Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 511
October 3, 2012
Brave as hell
It would have been easy for news anchor Jennifer Livingston to ignore the person who emailed her to say that she was too fat for television.
She did this instead:
October 2, 2012
Dancing with the ladies
My son is no fool. He knows how much fun it is to dance with the ladies.
A freakin’ superhero
It’s not that often that you get to see an honest to goodness superhero.
And a squirrel to boot.
October 1, 2012
Unfair assumption #3
People who watch television shows like The Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With The Kardashians must be morons.
It’s especially unfair since I have never actually watched a single episode of either of these shows.
I’m sure there are some perfectly intelligent and highly educated people who watch this show, but in defense of my assumption, I have yet to meet one.
Public opinion is irrelevant when it comes to matters of right and wrong
The Daily Beast’s David Frum writes:
Maryland will settle same-sex marriage the right way: at the ballot box. In November, Marylanders will vote on Question 6, an initiative to amend the state constitution to allow same-sex marriage.
I could not disagree more.
Equality, basic human rights and common sense should not be dependent on public opinion. The legislation of issues such as same-sex marriage should not rely upon voter turnout, television advertising, and campaign fundraising to decide the matter. It should be decided by a fair minded, politically neutral court comprised of men and women who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Actually, same-sex marriage should just be legal from a standpoint of basic human decency and common sense, the same way that kissing your grandmother, climbing a tree or hugging a friend did not require legislation in order to be legal. But absent this, the matter should not be reliant upon the whims of the electorate. Human beings live too damn long, are too narrow minded and are too likely to carry their bigotry to the grave with them. Reforms like the legalization of same-sex marriage often must be forced upon the citizenry, regardless of public opinion.
For example, interracial marriage was legalized in 1967 by the United States Supreme Court even though only 20% of Americans supported it and 73% expressed disapproval of interracial marriage at the time. Twenty-seven years after the Court legalized interracial marriage, a majority of Americans still opposed it, but public opinion did not matter. The Court had done the right thing, regardless of what the public believed or continued to believe more than two decades later.
In fact, it was not until 1997 that a majority of Americans expressed support for interracial marriage. Had the country allowed the ballot box to decide the issue, interracial couples would have been required to wait thirty additional years before being granted the same rights as intra-racial couples.
Public opinion should only go so far. When it comes to doing the right thing, do the right thing, regardless of what people think, any way you can.
Want to settle the same sex marriage debate the right way?
Just legalize it and tell the bigots to shut the hell up.
Please tell me that this will last forever
I’d hate to think that the two won’t always get along like this:
September 30, 2012
You look terrible, and I think it’s great.
As I entered the gym, a woman who I know only slightly approached to say hello. After a moment of small talk, she said, “I just love how you don’t care what you look like when you come to the gym.”
I think she was trying to be complimentary, but I’m not so sure.
Creepy food
My wife made this for our daughter today.
I thought it was creepy as hell. Our babysitter agreed.
Thankfully, my daughter didn’t even recognize it as a face. She just started eating.
September 29, 2012
No more “penis”
Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a panel discussion on the Huffington Post’s online television network, HuffPost Live, about the appropriateness of teaching young children to refer to parts of the body like the penis and the vagina with anatomically correct terminology.
The conversation was initiated as a result of a blogger who wrote about her avoidance of the word “penis” with her three year old son.
Here is the video of our discussion: