My head hurts today, and I am having difficulty putting words to “blog”, but this disturbing speech by Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern came to my attention this morning.

I wish that I had the words to express my outrage, my frustration, my sadness and more. Time to take action?

…and on to a different subject…or is it? Education, honesty, reality, isn’t it time to put ignorance behind us?

Starr called me this morning and (among other things) said that one of the girls in her hall has herpes. Sad that such personal information has reached the ears of all the students that this young woman interacts with daily. Coincidentally, I saw this news article just yesterday which states that:

At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD.

I believe in education, smart, real, honest, complete education. It won’t cure everything, we are human after all, but knowledge is not a handicap. Misinformation and ignorance surely can be.

This is a transcript of a text conversation I had the other day with Starr:

Starr: “Joel” is dating a boy! Don’t tell.

Me: That’s great! Who am I going to tell?

Starr: It was a joke! But isn’t that good, if nothing else, he’s just experimenting. I think it’s awesome though. Oh, and the new “Mrs. Highschool Teacher” is preggers.

Me: Whoa…aren’t you just full of the latest gossip? And it actually makes me really happy about Joel! Opening up the possibilities….

You see, we all knew that it was very possible that Joel liked boys, but he always claimed otherwise. Maybe he was fearful of ridicule, or worse. High School can be a challenging time. In Starr’s school, there were several GLBT students that I was aware of (and I assume many more that I didn’t know), and it didn’t seem to be an issue. It could be that I continue to see what I want to see…I just KNOW that my community is so much more enlightened than the rest of the world! Ha.

I don’t normally watch Ellen, but I did see this clip the other day, and was moved by it. In my preoccupation with other events in our lives right now, watching the news and keeping up with current events hasn’t been a priority. I missed this sad story.

In reviewing several of my posts, I see a trend, and it’s true, I DO have an agenda: All people with love and respect. It seems so simple. Naive maybe. I also freely admit to finding it difficult to apply “love and respect” to those who choose hate. As a straight woman, why does it matter so much to me? Because injustice in any form is offensive, and I have this hope for love. I have this wish for people to stop using race, religion, sexuality or even size as a reason to hate.

Oh, and for the record: I didn’t have to translate our text conversation…we choose to use words while texting…well mostly. Preggers? I also changed the names, as always.

I just read the Pajiba review for For The BIBLE Tells Me So I found his review really quite powerful, and while I haven’t seen the movie yet, it has been on my to-do list for quite some time. Here is a clip from The West Wing, which Dustin Rowles included in his piece. (I chose a slightly shorter clip)

And although I posted this trailer for the film several weeks ago, here it is again:

Thank you, Dustin, for sharing.

Play this game! Increase your vocabulary and feed the hungry. Simple and good. I love it.

My 10th grade photo essay…..circa 1979.

Watch a video and raise money for charity….check out Five for Fighting’s What Kind of World do You Want and “watch a lot of videos!”

I had never heard of Dr. Marty Klein before today, I will be checking in with him more often. The following is from his Sexual Intelligence newsletter:

New Hampshire Adds Civil Unions; Chaos Follows

At midnight on January 1, New Hampshire became the fourth state to legalize same-gender civil unions. Amid the New Year’s Eve hoopla, twenty-three couples tied the knot on the State House steps.

As predicted, the world did more or less come to an end:

* Heterosexual spouses across the state were disappointed with each other. While the sources of dissatisfaction were many, sex was a recurring complaint.
* Horses and goats around the state asked for civil unions with their farmers or farmers’ daughters (depending, of course, on the gender of the horses and goats).
* Children showed various effects. There were many reports of peculiar behavior such as inattention in school, disobeying parents, and spending way too much time in the bathroom.

The other states to previously legalize gay civil unions are Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Only Massachusetts has legalized same-gender marriage. Some people see a sinister force at work, as the state’s Boston Celtics are having a supernaturally good season-thus far winning over 90% of their games. In fact, no has been able to prove that the citizens of Massachusetts have not sold their souls to the Devil.

As proof that God disapproves of homosexuality, several clergy members cited the unusual weather during the civil ceremonies–cold, with snow and some wind, despite the fact that it’s January.

Dr. Marty Klein

Thank you Dr. Klein you made my day.