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I must admit, I feel more than a tad sorry for Oscar de la Hoya, who, it is alleged by a couple of women whom he had previously partied with, liked to be dominated while wearing fishnets, panties and high-heels. One photo even shows him wearing a tutu-like skirt. Russian model Milana Dravnel published her photos on the paparazzi website X17.com, while another woman, a strip dancer named Maria, attested to the veracity of Dravnel's claims, saying that she too experienced de la Hoya's considerable feminine side and is the one who took the photos of de la Hoya and Dravnel together.
Now you may say that cross-dressing is a deviant aberration to the nth degree, that it violates society's ideas of all that is good and proper, that it goes against God and whatever other Mom-and-apple-pie musings you can think of to express your disgust. But you cannot deny that it's an impulse that, however unfortunate and odd it may be, affects men from all walks of life—even a macho boxer. I would classify cross-dressing as a disease myself, and if it is a disease, then it is entirely wrong to blame or belittle the person afflicted with it. You wouldn't poke fun at someone would cerebral palsy or leukemia, would you?
Is de la Hoya a transvestite in the privacy of his own home or hotel room or wherever the public spotlight isn't turned on him? Who can say?
De la Hoya furiously denies any of it and insists that the photos of him in drag are fake. Who can blame the man? He's a boxer. That is his work, his job, his career. It's what he does for a living and it's what awarded superstar status upon him. If these allegations about him turn out to be true, he won't be fit to box anymore. His opponents will have a solid psychological advantage over him. A lot of his former fans will turn against him, and his detractors will get nasty and personal. And that's a crying disgrace, because de la Hoya is a talented fighter.
And that's assuming any of this sub/tranny business is true. What's the motive behind releasing the pictures? Did de la Hoya and one of his lady friends have a falling out for some reason? Did he fall out with both of them? Is this some form of retaliation meant to deliver a crushing TKO to de la Hoya? Whose idea was it, Milana's or Maria's? Dravnel herself has recently expressed remorse, saying she was pressured into releasing them and that she cannot attest to the authenticity of the photos, but Maria swears de la Hoya is a cross-dresser who likes getting raunchy with doms and backs Dravnel's original claims.
So, if it is all true? Then de la Hoya fucked up big-time. He chose to reveal his kinkiness to people he obviously could not completely trust. If you are a boxer with a penchant for wearing pantyhose and saying "yes, ma'am, whatever you say, ma'am," then you cannot reveal this to anyone else. It is absolutely vital that you keep it as secret as FBI files. Admitting your feminine side will destroy you in a testosterone-and-sweat drenched line of work.
Personally, I couldn't care less if Mssr. de la Hoya really is a submissive cross-dresser once the lights go out for the night. That's his business—and that of his partner—and no-one else's. What bothers me is how personal people will get if this information turns out to be genuine, and how they'll blow it completely out of proportion. De la Hoya will then have notoriety on a par with Michael Vick, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson or other fallen sportsmen. And that's just not right because de la Hoya doesn't hurt anyone outside of his particular sporting arena unlike the others I've mentioned.
If anything, de la Hoya should be held to account for partying with women other than his own wife. The cross-dressing is neither here nor there, nor should it be.
So some Iranians are absolutely aghast at the idea that their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would receive such a poor welcome in New York. Get real. New Yorkers should not be happy that the Iranian leader bankrolls the type of terrorists that attacked their city six years ago. They have every right to express their disgust and anger that he is there.
They should also not be impressed that Columbia University president Lee Bollinger defended his invitation for the Iranian leader to speak at the school. Bollinger said that the invitation was in line with Columbia's tradition of providing a "major forum for robust debate, especially (on) global issues." If Robert Mugabe ever steps foot in the States to address the U.N., will you invite him too, Mr. Bollinger, citing the same raison d'etre for your esteemed university?
Of course, Mr. Bush would never let the likes of Mugabe in. So why the hell did he give the all-clear for Ahmadinejad to enter the country? I don't care how necessary he thinks dialogue with that lunatic is, he should provide the dialogue while the Iranian president has both his feet firmly planted on Iranian soil. Having Admadinejad in New York is a grevious insult not only to New Yorkers but to all Americans. This Holocaust-denying, insurgent-arming, nuke-hungry maniac should not be disgracing our ground or polluting our air with his presence.
Thank God that New York City authorities denied the Iranian leader a chance to visit Ground Zero. That would be like a neo-Nazi touring Auschwitz. In fact, when it comes to dangerously rabid anti-Semitic sentiment, Ahmadinejad and neo-Nazis are on the same page.
I have nothing against Iran. Iran has more than its fair share of decent, intelligent and freedom-loving people. It's Presdient Ahmadinejad and his cabal of religious conservatives running the Islamic Republic that I feel signficantly less than admirably toward.
I know. It's very rare when I would comment about anything from the world of pop entertainment garbage—but, Britney losing her kids? Golly gee. Doesn't take a genius to work out how that happened, now does it?
I've never really liked Kevin Federline. He's one goofy numbnuts. But it seems to me that he's a responsible father and will take good care of his kids. You never hear about Federline getting too wild, hardly ever see a picture of him with glassy eyes as he stumbles to the next party venue, and you just know that the paparazzi follow him around too. Kev just does what he does, whatever that is—let's face it, he's only famous because he's Britney's ex—and does it fairly quietly. So I've gotta give the dude credit where it's due.
Britters, on the other hand, shows no sign of putting a lid on her outrageous behavior. It's just one incident after another. Losing custody of her children is the price she now must pay.
I do feel sorry for her, insomuch as I can feel sorry for anyone who's loaded and doesn't seem to realize that they should be happy. I've heard that she's anti-fur, which I respect, but she has worn it on occasion. Too wasted to keep to her principles? That's anyone's guess.
I've tried to like Britney, God's witness, but I'm past the point of trying to understand why she carries on the way she does. How much longer can she remain in meltdown? She must surely realize that there's millions of people wishing her the best, hoping she'll bounce back. Her main problem, as I see it, is that she thinks she can remain famous and in the public spotlight through her partying ways if she can no longer dance or belt out a No. 1 album. Not exactly what you'd call straight, responsible thinking.
But, given that state of her mind, it's easy to see why she's lost her kids to K-Fed.
This has got to be the story of the decade.
He got acquitted of double murder through his legal team's manipulation of the race card, right? So all he had to do was retire to his mansion and live with his conscience—not that he's got one. Bad enough he tried to capitalize on the murders last year.
But, twelve years after "getting some get-back" got him off murder charges, he masterminds and carries out an armed robbery at a Las Vegas casino museum to retrieve some memorabilia from his football career?
That's either really stupid or really insane.
Let's see him wriggle out of this one. Maybe life imprisonment will wipe that arrogant smirk off his face.
If so, I hope the bastard lives till 120.
Early in his career, George Carlin cracked an Irish joke on-stage and then quickly said, "Hey, man, that's OK, though, 'cause I hit my own. You're allowed to hit your own."
I've always believed that to be true. Jewish jokes can come from Jews, Italian jokes from Italians ... and Irish jokes from Irish (or Irish-Americans).
But apparently, those days are heading to an end, if this story is any indication.
In Cornwall—England's southwest peninsula—Denis Lusby, an Irish Catholic editor of a parish magazine, was forced to resign his post after cracking some light-hearted Irish Catholic jokes. One silly twit in the Cornwall County Council's "Equality and Diversity" office complained, objecting to the use of the word "Paddy," and the resulting uproar was enough to make him resign his post. Mr. Lusby's nemesis on the council urged a boycott of the magazine, forcing his hand.
(If "paddy" is so offensive, how to explain Paddy Power?)
This assumes Lusby knows nothing about racism or prejudice. But as an Irishman living in England since the early '70s, he would beg to differ. "IRA bombings were going on, so I reckon I know a lot more about racial prejudice than she does," Lusby said.
This is just plain sad. Now we have humorless government types telling us that it's possible to be racist against ourselves. Wonderful.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Political correctness and its enforcers won't stop until laughter itself is an offense.
That won't stop me, however. I'll laugh in their faces and if the fuckers don't like it, then they can lock my paddy, spud, thick mick, Guinness-drinking, potato-eating ass in jail.
The sixth anniversary of America's worst terrorist attack on her own soil is upon us. And now, just as ever, pundits are asking, "Is the world safer?" Unfortunately, shamefully, this day is always used as a great excuse to lament about the state of the world and how America under George W. Bush has failed in nearly every respect to bring about a safer, smoother world.
You can get political about 9/11 or you can honor the memory of those who perished on this day and remember when you were shocked and enraged by the destruction and death you saw or perhaps even witnessed. I wrote the following one year after the event. It may be a bit dated, but it still speaks volumes about how I view this day.
September 11, 2002 ...
Written by Nightdragon, September 11, 2002. Originally appeared on Diaryland.
This, no matter how it was presented on the surface—and for me it was a business-as-usual work day, complete with deadlines and a board meeting—was not, and could never hope to be, a normal day. At 1:46 p.m. our time (British time), I was showering in the stalls after my swim. I observed the moment of silence that was the law of the land on this sunny, pleasantly mild day. The warm water ran down my back while I just lost myself in remembrance of the terrible thing that happened on this day, at that time, last year. Concentration all day was an effort, office jokes and good humor lost on me. I saw the date "11 Sep" on the digital display on my phone and thought I would fill the trash basket with pure bile.
Lately, I have endured criticism in the papers and in the media about what a failure the American-led War on Terror has been and how pernicious the Americans are to even think about causing further mayhem and destruction by attacking Iraq. So inured was I to this—for it seemed the whole damn country had turned into a seething mass of hippy pacifists from hell—that I forgot that there were memorials and dedications and services that took place here, in this country, in this city. At the American Embassy, Home Secretary David Blunkett declared, after receiving a tattered Union Jack that had been found among the rubble of the World Trade Center, "God bless America." Later, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the very same British flag draped across the altar, the American national anthem was played, 3,000 flower petals representing the dead were dropped from a balcony, and many families of the victims—American and British alike—in addition to Princes Charles and Harry and Prime Minister Tony Blair were present to pay their respects. I was heartened while watching news coverage of these events.
It’s as if, for one day, we were all Americans again. It’s as if we all grieved once more, felt the shattered nerves and dug down deep inside our souls. This time, there was no need to think about war, revenge or even justice. Over the past year, we have seen to that and still are in the process of administering justice. Today, on this one-year anniversary of hell on earth, we were liberated from the anger and could truly and refreshingly come to terms with the attack and what it has meant to every one of us. September 11 violated all of us, personally and spiritually, in some way. The fear and the sorrow were real and they served as a reminder that, yes, there really is such a thing as evil. Evil perpetrated by men turned chillingly robotic by fanaticism.
But there is also good. Warm, bright, encouraging goodness. We cannot lose sight of that. Even in the face of detractors whose muddled thinking regarding their opposition to ousting Saddam Hussein is downright scary—one can only wonder what their approach to Hitler would have been—there is good. Even in the face of the self-righteous who declare, as one did in a letter to The Metro, that they plan to spend the moment of silence thinking about the innocent victims of "America’s lust for revenge," there is good. Even in the face of crazy, ruthless, tyrannical men such as bin Laden and [Saddam] Hussein, there is good. The outpouring of sympathy and affection that took place one year ago and which took place again today, all across the world, restores one’s sense of faith that maybe, just maybe, we’ll get through this harrowing era of history alive and well and happy.
Dove or hawk, Left or Right, American or otherwise, this was a tough day to get through—tough for anyone with any sense of compassion or goodwill. Like or loathe the ongoing War on Terror, on this day you needed to contemplate the future and promise to learn from the past and vow to live in the present. It’s all you can do. And it’s certainly enough.
Tomorrow is another day. And, for a whole lot of us, it cannot come soon enough.
Anyone who knows just the most rudimentary aspects about life in contemporary Britain knows that we—the Government, businesses, and most of the British citizenry brow-beaten by political correctness—bend over backwards to avoid offending our Muslim community. A lot of members of this very community are hard-working and loyal to this country, no doubt about it. But if you were going to write a script for a medical drama where a bomb goes off at a British bus station, circa 2007, from what community do you think it's likeliest that your bomber originated?
For instance, for roughly twenty years—from the late '70s to the late '90s—if you wanted to write an effective script for a gritty drama involving a bombing in Britain, then you would have focused on the IRA, the Real IRA or any number of little similarly minded splinter groups. You could have made it as clear as possible that you weren't blaming the whole of the Irish community in Britain, that this was only the work of fanatics. But nevertheless, your bomber would have been Irish and he probably would have come from a heavily Irish community that may not necessarily have "harbored" him—they may not even have known about his politically fanatic leanings—but certainly the point would be taken. No matter how apologetically you tried to write the script, the tragedy would have been caused by an Irish man or Irish men.
Still with me? Good. Just for the record, I am half-Irish myself, and proud of it, yet I fully acknowledge the reality of this sort of typecasting. It just would have made no sense to blame the fictional atrocity on any other group because anyone living from 1978-1998 would have automatically thought, in the wake of a bomb blast, "Those bloody Irish!"
These days, it's fanatics from the Muslim community that are attacking us, their sense of grievance being stoked by reactionary mosques across the land. Fact, not fiction, not conjecture. But that hasn't stopped the BBC from ignoring reality and blaming their fictional bombing on someone else as they did with the latest edition of Casualty.
Casualty is a BBC-produced medical drama which takes place in an Accident & Emergency Unit, sort of the British answer to ER, and it's damn good entertainment. But the show's writers have a penchant for making certain "terrorists" out to be a bigger threat than the more likely suspects. A year ago, Casualty had an episode where two animal-rights extremists set out to bomb a medical researcher at her home, but end up accidentally blowing up a veterinarian, who came to the researcher's house to look at her dog, instead. This particular storyline was laughably unrealistic—as if a vivisectionist would spend all day slicing mammals up and then come home to her dog!—but now they're at it again.
This time, two more animal-rights extremists accidentally blow up a bus station, when the incindiery material they place into the luggage area of the coach they were to board ignites for some reason. Although the script-writers made it clear that the two animal rightists did not mean to cause carnage at the bus station, the message somehow is that there are loads of animal-rights extremists swarming across this land, constantly screwing up their plans, maiming and killing innocent people in the process.
To be fair to the writers of Casualty, they originally wrote the script to feature a young Muslim blowing himself up at the bus station. So it's not so much the show's fault as it is their puppet-masters'. The BBC forced the program's writers to re-write the show so that animal extremists get the blame instead, because we all know that the Animal Liberation Front and PETA are greater enemies to our civilization than Al-Qaeda and other like-minded terrrorists. Right?
Right?!
It's a load of rubbish and the BBC knows it, but they'd still rather peddle this nonsense to people thick enough to believe it. Yet, the fact is, animal-rights extremists do carefully target those places where they know vivisection takes place, looking to disable a facility's equipment or suchlike. Sometimes they'll go after the breeders of animals used for research and, though they can get downright insensitive about it, they are no threat to the general public whatsoever. Yet, ludicrously, we have a situation in this country where stalls disseminating animal rights literature are disbanded by the police, but books by terror-advocating imams can be found in libraries. It seems that the BBC are simply taking their Casualty storylines from Government propaganda.
But money talks. It always has, it always will. There's no money in going after radical Muslims. However, the Government is happy to hop into bed with animal researchers because their legal torture rakes in loads of moolah. So, to placate their sugar daddies, the Government cracks down on the animal rights crowd, telling them sternly, "We won't tolerate your terror!" Gee, we can all sleep easy at night then, huh? Never mind what Mohammed or Abdul may get up to after soccer practice.
I'm not the only one nonplussed by Casualty's latest storyline: Right-wing columnist Richard Littlejohn was similarly bewildered. In his August 21 Daily Mail column "Truth is the first Casualty—again," he writes:
In real life, it's Muslims committing all the terrorist atrocities in Britain these days ... [T]o pretend that the bunny liberation brigade are bombing bus stations is preposterous.
Admittedly, the animal rights movement contains its fair share of violent lunatics. But as much as they love beagles and lab rats, there is no recorded incident to my knowledge of any of them being prepared to lay down their own lives for the cause.
Even if we concede that the decision to pull the Casualty episode was taken for the most laudable of reasons, it is yet more evidence of the institutionalised bias, cowardice and cultural cringe that runs through the Corporation like the lettering in a stick of rock.
The simple fact is that the BBC, like the police, the CPS and so many other of our public institutions, is scared to death of upsetting Muslims.
Again, this should be common knowledge to anyone who knows even the remotest of aspects of life in modern-day Britain. The BBC's most recent episode of Casualty only confirms that beyond a shadow of doubt.
(For more fellow-blogger analysis of the Casualty episode, read Newport's excellent take on it.)
