What is all that racket outside every night, once the sun goes down? Why its tree frogs! They are singing their hearts out, looking for a mate.
Tree frogs are definitely a sign of warm weather. They are also a sign that all is well and right with the world. In the forest, when tree frogs get quiet, it means that they are aware of danger. Their silence becomes an anti-alarm of sorts.
Near my house, nothing shuts them up. Their sound can be deafening. Oddly enough, they sound isn’t coming from Bull Run Creek but rather the opposite direction. So much for the bull frog theory. If there are bull frogs in the mix they must be ones who have taken over someone’s swimming pool. Croakers’ rights or something like that.
Planted this one on the Sheriff’s blog. I seriously doubt if will see the light of day.
Apologize to the Sheriff, Friar. Your “planted” post was there — with replies. But they may now call you “Friar Troll.”
I think that is a long running battle, Wolve.
They have all moved on to a new enemy.
They’re all over Jim Young. Guess they don’t realize they sound EXACTLY like him when they pound on someone. Very amusing and a poster mentioned that. Assume they didn’t pick up on that as it went through!
Wolve – we don’t care 🙂
When the big news of the week revolves around Bruce Jenner’s medicinal and surgical changes – God Help Us. This gossip should be a foot note on his/her wikipedia page and no more. This proves to me that our news outlets are anything but news when more time is spent on the Vanity Fair cover than the advances of ISIS, our economic conditions and local incidents.
I am so tired of hearing about Bruce Jenner I could scream. I don’t care what he does. That’s his business. What is the obsession?
Please use Caitlyn Jenner’s preferred name and personal pronoun. Transphobia has no place in civil society. GLAAD has put out a style guide to help you correct your language: “The world can now see what Caitlyn Jenner has always known, that she is – and always has been – a woman.”
Take this text: “Bruce Jenner won the gold medal in the 1976 Olympics men’s decathlon. He also ran the men’s 400 but did not win.”
That is factually incorrect and transphobic. You should say instead: “Caitlyn Jenner won the gold medal in the 1976 Olympics men’s decathlon. She also ran the men’s 400 but did not win.”
If you feel you need to explain why Caitlyn Jenner used the name ‘Bruce’ in 1976 or why a trans* woman competed in male events, you should examine your transphobia. They are irrelevant and an attempt to Otherize Caitlyn. Continuing to use the name ‘Bruce’ to refer to Caitlyn is a family values dog-whistle.
You may want to talk about starting yet another war on brown people (the George Bush-created ISIS) but trans* rights are civil rights. And it is wonderful that Caitlyn Jenner was courageous & brave enough to share her story with us. As our President said, “It takes courage to share your story,” and is encouraging everyone to share their stories in the fight for LGBT(QLA) equality.
That’s absurd. I have the right to be tired of the entire topic. Transgendered people confuse me. It creeps me out to see adam’s apples bobbing on women. To each his own. My dentist has a trangendered receptionist. I had a Pat moment. I just couldn’t tell. Perfectly nice person. But…
Look, I don’t care what people do. I just maintain my right to be confused.
Besides, you do know that June is LGBT Pride Month, don’t you. If talking about trans* civil rights in June makes you uncomfortable, you really need to examine your transphobia.
Or do you complain about too much media coverage of African Americans in February?
@Moon-howler
Moob Furby has turned into more of a troll than he/she/it previously was. Do not feed into his gibberish, please.
It must be a slow day at the office.
I note the news about a drug to enhance women’s libido. How will we view abuse of this drug? Will slipping it into your date’s drink be classified as rape?
@Pat.Herve
“It”?
So I don’t count as human now? Or was that making fun of transfolk? I thought the policy around here wasn’t to dehumanize people. You know like calling certain people “illegals”.
I thought your incorrect language against transfolk like Caitlyn Jenner was just out of ignorance, but your mocking of them as “it” suggests you are bigoted against transfolk.
Notice how Moon-howler is able to accept a trans* as a person even if she (Moon) is still uncomfortable with the transperson’s gender identity. Moon still sees a person. You apparently see a thing.
The only thing I really find odd about Jenner is that a 60-something-year-old would be called “Caitlyn”
Although I think it’s a rule that anyone who is related to a Kardashian has to have a name that begins with a K or a C, including spouses.
Dylan Thomas’ wife was called Caitlin. Caitlin is the female runaway name and Sean or Seaghan the runaway male name. My Irish Granny was always amazed with the spelling variations of both names and the widespread use.
Regarding Jenner, I’ll just think of her as Jenner who escaped the Kardashians and stop there.
Some people will do anything to escape the Kardashians.
I commend Fox News for running the entire service for Beau Biden in a solemn, dignified manner.
About Jenner and others like him, does anyone else find it odd that the focus of “being female” seems exclusively on the superficial, dress up aspects? Excessive makeup, high heels, expensive fake breasts and other plastic surgery and a photo shop glam pic makes you a woman? Feminists are okay with this?
I actually don’t think the focus is on his girlie clothes. I think the focus is on his story. I am not going out there and say I understand it but its his body and his “self” and he can do what he wants. Feminists like make up, heels and boob jobs too. If your nose is too big, that has nothing to do with your capabilities as a woman. Get it fixed. Being a feminists is no longer about wearing a grey suit to work. I think that went out in the 70s.
I do think as those who are transgendered are more open in society, that there are some important social issues to discuss as a society. Let’s go to the gym question in Starry’s post. Where does a transgender kid go shower at school? With his or her own “parts” types or with his identity? I suggest doing away with showering at school. On the other hand, especially in rural areas, that might be the only shower a kid ever gets to take.
There are no easy answers but…just because the issue causes difficult questions, there is no reason for meanness and hatred. I am not the most comfortable with the situation either. I can think of a lot of things I am not comfortable with. Guess I have some work to do.
Caitlyn Jenner
Barring a terror strike or an Ebola outbreak to distract us, the 2016 presidential election seems headed for a gender identity showdown.
Within days of the release of Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover photo, Republican presidential candidates were being asked to comment, while conservative pundits were warning of a political apocalypse.
Kathleen Parker writes a twice-weekly column on politics and culture. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary In 2010. View Archive
Leading the charge was Rush Limbaugh, who has advised the GOP to reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she is a Republican. Big Tent Sign: Transgender People Not Welcome Here.
While some GOP candidates have avoided inquiry thus far, others have trod carefully around the murky issues surrounding gender identity.
Rick Santorum initially gave the correct answer to a reporter, saying, “If [Jenner] says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman.” But he was forced by outraged conservatives to backpedal and subsequently clarified that he meant to “express empathy not a change in public policy.”
Mike Huckabee was also thrust into the debate when a video of a speech he gave in February surfaced online. Huckabee had joked, “I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E.”
When asked Tuesday about his earlier remark, Huckabee said, “I’m not going there.”
This is good advice for all Republicans, unless they have something thoughtful to say. If you think “legitimate rape” was a problem, stick around for “Can Jenner be a woman if he still has male organs?” Apparently, Jenner hasn’t yet taken the final physical step to becoming a woman, according to Vanity Fair.
As flip as the question may seem, it does invite a necessary elaboration. As I have been recently tutored, sex organs are irrelevant to gender identity. Simply put, sexual orientation concerns with whom you have sex. Gender identity, which forms early in life based on multiple factors both pre- and post-birth, concerns who you are, male or female, regardless of the equipment you were born with.
Clearly, this subject is more complicated than a girlie pinup in a ’50s muffler shop, which is what Jenner’s cover photo reminded me of. Never mind the potential ramifications and adjustments that may become necessary in the public square, from single-sex institutions to restroom facilities to those awful public school showers.
Limbaugh isn’t wrong in predicting the coming stigmatization of conservatives as crazy or hateful because they’re not queuing up as popular convention requires. The danger for the GOP is that the loudest and kookiest voices will be harnessed by the media and trotted out as typical of the Republican base.
As always, volunteer crazies will present themselves, as did one fellow who wrote to me recently as “God’s Emissary.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-politicization-of-caitlyn-jenner/2015/06/05/69733282-0bb3-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html?hpid=z3
Conservatives are having seizures over this
Tsk, tsk….wasting time and energy repeating dipstick drivel like that from the WaPo.
I don’t know, Wolve, those are questions the candidates will get hit with.
Some of the issues are things we are going to have to talk about in a Post-Jenner society.
It might sound like drivel but I believe there is substance there.
Any conservative response to the whole Jenner business should be the following: BARF.
Not sure why that response is any more “conservative” than “liberal”, Wolve. Why wouldn’t the “conservative” response be “SHRUG” or “SIGH”, the latter being more about a media world where this kind of thing takes up anyone’s time or resources, particularly in a mass media context.
Marco Rubio according to the NY Times:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Veqz8W98iA
His actual “luxury speed boat”:
https://twitter.com/hadas_gold/status/608341282839240704
@Starryflights
Huh? Confusing as usual…
Secretary of State John Kerry bought boat for over $7,000,000.00 then proceeded to dock it out of state to avoid over $500,000.00 in taxes. Rubio buys an $80,000.00 fishing boat and the NY Times finds that to be a story?!?
Rubio’s fishing boat is $420,000.00 less than JUST THE TAXES John Kerry owed Uncle Sam but did his best just to not pay ‘his fair share’.
Where is that story?
The Kerry story is several years old. Did you miss it?
@Jackson Bills
jackson – what is wrong with Kerry trying to avoid paying taxes, this is the American way – you can avoid taxes all you like.
Actually, it was not Uncle Sam that was due the taxes, it was the CommonWealth of Mass – which eventually did get the tax money. But get this – where is the boat docked – in RI which does not have a tax on boats. And guess where the boat is docked all these years later – in RI.
I see nothing wrong with trying to avoid taxes.
@Scout
Hah! This kind of stuff keeps up in our culture and I may have to add a vomitorium to the house. Shrug or sigh? At a guy with add-on, non-functional female breasts and a male penis on the cover of Vanity Fair?!! LOL. Back in the day, they used to claim they were Napoleon Bonaparte come back to life. Now they call themselves a woman.
I am not sure what non-functional female breasts are. Care to elaborate?
@Pat.Herve
Pat, where were you when they discovered in 2012 that Mitt Romney had once had a personal bank account in Switzerland?
@Pat.Herve
Sooooo… You agree with me that the NY Times hit piece on Rubio is complete bullshit, right?
Can’t tell if you completely missed my point or if your just carrying DNC water by defending pay your fair share Kerry.
Hah! It’s spreading already. PWC Police are looking for a White male who went into the public restroom at the Woodbridge Walmart dressed as a woman and tried to peep at a lady in one of the stalls by using a mirror under the door.
Peeping Tomasina is on the lam!
@Moon-howler
I understood that Bruce Jenner did have an operation to attach a pair of falsies to his once “manly” chest. Plus he had some “hormone treatments” earlier. However, unless his Beverly Hills surgeon rearranged Bruce’s insides in a miraculous fashion, one has to assume that those falsies do not work physically like the real thing in a number of critical ways. I don’t think I have to explain that any further. On the other hand, who knows.?…I don’t keep up with all the latest advances in the falsie field. But, then, maybe Vanity Far airbrushed more than I thought.
What the heck am I talking about?!!! BARF!
They probably work as well as anyone else’s do if that person has had breast augmentation. As for lactation, well, he didn’t just give birth so we assume THAT isn’t an issue.
I think you must know some inside boob secret that I don’t know. Seriously.
Jenner doesn’t make me want to barf, he/she just bores me.
Replying to self…Moon…why are you going to Wolve for sexual advice? What’s wrong with this picture?????/
Not Dr. Ruth…Dr. Wolve….
Caitlyn Jenner has made the brave and courageous decision to let the public know what she has always been. A woman who happens to have a penis.
Caitlyn has said that she has not decided yet if she is going to have genital surgery. If she chooses to do so, she will then be what she has always been a woman now without a penis.
Like Eve Ensler said, “I never defined a woman as a person with a vagina.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Caitlyn performing in The Vagina Monologues with her fellow sisters?
Gross. You are obsessing. I dont find it all that interesting.
I am not sure I am willing to say it was a brave or courageous decision. Some people would walk down the street naked if they thought they could get attention doing so. I have heard so much about Jenner that I am beginning to put his/her situation in that category.
There are kids who go to school every day and face the ridicule from their peers over some difference. Some don’t make it.
What did Jenner have to lose? I hadn’t thought about Jenner in 30 years.
I’m not obsessing about Caitlyn. It’s just she made her transition about the same time I made my political transition, so it’s natural that I used the issue to show my bonafides for my new allies. Since I now fully support LGBT(QIA) rights, I join with the President and other prominent Americans in celebrate Caitlyn’s courage. I deeply regret my previous homophobia and transphobia when I made comments about chromosomes or suggesting that trans* persons need psychological help not to have parts of their bodies amputated. Like Pat Herve, I had not embraced the wonderful spectrum of gender fluidity. I now know there are 50+ genders, and that trying to say someone is ‘male’ or ‘female’ is just an attempt to impose an artificial binary gender construct.
As for walking down the street naked (or at least topless) are you saying you don’t support the #FreeTheNipple movement? It empowers women. Or are you suggesting that Scout Willis only marched down the streets of NYC topless for the attention?
IMHO, this isn’t worth getting oneself sick over.
You’re obsessing, Wolve. Furthermore, who cares what Limbaugh, Huckabee, etal
think about it! Take some Pepsodent or whatever that pink stuff is to settle your
sensitive stomach. There are a lot worse things to barf about.
How can Huckabee this this is wrong but Duggar is okay?
@punchak
Heck, I’m not obsessing, Punchak. Some things in life are just….well. er…barfable. Bruce simply made the list.
Al Sharpton is also on the list.
@Lyssa
Duggar repented.
That brings up an important issue. Repentence. I would say OK except for two things. 1. He is in a business where he sets himself above others and knocks on others. Do a google on him and he is always seen bashing other people. 2. child sex offenders are rarely cured. That is a well-known fact.
Ah, the born again moral, ethical integrity bankruptcy option. A thinking person might consider sexual physical assaults criminal and passive sexual preference not. Oh but how silly of me to forget conservatives aka Republicans, regardless of actions, are ALWAYS covered. I just keep falling into that thinking trap again. We don’t have to think; just label ourselves and others, say it out loud with a wave of a hand and it all falls into place.
I’m getting there……..I’m not to the point of Fox News as a sole source over reading and/or thinking yet. And so leery of the creepy Steve Doocey-ites.
@Lyssa
Yes, yes, yes / Steve Doocey IS creepy. And, as if it wasn’t enough
with ONE, his son and clone, is also on FOX!!!!
Steve Doocey is creepy and a liar. I think what I am saying is, he is just a tool.
Maybe his kid can escape.
This woman needs help: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3121061/Local-NAACP-leader-professor-African-studies-outed-WHITE-parents-convincing-community-black-years.html
He’s a Narthax Catholic. @punchak
@Bills, what are the rules on how long ago one’s ancestors came from Africa or by what route before one can claim to be African-American? Everyone’s ancestors came from Africa. Some more recently than others. The color of one’s skin is irrelevant in the discussion but what about dark skinned-people claiming to be Caucasian? Are light skinned South Africans or North Africans all suspect too? The people who are mining this family squabble over child custody are just going to expose their racial prejudices…they aren’t going to make the fraud charge stick.
This woman checked all the boxes on the racial form (as I did before they added multi-racial) and she has the right to do that. Parent’s self-selected racial category does not obligate children to adhere to it. We are free to choose whatever ethnic affinity we want. This is not a country that tattoos marks on people to specify their government-approved racial identity.
@Lyssa
Ah, so you would send your own 14-year-old son to the slammer as a sex offender and smile benevolently on an “adult” whacko like Jenner. Takes all kinds, I guess.
Ah, repentance followed by preaching and proselytizing of the faith is a no-go with you then? Well, next time your vicar bases a homily on the life and works of St. Paul, you should stand up and call the vicar out on that. After all, that fellow Saul (Paul) was a nasty official persecutor of Christians before he got the message and hit the road to pass that message on. Tell your vicar to cancel the fellow’s gig.
And what’s your beef about those Duggars anyway? I would surmise that no one makes you tune in to such TV programs. It’s not like you don’t have several hundred other options.
I don’t watch the Duggars. I find them repugnant.
I didn’t say that sinners can’t preach. My objection is that he inserts his “righteousness” into politics. Don’t deny he doesn’t do that. I have seen videos of him bashing various candidates and office holders.
If you have that kind of dysfunction in your past, I’m betting it will resurface at some point.
Family Research Council is very political. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, if we are going to get biblical about it.
That’s like Speaker Livingston bashing Bill Clinton.
@Ed Myers
I suspect that, if you mark all the race boxes on the census form, the Census Bureau will just put you down as a White nutjob.
.
Looks like I have stumbled upon the Doocey Hate Club.
Never heard of a “Narthax Catholic.”
A Narthax Catholic is someone who doesn’t take their faith out past the Narthax of the church. They only practice inside church and leave it there until the following week. Old expression –
I don’t hate Doocey – just think he’s creepy and I cringe when he uses Catholicism as a whip. Religion is about your actions not using it to judge others, in my mind.
I wouldn’t send a 14 year old to jail for what Duggar did you’re just twisting my comment. But then, from what I see, that’s your m.o. Try mah jong for that! It helps.
Lyssa, are you sure that’s not a “Narthex Catholic.” Your right. Very ancient and seldom used expression. But I think the original meaning pertained to those Medieval Roman Catholic worshipers who for various reasons (like being penitents) were not allowed to join the regular congregation and had to remain behind a barrier in the narthex of the old cathedrals. No? If, you can show me a “Narthax Catholic”……..
In any case, calling somebody “creepy” and cringe-worthy sounds like hate to me. I say “Doocey Hate Club” here. Or perhaps now “Doocey & Son Hate Club.”
Microaggression right back at ya.
Good one from blogger Robert Stacey McCain:
“Bruce Jenner is a woman.
Emma Sulkowicz is a rape victim.
Rachel Dolejal is black and
I am a reuben sandwich with a side order of fries.”
I’m not sure how frequent a Mass goer you are or your educational background – but it’s used in the way I described by many that I know. Certainly you’re familiar with the appropriation of terminology? Isn’t Wikipedia fun –
Still quite a leap from creepy to hate….but to make things more sensational the leap is necessary. Learned behavior from overload of Fox maybe. I watch it every morning – btw.
Should we plan for an intervention in your near future, Lyssa?
Thank you but not at this time. I split my 60-90 minute am between Fox and MSNBC. Admit I start with Fox as I’m a bit non compos mentis for the first 30 or so. Then I split WTOP with NPR on the drive in. I am somewhat concerned about news overload in retirement – am thinking I’ll stop altogether and also toss the laptop. The latter might be harder than I’m willing to admit
@Lyssa
I asked Number One in my personal coterie of Roman Catholics about your phrase. (That’s Roman Catholic from birth to school to college to daily Mass to Bible study in this country and abroad for 70 years.) She never heard of a “Narthex Catholic”.
She thinks you may be confusing it with “cafeteria Catholic.” That would be the likes of, for example, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the late Ted Kennedy over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, fornication, adultery, etc. But a “Narthex Catholic”? She asked why you would attempt to disparage the faith level of this Doocey fellow without knowing him personally. That he sees some things through Catholic eyes in his public statements is a hardly a reason for disparagement by a fellow Catholic. Disagreement maybe but hardly disparagement to include creepy and cringe-worthy.
And that line about “born again moral, ethical integrity, and bankruptcy option.” What is that all about?!! Sounds like one of those anti-ecumenical slams against Protestants that one sees from some of the contemporary Catholic posters at Vortex, who can’t seem to move beyond the Thirty Years War and the Council of Trent.
@Lyssa
I asked Number One in my personal coterie of Roman Catholics about your phrase. (That’s Roman Catholic from birth to school to college to daily Mass to Bible study in this country and abroad for 70 years.) She never heard of a “Narthex Catholic”.
She thinks you may be confusing it with “cafeteria Catholic.” That would be the likes of, for example, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the late Ted Kennedy over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, fornication, adultery, etc. But a “Narthex Catholic”? She asked why you would attempt to disparage the faith level of this Doocey fellow without knowing him personally. That he sees some things through Catholic eyes in his public statements is a hardly a reason for disparagement by a fellow Catholic. Disagreement maybe but hardly disparagement to include creepy and cringe-worthy.
And that line about “born again moral, ethical integrity, and bankruptcy option.” What is that all about?!! Sounds like one of those anti-ecumenical slams against Protestants that one sees from some of the contemporary Catholic posters at Vortex, who can’t seem to move beyond the Thirty Years War and the Council of Trent.
And our own Moonhowler and all us little Moonies on this public venue don’t use our own versions of righteousness to bash candidates and office holders?!! Bunch of Duggars we all are from that angle.