Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Been reading more about People v. Jackson (Michael Jackson’s molestation accusations). Interesting stuff. I’ve always assumed that whatever his mental state, he actually did what he was accused of doing. But I never really followed the cases closely, and never knew a lot of the details that suggest that he may simply have been an easy target *because of* his mental state. After reading this I feel even more strongly what I’ve also always believed about Michael Jackson, which is that he really never grew up psychologically.

If you see Jackson as a fully-grown man, the circumstances surely suggest he was a pervert and a pedophile – how many middle aged men who *aren’t* pervs like to share beds with little kids?

But think of him as somebody who never developed into an adult at all, and who never really developed those filters about the lines between adulthood and childhood and between adults and children, and suddenly things really start to fall into place. A lot of people, myself included, believe that psychologically, the guy was either permanently a child or desperate to be one again. (See also: Michael Jackson on the Couch.) The facts that *were* proven at trial and by admission (as opposed to the allegations of which he was acquitted) make a lot more sense in that light, and you could see how he could have behaved in the way he did without there being a sexual component – and how disgruntled ex-employees and a “professional plaintiff” could have had a field day with that behavior, given how it looked to the world.

That’s not to minimize the severity of the accusations against him. Regardless of his intentions, actions, or psychological state, he should not have been so unsupervised with young children, especially other people’s young children – because regardless of his own motivations, kids should not be sharing beds with unrelated adults, and shouldn’t be learning that it’s okay for adults to act like children in certain contexts, e.g. sleepovers. If those lines couldn’t be drawn internally, they should have been imposed. And if he was guilty, he certainly should have been held accountable and incarcerated or institutionalized (depending upon diagnosis), and not had his actions indulged as celebrity eccentricity.

But as far as his moral character goes, especially in light of his acquittals and the circumstances surrounding his accusers (not to mention the fact that Michael Jackson was what the world made him), I can only quote “Wicked” and say, “There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities, so we act as though they don’t exist.”

Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him – CNN.com.

Hey, CNN, newsflash: The celebrities DID die in threes again. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on Thursday, and ED MCMAHON earlier this week! How could you forget him?!?!?

Adam Lambert: I’m ‘proud of my sexuality’ – CNN.com.

Biggest shocker of the year! Gee golly! Who saw that coming? That said… between him and Clay Aiken, if you told me only one of them was gay I’d have had to pick Clay Aiken. *snickers*

Burma tops list of worst places to be a blogger – CNN.com.

(CNN) — Bloggers in Burma, Iran and Syria work under some of the most repressive conditions in the world, facing tactics such as regulation, intimidation and even imprisonment, according to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

See, I thought Maggie Gallagher and the NOM folks were just trying to do some damage control. Turns out that conservative wingnuts really don’t get that he’s joking.

iTunes Plus – Should I Upgrade to iTunes Plus? – Deciding to Upgrade to iTunes Plus

There's been a lot of hype surrounding iTunes Plus, but you may not be quite sure whether it makes sense to upgrade the music you've purchased at the iTunes Store to the new iTunes Plus content. Though all music bought at the iTunes Store after Jan. 2008 is free of DRM, and thus is iTunes Plus music, many people have hundreds or even thousands of songs they purchased prior to the change. These people need to decide whether to upgrade. To help make that decision, here are the basics of iTunes Plus:

[Read more…]

Two-time Emmy Award winner Bea Arthur dead at 86 – CNN.com.

Now that’s better! None of this 4 measly paragraphs business.

RIP, Bea Arthur!

`Golden Girls’ star Bea Arthur dies at 86.

RIP. 🙁 We were just watching my “Golden Girls” DVDs last night. 🙁

p.s. WTF is up with CNN’s itty-bitty blurb about her death? The woman was a groundbreaker! She deserves more than a few terse sentences.

YouTube – Weathering the Storm (Response to NOM Gathering Storm).

Police Intervene in Case of Anti-Gay YouTube Poster, 12 :: EDGE Boston.

An email, huh? I’d like to see something more official stating that it’s been addressed, although the county seems accurate. You would think there would be an official statement and not just an email.

Joe. My. God.: Authorities Intervene At Home Of 12 Year-Old “Ex-Gay” YouTuber.

Thank goodness. I just hope the kid gets some real help – I still want to know if his parents knew what was going on. I was one of the people who contacted Texas DFPS, and clearly I wasn’t the only one. I imagine they got quite a few calls; thank goodness the Internet community was finally able to do something right.

Commentary: Miss California, thanks for being honest – CNN.com.

My take:

My problem with her answer was not that she expressed her opinion about what marriage *should* be, but that she displayed an ignorance of the reality faced by same-gender couples. For most of us, the “choice” of same-sex marriage is not available. We don’t live in a country where people get to choose opposite-sex marriage or same-sex marriage; we live in a country where people like Miss California get to make that decision FOR people like me. So to me, it sounded like she was either completely misinformed as to whether same-gender couples can actually marry in America, or was saying, “Hey, you chose to be gay, so you don’t get to be married.” Either way, her answer was far from honest. An opinion is an opinion, but she flat out lied.

A Gaythering Storm from FOD Team, Jane Lynch, Alicia Silverstone, Lance Bass, George Takei, LizFeldman, Jason Lewis, Sarah Chalke, Sophia Bush, and lauren.

LMAO. Go to the URL they list at the end. SRSLY.

Joe. My. God.: The Hits Keep Coming!.

Another NOM “Gathering Storm” parody!

Scottish Singer Susan Boyle’s Web Popularity Is at Numbers Never Seen Before – washingtonpost.com.

The thing to bear in mind, though, is that MANY people have watched this video MANY times.

I only hope she lives up to this in her second performance, or the “backlash” will be really awful.

Joe. My. God.: Wingnuts Call For Firing Of Anderson Cooper Over Teabagging Joke.

LMAO.

a) uh, since when is this a gay thing?
b) LMAO.
c) Sorry, these people walked RIGHT into this joke. If you don’t want to hear jokes about teabagging, don’t theme your national protest around teabags, particularly when your camp is also launching a campaign called “2M4M,” and PARTICULARLY when your camp tends to be extremely prudish and sexually repressed/oppressive. SRSLY.

YouTube – Miss California Gets OWNED Miss USA 2009 Speech.

Umm…. how can you “choose” when you can’t actually “choose”? This answer would have made perfect sense and been perfectly respectable IF we actually HAD the right to marry. But hey, guess what? We don’t. So we don’t get to choose between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage (like it’s some kind of eenie meenie miney moe or something). We get those choices made FOR us by people like her.

The Colbert Coalition’s Anti-Gay Marriage Ad | April 16th | ColbertNation.com.

Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent Audition.

Wow!

The Bilerico Project | Planet Unicorn.

Looks like somebody’s been grazing in the ambrosia fields for too long… how is Bilerico JUST NOW discovering Planet Unicorn? Seriously? What’s next – are they going to reveal a fabulous new cartoon called Lizzy the Lezzy?

Gawker – Amazon.com Admits ‘Embarrassing’ Error Over 57,310 Gay Books – Amazon.com.

They got the same response I got when I emailed – first I got the “It’s a glitch and it’s being fixed” email. The next one said:

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=rbwwvxuf3476499483
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=rbwwvxuf3476499483

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Katikara Venkatesh
Amazon.com
We’re Building Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

Do they even bother to have actual customer service reps, or do they have an “automatic name generator” attached to a stock email responder?

Nasstoys Taylor Wane Vibrating Ass & Pussy: Appropriate for a family-friendly business. Ranked.
Heather Has Two Mommies: Adult material. Inappropriate for family eyes. Now unranked.

Hetero smut is still A-OK.

Warning: NOT work-friendly.

So a keyword for “pussy” comes up… yeah… while a keyword for “homosexuality” offers a “cure.” Great. What a great standard to set. I hope all the little children looking for pussy-cats are prepared for the shock of their lives… Amazon FAIL.

Meta Writer – Amazon Censorship – Who is affected?.