The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show 1/31/13

If high schoolers—straight and QUILTBAG alike—all over Tennessee don’t hold same-sex kiss-ins the day this bill goes into effect (I have no doubt it will pass and be signed into law), I will be terribly disappointed in this generation of kids. The best way to deal with nonsensical crap like this bill is to muddy the waters so much the law becomes unenforceable. If school employees have to report everyone to their parents, then the threat of outing may not go away but it is largely neutralized.

“At risk” for homosexuality. Sweet merciful McGillicuddy, Stacey Campfield is a clown. Teens who don’t fit gender stereotypes are at risk for a lot of things (bullying, peer and family rejection, and physical violence, among many others), but the notion of someone being at risk for homosexuality is idiotic.

Bob, your admonition not to forget local and state politics needs to be repeated far and wide. Off-year and local elections are important in part because of where stupid laws come from and partly because, as I’ve been known to type in all-italics, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the results! (In the mumblety-mumble years I’ve been registered to vote, I’ve voted in all but one election and felt guilty about giving that one a miss.)

Wayne LaPierre has bodyguards? I thought an NRA Man was manly and brave and self-sufficient a’cause of his shootin’ irons. But LaPierre cowers behind professional muscle? I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.

Phillip Sailors should immediately become the first example every gun-control advocate mentions in debates. (Yeah, yeah, he has the right to a fair trial, but all available evidence indicates he shot in the head someone who posed no credible threat to him.) No one should have to fear getting shot for getting lost and pulling into the wrong driveway.

Every second someone talks about video games and movies and all the rest of that is a second in which the real problem—real people really being killed by real firearms—isn’t being discussed.

Chez, California has always attracted people who were half a bubble off plumb. Always. But the only people who said California was the most insane state were Righties and people who were jealous of the climate (plus a few not-very-original comedians). California has also tended to attract the imaginative and creative, who are almost by definition half a bubble off plumb. The current crop of crazies in Tennessee or Arizona or Florida or whatever your favorite hotbed of lunacy may be are anything but imaginative or creative, they’re just nuts. (Can you tell I’m a native Californian?)

The Rs self-immolation over immigration is hilarious. I’ve said this before, but nothing’s changed: Prop 187 in California crushed the Republican Party’s chances among Latinos in the state, but nobody in the national party seems to have gotten the memo that pissing off a growing demographic isn’t an electoral winner. Keep it up, Republicans, and it’ll be a generation or maybe two before you get more than a handful of votes from Latino voters. No, seriously, keep it up.

–alopecia