Matthew Sheppard and the victims of other hate crimes is horrific. I will never forget Matthew in particular.. I was in the same town that it happened at when it occurred… on a little trek across the country with my parents… I’ll never ever forget sitting in this truck stop and I was looking at the news and there was pic of Matthew on the front page and I started crying because he looked so much like a gay friend of mine and i couldn’t imagine what it’d be like if that was my friend, Pudgy… the waitress walked up to me and asked me why I was crying and i told her… she then burst into tears and said that he was one of her best friends… she had actually been out with him the night before he was attacked, and those same son of a bitches had tried to lure him out of bar, but she stopped him.. she felt guilty that she wasn’t there with him the next night to save him from such a horrible fate.

With all of the hate that is going on in the world, it’s hard not to just give up and say fuck it all, but we can’t… imagine how much worse it would be if we did!

Well another fantastic podcast, thanks for the rants and love.

Peace

And if you can’t see how much up Bushes ass McCain is, you may want to see to your head, for it may be stuck up your own. He has buddied up to Bush the last couple of years, seemingly to get into office, despite the fact that he had to reverse several of his stances to do so. It seems like either he’s okay with being a puppet for larger corporate agendas, or he’s playing all of you Conservatives just to get into office. Either way, it’s unsettling.

Oh, yeah, and sorry to poke holes in your assessment of my motives for the post, but it’s not just to appeal to anyone. You see, unlike some, I actually just say what I feel, and I don’t really give a shit whether it appeals to any group at all. I simply say what I feel needs to be said and let it go at that.

And it is a good sound bite, isn’t it! Thanks for the read, or as much of it as you did.

I too lost a lot of faith in Obama when he back-peddled on his stance against offshore drilling. I’m not sure what’s worse, that he is proving to be a stereotypical Democrat pansy or that we the people are pressuring him to change his position? What gives with our society these days? It’s been pretty widely agreed upon that there will be no immediate benefit to this drilling yet we still insist on it. I thought the days of blindly following whatever Bush and his camp say were over. If there truly is a god, please send us a politician that is willing to listen to scientist and experts over corporate lobbyists.

And the anthrax case… shit, thanks. I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist but I do have a deep seeded mistrust of the government. Now you’ve given me something else reflect on and I’m still trying to make my mind up about 9/11. Not that would matter if it were true and he were called out on it. He would just pass the blame off to an underling whom we would prosecute and sentence only to have him/her, along with every other one of his goons in the shitcan right now, presidentially pardoned in 5 months.

I also enjoyed your talk on sexism and misogyny. I currently live in a very conservative part of Mexico where, although women officially share equal rights with men, the reality is a bit more disturbing. I know women with college degrees in science that fetch coffee for the men in the office during meetings. I enjoy my friends and the inter-cultural experience I am having, but I am also uncomfortable watching my friends make out with strange women at the bar while their wives are at home with the kids, a scene not all that rare. Don’t get me wrong, however, there are really great people down here but it is culturally expected in some cities and towns that the men will have a casa grande (for the family) and a casa chica (for the girlfriend). Culturally, women are still seen as sex objects from big breasted hosts on TV to a section of the newspaper (front page) accurately headlined as “eye candy.” Actually, I suppose the only difference between Mexico and the U.S. is their openness about it all.

And finally, cuddos for talking about homosexuality. Too many straight men shy away from the subject. Personally, I don’t understand why it is even a discussion. If marriage is a religious issue, then the government has no constitutional authority to get involved by banning same-sex marriages. If it is a legal institution, then the government is constitutionally prohibited from discrimenating. So let’s drop it already Republicans and start working on solutions to real problems like how to free your campaigns from the influence of big oil and pharmeceutical companies.

…Oh yeah, and don’t worry about the length of your podcasts. It just gives us more bang for the buck with each show. Besides, the beauty of podcasts is that we can always stop them and resume later right where we left off.