Random Shootings from a Drive-By Mind

16 June 2008

CHICAGO -- Race.  Gender.  Sex.  And politics.

            Josef Fritzl, the Austrian freak who fathered seven children with the daughter he kept as a sex slave in a concrete bunker beneath his home, says “I constantly knew, during the entire 24 years, that what I did was not right, that I must have been crazy because I did something like this.”
            Gee, ya think?  At what point while you’re having intercourse with your daughter in a dungeon do you think that maybe, just maybe, you might not be wired properly?

The Fat Lady Sings
            Hillary Clinton “suspended” her campaign for the Democratic nomination for president only three or four days after a gracious candidate would have done so.  I know this to be true because she has put “Rodham” back in her name.
            She didn’t officially “end” her campaign.  She “susp-ended” it.  As though it was called on account of darkness which I guess, in a sense, you could say it was.
            Barack Obama amassed the 2,118 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.  This made Hillary’s whining about the popular vote, super delegates and the so-called swing states that she won, e.g., Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc., moot points.
            White women such as Gloria Steinem are accusing voters of being sexist.  And black women such as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell are accusing voters of being racist.
            All I know is that Obama is the presumptive nominee.  This proves that just as three of a kind beats two pairs in poker, in politics, race beats gender.

R. Kelly, The Other Dead Meat
            Jury selection for the trial of R&B superstar R. Kelly began in Chicago on May 9.  Kelley is charged with 21 counts of child pornography after a tape showing Kelly allegedlyhaving sex with and urinating on a 14-year-old minor was revealed to the Chicago Sun-Times.
            If convicted on all counts, Kelly would be eligible for parole on the golden anniversary of his golden shower.

“Rubber Hits the Road”           
            Ever since the AIDS epidemic arrived during the 1980s, condoms and penises have been fair game for jokes and/or derision in the mass media under the guise of promulgating public health and safety.
            So it’s no surprise that under that premise, the Chicago Sun-Times on page 2 of its Monday, 12 May edition featured a picture of a young woman putting a condom on a banana as part of a contest sponsored by the makers of Trojan® condoms.
            On Wednesday the 13th, a 40-foot Trojan® condom bus arrived at the University of Chicago campus for four hours as part of its 60-campus “Rubber Hits the Road” tour.  Trojan®, of course, says its message about protecting against sexually transmitted diseases trumps the publicity and product dissemination aspects of the tour.
            The tour is also intended to help lift the ban on advertising condoms on prime-time TV.
            Kari Kuka, the tour’s sexual health educator says of the cute “Rubber Hits the Road” slogan, “It starts the conversation.  I love it.”
            Shouting “fire” in a crowded sorority house or screaming the n-word at 87th and Stony Island also will “start the conversation,” but I doubt it’s prudent unless a., there really is a fire or b., you’re promoting a new rap album in addition to safe sex.
            Kuka says the tour has been a smashing success as evidenced by the fact that “Truckers seem supportive, based on their honking horns.”
            Truckers also seem supportive of indiscriminate sex in bathroom stalls and truck trailers and cabs at highway waysides, but I don’t think I would use that information to promote safe sex either.
            Sophomoric humor aside, the Trojan® tour would be a relatively harmless self-promotion were it not for three reasons.  One, sexual education should be conducted by educators on these campuses, not the manufacturer of a product that has an investment in sexual promiscuity.
            Two, while it’s no doubt important for both sexes to be adept at properly putting a condom on a penis (doctors with letters other than M.D. after their names tell us it can be an exciting part of foreplay), it probably should be the duty of the male since we’re supposed to be advocating personal responsibility.
            And three, any claim this tour has as a sexual health/safety tour is pretty much thrown out of the window like a used condom by the inclusion of a “see who can put a condom on a banana the fastest contest.”  Many children owe their lives to the hasty donning of perforated latex.

Head of the Class
            According to a study to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, teens do not engage in oral sex as a method to preserve their virginity.
            The federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19 found that those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried oral sex than those who had vaginal intercourse.
            That’s supposed to be the good news.
            The bad news is, your little girl could be performing the act on some acne-faced little miscreant just for the sheer fun of it—or because she’s eight months pregnant.

D.C. Madam Did Right Thing
            Deborah Jean Palfrey, the “D.C. Madam,” who was found hanged in a storage shed adjacent to her mother’s trailer-park home in Tarpon Springs, FL left her mother and sister a suicide note saying “…I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this ‘modern day lynching’ only to come out of prison…a broken, penniless and very much alone woman.”
            Ms. Palfrey, hopefully, did what any honorable madam would do, destroy the little black book and fall on your sword—or sex toy.  She was reportedly better hung than many of her clients.

Irreverent Wright Did Wrong
            Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., Barack Obama’s former pastor has said many vitriolic things over the years such as that the U.S. Government perpetuated the AIDS epidemic to rid America of African-Americans, “God bless America?  God damn America,” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and that the 9/11 attacks represented the “chickens coming home to roost” as a response to American-sponsored terrorism across the globe.
            It’s time that we stop insulting African-Americans by ignoring their most indefensible and divisive rhetoric.
            The “Irrev.” Wright made his comments in a public forum.  And it’s time that he learns what most of us have learned since “political correctness” was introduced nearly 20 years ago: We have to watch what we say in public, even in church.

Are You Listening Father Pfleger?
            The Rev. Michael Pfleger of Chicago’s St. Sabina Catholic Church tried to one-up Rev. Wright at Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ.  Referring to Hillary Clinton’s tears before the New Hampshire primary Father Pfleger ridiculed Clinton saying “…I really believe that she just always thought ‘This is mine.  I’m Bill’s wife.  I’m white…’”
            Then, invoking a stereotypical black voice that would make Stepin Fetchit proud, Pfleger continued saying “Then out of nowhere came, ‘Heh I’m Barack Obama.’  And she said, ‘Oh damn!  Where did you come from?  I’m white.  I’m entitled.  There’s a black man stealing my show.’”
            Pfleger also said “America has been raping people of color and America has to pay the price for the rape.”  (I can’t speak for Thomas Jefferson.  But since I’ve been around, it seems like they’re literally catching up fast with a vengeance.)
            Give Father Pfleger credit.  It’s hard to out race a racist on his home court.
            I’m not bothered by the fact that Pfleger has espoused the virtues of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, or advocated reparations for slavery, etc.  Father Pfleger has done some wonderful things in his 25 years at St. Sabina.  Although I’m not sure removing liquor billboards from streets or bongs from storefronts matters all that much when your brothers are killing each other left and further left.
            Three things trouble me.  One, Pfleger is preaching the same “victimization” sermon that is bound to increase the socioeconomic disparity between whites and blacks.  Two, Pfleger and Wright have denigrated what should be two historic and courageous Democratic presidential campaigns.  And three, the Catholic Church’s abysmal handling of its pedophilia crisis has rendered Cardinal Francis George impotent to discipline a priest who has already exceeded pastoral tenure and the patience of the faithful fourfold.

Danica in the Pits
            Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 in her 50th career start last month.  You go girl.
            At the Indianapolis 500, Ms. Patrick’s Andretti Green Racing team car collided with Penske’s Ryan Briscoe leaving the pit lane on lap 172 and both drivers were knocked out of the race.
            It was a case of she said, he said.  Patrick said “You don’t just come out of your pit box and swing three lanes out.”
            “From what I could see, there was still plenty of room on the right side of her to get around,” countered Briscoe.
            Patrick was hot.  She stormed down the pit lane toward Briscoe as if she was going to verbally and/or physically attack him.
            Fortunately, a brawny suit jacketed security guard intervened and persuaded Patrick, all five feet and 100 pounds of her, to drop the vendetta after about 35 paces.
            Never punch a woman wearing a helmet.

“Pregnant Man”
            The media, including the cult currently known as Oprah, continues to maintain that 34-year-old Thomas Beatie from Bend, Oregon is “The World’s First Pregnant Man.”  Oprah even had him undergo an ultrasound on her “Simon says” TV show.  (Oprah says, “Buy my book.”  Oprah says, “Look under your chair.”  Oprah says, “Lose 60 pounds.”  Oprah says, “Now gain it back.”  Oprah says, “Buy my second-hand crap…”)
            There’s only one problem: Thomas Beatie was born a female.  “He” was actually a teenage beauty queen in Hawaii known as Tracy Lagondino and has never had a penis.  At least not one of his own.
            Thomas had a partial sex change 10 years ago.  He had a double mastectomy and has been receiving hormone treatment—testosterone injections—for years.  That’s why Thomas has a mustache and beard.  But Thomas still has, and has always had, female reproductive organs.
            Because Thomas’ significant other, Nancy, already has two grown daughters and had a hysterectomy in the ‘80s, Thomas stopped his testosterone injections for months and, amazingly, his periods returned.  He was even able to ovulate again and became pregnant with the assistance of Nancy and a blunt-ended turkey baster using an anonymous donor’s sperm.
            Nevertheless, our gender-neutral friends and media want there to be a pregnant man because this would further establish that there are no significant physiological or psychological differences between the sexes.
            Women want to see a man pregnant because they want a man to go through all of the childbearing pain and torment that they have endured.  To victimized women, pregnancy for a man ranks only behind castration and disposal.
            The GLBT crowd (“Bacon lettuce and tomato with fruit”) wants desperately for there to be a pregnant man so they can say, “See that bearded guy with the beer gut mowing the lawn next door?  He’s just like me!”

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Gino Giovannetti is a member of “The Jonathon Brandmeier Show” on “The Loop,” WLUP Radio 97.9-FM Chicago. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism in Madison and also attended the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University in Bloomington. The views and opinions of Gino do NOT represent those of WLUP Radio, Emmis Communications, Inc., or anyone with a brain the size of a walnut.

©2008 All Rights Reserved.

Gino@WLUP.com