My very first post on this blog on 11/25/06 was about the New 7 Wonders of the World, and the opportunity to vote for them, and that the winners would be announced on 7/7/07, (yesterday.) I of course voted for the only candidate i have actually been to, Chichen Itza, which, i am happy to announce, won a place in the top 7!

Jester coming back down

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I just watched the program, “The Final Report: Bombing Over Lockerbie” on the National Geographic Channel, all about Pan American flight 103 exploding and crashing into Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. It killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. Watching the show, i realized something disturbing regarding Ronald Reagan, and how it relates to today.
In 1986, a bomb exploded in a West Berlin dance club killing 3 people, including 2 American soldiers. The club was known to be frequented by American soldiers. It was determined that it was a terrorist attack by a group from Libya. I do not know why the attack happened.
In response to this attack, (out of revenge,) Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of the city of Tripoli, Libya, and the residence of Muammar al-Gaddafi. (Qaddafi) This attack killed the 2 year old daughter of the Libyan leader, as well as about 100 other Libyan citizens. In response to this, (out of revenge,) it is believed that Qaddafi ordered the bombing of the American flight.
So, looking at this through unbiased eyes, it appears that Ronald Reagan is just as much to blame as anybody for this tragic disaster. Forgetting the all important truth and motherly phrase “2 wrongs do not make a right,” he made a bad decision. For the lives of 2 Americans, 101 Libyans were killed. For their lives, 189 Americans (and 81 others) were killed. This means that 371 human lives would have been spared had Reagan not decided to get revenge for the bomb in the dance club. Yes, that attack started it all, and should also not have happened, obviously. However, that attack cannot be blamed on a president. The aftermath can be. They both are acts of murder, and they led to a 3rd act of murder.
Similarly, we have a president today making similar decisions for similar reasons, (as well as other, equally unwise reasons.) And, as we payed a high price for a presidential mistake in the past, we will pay again in the future for the ones being made today.
It is time for America to become a country of wisdom, not just of power. We must be very, very careful in the future who we elect President. We cannot afford another Dubya, and apparently, we also cannot afford another Reagan. Either that, or we need to require all future Presidents to promise not to make such dumb mistakes. There are much smarter ways to deal with terrorism. Revenge is very dangerous, and we need to be careful that we’re not sinking to the level of extremists. I’m not saying that the only reason for the “war” is revenge, but it obviously played a part, even if it was only a cover for other motives.

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I never watch the news, I hate it, and now there is yet another reason why.

I’m watching E.R., and just saw a commercial advertising a program that will show potential thieves exactly how to break into your house in a whole new way, complete with pictures and full instructions. This program is the KCRA channel 3 news. They seem to think they are doing a good thing by showing you how to protect yourself, but they are also showing all you aspiring home robbers how to fulfill your dreams.

They do this stupid shit all the time, too! I’ll bet you anything that the number of home robberies involving [this method of break-in] will go up after this news broadcast, and if it does, i definitely think that channel 3 should be held partially responsible! I am hopeful that it will lead to a class action lawsuit. Anyone publishing instructions for new methods of committing crime is doing something unlawful, i don’t care who it is! They totally crossed the line between warning the public and facilitating crime, yet again!

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I just read on a gay news blog today that Warsaw, Poland has plans to erect a 4.5 foot pink triangle monument in the middle of the city in memory of the thousands of gay men killed by the Nazis in the concentration camps in the 1930s and 1940s. (Read about the history of gays in Nazi Germany.) To my surprise, i discovered that they are not the first. This memorial in Berlin made of pink granite was unveiled last month (?) and reads, basically, “killed, silenced.” Apparently there was a pink triangle “monolith” erected in Montevideo, Uruguay, (possibly in 2005?) but i cannot find photos of it. It is said to be inscribed, “To honor sexual diversity is to honor life.” (The translation was bad. I wonder if it was a temporary monument. If anyone could help me, thank you in advance. Leave a comment.) In 2003, San Francisco built Pink Triangle Park. I never knew it existed until today, and i’ve lived less than an hour from San Francisco all my life. It has a monument made of 15 granite pillars which together form a large triangle viewable from the big rainbow flag at Market and Castro. (Wow, how many times have i been there and never knew!) This “Homomonument” park in Amsterdam, 1987, consists of 3 large triangles. (I think that was the first one. Go Amsterdam!)

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Gay Republicans in California are pressing Governor Schwarzenegger to sign a bill legalizing gay marriage, expected to pass in the Assembly and the Senate again this year. Read all about it here on 365gay.com

California’s governor

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“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” -Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha), 563-483 B.C.

Can you believe this wisdom has been around all this time?

This quote makes me think of one of my favorite books, The Essential Crazy Wisdom by Wes “Scoop” Nisker. I have to read that book again.

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The struggles of religious and non religious people is as old as the struggles between people of different religions. The oldest major religion in the world, Hinduism, is 4,000 years old, and some aspects of it are 5,000 years old. (That’s around 2,500 years older than Buddhism and 3,000 years older than Christianity.) I do not know when mankind first began to have religious beliefs, though i imagine mammoths were still walking the Earth at the time.

There has been a lot of debate recently on the Jestertunes blog brought about by certain Christian people attacking gays on his blog. It goes into great detail, delving deeply into the struggle between gays and Christianity. As a gay man who spent a significant portion of my life as a born-again Christian, the debate has got me reminiscing about my own struggle and about my own philosophical ideas about what and who God really is.

I became a born-again Christian as a freshman in high school. I was also openly gay. At first, the two things co-habitated peacefully and happily within me. When i was 16, i even brought my boyfriend to a church service. After a while, the gay side of me and the Christian side of me began to fight with with each other; an increasingly bloody, raging battle which would soon leave the floor of my bedroom and the floor under my chair at church drenched in tears. This battle raged until i was in my first year after high school, when i could no longer stand the strain. I knew i wanted to marry a woman and have children, but my sin was eating away at my soul. I went to my beloved pastor for help. She said she would pray about it some more.
Shortly afterward, during a service, after some powerful praise & worship by singing and clapping and feeling the immense unconditional love and power of God, the Holy Spirit entered the room like a crashing tidal wave of ecstatic love and healing…and God began to speak through the pastor to individual people in the congregation who needed to hear from God. As God began to speak, we all had tears flowing from our eyes or sweat from our brows as we prayed in tongues and praised God, hands still reaching towards Heaven. The pastor looked at me. She opened her mouth to give me the answer i had been seeking for so long. “God says you are dealing with a dead issue!” At that moment, as those words sank in, it was like the earth and time stood still as my heart broke. Numb and in shock, the tears on my face began to dry. I was suddenly in mourning for my faith as i suddenly knew at that very moment that God, as i knew him, did not exist. I barely remember leaving church that day, 15 years ago, but i think i knew deep down inside that i would never see these people, my beloved family of 4 years, again. That holy book closed forever. It was time to start a new life.

It was a confusing time for me. I had to accept the death of my faith, but i also had to figure out the truth behind that faith that had been so strong and real. I had to ask myself if it was all a lie. I knew it was real, but obviously not in the way i had thought. I came to realize that God is us. The Holy Spirit is actually our joined Spirits coming together to help one another in a way so powerful, that it can only be from something outside of ourselves. (Wrong.) God’s unconditional love that i had felt was actually the unconditional love of the people; people who do not even realize they are capable of unconditional love, so they attribute it to God. They have no other way to explain it, because they have been told that it can only come from God. They believe it, totally underestimating themselves and mankind. God is the people themselves. When people say that the Bible is the word of god, they are correct, but unfortunately, they do not understand the truth of what they are saying; that the people who wrote it were only human. In essence, God did not create us, we created, and are, God.

My faith did not actually die. It just evolved. My new faith is much more difficult, though, because it is constantly tested. This is why so many have to put their faith elsewhere. I hope i remain strong enough to never lose my faith in Humanity. I hope that some day we will all come together in the truth instead of being divided by lies.

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So i just read the latest entry on Must Get Hobby in which she talks about her bizarre obsession with flossing, and she begins with a delightful anecdote about a teacher she had. It got me thinking about a teacher i had in high school, and then got me thinking about another one.

I had this teacher, i don’t remember his name, i don’t remember what the class was, and i’m certain he could not remember why he became a teacher. This is how he would “teach.” So, the students would come in and he would have an assignment written on the board. He would sit at his desk at the front of the class and read the newspaper and drink his coffee. That’s it. Oh ya, every once in a while he would lay a stack of tests on his desk for someone to pass out. Seriously, that was it. He never did anything else but that, ever! Now, you might be thinking, well maybe it was his first class in the morning and he just really needed to wake up and get the latest news. No, i had this class in the afternoon. i remember i used to just sit there looking at his newspaper in front of his face, seething inside that he was so fucking lazy and couldn’t care less about the students or his job! How could this happen? How many “teachers” like this are there in our American schools?

But then i had this other teacher for biology. I liked this teacher a lot. He was Italian, tall and well built, had salty black curly hair and greenish eyes, and a huge, gigantic penis! He would stand at the front of the class in light colored slacks and my eyes were constantly glued to his fascinating bulge! I was completely mesmerized by it. Once, as i was disecting a frog, he stood up, and i nearly cut my finger off! Certainly he must have seen me staring at it many, many times, but i’m sure he was quite used to it, and probably enjoyed it. He was also a very good teacher. Couldn’t we have more teachers like this in our schools?

So now you know one of my obsessions, penises. I have always been a “crotch-watcher.” I love websites like ratemycock.com, ratemyschlong.com, and likemynudebody.com. When i’m very old and lying on my death bed and the nurse comes to see if i need anything, i will say, “Let me see your penis!” She will be quite flabbergasted!

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Just as Melissa Ethridge is for us today, the 80’s British pop band Bronski Beat were heros to gay youth.

“At the end of 1984, the trio released an album provocatively titled The Age Of Consent. The inner sleeve listed the varying ages of consent for consensual male homosexual activity in different nations around the world.” - Wikipedia.org

This video for the song “Small Town Boy” tells the story of a boy who falls for a diver, but the diver betrays him to conceal his own homosexuality, beating the boy up in an alley with some friends. The police bring him home and when his parents discover that their son was beaten for being gay, they kick him out of the house. However, he finds out that he can always count on his friends. It is a very familiar story for gay people all over the world, and an important message for everyone. We have to continue to strive to stop this ignorance and prejudice that hurts so many people.

Now, if only Justin Timberlake and Ricky Martin could step out of the closet and take a stand for our people!

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Last winter i became fairly depressed, to the point of having strange suicidal thoughts. I knew i was not in danger of killing myself, but it definitely sounded an alarm that i was officially depressed. It was the worst case of S.A.D., (seasonal affective disorder,) I’d ever had. This winter, it has not gotten that bad yet, but i’m suffering from another familiar affect of S.A.D. - sleeping for 12 hours at a time. And the cycle i’ve been in lately is especially bad, going to bed around 5am and waking up about 5pm, sleeping through the light of day which makes the problem even worse, since the only real treatment for this problem is sunlight. I have even tried correcting my sleep cycle by using an alarm clock, but i just started sleeping through my alarm, (just like i used to do when i had a job.) I even tried staying up all night so i would go to sleep at a resonable hour the next night, but it didn’t work for very long.
Last winter, when i started reading about this winter depression and what i could do about it, i found atricles that likened this increased need for sleep to “hibernation.” From what i can tell, it is not true hibernation, but it is definitely related in some way to bears going to sleep for up to 100 days without eating, drinking, or eliminating.

I know there are a lot of people who find it very, VERY difficult to wake up on time to get to work in the winter, and i’m sure that the number of people who lose their jobs due to tardiness is greater in the winter than at any other time of the year. If it has happenend to you, you should know that you are not the only one.

This subject is one that is not talked about very much, despite the fact that it is so widespread. There are millions of people who suffer from S.A.D. or lesser seasonal affects during the winter that make it difficult for many people to function normally. Why do we know so little about this phenomenon? Luckily, it does not affect children as much as adults, because if it did, we would have to have different school schedules for children depending on the time of year. I wonder if there will ever be similar consideration for adults in their work schedules.

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