http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/pope-francis-compares-trans-people-nuclear-weapons190215



So. There you are. That's how hopey he ACTUALLY is.

I would like to ask you all something.

See when someone comes out and does something superficially liberal like take photographs of themselves next to disabled people?

Like this:


Pope Francis stops motorcade to bless disabled girl

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/10922181/Pope-Francis-stops-motorcade-to-bless-disabled-girl.html

Do you think that means that they are actually liberal or is it just a photograph?

If you photograph someone who says they are liberal, or wishes to portray themselves as liberal, next to some liberal stuff and then they go off and do something that is very obviously NOT liberal, what criteria do you use to decide whether or not they are liberal? What they look like in photographs, or what they do?

I think there is space and time for a wider discussion on these engaging topics.

I'm listening to "Seventeen Seconds" by the Cure.

Earlier this evening I had a youtube exchange with a homophobe obsessed with other people's asses thinking the obsession was mine. "Sibelian - Pervert, nuff said" he posted after I'd asked him why he thought I wanted his respect.

I've had a couple of Youtube exchanges along these lines. "Meh, you don't get our respect! It's all you want! We will never respect your gay marriages!"

Uh? What's me being gay got to do with THEM?

What would I do with their respect? Will it feed me? Will it clothe me? Will it shelter me from harm?

Will it stand in the way of my nephew's inescapable self-confidence issues concomitant on the exit of his heterosexual father to Switzerland with a swanky new girlfriend?

Respect? What are they TALKING about?

That thing they curate on imaginary high school copybooks covered with WWF stickers? The points they give each other for the expensive NIKEs their bro-tastic buds bought for the sake of .... respect? The points they give each other for their flashy cars? The points they give each other for investment banking jobs? The points they give each other for cutting benefits to the poor? The points they give each other for proclaiming a bloodless, functionless love of an invisible god who pronounces imaginary morality in total silence? The points they give each other for cultivating petulant, carefully calibrated slivers of hatred creeping around in the dirty basements of their brains, standing erect in the background like a scorpion's sting waved aloft?

THAT respect?

Why would I want that?

OK I've just hit "A Forest" which is about a man looking for an imaginary girl in a forest.

What the fuck is it? Is it because THEY don't get any respect?

Is it because they invest so much effort and emotion in idiotic symbols that are supposed to add up to stuff that should earn respect but don't, striking dumb attitudes at each other in an attempt to coerce the pretence of something they know deep inside is only meaningful if it is something that is felt and offered freely like love, kindness or an apology? Endlessly wrangling a dull, echoing, meaningless copy of something they know somewhere inside ought to FEEL like something?

Is it because they spend their whole lives collecting the symbols, knowing that none of the damn things mean jack shit? Is there some wild little monster jumping up and down on a pile of bananas screaming for attention and always getting it but never really knowing what to do with it because they know it isn't really the same thing as respect? It's just custom? It's just habit? This is the stuff we're supposed to respect now? Beards? Tattoos? Waistcoats? Naff, blokey Yorkshire caps? NASCAR? The troops? Pf. Nobody respects the troops. Not even the troops respect the troops. The poor bastards rot on the streets and blow their brains out daily. Is that the fate of a caste that is fucking respected?

What do they even mean when they use the word? When I respect something, I feel it. Respect is a feeling.

They seem to talk about it as if it's a high score in a video game.

Is it because nobody respects heterosexuality? Is that it? They can't respect me because nobody respects them?

I think that's it.

I'm an accident of biology. The system of symbols that signify masculinity are burned into a sphere of my soul somewhere off to the left of it's usual location.

I have had to re-learn love. I have had to choose love for it's sake and understand that it is not a given. That it must be made. That
it cannot be taken for granted, that it isn't something you get. It's something you make, or it's nothing.

There isn't a gay man in the world that doesn't understand this. We reach, and if we're fortunate, there might be a man who sees us for what we are and chooses us. We are few in number. We haven't many chances. If love falls over and dies, as we age, there are fewer and fewer of us left that can make that time with us that brings forth meaningful living, to share the life with another.

We take love seriously. We have little other option. Love, the chance for sharing the life, in the gay community, is almost worshipped. Silently, but knowingly.

Does anybody take heterosexuality as seriously?

Romantic comedies. 50 shades of Grey. Divorce. Gender Wars.

Are there homophobes who do not realise that something sacred sits in their hands? Can they even see it?

Would they see it if it found them? Do they deny my capacity for love, believing it nothing more than an obsession or a fetish or a crush or an infatuation or a perversion, or whatever word they've pulled out of their de-signification lexicon today might be, because THEY have never received love? Or, worse, never given it?

"...the dream had to end.. the wish never came true... and the girl starts to sing.... seventeen seconds.... a measure of life..."

Let's say I ask a question -

"Where's the cat?"

Useful responses would consist of something like:

"The cat is over there"
"There is no cat and there never has been a cat, the cat has always been a figment of your imagination"
"I don't know where the cat is"
"It's not a cat, it's a dog"
"It would be great if we could find the cat, but we really need to talk about the hot-dog stand"
"I have found the cat"
"Ok I'll help you find the cat"
"Here's what we do in order to find the cat"
"Don't worry, the cat is fine"
"I'm sorry to say that the cat is dead"
"The cat is sitting on your head"
("I don't regard finding the cat as a priority") - EDIT - Donald Ian Rankin has pointed out that this should be different, so, instead: "The cat isn't the priority". So there you go! Even I fuck this up sometimes!


Useless responses would consist of things like this:

"You're obsessed with cats"
"Why should I care about the cat?"
"People who like cats are stupid"
" "
"What makes you think anyone here cares about the cat"
"You keep going on and on about cats"
"You want a pony"
"Why do people keep blathering on about cats"
"Why can't these Cat Derangement Syndrome people fuck off"
"Why do you hate dogs"
""
"So I guess you want Jeb Bush for President"


EDIT: AND THIS:

"When you say 'Where's the cat' do you realise that you are pre-supposing that the people you are talking to actually have any information about the cat? You don't seem to have considered the possibility that those on the receiving end of your concern may not have any direct involvement with the cat or any knowledge of it's whereabouts. You do realise that the word 'where' implies a location, well who's to say that the cat's location is actually useful to know? And even if it is useful to know, why would anyone feel comfortable in discussing their knowledge of the cat's location with you? I think you're making a number of ill-considered assumptions about not only the cat itself, but any who may put serious consideration into answering your question. You do realise that it was a question? That means you're putting pressure on people to answer it. Some people don't feel comfortable answering questions. And have you actually established that the cat wishes it's whereabouts to be known? I'm not sure we can assume that. You do realise that that's an assumption? And do you realise that many cats have a tendency to go out and be away from home, sometimes for extended periods? And do you realise that there may be a relationship between the cat and those whom you are aggressively interrogating which may not be any of your concern? Do you realise that? You do realise that, don't you? Don't you realise that? Please consider deleting."


So, DU, what distinguishes list 1 from list 2?

"We don't know, sibelian! TELL US. WE ARE BIG-EYED AND ENRAPTURED BY YOUR INFINITE WISDOM."

Well, it's like this.

The responses in list 1, even though in certain cases they thwart the aims of the person asking where the cat is, retain the mysterious and hypothetical cat as the subject of the communication.

The responses in the second list do not. The second list consists of people talking indirectly about the person asking the question, which is a waste of time.

And what this means, darlings, is that the person doing the responding in list 2 has no real interest in what was said and is simply stuffing the Universe with junk.

It is emo-spam.

Delete the offenders from your life. Press "ignore".

Alternatively, if you're like me, use them as a lightning conductor for pent-up working life frustrations and be FIFTY TIMES AS RUDE in return. Whyever not? It's not like they care.

Cheers, petals!

- thus disrupting the flow of useful information is to spend vast amounts of time purposefully misinterpreting what is said or refusing to address the main point made. It's possible to waste an utterly extraordinary amount of everyone's time by simply making one's "opponent" explain thesemselves over and over again.

One is then in a marvellous position to say things like: "You're repeating yourself" or "You're going on and on a about this." It's a simple, manipulative trick.

Disruption is clearly observable. Anyone who finds fault with some perfectly trivial aspect of the main thrust of an argument is wasting everyone's time.

Deliberately.

It's nothing to do how individuals feel about it.

"But what if I WANT to leave pools of gasoline lying all over my front yard? Since the ordinance prohibiting gasoline pools, figures are DOWN, so gasoline's obviously safe. Hardly anyone in my neighbourhood has had a gasoline instigated housefire for years. What about my personal, individual, American, oppression-resisting FREEDOM? People doing all stuff together.... EEEEEEEW, COMMUNISM!"

THIS is the level of debate, now.

WTF?

£20K!!!! Voluntary Sector!

YAAAAAY



Starting this morning I will be Policy Officer for a Voluntary Sector oversight group!

I know youse guys know all this stuff already but here's yet another article on the subject to plague your conservative relatives with...

http://uk.businessinsider.com/an-american-uses-britain-nhs-2015-1

'THIS ROLLS ROYCE ISN'T MOVING FAST ENOUGH!'

The context here is that the NHS just released its most recent stats on accident and emergency room waiting times. The headline number is that 84% of patients are seen within four hours. In the UK, this is regarded as a huge failure — the standard the NHS is supposed to meet is 95% of patients in four hours. The UK media went into a fury about it, and some hospitals have begun postponing and rescheduling some non-emergency procedures in order to get those waiting times down.

In the US, having sat in many an ER waiting room for hours at a stretch, the idea of a hospital seeing nearly 9 out of 10 patients in four hours would be regarded as a miracle. Bear in mind that within that four-hour period the NHS doctors are triaging patients: If you get hit by a bus, you're going to see someone instantly. If you broke a finger because you fell over while drunk at the pub, you're probably going to wait at the back of the line. It's not like people are literally bleeding to death while they wait for attention (although the British media loves it when it finds individual cases where that has happened).

So my overall impression is that currently, the Brits' complaints that the NHS isn't hitting that 95% mark is akin to saying, "This Rolls Royce isn't moving fast enough!"

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/an-american-uses-britain-nhs-2015-1#ixzz3QYgmiIA6

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/worlds-humblest-president-stops-to-pick-up-hitchhiker--x190CFMTie

It’s not often that a world leader stops to give you a lift.

But a hitchhiker in Uruguay found himself in a car with the country’s president and first lady when they stopped to help him.

Gerhald Acosta was walking the 100 miles between his place of work and hometown as dozens of cars went past without stopping...