June 13, 2005 by s.z.

Cool Guest Blogger Time! We now turn the floor over to your friend and mine, Bill S.  He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, and maybe, if you're not careful, you just might learn something. Take it away, Bill! ****************************  I'm looking forward to the "Tickled Pink" episode of "Inside TV Land" you talked about on the "American Street" site. But that only focuses on TV series, not the commercials. So I guess it falls upon me to fill in that space, by pointing out the gay community within the land of product mascots. It probably comes as no surprise that Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry are gay. The Hawaiian Punch guy too -- well, the shirts were a giveaway. And all those months at sea, Cap'n Crunch and Cracker Jack were bound to get a little closer. That's how the latter got his nickname; it was a question the Cap'n posed their first night together. Then there's Dinty Moore, who may look all big 'n' burly, but he opens his mouth and a purse falls out. Total muscle Mary, and a nasty gossip to boot. There was this one night when they were all out clubbing, and Dinty ("Dainty" to his friends) tried to pick up the Jolly Green Giant. Only Jolly turned him down, so ol' Dainty tried to start a nasty rumor that the Giant was a member of NAMBLA, and that the reason you didn't see the Little Green Sprout around was that the big boy had his way with Sprout and the kid exploded. Of course nobody bought it. In the first place, and to the disappointment of many size queens, the Jolly Green Giant is a bottom. In the second place, the Little Green Sprout wasn't even a kid, he was a 21-year-old "little person", and straight as an arrow and a player. He had a running bet with Buster Brown and the Dutch Boy as to who could "hit it" with the most babes. Swiss Miss, Wendy, Little Debbie, the Land o' Lakes butter girl-all conquests of Sprout (you don't want to know how he got THAT nickname.) He even had a three way with Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Buttersworth, before they began shacking up with Uncle Ben. (Oh, they say it's just a Three's Company living arrangement, but everyone knows better.) And of course, Mr. Clean and Brawny have been together like, forever. They met in the late '70's, in Studio 54 no less, after Brawny had split from the Marlboro Man. Their partying days are over of course, as they've settled into middle age, still hoping for the day their union will be legally recognized. They rent a home from landladies and longtime companions Madge the Manicurist and Josephine the Plumber. Now I know what you're thinking: Josie's a little too butch for Madge. Maybe she'd be more compatible with Mrs. Olsen, right? Alas, except for a brief fling with Rosie the Waitress, Mrs. Olsen prefers men. Her BIG secret is that she's not a widow. "Mrs. Olsen" is an assumed name, much like Mrs. Madrigal in Tales Of The City, if you get my drift. There never WAS a Mr. Olsen. On a more serous note, I encourage you to check out Bruce Garrett's blog, as he's been running several posts on Love In Action, a group that purports to "cure" gay and lesbian teens. I don't know what you make of such groups; I think there bogus organizations, run by quacks and nutjobs, and potentially dangerous. Certainly this group is. Here's one of the more unsettling details. ("F.I." stands for "False Image" and refers to personal effects and or behavior that reinforces a gay identity or is otherwise deemed gender-inappropriate.) This would be amusing if it didn't involve teenagers. For more about thisc, check the other posts on the topic. ( "Another Gay Teen Abused", while extremely long, is worth the read of you have the time.) -- Bill S. 6:55:34 AM

Wingnut Short Takes 1.  CLOGger (and WO'C favorite) Mary Katharine Ham recommends a "female blogger" Town Hall piece by guest columnist Lorie Byrd (Mary Katharine entitles her post about it "Pajama-Clad Mama"). Amanda at Pandagon has already dealt with this column nicely, but there is one claim by Lorie that I want to discuss: I was even fortunate enough to have played a part, along with a Texas stay-at-home mom blog reader, in coining a term that might someday appear in my daughters’ textbooks.  By following the link, we see the term she coined was "Rathergate" with a superscript "th."    Yeah, it's for the ages.  If it someday appears in Lorie's daughter's textbooks, it will only be because Lorie wrote it in the margins (and then the girls will have to pay to replace the textbooks). 2.  Doug Giles contributes a column entitled "Pedophilia and the Priesthood: Weapons of Mass Destruction." In begins: "As I discovered, the [Catholic] seminary, unfortunately,  was full of homosexuality of various sorts. . . .  I noticed to my discomfort that an unusual percentage, perhaps a quarter of my male acquaintances were homosexual.” - Leon Podles It concludes: Because the Roman Catholic Church has not dealt radically with the effeminacy of their priests, the homosexuality among the clerics has spilled on to children—innocent kids—who are being heinously abused.  Apparently Pastor Doug (a) is unaware that girls were molested too; and (b) doesn't know what pedophilia is.  For this he interrupted his patented series on how to be a loser©? 3.  Townhaller Jay Bryant explains"if you rat out a Republican, you are an honored and reliable source of information. If you rat out a Democrat, you are a skulking low-life scoundrel."  Here's his example: Mark Felt. Linda Tripp. Two truth-telling whistle-blowers whose revelations contributed to the resignation or impeachment of Presidents. To one, encomiums are sung in the newsrooms of the world, while the other is written off as a heartless busybody. [...] Media people, even the best of them, cannot conceive that their views represent a form of bias, but when they say that Bill Clinton's Lewinsky-related transgressions, as exposed by Tripp, are inconsequential because they are "only about sex," that is a biased statement. It never dawns on them that responsible people might disagree, might view promiscuous sex as a serious public issue. Simple morality aside, one can blame promiscuous sex for the most important public health problem in the world for the past quarter century (AIDS), as well as for being the greatest cause of poverty in America; but for single parent families, the vast majority of which exist as a result of men being unwilling to either curb or take responsibility for their sexual activity, U.S. poverty would virtually disappear. So, it was actually WORSE that Clinton got a blow-job from Monica than all the stuff that Nixon did, because there was a remote chance that Clinton's actions could have caused Monica to get AIDS (you know, if he was infected with the virus, which he wasn't).  Oral sex could have also caused her to get pregnant, and be poor. 4.  The Wall Street Journal lets Ted Olson, who is representing Time Inc. and Matt Cooper in the Plame subpeona matter, explain why the Supreme Court should make a definitive ruling on whether protected sources ever have to be disclosed. The precise and somewhat convoluted history of the Plame case is less important than the legal principles which it frames. As Watergate illustrates, when reporting on sensitive subjects, particularly misconduct or excesses by government officials, journalists often have no choice but to seek information from individuals who would be at great risk of retaliation or embarrassment if their identities were disclosed And as the Plame case illustrates, when government officials commit misconduct and excesses, journalists often have no choice but to be tools of the administration, and to ruin the careers of innocent people who would be at great risk of relaliation or embarrassment by our enemies if their identities were disclosed. (I recall that the WSJ also let Rush Limbaugh's lawyer have editorial space to make arguments on behalf of his client -- do they ever left the prosecution have the soap box, or does that go against their conservative principles?) 5.  Here's the report, from Bill's site, on a segment from Wednesday's "O'Reilly Factor" (emphesis added): As of Wednesday two men have been detained in Aruba, in the case of the missing 18-year old Alabama high school student Natalee Holloway. Former detective Patrick Brosnan told The Factor that police there have more latitude than cops in the United States. [...] The Factor suggested that the suspects may be subject to coercive police interrogations. "These guys are slugs, and I wonder if the police down there are roughing these guys up." The two "slugs" are the two black security guards who apparently weren't involved in any way with Holloway's disappearance.  Even Holloway's mother has said she thought that two former hotel security guards detained in connection with Natalee's disappearance were innocent, and should be released, since surveillance tape indicates that Holloway never returned to the hotel after going to the beach with the three Aruban teens. Now, here's part of Bill's "Talking Points Memo" from Thursday: As you may know, we do not speculate here on "The Factor." We have no idea what happened to Natalee or why she left the bar with some Aruban men. I've heard some irresponsible media speculate about that, and it makes me angry. So, it's okay for Bill to say that two black men are "slugs" (and to relish the possibility of them getting roughed up), but it's irresponsible for anyone to speculate about the actions of the missing white woman.  Got it, Bill. (We imagine that the "no speculation at the Factor" rule was thought up after Bill got burned for saying that the Runaway Bride had obviously been the victim of foul play, probably at the hands of her fiance.  Too bad this commandment only applies to speculation about missing women, though.) 4:20:57 AM

Ben Shapiro Gets Excited Hmm, it seems that Ben Shapiro now contributes to the Town Hall blog, CLOG.  It's nice that he's found some nice, clean-cut, conservative young people to hang out with (ever since Ben heard about that All-Ivy Drag Competition, he's been afraid to leave the apartment). And here he is, talking about his favorite subject: Porn enters the mainstream By BenShapiro Posted on Fri Jun 10th, 2005 at 10:51:47 PM EST Does anyone out there still think porn is relegated to the scuzzy box in the corner at the local video store or the black-barred section at your local newsstand?   If anyone still thinks that, Ben is going to slap you silly, because you should be well aware that Ben's book, Generation Porn, has broken those barriers, and is being proudly displayed in the scuzzy conservative political thought section of your local book store. Porn is now so mainstream that porn star extraordinaire Mary Carey will be attending the "2005 President's Dinner and Salute to Freedom," sponsored by the National Republican Congressional Committee.   We wondered when Ben was going to hear about this.  (Apparently, it only took him three weeks .)   Mary Carey -- photo courtesy of WorldNetDaily A spokesperson over there told me that the NRCC has no plans to prevent Carey from attending, despite the fact that she is looking forward to meeting Karl Rove, You'd think that this would be a big red flag to the Secret Service, indicating that Ms. Carey might be mentally unbalanced, and possibly dangerous.  of whom she states, "Smart men like him are so sexy.  I know that he's against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn't so bad!" I've heard rumors that he's already been convinced that a little boy-on-boy action now and then isn't so bad -- but it hasn't changed his stance on gay marriage. Terrific.  It was one thing for Carey to run in the California recall race -- anyone could enter, and California is weird (I speak as a born and bred Californian).  But for the NRCC to allow her in is beyond the pale.  She represents exactly what the Republican Party should oppose: glorification of degradation.  But the fact of the matter is that today's Republican Party is far more libertarian than conservative in tone and substance.   The first time I read that, I thought that Ben said that today Republican Party is far more LIBERTINE than conservative, and I wondered if Ben was just mad that he hadn't been invited to be anyone's date for this dinner, despite confiding to everyone that he thinks that smart men are so sexy.  In fact, I still wonder about that. But what fails to mention is that Ms. Carey represents exactly what today's Republican Party claims to endorse: capitalism, entrepreneurship, and big donations to Republican causes.  Here's a snippet from a Wash Post item about the dinner, and about Ms Carey's boss (and date for the evening), Mark Kulkis: Kulkis, who donated $500 to the NRCC earlier this year, said in his news release: "Republicans bill themselves as pro-business. Well, you won't find a group of people more pro-business than pornographers. We contributed over $10 billion to the national economy last year." He is also an honorary chair of the NRCC's business advisory council -- a title gained by contribution, of course. But back to Ben, who has been rendered so apoplectic by thoughts of a porn star defiling a sacred Republican function, that he comes perilously close to treason. President Bush, seen as a conservative extremist by many on the left, actually supports civil unions for homosexual partners.   Per the Moonie Times article to which  Ben links, while on "Good Morning America" in October, Bush said,"I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman.  Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others."  So, I guess George Bush is going to hell for claiming that homosexuals are people, and that states should be allowed to give these so-called "people" some of the rights that straights get, if the majority of the citizens in that state vote for this radical proposal. The silence here is deafening -- and so many Republicans are afraid to challenge the "live and let live" status quo.  The NRCC's refusal to toss Mary Carey symbolizes the progressive decay of the conservative movement -- a movement that has never been afraid to maintain societal virtue through tough action.  Now, apparently, it's "extreme" to oppose societal toleration of sin.  As the NRCC spokesperson told me, "[She] bought tickets just like everyone else."  A weak excuse indeed. Yeah!  The Republican Congressional Committee (and the Republican Party itself) should throw out everybody who has ever let down the cause of societal virtue!  Starting with Tom DeLay!  (We can make out the full list later.) Anyway, the new improved CLOG allows you to post comments.  Just in case you ever want to ... 2:49:00 AM