Tag: Culture and Current Events

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What Makes Homophobes Tick? by Will Stanton

Well well well! What we have suspected about homophobes is true. To paraphrase Shakespeare from “Hamlet,” “The homophobes protest too much, methinks.” Understandably, what makes people “tick” always is a multifactorial answer…their inborn natures, their learned behaviors from their parental upbringing, the social environment in which they live, church dogma, influence from school friends, and many other experiences. Recent research also shows that brain-structure has something to do with it. Significantly, research now also shows that, frequently, people who express hate toward gays are in fear of their own, inner feelings. That fear leads to denial of their own natures, verbal expressions of intolerance or hate, and unfortunately too often, violence. We can laugh at people’s hypocrisy; however, too often they do damage to others before they are exposed.

Ted Haggard, the evangelical mega-church leader who preached that homosexuality was a sin, resigned after a scandal involving a former male prostitute. Republican United States Senator Larry Craig opposed including sexual orientation in hate-crime legislation, yet he was arrested on suspicion of propositioning someone in a men’s bathroom. Republican Congressman from Florida Mark Foley, Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, favored strengthening the sanctions against inappropriate behavior with congressional pages; yet that’s exactly what he was accused of. Then Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe was accused of engaging in improper conduct with two youths. Glenn Murphy Jr., a leader of the Young Republican National Convention and an opponent of same-sex marriage, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after being accused of sexually assaulting another man. I could list many more. Apparently, it is hardly unusual for someone who describes himself as having “conservative values” and as being a member of the “moral majority” to have desires that he denies but engages in behavior that he loudly condemns.

As early as the era of famous Sigmund Freud, psychologists theorized that shame and fear regarding one’s own homosexual urges can be expressed as homophobia. Freud described this phenomenon as “reactions formation.” Since then, there have been several remarkable laboratory studies that confirm this theory.

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology had a revealing article by Henry E. Adams, Lester W. Wright, and Bethany A. Lohr of the University of Georgia. They used sixty-four subjects, all young men who claimed to be exclusively heterosexual. To begin with, they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). Twenty-nine expressed no homophobia; thirty-five expressed homophobia. Then each group was given the Aggression Questionnaire, created by A.H. Buss and M. Perry in 1992, to compare the subjects’ natural tendency toward generalized aggression. There was no difference in those results; aggressiveness is not the source of homophobia.

Then each group was shown two different series of erotic videos. All the subjects were wired to monitor responses, including pineal arousal. When shown videos of heterosexual love-making, the resulting graph showed some gradual increase in arousal among the homophobes but a greater degree of arousal among those who were not. Then when each group was shown videos of homosexual love-making, the non-homophobic group showed a degree of arousal; however, the homophobes’ graph showed a greater degree of arousal.

When homophobes express their fear and shame by verbally abusing gays, lesbians, or transgendered people, that can cause serious harm to the victims. Victims might be emotionally scarred for life. Or worse, the victims may feel driven to suicide. A greater percentage of bullied or depressed gay youths than straight kids commit suicide. Jamey Rodemeyer was a gay teenager who tried to lead an open life and to not hide his orientation. He also felt strongly enough about gay rights to be an activist and to post videos on YouTube, trying to help victims of homophobic bullying. Unfortunately, there was only so much bullying that he himself could tolerate, and he committed suicide at age fourteen.

Jamey Rodemeyer (21 Mar 1997 – 18 Sep 2011)

Suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer

The news, from time to time, reports beatings and murders of gays. Even in my hometown, a trucker, who had a teen in his truck cab for sex, beat the “living daylights” out of the boy just to prove to himself that the trucker really was straight. Another young gay was shot dead at a rest-stop just outside of town. And, we all have become familiar with poor Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student, who was tied to a prairie fence and beaten so badly that, after several days of suffering, he died. I find it very hard to understand the level of hate and violence that so many people are prone to. What ever happened to “Love thy neighbor”?

Matthew Shepard (1 Dec 1976 – 12 Oct 1998)

Matthew Shepard Biography

Homophobia certainly is not limited to our own country. Russia recently has gained further notoriety by passing anti-gay laws and by allowing young toughs to lure young gays to bogus rendezvous and then severely beating them while filming the atrocity. Even some conservative U.S. senators have encouraged the Uganda government (as though their government needed any encouragement) to pass laws that could put gays into prison for life or even to execute them. The proposed bill stated that straight friends and family who did not turn in gays to the authorities could, themselves, be jailed for three years. One ultra-conservative, American senator is reported to have told the Ugandans that the U.S. had failed to stop the spread of homosexuality, but it was not too late for Uganda to stop it.

Fortunately in our country with the passage of time, with greater understanding among young people, and gradually fewer narrow minded people as they die off, the U.S. appears to be becoming better informed, more tolerant, and more open. Fewer people are “living in the closet” in fear and shame. Perhaps fewer will try to prove how tough and straight they are by attacking their own kind. Although the causes of homophobia will continue to exist, I hope that we will have far fewer people afflicted with that disease. We must continue to work toward a cure for homophobia.

13 February 2015

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Nowhere by Ricky

Like many men of my age group, I had my mid-life crisis a few years ago. At this point in time, I perceive that nothing has changed since then. I still have feelings that my youthful goals and dreams are nowhere in sight for the future or accomplished in the past. With the loss of my best friend of 27 years and 9 months, most of the joy of life went with her. I now have no ambition, nowhere to go, no one to go there with, and no money to spend when I don’t arrive there.

I have been blessed with a modest amount of financial and medical security, but the Republican Party leadership is poised and planning to take even that meager amount away by making major changes to existing law and programs. Republican Paul Ryan has published his proposed budget for 2015. Bruce Lesley reported in The Huffington Post [1 Dec 2014],”In the name of protecting children, the poor, and the states, the Ryan budget does the opposite.”


Like the Beatles’ Nowhere Man, the Republican Party’s proposed federal budget for 2015 is a “nowhere plan”. The republican leadership inhabit their “fortress of solitude,” listening to no one except budget extremists, and where they make all their plans for nowhere budgets for the benefit of nobody except the wealthy.

Nowhere does that nowhere plan contain the Affordable Care Act or the expansion of Medicare or uncapped Food Stamps or Public Radio or the endowment for the arts or Amtrak or even basic research grants or funding for education. Republican leaders are, “No way, no how, nowhere”, men.
They know not where they will lead us to.
They are as blind as they can be.
They see what they want to see.
Nowhere Men can you see the poor at all?

Somewhere, somehow, sometime, the Nowhere Men will find the way to fund their favorite project – weapons for war to either use or sell. After all, a good old fashioned war is great for business because war makes the rich richer.

Nowhere Men never learned the lessons of history, one of which is wars cost money, the outcome is never certain, and innocent nobodies will end up, no-where. “Nowhere Men wars” will take us all nowhere, somehow, in no time.


In exchange for a unique American culture of democracy and the American Dream, by defunding education, Public Radio, and the endowment for the arts, the Nowhere Men would have us embrace a culture of rule by the few wealthy Nowhere Men – an oligarchy based upon military strength and a subservient poor.
Nowhere Men would be well advised to remember that Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, other groups, and individuals also own guns and were trained to use them during combat in Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and on the streets of major American cities.
© 1 December 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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My Favorite Queer Role Model by Pat Gourley

Chelsea Manning 

A personal role model is someone whose behavior you admire to the point where you might actually try and emulate it and hopefully use it as impetus for creating change. Chelsea Manning is that queer person for me these days.

Let me briefly re-cap her history and I’ll finish with a bit of her current activities. She enlisted in the army in October of 2007 and eventually ended up in Iraq in 2009 as an Intelligence Analyst with access to classified documents. What transpired as a result of Manning having access to copious documentation of U.S. military and private contractor actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan is succinctly stated in this quote from a piece written by Nathan Fuller in March of 2013 for the Bradley Manning Support Group:

“What would you do if you had evidence of war crimes? What would you do if ‘following orders’ meant participating in grave abuses you opposed? Would you have the courage to risk everything – even your life – to do the right thing? Most of us would keep our mouths shut. Not Pfc. Bradley Manning.” Nathan Fuller 3/2013.

Manning released a very large trove of classified government documents to WikiLeaks certainly as a matter of conscience. Once exposed and arrested she endured months of torture in solitary confinement. Her subsequent trial resulted in a 35-year sentence based in part on several counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. This antiquated piece of legislation is by the way being put to unprecedented use by the Obama Administration to prosecute and persecute whistleblowers.

The prison sentence was handed down in August of 2013 to one named Bradley Manning and the following day she announced that from now on she wished to be referred to as Chelsea Manning and would be further pursuing her transition and hopefully receive appropriate hormone therapy. Last week on February 13th, 2015 her hormonal therapy was approved after suing the Federal Government for the right to receive this treatment.

A criterion I have for my role models is that they cannot be silenced even in the face of great obstacles. This applies to Chelsea in the most remarkable ways. In spite of years of humiliation, months of actual torture and a monkey trial for espionage she is still resiliently standing up for her core values and beliefs. Transitioning is always a great challenge but to persevere with it in a military prison after years of physical and psychological abuse and humiliation in attempts to break your spirit and crush your soul is simply a breathtaking act of courage. I know I will never have the fortitude to be anywhere near as brave.

In any piece I might write today that addresses the brave act of transitioning I cannot forego the opportunity to address the recent comments of Pope Francis on the matter. There are a whole string of his outrageous comments on gender transition I might quote here but I think this one is the most amazing: “Let’s think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings…lets also think of genetic manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation.” WTF! Sorry Pope Francis but your head is way up your ass on this one. Our trans brothers and sisters are not a threat to the survival of the human race but quite to the contrary a true expression of out evolutionary potential.

Let me close by updating you on Chelsea’s current job in prison. She is now writing for the Guardian. One article she authored appeared December 8th 2014 and was titled: “I am a transgender woman and the government is denying my civil rights”. I encourage you to read the whole thing: (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/08/chelsea-manning-transgender-rights ) I’ll close with just a few of her words from that article:

“A doctor, a judge or a piece of paper shouldn’t have the power to tell someone who he or she is. We should all have the absolute and inalienable right to defend ourselves, in our own terms and in our own languages, and be able to express our identity and perspectives without fear of consequences and retribution. We should all be able to live as human beings – and to be recognized as such by the societies we live in.

We shouldn’t have to keep defending our right to exist”. Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning, my favorite Queer role model!

If you are interested in learning more about this great queer heroine checkout the web site for her support group: http://www.chelseamanning.org

© February 2015

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

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Horseshoes for the Homeless by Pat Gourley

I have never had a horse in my life with shoes or without. I am aware of the game of horseshoes but this is something I have never played despite growing up on a farm. We never had horses and I never even got a pony for my birthday.

So the topic of shoes for horses is not something I can relate to at all. However, the topic of shoes for people and the feet that go into them are a frequent issue for the clients I find myself serving these days in the Urgent Care Clinic where I work.

Most folks coming into the clinic do no not have specific foot issues but two populations accessing care do. The first and larger group is the diabetics. Uncontrolled diabetes tends to affect not only circulation but in relation to one’s feet, sensation. Many diabetics often have numb feet having diminished or no feeling in their feet. This leads to bangs and bumps, to toes especially, that create small wounds they are unaware of and if not attended to can lead to big problems including infection which along with compromised circulation can eventually lead to amputation. Some of the best nursing advice out there is to look at your feet every day especially between the toes and the soles. If you can’t see down there get a friend to look for you or a small hand held mirror. If you have a friend to take a look you can also then guilt trip them into a bit of a foot rub maybe.

The other group that often has foot problems is the homeless and of course some of them are also diabetic. Living on the street or shelters if lucky often does not lend itself to good management of your blood sugars. This winter we have seen quite a few cases of frost bitten toes. Sometimes, if not too severe, this sort of resolves on its own but it can be bad enough that necrosis sets in and parts or sometimes-whole toes have to come off.

So perhaps one of the most useful interventions I can provide for homeless folks these days are dry socks. I am sure you have seen these hospital issue socks perhaps you have even worn a pair for a while. The current ones we have are grey or green with these raised horizontal racing stripes top and bottom I suppose to create some traction and prevent slips. If we have them I always prefer giving out the green ones, it really is a pretty shade of green.

One of my recent homeless foot issues involved a fellow with some rather significant frost bite that he had been neglecting and so in addition to some rather intense probably foot fungal odor I think there was bit of rotting flesh involved. The smell made my old nurse eyes water to say the least. I drew the short straw and got to try and get him to clean up his feet a bit before hitting the streets again. He was having none of it saying he had been at another hospital the night before and they had tried to clean up his feet and the pain was unbearable.

One technique is to use shaving cream on them, which can be less astringent than most soap. He was having none of that either. His plan was to get his check the next day and a
cheap hotel room where he could clean them up on his own. He wasn’t a shelter guy so the plan was to spend one more night outside. This was mid-week last week with temps in the single digits. The shoes and socks he had were of course wet despite the plastic bags he had lining them. He was definitely not going to part with the shoes which he said were very fine just wet. He did however take a pair of dry socks I gave him, green ones of course. This was the only part of our interaction that seemed to elicit genuine appreciation on his part.

These folks, during inclement weather, can spend the night in the waiting room once we have addressed as best we can whatever brought them in though most prefer to head out no matter what the weather. If they come in late in the day with some issue they feel can’t wait until the next morning they often then miss the cut-off time, usually early evening, to get into a shelter for the night.

So the topic of horseshoes made me thing of one more crazy-ass aspect of life in America in 2015 and that is that our horses often have better foot wear than our homeless. I might start carrying a dry pair of socks or two and on snowy, wet, cold days offer them to folks I encounter on the corner with their signs. A more useful gift than spare change perhaps. Maybe I can appropriate a few of the green pairs and hand them out some wintry nights on my walk home from work.

© March 2015

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

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When Things Don’t Work by Betsy

When things don’t work, I try to figure out why. Then, I figure out if I can 1) fix it and make it work, 2) decide it’s unfixable and throw it out, 3) determine that it’s fixable, but not by me, so take it to an expert, or 4) in the case of electronic devices, sit and stare at it and hope it will magically fix itself.

In the old days this type of problem was much simpler. If I had a mouse trap that didn’t work, for example, I could look at it and see why it didn’t work: a wire is bent, the cheese was not put in there securely enough, the mouse is too smart for this particular design of trap. One could clearly see what the problem was. The solution that followed was also clear: bait it more securely, use a different type of trap, or get out the pliers, screw drivers, hammer, wire cutters, whatever tool was called for, make the adjustments until the thing works. The point is that it was all so clear and right there in front of your eyes to see.

That was in the old days. We gradually then started building better mouse traps–electronic ones, battery operated, factory sealed ones, or devices that have so many bells and whistles that the basic operation of it is hidden and its fundamental purpose is virtually forgotten.

Take any electronic device. Almost everyone now not only owns a computer or a telephone, ipad, ipod, blackberry, blueberry, or blue tooth, but we have all come to depend on our electronic devices. I am ashamed to say that if my computer stopped working, I would be lost and so would a ton of information that I need from day to day. Unlike the old days, in this case I don’t ever try to figure out why it’s not working. If I can’t read on the screen the magic message sent to me by…whoever sends those messages, the message that tells me why it’s not working and what to do about it–if I can’t read it on the screen, I’m lost. Fortunately this hasn’t happened to me yet. But I can see how easily it occurs. I’ve seen my spouse spill coffee on her lap top computer. Result: life as we know it comes to a screeching halt. The next two weeks of her life (and a bit of mine, too) was devoted to getting the thing fixed by one of those computer geeks. Life returned to normal when it was finally fixed.

Now, modern battery operated devices can also be a source of frustration when they don’t work. These are the rechargeable tools that we once worked by hand. For example the electric toothbrush. Things like this are always factory sealed, the innards are not to be touched by human hands–ever, under any circumstances. Don’t even THINK about fixing it. Throw it out, get a new one. Don’t fight it. It’s a waste of energy. Trust me, you’ll lose the battle. Oh well, at least in the case of toothbrushes one can always go back to the old fashioned type. They ARE still out there.

Brilliant scientists and mathematicians are warning that we humans are in danger of losing control. The electronic brains that we are building could progress beyond our present capabilities and take over our lives. I find it hard to imagine that happening, or what that would be like, but the warning is clear and must be taken seriously.

Now here’s something that doesn’t work, but that IS fixable. Our government–ours is not the only one on the planet that doesn’t work, but it’s the one I know best and the one that I live with. Actually stacked up against most other governments in the world ours is better than most. Lately ’though, we’ve heard a lot about our broken government. In my opinion it’s not really the government per se, it’s not the system that’s broken. It’s the implementation of the system that is faulty. The flaws as I see it stem from human failings and frailties such as greed, selfishness, and a need to protect the ego causing lack of foresight, lack of compassion for others, denial, an inability and unwillingness to look inside, into the soul, where the source of the problem exists. It is not just some of our representatives in the government who are flawed. It is some of us who vote as well as and those who do not vote, those who speak out as well as those who put their heads in the sand. We are a failing if not failed species. Maybe that’s where we can start trying to fix it: admitting humbly that we are failing in many ways but that there is a fix. And I don’t mean going to war to prove that our fix is the best one or the only one.

Our technology advances by leaps and bounds every day. Devices purported to make our lives richer, healthier and happier abound. These advances are driven by the endless imagination of the human mind and spirit, and spurred on by a market economy. I would like to think that the same advances could be made in the area of human caring for one another, and caring for our mother earth. A little foresight is in order–an ability to look beyond the immediate future–to look at the consequences of our behavior for the next several centuries, not just the next election and the consequences of our exploitation of natural resources.

At election time we often see some of our leaders in the government thrown out in favor of new ones–as if it were a worn out tool or device that doesn’t work anymore. In my opinion we often are too hasty in throwing out well honed skills and the wisdom that comes with experience when we do that.

I dread to think that there may be a day when it turns out that humans are not fixable and must be thrown out. I much prefer to think that the human condition is fixable, that the basic goodness intrinsic in all humans is not factory sealed within its individual and collective containers; that that essential goodness can always be directed toward each other and toward caring for the planet.

© 8 December 2014

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Internal Misery by Beth Kahmann

Can’t cope so I dope,

Can’t stand taunts, jabs, injustices and lack of humanity.

Being ‘Gay’ I’m terrorized and teased mercilessly.

Can’t cope, so I dope and dream after taking lots of Dramamine warding off perpetrators inside my head.

I dream of ending it all.

If I do will that stop bullies, homophobes and the like?

Or will they still harass and call me a Dyke?

Perhaps they swim in their own internal misery.

From schoolyards, to back yards, to cemeteries, my life and death won’t even end in peace.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones-but words can never hurt me”

Yeah, tell that to the teen or Mom or brother that wants to end it all because year after agonizing year they were called Queer.

Denver, © January 2015

About the Author

Beth is an artist, educator, and is very passionate about poetry.

She owns Kahmann Sense Communications bethkahmann@yahoo.com

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Clothes by Will Stanton

I’m not going to talk about the $10,000 gowns that some wealthy women wear nor the $2,000 suits that some well-healed men wear. I also am not going to talk about the way I dress. I don’t have a GQ figure, and I don’t wear GQ clothes. Instead, I’m going to talk some about the clothes that many young people wear and contrast that with my own generation.

I was sitting in a restaurant, and the young waitress came up to my table. I noted that she was wearing jeans that were so tight that the waistline was bound to cut off blood circulation. Doctors have warned women about that. She wore them so low that her plump tummy hung out over the jean-tops and below the tight blouse that came down just below her breasts. I suppose that she considered showing off a bare tummy was sexy. Some testosterone-agitated boys and aging men probably found her appearance titillating, but I wondered how this peculiar clothing style had come about and why girls choose to dress that way at work.

Ironically, girls’ wearing very tight clothes is in marked contrast with boys’ baggy apparel for a long time now. While seated at the table at the very same restaurant, a teenage boy came in. He probably weighed all of 110 pounds, but his shirt was so huge that it could have fit a man who weighed 250 and stood a foot taller. Even more silly was that he was wearing his jeans literally below his butt, or more accurately, where his butt should be; for this young kid didn’t have any butt, hips, or waist. At least his boxer shorts covered that area. His pants were so ridiculously baggy that two boys could have worn them at the same time. I hope that he realized that, if he tried to rip off a 711, there would be no way of his outrunning a cop. Those baggy pants undoubtedly would become tangled up around his legs, tripping him.

Shorts and swim suits are not comfortably and practically short anymore. They hang half way down the calf. Are males’ bare thighs now considered to be too shocking to see? They aren’t for women. Trying to swim in those things is like having a drag-line attached to the legs. Where did this idea come from, and why has this bizarre style lasted so long?

Boys and girls certainly did not dress that way when I was young. Of course, I grew up in an era that is roundly satirized in the movie “Pleasantville.” That biting satire portrayed life in the 1950s and ’60s as “black-and-white, overly conservative, restrictive, unimaginative.” There is some truth to that; however, I have to admit that I viewed the clothes that young people wore then to be appealing. Girls did wear slacks or shorts on occasion, but they also often wore cotton dresses that reached just down to below the knee which, I thought, enhanced their femininity. I thought the girls attractive in either case, even without having their tummies hanging out or the tops of their thighs showing.

Boys once wore shirts and T-shirts that naturally fit their form and did not hang down below their butts. They also tended to wear form-fitting slacks and jeans, pants not so baggy as to make Charlie Chaplain’s trousers look tailor-made in contrast. Their pants still could be sexy enough, even with keeping them up around their waistlines. Most boys chose pants that were somewhat loose but not so floppy as to obscure the wearers’ gender, as many girls and some of the boys were quick to note. 

I do admit that a few of the boys I knew in school wore pants so tight that one could tell whether or not they were circumcised. That certainly was true with Randy, the very sexy kid whose pants appeared to be in danger of cutting him in half or exploding apart at one particularly revealing seam, which I actually saw happen on one occasion. That sort of thing tended to draw attention. He was a school-band member, and I was amused to learn that, when the band went on over-night tours, some band members argued as to who would have the privilege of sharing a motel room with Randy. I have no evidence as to whether just his appearance fostered such controversy or other factors contributed to his popularity.

It appears to me that, at some point in America’s history of clothing styles, arbitrators of taste chose to affect a reversal for the younger consumer. Modesty no longer is a factor in designing clothes for females. From bathing suits to ball gowns, young women can choose to expose as much skin as they dare. As for young guys, especially teens, the goal appears to be to camouflage the physical form as much as possible. Have clothes-makers concluded that the male form is too titillating or even obscene? I don’t necessarily advocate returning to Randy’s style of pants that were so tight as to potentially emasculate the wearer, but I do maintain that the return to more sensible, form-fitting clothes for males is long overdue. Let’s get rid of bagginess once and for all.

© 01 September 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Anger by Gillian

I know a number of women, and perhaps a few less men, who are nothing more than tightly-wound little balls of anger. They are wrapped so tight that if something loosened just one strand, I feel that they would completely unravel. Most of us are not so extreme, but I think many of us have at least some anger inside us, and we don’t know what to do with it; perhaps don’t even understand what it is about. Perhaps we fear it.

I used to think that men actually handle anger better than women. Now I have come to believe that none of us deal well with it. Men perhaps respond to it in a simpler, less complex way, than many women, but not better. There can be nothing more irritating than that rather too-frequently used ploy of an angry woman, essentially declaring, yes, I am upset, and I’m not going to explain WHY because you should KNOW why. Yes, certainly, irritating. But if the net result of a man’s anger is going on a shooting spree then that can hardly be deemed to be a better outcome. And many of us have read the recent article pointing out that in the last 33 years there have been 71 mass murders in this country and 70 of them had one thing in common; they were committed by men. I’d call that a clear case for improved anger-management.

Aristotle expressed very well our difficulties with anger, and I would say little has changed over more than two millennia.

“Anyone can be angry – that is so easy. But to become angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way – that is not so easy.”

Huh! Easy for him to say!

Earlier in my lifetime, and I suspect many women have this problem, I didn’t even recognize my anger for what it was; and if you are unable to know something for what it is, you most certainly cannot deal effectively with it. I would cry when what I really felt was anger. I would feel depressed or sad when really I was angry. When I did feel anger, I inevitably lost my temper. That really scared me. Well, I guess we all hope that as we struggle with many things over a lifetime we also learn to deal more effectively with ourselves and our emotions.

Through hard work I am strengthening my spiritual self, which in turn helps with my emotional self. I have also found that occasionally spilling my messy guts in Story Time has helped me understand myself more clearly. I have come to accept anger when it chooses to visit itself upon me; not to let it disguise itself as something other, and to understand its cause. I can truly say that I rarely feel anger these days, and when occasionally I do, it tends less to be personal than collective. My favorite spiritual guide, Eckhart Tolle, refers to it as the collective pain body versus the individual one.

I’m not a great Bible quoter though I sincerely believe that if we followed Christ’s teachings the world would be a better place. And, yes, I have frequently been heard to say that although I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, and don’t call myself a Christian, I am, in the way I conduct my life, a far better one than oh so many who scream their Christianity from the rooftops. But clearly I’m digressing again.

Anyone sensing a wee little bit of ANGER? Yes, I do have collective pain body anger at the evil such faux-Christians perpetrate. Not on me personally, or at least only indirectly, but on so many other innocent souls.

Jesus said, and I paraphrase because there are many differing versions,

“What you do to the least of these, you do also unto me.”

And isn’t that what the collective pain body is all about?

I feel great anger at the evil being created in Uganda by American, so-called Christian, homophobes. As a fellow homosexual you do it also unto me. I feel rage at the abduction and clearly dreadful fate of Nigerian girls; and, sadly, so many more before them and doubtless to follow after them. Just being female, I am violated along with them.

I detest the hatred of Obama, which I believe to be in great part racially motivated, but it doesn’t awaken my collective pain body; I am Caucasian. On the other hand, I dread Hillary Clinton running again for President. The vitriol against her will be every bit as hate filled as that against Obama, but I am her age, and white, and female. It will all be directed at ME and all those like me; all the women who over the years have been vilified because they tried to enter male territory.

They suffered from some delusion that they were equal!

Nearing the end of my ramblings, I took a break to watch BBC news which turned out to be all about the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings.

Yup, you guessed it! Up popped that collective pain body, and along with it the anger.

No-one really knows how many died in WW11 but even the most conservative estimate is 50 million. 50 MILLION!

Oh, I do believe that that one was what they call a “just war,” Even the pacifist Quakers accept that if you are attacked you must defend yourself. But when will it ever end?

The newscast showed some very low-key Germans placing wreath’s on German graves at Normandy. One said, to the TV interviewer,

“At least Germany has not been involved in any war for many years now. We did learn something.”

A child of that terrible war, up leapt my collective pain body.

Why hadn’t we, the U.S., my adopted county, nor, to a great extent Britain, my native land, learned this lesson?

OK. OK. I still seem to have plenty of anger.

But at least I see it for what it is, and for the most part understand why it is.

And it no longer carries me away.

I don’t fight it: I feel it and let it go.

No, of course I don’t deal perfectly with anger, but at least I am no longer terrified of it.

© June, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

Poetry Tree by Beth Kahmann

Some need Poetry like another
whole in their head,
Well, I certainly don’t need
another whole in my head, Beth said.
Others need it to fulfill a
proverbial scratch that needs itching
Or a needlepoint project that
needs more stitching
Others still ache and crave
And must partake and
create, 
In order to be saved.
Others, still, need it to
quench a gnawing thirst, just like a water balloon, ready to burst.
One common denominator or thread
seems to be that some cradle their Poetry, as if it is Communal bread. 
All I know is I get bursts
and phrases of conjunctions and dangling participles that randomly float around
in my head, even when I’m in bed
And when I am able
I sit at my table
striking pen to paper
creating, cultivating my own
little song, rhyme, Haiku or fable
Sometimes I awaken from sleep
or slumber or meditation, my mind firing with anticipation.
Then the words and phrases
spill forth before I say my morning affirmations.
I feel so blessed to see Poetry
as my passion and my friend.
I feel like a kid again
who gets a free snow day and
gets to play and play and play all day.
All I know is my soul is
saturated with utter joy.
Not unlike a Toddler Turning
Two who receives a brand new sparkling toy.
Not sure why the title of
this poem is Poetry Tree, well that’s because to me………Poetry is Rule Free!!!!


14 July 2014 

About the Author 

Beth is an artist, educator, and is very passionate about
poetry.
She owns Kahmann Sense Communications (bethkahmann@yahoo.com).
Posted on

Poetry of the New Jersey Turnpike by Ron Zutz

I hope that I shall never see
A restroom stop named for me.
A stop whose hungry drains are pressed
Hoping for my bladder’s best.
A pit that stares at crotch all day,
Awaits my trembling hose to spray;
Urinals that in summer’s rush
See some sights that would make me blush;
Over whose mouth men have rained;
Bladders no longer filled with pain.
Piss is made by fools like me,
But pissoirs named after Joyce Kilmer — only
in New Jersey.

© 30 June
2014 

About the Author 
Ron Zutz was born in
New Jersey, lived in New England, and retired to Denver. The best parts of his
biography have yet to be written.