Month: June 2014

Marry as I legislate, not as I do. Ooh! I get to say “I do” and you don’t!

Sometimes when you move to a foreign place with a tropical climate, friendly people, and a low cost of living, all for the sake of a native girl, you pay the price by dealing with that place’s silly customs, backward ways, and primitive belief systems. Here in Florida, while a generally hospitable people hold many silly notions, such as the concept that two people of the same sex shouldn’t get married. The local chieftains banned same-sex marriages some eighty seasons ago, and when in a 2008 tribal council (called an “election”), they made an addendum to their sacred parchment of laws written by their ancestors (“The Constitution”).

(Okay, enough writing about Florida the way many news writers cover other countries.)

Pam Bondi is Florida’s Attorney General, and along with fellow Republican and State Governor Rick Scott, she was named in a lawsuit that states that Florida is discriminating against gay couples by not recognizing same-sex marriages that were performed in places where they are recognized.

Here’s the statement by Bondi’s office made in official court documents. Pay attention to the part’s I’ve put in bold text:

“Florida’s marriage laws, then, have a close, direct, and rational relationship to society’s legitimate interest in increasing the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by the mothers and fathers who produced them in stable and enduring family units.”

A quick visit to Pam Bondi’s Wikipedia page shows that she’s been married twice:

• The first time, from 1990 to 1992, in a marriage that lasted 22 months
• and in a second marriage that lasted almost 6 years, from 1997 to 2002.

She recently had a “non-binding ceremony” — a civil union of sorts — with her fiance. According to reports, it had all the trappings of a wedding, without actually being one, for reasons that have not yet been revealed. While her fiance, who is a widower, has children from his marriage, Bondi never performed her wifely duty of producing offspring despite having had not one, but two opportunities to fulfill her sacred mission and biological imperative.

I’m not the first person to notice this; John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council (the group’s name should already be a warning) questioned Bondi’s “true conservative” credentials and lifestyle by noting that “personally, she has no children and lives with her 60 year old eye doctor boyfriend.”

I think it’s the heat that makes people here a little wacky.

 

 

The website I (Effing) Love Science featured this machine designed to extract sperm from donors yesterday, along with a video of it running “unmanned”. It’s both mesmerizing and disturbing:

The video appears to have been shot in a hospital hallway. I hope for the donors’ sake that it was put there only for display, and that this isn’t its usual location.

Since it’s a machine that has very close contact with rather sensitive body parts, it should undergo regular safety inspections. I can think of no one more qualified for the job than this guy:

“Sperm-extracting machine” reminds me of this old tune by The Cult. Since it’s Throwback Thursday, I’ll close with its video:

I dropped by Trader Joe’s this afternoon to pick up some cookie butter for friends and family back in Canada and discovered that they carry frozen poutine now. I’ll file a report once I’ve tasted it.

The large outdoor sculpture pictured above is located in Tübingen, Genmany (30 km south of Stuttgart) and named Chachan-Pi. The name means “making love”, and yes, the sculpture is a giant marble vagina.

I suspect that there are thousands of people, who upon encountering Chachan-Pi, have told a friend “Photograph me whilst I strike some comical pose beside this Brobdingnagian baby-cannon!”…or words to that effect. I also suspect that they’ve all ended with a photo and no other incident.

One American student travelling abroad wasn’t so lucky. Somehow, in positioning himself for a high-larious pose, he got stuck:

But hey, the guy wanted his friend to take a funny picture, so he did just that. And, as any good citizen with a funny picture is morally compelled to do, he posted it on the internet. “Hey bro, I need the Reddit points!”

This will likely just reinforce the stereotype of the dorky Asian guy. Thanks, dude. Thanks for nothing.

For reasons that have not yet been made clear, reports say that it took 22 firefighters to free the stuck student. It’s almost as if they were trying to create a brand new metaphor about how little we men understand women:

The rescue was a success, and being guys in rubber raincoats who just had a close encounter with a vagina, they had to brag a little. They claimed that they freed the student “by hand and without the application of tools”. I say this with all seriousness and only a little jest: a little lube might’ve helped.

And finally, as the cliche cherry on the stereotype sundae that is this story, the mayor of Tübingen came across as the sort of stoic Teutonic psychoanalyst you’d expect as part of an ensemble cast in a black comedy with his statement on the incident. He said that he couldn’t figure out how the student got stuck in the first place, “even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul.”

Sigmund Freud would’ve had a field day with this.

I may have to get one of these for my beloved Rhonda the Honda.

If you’re not a native German speaker, you’ll probably have difficulty pronouncing the word eichhörnchen (click on the word to hear different German speakers pronounce it).

Click on the photo to get to the pronunciation guide for eichörnchen.

You may be surprised to find out that Germans have just as much trouble pronouncing the English equivalent, squirrel. Here’s a video of some young, pretty good-looking Germans who look as they’ve been challenged by a visiting American exchange student to pronounce the word:

The video above is a copy of one shot last year and posted on Facebook. It stars Taylor Blake Martin, age 22 and from Alabama (that should be your first warning that something’s amiss), and Seth Andrew Stephenson, age 22, of Rockledge, Florida (and therein lies your second warning).

In the video, which was shot in Brevard County, Martin and Stephenson lured an adult and youngling manatee close to a dock with water from a hose — they love fresh water and find the cool stuff from hoses to be a treat — and once within range, Martin jumped on them.

When commenters called out Martin and Stephenson on their mistreatment of a gentle animal on the endangered species list, Martin replied with this comment, in the process creating the sobriquet by which he’ll be known for a long time:

hahaha … in my debue [sic] as tayla the manatee slaya … ready to cannonball on every manatee living yewwww.

The incident would’ve like gone unpunished had these two cases of apparent arrested development not posted their mindless manatee molestation movie online. However, they did, and when officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service saw the video, they sought to bring the overgrown Beavis and Butt-Head to trial, which took place on Wednesday.

(Should he later on decide to become part of a trap act, he should go by  “Tayla the Manatee Slaya”. It’s got that perfect mix of exaggerated menace and clear lameness that a rapper who’s not from “the streets” needs in a stage name.)

If you ever go to trial, especially as a defendant, your lawyer will typically advise you to dress up. Here’s how Tayla the Manatee Slaya dressed for court:

“I’m not Dirk Diggler, but I might be his stunt double.”
Click the photo to see it at full size.

If his slacks look familiar, it’s because you saw the film Boogie Nights:

Between the very clear video evidence against them and Diggler’s — oops, I mean Martin’s — attire:

• Martin was fined $3,000 and sentenced to 175 hours of community services and 2 years of probation.
• Presumably because he only recorded the event and didn’t actually sport-hump the manatees, Stephenson was fined a smaller amount — $2,000 — but is under the same probation and must perform the same community service as Martin.

Both must also post an apology and statement of remorse on Facebook. I get the feeling we’re going to see more court-ordered Facebook posts in the future.

These guys got lucky — had the manatees been injured or killed, they could’ve been sentenced to up to a year in prison.

Recommended reading

Whether you’re going to court for manatee-jumping or for other reasons — perhaps you’re a plaintiff, a witness, or a juror, you might want to consult these guides on appropriate attire and avoid Martin’s mistakes:

• Real Men Real Style’s article, How to Dress for the Courtroom – The Importance of Proper Clothing When Meeting a Judge or Lawyer. This one’s a good guide for men.
• The Minick Law law firm’s article, Courtroom Etiquette: How to Dress for Court. Like the previous article, this one also advises you not to wear flip-flops to court.
• Avvo’s What Should I Wear to Court? Yet another article advising you not to wear flip-flops to court. Seriously, people, what is wrong with you?
• Daniel Clement’s How to Dress for Court. This one’s aimed at people going to divorce court, and includes the sage advice to not bring your new boyfriend or girlfriend.
• WikiHow’s How to Plan Your Wardrobe for Court.