned green." Big deal. Here, during rush hour, you can have 200 vehicles honking their horns before the light turns green!

"Police showed up and had to knock on the driver's window for 30 minutes before the man woke up." Thirty minutes?!?! They knocked? Wow. The police in China are patient! That would not be the standard procedure here in the US. I wonder what happened?

"The driver turned out to be drunk and was taken to the hospital." Oh, for cryin' out loud. THAT wouldn't have been the standard procedure here in the US either. China, huh? Hmmm. If it wasn't for all of that Communism stuff and the censorship and the oppression, I'd consider a move. Oh, and here is the photo that was included with that story:

Yes, that's a cartoon drawing of a person asleep in a car! I guess drawing your own illustrations for your newspaper would cut down on photography costs. Interesting angle.

Next up is a 39-year old woman in Wenchang, Hainan province. She is looking for someone who can help her pay for the medical bills of her husband Wang Chuanlin, who is suffering from leukemia. The someone that she is looking for is a new husband. Wait. Come again?

Again from the China Daily (which has just become my go-to source for wacky news from the Far East), "Fu Xiuying said she wants to get a divorce and marry any person who can rescue her husband." Well, that's different. "Fu currently has two jobs and is in debt after paying 100,000 yuan ($14,640) in medical fees." OK, I get all of that, but why the new husband route? "The migrant worker said she has run out of ideas to help her husband." Well, that explains a lot. But seriously, um, Fu? Fu, was it? Fu, listen. I know you think you've "run out of ideas", but considering that you're looking for a new guy to pay for your current guy's medical bills, I'm going to suggest that you have not run out of ideas. In fact, I'm going to urge you and plead with you to continue to try to think of other ideas to help your Wang over there. (Wait. That sounds funny. Never mind. It's probably just me.) I mean, if you could come up with the new husband idea, just think of what other brilliant ideas you have in that head of yours. Now go! Go think! And please, bring on the wacky!

Now it's over to Changsha, Hunan province, where a one 31-year old Long Mingfu "...has patented a special 'lazybones toothbrush' " so that "People do not have to squeeze toothpaste when they use the special toothbrush that Long Mingfu invented." Do they still have to brush? If so, that's really going to take away any appeal that this might ever have a chance of having. Are you kidding me?

They are not kidding, says....who? China Daily, that is correct. According to them, Long, "...started to work on the toothbrush seven years ago. He has refitted more than 10,000 toothbrushes in recent years before he invented the special toothbrush that contains toothpaste." Am I the only one thinking that just squeezing out the damned toothpaste would have been a whole lot easier than going through 10,000 toothbrushes over seven years?!

"Long said he got inspiration from cigarette lighters." Riiiiiight. Because...they're the same. Huh? What? Cigarette lighters? Because they effortlessly squeeze toothpaste also? I don't think they do!

"Long believes his invention will be popular with consumers." And I believe that Long will be popular with psychiatrists.

Here is the illustrated accompaniment for that article.

And then in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, a "snake oil salesman" "tried to demonstrate the power of his homemade medicine by cutting his own finger and dousing it with the product." Gee, I wonder how that turned out?

"The man has no license to sell any medicine but went on the sidewalk to hawk his invention." Are they implying that if he did have a license that this behavior would be fine? Because it's only the lack of a license that makes this story weird!

"The display surprised some people, others were scared by the blood, while some were skeptical." Huh. Surprised? Surprised, why? And those who were "skeptical", what was their concern, exactly? ("Honey, he says he's cured, but he's still bleeding. What do you think? Should we get some? You know how clumsy those damn kids of ours are." "I don't know. He's a salesman. They're supposed to be honest. If he says he's cured, then he must be . Ask him if we an get a discount if we buy in bulk. We're moving into that new house with all of the stairs and the kids are going to be a mess within hours.")

And finally, from Singapore, what has got to be the worst idea I've ever heard. It seems that "...one of Asia's fastest-growing budget airlines is seeking staff via an online contest, and no flying experience is necessary." Wait. I'm fairly certain that flying experience IS necessary! In fact, I know it is necessary!

"AirAsia has launched an online plea for pilots, asking candidates to blog why they should get the job." Oh for the love of God, they want to hire bloggers to be freaking pilots?! (Note to self: Never, ever fly AirAsia. Pass it on.) Look, I certainly don't consider myself to be a blogger, but do you know what I consider myself to be less than a blogger? That's right, a pilot!! I am no more a pilot than I am an astronaut or a magician (no matter what I say after that bottle of wine). I don't care how well I can blog about being a pilot, I'm not one! NO bloggers are pilots! Perez Hilton? Not a pilot. Arianna Huffington? Not a pilot. Michelle Malkin? Hmmm.....can we just see if she's a pilot and see what happens? Please?

They say that "Bloggers will only be considered if they meet minimum requirements." Oh, thank God! Panic is over! There are requirements! What are they? They include "...being aged between 18 and 28, having a good command of English and Bahasa Malaysia and being mentally and physically fit, with good eye sight" said the website, http://blog.airasia.com/. Those are not "requirements" to be a freaking pilot! Those are requirements to be between 18 and 28! Screw good eye sight! How about a requirement like "Knows how to fly a plane!" Now that's a requirement! (By the way, the header on the AirAsia blog reads: "Shoestring Tips: How to be Cheap!" (Tip One: Don't buy shoestrings?)

"AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes told Reuters the airline expects to expand its services and remain resilient this year on the back of good demand for budget travel, despite the global recession." So, tell me....this "budget travel"....how much is it to fly a plane from 30,000 feet into the ground nose first when it's been piloted by your teenage blogger? Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it's reasonable!

By the way, the motto or slogan or whatever it is for AirAsia is "Now Everyone Can Fly." Apparently so!

Yeah, good luck with all that.

Sphere: Related Content

I Am A Gender Neutral Male

When I started doing this thing (I hate the word "blog". Not as much as I hate the word "blogger", but it's a close second.) my goal was to be able to see both or all sides of an issue, no matter how asinine or naked some of those sides may be, and then clearly (and with a lot of parentheses) mock the heck out of the jackasses and wrap it up all neat and tidy with a bow. OK, so I've never used a bow, but mocking jackasses I've managed to accomplish to a large degree; that I will admit to. Recently it's been suggested to me that I take a more definitive stand on things. I don't know if I'm comfortable taking such a strong stand on things one way or the other that it becomes predictable or that I become predictable. That's why I was striving for neutral. (Actually, I was striving for mediocre, but I'll take neutral.) And apparently, I have accomplished my goal.

Someone out there has created what they are calling the Gender Analyzer. The way that they describe their little 'toy' and what it does goes like this: "We created Genderanalyzer out of curiosity and fun. It uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a home page is written by a man or woman. Behind the scene, a text classifier hosted over at uClassify has been trained on blogs written by men and women. In our lab it seems to works pretty well, we want to see how it performs on the web! We hope you like it! " Well, well, well. Naturally, I gave it a whack.

The analysis came back stating that my blog "appears to be gender neutral (a slight preference for male)." Oh, really? Now, granted, I am freakishly strong and have a voice that can at times rival that of the late and great Barry White. However, I don't see how either of those would play into the factoring of gender analysis in this instance as I am, by all accounts and according to an impromptu spot check just a few seconds ago, female.

But I was pretty happy with the "gender neutral" designation. That's kind of what I was aiming for in the overall scheme of things. (ONLY on the blog! I'm ONLY striving for 'gender neutral' status ON the blog! No where else! Everywhere else I'm striving for 'female' or, at the very least, just not 'bitch'.) And I really liked how they used parenthesis in their analysis! That was a nice touch!

And the fun didn't stop there! From there I went over to the Typealyzer. The Tylealyzer folks tell us that "Typealyzer.com is developed by the happy people @ prkfect . se." OK. How happy? Well, happy enough to write this app that basically analyzes the text of a blog and then generates what characteristics or what type of persona the person writing the blog has. Uh-huh. AND?

I ended up being classified as something called ISFP - The Artists. (I do like art!) It summed me up like so: "The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of. They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living." Eh, mostly true. The "not friends of many words" line? What a bunch of crap. Have they read this thing lately? Words are my friends! And the "tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders" I think I'd probably disagree with that as well. Oh, I am concerned that people are morons, that part is true. But do I constantly worry about it? Not so much.

It even provided me with a lovely chart of my brain on blog! Behold! What the inside of my head may or may not look like when I'm doing this!

They definitely got the Thinking part and the Feeling part mixed up there. (They also spelled 'rhythm' incorrectly. That large 'Sensing' section there will be sending them an email shortly.) I'd definitely switch those. The Typealyzer also provided me with a little thing that they call a 'badge'. (Sure, in the sense that The Scarlet Letter was also 'a badge'. It's hideous.) And if I wanted to, I could use it as a widget on the blog. Again, if I was so inclined. I am not. But I will share. Behold!

See? Spiffy, eh? And that's about the extent of the 'feeling' me. What's next, you ask? Something called oFaust. oFaust is self proclaimed as a 'literature expert'. It claims to be able to tell me which classical author my text is most like. Oh, really? This should be good.

I had it analyze the first paragraph in this post. And apparently that translates out to being 33% like Lewis Carroll! The 'Alice in Wonderland' guy? (Hmmm. In a way, an 'Alice' has been on my mind lately, but I can't imagine that had anything to do with it.) All right, well, hold on just a minute there, Sparky. Let's try another one. This time, I took the 2nd to last paragraph from the post about the lesbians and the Mormons and ran that one through and, once again, I come up like Lewis Carroll, but only 23% this time. Hmmm. And that paragraph that I chose was also, in a way an 'Alice' related. Interesting. (But if you're asking me, Lewis Carroll sort of looks like the one who is the gender neutral male around here.)

I think I'm most happy about being a gender neutral male. I don't really buy into all of the 'feely-feely' stuff, but it's nice that there's something like that out there for those who do buy into all of the 'feely-feely' stuff. And I don't know what to think about my writing style being somewhat and vaguely similar to that of a guy who wrote whilst on LSD. That concerns me just a bit. (And for anyone who was ever curious, it definitely gives you a little insight into what it's like in my head.. ALL...THE...TIME.)

Sphere: Related Content

Tattoos Should Never Be Mandatory

It would seem that over in there in London they have a one Reverend Peter Mullen who seems to be rather opinionated (translation: crazy) in his views of "the gays" and how they should be handled (Mmm...yeah, pun probably intended there.). His anti-gay stance (oh, puns abound in that one) felt so important to him that he felt the need to post his thoughts on his blog. (Oh, that explains it. he's a blogger. Sheesh. Bloggers!) I'm sure you can guess that hilarity did not ensue.

According to the fine blokes down under at couriermail.com.au, his blog post, among other things, deemed all gay pride parades (all? Like the Kinda Gay, the Really Gay and the Flaming Gay parades? All?) to be "obscene" and called for them to be outlawed, and "He also criticised the blessing of two gay priests at a "wedding" performed earlier this year in a City of London church." And while I understand that some people out there really have a problem with the whole gay thing and are going to say, do or write stupid, stupid things, I think he might have over empowered himself just a bit as he continued to blog his hateful and ridiculous thoughts. He probably should have left out the part where he suggested "that homosexuals should have their backsides tattooed with the slogan: "Sodomy can seriously damage your health." Wait. What?

Correct. Tattoos. And tattooing. For "the gays". He's in favor of tattooing "the gays". Actually, just so you can enjoy what he wrote in all of it's glory, the complete text read, "Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS." I see. Well, that's pretty clear now, isn't it? Yep, pretty clear. That the man is a moron who should NOT be in the position of Reverend. (I'd like him to be in the position under Bubba, the 300-pound florist down in the Castro.)

Now, right away, if you know anything at all about the gays (oh, admit it, you say you don't know, but you're pretty curious. What about that time in the garage during halftime of the Super Bowl about 10 years ago? You guys just weren't looking at his new saw!) you know that he has clearly not thought this thing through. I mean, really, fellatio doesn't kill people! People kill people! You should know that by now! And on top of that (pun SO intended) they're not billboards, sir! And they're also not looking for a little light reading at the time that they might be seeing your tattoo of hate sprawled across their posterior.

Why the chin? That seems like just poor product placement. Shouldn't he have suggested the forehead for the fellatio one? It seems like it would be more effective there. But what do I know? I'm a chick. Hey, and that reminds me, what is he planning on doing for the lesbians? Having them get a tattoo that reads "Save the bushland! Get a husband!" on their stomachs or what?

Of course, when the good Reverend was spoken to about this, he "insisted his remarks were "light-hearted jokes" and "satirical". He also proclaimed (translation: lied) "I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion." First of all, I don't know too many gay people who would take the notion and the suggestion that they should be involuntarily branded with an anti-homosexual message as a "light hearted joke", nor would they interpret the idea as "satirical". Homophobic and asinine, perhaps. Light hearted and satirical? Probably not. But what's with the "have been" part? How does that work? "Hey, Bob! How's it going? Long time, no see! Still gay?" (To which the appropriate answer would be, "Yep! Still an ass?")

Fortunately, the Church of England ordered him to remove the comments from his blog because they said they were "highly offensive." Oh, you think?! But Rev. Mullen also added, "What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality." Militant preaching? He must not have heard of "Don't ask, don't tell." There's no military anything involved with the gays when it comes to the preaching, especially if no one asked.

Now, of course when there's any sort of a gay slur out there, a gay rights group has to come up for air and denounce the comments. Taking their turn in the rotation this time was the gay rights group Outrage. They described the comments as "Neanderthal". Right behind him (pun way intended) was the gay rights group Stonewall. Their chief executive, Ben Summerskill, said the comments were "nonsense" and "If I were a vicar at the heart of the City of London, I might be praying about other things at the moment rather than getting hot under the collar about gay sex." Dude. Getting hot under the collar is usually how the gay sex starts! It's definitely how it ends in some instances! Nothing wrong with a hot collar, after all. (And after that collar gets all hot underneath and there's all the subsequent sex, you know what? Not so bad! In fact, done correctly, it's quite good! My God, was it good. Oh, whoops. Sorry. I digress. )

Just for the record, a Diocese of London spokeswoman said the remarks did not reflect its views. Well, I should hope not! Being a diocese and all, the homo hating? Not very church-y. Not at all. They said, "While clergy are entitled to their own personal views, we fully recognise that the content of this text is highly offensive and it is in no way reflective of the views of the Diocese of London." (Translation: We're not stupid. But he is. We don't hate gay people. But he does. We'd like to get rid of him, but you know how we roll. Anything else? No? OK, then.")

While looking for pictures of this buffoon, I ran across some photos from an event he spoke at (presumedly without all of the gay bashing and tattooed chin suggesting) a few years ago. He was at the 37th Anniversary Dinner for the Ancient Society of College Youths. I'm going to have to guess that a few people who were there that night would not be happy to learn of his comments and his tattooing suggestions that he's made of late to help control all of the militant gayness over there.

Sphere: Related Content

The Misfortune of Shoddy Blogging

From what I can tell so far, the hot topic for the day would appear to be lesbians. Now, for some, that's nothing new. For some "every day is lesbian lover day". But for others, it's just the topic du jour. Why lesbians? Why now? Glad you asked and welcome aboard! Here's the thing:

In a previous post, I went off on Dimitris Lambrou. Lambrou, a self proclaimed "activist" (with no details on what he actually activates) is suing the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece in order to get the women to stop calling themselves "lesbians". That's because Lambrou claims that only those who are residents of the Greek island Lesbos can be lesbians. What a moron. But that's not new either.

Apparently, Lambrou (who I'm kind of starting to think is a lesbian trapped in a man's body or something like that. Why does he care?) had wrote an article/essay/rant entitled "The Misfortune of Being Lesbian". And that's all well and good. But this morning, I read a comment on the ol' blog here that says that the article he wrote is referring to the residents of Lesbos having the misfortune, not the other lesbos having the misfortune. Really? Hmmm....

Now, I might mock everything and everyone right and left that deserves to be mocked, but I do so with accuracy. I'm not making crap up here. All of my contrite opinions are based purely on the apparent stupidity and inaneness of others and their actions. So if this thing is about the islanders and not the mainlanders (?) (Lord knows we're not mainstreamers. Yet.), well, I would need to correct myself. So I set out to find it. That's when I realized that I really need to start being OK with shoddy blogging.

Look, no one wants to waste their time reading a bunch of crap online that's just that - crap. Especially if they're looking for information as opposed to opinion or commentary based on opinion. That's why I like to be informative and provide accurate information of situations and THEN add the opinion or commentary that all seven of you who actually read this have come to know and enjoy. (And I thank each and every one of those seven.) But it would seem as if I'm the only one. Do you think I could find "The Misfortune of Being Lesbian" anywhere? Even though, in every blog or article that I read about this ordeal mentioned it? Even though they all mentioned that it was "published on his website"? Do you think ANY of them included his website? Do you think ANY of them mentioned the name of his website? No, no, and NO.

I have spent way too long this morning trying to find the text of the Lesbianian Misfortunes or whatever the hell it is. And I can find many, many people who are extremely adept at the ol' "cut and paste from other sources that they won't cite" maneuver. But I couldn't find the name of his website, I couldn't find the website and I couldn't find his masterpiece detailing the finer points of the reasoning behind the unnecessary renaming of female homosexuals across the globe. Couldn't find it. Sorry.

Look, I assumed that the title spoke for itself. And since I'm not from the island of Lesbos, I wouldn't assume that it referred to them. Since Lambrou seems to think that the lesbians (the other ones. The ones who like other lesbians. Or just other women. We're really not all that discriminate all the time.) should be called something else, I'm thinking that sounds "unfortunate", or that the mis-identified lesbians are experiencing a "misfortune" in that instance.

Think about it. If you went through your whole life being called "Bob" and then one day, someone told you that you can't be called "Bob" any more. Would you feel as if you had experienced a "misfortune"? Of course you would. (Sorry, Bob Steve.) And that's how I interpreted "The Misfortune of Being Lesbian". And given my explanation, it's a reasonable interpretation and I'm not changing my previous post (because it's funny like it is). If Dimitris Lambrou would like to pull his secret manuscript out of the titanium vault and share the whole thing, as opposed to just the title, with others, well, some of us would appreciate it. Others won't give a fat rat's ass if what they write is accurate or not. But some of us do. And those who do are now really kind of curious as to what that thing actually says.

Thanks for the comment. Next time, don't make it Anonymous so I can get back to you. If you have the text of "The Misfortune of Being Lesbian" or you know where I can find it online or even if you know what the URL of Lambrou's website where the elusive document supposedly lives, please, do tell. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some misfortune to get back to.

Sphere: Related Content