ccons003's blog

I know that most of the users on this site will not quite understand this post and that some may be unable to empathize with it; it is an issue that many people never have to deal with.  However, it is something weighing heavily on my mind and I feel it can serve three great purposes: first to allow me to vent my frustrations, second to potentially gain some advice from people who can empathize and third to shed some light on this seldom-heard problem.

As the contest has come to a close, I am beginning to notice a disturbing occurrence: bloggers disillusioned with the site leaving it out of anger toward the BfP contest.

Perhaps I am a bit naive as far as this site goes, but as time went on I found myself worrying less and less about the contest.  The site had more meaning to me: as an outlet for my ideas and questions, an opportunity to hear varying viewpoints and discover new points of view, a place to use my first amendment right of self-expression to the fullest and a place to vent frustration at events and policies that bothered me.  I was given the chance to think about topics and issues that I had never considered before and hear about news I might not otherwise have had access to.  I was able to train my logic and reasoning skills to a greater level than they had been before.  I was forced to consider every aspect of concepts I advocated.  Progressive U became like an extension of my mind.  By the time the contest ended I did not care who won the contest; I only hungered to write more, to learn more, to explore the collective consciousness of Progressive U.

Many of you know that I am in strong opposition to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" telling me and every other able and willing LGBT American that we cannot serve our country because of who we are and who we love.  As time goes on, more and more people have come to realize that we as a country cannot allow our military to shortchange itself by discharging perfectly capable servicemen and women because of a backward and baseless socio-political bias.  Our latest advocate: none other than the Iraq Study Group.

For the past couple of years, people have been finding Christmas to be "under attack," chronicled rather humorously on the Daily Show and Colbert Report.  The most recent "attack" has been Wal-Mart's choice to replace their greeting of "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" in order to accomodate non-Christian shoppers, recently retracted because of a public outcry and threats of boycotts.

Have you ever found yourself longing to learn more about, say...Geek Rock?  Love Rectangles?  No?  How about Arabocentrism?

All are examples of the kinds of articles to be found on Wikidumper.com, the self-proclaimed Wikipedia Knowledge Dumper.  There, entries scheduled for removal can be preserved forever, allowing visitors to ponder the complexities of Couldrophilia (a sexual attraction to clowns) or the idea of the Beard Theorum, which postulates "that the size of one's Beard, whether it be a puff, French Fork or Mutton Chop, has a direct correlation to the radicality of a person's Socialist views".

Lisa Ann Diaz drowned her two young daughters, Kamryn and Briana, in 2003.  In the trial, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and now she is to be released from the state hospital she has been residing in for a little over two years.  She seems to have made a rapid recovery and now "is no longer a danger to anyone".  So now she gets to go home and her only guideline is she has to take her anti-psychotic medications; they will periodically subject her to blood tests to "make sure" she's taking them.

That's right.  The United States Pentagon has likened homosexuality to bedwetting.

It comes as a response to complaints about its previous classification among conditions like personality disorders and mental retardation.  Now it is listed among conditions that may cause retirement but don't count toward disability, a list that includes:

• Bedwetting
• Fear of flying
• Stuttering
• Dyslexia
• Sleepwalking
• Motion sickness
• Obesity
• Insect venom allergies

The American Psychiatric Association denounced the decision, expressing disappointment that the Pentagon is still refering to homosexuality as a "defect".

The irony of it is sickening...

O.J. Simpson has yet to give a penny of the thirty-three and a half million dollars he was supposed to pay to the vicim's family.  He has not spent a minute even appearing to "look for the real killer".  He goes to clubs and gets lap-dances from young women who resemble his ex-wife.  He goes on radio shows and talks about how he did cocaine, stating that "everybody did it".  His book, If I Did It, describing how he "would have" killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, is set to be released on November thirtieth.  It is the closest he's come to confessing to the crime that, because of double jeopardy, he can never be convicted of even if he were to jump on top of his car in front of the , holding the murder weapon in the air and shouting "I did it!  Come and get me!"  And yet, not because of any action on Simpson's part, this book will have some power to help domestic violence victims.