Leviticus 20:13 : Keeping Traditional Values Alive

I need to give you some context for this one or else you'd be super confused.

A while back there was a Facebook group encouraging people to wear purple to honor the gay kids who recently committed suicide because of bullying, and, since it was on Facebook, there was the opportunity for people to leave comments. Some asshole posted this:

Gay is a sin just to let you know.... Adam and Eve not Steve, but yeah a picture of a man and a woman being affectionate is morally correct. Two guys or girls is a disgrace to everything life stands for.Gay is a way to try and get attention... from peers who would never talk to them otherwise. Any F****** person who likes their same sex is deemed to hell in my opinion. Straight is the only way sorry guys. Lev 20:13 "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death; their blood will be on their own hands."

Besides the poor grammar, the sheer cruelty and evil of posting this on a page dealing with suicide - child suicide, for fuck's sake! - greatly offended the values and sensibilities I've been instilled with as a result of not being an inbred insanely religious freak from rural Appalachia. So, of course, I responded with a message that was, unfortunately, lost forever because the original comment was deleted by the admins. Here it is:

Yup! That's exactly what Leviticus 20:13 says. Similarly, Exodus 35:2 lays out an important rule for us, though in the latter's case, it says we should put anyone to death who works on the Sabbath. Also in Exodus (21:7) is the part where we're allowed to sell our daughters into slavery. The Bible is just choked full of all sorts of fun rules! Some of my other favorites includes the "facts" that we should stone people to death who plant different crops side by side, and we should most certainly burn women to death who wear clothes sewn from different types of thread! On the bright side, though, slavery is a perfectly acceptable practice!

Isn't it interesting how people like you pick and choose what parts of the Bible to follow? Or are you really prepared to go home and sell your child, because you're late on your rent? Kill your sister for wearing that Macy's sweater made of polyester and - God forbid - cotton? Stone your nephew to death for growing peach and olive trees next to each other?! Oh the depravity!! Surely you must do these things, since the good book so expressly stresses their importance. 

I wish you good luck in these endeavors. Oh! And don't forget: If you find all this to be too much work for just one person, you can always buy a slave to help you out.

___________

Basically, if you're going to use the Bible to justify marginalizing an entire group of people and treating them as second class citizens, don't even bother talking to me.  
___________


And yes, for those of you that were wondering, this is pretty obviously a scene from West Wing put in to written/ non-dialogue/ more tangent-y form. Of course, I added some commentary in my exceptionally brilliant voice, so writing this wasn't entirely pointless!


For those of you that want to see the original scene (Dear Aaron Sorkin, you are my hero.), here it is:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc

Hi...

So... I know it's been a while since I last posted. I fail; I know. What can I say, though? I have a lot of work. It's the end of the quarter, and finals are fast approaching!

I feel like I have a duty to the one person who actually reads this blog, so I am going to make a point to post old content on here. What I mean by "old content" is stuff I have written in the past and posted on other sites like Facebook or TravelPod. I'm sure I can scrounge up some random crap.

Yeah... I know this is lazy, but it's better than nothing! So quite your bitching.

The 21st Century: The Golden Age of Journalism

Truly, this coming age will be a glorious one of good's triumph over evil -  one of journalistic greatness. An age when political independence is valued and responsibility prized, the needs of the people for information unfettered by the personal opinions of modern pundits coming first. It will be an age when nonpartisanship reigns supreme and the rights of Americans to knowledge and accurate information affirmed!

I legitimately couldn't say that without laughing, but that's okay, cause I love to laugh! And ooooh, how thee make me laugh, MSNBC...

By now, most of you probably know that MSNBC recently suspended Keith Olbermann for donating the maximum amount allowed to three democratic candidates. OMG!!! MSNBC ADVOCATING RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM!?

Clearly, the apocalypse has arrived. 

Seriously, though, this is a good sign, isn't it? MSNBC is encouraging journalists to not, at least openly, endorse specific parties, right? Eh... I might be more convinced of this had his suspension lasted more than a week. Only a week? Dear God! What a punishment!

My favorite part of this whole situation is the fact that the rule he violated is not one that forbids journalists from donating money to political parties, but one that requires them to get permission before they do. Imagine that! The senior executives at MSNBC get to dictate who their employees can or cannot donate money to. I wonder how these higher-ups would have reacted if Olbermann had given to the Republican party? But I guess we'll never know, cause the day MSNBC hires a Republican pundit or anchor really will be the beginning of the aforementioned apocalypse.  

Still, though, I'm so glad MSNBC is keeping up the pretense of being fair and balanced. Wait... That sounds awfully familiar...

Series on Cities No. 1: Los Angeles, California, United States

I know I said that not all of my blogs would be rants, but this one kind of turned out that way. Sorry...

As mentioned in my first post, I plan on writing a series of blogs about the major (or simply well known) cities I have been to and how I felt about them. I intended for these posts to be short; in fact, I originally wanted to just write one blog briefly discussing the cities I've been to so far. Unfortunately, though, I decided to start with Los Angeles, which I have a... er... very strong opinion about. Apparently, I needed to release the years of pent of hatred in a long healthy rant. 

Anyway, here is the first in the series, LA...

I live here, so maybe I'm just sick of it, but either way, I think LA is a dirty city, with lots of smog, average beaches, and terrible weather. Sure, Hollywood is cool... for a day, the 3rd Street Promenade and the Grove are nice shopping destinations, and I love to drive through Beverly Hills creepily staring into celebrities' houses just as much as the next girl, but let's face it, those places aren't like the majority of LA. People seem to forget that Santa Monica, Hollywood, and Venice Beach are not the whole city (BTW, Beverly Hills isn't even part of the City of Los Angeles.). The real LA includes places like Van Nuys (Oooh fun!), Lincoln Heights (Hope I don't get robbed!), and Encino (I don't even know why I included this one; there's nothing to do there.) Ohhh, and don't forget the ever lovable Watts! If you want to see some real gangsta culture and possibly take home a souvenir in the form of a story about a mugging, then that's the places to go! (To be fair, the Watts Towers are actually supposed to be really cool.)

Anyway, it's true that there are a lot of restaurants and shops in Los Angeles... but then again, there are bound to be many in any city of LA's size, simply as a result of its massive population. In fact, I bet you that Yangoon has just as many restaurants and shops as LA does, but like in Yangoon (I'd guess.), you have to sort through all the sketchy trash in LA to find the good stuff, though you'd probably also have to dodge bullets in Yangoon. Maybe that's the appeal of LA? There is lots of stuff to do and little threat of being killed [unless you're in Watts (JKing. Well, mostly...)]!  

Now, let's talk about my favorite part of the LA stereotype (This one really pisses me off.): The Beautiful California Sun and the Glorious Beaches. BEAUTIFUL WEATHER AND SUN, MY ASS! It was 113 degrees here a few weeks ago. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN DEGREES IS NOT NICE WEATHER! Anyone who says it is, needs to pack up and move away from Antarctica. And the beaches? Psh! They're average. Totally average. If I wanted murky water, I'd go splash around in the troughs of water that form behind my house after it rains. If you want a nice beach, go to HAWAII OR MIAMI! Hell, even Catalina, San Diego, and places farther north like Carpenteria are way better than Zuma. 

Ohhh and a little tip to visitors, you better rent a car, cause the public transit system here is A GIANT PIECE OF CRAP. Do you know how long it takes to drive from UCLA to USC? Less than 15 minutes. Do you know how long it takes using public transit? AN HOUR AND A HALF! WTF. Even if you do drive, THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY CARS ON THE ROAD, so unless you only travel at 3 AM, there will ALWAYS be traffic, and don't even get me started on... the... 405, because the 405 is pretty much the Anti-Christ of freeways.


I will leave you with the facts that the smog sucks, people don't know how to drive, and every time Obama comes to town, THEY CLOSE DOWN THE 405! Do you know what happens when you close down the Devil of freeways? Do you? The rest of the freeway system experiences the Highway Apocalypse and every Los Angelenos that drives dies a little inside.

Overall rating: 2.5 Stars. 

Would I live here? No... wait... apparently, yes. Fml.

That's basically years of pent up anger. My apologies. 

Series on Cities

Before I post my first in the Series on Cities in a few minutes, I would like to briefly talk about it.

These blogs will basically be about my opinions on various cities. Each post will discuss one city that I've been to, and though most will be about well known places (NYC, London, etc...), I will occasionally talk about less famous cities if they strike me as interesting or significant in some way.

At the end, I will give the city a rating on a scale of 1-5 (or 0 for those that really suck). The rating system is as follows:

5 Stars: AMAZING OMG.
4 Stars: Reallllyy awesome! I must go back here one day!
3 Stars: Good. Has some positives and negatives, but is tipped toward a thumbs up.
2 Stars: Kind of sucks, but has, at least, some redeeming qualities.
1 Star: Awful. I hate this place.

And for the really special places...

0 Stars: If you make me go back here, I will immediately kill myself.

There ya go! I will start off with Los Angeles. If it doesn't get posted in the next few minutes, I probably died.

First Blog!

Wow... Well, this is my first blog, and as such, I am going to start off with a bang! Actually, no, I'm not. I don't have anything particularly exciting to say at the moment. However, I would like to share something fairly amusing. When I was trying to decide on an appropriate name for this blog, my dear friend, Kelly, suggested, in the spirit of mocking religion, that I call it "The Virgin Mary's Holy Tangent" (Btw, I don't know if you figured it out or not, but that's my actual name: Mary.). As much as I adore this title, I have decided to let a large segment of the population get, at least, past the title of the blog before proceeding to piss them off.

In this blog's description, it says that I won't only rant about random things here, and I won't. Promise. In fact, one of the recurring things I will write is my "Series on Cities," which is basically a series of blogs containing short reviews/ opinions about various important/ big/ interesting cities I've been to. I'll also write about my experiences when I travel, or, at the very least, give you a link to my Travel Pod account.

For those of the literary persuasion, I will also include reviews on some of the books I read, though don't count on there being too many of these during the school year. I find that the 17 books UCLA has assigned me for 3 classes (in a 2.5 month term) make me want to die at the thought of peering at more words on paper. Isn't it sad that school has temporarily (hopefully) crushed my passion for fiction? I think it is truly one of the decade's greatest travesties. For now, you're probably more likely to get movie/ TV show reviews, because sitting passively in front of a TV is pretty easy. Unfortunately, this tends to occur when I should be doing homework. Damn distractions...

Anyway, besides those things, I'll probably just write about random weird/ amusing/ messed up/ exciting things I've seen or experienced. Hope you enjoy it!

~ Marzo