Larry's Phat Page: News

Mon.May.26.2008

Mon, 26 May 2008 06:27:00 -0400

Finally, after a month of May that has been consistently ten degrees (or about 6°C) below normal, we are beginning to see warmer temperatures here in southeast Michigan. We’re not by any means done with the cold, as tomorrow night’s low (technically in the wee hours of Wednesday morning) is forecast to be below 40°F (4°C) with frost possible a bit north of here. That is definitely not normal late-May weather in these parts.

In my last update, I said that I was going to write an update about how progressives need to start doing a much better job of taking their message to the grass-roots level. This post has been inspired by a billboard that I pass semi-regularly while working; it is located along eastbound Interstate 94 near milepost 154 here in Michigan, just barely west of the Jackson/Washtenaw county line, between the towns of Grass Lake and Chelsea. A Jackson-based anti-reproductive-freedom outfit rented the sign a couple months ago, and has posted the following unsubstantiated lie: “What if you’re wrong? 90% of women who had abortions say they were wrong!”

Beyond pointing out that this 90% claim is based on a pseudo-scientific, non-representative sample — that is, maybe 90% of post-abortive women into whom the Christofascists manage to get their claws will say under torture that they were wrong — I’m really not even going to address the claim. Instead, I intend to hold it up as a perfect example of how conservatives and Christofascists do a far better job of getting their Satan-filled message out to their grass roots. If progressives ever hope to actually influence the direction of this country, beyond maybe winning an election or two when people get tired of the Rethuglicans, this is a lesson that must be learned quickly and well.

Take a drive anywhere on the Interstates in rural, conservative America, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Interstate 70 in Missouri sticks out in my mind as a great example: every third billboard is some kind of Christofascist anti-choice propaganda, especially in the more rural parts of the route. Turn on your radio while you take the said rural drive, and particularly east of the Rockies, I would challenge you to find a station that isn’t one of (a) country music, (b) conservative political talk, or (c) Christofascist propaganda — believe me, it’s not easy to do. If you’re lucky, you might even see conservative and/or Christofascist operatives committing crimes against property, such as they did in Indianapolis a year ago to billboards rented by a gay-affirming church.

What do progressives, liberals, and Democrats do? They give speeches and press conferences, and then they figure that the media will take care of getting their message out for them. This worked in days past, perhaps, but one must bear in mind the three-decade Rethuglican campaign to push the myth of a so-called “liberal media” in revenge for the resignation of Richard Nixon. That, combined with a virtual media ownership monopoly by large multi-national corporations, has given the media a solidly conservative, pro-Christofascist, pro-Rethuglican bent — yet the Democrats continue in this utterly self-defeating strategy.

This must change. We must start getting our message out to the grass roots of America, in ways that are just as ruthless and shocking as those used by the Reich wing. In order to promote reproductive freedom, I would recommend billboards that show a silhouette of a woman with a coat hanger in one hand and a pool of blood between her legs. Hell, for that matter, use a real image of that — it’s not as if Christofascists have any compunctions about using real images of fetuses. It would also work wonders to deface and/or vandalize Christofascist billboards; for example, “LIES LIES LIES” on that billboard on I-94 would get the message across nicely.

On that note, I would recommend that we focus our efforts on billboards that are high off the ground and difficult for those not in the sign industry to reach. That way, we do two things: (1) we prevent vandalism of billboards containing our message, and (2) we force Christofascists and conservatives to rent the boards that are lower to the ground, where we can much more easily correct their untruths.

Mind you, I don’t intend that this be a one-medium PR campaign confined to billboards on freeways. We can make far more effective use of print and broadcast media, such as newspapers and television, than we are doing right now. In fact, on the topic of gay equality in America, I have sort of half-formulated scripts for a series of TV ads that can be run by our advocacy organizations, and I have the crazy idea to spend $6 million to run the first of the series at halftime of the Super Bowl — which is exactly when those who most need to see that message will be exposed to it. That would also be perfect timing in the year, because the Daytona 500 is two weeks later — believe you me, the NASCAR crowd really needs to hear the message that we’re here, we’re an integral, necessary part of society, and we’re tired of third-class citizenship. I might begin to detail those scripts this morning if I had more than 25 minutes left before heading to bed, but that will have to wait for another time.

I also promised I would say more about the recent California Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the Golden State. Again, time is short right now, but I did want to mention one thing that struck me about the dissenting opinions. Running all through the dissents was a visible undercurrent of Christofascist talking points: things like “millenia-old tradition,” “re-defining marriage,” “activist judges,” and so forth. What the three dissenting judges are implicitly admitting is that the only case against marriage equality is an explicitly Christofascist one — in other words, a constitutionally invalid one, given the First Amendment’s prohibition of laws respecting an establishment of religion.

OK, I have to be off to bed. Enjoy all your Memorial Day barbecues today, while I get to work hauling fuel around.

Sun.May.18.2008

Sun, 18 May 2008 04:42:00 -0400

Some of you may have been wondering if I had gone to the great fuel-driver paradise in the sky, or if so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” thugs had murdered me for my exposé on Peter LaBarbera in my last update some 53 days ago. Those are all nasty rumors, I assure you, and I remain as alive and well as ever. There’s way too much to try to catch up with in one update, but I’ll do my best, in addition to doing yet another exposition of “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” hypocrisy.

On April 13, I started a new shift at work. It’s actually the same time of day as it has been since I started there last July, from 4:00 pm until whatever time I finish the assigned work, but now I work on different days of the week. Rather than my old Wednesday through Sunday shift, with Monday and Tuesday off, I now work Sundays through Thursdays with Friday and Saturday off. This would be great for a social life, if (a) I had the time between all the other shit to do on the weekend and (b) I much gave a shit about pursuing it. This change in shifts occurred because we added a second truck to our operation, and hired two new drivers to fill new shifts that were created with the addition of the new truck.

As I alluded to in the last paragraph, even my weekends have been insane for quite some time now. The first weekend immediately after my change of work days, April 18-19, was mostly lost with my car in a body shop, as some asshole had apparently pushed a shopping cart into my right rear door and dented it pretty good. Fortunately, the $250 cost to repair it seemed pretty reasonable, and more importantly didn’t even match my insurance deductible, so I won’t get my premium jacked up.

My weekend activities since then have included a visit to my 94-year-old grandmother in her nursing facility in Howell, MI, and poker at my friend Jay’s apartment, in the last weekend of April; an oil change on my car two weekends ago; all kinds of family shit last weekend for Mother’s Day and a cousin’s college graduation; and the replacement of my Gateway laptop two days ago with a new HP Media Center desktop. The laptop nearly died on me earlier this week, and has ever since been behaving about like Dick Clark right after his 2004 stroke, so I was worried about its continued health.

Frankly, I only bought the computer because of a deal offered by Circuit City this past week. They were offering 12-month no-payment, no-interest financing on the purchase of any digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera over $499, but it was something in the fine print of that offer on their web site that caught my eye: any other item in a purchase containing a qualifying item (in my case, the DSLR) would also qualify for the same promotional financing. I had been considering a DSLR as a long-range purchase, perhaps late this year or in 2009 after I had other debt paid off, but when I saw that I could do both a DSLR and a computer and not pay a dime for a year, I couldn’t pass it up. Without the deal, I probably would have had to string the laptop along until about September, hoping it wouldn’t completely die in the interim.

The insanity of my weekends will not go away for at least another few weeks. Even though I’ve asked for next Sunday off from work, thus giving me a three-day weekend, I will still have to go under the car again to rotate the tires, renew my apartment lease, and head to a family barbecue planned for next Sunday. The weekend after that will essentially only be one day, as the Friday (May 30) will be lost to a company safety meeting I have to attend in Findlay, OH. Two weeks after that, I’m playing around with the idea of a Chicago trip, as another “national” road enthusiast meet is being planned for that weekend. Perhaps by July, I might actually get to sleep in on a Friday afternoon/evening.

Although I know I’m easily a month behind the times, perhaps two by now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the whole controversy surrounding Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Naturally, conservative Reich-wingers have seized on one sentence out of a much longer and more complex sermon Wright delivered to his Trinity United Church of Christ congregation, while completely ignoring the greater point Wright was making. In fact, any correct analysis of the sermon proves Reich-wingers and so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” to be lying hypocrites, for the 37,236,834th time.

See, so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” like to pretend that they’re not Christ-despising bigots by invoking the catch phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” whenever they speak on the topic of homosexuality. Those of us with functioning brains have long realized that “love the sinner, hate the sin” is really code for “hate the sinner and do anything possible to deny him dignity and full membership in the human race, all the while putting on a ‘loving’ public face about it” — and now we have proof of that, in the form of the conservative “fundamentalist” response to Wright.

Read the Wikipedia entry on Rev. Wright, and you can clearly see a man who loves his country, but doesn’t care for some of things it has done and is doing. No man would serve six years in the Navy, and in fact participate in a surgical procedure on the President as Wright did for Lyndon Johnson in 1966, if he didn’t have the deepest patriotic love for his country. The part of the sermon that the Reich-wing conservative media won’t ever air — since airing that part doesn’t make Obama out to be a Manchurian candidate, and FAUX “News” can’t countenance your not believing he’s some secret Muslim out to hand us all over to al-Qaeda — listed a long litany of un-acknowledged American government crimes against non-white peoples, from the forced relocation of Native Americans and the Japanese internment of World War II to the Tuskegee experiments and the non-response to Hurricane Katrina. Clearly, Wright’s attitude is one of somebody who loves America, but hates the anti-Christian things it does, and wants it to be a better place for everybody.

Oh, but he can’t do that, to hear the usual Reich-wing suspects tell it. According to the likes of OxyContin-popper Rush Limbaugh, a certain huge-Adam’s-apple-bearer and attention whore who won’t be named here, and Sean Insannity, Wright is “anti-white,” “anti-American,” and “a traitorous, racist nutjob.” Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but that isn’t stopping the Reich-wingers and the masses of mindless drones from parroting the belief that Wright “hates the sinner” and is incapable of “loving the sinner and hating the sin.”

Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and I’m glad to finally see Reich-wingers and conservative “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” admitting that it isn’t possible to “love the sinner and hate the sin” — that it invariably ends up turning into the un-Christian position of hating the sinner too. Certainly they will now renounce their anti-gay views and positions and start pressing for full equality and first-class citizenship for their gay and lesbian brethren in the human race, right? I guess those 27 state constitutional bigotry amendments will soon be repealed, huh?

Nope, didn’t think so. So-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” are reprobate, inveterate liars and hypocrites, and in their warped world view, it’s better to stay on the path to hell that Jesus warned them about in Matthew chapter 23 than to admit they were wrong and start displaying unconditional, absolute affirming love to GLBT folk. If they actually had God within ten thousand miles of their hardened hearts, so-called “Christians” would, among other things, immediately drop their petition drive to add bigotry to the California Constitution and join in our revelry and joy over the California Supreme Court’s judicially and constitutionally correct decision on same-sex marriage — but of course, we know better, as it isn’t that hard to see Satan at work in their hearts and minds.

(Aside: I have reviewed about half of the text of the decision, and will have more to say about it in the future. So far, though, I can say that finally, a court has properly applied precedent and commonly accepted jurisprudence as outlined in my July 27, 2006 entry in this space.)

In fact, a look at the Gospels shows us that Jesus Himself condemned the “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude held by “fundamentalists.” In Luke 6:37, He warned us not to judge or condemn others, lest we be judged or condemned; later in that same Gospel, in chapter 20, verse 25, He reminds us that God’s judgment should be left to God rather than any earthly authority. The true Christian attitude, therefore, is something more like this: love the sinner and shut the fuck up about the sin — especially when, using correct Biblical scholarship, the Biblical evidence that it actually is a sin is flimsy at best.

I had better be off for tonight, but I’ll be back, hopefully in less than 53 days next time. I have at least two more update ideas in the pipeline, one of them being about how progressives need to do a better job of taking their message to the grass roots. To quote Keith Olbermann quoting Edward R. Murrow, “Good night, and good luck.”

Wed.Mar.26.2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:51:00 -0400

In my last update, I promised a major exposé about so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christianity’,” and I’ve returned here with the goods. So-called “Christians” who make it their life’s work to hate God’s dearly beloved gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) children, often complain of poverty and troll for donations by invoking the boogeyman of a supposed “well-funded ‘homosexual agenda’.” However, as this exposé of one such prominent figure will prove, it is actually the “Christians” who are flush with cash, and they would really rather you didn’t know where that money went. So without further ado, let’s delve into the truth.

Loyal readers of this site will no doubt recall the name of Peter LaBarbera, the head of what amounts to his own cult of personality called Americans for “Truth”; I have mentioned him here on numerous occasions before. In fact, I thoroughly destroyed one of his favorite Satan-inspired talking points — a notion that GLBT folk somehow “hate God” — in this space last May. Well, he’s back at it again, having repeated the same charge without any corroboration on his blog last Tuesday. (Remember, then as now, I refuse to link to the figments of his imagination.) Since LaBarbera sees no problem with continuing to violate God’s Eighth Commandment by lying about gay folk, it’s time to tell the truth about him.

As Jesus told us in Matthew 19:24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Apparently, Peter LaBarbera didn’t have that in mind when he chose to move his family to the wealthiest city of over 90,000 people in America and buy a $340,000 home in the fall of 2003. He made a down payment of $68,000, the money apparently coming from the sale of the LaBarberas’ previous home in Woodbridge, VA, and mortgaged the other $272,000 through Professional Mortgage Partners, Inc. of nearby Downers Grove, IL. That mortgage, and a home equity line of credit (HELOC) taken out January 23, 2004 in the amount of $32,000, would be combined and refinanced as a 30-year, $300,000 mortgage in March 2005. Not even nine months later, on December 6, 2005, LaBarbera and his wife Cristina took out yet another HELOC, this time for $50,000, from JPMorgan Chase Bank.

That’s $350,000 worth of debt, for those doing the math along with me. I’m not as familiar with HELOC terms as mortgage terms, so I’ll stick to evaluating the LaBarberas’ $300,000 mortgage. Let’s give Peter and Cristina LaBarbera the benefit of the doubt and assume they had, at worst, average credit when they took that mortgage; in 2005 with average credit, this would probably mean they got an interest rate of around 5¼% or thereabouts. A simple mathematical formula, available on any finance web site, yields a monthly payment of $1,656.61 for that set of terms ($300K financed, 30 years, 5¼% interest). Different interest rates would change the payment slightly; for example, at 6%, the payment would be around $1,800 per month.

But wait, that’s not all. Most mortgages that I’m familiar with require the homeowner to pay one-twelfth of the annual property tax bill each month, with those funds held in escrow by the mortgage company until the property taxes actually come due. DuPage County records show that the LaBarberas paid $6,629.58 in property taxes for the year 2006, or if split into 12 equal monthly payments, $552.47 per month. Whether Professional Mortgage Partners requires LaBarbera’s property taxes to be held in escrow or not, the money is finding its way from LaBarbera to DuPage County one way or the other, so it can be figured as a monthly housing cost.

Adding just these two things together — and remember, I’m not even getting into the cost of servicing that $50,000 HELOC — Peter and Cristina LaBarbera are paying $2,209.08 per month for their four-bedroom, 2½-bath, 2182-square-foot (202.7 m²) home and 12,320-square-foot (0.28 acres, 1,145 m²) lot. (They do have five children, so having four bedrooms isn’t entirely unreasonable; but I might suggest the use of this wonderful little invention called the condom in the future, as every additional child is a further drain on the finances.) If the HELOC terms are anything like the mortgage terms, it costs close to another $300 per month to service that debt, so when push comes to shove, the LaBarberas are probably out $2,500 per month for housing.

Let’s again give the benefit of the doubt and assume reasonable borrowing practices on the LaBarberas’ part, including observance of the so-called 28% rule. The 28% rule suggests that one’s housing costs should not exceed 28% of one’s net income. If this is the case, Peter LaBarbera’s net income is nearly $9,000 per month, or $108,000 per year. This is truly amazing, especially when he freely admits that slandering and smearing gays on a web site is his full-time job! (Look in the second paragraph after the list of gay advocacy organizations.)

(Just to give a little perspective, that figure represents double my gross income, and probably 275% of my net income. His Fraudulency King Chimpy the 43rd, Der Führer of the 43rd Reich, steals damn near a third of what I make to carry on his illegal occupation of Iraq’s oil wells. Since LaBarbera’s outfit Americans for “Truth” is registered as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, he keeps every penny of that estimated $108,000 per annum and therefore doesn’t contribute a dime to support our troops. Those with real jobs have to gross in the vicinity of $160,000 in order to net $108,000; we’re talking doctor and lawyer salary territory here.)

Peter LaBarbera and the majority of other so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” anti-gay types out there frequently insist that they don’t make nearly as much as employees of gay organizations, but LaBarbera’s public records prove that this is a lie — in fact, it shows that un-Christian, anti-gay hatred is really quite a lucrative business! Like Jim Bakker before him, LaBarbera is clearly using the “donations” for which he practically begs on his blog in order to carry on a lavish lifestyle for his family. My grandparents, who had a similar family situation with seven children, found ways to scrimp and save through three decades’ worth of child-rearing, and never lived pretentiously, often eschewing some modern conveniences — so if they could do it, so can the LaBarberas.

The fact that the LaBarberas chose Naperville, already mentioned as America’s wealthiest city, as their home is no accident — it shows that they put mammon before God. Since Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 that only one of those can be served, it becomes clear that Peter LaBarbera is not serving God. (We already knew that, of course, but now we have yet more proof.) But in any event, you can’t tell me the LaBarberas couldn’t have found a four-bedroom home for much less than $340,000 elsewhere in DuPage County, or in Chicago, or ferchrissakes even here in metro Detroit — they can be found here for not much over $200,000!

You also can’t tell me that Peter and Cristina LaBarbera couldn’t have stopped having children long before they got to five. Yes, children are wonderful, I understand, but from a purely financial standpoint, as I said, each additional one is another hit in the checkbook. I don’t know the half of how my grandparents pulled it off with seven kids, and I probably never will know. My parents undoubtedly gave my sister and me far more advantages in life, and spared themselves a ton of potential money headaches, by limiting themselves to two kids.

Ordinarily, most people would agree that buying a house beyond one’s means and/or having more children than one can really afford financially are just dumb decisions. Begging other people to help you out of the mess you created is childish (in that it shows an unwillingness to buck up and take responsibility) and slothful, on top of dumb. Slandering and defaming gay people on a web site in order to “earn” those “donations” from others — that is utterly beyond reprehensible. In fact, it not only borders on evil, it is evil.

Next time Peter LaBarbera goes trolling for “donations” on his blog, true Christians everywhere should tell him to ditch the house in Naperville and lose the luxurious lifestyle. He wouldn’t need a penny of other people’s money if he would only go out and get a real job. Then again, that political science degree he earned from the University of Michigan (excuse me while I go puke in response to that son of Satan’s pollution of my alumni pool) is pretty much worthless in the real world, as poli sci degrees tend to be, and besides, it’s just easier and more lucrative to sit at a computer and cyber-gay-bash all day. Beats working a real job and living a more middle-class lifestyle in Mundelein or Tinley Park, doesn’t it?

(Aside: Ann Coulter also graduated from U-M in the 1980s. What the fuck was in the water in Ann Arbor back then?)

I should give a bit more explanation as to how I found out all of this information. LaBarbera’s home address (which I am not divulging, for reasons I will discuss shortly) was discovered in a database of 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, and subsequently posted to a blog I frequent, about a year ago. I took note of it at that point in time, and starting last week, searched for it on public record sites. Most everything I found was publicly accessible on the web sites of the various local governments, including Naperville Township, the City of Naperville, and the DuPage County Recorder’s office. I have downloaded .PDF copies of the original mortgage documents that are on file in DuPage County’s offices in Wheaton, and can produce them with LaBarbera’s address redacted by me if anyone asks.

My purpose in doing this is not to bring upon, nor cause to be brought upon Peter LaBarbera or his family or property, any physical harm or threat thereof. That would be violating what I believe is a logical extension of God’s Sixth Commandment, “thou shalt not kill.” The aforementioned blog on which LaBarbera’s address appeared last year saw at least one death threat aimed at him in the comments, and I’m just not even going to go there. Instead, it is Peter LaBarbera’s reputation, and hopefully his cash flow and ultimately the continued existence of the gay-bashing blog that the said cash flow permits, that I am intent on damaging here. That is why I am not sharing his address with my readers — Peter LaBarbera deserves to have some assurance of protection against physical assault, even if he thinks that we GLBT folk aren’t worthy of the hate-crimes protections that would give us similar levels of assurance.

(It has also occurred to me that withholding his address here at this time can serve as a little bit of a hedge against LaBarbera or other so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” finding and posting my personal (i.e., non-public) information. I’m sure I have a few public records relating to my 2004 bankruptcy proceeding and a few traffic and parking citations, but the vast majority of that is already somewhere in the history of this section of my site, and wouldn’t exactly be “news” if reported by someone else. However, if LaBarbera or any other “Christian” individual or group pulls a Michelle Malkin on me — with the final discretion as to what constitutes private personal information belonging to me alone — I would then have no reservations whatsoever about sharing LaBarbera’s address with the world. Consider yourselves warned.)

Peter LaBarbera may claim to be for “truth,” as the disingenuous name of his web site would suggest. However, in doing this research, I have come to find out that there is a lot of truth that he would really rather you didn’t know. For ages, I’ve been making this clear as it relates to LaBarbera’s slanders and mischaracterizations of God’s dearly beloved GLBT children — the truth is that the vast majority of us are normal, moral, healthy, upstanding citizens, but if you listened to LaBarbera, you would think we were all diseased sexbots out to recruit “Christian” children or something. Now, by using information that anybody can access, I’ve shown the truth about Peter LaBarbera himself.

Count me as an American for truth — the real truth, not the lies of Peter LaBarbera and so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’.”

Sat.Mar.22.2008

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:01:00 -0400

Somehow, I think that the Bible and all the old classic movies about the life of Jesus got it all wrong. The Gospels of Mark and Luke tell us that darkness fell over the whole land from the sixth hour to the ninth hour on Good Friday, and those wonderful 1950s film epics (case in point: Ben-Hur) often depict violent thunderstorms and rain during Jesus’ crucifixion. Nobody anywhere seems to have said anything about 8” (20 cm) of snow on Good Friday.

Thankfully, that has just come to an end here in much of southeast Michigan within the last hour or so. I spent almost two hours stuck in various places with the truck this past night, and used nearly 100 lbs. (45 kg) of salt extricating myself from those jams. Even two loads, rather than the usual three, still took me 10 hours — when I can usually get three done in somewhere between 10 and 11 hours in good weather.

This being a night in the middle of my work week, I really don’t have a ton of time to write here. However, I did want to make it known that I am collecting facts and working on a major exposé about a well-known figure in the world of “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” anti-gay bigotry. Suffice it to say for now that this exposé, when published, will forever put to rest the “fundamentalist” canard about a supposed “well-funded homosexual lobby.” I will show what kind of money these so-called “Christians” are really raking in from the donations they solicit on the pretense of “combatting the ‘homosexual agenda’,” and where those donations are going.

Until then, my friends, try to stay clear of the heavy snow here in Michigan, the flooding in the lower Midwest and Mississippi Valley, and the nasty high winds about to hit the Pacific Northwest … ah fuck it. Just go some place nice like Hawaii.

Tue.Mar.11.2008

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:55:00 -0400

Another week, another entry — that’s about how it seems to go around here. At least the weather isn’t going to fucking suck this week, like it has continuously since about the middle of February.

I figured I wanted to make a short entry in which I define a useful new term. You have no doubt heard some so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” churches, individuals, and groups referring to themselves as “Bible-believing ‘Christians’” before, particularly in the context of the wars they have declared on scientific truth, sexuality, and numerous other topics. This use of “Bible-believing” is actually a code word for “fundamentalists,” intended to differentiate “fundamentalists” from those Christians who actually strive to emulate Christ’s example. That is to say, in the “fundamentalist” Borg, Christians who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick, instead of picketing abortion clinics and gay pride parades, are not “Bible-believing.”

(Of course, the truth is that those who put their best effort into following Christ’s example are showing their belief in the most important part of the Bible — the Gospels. It seems that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are absent from the “fundamentalist” Bible, though, as the latter only contains Leviticus, the Pauline epistles, and Revelation, so maybe that’s why “fundamentalists” would accuse even Mother Teresa of having been not “Bible-believing.”)

Turnabout is fair play, and I am going to create a term that differentiates true Christians — those who actually try to live by Jesus’ example in the Gospels — from “fundamentalists” and other conservative “Christians.” Those who actually try to do good for others are Gospel-following Christians, to coin my term. Gospel-following Christians accept their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender fellow children of God, and display unconditional, non-judgmental love to them and all people in the human race. Gospel-following Christians realize that the path to heaven passes through volunteer sessions at soup kitchens, serving hungry people, and not through picketing Planned Parenthood or rifling through Dumpsters outside abortion clinics. Gospel-following Christians do phone-banking for upcoming church blood drives, like my mother just did recently, instead of ranting non-stop about a supposed “destructive homosexual agenda” and insisting that GLBT folk have to “change” their God-given, God-ordained sexual orientation in order to be “saved.”

The best part about using the term Gospel-following to describe true Christians, as described in the previous paragraph, is that it’s the truth — it’s not some code word with a hidden meaning that actually conveys a falsehood. Ultimately, the “fundamentalist” use of “Bible-believing” truly means nothing more than an ego stroking for themselves and a put-down of everybody else. If “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” actually believed the Bible, they too would strive to live by the Gospels — but their actions clearly give them away as liars. Fortunately for them, as long as they are still alive, it’s never too late to renounce their hatred of gays and start following Jesus’ example — He is waiting for them to do just that, in fact.

OK, off to bed with me. Until next time, ciao.

Tue.Mar.04.2008

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:24:00 -0500

As you know if you’re a regular follower of this site, I spend plenty of time exposing the agenda of hypocrisy and lies so frequently promulgated by so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’.” Well, they’re back at it again, so it’s time for me to review it all for you and reveal their true Satan-inspired motives.

You may remember back to the summer of 2005, when I devoted at least three updates here to the imprisonment of then-16-year-old Tennessee teenager Zach Stark in a so-called “ex-gay” residential facility in Memphis. Sadly, I don’t have further news of the now 18-year-old Zach, as he has kept his MySpace page in “friends only” mode ever since his ordeal; no, this story is about the man who led Zach’s Guantánamo experience, John Smid. Before I share the story, let me tip my hat to the story’s source, Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin.

Burroway attended the annual Exodus International conference in Irvine, CA, in June 2007, and recently posted this self-made video to YouTube. The video includes a recording of a lecture Smid gave at the conference, in which he spouted pretty much all the usual “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” anti-sex nonsense. However, at roughly 2:17 into the video, Smid unleashes this exceedingly creepy statement that actually shows just what hypocrites “Christians” are: (emphasis mine)

I’m sorry, but my wife’s vagina is enough! I’m gonna be honest — it’s enough. It is enough for me. If it’s not enough for me, that’s my problem. I have to be honest about that. God created her for my … for my fit — he created that, and I need to honor and respect my wife.

Very nice. We can see what John Smid really thinks of women — they are simply created to fit around a man’s penis, and as such, lack brains, the capability for independent thought, and rationality. That much is sickening enough, quite frankly, but what is perhaps even worse is the attitude that Smid is encouraging in boys with the “her vagina … is made for my fit” statement — I mean, that’s just the message we need to be sending to teenage boys. The last thing we need to do as a society is give teenage boys any more encouragement, explicit or implicit, to have sex when they’re really not ready to handle the consequences.

In fact, what Smid is doing here is showing one of the highest levels of hypocrisy I have ever seen. Most “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” at least purport to oppose teenage sex and the things that can come about as consequences thereof, such as teenage pregnancy or abortion. There is, at minimum, some logical consistency to that part of their message, even though they have fabricated whole-cloth the notion that those things are part of “Christian” morality (as nothing was said about them by Christ). On the other hand, Smid doesn’t care — a ton of teenage pregnancies and abortions, spurred on by the notion that “the vagina is made for my fit,” are all fine and lovely if it means bashing the homos.

It should be quite easy to see the extreme danger to society and the hypocrisy of such a belief. Then again, what are we to expect from a known Christofascist terrorist, and one of the said terrorist movement’s leaders at that?

Sticking with Burroway’s Box Turtle Bulletin as a source, let’s examine what another Christofascist leader, the obviously gender-confused Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America, is shitting himself about: (with a few edits made to remove Christofascist code words)

The Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute is teaming up with [gay] groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Stonewall Democrats, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for an initiative called the “Presidential Appointments Project.” It is being billed as a “talent bank” for openly [gay] professionals who want to “set or influence” policies of a potential Obama, McCain, or Clinton administration. …

Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Washington, DC-based Concerned Women for America, says the project puts to rest the notion that there is no “gay agenda.”

Hmmm … isn’t that EXACTLY what the Christofascists have been doing with free rein during the Chimpy mis-administration? Have the people appointed by this ~~emperor~~ ~~king~~ “president” not been setting and influencing administration policies, including a religious Armageddon in the Middle East, the denial of proven scientific truth such as evolution and global warming, the intentional dumbing-down of our children’s education (particularly on sex-related topics), and the enrichment of oil-company CEOs, based on their twisted, perverted mis-interpretation of Christianity? Why, it’s just SHOCKING AND UNTHINKABLE that gay and lesbian Americans might try to do the same thing!

If the Christ-condemned (see chapter 23 of Matthew) hypocrisy of Smid and Barber hasn’t been enough to make you puke, here’s even more from Chris Korzen of the group Catholics United. Recently, evangelical preacher John Hagee endorsed John McCain in the Rethuglican presidential primary; Hagee is known for past statements that the Catholic Church is “a whore” and that it cooperated with Hitler in the Holocaust. Naturally, this set Korzen, among others, off: (emphasis again mine)

By receiving the endorsement of an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, McCain once again demonstrates that he is willing to sell out his principles for a chance to win the Presidency. We hope Senator McCain will take the principled position of publicly and unequivocally distancing himself from Pastor Hagee’s anti-Catholic comments. Intolerance and bigotry do not belong in American politics.

This from the very same Catholic Church in America that staunchly supported bigotry amendments now in place in 27 state constitutions? Does this mean that Catholics will now support the repeal of these amendments that make fourth-class citizens of their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters in Christ? If “intolerance and bigotry do not belong in American politics,” they have to — or they are condemned to Hell.

No, what this really is, in this situation, is Catholics not liking it when they get a dose of their own medicine. It was fine and dandy to do it to those faggots, but it’s “intolerant and bigoted” when done to them. Again, I might suggest that Catholics actually open the Bible, and see what Jesus had to say about hypocrisy and hypocrites in Matthew 23.

Finally, I intend to show one more way in which so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christianity’” is actually leading America down the path of destruction. As you no doubt know if you’re not a CEO or otherwise somehow among the top 1% of wage earners, our economy is teetering on the brink of a major recession and possibly worse. This economic despair has been fueled largely by a crisis in the credit markets, mostly because banks have been giving out huge amounts of credit to people who can’t handle the debt loads. Home foreclosures have skyrocketed as adjustable mortgage rates have increased beyond the ability of the homeowners to pay, and skyrocketing credit-card interest rates are almost designed to keep people trapped in debt.

“Fundamentalist ‘Christianity’” didn’t start the credit and foreclosure crisis, but it will contribute to making it worse. As I have pointed out here before, one thing “fundamentalist” leaders do quite well is demand money from their flocks, with the threat that they are headed for hell if they don’t open their wallets. Many such “fundamentalist” churches demand tithing, or the giving of 10% of one’s income (i.e., gross revenue) to the church; some mega-churches actually make it a condition of membership.

Let me use my own average monthly income and expense figures, which I won’t actually disclose, to make a point here. Ten percent of my gross revenue per month comes out to 44% of my net profits after all of life’s necessities are paid. Were I to be a “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” with a weak enough mind to actually believe all the hell-for-lack-of-donations threats, that would be nearly half of the disposable income I have each month!

We all know how shit comes up every month to eat into that disposable income. One of the kids just destroyed their winter coat on the playground at school; the car has to go in for work; or the carpet needs to be cleaned. With half of one’s disposable income being demanded by one’s church, under penalty of going to hell for eternity, things like that are probably going to have to be financed on credit. One will never be able to do anything with that debt, though, as long as one is giving half of his/her disposable income to the church. Eventually, this leads to out-of-control spiraling of debt, and foreclosures, defaults, and bankruptcies.

This real-world consideration doesn’t enter the thought processes of the so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” church leader, though. His greed sees to that. He needs the money to continue financing a lavish lifestyle for himself, or to carry on un-Godly pursuits like so-called “‘ex-gay’ ministries,” and the easiest way to get it is to convince his weak-minded flock that they’re all going to hell unless they pony up. In turn, the members of the congregation, burdened with this requirement, will turn to credit cards, home equity lines of credit, and second mortgages — none of which they can afford — to carry on their real-world lives, and when they default, so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christianity’” will have helped to wreck America’s economy for the rest of us normal people.

Again, I hope that all those of you in mainstream American society will begin to see “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” as the liars and hypocrites the vast majority of them are. If Americans would start coming to gay and lesbian individuals and groups for truthful definitions of gay and lesbian people and homosexuality, rather than listening to the blatant lies told by “Christians” with an agenda, the country would be a far better place. If churches would ask for donations from those members most able to donate, instead of requiring 10% of everybody’s gross revenue, our economy would be greatly helped. If we would stop just blindly accepting it as fact that people and things are somehow good or “moral” just because they’re associated with religion, we would take the largest strides ever taken toward peace and harmony on earth.

That’s it for tonight. I doubt I’ll do much between now and returning to work tomorrow afternoon, what with tonight’s weather forecasted to turn very nasty — we’re looking at possibly ½” (1 cm) of ice and then 3-6” (8-15 cm) of snow on top of that.

Wed.Feb.20.2008

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:41:00 -0500

Well, I’m still alive after 29 days, although given how sick I got in early February, that might be at least a little bit surprising. I ended up missing three days of work because of it, and I’m still not entirely sure what it was. Thankfully, I’ve been feeling mostly fine for about a week now, and things are pretty much back to normal.

One of the more interesting things I have had happen to me since my last update was actually a dream that I had at some point last week — I think last Thursday. (Remember, I tend to sleep from early morning to mid-afternoon, because of my work schedule.) The subject of the dream was this upcoming November’s Michigan-Ohio State football game. Those who know me might not find that subject matter all that unusual, but what was interesting about it was the vivid details about the game that I remember.

I clearly remember what the final score was in the dream: Michigan 30, Ohio State 20. For that matter, I also remember much of the fourth quarter of the game figuring prominently into the dream for some reason. I remember it being 23-12 Michigan as the quarter started with the Buckeyes progressing down the field toward the only touchdown they would score all day (the previous 12 points having come off four field goals). That Ohio State score would cut the lead to five, and a successful two-point conversion try would cut it further to three, leaving the score at 23-20 with roughly 11 minutes to play.

Michigan, though, would follow that long Buckeye touchdown drive with a matching one of their own, and would register the game’s final points with about four minutes left. From there, Ohio State would make a couple first downs, but eventually find themselves in one of my favorite football situations — fourth-and-ballgame — with just over a minute left; they would fail to convert that fourth down, and Michigan would take a knee a couple times to end it.

I don’t specifically remember a mention of any year in the dream, though I do remember the game being in Ohio Stadium, so it would make sense that the dream involved the game nine months from now. I also remember that, in the fourth quarter, Michigan was going north-to-south (left-to-right seen from the ‘Shoe’s press box) on its offensive drives, and the Buckeyes south-to-north (right-to-left). I don’t recall exactly what Michigan did to get to 23 points by the end of three quarters, though in thinking about it once awake, it occurred to me the easiest way to do that is two touchdowns, two successfully kicked PATs, and three field goals — so if this dream is any indication, it sounds like both kickers will be pretty busy. (Of course, three touchdowns with successful PATs and a safety would work too.)

I wish I had more time to write more, but sadly, I don’t. Let’s see if I can make it back any sooner next time …

Tue.Jan.22.2008

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:36:00 -0500

As I promised two weeks ago, I am returning here with another edition of “open the mailbag,” though first, I have a couple small news items I should report. My left knee is mildly bothering me after what I suspect (having done some reading and research) may be a medial collateral ligament (MCL) sprain, suffered last Friday in a slip on an invisible patch of ice at work. I was able to almost immediately get up and walk forward with close to no pain, so that hasn’t been an issue at all. However, there are certain pivoting, cutting, twisting, or weight-shifting movements that are still somewhat painful, and I have to be a bit careful of those. I suspect that I’ll be fine given a couple weeks of no further injury.

Also, I wanted to report on Michigan’s presidential primary election, which took place a week ago today. Following the advice promulgated by the progressive political blog DailyKos, I crossed over and cast a vote in the Rethuglican primary for Mitt Romney, contributing one vote toward his eventual victory in the state. Basically, the Democratic primary was meaningless without Barack Obama and John Edwards on the ballot, and with the threat by the DNC to refuse convention seats to Michigan’s delegates anyway, so the thinking went, why not fuck things up for the GOPstapo? With Mike Huckabee’s victory in Iowa and John McCain’s in New Hampshire, Romney represented the third different winner in four (to that point) nominating contests, thereby leaving him viable longer and causing Rethuglicans to run more nasty attack ads against one another.

Now, on to this edition of “open the mailbag.” I received an e-mail from a person identifying herself as “Brenda” just moments after the calendar had flipped over to January 7 here (still the 6th in Brenda’s time zone, though). Right off the top, she launched into the talking points used by so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’,” saying, “You have made your choice” as though sexual orientation were a choice, and it got worse from there with “You are responsible for your life right now and in the end when you die and where you go from there” before the end of that paragraph. You know, Brenda, if you’re trying to “save” gay people, implicit threats of eternal damnation for something so fundamental to our God-given identities isn’t the way to do it.

Brenda also has a lot of completely unfounded assumptions about me and the millions of other gay people put here on earth by God, apparently placed into her memory banks by lying “Christian” preachers for later robotic recovery and dissemination. Cover your keyboards to protect them from vomit as you read this terribly spelled and punctuated gem:

[I]f your not happy about the way your being treated by your lifestyle why announce it. Since it is going to bring you unhappiness.

Since when have I ever said that my God-given homosexuality makes me unhappy? The answer to that question would be never. I would be far more unhappy with lying to myself and others, trying to maintain a heterosexual facade just to have the approval of people like Brenda. That would truly be a “lifestyle choice” that would bring me unhappiness — and not only me, but worse yet, others to whom I would be lying about my God-given nature.

The cognitive dissonance and direct contradictions of the Bible in Brenda’s message, sometimes within the same sentence, are mind-boggling. Here’s another great snippet:

If you feel that putting up this website will help others you need to understand you are not responsible for them. You need to understand the whole of the responsibility lies with you and your life.

This doesn’t exactly comport with Matthew 25:40, which tells us, “Whatsoever you do to the least of My people, that you do unto Me.” If I don’t do my part to show others how so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” are habitual, reprobate liars about gay people and homosexuality, I am likewise leaving Christ Himself to the wolves.

No one can live your life for you or walk in your skin or even take the journy of death with you.

I’m not asking to have my life lived for me, nor am I trying to live anybody else’s life as Brenda seemed to suggest earlier. That last clause, for somebody who is as trapped in “fundamentalist” ways of “thinking” as Brenda is, seems awfully nihilistic — isn’t the whole point of being “a good ‘Christian’” during life that you get to meet God in the journey of death? I can hear the cock preparing to crow three times for Brenda.

But if you do truly meet a true christian person along the way, perhaps they can share with you the love and guidence that is to be offered to one confused and scared of so many opinions.

Again, this is Brenda simply regurgitating the lies she has been fed. When have I ever indicated that I am confused and scared? What this statement of “confusion,” and a later repeated use of it, represents is an attempt to belittle GLBT people as mental children, essentially. This is a manifestation of the “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” tendency to view everybody else as mental two-year-olds who they can scare like older siblings always try to do; this will be better explained as the topic of a future post here, but for now it will suffice to say the tendency exists.

That is often the first thing that parents in denial of their son/daughter’s just-revealed homosexuality say: “How can you possibly know you’re gay? You’re probably just confused.” This completely discounts the YEARS the son/daughter has spent carrying on a very adult struggle to accept him/herself the way God made him/her, without falling into earthly anti-gay traps laid out by society. It is belittling, dehumanizing, and intended to deny the gay person’s full adulthood in all aspects of life.

The parents of a gay person may not necessarily mean it that way, and many will eventually realize just how wrong such a view is as they work through their own emotions. Often, this involves grieving the loss of their own hopes and aspirations for their son/daughter, which probably included grandchildren at some point. However, “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” remain forever trapped in this worldview, because they have to have some method of viewing GLBT people as “less” than themselves. What Brenda said in her e-mail is a perfect example.

May you go in peace and find the correct path to wisdom of freedom and not earthly delights that will degrade you and another in this ripple effect of the life you choose for now.

Let’s see here, I count at least three “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” anti-gay talking points in this sentence. There is the reference to “earthly delights” which, the way Brenda used it here, applies equally to heterosexual activity; there is the statement that the said “earthly delights” will “degrade” me somehow; and another reference to sexual orientation somehow being “chosen.” The mere fact that a sexual act involves two men or two women doesn’t make it “degrading” in the least; any “degrading” aspect would necessarily have to involve abuse of some sort, which can occur in heterosexual sex as well.

You know what’s even better about all of this? I can tell from my site logs that Brenda didn’t even read anything in my “Being Gay” section before writing her screed. Here’s a look at the relevant entries from the logs, with meaningless information stripped out:

[IP redacted] [06/Jan/2008:21:52:26 -0700]
"GET www.phatpage.org/whyhategays.html"
"http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=jesus+hate+gays&ei=UTF-8&fr=hp-pvdt"
[IP redacted] [06/Jan/2008:21:52:47 -0700]
"GET www.phatpage.org/gay.html"
"http://www.phatpage.org/whyhategays.html"
[IP redacted] [06/Jan/2008:21:53:24 -0700]
"GET www.phatpage.org/contact.html"
"http://www.phatpage.org/gay.html"

This means that Brenda entered the site at 9:52:26 pm MST, or 11:52:26 pm EST, on Sunday, January 6, from a Yahoo! search for the phrase “jesus hate gays” (how very “Christian” of her), and landed on the essay “Why Do ‘Christians’ Hate Gays?”. Just 21 seconds later, she linked from that essay to the main “Being Gay” section page, and another 37 seconds after that, she loaded the contact page to begin writing. You mean to tell me that somebody can absorb anything, much less a reasonably long essay, in 21 seconds? Call the Guinness Book of World Fuckin’ Records. What is more likely is that Brenda only needed 21 seconds for “gay” to register as a so-called “dog whistle word” — a word used as code to notify its hearers that they had better think a certain way, much like “playground basketball” is intended to stoke irrational fears of thuggish, violently criminal young African-American males.

I have a thank-you page set up to be loaded when people send a message through the site, and that registered a hit in the logs from Brenda’s IP address at 10:08:41 pm MST (12:08:41 am EST Monday, January 7), one second after the e-mail’s SMTP timestamp. It only took Brenda 15 minutes to put all of her dripping hatred through her keyboard and into my inbox. The combination of these two things — just 58 seconds spent in the site before starting to write, and the e-mail of at least 20 sentences only taking 15 minutes to compose — prove beyond a doubt that Brenda is irretrievably trapped in the incorrect “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” worldview about human sexuality. She might have learned something if she had actually read what I had to say, but liars have convinced her that doing so would be “inviting Satan into her life” or some garbage, so she remains trapped in that lifestyle — truly a disgusting, degrading lifestyle, with its constant attacks on “the other.”

Well, I have a few things to do yet tonight before I start another week of work tomorrow afternoon. It’s time to go get on those, so I wish you a good night and happy trails until I return.

Tue.Jan.08.2008

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:24:00 -0500

Yes, you’re reading that temperature correctly. The last three days here have been exceedingly warm for early January, even to record levels yesterday as the mercury reached 63°F (17°C). I was out in short sleeves much of yesterday, as I took my car in to get some work done and did a little bit of shopping. It will cool off quite a bit in the latter part of this week, though at least the next two days are forecast to be warmer than normal with highs in the low 40s Fahrenheit (around 5°C).

In my last update, I said I would be back seeking advice on a dilemma that has been troubling me for the last couple of weeks. It’s nothing hugely serious, but it’s a situation in which I’m not quite sure how I best ought to proceed. It involves another man who lives in my apartment complex to whom I find myself quite attracted, and how I should go about handling it.

I’m going to call this man “Bryan,” although that is not his real name — nor is it even close. I first met him a few months ago, after one night where he had (apparently) inadvertently parked in my assigned carport here. As I usually do with people who steal my carport, I assumed good faith (that is, others not knowing that the space is paid for and assigned) and left him a polite note to that effect, asking him to avoid parking in my space again. I happened to see “Bryan” the following night, as I pulled in from work; he was sitting in his car for whatever reason, so I went over and talked to him for a minute. We introduced ourselves, and after that, he apologized for taking my spot the night before; I told him not to worry about it, that it wasn’t a big deal.

As you might have guessed, it was upon this first meeting that I was first struck by how hot “Bryan” is. If you really must know, he bears something of a resemblance to British porn star Darian Hawke (note: that link is safe for work or anywhere else), though Hawke is a bit taller, thinner, and more “gruff” looking than “Bryan.” I wouldn’t get a chance to “see” him again, in the sense of making eye contact, for quite some time, but after this initial meeting, I did manage to figure out which apartment unit he lives in by seeing him inside it through open window blinds — in other words, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

I would later come to find out “Bryan’s” full first and last name, though I won’t say how that happened here in order to prevent any kind of possible trouble; let it suffice to say it was another case of “couldn’t miss it even if I tried.” From there, a simple Google search of the first and last name (and who hasn’t done that to themselves or somebody else before?) returned a profile that pretty clearly belonged to “Bryan” on a hobbyist web site. I won’t say how much I know, but that profile did reveal quite a bit of information about him; I will only let it be known that he listed himself as single and in his 30s.

Obviously, “Bryan” has no idea that I know as much about him as I do. I don’t think he even knows that I know which apartment unit he lives in, as I don’t think he’s ever really been looking outside at me when I’ve seen him inside. The only thing it can be safely assumed that he knows I know about him is which car is his, and where he parks it.

I would like to get a chance to talk to “Bryan” again, however that happens. I see a few possibilities for this: (1) I could leave a note on his car again, this time inviting him to have something of a “get to know you” type of conversation. (2) I could pretend to know only about his car, and ask the complex office to forward a note (sealed in an envelope, of course) to “the guy who has the carport next to mine.” (3) I could hold some kind of social event for complex residents in my unit, and hope he shows up; though I would be leery of a specific, targeted invitation to him, as that could come off kind of stalker-ish. (4) I could leave things entirely to chance and just wait until the next time I see him in or near his car, although for all I know, that could never happen again — we went two-plus months from the night in the carport until our next mutual eye contact.

I feel like once I can get him into a conversation, obviously waiting until after we’ve covered some of the basics like jobs, interests, etc., I can pretty well handle telling him that I have a strong physical attraction to him. I should mention that at present, I have absolutely no clue as to whether “Bryan” is straight, bisexual, gay, or prefers barnyard animals , though simple demographic statistics would suggest he has a 95% chance of being straight. (I usually go with a figure of about 5% of society being gay; Kinsey’s 10% figure is known to be high, but so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” who claim less than 2% are lying, too. Why not split the difference, I figure.)

I will also say that from our roughly one-minute chat in the carport a while back, he didn’t really get my “gay-dar” pinging, so to speak. Of course, that tiny of an amount of time spent around somebody is woefully insufficient to really get a good gay-dar reading, one way or the other, I think. But in any event, I feel like I can handle the actual conversation pretty well, and I have various strategic outlines plotted out to cover most of his possible responses to my statements of attraction to him.

Where I am running into trouble, though, is figuring out how to get to this planned conversation with “Bryan” in the first place — how to communicate to him, in the right way, that I am interested in such a conversation. The last thing I want to do is come off like I’m stalking him, as there are possible legal repercussions for that; some might say I’ve already been “stalking” him, but last I checked, a simple Google search and seeing things I can’t help but see anyway don’t fit that definition.

One friend whose advice I’ve already sought suggested that option (2) from two paragraphs above would appear “too high-schoolish,” and I can’t say I would entirely disagree. I fear that option (1) comes off too stalker-ish, and I’ve already covered my feeling about option (3). All of that considered, though, option (4) leaves it entirely too much to chance for my liking, and isn’t exactly on the kind of time frame I would particularly prefer — that could be six months from now, or never, for all I know.

So, with all the background story finally told, I bring my dilemma to you, my loyal readers. What would you do in my situation? Do you see any other options besides (1) through (4) that I laid out a few paragraphs back? If not, which of those is the most optimal one, and which will avoid any kind of lingering hard feelings or resentment? (Not that kind of “hard” feelings, you perverts — get your minds out of the gutter. Remember, I’m pure and innocent. ) I look forward to receiving your advice, via e-mail through this site or comments left on the mirrored version at LiveJournal.

I have to leave you for tonight, loyal readers, but never fear, for I’ll be back at my first reasonable opportunity with another edition of “open the mailbag.” The Christofascist terrorists are back at it again, suggesting that I’m somehow “confused,” “not happy about the way your [sic] being treated by your ‘lifestyle’,” and “degrad[ing myself],” so I’ll be exposing those total falsehoods and putting them to rest with my next update. Until then, rest easy with the knowledge that the message I received just further proves that it is actually “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” who are so disgusted with their lifestyle that they lash out at others.

Wed.Jan.02.2008

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:30:00 -0500

I am just over ten hours away from starting my first full week of work in the new year, and I figured I should stop in to bring my readers up to date on what has been going on for the last two weeks. Chronologically, the first big event was two days after my most recent update, on December 21: my sister’s graduation from the University of Michigan Law School. I went out to Ann Arbor to attend that, and also joined several family members for a reception and a rather expensive steak-house dinner. (It set my father back $360 for seven people.)

Later that same night, I had a few large items to run through the laundromat, so I went to the only 24-hour one I know, Mr. Stadium in Ann Arbor. By the time that was done, Marc was getting off work, so I stopped in at his place for poker, pizza, and resetting my car’s “Check Engine” light with his OBD-II scan tool. That had come on the previous night (Thursday, December 20) as I got home from work; in any event, we found out what code it was throwing and erased it, and it hasn’t come back yet.

(A later check of Hyundai’s service website, hmaservice.com, revealed that the code in question — P0110, or “Intake Air Temperature Sensor Circuit Malfunction” — can be caused on about half of Hyundai’s entire vehicle lineup by buggy engine management software. Hyundai issued a Technical Service Bulletin to that effect in mid-November, saying that if the IAT sensor tests fine, the car needs updated software for the engine control module (ECM). I plan to take it in next Monday morning to have that done, as well as have a few annoying rattles investigated and fixed.)

We had a small, immediate-family gathering at my parents’ place on Christmas Eve, mostly for dinner and gift exchanging. I got all gift cards and cash — functional and useful, but not particularly interesting, I guess you can say. I think I was the one who showed the inventiveness: since my father seems to have an obsession with the marathon TV showings of the 1983 film A Christmas Story, I bought him a replica of the leg lamp from that movie. I even downloaded a PDF file that read “Major Award,” just as the lamp was called in the movie, and almost wrote it out to “The Old Man” as Ralphie’s father is referred to in the film, but instead I put my father’s name on it.

For some reason — I suspect food poisoning from three-day-old leftover potatoes from the steak house that I ate late Christmas Eve night — I fell ill most of Christmas Day, and had to cut a planned visit to my aunt’s house in the small Ingham County town of Stockbridge, MI. With nausea and diarrhea, I couldn’t really do much that day, so I slept way in and really got nothing accomplished. Thankfully, that only lasted maybe 36 hours, and it was gone entirely by last Thursday. What remained of my work week from there was mostly uneventful, though I did get to do a couple of loads I had never done before — like carrying two different products on the same trailer at the same time. (Usually, we deal in full loads of just one product at a time.)

Yesterday, I had to get up earlier than I normally would in order to watch the Capital One Bowl. Despite four turnovers, two of which almost certainly took 14 points off the board, Michigan held on to win 41-35 over Florida in Lloyd Carr’s final game as head coach. For all the shit I’ve given Lloyd here in the past, much of it well-deserved, I have to say I feel like he also deserved to go out with a victory, and I’m glad he got it. The results on the field have too often been disappointing, and hopefully Rich Rodriguez will fix that, but Lloyd kept the program free from even a hint of scandal for 13 years. Furthermore, Lloyd has been a great positive force for the Ann Arbor community, often flying completely under the radar with events such as the yearly “Carr’s Wash For Kids” for C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Let’s just say that if Rich Rodriguez can combine Lloyd’s great community work and integrity with a few more wins per season, I’ll be giddy.

And finally, this quick note: my apartment is now Al Gore-approved. I had a light bulb burn out in my dining area the other night, and for lack of a 60-watt incandescent bulb to replace it, I had to use a 40-watt bathroom bulb I happened to have sitting around. This burn-out proved to be the impetus to change roughly half of the light bulbs in my apartment — the ones that are most commonly used for more than 10 minutes at a time — with compact fluorescent bulbs. For the most part, these are 60W-equivalent bulbs in ceiling fixtures, but I also got a few 100W-equivalent bulbs for use in two floor lamps I have in my living room.

I’ll try to be back in a few days, perhaps with a question on which I am seeking some advice.