Thursday, June 12, 2003

The political circus in Madrid continues. It looks very much like the two defectors from the Socialist Party are going to throw the government of the Madrid region to the PP. There goes the Socialists' big electoral prize and boy, are they pitching a fit. Manuel Chaves, the Socialist party president, says that "economic and development interests that do not want the Socialists to govern in Madrid" are behind the two Socialist defectors. Gas, the Commies' leader, is accusing the PP of somehow being behind "a conspiracy to change and twist the majority will of the citizens of Madrid who decided that the left should govern." The PP is going to sue Gas for slander. Typical leftists; there's always a secret conspiracy of nefarious forces of evil thwarting them from making the world perfect for The Children.

The PP's response to the Socialist accusations of conspiracy is, says José María Aznar, "Solve your own problems." Adds Mariano Rajoy, "If you've got problems, don't blame them on everybody else." They say that the Socialists are the ones who put these two people on their electoral list and they are the ones who were unable to maintain their loyalty, so this whole circus is their own damn fault. Touché. Score one for Aznar and Rajoy.

The press is disgusted at this show of complete incompetence on the part of the Socialists and their striking out blindly in anger when they don't get what they wanted. There is near-complete unanimity, except in El País, the Socialist house organ, and the SER, the Socialist radio network, that the conspiracy and corruption accusations are unfounded. Says Alfredo Abián in the Vangua's page 2 signed editorial, "At this late stage in the game, the new PSOE is springing more leaks than the Prestige (the ship that sank off Galicia). And at the rate things are going, there are few doubts that we'll have the PP for a long time more." The Vangua's lead editorial on page 28 blasts Zap and Gas and their ilk, "(Saying this was) a maneuver by the PP to prevent the PSOE-IU coalition from governing in the Madrid region and not justifying it with accurate facts and evidence is no more than a simple insinuation that, for one thing, contributes to the poisoning of the political climate."

Enough of these clowns. They couldn't manage to catch the clap in Tijuana.

The sociologists strike again. The Soc department at the University of Barcelona, domain of Eulàlia "Chemical Lali" Solé (from now on Inma Mayol is "Anthrax Inma"), has a study out on homosexuality and adolescence. Now, this is a serious subject, and gay kids frequently do have psychological problems. I imagine that a lot of real work has been done on this subject and that it's something that is generally considered as significant among health and education professionals in the West. But is it true that in the US 30% of teenage suicides are caused by homosexuality-related traumas, as they say? I doubt it.

Check out these quotations from sociologist Ester Nolla, "We have to break with heterosexual language and neutralize heterosexuality as we did with sexism", and from sociologist Öscar Guasch, "The Spanish state practices a regime of apartheid, promoting a heterosexual lifestyle."

Oh, Lord. Look, people. Heterosexuality is the norm. 95% of human beings are heterosexual. Heterosexual behavior is necessary for the propagation of the species, which according to Charles Darwin is the goal of each living organism: to reproduce itself. Now, for some reason, 5% of people are not heterosexual. That's fine. As long as you're kind and honest and fair and considerate and love your neighbor, you're ace with me. I don't care what you do in bed or where you go to worship or what continent your ancestors came from. Hell, we're all originally from Africa anyway. But trying to deny that an enormous majority of people are heterosexual and that all societies consider heterosexuality as the norm is just plain nuts.

Something else about this so-called study that bugs me is that it is clearly activism masquerading as science. Its purpose was to "analyze the problems of discrimination and violence that affect non-adult gay or lesbian persons in Catalan society." That's begging the question. What the point of the study would be, if it were legitimate, would be "Do gay and lesbian adolescents face problems of discrimination or violence in Catalonia?", and my answer would probably be, "Yes, but don't a lot more people than gays and lesbians suffer from violence and discrimination in schools, especially at the hands of bullies? Isn't violence and discrimination against anyone a problem? And isn't the best way to stop it a hard line on discipline in the schools, punishing any student who uses any violence, verbal or physical, against anyone, and kicking out the ones who don't want to be there and just cause trouble? Let's look at the problem as a whole instead of focusing on only those victims who are homosexual, and let's crack down on those who are causing the problem."

Oops, that would, like, imply that actions have consequences and we wouldn't want to get into that. It would also imply that one has a limited number of chances to fuck up before one is officially labeled a fuckup, and that's not very inclusive, is it? These damn sociologists are the ones who caused all the goddamn problems in the schools anyway with their goofy dictates.

Note: The Vangua's photo shows some sociologists sitting around a table, on which is prominently displayed a book titled, "Paula tiene dos mamás." I'll bet you dollars to pesetas that it's the Spanish translation of that educational classic Heather Has Two Mommies.

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