[Wibby visits England]

I'm wondering if someone got tired of finding surprises in their shoes in the morning and just let the pet go on the streets one night. That's why there had been no reports of a missing raccoon.

[Gay Marriage Update]

OMG, governments are so freakin' stupid sometimes. Even in Oz.

Colin

What appears as stupidity in governments doesn't come from the stupidity of the individual legislatures as they are usually quite intelligent (George Bush being the notable exception). It comes from the agenda of almost all legislators (and there are a few notable exceptions here too) to be re-elected or the giving in on one legislators pet project to get his vote to pass his own pet project. Too much goes on behind the scenes in caucuses or closed doors that we don't know about.

The mix of words and legislation that comes out sometimes appears so confusing that the whole process appears to be, like Colin said, pure stupidity.

I think that we here in the US are going to be facing the same concerns that Des and the Aussies are facing as we get closer to civil unions, domestic partnerships and even real marriage. It will be interesting to see how President Obama (who professes openness in government) handles this and any other thing that the government does so that the public isn't left out and continues to feel the stupidity of government.

[Absolutely unbelievable ignorance]

...For anyone to remain uninformed in the midst of this information revolution we call a world, in my opinion can only be the result of unwavering diligence in the pursuit of ignorance, but that doesn't make this Pope and those like him any less dangerous in their intent to deceive the public to reach their objectives. We treat other forms of cheating as varying degrees of criminality, and I find the principle of tolerance toward religious freedom sadly misplaced and the cost to us as a society more than we should be willing to pay. The most powerful thing

I can think of is our Collective Voice, if we can only come together and use it.

Tracy

Tracy, I couldn't agree with you more. Heath Haussaman is a political writer here in New Mexico, and Mike Huerta, a friend of mine wrote, a guest column piece for Haussaman's blog.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=...Aklk&ref=nf

Please read, and then read the comments to the article...especially the one by 'David in 88012.' They're talking about Harvey Milk, but the message is loud and clear. We have GOT to come together and be "out." We have GOT to have our voices heard.

[Down the Darkened Path]

I didn't know that Ronyx had started another one, but went to have a look after Trab mentioned it here. The title is so ominous, but that first chapter is so uplifting that I have a fear of where he's going to go with this. I'm hooked.

[The Wall]

The Wall

by Richard Norway

I'm eight years old, and I hear the word 'fag' for the first time. I don't know what it means, but the way Jacob uses it, it isn't a good thing. I laid the first brick in the wet mortar at the bottom of the door sized opening in the basement wall.

I'm eleven years old, and my dad says to the TV news report about some parade in San Francisco, "Queers aught to be hung. They don't belong among us." 'Are queers fags?' I'm questioning. 'Why don't they belong among us?' By now the first row of bricks had been laid across the opening, and the mortar had already started to set on the first few bricks.

I'm now thirteen years old and I have to undress in front of my classmates for gym. I feel embarrassed about my body because it's starting to change, so I hide and do it as quickly as I can. I understand that I'm not supposed to look at the other kids while they're naked. By now, the third row had been completed.

I'm fourteen years old and in high school, and I chance a glance at Jacob, my best friend. He looks at me and says, "Stop perving man." I've started the fourth row.

I'm fifteen now, and I get talked into running through the senior quad area (reserved only for seniors). I was talked into it by my friends because, well, I want to be accepted. I don't get caught by any seniors. The fifth row has now been completed.

At sixteen years old, and as I walk down the hall to my next class, I see a fight break out. Someone that I didn't know hits another kid that I didn't know in the face. The first kid keeps hitting him until the second kid slumps to the floor against the row of lockers lining the hall. The first kid keeps yelling, "You fucking homo!" Everyone just watches. No one moves to help. That second kid's blood had mixed with the mortar for the start of the sixth row of bricks.

I'm seventeen now, and I get up the courage to ask Jane to a movie. I really don't want to, but people keep asking me why I don't date her. They say she likes me. I don't kiss her like I'm supposed to do when I take her home. I say, "Thanks for the night." and walk back to my car. The bricks of the seventh row have gotten easier to lay as the top of the wall is not so far away from me now.

I'm nineteen years old now and in the Navy. We're in Manila, and a bunch of us guys are on a tour to the mountains north of the city. A few drinks later and we all head from our hotel to the streets below to pick up prostitutes. I am getting laid for the first time, and I like it. It's expected of me. The eighth row had become easy.

I'm twenty now and still in the Navy when a friend and I are taking a load of trash to a dumpster on the pier. On our walk back to the ship, he says to me, "I'm physically attracted to you." My emotions freeze, and I cannot answer him. I continue to walk toward the ship, saying nothing. I can't answer him, my best friend in the Navy. I feel like cutting my throat. The next layer was placed in a fury.

I'm 25 now and in university after the Navy and a short time at a Jr. College. I have my first gay sex with a friend. I'm ecstatic, but I can't be gay. This is not what my family or friends want or expect of me. The wall has gotten up to my chest now, choking me.

I'm 26 years old and just about to graduate. My friend is getting married, and I decide that the girl that I had been dating, another student at the university, would be good as a wife. I mean, I'm 26 now and what would please my family and friends more? We have a big wedding. The opening in the basement wall was closing in on me. It was getting harder to see the outside world, the real world, now.

32 years old finds me with a daughter. I ask myself, 'what have I made of my life? Have I fulfilled everything that I was taught that I should be and do?' I look at the wall in front of me, and it is now complete. I am locked inside the world that I had built, and the air is getting thin. I'm choking just to be able to breathe. I have built myself a cage, a wall to hide my emotions, to deny my emotions, to not ever be able to see them, or to even feel them.

I am who I am because of what others expect me to be.

I pick up a rock from my cave and began to assault the wall, my emotional wall.

I'm now 52. The light of the day now assaults me...and it fulfills me.

[What was it like]

...I think people use the blogs to tell of their personal past, their hopes, and their frustrations.

You're right Trab, and I apologize for having started this thread here instead of in a blog. But then I also don't apologize for some marvelous and truly inspirational things have come out of this.

It takes a while to learn how to fly.

I like where I am, I like who I am, and I like what I'm doing.

As for being 'crazy', Zorba the Greek sums it up thus, " A man needs a little madness, or he never cuts the rope and be free."

It's extraordinary that there are several billion people on this earth, and they're all different, and all have their own unique tales to tell.

I'm happier than I used to be, but there'll always be a sense of loss ? the wasted years, the missed opportunities, the cage I built for myself.

I like to try to be as optimistic as I can, and say, "it could've been a lot worse." Nowadays, I have better things to worry about, like paying bills, dealing with irate clients, and surviving my job. Compared to that, the events of my childhood are trivial.

College went very well once I had cleaned up my act.

I grew up in International Falls, Richard, as north in Minnesota as it gets.

I was born in a little place close by you, Thief River Falls, where my brother and father still reside.

Thank you, Richard, for what is sure to be a thread that sends no one away empty handed. Inspired, if you ask me, for the opportunity for any who wish to express what they might not otherwise say, and for insight into others for which they would not otherwise ask.

I said earlier that I didn't know what to say, and I'm not sure if I do now. But one thing struck me as I read some of the most gut wrenching, courageous and honest stories that I have ever read here. Even though each one of these stories is from a different set of circumstances, there's a commonality of "hope" within each and every one of these stories. We are all unique, but we are also all the same...human.

Each one of us has had to survive from what life through at us, and we all did it in a different way, but we did it. Yes, all of us have "holes" in our past that we're still trying to fill today, but the idea of filling those "holes" speaks of that "hope" for a different and an even better tomorrow.

I'm ecstatic over the inspiration that you've not only given me, but also by your courageous honesty, the inspiration that you've given to all of us.

I'll be posting a piece of flash fiction at Codey's World on my page, but I think I'd like to share it here too. It's probably the closest thing that I've ever written that is autobiographical as it speaks of my past. I'm going to post it in the Flash Fiction topic, but it's really my story along this thread.

[The Obama Watch]

Could same sex issues be next in line on the Obama list?

I'm not sure if same sex issues are next in line, but I have a feeling that at some point, President Obama is going to have his say. :)

[Gay Marriage Dims in California (3/2009)]

Trab, I think you're right. I don't think most Californians agree with the decision on Prop 8, but they didn't vote.

But this a legal issue that has a lot of implications for the way California runs itself, it's not just our rights. This is going to be tricky. They have 90 days to respond.

[Gay Marriage Dims in California (3/2009)]

This is probably one of the most controversial and difficult cases that the CA Supreme court has ever had to deal with. There are so many legal issues at stake that it is mind boggling. Hell, David and I argued about it tonight.

The idea that the electorate can change the state Constitution is a fact in California, but also the doctrine of equal rights come into play. The court cannot discount the fact that the voters have a right to revise or amend their constitution as they will, but they also realize that the majority does not have a right to trample on the human rights of ANY minority. It's fact that they know that the majority can be bigoted, and the court has stepped in on a few occasions to state that.

This is an emotional issue. We're emotional about it because it involves what we perceive as our right, our human right to be part of the greater America and the world of human beings. The opponents feel deeply in their religion or what their paradigm taught then that this is wrong and should be banned. It's not a legal issue, but I don't know where else to fight. Truth is...we need to be more visible, to let the world know that we live next door to them and we're not a threat.

Another issue is whether it's a constitutional amendment or revision. This is important because if it's an amendment, it must satisfy the idea that it changes the structure of California government. I think they see it as another change to the constitution of CA that doesn't require any further action.

We may lose this. Not on a human rights issue, but on a legal issue of how the California Supreme Court sees the legal issue involved. I think Cole is right in that the Court is extremely liberal, but the argument for gay marriage was weak. It didn't address the constitutionality of it. This is the law, and that's what the justices have to look at.

[Domestic Partnerships Fail in New Mexico]

There is still hope in California, however.

C

I'm not so sure Cole. I just finished watching the 365gay.com live webcast of the arguments in front of the CA Supreme Court. I know that the justices had to play devil's advocate to ferret out substance, but this doesn't look good for CA.

[Domestic Partnerships Fail in New Mexico]

I've been in quite a depression over the past week at the shock of what happened in our legislature. The Domestic Partnership Bill failed in the Senate...AGAIN!

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_11796862

[What was it like]

Trab,

I don't know what to say in response, except that I've felt the same way that you have.

[David Nearly 13]

To think that they could confuse

the grammer that he wrote,

and question him of that right

to say what he wanted or might.

He delighted in his prose,

as he spent the hours to compose,

the words he delighted in his whim,

the words he had within only him.

It is dumb to think of what is right,

for he knows what is not right.

He has not the strength to fight

but he knows just what is right.

[What was it like]

One quiet afternoon in late February this year (the wind hadn't started up yet), a small bird said to me from it's perch on a yucca branch (just before he or she collapsed from the heat), "Don't you just love it here in New Mexico? There's no snow or cold or despair."

I couldn't get that out of my mind as I watched it's lovely feathered body fall from the branch and a small puff of dust erupt from the desert floor below.

Sorry bird. I wondered if someone must have let you loose from your cage after capturing you from BC, Canada. You didn't want to be here.

I was born in northern Minnesota, but raised in southern California. OMG, what a change, but I was only seven when we moved, and life's decisions were based on the future then and not on what I had known in the past.

But I'm in New Mexico now, and my grass even goes brown (just like in my old stomping grounds of southern CA). I love the lack of snow!

Hmmm...HS in southern CA. That was a treat that took me the next decade to get over, and I guess I'm still working on some of the crap that that experience taught me.

But I did learn one thing, not at the time though. Love where you are and appreciate what you have around you. I still love the beaches, the views, the bodies, the...but I digress.

This forum has become lethargic. Okay....let's talk about our pasts, what we had or didn't have, our hopes then for our future, our disdain for where we were, and how do we feel about the past now, what gave us hope and what gave us misery, what events influenced us to think the way we do now.

What was it like or what is it like today? Let's communicate.

[David Nearly 13]

To my great chagrin, neither do most of the writers on the 'net. To those who need the help, I could suggest to them where to put it, but as children might be readng this, I will refrain.

C

Ah...if it were up to me, I'd put it...inside. The quotes, THE QUOTES, that is.

[The First Day by Camy]

Well done Camy! What an open ending. I've already envisioned the continuation.

When do you think that you might start on Chapter 2?

Here's a quick link https://awesomedude.com/camy/firstday/index.php

[Cornwall seems to have a problem]

I too had asked myself the same questions that Des has asked. What is going on down there in that far SW corner?

[New Mexico Domestic Partnership Bill]

Why is equality so not tolerated? Last year the Domestic Partnership bill lost in the New Mexico Senate by one vote. About an hour and a half ago, it lost again, but this time by 25 to 17. What happened to the senators that voted for us last year?

I had mentioned in another forum here about this historic legislation here in New Mexico. I feel that I need to report the sad results.

I think I'm going to go outside right now...and scream my head off.

[A Night in Reality]

Cole Parker wrote:

Thanks Cole, glad someone got some satisfaction,

Satisfaction? SATISFACTION?

I didn't get any satisfaction. All I got was a view of how my life (or fantasy life) played out to worry about.

You did your job Des, you got people to think. I'm not alone, as I'm sure that many readers had to think about what they themselves have fantasized about....or did. Our stories seem to end as Nifty stories end, they just end.

Wonderful writing, but I think it wasn't just about someone's fantasies. It was about what we as sexual humans fantasize about and what is reality.

Makes you think, huh? I sure did.

Great job, oh Master intellectual.

[A Night in Reality]

I really liked that, Des.

[Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash]

The United States is falling apart because of corruption at every level of goverenment. It is endemic, corrosive and enervating to our goverenment and instutions. The people have gotten so sick of endemic corruption that is dismissed with a nod and a wink they have no faith in the system.

Corruption is in the process of destroying our economy and it is obvious and widespread within the state and federal governments. Confidence in our legal and gov't intuitions is at an all time low. This simply can not go on forever. A reckoning is coming soon and it is going to be ugly.

NOT IF BUT WHEN it implodes, I hope the revolutionaries hang the right people this time.

I'm sorry James, but I couldn't disagree with you more. We're not falling apart, we're regrouping, as we should. I don't feel that we should attack our society without some way to get out of the mess we're in. Please offer one. And I don't want to hear dooms day stories. What should we do to make it right? What are your ideas? Should we have a revolution? And do you really believe that?

I have faith in the system because I have a vote that I can exercise. Yes, corruption happens. Then stop it by your vote. Do what you can.

[Domestic Partnerships gets out of Committee in New Mexico]

OMG! OMG! It happened today finally after all of our efforts. Please read the article in the Southwest LGBT Press below

http://nhcv.blogspot.com/

Click on the link to the New Mexico Independent newspaper story

[Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash]

I've been selected (read ordered) for jury duty five times in my life. I sat three times and was thrown out twice on a preemptive. Each time I sat on a jury, the one thing that really hit home to me was that the system works. I really felt that we, the jury, were trying to do our best. Maybe I was lucky to get the judges that I did, but his instructions were for justice first, that the defendant is truly innocent until proven guilty. I think maybe I was lucky.

But James, I have to only partially agree with you. Some courts don't work, but I cannot say that all of them don't work. I've seen them. It's a never say never or never say always thing, just never lump all into a single category. Some work, and some don't. Fight the ones that don't.

Our system isn't perfect, but we have the option to try to change the parts that are wrong.

Pessimism will get you an early grave, and Pollyanna optimism will also get you there. We just do what we can without giving up.

[Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash]

I read about this a couple of days ago, and I couldn't help think about the impact on the teenagers involved -- being sent into detention for relatively minor infractions. Some of them would have been emotionally scarred as a consequence....

I have to agree with Cole. I could never come up with a story that is so unbelievable like this one. How in the world did it happen? I guess it did. We, as a culture, have obsoletely no understand of how we influence our future as a society by what we do. These kids (teenagers) will be part of us when they're released. Can they now (given the negative view coming from what they're taught) be productive or even life fulfilling. i doubt it.

[Spelling and Grammar Q&A]

Calm down Cole. I can see that you're upset. But you're right in that where we live and try to thrive has a major impact on how we communicate. I live in New Mexico, and like you, we have a major Hispanic culture here. I need to learn Spanish, not to just talk to people, but to understand my neighbors. to be a part of their humanity. I think I'm not the norm here. Many people that I talk to refuse to learn Spanish, thinking that we're in America that that they should learn English. Stupid, stupid, narrow thinking

Making a specific language a requirement is just plain foolhardy and a dip into the past. We're a worldwide society (especially with the internet), and communication (and understanding) is paramount. I wish more people understood that.

Neil, you're from a different culture and can see the paradox here. We want to get to know you, but are resistant to understanding your culture through your language. We're not alone, it happens all over the world. We're just people with our unwarranted biases.