Category: Opinion

Top Ten Reasons Why Same-Sex Marriage Should Not Be Allowed*

On By SarahIn Fun & Entertainment, OpinionLeave a comment
  1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
  2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
  3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
  4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
  5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
  6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
  7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
  8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
  9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
  10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

*I blatantly stole this from another blogger, who had copied it from somewhere else.

Very Telling

On By SarahIn Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

Isn’t it interesting that virtually no Republican presidential candidates showed for last night’s debate in West Hollywood hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, and the only one who showed for the debate hosted by the NAACP a few weeks ago was Tom Tancredo? I really wouldn’t expect them to show up, I guess, but it only affirms in my mind that the Republicans really don’t care about civil rights for minority communities.

Small World, Hard Lessons

On By SarahIn Community, Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

Gillian started a really cool new job this year, and her office is in down town Oakland. She told me over the last couple of months about this really cool guy that she has run into in the elevator. They struck up conversations a couple of times. She told me he was the editor of a local paper for the black community in Oakland, that it was a new job for him that he was really excited about. She told me that he was really nice, and she was hoping to get to know him a little.

That man was Chauncey Bailey.

Gillian and I were in Chicago when he was killed, waiting for a plane to fly home to Oakland. We were supposed to be on a flight the night before, but we were bumped. Gillian was supposed to be on her way to work that day, and it just happened that we were instead at Midway in Chicago. She very easily could have been a witness to the brutal assassination.

His death hits home for many reasons. One, it happened blocks from my home. Two, while people are killed every day it seems on the streets of Oakland and other cities, this more high-profile murder touches the lives of many people raising the visibility of the problem of violence in our communities.

Yes, there are big problems like poverty and education and drugs that lead to violence that need to be addressed to curb the problem. A long-term approach is what is needed to turn the ship around. Meanwhile, however, people are taking matters into their own hands in demanding that their neighbors and family members take some responsibility to make changes now.

I am saddened by the death of Chauncey Bailey. I wish that Gillian and I could have gotten to know this man. I wish that he could have lived to continue his good works in this community that so desperately needs men like him. Now we can only hope to learn from his legacy as a journalist and activist and the tragedy of his senseless death. The hardest lesson, perhaps, is that we are responsible for helping to make the change that we want to see in the world.

July Fourth Musings

On By SarahIn Opinion, Politics1 Comment

On this national holiday, I find myself wondering why there aren’t more people in the streets protesting what is going on within our current administration, fighting to preserve our civil rights. I’m not just talking about a minority that is being treated unfairly. I am talking about the erosion of the Constitutional rights of all citizens. We should all be f****ing pissed! If you’re not sure why, take a look at this video:

The latest antics should make all of us alarmed and angry. I could go on about the various scandals and horrific actions of Bush Cheney & Co., but there is no need. We all know the litany of offenses and crimes they have committed. But this crap has been going on for so long now. During the entire time Bush has been in office I have often thought to myself “Well, this must be it. They’ver really done it this time. There is no way things will get any worse. They are really going to be taken to task, called on the carpet, have to answer for their bad behavior this time!”

But it hasn’t happened! Why aren’t people hitting the streets the way they did back in the 1960s? Or even at the beginning of this immoral war? Do we need every protest to be an organized event that features entertainment and T-shirts? These types of events are important cultural moments, but I really wonder what it is going to take for people to get really angry, angry enough to really effect change.

Meanwhile, Bush’s approval rating is in the toilet, at an all-time low, according to that ever-reliable source Fox News. And still, Bush has the gall to pardon Libby (and yes, I do mean pardon — let’s call it what it is. Libby is getting off easy, and Bush & Co. are a bunch of hypocrites). What will it take to stop them?

They never will until more of us start paying attention and getting angry! I think that many of us feel so depressed, disaffected, and powerless that we think nothing that we do will matter. So, what am I doing? Will marching down my quiet neighborhood street with a picket sign really make a difference? Maybe not immediately. Maybe my neighbors will think I’m a little nutty, but I know may of them are aligned with me politically, and those who are not or who maybe don’t care will stop and think about the erosion of their Constitutional rights.

Well, I’m not marching down the street exactly. I, too, feel depressed and disaffected and powerless. I’m not sure what to do, and in some ways I feel that my very survival is a subversive act. I do what I can, I speak up, and I pay attention, and I am outraged.

Today I’m quietly being patriotic in my blogging, relaxing with my wife as we grill our steaks, as she makes her fabulous Ceasar Salad and as I make strawberry rhubarb pie. Perhaps I’ll post the recipes later.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody! Exercise and fight for your civil rights while you still can!

Oops! Can you believe this crap?

On By SarahIn OpinionLeave a comment

Enough is enough. I am having a real “Network” moment, you know, where I want to go to my window and scream “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” Today, this is why:

There is a new drug on the market, Alli, that blocks fat absorption in order to promote weight loss. One of the side effects is loss of bowel control. What does it mean when it is seemingly acceptable for a pharmaceutical company to recommend that, when taking this drug “it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.” Really, this is on the company website. Check it out.

It seems to me that anything that makes you lose control of your bowels has to be bad for you. It’s alarming, and unhealthy. People are willing to do anything to lose weight, anything but eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, and corporations are willing to capitalize on this, and indeed perpetuate it.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Americans are “drowning in sugar.” The average American consumes 2-3 pounds of sugar each week, and this has been steadily increasing over the last 20 years. Twenty years ago, the average American consumed 26 pounds of sugar per year. Now the average is 135 pounds of sugar a year. In much the same way that I find the loss of bowel control alarming, so is this statistic. And disgusting.

A cultural shift has created this insane increase in sugar consumption. Are pharmaceutical companies and the junk food, and diet industries to blame in conspiring to create a society of obese people who crave junk food like heroine, feel terrible about themselves and feel compelled to take poison like Alli in spite of the fact that they will be required to use adult diapers? Or do we only have ourselves to blame for becoming a nation of couch potatoes who will stay inside all day consuming bags of chips (made with Olestra, of course….read the warning on the bag!), playing video games and watching cable.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all about games and videos. One of my favorite weekend activities is keeping up with my video list from Netflix, or playing Sims with my wife. But I also like to practice yoga, read, write, go to museums, take walks in my neighborhood. I struggle to find balance in my life because I’m as vulnerable as anyone else to getting sucked into obsessively trying to get my Sims character’s next promotion. It’s addictive! As I write this, I am having such a weekend, blogging, surfing, playing video games. But I digress.

I guess my opinion is clear: The pharmaceutical, junk food and diet (and perhaps adult diaper) companies don’t want us to have healthy active lives because if more of us did, they would lose a lot of money. It has become a revolutionary and subversive act for people to take responsibility for their own health, to actively practice self-love and self care.