So, what really led to the death of Matthew Shepard? Maybe he wasn't brutally beaten up and left for dead because he was gay...maybe it's the fault of those evil, evil methamphetamines!
I am completely disgusted with ABC News right now. The program 20/20 apparently wants to investigate whether Matthew Shepard's killing was a drug-fueled mugging-gone-wrong rather than a hate crime. The killers will be interviewed, and they are apparently changing their story (even though they admitted in the trial that they were infuriated by Matthew coming on to them, which prompted the murder).
A great PlanetOut article talks about the scant coverage of gay hate crimes in the media since Shepard's death, and discusses the 20/20 news segment further.
ABC, prepare for a very, very pissed off e-mail.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
If I have to numb my misery over the election results, at least I can do it in Hawaii. Good lord but it's absolutely gorgeous here. The water is the most exquisite aquamarine color...the air is fragrant with tropical flowers...and the men are impossibly muscular, tan, and nearly naked at all times. Maybe I should consider moving here to practice after all...
I'm about ten pages away from finishing Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and...eh. I expected much better, since so many people cite this book as one of their favorites, and because I have much love for another book of his, Immortality. There are parts of the book that are really excellent and fun and thought-provoking and familiar (mostly his bits concerning history, philosophy, linguistics, and theology), but for some reason I can't get into the characters. Kundera himself admits that they are fanciful creations who are created in order to explore philosophical conflicts; he writes them so that they are stilted abstractions more than living, breathing characters. For some reason I always found immediate distaste for characters who were written primarily as symbols, rather than as real people. Of course I think Kundera tried to do both simultaneously, but in the end, they're no more than symbols to me. He writes women especially poorly...his men seem somewhat authentic, but his women are not convincing in the least. They're like a collection of physical attributes and gestures and anecdotes dressed in drag. For some reason I feel offended when I read Kundera's attempts to get into the minds of women...but then, maybe he just illuminates something he sees in women which I personally don't want to see. Just because he sees it, and I don't, doesn't mean that it's not there.
I'm about ten pages away from finishing Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and...eh. I expected much better, since so many people cite this book as one of their favorites, and because I have much love for another book of his, Immortality. There are parts of the book that are really excellent and fun and thought-provoking and familiar (mostly his bits concerning history, philosophy, linguistics, and theology), but for some reason I can't get into the characters. Kundera himself admits that they are fanciful creations who are created in order to explore philosophical conflicts; he writes them so that they are stilted abstractions more than living, breathing characters. For some reason I always found immediate distaste for characters who were written primarily as symbols, rather than as real people. Of course I think Kundera tried to do both simultaneously, but in the end, they're no more than symbols to me. He writes women especially poorly...his men seem somewhat authentic, but his women are not convincing in the least. They're like a collection of physical attributes and gestures and anecdotes dressed in drag. For some reason I feel offended when I read Kundera's attempts to get into the minds of women...but then, maybe he just illuminates something he sees in women which I personally don't want to see. Just because he sees it, and I don't, doesn't mean that it's not there.
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