Chris Magazine

Apparently the fate of the civilized world is hanging in the balance. The measure by which we tip towards oblivion or slide into a sound, safe, democratic paradise is to be counted by whether or not, as a society, we choose to accept or reject the new gummy candy called "roadkill".

Roadkill are a bunch of animals (e.g. squirrels) that are squished and have tire tracks on them. I should note that they aren't real animals, merely gummy representatives of the real thing. Animal Rights activists apparently believed that they best way they could undercut their credibility, other than voting Republican, would be to set up a strong protest against fake, gummy animals. Yes, the plight of the spotted owl is tough, but what about the gummy possum? Who speaks for him?

I, for one, join them in their battle cry. We must stand up and stop this gummy atrocity. It is clear that we are merely steps away from a slippery slope that will lead us to gummy fetuses, gay marriage, communism and finally the gay marriage of same sex communist pets who perform abortions.

It must stop here. It must stop now.

Click Here to sign my petition.

As many of you know Paris Hilton's address book and phone was hacked. As a result I've been forced to change all my important contact information. Feel free to email me to get my new digits. Sorry for the inconvenience to those who've been trying to contact me.

So there was a brief resurgence of hope that the NHL might have been able to save the season, it quickly disapated today into the same malaise that existed on Wednesday. My newest analogy for the NHL is this.
It's a guy who's leaving a woman who was only using him for sex. She knows she can get it elsewhere so she doesn't really care. He thinks he's one of the top four lovers in the world. So he makes loud declarations and demands and says, "Unless you do what I ask, I'm leaving!"
And he starts making his way to the door and grabs the handle.
"I swear it. I am so out of here!"
Opens the door.
"Last chance!"
Met only with silence.
"Heading out."
Crickets
As he slowly closes the door he gives her one final goodbye. "If you let me go now, it's all over! I'm never coming back!"
More crickets.
Then he closes the door. As he waits outside, first for five minutes, but that stretches into 10 minutes and then 20 he realizes she's not coming so he panics and rushes back in.
"I've decided to give you one last chance!"
She turns around from the television and gives him a look of indifference.
"If you let me go, you'll never get to see the likes of me again. Even if I do come back, it'll be different. This is your last chance to save what we had."
He steps into the doorway.
"I mean it."
She turns back to the television and picks up her cell.
"I'm closing the door!"
"Hello NBA, hi, are you free tonight?"
He slams the door shut.
"We're so done!"
Click.
As he hears the lock on the door slide into place, he realizes he's had a grevious error. But it doesn't matter, he was right, it is too late. Things will never be the same.

Just had the most disappointing meal ever. My wife served up pot roast. I didn't even get a buzz.

It's not like we didn't see this coming. The NHL is dead, at least for now.
Here are some final thoughts...

Well boys, don't let the sound of crickets hit you on the ass on the way out...

The negotiations were the equivalent of two lemmings trying to see who could jump the furthest off the cliff...

If a league falls in a forest and no one is around to care, does it make a sound? Finally answered today... apparently not.

ESPN had a poll today. More than 60% of the participants called themselves hockey fans. When asked their reactions to the cancellation of the season... almost 50% said they couldn't care less. About 36% said they'll miss it, but find something else to do. Only 15% said they were devastated. That should scare both owners and players. When your hardcore fans tell you they'll find something else, that means they may not come back.

I've said this before, but... morons.

After months of "is it over yet?" hockey seems to have finally reached that endgame. In a move that can be called one of the most bone-headed along the lines of selling Babe Ruth and the creation of XFL the NHL is going to cancel their season. They are doing it as they battle over what was a $2.3 billion pie. This is akin to the two guys from the bible who were fighting over the baby and King Solomon offering to cut it in half, except in this case both sides decided they'd take half and walk away.

Sure, the NHL will return, but it will be a shell of itself. It will no longer be considered one of the big four, it will likely be out of the top 10 in popularity and it will be lucky to get their revenues up to half of what they are now. The great thing is that there is no certainty that they'll return at the beginning of next year. It could be mid-way through next year or even the year following before they come back.

Laying blame in the situation is useless, because it doesn't matter. Both sides are at fault. Both Gary Bettman and Bob Goodnow deserve to be fired as they have failed their respective side and in lemmingesque fashion led everyone over the cliff. In the end, it's the players who have the most to lose. The owners are around long term and will recoup a lot of their losses,especially since there's no doubt that it will be their idea of operating economics that's in place when they return. The players meanwhile will suffer greatly as even if they get a better deal than the last one the NHL put on the table, they'll come out millions upon millions behind where they might have been.

Think about it this way. Had they taken the lowest deal of a guaranteed 53% of the current revenues they would have assured themselves of more than $1.2 billion, or about $1.6 million per player.

Let's say they come back at the beginning of next year, expect revenues to be about half or $1.1 billion. At 53% the players would take home only $583 million or a little over $777-thousand a player. Even if they got the NHL to agree to 60% of revenues, that's still only $660 million or $880 thousand a player.

Honestly, that may be a best case scenario. There's a good chance the lockout continues through next season and if that happens expect a couple of teams to fold so there goes more revenue and also 50 to 75 jobs.

Morons. The lot of you. Regardless of who wins this is nuclear war, enjoy your fallout.

The Eagles lost 24-21. It's their own fault. They played poorly and in the end, New England was the better team. At least there's hockey to look forward to now...oh wait, they're morons....there's no hockey.

The Eagles are in the Super Bowl! Go Eagles! (Please for the love of god, win the game!)

You know what's gay? Like really really gay... The gayest thing you could ever even think of? Gay people. They're so totally gay.

If you are against homosexuals, you are a bigot. It's that simple. You don't have to like them, you don't have to be friends with them or invite them into your home. You do have to accept that they are members of our society and that they deserve every single right you do.

Christians, sight the bible as their prevailing document to justify their bias. They say that the bible is clear in it's depiction of homosexuality as a sin. It's not clear. Very little in the bible is truly clear, if it were there wouldn't be so many different sects of Christianity, along with the same-bible based Judaism and Islam. It should also be noted that these self same Christians used the same bible based argument against blacks as a justification for their bigotry there.
Homosexuals are like everyone else. There are good people who are gay and bad people. There are smart homosexuals and dumb homosexuals. The act though, of being a homosexual hurts no one, certainly not more than being a heterosexual.

Do you really think gay marriage is a danger to your marriage? Honestly, when was the last time someone else's marriage affected your own? Other than if someone else's husband or wife cuckolded them with your spouse, it just doesn't happen.

What about when gays adopt children or even have children of their own? What's the worst thing that can happen? Raise them from birth to believe their dogmatic rhetoric about a certain lifestyle being superior to every other lifestyle? Have those terrible gays teach them that people who believe differently from them should be told to either change their belief system or face certain rejection from general society. Or worse yet, teach their children that they best way to deal with a group of people they believe are living a bad lifestyle is to use their superior numbers to legislate against them? The worst thing gays have done in my neighborhood is force me to make my house nicer so it's not the worst one on the block. Damn them for that. I can't recall a time when the gays have rode up to my house on their bicycles at six in the morning to share with me their views on the world. They don't leave their paraphernalia in laundry rooms.

There are those who argue that being gay is a choice. Without any scientific data back me up, I think I can say with some confidence that such a statement is just stupid. For one, it would also stand to reason then that being heterosexual is a choice. Now, unless there are more natural born martyrs than we ever could have imagined, the idea that these people would chose a lifestyle that would garner them little but scorn, hatred and isolation strikes me as silly.

There is no choice when it comes to sexuality. But there is choice when it comes to hatred, when it comes to accepting something because it is what you have been told. In my mind those Christians who, instead of choose a righteous path of tolerance, chose the goose stepping march of bias preached by so many, are cowards. Preachers who offer their flocks nothing but the talk of hate are no better than those who justified actions against blacks in the south during segregation.

There was a special recently on PBS about a integrated commune Georgia in the 50's and 60's and how the community leaders came to ask them to stop. They accused the leader of stirring up trouble and causing frictions between brothers by creating this situation that was so against what everyone believed to be right. He said he believed in nothing more than peace on earth and goodwill towards men, but what this commune was doing was wrong and the divisive nature that it fostered was unchristian.

Of course, had they read their bible, I don't remember Jesus being particularly regarded as a guy who had everyone loving his actions. This was simply their way of justifying their hatred and so it happens again.

This is fear. Fear of an unknown. Fear of change. It's the same fear that binds all terrible things together. As always it's the cowards who speak up the loudest, their screams piercing the shadow of reason and sanity.

Tolerance talk flares after cartoon flap


NEW YORK (AP) -- Cartoon characters adored by kids seized the spotlight in the latest flare-up of America's culture wars, but the debate itself poses serious questions for adults involving the depiction of gays and lesbians in materials for teaching children about diversity and tolerance.

The liberal camp argues that even young children should learn that intolerance based on sexual identity is wrong, and that gays are as legitimate a part of the national mosaic as anyone else.

"It's about creating awareness and understanding of people who are different," said Joan Garry of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "Why shouldn't that be a good thing for America's young people?"

The conservative camp has responded vehemently: By all means, teach children to respect other individuals, but do not cross the line and teach them that homosexuality is acceptable.

"Tolerance itself can be a very dangerous word," said the Rev. Terry Fox, a Southern Baptist pastor in Wichita, Kansas. "Tolerance gives the public schools an avenue to literally brainwash our kids that every lifestyle is OK."

Separate controversies in recent weeks have raised these issues:

* Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' criticism of an episode of the Public Broadcasting Service children's series "Postcards from Buster," in which the animated bunny visits the children of two lesbian couples in Vermont. "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote to PBS.

* An attack by some conservative leaders on a pro-diversity initiative of the We Are Family Foundation that features a video starring scores of cartoon characters, including SpongeBob SquarePants. The true agenda, said Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, "is to desensitize very young children to homosexual and bisexual behavior."

* Some conservatives said last month's "No Name-Calling Week" in many middle schools was too focused on harassment of gays. In Massachusetts, the one state allowing gay marriage, conservatives say students are being indoctrinated to admire such marriages.

PBS and Buster the bunny

Dobson, bristling at mocking commentary about his reference to SpongeBob, has posted a lengthy explanation of his concerns on the Web site of his Colorado-based Christian ministry. The problem, he says, was not the video itself, but the We Are Family Foundation's use of a "tolerance pledge" mentioning sexual identity and its ties to other groups supporting gay rights.

Tolerance and diversity "are almost always buzzwords for homosexual advocacy," Dobson wrote. "Kids should not be taught that homosexuality is just another 'lifestyle' or that it is morally equivalent to heterosexuality."

Dobson and other conservatives were pleased when Spellings, soon after the SpongeBob flap, condemned the "Postcards from Buster" episode.

"For years, PBS has been slipping pro-homosexual messages into its programming," said Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute. "Along comes Secretary Spellings, who takes action as a servant of the people instead of a timid, go-along bureaucrat. Good for her."

After Spellings' statement, PBS said it would not distribute the episode to its 349 stations. Boston-based WGBH, the show's producer, is providing it directly to more than 20 fellow stations.

"We consider it the responsibility of public television to give children and parents the resources they need to understand the world they inhabit -- without excluding any segment of our society," WGBH said. "The major goal of 'Postcards from Buster' is to help kids understand the richness and complexity of American culture."
Family categories

Nancy Carlsson-Page, an education professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has emphasized diversity awareness in a career spent training early-education teachers. She said Spellings was wrong to suggest that a certain category of family -- those headed by gays or lesbians -- be excluded from images shown to children.

"All children, whatever family composition they have, should see the full, diverse range of families," Carlsson-Page said. "Otherwise, when they encounter a different kind of family, they'll think that family is lesser, that it doesn't count."

Linda Hodge, president of the National PTA, said she strongly supports classroom initiatives promoting tolerance and combating bullying. However, she suggested some programs could backfire if they focus so explicitly on harassment of gays that those students feel singled out and labeled.

Hodge's bottom line: "Every child should feel safe and welcome in school."

For GLAAD's Joan Garry, a lesbian raising three children, the controversies hit home on a personal level.

"There are millions of kids living in households with two moms or two dads, and millions of other kids who know those kids," she said. "I wonder what James Dobson would say to my own children. What would be the respectful, Christian thing to say to them?"

To those for whom today is your Birthday... Have a very well deserved Happy Birthday.

The Eagles have made their way into the Super Bowl and frankly I'm not sure what to do. I'm still scarred from their last trip in January of 1981. It was the Eagles versus the Raiders. My family threw a party and before the game we were all pumped up and ready to go, by half-time we were in the basement playing ping-pong. The Raiders beat the crap out of them 27-10. It sucked.
My heart says the Eagles can win this one. They've got a good team, a solid defense, good special teams. They match up relatively well with the Patriots. Mostly it will depend on how well Corey Dillon plays....
Then again my head says the Patriots are good. Since the playoffs began they've been nothing but dominating. They could really blow out the Eagles if things fall their way.
So, do I invest myself in the Eagles... or do I pretend I don't care so I can say I told you so?

Damn Eagles.

Go Eagles! Patriots suck! (That feels good)

What does it say
if you offer
to carry someone over the hot coals
and they choose the coals
what does it say
about you?

What do you do
when all you have
everything you could offer
you put on the table
when you've exceeded your personal best
gone above and beyond
and yet
it's still not enough
?