VA Tech Shooting Caused by Talking Alien Raccoons

...at least, somebody probably thinks so. I'd like to tell you that the actual headlines aren't quite as silly (or in as poor taste), but at this point I honestly can't.

The bodies weren't even cold yet, and the media's biggest attention-hounds were already trying to use the tragedy to support their own agenda. Let's take Jack Thompson, for instance. He hates video games so much, that he scans the newspaper every day for atrocities he can blame on them. So when something like the Virginia Tech shooting happens, good ol' JT already has his speech nearly written; he just has to fill in the specific names and dates. The good news is, nobody has to pay attention to anything Thompson says any more, because you can pretty much guess it. A postal worker goes on a shooting spree? Must have been playing GTA. Peeping tom terrorizes neighborhood? Must've learned his voyeuristic habits from playing The Sims. Obesity on the rise? Blame Pac-Man. World Trade Center attacks? The terrorists must've been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Jack Thompson blames the VA Tech shootings on Counterstrike. Dr. Phil also agrees that video games must have been an influence. Neither has any actual evidence to base this on - no games were found in Cho Seung Hui's possession, and his roommate confirmed that he never saw Cho playing them. But why mess up a perfectly good theory with facts? Meanwhile, Reverend Fred Phelps, head of the charming "God Hates America" and "God Hates Fags" websites, is claiming that the tragedy is yet more evidence that America is being punished for its sins (you know, like tolerating homosexuals)... and is using it as an excuse to disrupt the funerals. And Christian news website "One News Now" somehow managed to blame the shootings on the fact that evolution is being taught in public schools.

When people accuse this of being a "blameless society", it usually means that it's the criminals who come up with excuses for what they've done. But now it's not just the perpetrators making the excuses; everyone wants to get in on the act. Now bear with me. Isn't it possible - even remotely - that the shooting had nothing to do with God or video games or evolution or violent movies or karma or astrology or Harry Potter? Isn't it possible that Cho Seung Hui is just an asshole? Can we please let a tragedy go by without trying to blame it on whatever "hot button" is currently vogue? When you come up with ridiculous objects of blame, all you're doing is helping the criminals by giving them new things to try in court.

Now, I'm all for examining Mr. Hui to find out how his brain works. I'll happily allow my tax dollars to go towards researching the psychopathic mind. Anything to keep this kind of thing from happening again. But Jack Thompson, Fred Phelps, and the rest of these loudmouths aren't trying to probe a killer's mind. They're just furthering their own careers, and playing "the blame game" without a shred of real evidence to support their opinions.

Related Articles/Sites:

Reverend Fred Phelps / God Hates America

Thompson Blames Video Games For Virginia Tech Shooting

Dr. Phil Blames Video Games for Virginia Tech Massacre

Creationist: Teaching 'evolution-only' dampens respect for human life

Warrant Reveals No Games In Cho Seung Hui's Posession

The Gambler

*sigh* Okay, okay, I'm not always right.

I've told KJ many times how much her gambling habits annoy me. It's a silly hobby, and statistically it's cheaper to just throw money out the window. On the other hand, I don't mind playing video poker, since it's basically just a video game. And unlike a video game arcade, there is at least the possibility you'll walk out with more money than you had coming in.

So I'm of two minds on it. I still think it's a waste of time, but KJ has fun whether she wins or loses. As long as she's doing it for the fun instead of the money, and she sets aside how much she's going to spend beforehand, I don't mind her gambling that much. Not that I would try to stop her anyway, it's her life.

But I must confess that whenever she comes home emptyhanded, there is a part of me that enjoys saying "I told you so." Which is why this last trip was wonderfully, horribly, blissfully, ironically bittersweet.

Yesterday was KJ's birthday, and she wanted to spend it gambling in Metropolis. We booked a one-night stay at Harrah's hotel, which only cost $20 because of KJ's rewards card. The room was wonderful. Second most comfortable bed we'd ever slept in (the first was the Sheraton in Indianapolis). We had a view of the river, a widescreen TV, and a bathtub I could have used for high diving.

Of course, I don't like casinos. Too noisy. And there's really not much else to do in Metropolis, if you've already been to the Superman museum. But I was two thirds through a great book ("She's Not There" by Jennifer Finney Boylan), and had just purchased Final Fantasy III for my DS. So I was set for the night.

KJ leaves to go gamble. She takes no actual money, just some rewards coupons Harrah's sent her. Probably about $30 worth. A few hours later, I'm finishing up my book, and KJ comes back. She hands me $1100. I tuck $1000 of it away, and she keeps $100 to gamble on later. We go to dinner, which is on the house (another rewards coupon). Afterwards, she gambles away the $100 while I play my DS in the hotel room. I'm asleep by the time she gets in.

After breakfast this morning, KJ went to gamble some more, while I sat in the car playing FFIII. She didn't take any money, just another coupon. This coupon was for a surprise amount, which KJ thought was going to be $5. Well, it turned out to be for $100. A few hours later, my DS was just starting to run low on charge when KJ came back to the car, and handed me another $1000.

So for the price of gas and a $20 for a hotel room, we came home with about $2000. Now I know what this means. Tomorrow KJ has a dentist appointment. I bet the dentist is going to tell her she needs a $2000 dental procedure. That's just how our lives work. Which is a pity, because I really wouldn't mind a TV like the one they had at the hotel, but a few sizes larger. But the bigger tragedy is that for once, I can't say "I told you so."

Susan Stanton Update

The hearing is final, and the city of Largo decided to fire Stanton. More here:

Largo isn't switching: Transsexual city manager must go

And some of the backlash here:

NCTE Denounces Firing of Largo City Manager

I'm in a flowcharty sort of mood, so here's my opinion once again:

IF...
You bow to pressure from a religous group...
THEN...
You are committing a crime against both God and country. Allowing one church group to govern our laws? Even if this country were 100% Christian, what makes you think all denominations would agree on the same laws? No matter which church group you favor, you're going to piss off another church group's version of God. And if you legally force people to follow your God's rules, then people are no longer worshipping Him by choice, which makes it that much harder to tell the truly religious from those who are going through the motions. The act of following God's word means nothing when it's impossible to do anything else. This country was founded on the concept of religious freedom, and we should never allow religion to influence our laws.

But let's assume you're an asshole, and like a little religion in your law...
IF...
You feel that sexual diversity should be forbidden...
THEN...
You're committing a crime against both God and your fellow human beings. Whatever happened to letting God do the judging? Why is it any of your business what goes on in someone else's bedroom? Heh, a friend of mine recently was trying to convince me that homosexuality was wrong. One of his reasons was that anal sex is gross. I can't disagree (I'm not into it either), but so what? A lot of straight couples have anal sex too. Does this mean that lesbians are even better than straight couples, religiously speaking? From the RENT soundtrack: "...Sodomy is between God and me..."

But let's assume you're a stupid bigot, and feel homosexuality is a mortal sin that should be punishable by death...
IF...
You feel that people who want sex changes are in the same category as homosexuals...
THEN...
You're committing a crime against both God and logic. What's so anti-religious about a sex change? There's a vast difference between sexual orientation and gender orientation. Homosexuality may or may not be evil, depending on your denomination, but transsexualism is more like a birth defect that needs to be fixed. And by "fixed", I mean through hormones and surgery - trying to change the brain doesn't have a history of success. One might even argue that if God put a woman's brain in a man's body, she's committing a sin by NOT doing anything about it. Maybe God gives us these challenges to overcome, so that we are stronger people in the end.

If all of the above describes you - you hate gays/transsexuals, you think laws should be based on your religious denomination, etc - then I would strongly encourage you to move to another country. Or another planet, if possible. This world has no use for you. The only people I truly hate are people who hate, and I'll bet God agrees.

Of course, I don't know if there's a God. But for an agnostic, I feel I have a lot more respect for the Great Being than a lot of born-again, church-going Christians. The God I used to know was all about love, not hate, and I try to live by His example. He was about standing up for things, not tearing things down. He was about giving people hope, not taking it away.

So if there is a God, then let Him do His job, and you do yours. His job is to decide who gets to go where in the afterlife; your job is to be nice to each other while you're here.

Susan Stanton

I first read this article about Susan Stanton a couple of weeks ago:

Mayor Backs Official Undergoing Sex Change

Steve Stanton, City Manager of Largo, FL, announced that he was transgendered, and would soon start living as a woman. She had the mayor's support, and the other city officials seemed to be understanding. Overall, I thought it was a rather inspirational story. Then, just a few days later, a read a follow-up to the story. Turns out Stanton is getting booted out of office after all. There's a good (but long) article about it here:

His Second Self

It's hard to find an unbiased article, but I hear that the Largo City Commission was influenced by a very loud local church. Look, if the people vote to have her step down, it's hard to argue with that. That's democracy - the majority gets to decide, even if that majority is made up of idiots. But this is like firing someone because she's a woman. You just can't do that. Or, if you think of transgenderism as a birth defect, it's like firing someone because they're handicapped. Another bad idea.

Of course, in their minds, it's probably more like firing someone because they're gay. Uh... you really can't do that either. And if this goes through, it's going to set a lousy precedent. Stanton is facing a hearing, on "moral" charges, because of aspects of her life that have nothing to do with her ability to do her job. She is in trouble for who she is, not for anything she's done.

Transgenderism is not a choice, it's something you simply are. Yes, you can choose whether or not to cross-dress. You can choose whether or not to have the surgery. But your other self is going to come out eventually, no matter how hard you try to suppress it. You can not simply choose to be "normal". You can't choose to have a male brain any more than you can choose to be heterosexual or caucasian or naturally blonde. So while Stanton may have made the choice to start living as a woman, it wasn't really a choice at all.

But wait, the plot sickens. During the commission hearing, Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith was arrested for handing out flyers supporting Stanton. Apparently distributing the flyers was in violation of a city ordinance. Why? Well, according to this site (again, very biased, so form your own opinion), it's because flyers are supposedly a fire hazard and people can slip on them. Note, Smith wasn't throwing flyers around, she was handing them to people. If you see someone drop a flyer on the ground, you can arrest them for littering. But arresting someone for handing pieces of paper to other people? Calling it a felony? With a $5,000 bail? Where do you come up with that?

Florida's not my favorite state... it's hot, it has hurricanes, and it has trouble voting. But on the plus side, it's got more theme parks than churches, it's shaped like a giant penis, and it has birds and trees right out of Dr. Seuss. So I guess I can give or take Florida. But Largo... you're on my list. In big bold letters, right between Paul McHugh and Jack Chick. Heck, I might even forget about Jack Thompson for a while; there's bigger fish to fry.

It must be nice to be religious. You can say the most outrageous things, and then just say, "Well, God said so." You can hate anyone you want, just call them a blasphemer. You can claim that women shouldn't have the same rights as men. If you work at it, you can even make a case for white supremecy. It must be great to be able to declare your own race/sex/beliefs to be superior to all others, and then justify your claims by saying, "It says so right here in the good book!"

If you would like to show your support for Susan Stanton, here's her e-mail address: sstanton@largo.com

If you would like to complain to Largo's commissioners, here's their collective e-mail address: Commission@largo.com

Or if you'd rather call, here's the number for Largo City Hall: (727) 587-6700

Hasta La Vista

The good: A couple of weeks ago, I got a new computer!
The bad: It came pre-loaded with Microsoft Vista!
The ugly: Now I can't get onto the internet!

So, if I don't blog as much for a while, that's partly why. I'm just waiting until a certain driver gets updated for Vista, or until I think of a better network configuration for our house. Whichever comes first.

Most people I know, especially online, are extreme Microsoft-bashers. But I've yet to see the company commit any sins that other companies wouldn't do if they had the chance. Most companies will use whatever means neccessary to make as large a profit as possible; some are just more successful than others. Call it jealousy or fear, but people in general just hate large corporations. Personally, I don't care one way or another. Have one company with a million jobs, or a million companies with one job each, it's all the same to me.

That being said, right about now I'd like to take Bill Gates and install Vista where the sun don't shine.

Boys And Their Toys

Warning, this is another Transgender-related blog. It also covers ground I've covered before, in a much earlier blog.
My brother was recently in town for our Grandfather's funeral, and he showed me photo of me as a kid, holding a couple of Barbies. I don't know the context of the photo. I know I'm at my grandparents' house, but I don't know the occasion. I don't think I ever actually owned any Barbie dolls, so I would imagine that my cousins must have been there as well. So it was probably Christmas Eve or something.

But the picture still made me think about my childhood, and how I would play. Well, it was already on my mind, ever since KJ's Transgender-related blog on 1/11, which I countered in my own blog on 1/13. But, the discovery of the picture gave me something tangible to wrap my brain around. Of course, the picture proves nothing. I don't know the context, and even if I did, it's one isolated incident. Heck, it's probably posed: "Here, Matt, hold these and smile, it'll make a funny picture". But the expression on my face (as opposed to the "Ew, Barbie!" face some boys would have shown), somehow validates some of my feelings. At least it does to me.
Thinking back, I showed plenty of signs that I wasn't destined to be masculine. But without hearing my thought processes at the time, these signs were dismissed as things that all boys do. Do I think I was the only little boy to pick up a Princess Leia figure? Of course not. But when a lot of boys play, the action figures themselves are just instruments to shoot at each other. My play was more like that of an actor, and I was always looking at my character's motivation. I usually picked female figures because I identified with them. My play style was sometimes similar to the way girls play with Barbie dolls. Sometimes the characters wouldn't even get around to fighting, because what I did was more like a soap opera.
Overall, though, it depended on who I was playing with. Some specific memories:
CB:I can't remember exactly when this happened, probably around the third grade. My next-door neighbor ("CB") and I were about to play Voltron. I was the one who had suggested Voltron. And the truth was, I didn't care about Voltron itself, I just wanted to play as Princess Allura. There were a lot of times when I was more interested in "being" a character than in playing itself. Usually I didn't think about the fact that these characters were usually female. But sometimes I would avoid using female characters around certain friends, because I knew they'd make fun of me. CB was a couple of years younger than me, but I was still afraid of how he would react to my playing Allura.
So, I made it look like I was having difficulty deciding which of the five characters I wanted to pick. I had him run through the cast list, while I gave fake reasons that I didn't want to be that character.
CB: "Keith?" Me: "No, he's a jerk."
CB: "Lance?" Me: "No, he's boring."
CB: "Hunk?" Me: "No, he's fat."
CB: "Pidge?" Me: "No, he's a dork."
CB: "Allura?" Me: "No, she's a girl."
I'm probably not remembering all my answers correctly, but it really doesn't matter. All the reasons were lies; I wanted it to look like none of the characters were appealing to me, so I could work my way into picking Allura without it seeming like I specifically wanted to pick her. Next, I pretended to play "Eenie-meenie-miny-moe" to pick my character, faking the outcome so I could be Allura. I was still embarrassed to play her that day, though. I didn't speak much, and we just got in our imaginary lion-bots and blasted aliens. CB even made a comment about how quiet I was. The truth was, I was afraid that he had figured out that I had wanted to play Allura. Suddenly I wasn't sure if I should speak in a female voice. Not that my voice was terribly masculine at the time, but I did try to sound more girly if I was playing a girl.
JS:
JS was my best friend for many years. Around the third grade or so, sometime after "Return of the Jedi" anyway, we started playing "Bounty Hunters". The Bounty Hunters were Boba Fett, Boushh (the figure was Princess Leia in Boushh disguise, but we considered Boushh to be a character of her own), Snake-Eyes (from GI Joe), and Lamprey (also from GI Joe - a generic Hydrofoil pilot; he only got picked because one of us thought he had a neat costume).
I would play Boushh, and JS would be Boba Fett. When we played, our plots were a lot closer to "Moonlighting" than "Star Wars". And here's the thing, even though Boba Fett was my favorite Star Wars character, I was the one who insisted that JS play him. Because I didn't actually want to be Boba Fett, so much as I wanted to date him.
We played the same plots over and over, with different twists. We'd play Boba and Boushh meeting each other. Boba wouldn't realize at first that Boushh was a female. Boushh would hide that fact because she didn't think a female bounty hunter would get as much respect. At some point in the game, Boba would find out her secret. We loved playing out that part for some reason. How would he find out this week? Would they fall in love this time? These are some of my fondest childhood memories, and I don't say that lightly. When adulthood overwhelms me, and I fantasize about being a kid again (as everyone does sometime or another), "Bounty Hunters" is one of my safe places.
SO:
Another friend, probably around fourth grade. "SO" was smart and creative, but he didn't have much respect for girls. When I brought out a female GI Joe figure to play with, he questioned why I wasted money on her, and he wondered why they even made female figures. I remember when we were playing Bounty Hunters, we took some cardboard and made a headquarters for our action figures. It had a command room, a garage, and even living quarters. I went into a lot of detail, including making beds, putting pictures on the walls, etc. SO kept questioning why I was wasting valuable time on those details. After all, "it's not a dollhouse, it's a base! We're not going to play them sleeping!"
But of course, SO had a more aggressive play style than JS. JS and I had all sorts of uses for beds, bathrooms, and anything else that would make the base more realistic. And that's probably why, overall, I ended up being better friends with JS than SO. With JS, I could be myself, in a way that just didn't work with any of my other friends.

My Grandfather's Obituary

From today's Tennessean:

John Astor BROWN
Davidson
Age 90
January 22, 2007
Age 90 of Nashville, January 22, 2007. Preceded in death by his wife, Lorraine Brown; son, David Brown. Survived by daughters, Rosemary (Charles) Burdeshaw, Sara (Roger) West, Kathleen (Stanley) Bright; 5 grandchildren; 9 great-grandchildren; 1 sister and brother; several nieces and nephews.

After retirement from Brown Dental Laboratory, Mr. Brown was active in acting, owned J.B's Hot Stuff, Pepper Shop. His last employment up to four months prior to his death, he worked as a driver for Tennessee Auto Auction.

Funeral service to be conducted 1130 a.m. Friday, January 26, 2007 with Rev. Charles Burdeshaw officiating. Interment to follow in Woodlawn Memorial Park, with family and friends to serve as Pallbearers. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Alive Hospice. Visitation with the family will be 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. Thursday, and one hour prior to the service on Friday. HIBBETT & HAILEY FUNERAL HOME, 429 Donelson Pike, 615-883-2361; A Dignity Memorial Provider.