This is as bad as the Dance Dance Revolution song “Butterfly” that can’t help singing along with in the car.
Things I do when I should be writing up my blogger forum notes or getting a load of mulch for the flowerbeds.
I attended a blogger forum at lunch to day, where three local progressive candidates for office met with local bloggers to answer questions and talk about their political issues and campaigns.
The candidates were:
Russell Brown ( Democratic candidate, Senate District 31)
Dr. David Orentlicher (Democratic Representative, House District 86)
John Barnes (Democratic candidate, House District 89)
And the other bloggers:
Taking Down Words
Stallio’s Way
Resisting Inertia
ManfredEye
Confessions of a Hoosier Democrat
bilerico.com
Advance Indiana
I took some pretty extensive notes, so I have to look them over and take a little bit of time to write up some of the discussion.
Indy Star Matt Tully’s analysis of the recent polling in the Carson/Dickerson battle for made my jaw drop in shock:
No mudslinging: Carson took hard personal shots at Dickerson last month, but the Republican remained positive. He knows there is nothing to gain by trading potshots and respectfully argues that Carson’s time as an effective politician has simply passed.
WHAT? This campaign is the dirtiest, slimiest one I’ve ever known, and it’s not coming from Carson’s end. I’m sorry — Dickerson is slinging more than any candidate I’ve ever seen, but it’t not mud he’s slinging — it’s shit, plain and simple.
He’s feeding libelous allegations and smear tactics to the IndyUndercover site (which is run not by cops or sheriff’s officers, but by the Republican Party — current investigation points toward Ike Randolph as the responsible party) and to Gary Welsh of Advance Indiana. Go to these site and read what they’re saying about Julia Carson.
They’re alleging she stole someone’s wallet, for pete’s sake. Tell me that’s not shit-slinging. Tell me that’s positive campaigning.
I’ve picked these up several times in the store, but they’re PC games, and I have a Mac, so I haven’t bought ’em. I wish they made more games like this for the Xbox — I tend to not be interested in the “kill kill kill, die die die” shooting games, but that’s most of what you find for Xbox players. In retrospect, I think one of the other gaming consoles would have been a better choice for me. PC owners can play W888 games instead. Stephanie’s offered several times to let me play games on her PC, but I hate to monopolize her machine for something as frivolous as video games.
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie’s world-famous novel, And Then There Were None, is brought to the PC with all of its original baffling suspense! Ten people, strangers to each other, are invited to a lavish estate on an island. Through a recording, their mysterious host accuses each of his “guests” of murder and proceeds to exact “justice.” The tension mounts as, one-by-one, the number of people are reduced through the ingenious plotting of the unseen killer. Prepare to play the video game based on the best-selling murder mystery of all time! This game includes the original book.
Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave
In Nancy Drew: The Creature Of Kapu Cave, Nancy travels to Hawaii as a research assistant for Dr. Quigley Kim to determine why the population of native caterpillars has exploded. The Hardy Boys, on a separate covert operation, are also visiting — and both stumble across the mystery of the Hilihili research compound and its evil vibes. Some believe it’s linked to the legend of Kane ?Okala. Local legend has it that a long time ago, a man was sacrificed to the hungry volcano to appease it. Kane ?Okala, or “the rough-skinned man,” later escaped from the volcano, but he was scarred for life with a rough-skinned and frightening appearance. When Nancy arrives at Camp Quigley, she sees a monster ravaging the camp, and soon discovers that Dr. Quigley is missing! Could the monster she saw be Kane ?Okala? She’ll have to team up with the Hardy Boys to find out!
Mystery Case Files: Huntsville
Crime spree baffles Huntsville police! Do you have a keen eye for details? See if you can locate enough hidden clues to solve the crimes and become a Master Detective! For more immersive games similar to this, you can click links like 해외배팅사이트.
Priest comes forward to tell of his inappropriate behavior with Mark Foley when Foley was young.
Let me make it really clear:
I was not molested as a kid. Most of my gay friends were never molested as kids. I have several friends who were molested. Some of them are straight and some are gay, and there seems to be no correlation whatsoever between the gender of the person who molested them and their current sexual orientation.
Many studies over the years have shown that there is no causal relationship between sexual molestation and homosexuality.
Also — I’m a 38 year old woman. The woman I love is 34 years old. I’m really quite tired of having our loving, nurturing relationship being equated with pedophilia, pederasty or predatory sexual behavior of any sort, and I’m really hating that I’m reading tons of that crap coming from the religious right currently.
From their mission statement:
Indiana Youth Group provides a safe place, a confidential environment, youth development programs and support services which foster personal strength and wellness among self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people. IYG advocates on their behalf in schools, on the streets, and in the community. IYG builds friendships and explores individualism while promoting a peaceful community, based on equality, acceptance and diversity.
I volunteered with IYG years ago, and my little sister did for a college internship also. I dropped out because I got very busy at work (I was very poor and doing lots of overtime) and there were lots of adult mentors in the program already.
IYG has a wishlist of items they want to have donated to use at their center. I really wish I’d seen the list earlier, because we’ve given lots of stuff to goodwill in the past few months that they need.
Fortunately, we have a ton more stuff to give away that is on the list, so we’re going to start gathering stuff up.
I’ve talked about the subject of “Outing” in the past several times. Scott tackled the issue recently on Bilerico, and along with a lot of others, I commented. I wanted to pull my comment over here, though, because it’s a refinement of some of my previous ideas.
I’ve pointed this out in the past — I really try not to use the euphemisms “outing” and “closeted” because it masks what we really mean — being honest about sexual orientation, or lying about it — and because the terms are so pervasive we no longer think of the issue as an ethical one.
We really have built into our culture this shelter for people who lie about their sexual orientation. In many ways, that’s nurturing for people who are still coming to terms with themselves, but it’s also destructive in many ways. It allows predators to run rampant, it allows people to dodge stigmas they shouldn’t get to dodge, it allows a general air of dishonesty envelope our community that people take as license to be dishonest in other ways.