I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Readers. Readers, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a…fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a TOM 9000 computer.
Revisions and expansions to plasticbag.org, and in direct response to Heather Cirmo (see previous post), I’ve added a section ‘articles‘ in which I plan to place the few pieces I’ve written, including a piece on homophobic bullying in schools. The visibility of gay characters on television may be compromising Christian right-wing morality, but I can say with my hand on my heart that it is averting the suicide of gay teenagers. This is something worth fighting for.
Heather Cirmo works for the ‘Family Research Council’, which is unfortunately another pseudo-scientific organisation that purports to know what’s best for individuals while backing it up with an assortment of near-science that almost continually says something rather different to the message that they want to give out. The latest piece of ridiculous nonsense that they’ve come out with concerns Jack’s kiss on Dawson’s Creek.
And I quote, “Science is inconclusive as to whether youíre born homosexual or whether it’s environmental. But the thousands upon thousands of people whoíve left the homosexual lifestyle demonstrate that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice rather than an inborn characteristic.”
One of the wonderful aspects of this kind of argument is that it only trusts the opinions of those who say that they have ‘changed’ from being gay, while completely ignoring the many hundreds of thousands of other gay people who haven’t. It doesn’t ask what the differences between the two groups of people might be in terms of pressure and or upbringing. It doesn’t have any basis for measuring whether someone is or isn’t gay other than self-declaration. It is, in a word, facetious and insulting to those of us who have battled to carve ourselves out a life under the near continuous snotty glare of those who would continually tell us that our lives are ‘corrupt’, ‘substandard’ or ‘immoral’.
I’m unbelievably flattered that ARC23 should link to me in the ‘good stuff’ section of their site. I suppose that must mean to an extent that I’m doing something right with this bloody site.
I’ve spend some of this afternoon fixing some odds and ends around the shop. For one, there is now a pop-up webcam link above that will give you endless access into my tedious kingdom (on those two or three occasions a year I have it on). Also, I have fixed the Barbelith Recent Posts section at the end of the page – so now the links actually go somewhere on the new board (and its revolting new colours).
The amazing Barbelith colour scheme experiment. So the problem is that I can’t think of a decent colour scheme for the Underground that sums up the aesthetic of fast-paced media-savvy intelligent subversion. And in the process of attempting to change it, I accidentally overwrote the original colour scheme, leaving the site with a decidedly plasticbag.org-ish look and feel. So the question begins: mail me your colour schemes. [Discuss / Requirements]
I was talking to Evil Michael last night about the necessary self-censoring that goes on in weblogs – why I can’t be completely open about Mr Big for one, why I can’t really vent about Max and Peter for two, why I can’t talk about what goes on at work for three. He cut fairly close to home when he said that honesty and freedom to express oneself had to be the aim nonetheless – even if that had to be compromised occasionally.
An occasional flash back to first principles cannot help but be a good thing – it makes you remember the core of the enterprise – which for me has always been to have a place to put stuff down, to empty my head. I found it profoundly useful to be able to do this on screen rather than in real life. To an extent, I’ve lost that ability steadily over the last year and a half. So I’m working on a graduated privacy scheme for plasticbag.org as we speak, whereby I can open it up to certain people and keep it very private from others.
Unfortunate coincidences: 1) Matt writes ‘Up The Arse, Or Not At All’ for UpsideClown – including the line, “How many things could you fit up your arse? Answer: Two, three, a dozen maybe. A hundred marbles perhaps, although they’d be quite chilly, and you’d need margarine.” 2) Simultaneously, Kylie belts out, “Have an havanna, Pass me a peach, Rub on some lotion, The places l can’t reach”. Thus: My mind fills with unpleasant imagery.
Thus spake Kyle Bradford:
I care about my reputation and my family’s feelings. Both were severely
hurt by the false and vicious stories that I had a gay sexual affair with Tom Cruise and talked about it in an interview with a French Magazine.
Firstly, I don’t know Tom Cruise and never said I did. Secondly, I’ve never given any such interview and have never even been to France where this “affair” supposedly started.
I haven’t the slightest evidence of Tom Cruise being gay, and I have
certainly never said any such thing to any magazine. Certainly I have never
indicated to anyone that I had any kind of gay liaison with Mr. Cruise.
I understand Mr. Cruise’s anger over this article. It is disgusting. I am
equally angry. If I can assist him in discovering the person or persons who
started this completely false story, I will.
Blog addiction has a powerful grip. Mo tried to quit. He really did. He went to Blog Betty Ford, but it did no good. He tried The Priory, but it was all for naught, because he’s back on the bottle at Mo Morgan (dot com) in just another five days time…