Stuff

Last night we got a call saying we had a package at Babies R Us waiting to be picked up. Woohoo! So we went and there was our stroller, car seat, and spare base. All cool and fun. And paid for! We took them home and put them together. Slowly but surely we're getting readier and readier for this bebe to enter our lives. Even came up with a cool alternative name that I just adore. Not so much for a first name, but if one of the first names is used then I would like this middle name.

Today is a momentous day. Got the car washed. First time since June. Inside and out. Isn't that exciting? I had a 50% off coupon. Speaking of coupons, did you know on Ebay you can buy coupons for like TGI Fridays and such? For example, three TGI Fridays pay $15 get $5 off going to .99cents! Can't beat that. We used a coupon similar to that for a cool Mexican restaurant last week that will remain nameless. If you know me ask me privately we're we went.

Also, I am stoked that one of my profs agreed to join my committee. He's a cool Marxist ethnographer with a wild hair cut. (Or lack thereof). Anyway, he said yes so my committee is more balanced now. Of course my advisor may not like that, but deal... Anyway I am rewriting my article and here's an excerpt. Don't steal it because you will burn in hell for eternity if you do:

The fight for civil rights has come a long way since the struggles of Abraham Lincoln to abolish slavery in the United States. Almost a century later Rosa Parks’ simple act of defiance marshaled in the efforts of Martin Luther King to take a very public stand for human rights, which led to his assassination much the same way as gay rights activists who have been killed for their actions of supposed civil disobedience. In 1969 the drag queens at Stonewall Inn would not go to the back of the bus and publicly demanded an end to oppression and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (Garnets & Kimmel, 2002; Newton, 1994). Stonewall marked the beginning of the modern gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) liberation movement in the United States with three thousand activists groups forming to fight sexual discrimination within five years of this event (Strickland 1995, Garnets & Kimmel).

The struggle for gay rights in the United States emerged as human rights issues for which people like Rosa Parks, and more recently Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming for being gay, and Gene Robinson, terminated former Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire who lives with his male partner, fought. Reluctant gay rights activists have been thrust into the public arena by a society that makes sexuality a focus of national and international debate. Never was this more evident that in the 2004 elections where white collared crime and preemptive wars were hidden by the more innocuous issues of gay marriage. The divisive and heated issues surrounding the GLBTQ population became a rally cry for both parties and the resulting homophobia through the proposed Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) threatens to destroy American families.

This message that echoes heterosexism sent to the American children reinforces an acceptable intolerance toward mankind. Bright students see those Americans who are not middle-class, able-bodied white heterosexuals, and from traditional families being crippled by a suppressive hegemonic control within an edupolitical society. Gifted students get the message of a societal heteronormativity that stifles the creativity of these children, while manipulating the American education system like puppets strung on homophobic high wires controlled with a bureaucratic Reverend Phelps-like rule. As with the previous human rights movements, individual oppression became reconceptualized as a collective struggle for equal rights and equal status to that of the dominant group. In the post-Stonewall era larger numbers of individuals publicly identified themselves as GLBTQ (Strickland, 1995), and more doors have opened for adolescents to accept and disclose their sexual orientation (Herdt 1989). With the continued proliferation of the child who comes out earlier and earlier in our schools and society, a student minority population has emerged that is hearing messages of intolerance towards them.

Initially, this discussion began in 2001, and the researchers have seen the increase in suppression through supposed homeland security and the Patriot Act, which several states (including Arizona) has opposed through resolutions that argue that the Patriot Act “contradict these [constitutional] rights, fundamentally alter the nature of our civil liberties and do little to increase public safety” (A Concurrent Resolution Proclaiming the Opposition of the Arizona Legislature to the USA Patriot Act and Related Executive Orders, 2005). The Patriot Act, coupled with the DOMA, has generated a progressively foreboding environment for minority students. At the 2002 National Association for Gifted Children Annual Meeting, several GLBTQ students who attend the Indiana Academy, a high school campus tailored to the science and humanities on Ball State University campus, spoke about their school experiences being not only gifted, but also GLBTQ. These students represent an even smaller population that intersects those who are GLBTQ and those with higher intellectual abilities. Cohn (2003) asserts this double different population may be as small as 1-3 students in every 1,000.

What do you think?