Their So-Called Earthquake

News for the Week Ended August 24, 2011
 BY ANN ROSTOW

Their So-Called Earthquake

At first I was going to resist the urge to ridicule the TV coverage of our compatriots on the East Coast, who have gone bonkers over a 5.9 earthquake. After all, I gather that this is the worst earthquake to hit the mid-Atlantic in well over a century. And even in San Francisco, a 5.8 or 5.9 quake is significant. It could wake you up. Then again, you could also sleep through it.

But this is too much. Cable anchors have now spent over an hour covering the “news” despite the fact that no one was injured in any way and no damage has been reported. The coverage consists of interviewing random people and colleagues and discussing each other’s experiences. One person had to walk down three flights of stairs. Another was working when all of a sudden everything started to shake for several seconds. Someone else tells us that someone in Connecticut felt a tremor.
Who cares! I have the urge to put those two words in caps and add a few exclamation points, but I will resist as a matter of personal dignity.

There is a revolution coming to an end in Libya. Tripoli has fallen. The stock exchange is up nearly 300 points and there’s a big hurricane headed to the Bahamas. Are there no assignment editors or news producers on duty at these stations? I flipped through MSNBC, Fox, CNN and even CNBC before turning off the TV. All four of them were covering the earthquake in hushed tones.
I suppose I could have watched the station that used to be called Headline News and used to have nonstop news stories delivered by droning talking heads. At some point however, that station shifted to stories of missing tourists, trials and baby killers, So even though Headline News wasn’t covering the stupid quake, I was only given the option of learning more about the tragic death of Amy Winehouse, hearing about a boy who got stuck in a chimney or seeing a father who encountered a shark with his son.
I had to say no, even though the chimney story intrigued me. How is it, by the way, that men and ugly women never vanish during their getaways in Aruba?
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Lock Him Up

Speaking of crime news, I think we’re approaching the final act of the Larry King murder trial in Southern California. King was the flamboyant Oxnard eighth-grader, gunned down by a deranged classmate, Brandon McInerney, in February, 2008.

For the last seven weeks, McInerney’s defense team has been trying to convince a jury that the defendant snapped under pressure, lapsed into a dissociative state and shot King. A day before the murder, McInerney had told a friend he wanted to kill King, again I’m assuming here that he was in a dissociative state when that threat was made. On the day of the shooting, McInerney started off to school, but must have entered another dissociative state, because he returned home to get a loaded gun.

The creepy killer, now 17, has an abusive meth addicted father and liked to draw swastikas. Needless to say, he was not amused by Larry, who enjoyed makeup and drag and paid for such fabulousness with his life.
According to the LA Times, McInerney was having second thoughts about shooting King, who sat in front of him in class. But when he heard King tell a friend that he was thinking of changing his name from Larry to Leticia, the violent maniac apparently reached his limit, pulled out his weapon, and shot King twice in the back of the head. Clearly, he must have again fallen into a dissociative state during this chain of events.

At any rate, the defense has rested and the prosecution is going to put on some additional evidence before sending the case to the jury. So we will soon see if Mr. McInerney is found guilty of murder, or whether his alleged trances qualify him for voluntary manslaughter.
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Bi The Way…

There’s some good news for bisexual men in this week’s New York Times science section. Guess what bi guys? You exist! Previously, scientists believed that bisexual men were gay men who were scared to acknowledge their sexual orientation or maybe a little bit quirky. Not exactly a virile archetype.
Now, a better study has looked at a larger group of bisexual men and discovered that there is indeed a cohort of males who truly are attracted to both men and women.
Hello scientists? Was that so hard?

Apparently sexuality boffins have yet to arrive at a definitive conclusion on the nature of female bisexuals, but I’m going out on a limb to suggest that they too are figments of reality rather than imagination. And I’m not just talking about all those girl-crazy college co-eds.
I had the article right beside me a second ago, but it has vanished, much the way our old bisexual stereotypes can disappear in a flash of post-modern clarity. I recall, however, that various learned professionals reminded Times readers that sexuality, whether bi or beginning with an h, is more than a simple matter of sexual attraction etc. etc. etc. You know how those science types go on.
There’s also a fun article about flamingos in that section. Did you know that flamingos keep extra pink dye in a little sac near their butt so they can refresh their feathers from time to time? And don’t tell me that’s not a gay subject.
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Teaching Moments

Do you think it’s wrong for a gay guy to get fired from his public school teaching position after someone finds out that he ran a porn website business for several years?
I don’t.

Sorry. I think you have to make a few choices in life. Porn star entrepreneur or kindergarten teacher? Drug dealer or nun? Stripper or fighter pilot?  Okay, now that I think about it, the career world is capable of a wide embrace. But I still think the public schools can require a minimum level of prior decorum. Students should not be able to download action videos of their math teacher having a fisting party.

In other teacher news, here’s a 26-year veteran of the chalkboard from Florida, who got suspended for writing mean things about us on his Facebook page:

“I'm watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up,” wrote Jerry Beull, the social studies teacher at Mount Dora High. “And now they showed two guys kissing after their announcement. If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don't insult a man and woman's marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool of whatever. God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable?”

Beull’s district requires teachers to treat the social media as if it were the classroom. In other words, they are not to post anything that would not be acceptable on campus. Buell has over 700 Facebook friends as well, and cannot argue that his posting was private.
Lastly, Buell’s lawyer pointed out that Florida’s constitution bans same-sex marriage, insisting that the teacher’s opinion conforms to the state’s majority view and its fundamental law. But Buell didn’t write that he opposed same-sex marriage. The man said gay unions made him sick and that gay couples turned the institution of marriage into a “cesspool!”
Hope he stays out of the classroom. All in all, I’d prefer porn man, even though he told a reporter that he was doing a web story on randy twins who love to touch and fondle each other. Please no. At least not during dinner.
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Immigration For Dummies

You’ve read about Obama’s new deportation standards, I assume. Instead of tossing out illegal foreigners willy nilly, Homeland Security is going to focus their efforts on criminals and people without family ties in the U.S..
Apparently, we get to pick and choose who we deport these days. Who knew? Given my vast ignorance of the subject, I should probably do quite a bit of homework on the ins and outs of immigration policy before tackling the topic. But then again, who has time for such rigor? We have to cover everything from immigration to earthquakes and pornography. So let’s just move along, shall we?
First, I know that Obama’s administration has deported more illegal aliens than any president in history. Okay but why? Are there more around? Have we improved our capture techniques? Hired more guards? Is it due to the very existence of the Department of Homeland Security? A good reporter would answer these threshold questions but we have no time for such frivolous sideshows.

Second, it seems as if now, we are setting some “priorities” because we can’t deport everyone and we want to deport criminals and bad guys first. Well that sounds fine and dandy. But what have we been doing up until now? How exactly are we changing?
My impression is that we have a backlog of deportations and it may take one or two years, maybe more, to be deported. My impression is that instead of just letting everyone slog towards their deportation date, we will now put all our energy into deporting criminals and we will let people with U.S. family members just stay. Even though they’re illegal.
So, will we just drop their cases? I don’t think so. I think the criminals will now be deported in three months instead of three years, and the nice people will be deported in six years instead of two years. Or maybe never. Or something like that.

But hell. I don’t know, which is why this story should take some groundwork. I do know that the foreign spouses of bi-national married gay couples will be considered people with U.S. family members for these purposes. It’s not a law. It’s not a policy. It’s not an order. It just is. And it means that a lot of bi-national married couples can breath easier for a time.
Presumably, there will be no more gay spouses evicted from the States as long as this priority thingy, whatever it’s called, remains in effect. But the way Obama’s poll numbers are dropping, it’s possible that President Perry will wind up the deportation machine come February of 2013. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no. Won’t happen.
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Yelp Bomb Explodes On ‘Phobic Bridal Shop

Finally, I have to tell you about the bridal shop from Hell, “Here Comes the Bride” in Somers Point New Jersey, where the woman who runs it (Donna Saber) cancelled a dress order when she discovered one of her customers was a lesbian.

Donna told the client that she refused to participate in “illegal” activity, and she said other nasty things before…ooops!...the story hit the press and her store was flooded with hundreds of scathing comments on Yelp.
    
After over a thousand condemnations hit the website, Yelp began deleting the reactions, noting that it’s purpose is to rank businesses, not serve as a forum for political debate. Or whatever. I assume that Yelp did not delete the review from Alix Genter, the client in question, who wrote the following:

“Donna, the woman in charge at Here Comes the Bride, refused to sell me a dress because I am gay.

“After spending a day trying on dresses with my family and friends, she called me to say that she didn’t realize I was gay and would not work with me because that’s ‘wrong.’ She also said she was shocked because my family and I seemed so nice, and that my being gay is a ‘shame.’ Then, presumably to counter my accusation of discrimination, she said that what I am doing is illegal and she does not engage in illegal activity….

 “Please do not support this bigot. She is a rude, judgmental, self-righteous homophobe, and from what I’ve read in other reviews, her bigotry does not stop at gay people. Her listing on Merchant Circle has complaints of racism, ageism, and other forms of degradation and harassment.”

You tell ‘em Alix.