Some ole Stuff

Butterscotch E and I kicked around some names for kids yesterday. Not for any reason in particular, just trying out the sounds. What was funny was that I bought this name book because it had interesting lists. I thought it might be good for developing names for characters whenever I start back to writing fiction. (I'm not to the funny part yet.) What amazed me about the book I bought was the fact that all...well maybe not all, but almost all the name definitions are wrong. They're in there assigning meaning to absolutely made-up names. It's bananas. Now I ain't gon' lie, I'm postmodern to the core, but I also know when to turn it off. This book is an exercise in postmodernism imploding upon itself. I mean, really, the fact that they're attempting to assign a meaning to names is probably more modern than postmodern, but the haphazard meanings they come up with suggests that there is no real connection to any other definitions. It's like they made them up as they went along; this is what the name connotes to us (the authors), so this is one possible meaning. My name, Avery, means ruler of the elves. Even websites that don't have that exact meaning either contain a reference to 'ruler' or 'elves'. So in this book, whose name I will not call, how do they have Avery meaning "softspoken?" Or better yet, how 'bout the made-up name, Deshette? The meaning? "Dishy." What? That's funny. Even when I talked to Butterscotch about this, I guess it sounded like I was more upset than I was. It's just weird to me, that's all. Just watched an episode of the Chappelle Show, where he showed pieces of skits they didn't actually use on the show. I bought the 1st season DVD of the Chappelle Show and I've been generally familiar with his comedy for a young minute, so I know that there's a definite political awareness there. It's fun and jokes, and sometimes it's just for the sake of fun and jokes, but a lot of the time, it's an invitation to think. In this case, the skit was a sendup of a Frontline episode in which they explored the two Americas: straight and gay. Not in the political sense, though. There's a 'gay' everything from DMVs with gay photographers to Don King promoting fights between two gay boxers. The skit was funny, but the larger issue is worth a thought. Is this the direction that we're generally headed in for real? At one point, I would've thought yes, but I'm not so sure any more. I think that there are some gays who basically just want to be left alone to do their thing in private, but then there is a more vocal faction that wants to legislate homosexuality into all our lives. They would want the (openly) gay fighter to fight a (we think) straight fighter, claiming discrimination otherwise. Maybe. It's a weird situation. Speaking of which, I was reading a forum on the topic of gay marriage, and one dude was like,

Frankly I don't give a sh-t. who or what a person chooses to f---, barring that it's a little kid, is their business. But my thing is Why is it that when it comes to the rump rangers wanting to bang out each other's a--h---s, all of a sudden it's "what two consenting adults do is their business", but that doesnt apply to a straight man who would rather just pay for some...?

At first, I thought he was going to take a different tack, which is one that Thomas Sowell used a while ago, citing the reversal of position by gay activists. Not too long ago, it was "keep the government out of our bedroom" or "what two consenting adults, etc." Now, it's all about giving governmental sanction to homosexual relationships. That's interesting to me...in a detatched observer-type way. Personally, I look at the whole thing as none of my business. If a dude believes that he was born that way, that God made him that way, that's between him and God. I have not seen enough evidence to prove that homosexuality is genetic and I haven't seen enough evidence to prove that it isn't. People can tell me that God wouldn't make people like that, but if babies are born with three sets of sex chromosomes (xxy, xyy) and spina bifida and all sorts of other mutations, I don't see where it's so outside the realm of possibility that people could be born gay. I think that the most accurate thing anybody can say about the origin of homosexuality is that they suspect [insert pet thesis], but they don't know. In that respect, it's like hand preference. Don't know how it happens, but we know that it does. That doesn't mean that I think homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice, but I do know the only person I have the authority to make the decision for is my mother's son. When it comes to anybody else, all I can do is point that man to the truth. What he does after that is on him. Speaking of which, not from a scriptural standpoint, because I understand that well, but from a legal standpoint, why is prostitution illegal? Like I said, the spiritual element is there, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. Because really, if we're going to take the spiritual aspect as reasoning for what should and should not be illegal, then why are cigarettes legal? Why is alcohol legal? So let's respect that we live in a place where 'not biblical' is not necessarily 'illegal.' Now. Why is it illegal for a man and a woman to agree upon a price and get busy? If fornication for free is legal, what's the difference if some money changes hands?