No it’s not what you think. I’m not moving back to California … at least, not yet. Instead, I am moving my blog to another provider. I am relatively pleased with wordpress.com but there were a few flexibility issues that they were unable to provide. I do play around with a lot of widgets and my current provider was a bit too constraining for my tastes. And I certainly am not going to fork out money for my own site. So I decided to try out blogspot.com. It took a few days of transferring my posts to them because they didn’t have an import feature for wordpress blogs, but it’s finally done.
This is my last post on this blog. I’m not going to delete it because I still have a few more things to tidy up, and it’s still a good site just to keep. If anything, it’s an artifact of my history. And I hope I’ll stick with my new site a little longer than the previous ones since I’ve tried quite a few and blogspot.com seems to provide what I want. Check it out at: http://disorientations.blogspot.com/.
With all the hype around 300, and all the criticisms, I came across this YouTube clip that just made me roll on the floor laughing uncontrollably. Enjoy!
300! Yes I saw 300 over the weekend. It was the most visually spectacular, and gripping story of two nations battling each other over …
… their sexual identities.
And you thought the movie was an accurate representation of the Spartan last stand at Thermopylae? Yeah right! I don’t think so. That movie was full of homoerotic discourses. I believe the men of Sparta represent the classic gay community mostly of “white” men with hard abs and chiseled bodies who wear nothing more than a thong to battle. That’s 300 Spartans for a grand total of 1800 six pack abs for everyone’s visual indulgence. As for Persia, they are the most multicultural of all with not only Persians, but people who look like Chinese, Africans, South Asians, and Mongolians to name a few. They also include livestock with rhinos and pale ape-looking things, as well as non-traditional humanoids, such as goblins, trolls, and ogres (well, to me anyway).
Did I mention the ninjas as well? Anywho …
All are lead by Xerxes who seems to be an avid member of the S&M/Dominatrix community. Thus, the white gay men of Sparts versus the multicult/S&M/Dominatrix crowd of Persia. Anyways, I thought it was a great movie about happens when sexual diplomacy is abandoned and we have all out sexual war. And if I had a chance, I think I’d live in Persia. Judging from the diversity I saw, I think it’ll be a cool place to live, and plus they seem to know how to party.
Here’s two spoofs about 300 for your enjoyment. The first is a spoof about 300 as a PG-rated film.
Here’s one with some voice overs to change the dialogue a bit:
I decided to move my response to a full length post.
One Response to “Why Do Straights Hate Gays?”
Not all straight people hates gay people. I am straight and I DON’T HATE gays. I love them and I respect them.
That’s true Ira, but I think the aim of this article is that it’s not enough for heterosexuals to simply say they support and respect gays/lesbians. From Stonewall to ACTUP, as powerful political events that shaped queer politics, things have not changed much and it’s incredibly frustrating. One can change their attitudes and develop respect for each other. But *real* change demands an active public engagement against those who continue to stir and feed off of an increasingly powerful anti-gay agenda. This is the political dimension. Voting is one of those political practices to voice that support in public, and so is petition writing, opinion pieces, blogs, and so on. But “we” as straight people simply do not do enough. Or worse, “we” lack a political conviction. And the fallout is not restricted to those liberal or progressive hets either. It also extends to the state of queer activism and politics which has been largely confined to marriage, a rather heterosexual practice and institution.
Seriously. When Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked if homosexuality was immoral, she simply responded, “Well I’m going to leave that to others to conclude.”
WTF??? She’s running to be President of the United States, and she’s going to leave that decision to others???
That is not “presidential.” It is not in the least bit invoking “executive privilege.” It is simply cowardice. It runs from the very top of our political elites to the common person. And the worse thing about it is that we accept it without question.
Larry Kramer’s final analysis is right on target:
You may say you don’t hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what’s the difference? Our own country’s democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.
I made a brief comment after the Democratic takeover of Congress last year about how I’m not sure what they stand for and what they will fight as a coherent political agenda.
I’m convinced now that neither Clinton and Obama stand for anything since it seems they’re dodging gay and lesbian issues which basically permits condemnation. I can’t seem to recall anyone who will stand definitively on what they think is principled and right — unless you’re a conservative, in which their platform is crystal clear and consistent. But on the liberal side? For Democrats? I don’t see anyone at all.
And I’m not at all surprised when Larry Kramer, founder of ACTUP, writes an article like this:
DEAR STRAIGHT PEOPLE,
Why do you hate gay people so much?
Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace’s bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us….
… along comes this freak. I’ve been trying to avoid mentioning “he-who-really-must-not-be-named” as much as I could, but to no avail. “He” was on FOXNews awhile ago. “He” wrote an op-ed piece in AsianWeek, based in San Francisco, about why “he” hated African Americans. It’s a vile piece of reading, and apparently, “he” also hates whites, but loves dragons with guns (don’t ask me). Naturally, the community of SF was up in arms over what “he” wrote. But the controversy also caught the ears of FOXNews and of course aired “his” side of the story. And this interview just confirmed how much of a moron, and mental nutcase, “he” really is. Enjoy … or not.
No I did not finish my chapter. But I did reserve my copy of J.K. Rowling’s final book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due out on July 21, 2007. I wasn’t a true Harry Potter fan when Book 1 was released. As a matter of fact, I didn’t become an avid reader and fan until Book 3. The reason? I had heard over the blogs that a Christian fundamentalist group was staging an anti-Harry Potter rally somewhere in Philadelphia. That the book was heretical and blasphemous and yadda yadda. The rally ended with a book burning of J.K. Rowling’s works.
Now, I don’t care much about anyone’s religious affiliation. I grew up Catholic and I was educated by Jesuits in high school. I’m not a devout Catholic like others, but I do recognize and live with its influence.
But of all the things anyone could ever do, book burning is a huge no-no. It’s anti-intellectual, and fascist. But, in a way, I’m glad because I’ve always found that 99.9% of whatever organized religion condemns, I will generally love especially if it’s coming from the Catholic Church. And I love reading J.K. Rowling’s fantastic world of Harry Potter.
Yes it’s been much too long since I’ve last posted here. That’s actually a good thing because I’ve been productive and writing my chapter and reading more law reviews on Virginia v. Black. At least, I’m trying to fit that in whenever I can on top of teaching classes.
I’ve been following Tim Hardaway’s anti-gay comments and the subsequent outcry which resulted in his banishment from the All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. One in particular, has Charles Barkley not only admonishing Hardaway’s comment, but stating that he should’ve known better. That as an African American and a black man, the history of discrimination, negative stereotypes, and violence should’ve taught him better than to say something so ignorant and incendiary.
I was watching it and to my surprise Barkley seemed like the elder statesman. Well, rough around the edges, but he got the gist of it. Anyways, I came across this clip and consider it as a “different” to the usual public condemnation and subsequent “apology” by Hardaway. It stars George Takei, first shown on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and I love the fact that it throws the stereotypes back at Hardaway. I think it works quite well.
Like many friends I know, I was under pressure to finish and mail out a dozen fellowship applications. I get quite anxious over these things. It just needed to be postmarked but on February 1st, I was feverishly typing/editing away the night before, left early for Kinko’s to make copies the next day, drove to the Post Office and waited in line — fortunately it wasn’t that long — and made a frantic drive to campus in time for class. I could’ve done it after class, but I don’t like carrying around these applications which includes my letter, abstract, dissertation prospectus, and cv. That’s a heavy load to be hauling. Not only that, I needed some peace of mind knowing that my applications are off and away.
I have one more application due next week and it looks as though that will be it for this round of fellowships. It’s extremely competitive and I know I should cast a wider net, but I did limit myself to mostly east coast schools. I didn’t want to be that far away from home.
I’m making slow progress on my chapter. Working, even as a part-timer, does take quite a lot of time from the day. It may not look much but there have been plenty of moments when I thought to myself, “Where did the day go?” And then you fall asleep. We don’t notice the passage of time, nor do we remember what exactly took so much of it in the first place. In the end, you just know that you do not have time to write.
A friend actually monitored all the activities she did in the day. It’s a diary of your time. She had a large pad of paper and recorded the activity she was doing and how long it took. So for example, a typical day’s recording looks something like this:
Cooked/ate breakfast – 30 min.
Answered emails – 60 min.
Surfed the internet – 45 min.
Cooked/ate lunch – 60 min.
Bank/paid bills – 45 min.
Drove to campus – 35 min.
Lectured -120 min.
Office Hours – 120 min.
Drove home – 45 min. (rush hour)
Cooked/ate dinner – 45 min.
Watched TV (an episode of “Heroes”) – 60 min.
Dissertation writing – 30 min.
(This is not me by the way. But it looks rather familiar to my daily routine … Fine! It does look like my average day!) Anyways, the point of doing this is to look at all the time that is spent on non-dissertation related activities. There’s some activities like driving that cannot be negotiated especially if it’s rush hour traffic. But there are others that could be cut down and the idea is to redivert that time to dissertation writing. I find it really useful and revealing to see how my day goes. You keep a daily log and review it to make sure you’re keeping yourself accountable. In the end it’s still about making time to write that gets the dissertation done.
