Crazy homophobia

Grossly underexposed but I do like this lamp in Bologna

While we were driving from our restaurant last night, Josh put one of his favorite Radio Lab shows on speakers entitled Oops. Some of the Oops were tragic, some just funny.

During the last Olympics, a conservative news source reported the progress of one of the best contenders for the gold medal in sprinting with headlines such as Homosexual wins initial heat!Homosexual misjudges finishline in final heats! and the like.

WTF? It turns out they were reporting the progress of sprinter Tyson Gay whose sexual preference is unknown to me. The newspaper's credo is that the word gay puts too much of a positive spin on a condition that they feel is an abomination. So their computer blindly substitutes 'homosexual' every time the word 'gay' comes from press services.

A more benign example was the headline coming from a California paper (Fresno Bee?)

Due to massive restructuring, the Massachusetts budget will finally be in the African-American.

Their computer was trained to substitute African-American for Black.

Early in my stay in Cancerland, I sought out others with TNBC. I found a woman my age, from Michigan who seemed intelligent and friendly. Then I read her blog. OMG. She was outraged that her city's schools were protecting 'sodomites'. It turns out that safe havens for teenage and pre-teenage victims of gay-bashing would be marked  so kids (kids!!!) could seek safety and some understanding. She apparently thought they deserved to be stoned as in the Bible. She also professed to being a Christian Woman. Apparently her bible didn't have that stuff about Judge not lest you be judged and Love thy neighbor. I toyed with leaving a comment about her not being a Christian at all but decided that you can't change a hater's mind.

I always assumed homophobia was a symptom of an  uneducated, ignorant person but I was surprised to find it in the workplace full of people with doctorates (in science so they must have some critical thinking skills). A co-worker was incensed that a gay teen was allowed to speak at the local high school's 'diversity day' (he thought diversity should be limited to different skin colors). He firmly believed homosexuality was spread through 'recruitment' and that this speaker would some how, horrors of horrors, convince his son to be gay. Meanwhile this kid's message was, I'm a person too. Please don't torture me. Not much of a recruiting tool. (sadly he was not alone in his thinking..there were many similarlyoutraged so the newspaper had a story on it). I tried to reason with him to no avail. He certainly didn't want to hear that it is something people are born with and gasp! probably genetic. I suspected he had a gay brother and what would that mean? No changing this one's mind.

And racism. My former son-in-law crashed our car 2 years ago (minor fender bender) into a neighbor. I spoke to the victim's husband.
Of course my wife was afraid of your son-in-law...
Yep he is big and muscular. And a young black man. (make that African-American).
but he was driving a nice car and was polite...
Surprising? What she should feel scared about was his driving skills or lack thereof, he ended up totaling this car.

I am still voiceless though I don't feel sick. Steve refuses to put on hearing aids so that he can hear me whisper. My friend Soulmate has a medical condition that has eroded his voicebox. For a while, he had to switch jobs to preserve his voice (hard to be a silent psychiatrist). Furthermore, he is a talker so his condition is very frustrating to him. Surgery has made him much better but it still pains him to speak hours at a time or to speak louder than usual. He has a good friend with hearing loss but who hates his hearing aids. He is always asking Soulmate to repeat himself or speak louder. This infuriates Soulmate who thinks it is profoundly selfish for him not to wear the hearing aids in his presence. I am understanding Soulmate's pain. Also I must leave him a message that I will return his phone calls once I am able to do more than croak in a whisper.

What's on today's schedule? I will run. Taking a day off did not help for voice (plus it was nasty out yesterday). I should start cooking for tomorrow. Also a possible relook of the fancy house as Josh wants to see it. I am very torn about this. In some ways, the house has a lot going for it but it just does not excite me.

I do like the kitchen

It has lots of gardens