God I love my home state and the bigots it produces. From a college newspaper, March 31, 2004 edition:
"Benefits" poor reason to marry
By Sarah Stokke
I want to say that I am not in any way mocking homosexuals or bisexuals for who they are. The fact that they want to be with one another is fine with me, but don't press any harder than that.
According to the Bible, marriage includes exchanging vows before God between a man and a woman in love. The United States Census Bureau also refers to a married couple as a husband and wife living together in the same residence.
There are many reasons that encourage the homosexual population to get married, including being able to receive tax benefits and insurance through employers, but what about being in love?
When Rosie O'Donnell stood up in front of the nation on her nuptial day, she did not say, "We got married because we were in love." She yelled something along the lines of "In your face, Bush." I'm not saying they aren't in love, but they aren't as proud about that as they are about shoving it in our face, or so it seems.
According to the Census Bureau, there are 62 million heterosexual married couples and about eight million divorced individuals living in the U.S. The heterosexual couples that are not married and are living together compose up to five million of our households. What makes them not want to get married?
Heterosexuals do not marry their spouses for show, but because of love, trust and the ability to say "forever." Homosexual couples compose about 600,000 of the living arrangements today. Have you seen all of them jumping out to get married?
Some of these couples realize what marriage is for, but others are blind to its reality. If these couples do not see these realities, divorce rates will skyrocket. If the divorce rate rises, spouses will have to pay more in alimony and child support, and soon the institution of marriage will mean nothing.
Health insurance premiums for spouses will also rise because of the high cost of covering the homosexual population. After all, homosexuals account for 420,000 of the total 886,000 AIDS cases, according to the CDC.
The CDC Prevention Information Network reported the state of Ohio spent $5.9 million in the last year treating AIDS. With the high cost of AIDS medication, our insurance companies will be paying unreal amounts of money to healthcare providers while we will get higher premiums for our spouses.
Homosexuals are able to find some of the "benefits" of marriage through the legal system without getting married. Living wills, adoption contracts, civil unions and moving in together are still possibilities. Many heterosexual couples in the United States follow through with these options. Why can't homosexuals?
I think the true reason for marriage has fallen along the wayside. Marriage is a gift for a man and a woman who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together for the right reasons; it is not for benefits.
Reach columnist Sarah Stokke at scrosby@usd.edu
There is so much wrong with this that I could whine about, but I think that first paragraph hurts this article more than anything I might say ever could. That's fine with me. Feel free to correct her yourself.
Hatshepsut! Or it might be her stepson, Thothmes III, but I don't care about him. Nyah.
Full frontal view though. That's completely boggling. Egyptians just didn't DO that. It makes as much sense as Madonna going Amish or something. I would never claim I know Egyptology well, but I do know this much: Egyptian art (apparently almost) never portrays Egyptians head-on. It's
always a profile. Always. I can't figure out what the deal is. Maybe a Spanish archaeologist wanted to make the news? Huh. Weird.
In other news, Dude rented Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and that means I am probably largely offline for the week. (What?! I'm still checking my e-mail and phone messages, so I'm not totally incommunicado!) Oh dear Heavens I need this game. I need to work my fingers to the bone (or is that just an insanity effect?) and buy a GameCube just so I can play this game. It plays with your head! And I want so much to babble about the lovely game. Oops. Bye.
I was just randomly websurfing and bumped into something claiming that only 5% or so of Europeans are Christian. That's -- that's --
Look. I grew up in the American Midwest, in the farmhouse of a church deacon (later an elder) and a Sunday School teacher. I have been ordered to never let my grandmother know that I do laundry on Sundays, because she thinks it's sinful. (And fixing meals and driving to church isn't? Argh.) The Passion clogged the local theatre in a way that not even Star Wars Episode One could match.
And somebody claimed that Finland is only 4% Christian. *repeated blinking* Four percent! That's like if I was the only one of all my paternal grandparents' grandchildren to be Christian. *boggle*
This may or may not go a long way in explaining my trouble understanding where a couple Finnish co-roleplayers are coming from, philosophically speaking. Maybe.
*boggle of momentary closure*
I'd already heard about this from
SciFi Wire:
John Woo has optioned the movies rights to the Metroid video games.
I should have known the Slashdot crew would go nuts over it. Some of their
comments are truly giggle-worthy, though I'm sure a couple only make sense to seasoned explorers of Zebes, SR388, and -- damn, where are the new ones set? I play the original NES game, dammit. I suck at it hardcore and for that I adore it. (Same goes for Castlevania, which is so fierce it bruises.)
I love how the gamers think Samus's identity should be kept a secret. Like people couldn't just Google the hero's name and learn it! And it would affect the talent chosen to portray Samus in several ways. In teh games, the secret
is was kept by hiding Samus under an armoured suit. If that suit stays on for an entire movie, nobody will want to play the role. It would also impede real acting to hide your entire face. It could be done, but I don't know just how.
I like the first comment though, regarding John Woo's involvement. Hee. Good point, actually. Probably that scene would be planetside somewhere or within an artificial environment.
/me geeks out. Ehehehe.
Aw. I hoped ancient Egyptians were first to domesticate felines, but
perhaps not. Last I knew, best evidence showed Egyptians inventing writing before the Sumerians, so at least I have some little thing to which I may cling.
There's this person. We shall call the person "X".
X lives outside my time zone. X laboriously sands on my nerves, wearing away what little patience I have. It's starting to expose much more of my temper than I would like to. When I get mad, I get blood-drawing, flesh-biting, wall-punching, fragile-object-breakingly enraged. I'm getting there now and I hate it.
X has this habit. I'm not the only one on whom it grates. X consistently needs to have everything a certain way -- X's way. X knows the only way to do everything correctly. X's way seems to be voiced when it contradicts my own established methods or those of my online friends. I can't recall a single instance of X complimenting anyone, save perhaps a mutally-known person who brought X into the circle where we met and continue to meet.
I'm sick of it. This marks at least the third time I wanted to just tell off X and see how X would react. Just say "Did your mother never teach you to shut the fuck up unless you can be nice for a goddamn change?! Leave my friends alone!" and watch for X's reaction. Each time so far, I've started to open my mouth, but just closed it again and silently screamed instead. I've been doing my best to act maturely and not call X out, to keep the peace and keep wanting to snap something.
I'm getting sick of it, but I don't know what to do. I try to calmly suggest that perhaps other people in our circle are content with things prior to X's revisionism, but I don't seem to be getting through. Certainly the "helpful" suggestions have not abated.
I should note that I am, much to my everlasting confusion, a person of standing in our shared circle. I'm one of the longer-lasting members and someone with a degree of authority. That's the main reason I keep smashing down my anger; I don't want to verbally assault X and have emotions specific to me to be associated with the leadership of the entire circle. I can't speak for them all and I know it.
What should I do? Suggestions please. (If X should reply, I shall be most amused indeed, but I doubt it will happen. X apparently prefers to offer X's opinion when opinions are not requested.)
There's this Brooklyn rock band, Public Domain. I like their style.
There's a
contest.
Disco says pass on the contest link and ask people to vote. I think the song up for voting kicks twisted monkey (er, in the World of Ree and her Buddies of Yore, that means it's very good), so I pass the link to you. Listen to the clip and then vote for the best one.
It'll be Public Domain anyway, but eh. You got free will.
This time.
I wonder how long it will take them to notice. I've been playing online. Not here. Not on the boards. But online.
*giggles* I wonder who'll notice first? It shall be a contest! It'll be a couple days before anyone can know, of course, but eventually.... hehehehehehe!
I am pawing through the internet in search of something to calm me. I found jack.
My mom asked me earlier about my housing situation and classes. That's what got me wound so tight, not any board post or anything.
I can't find any threads to occupy me anyway. Time to read more ON WRITING. Never cared for CARRIE, but this King fella's not bad -- when he lets his humour show.
Oh look, the community on EZ has changed again! *blinks* Which renders my pulldown things inadequate once again. Every time I update the buggers.
Oh yeah. It's great to be back after a week away. Right jolly fun. *flops over dead*
Eh, I guess I'd better get to haunting then. Nobody else will fix my work, after all.
She's doing it again. From time to time my chief online character takes it into her head to devise a psuedonym for herself. I don't know why she does it; she has always given her first name, surname or both, never a false name. It's Pasht who creates identities on a whim.
Once Jaina decided that her forename could be reduced to Jaine and normalised to Jane. From there, she chose Janet as the extended form of personal name, and picked Green as an acceptable alternative to Jade. (She would fool no one with these names. Like I said, I don't know why she bothers.) Janet Green is a fine name. On one of my mother's soaps, it was the name of a psychotic murderess. Yay! *headdesk*
Today she did it again. The meaning of "Jaina" (or rather Jayna, the barely more common variation) is supposed to be "grace of God". Grace works as a first name. It's even a different initial, for which my dear JJ gets points. But then she wanted to work through words that meant the same colour as her surname.
She chose Kelly. *headdesk x2*
My cable movie got done so I channelsurfed. Hit on Insomniac, which I sometimes do, and got an eyeful. This particular episode was in Florida and had a bit at a clothes optional bar.
Lights went off in my head, because now I know how to visualise Riker's. Strictly speaking, there's been a buncha nudity at the Green Heart too, but I don't like to think about that. Current GH clashes too bady against the GH of the Vine and then my brain aches until the vodka hits it.
Still. One thing the Insomniac bar had that I haven't really seen online: body paint. (I liked the blue ball elephant, I really did....)
