HEROES OF HISTORY

I wish I were consistent enough to blog weekly. I have enough material, but I'm just too lazy. Isn't that weird, how one can be too lazy to do something that's pleasurable? Anyhell, this week is HEROES OF HISTORY, and our hero is 19th century American physician Samuel A. Cartwright.



Born in Fairfax, Virginia in 1793, Samuel Cartwright was a prominent military surgeon in the Confederate states who was noted for his work on Asiatic Cholera and yellow fever. His real passion, however, was---wait for it---"The Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race." (also the title of his seminal work.) One has to ask, exactly what are these "peculiarities" and "diseases"? Well, Cartwright's work focused on two diseases in particular, twin scourges of the antebellum south: Drapetomania and the potentially fatal Dysaethesia Aethiopica.

(At this point, it's of crucial importance that you try to maintain an objective, scientific attitude, as well as a straight face. Scratch that, I double-dog dare you to keep a straight face.)

Drapetomania was the psychological condition that caused slaves to flee captivity.

I shit thee not. There's more.

Dysaethesia Aethiopica, also known as "Rascality", was a psychiatric condition proposed as a theory to describe laziness among slaves.
Definitions courtesy of my lovely, blonde assistant, Wikipedia.

For me, the significance of these diagnoses is the indication of just how deeply embedded racism was at the time; upon noticing that slaves sometimes ran away, or didn't feel like working, Cartwright went so far as to suggest that they were simply diseased and needed medical attention. It doesn't seem to occur to him that working in the fields is hard and perhaps depressing work, or that being treated like property is just as unsuitable for a black man as it is for a white woman. No, no, these "rascal" slaves simply suffered from a chronic inability to know their own place. Still, Cartwright offers hope in the form of treatment and therapy for these "diseases". To prevent Drapetomania in slaves, he simply recommends that slave owners refrain from "treating their slaves as equals". The exotic-sounding Dysaethesia Aethiopica, characterized by an insensitivity of the skin, (insensitive to whippings?) could be cured by "washing the skin with warm water and soap, anointing the skin with oil, beating the oil in with a broad leather strap, then putting the patient to hard work in the sunshine."

That's right, folks. If he still won't work when you beat him, wash him off, oil him up so his skin is baby soft, and beat the devil out of him.

It's important to note that these theories pre-date psychology as we know it by perhaps 20 or 30 years, so actually calling them psychological or psychiatric conditions isn't entirely correct.

I tried hard to crack wise in this post, but the subject matter is too hilarious on its own.

Thoughts?

Skeevetastic Platinum Plastic

Right on the heels of my last post, yet another republican-of-some-importance has made the news for his skeevetastic achievements. Sen. Larry Craig was arrested for Lewd Conduct in the men's room of a Minnesota airport back in June. (NNDB.com) I don't recall hearing anything about it, do you? That's because he plead out to the lesser charge of Disorderly Conduct and paid a $500 fine in the hopes of keeping it as quiet as possible. The 10-day sentence was suspended.

According to the arresting officer, Craig repeatedly tried to get the plainclothes officer to engage in lewd contact by gesturing underneath the bathroom stall and brushing his shoe up against the officer's shoe. Contrast this with another recent incident which is skeevy in the extreme: Florida state GOP Rep Robert Allen was arrested for offering a plainclothes officer $20 and a bj. His excuse? "This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he "was about to be a statistic" and would have said anything just to get away.[...]" (Orlando Sentinel) That's right folks, the Big Black Guys made him do it. Honest.
And freels, if you ever find yourself cornered by a bunch of black guys, I suggest you drop to your knees and make the same proposition.





I will likely never tire of this topic, (and it seems I will never run out of hot gossip to report) so I will be making Skeevetastic a regular column; at least as regularly as things like this happen.
Personally, I'm still waiting for Ted Haggard to go out and "reoffend".

It occurs to me, though, that these men are part of a disenfranchised, maligned, and oft-misunderstood minority-- Gay Ultraconservatives. I'm not talking Log Cabin Republicans. I mean those men who would vote or preach down anything that smacked of gay-affirming legislation without a second thought. Who are we to judge when these men, pillars of American virtue and the principles that make America great, want to get it on in public restrooms with complete strangers? We must defend their rights as skeevebags as fiercely as we defend the rights of free speech and "women's suffrage". I, for one, will take up the cause. Help me spearhead the campaign to support Ultra-homo-conservatives. They need, they DESERVE your help.

Could you..umm...thanx.

He's tall and rather handsome, and he speaks sooooo well for a....oops, I mean, he's quite an orator. President of Harvard Law Review, U.S. Senator, homegrown wisdom, endless work for charity---great.
Hello!? Barack Obama is as useless and shady as any other politician, and that is why he speaks the same language they all do: preaching "unity", God wants this and that for America and we can fix everything with a little faith. Please to stop putting the hope of a country on one man's charisma and resumé.






So if you could, umm, hell up* about him and move on with your life, that'd be great.



*Brought to you by the commission to bring back the expression "hell up". Ask how you can join.

A few things that have touched my heart recently.

Best...Commercial....EVER.





Runner up, and the award for best soundtrack goes to...








I want to be married one day, (Tyrannical Fascist government willing) and I sincerely hope to be wearing this ring to seal the deal. If you are familiar with the "Hank Reardon" bracelet, this architect takes the concept to a whole new level. girl. CLick the pic to visit her awesome website, and make sure to have some downbeat electronica playing on your stereo.



She also does lovely pattern work:

Unacceptable.

If you haven't seen this clip yet, here you go. "Jesus Camp" is a documentary that is critical of the camp featured in the documentary.

For a clue into my own religious background, there is really no better example. I was fortunate enough never to go to a camp of this magnitude of horror, but every practice (and more) you see in this video was a guaranteed mass occurrence at every church service I attended until I was 16. I had given up on it almost completely by 14, but until I was too large to be physically dragged or beaten until I went, I had to endure it.



Umm, yeah. As far as I'm concerned, this is child abuse. Parents are (allegedly) in charge of teaching their children to deal/cope with reality. These parents, however, think it's more important to emotionally manipulate and over-stimulate their children in order to feed them lies about their own humanity. How far out of touch with themselves will some of these children be in their teens? When one of the little girls has a pregnancy she is in no way ready to carry to term or raise, will she have the wherewithal to see that abortion is her best option, or will she even consider it since she prophesied as a child that abortion in America would be "NO MORE"? At least one of the kids on this tape or at this camp is a future homosexual, because we come from every walk of life. Will he be a danger to himself or others because he is in so much conflict that he boils with rage whenever he experiences something as natural as his own lust? At the very least, he will break a few hearts, because when you pray, the gay does not go away.

This saddens me because none of this is possible without completely denigrating and vilifying the very humanity of these children. Without shame, fear and guilt you cannot convince a confident, pleasure seeking, self-affirming being to believe these outrageous things. This saddens me because I love human beings. You will never hear me express the loathsome, thoughtless, and downright lazy sentiment "people are stupid". To do so would be as abominable as what you see in the above embed.

For anyone who feels that a term as indefinite as "stupidity" is sufficient to explain any human dilemma....
For anyone who has ever concluded that socialism doesn't work out because people aren't as good as the ideas of one man...
For anyone who has accepted that a woman's act brought about man's fall from grace...
For anyone who treats sex as a necessary evil...
For anyone who has ever lied to or assaulted a child because you didn't want to have to outsmart it ,and didn't think it could respond to clarity and consistency of direction...
For anyone who thinks that the earth would be better off without human activity because we disturb some kind of "balance"...
For anyone who believes that certain cultures just don't need "our kind of freedom", because protecting their culture is somehow more important than preserving the human beings suffocating within it ...
For anyone who tolerates the highly offensive idea of deity itself, that there is something higher than humanity which can enjoy the title without even fighting for it...

To condemn or otherwise degrade humanity or human nature is the worst evil anyone can commit, as it is no different than the vicious lie of orginal sin, which happens to be what makes everything in that disgusting video possible.

Oh girl. (mixed bag edition)

So does anyone wanna explain to me why the Hell her new album is entitled bidet?
You look amazing girl, but potty humor does Not suit you.




Oh girl, Ghent is SO gay!
How gay IS it??
Ghent is so gay, that instead of 21st street, the signs say 21th street! (I'm not making this up, If I had my camera i'd have proof right here where this disclaimer is)





So you've probably seen those VW commercials where a group of friends are riding around chit-chatting and whatnot, when suddenly they are rocked by an oncoming car they didn't see. My favorite has to be where the 4 guys are all talking about Viagra, but no one actually mentions what they're talking about. It just starts off with "So they say if it lasts for more than 4 hours, call 911.
It made me think of how far we've come in terms of "decency" on television, far enough that douche, tampons, condoms, and even as obscure a phenomenon as priapism are all fair game. I find the erectile dysfunction commercials especially hilarious, because it's not just innuendo on tv, it's Old People innuendo on tv.







Today I was walking and I saw a transient individual. he was looking at the ground as he walked, so he didn't see me. Suddenly, he broke out into some sort of Fred Astare shuffle, went heel-toe heel-toe, sashayed for 4 steps, and did a complete turn, at which point he was in a position to see me staring directly at him, slack jawed and a little humbled. He quickly collected himself, looked back at the ground, and went on his way.
You just never know, do you?

Whoooo Boy (Oh girl wouldn't touch this one)

The thing is, I would do most of these things for someone I loved, that's no big deal at all. This article is rooted, however, in the mentality that society depends on this specific code of interaction between men and women. It is not out of love, but duty that social mores like these are generated. This is why the question of a different kind of home is never asked. Maybe there are 2 incomes. (unheard of in 1955, unless of course you were poor----then it was a perfectly conceivable reality for you) Of course, the case of the stay-at-home dad was not even a fantasy back then, so we won't go there. Two mommies? Two daddies? absolutely not. (Even though gays and lesbians existed then as they do now, and made homes together) Is it really any wonder that there's a more than %50 divorce rate---look at the baggage every traditional marriage has to carry, with all of the duty talk and pre-fab constructions of married life, who's thinking clearly about whether marriage (and or children) is right for them, right then?
People pray to JESUS to save their marriages, as if he has ANYTHING to do with either spouse's shortcomings.

I watched an excellent documentary the other day titled Three of Hearts.
It's about, you guessed it, a menage a trois, but in the more traditional sense of the expression-- 3 people making a home together. 2 bisexual men in their late twenties with a 7 year relationship under their belts decide they would like to bring a woman into the mix. They date around for a bit and find Samantha, a gorgeous, 22 year old aspiring actress from Canada. These three lively spirits are all attracted to each other, and proceed to spend the next THIRTEEN years together--including several apartments in New York, a thriving day-spa they build from the ground up, 2 kids, and a dog. How is this possible, you ask? how can 3 people cohabitate romantically for more than a decade? Without revealing too much about the documentary, there's a simple principle at work. I'll give anyone who wants to a week to watch it (i got it randomly @ the Naro Expanded, it is fascinating) and I'll talk more about it next time.