homos kill each other, that's what they do, it's part of their culture

[alexsarll]

So the deviants and the exsanguinated went to the same pub last night (and there must be a joke in there somewhere - about feeling pr1cks, maybe?) but I hadn't the energy, so instead I headed over for a brief look at angelv's glamorous new Finny P pad, and then home for 'Sad to be Gay'. Somehow, this programme managed simultaneously to annoy and sadden me. Yes, poor David to have been abused in children's homes. But his treatment of this was all too akin to two recent targets of LJ ire, Catherine Townsend's 'Sleeping Around' and Liz Jones' article about her failing marriage. In each case, the self-obsession of a particularly TMI LJ entry is on show, but without the self-analysis which can justify those entries. I mean, I know plenty of people who've changed teams, and none of them seemed to need a fundamentalist course to help them do it. Every time he whined that he wanted a nice normal life and a family like some bearded Bridget Jones, I wanted to shout "Well go meet some women, then - simple!" Clearly his real problem was that he'd been trapped in inflexible sexual identities - having moved from abuse in the children's home to consensual relationships with other boys, he'd thus defined himself as 'gay' rather than as 'someone who had had sex with other boys'. In some ways, his failure of imagination was far greater than the Christians', even if their moral framework was vastly more fvcked.
Oh, and when he described the course as "a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous, but with a side order of God"? GET ONE CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

If you could interview Tim Berners-Lee, what would you ask him? So many options, but what I wouldn't do is harp on about whether the existence of Internet filth made him feel guilty. Mark Lawson's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is even when dealing with his areas of expertise. With any recent development in culture, you might as well send the garden slug he so closely resembles.

Phew, there's no famine in Niger after all! Unless their leader is mendacious or foolish enough to be making false claims in an effort to shore up his regime - and that would be totally unheard-of in Africa, wouldn't it?

In what looks like good news for comic-book science, cosmic rays are affecting pilots' abilities - but only by harming their sight. LAME.

There are valid reasons to be awake for two consecutive 4AMs. However, this week none of them have applied to me.

Comments

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

i always thoguht AA already had a side order of god - and a rather large one, at that.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

zactly! my parents were involved in the cult of aa and al-anon for years and it inspired a brief happy-clappy 'renew' (the cafflick version of born-again) and yeah...it's all about the lord.

i guess he really felt having the nuclear family would make him him happy. :S

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But gays can have families too, with a little help! He didn't even need to stop being gay for that, except that as far as his brain was concerned Gay seemed to equal Stereotypical Gay Lifestyle.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

and family means mum dad and kids means happy. and based on his awful childhood i can see where he'd idealise it. it's just so sad. and i didn't even see it!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can understand why he'd idolise it, but I suspect he doesn't realise what a miserable time many nuclear families have too. I bet he can't even picture the concept outside soft-focus.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

yes but can you blame the chap?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

To some extent. I've met other people who had nightmarish childhoods, and it's always sad, but plenty of them had rather more of a clue.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

to a certain extent. I didn't see the programme so I might be off in what I write here but I would guess he is someone who had not accepted his past experiences and was on intent on forcing himself into a mould which doesn't fit him or anyone else because it is an idealistic pipe-dream. To move on, he would need to accept he got some really sh1tty rolls of the dice in life rather than running away from that knowledge or refusing to face up to it.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

i didn't see it either bar a bit of the preview on the news, but it sounded like he'd had more than his fair share of shitty rolls of the dice. i just feel sorry for him.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

I think it's sad as well but that's tempered slightly by my own experience that people like this man, through their own decision or because of the kind of things they've been through, simply cannot be helped.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think he had accepted his past experiences, he just wasn't processing the information very well.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

which would make him a prime fundie target. w@nkers.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

To his credit, he resisted falling for that side of things.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

ah, good stuff.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Precisely. One of the 12 Steps is to form a relationship with a higher being of your understanding - it was originally a specifically Christian thing and though they've broadened it out since, it still needs to be something conforming pretty closely to that template.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

It's a bit like that Eddie Izzard 'Cake or Death' skit. Booze or God? Come on, you've got to choose.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'll have the chicken.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

Would you like a side-order of Allah with that?

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

it's you MUST accept there is a higher power than you. it's the first step.

oh god. ala-teen meetings. *shudders*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Even watching Pam Grier's 12 Step stuff in L Word always makes me crave booze.
My grandfather was fairly key in bringing AA across to the UK. Cheers for that, Grandfather.

[juliet]

A friend of mine is an alcoholic; dry for 7 years now & that was via AA, at least initially (I don't know if he's still going to meetings/still in touch with his mentor). FWIW he's certainly not standard-Christian; if he has acquired spiritual beliefs during the programme they seem to be of the sane variety. Anyway; yeah, works for some people, doubtless not all.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's fair enough; it's mainly their one-size-fits-all approach which tends to annoy me. I know it doesn't have to be the standard Christian deity but from what I've seen, it usually has to be something along fairly similar lines, as with the Scouts or the Masons.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

alcoholics anonymous TEEN meetings? am I reading the abbrvtns right here?

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

yes. for kids of wino 'rents. they were bluddy awful and no one wanted to go, was filled with sulking 13 year olds grudgingly holding hands and talking about how It Makes Us Sad When Mommy Drinks And Cries

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Because she doesn't offer you a glass?

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

man, ala-teen was awful but renew was so much worse. in fact, i'm going to have to google it so i can share how frightening it is.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

Urgh. Nothing like everyone doing something no-one wants to do to get to the heart of the problem.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

The thing that really gets me about the 12 steps is that you also basically have to accept that you have no power to change yourself and it's all up to God/thehigherpowerofyourchoice and so on. Um. Surely any vaguely credible person will tell you that the only way to change things is to ACCEPT your own responsibility for the way you are??

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

aye. it is a cult, i'm sorry but it is.

and get back on one holiday!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_moggy_/]

I don't like Mark Lawson. You're right that he isn't as bright as he thinks he is. Front Row irritates me.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

On literature, cinema &c, he's a bit too smug. But when it comes to the new media...dear heavens above he's bad.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

He's the clumsiest spoiler in the history of spoilers - whenever someone berates me for revealing something like the fact that The Stepford Wives are robots (even though Stepford Wife is now a synonym for one who behaves in a robotic manner) I think - 'DUDE! LISTEN TO FRONT ROW!' I also find him extraordinarily guilty of stating the bleedin' obvious and I'm not being smug here (well maybe I am if I'm setting myself against him), but being the terribly lazy art/dance/drama buff I am, if I understand most of his references then he's not that bloody bright and I could do his job. Which is a frightening prospect.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

He does have a great face for radio, though.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I really wanted to watch sad to be gay but I was on a bus and then I was drinking gin and watching black books. Don't suppose you taped it?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I did, as it happens - I got back just before it finished and then watched it after. Not a very good copy, mind.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I watched it next time I am at yours?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK. I shall read a book or have a shower or something.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Or I can bake you a cake and make a treasure hunt for you to find it. :D

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone but me could access most areas of my room sufficiently to hide a cake in them!

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I could make it comic shaped. You'd NEVER find it then!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I could find it by smell, unless you also made it mylar-flavoured, in which case it would be a bit of a rubbish cake.

[ex-dumbgenius.livejournal.com]

A higher percentage of the internet was filth before Berners-Lee came along, surely.