PrivateTim

Just so we are clear on the facts, whites including Hispanics who identify as white are only 48% in LA, whites, not including Hispanics are only 28% in LA. I don't care that Matt's ego took it hit it is his fault. That is the risk you run when you want your cake and you want to eat it too (open relationship). You risk your partner finding someone better.

Ummm, Persians and Arabs are white, just like Mexicans. But that is yesterdays news. I think it will turn out that Brad didn't have the skating coach whacked, that it was either a happy coincidence, suicide or someone else took him out. Feel bad for the mother/wife, but I suspect she knew or had suspicions and I really bet her father knew, maybe not knew to a certainty, but knew in his heart, but couldn't make the accusations without proof.

Hiking is a sport? Squash isn't modern and baseball isn't either. By the criterion the IOC is supposed to use, how universal is a sport, wrestling is one of the most universal. Wrestling is on every populated continent and in most countries. In London, 29 different countries medaled in wrestling out of 72 possible medals. No other sport comes colse for such diversity. Only 10 countries won medals in swimming with 102 medals awarded; only 14 countries won medals in Gymnastics (Artistic) and Gymnastics (Rhytmic) is a complete joke, 6 medals were awarded, 5 to Belarus & Russia and one Italian. 15 years ago it would have been a USSR intersquad match. Syncronized swimming is a complete joke. It was started by one person, Esther Williams and based on her B grade movies of the 1940s and 50s. Tennis should be dropped from the Olympics. Who needs to see the same overpaid pros we see week in week out. Golf shouldn't be added for the same reason, over paid pros. How did wrestling get dropped? There are no wrestlers on the IOC executive board. Why didn't a sport that no one participates in (modern pentathlon) survive? Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr (IOC board member, son of former IOC prez JAS Sr) is president of the international modern pentathlon association. Hmmmm. Current IOC prez Jacques Rogge is a former rugby player (an added sport), hmmm, and four executive board members are squash players another four are golfers, hmmmmm some more. There are no North Americans on the IOC executive board and ten Europeans, including two Germans, despite the fact US television supplies the IOC with over 1/3 of its budget. In fact there is only one person from the entire Western Hemisphere on the IOC executive board.

Well that was an interesting twist. I still don't feel bad for Matt. He has no right to act as he did to Wade. He is entitled to his feelings, but not to let the resentment bleed over.

Get over yourself. I live in Los Angeles where being white means you ARE a minority, You have no fucking idea what discrimination I've experienced in LA, Micronesia or Polynesia or what I've experienced among people who've seldom seen a caucasian person before. My reaction to who John would date was a reaction to who John has been presented as and that is someone shallow and immature. I find your ignorance and assumptions incredibly offensive based on the very narrow life you've led in a 40 mile band of a country that spans almost 4,000,000,000 square miles. I know you mean well, but your very limited life experience limits you. Have you ever actually been to Manila? Do you even know what Pinoy culture is like and about? Grow up, travel and get back to me.

You are in the wrong part of the country to be a Pinoy. You wouldn't have the same experience in So Cal or Hawaii, people would probably guess your ethnicity (not race, I don't believe there is Pil-a-pino race) fairly accurately or they'd guess you something Hispanic maybe, which wouldn't be too far off given the Spanish involvement in the Philippines. Mexican is a nationality, not a race, Hispanic is a cutlure, not a race, Filipino is a nationality, not a race. What is a race is even up to dispute, but there are plenty of Mexicans whiter than me and plenty of whites that are very dark. In 1950 we went from 3 basic races, white (Caucasoid), black (Negroid) and Asian (Mongoloid) to over 5,000 "ethnic" groupings (according to the UN). Arabs are semites and therefore white by classification. And sorry, I reject the whole "you don't know what it is like" line of thinking. it is 'woe is me' claptrap, you don't know what is like to be a stutterer, or painfully shy, or fat or skinny or to have bad skin or to have bad eye sight or to have freckles or to be too young or to old or........ well you get the idea. EVERYONE has something that they can be discrimated for. Every community I know of discriminates and the gay community is one of the worst, ask any bi man about that. I doubt that if Darius walked into Quickie Mart in the deepest of the deep South that anyone would think him an Arab, again, more likely an Italian or maybe even Black Irish.

It is far more than do-able, it happens. not every house on every campus has openly gay members, but there are a good number of openly gay fraternity boys these days and a whole bunch in the closet. I guess I wasn't quite clear. Not only does Darius not identify with his Persian side, but no one associates him as being Persian. As a mixed race kid (and there are a bunch of half white, half Persian guys running around LA) Darius probably looks Italian to most people and the people who know him and his family probably don't think of him as Persian because he doesn't look like or act like the pure Persian kids (of which LA also has a lot). Of course we don't know what Darius looks like except inside our own minds, I just know what the half white/half Persian guys in LA look like and what the pure Persians look like and especially how the pure Persians act in LA. Don't you watch the Shahs of Sunset? I thought you were Mexican B1ue? Certainly people can tell the difference between a Mexican and an Arab?

Yes and no. I went to national conventions in college and to our leadership school when I was in college and have been back at leadership school as an instructor twice and to a national convention too. The music director from our national headquarters makes Stef look butch and I've served twice on the board of the "province" here in So Cal (USC, UCLA, Oxy, Cal St LA, CSUN, etc) and they too have much more diverse populations than my grandparents experienced when they were at USC and even diverse from my parent's days in the 70's.

It would be nice to see Will and Darius learn that sometimes you have to take orders from other people. I am guessing you weren't in a fraternity? My house in Berkeley had Asian, African American, Jewish, gay. Armenian and even some Democrats. This idea of fraternities and soroities as these WASPy institutions hasn't been true since the mid 1960's probably. Does Darius have any identification at all with his Persian side? Does he think of himself as a Persian American? We've certainly never seen it and has anyone ever treated him like a Persian? By the way, Persians are not Arabs..... you never want to make that mistake.

It was a good chapter and one thing we've kind of glossed over as Jeannie has become the Wicked Witch of the West, is how Brad consistently undermined her authority with Will as Will planned the parent game. It is especially important in their cases because Brad and Jeannie never had a normal marital relationship, it was still more like employer and employee. It is therefore nice to see Will have a tender moment with the only mother he'll ever have.

So this isn't the Soapbox and don't want to turn Mark's Forum into Soapbox Lite, but the point was that when ROTC was a required course at Yale, Harvard, et al, it exposed an elite that otherwise had little exposure, to military service. A good number of officers in WWII, Korea and Vietnam came out of the Ivy League. That dropped off once the ROTC was pushed off campus and it wasn't until 9-11 that you saw a return of some of those Ivy Leaguers

Matt is reaping what he sowed. Wade would have been fine with monogamy, but Matt wasn't and now he is singing the Open Relationship Blues. It would have made me dislike Tony even more since he would be jealous of Noah and possesive of Will without cause. Tony thinks he can have his bimbo and Will will always be there for a nice roll in the hay. Will is already more mature than Tony and progressing. There was a jump immediately post 9-11, but that wasn't the biggest shift, it was that a number of college kids, professionals etc decided to sign up. I do so miss the Soapbox because I'd love to talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences, which is the most ignored universal law in Washington DC. The same left that threw the ROTC out of Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc later complained that the sons and daughters of the elite were not in the armed forces. There was a time that ROTC was a required course at Yale et al. 9-11 did serve to get a higher quality recruit for a while. The Post 9-11 American Serviceman

Just Google "judge rips ncaa in USC investigation" and you get a boat load.

The team wasn't corrupt, one player was accused to improper conduct and one assistant coach. The NCAA's case against the assisant coach seems to be going south as documents are showing improper conduct by the NCAA are coming out as part of the coach's lawsuit against them. An LA Superior Court judge just ripped the NCAA for their behavior, more fireworks are almost guaranteed. Tony won't be a problem, Brad is getting him whacked in special two-fer-one deal with the skating coach

The phone is for you, Wharton is calling and wants to speak to you The only thing wrong with Scripps is that it is next to Black's Beach and you can't surf with your clothes on there. "Party" is relative, it isn't a party school in the same sense that San Diego State is because you can't afford to party too hard at a quarter school. UCSB is one of the highest rated public universities in the country (#10 last I heard). Marine Science is actually pretty big at UCSB on the graduate level and getting bigger with the Marine Science Institute. It also was not always so laid back. It had major riots during the Vietnam war in Isla Vista, the BofA was burned down, the faculty club was bombed, killing one man and a student was shot and killed in the unrest.

I've enjoyed all the books, Paternity is a fave, but so was the original CAP story. I thought it was exceptionally well written for someone who didn't live through those times. UCSB would be a natural for Will since the school has its own surf break, but maybe not until graduate school for the Marine Science Institute. USC would be a good undergrad school since Will would be entering just as USC started winning national championships and USC has a great undergrad marine sciences program with remote facilities in Newport and Santa Catalina.

As a follow on to my review. I feel sad that I think Paternity is winding down. We have been with Paternity for 14 months now and as completely weird as this sounds, I think of the CAP cast as friends, kind of like Facebook friends, people I don't see anymore because we live in different places, but I keep up with their lives online so we still have that friendship connection. I also have really enjoyed Will. He has been a good surrogate for the void created by Doma Luka's extended hiatus. I actually care about Will, Ryan, Alistair, Wade, Matt and the still mysterious Noah (not Tony, kill off that bitch!). I hope if Paternity does end soon that CAP picks up again before Sept. 11, 2001. It is the single most important day in U.S. history since Dec. 7, 1941 and probably one of the top five most important dates in U.S. history. It would be interesting to see JP's reaction given his views on Vietnam and what effect it has on the younger generation.

Not wanting to rehash too much of an old chapter since we have moved on to a new chapter, but TX must indeed be very different from CA & CO because an organization that ignores, covers or deflects on child molestation is at huge peril. Even if the organization doesn't really care, they have to appear to care, make changes that shows they care and they distance themselves from the accused, sometimes too quickly as sometimes the allegations are false as they were in a famous USFSA case against an Olympic coach. My experience is with USOC Group A members only, I can't speak about other national organizations like the Boy Scouts, Little League Baseball, etc. The only USOC organization that has been a problem in not reacting well or quickly enough has been USA Gymnastics, and I don't mind mentioning them by name since their cases are well known and have been splashed all over the news. To be clear, many of the organizations I am involved with that were part of what got me involved at the national level have had abuse cases, any organization is going to, it is inevitable; the difference is in how the organization reacts and what steps it takes in prevention and the face the organization puts on it. Everyone, me included obviously, sees things through the lens of their experience so when I read "Organizations such as the USFSA will always circle the wagons and move to protect themselves and the adults within the organization" it was so far outside my experience that I over-reacted by invalidating whatever your personal experience was and for that I apologize. The people at USFSA are realists, some are idealists, but most have a firm grasp on reality. Everyone has always known that men's figure skating was a bastion for gay men, but it was about keeping the sexuality under wraps because of valid fears that it would hurt the sports popularity and maybe keep some parents from letting their boys get involved in the sport. It may not be a morally correct position, but it was realistic. Point being, that USFSA will take steps that protect the organization, they really don't give a rip about individuals, including famous coaches. If presented with photograhpic evidence of the abuse the organization would jettison the abuser like yesterday's fish stew, not because it is the right thing, but because it would be the best thing for the organization. The better example of gay skater who faced discrimination is Rudy Galindo rather than Johnny Weir. Galindo was in that era when judges would punish the openly gay skater in judging. The only reason Galindo won the US Championship (which he deserved) was he was such the obvious winner and it was in front of his hometown fans in San Jose. The people would have torn down the arena had Galindo not gotten the marks he deserved. **personal experience allert** The only guys I know of who were chaste in high school were the ones too shy not to be. Even the guys in my high school church youth group were horny SOBs in their hearts, some managed to control their behavior, only to find out in college, they were one of the few in the youth group who actually did control their behavior, the rest were able to justify getting hand jobs and blow jobs as "not really sex". Even getting naked rubbing Homer all over your naked GFs privates was okay as long as their was no penetration. I feel like most guys, especially in todays Internet world, hit their peak of sluttiness as soon as the boys drop and maintain the sluttiness ad infinitum. Even many of my friends in their 30's are complete man whores with their grindr and jack'd apps. They will be out with Matt and I enjoing a casual dinner and they text through the whole dinner setting up their plans for the night as soon as the desert plates are removed. I think there are many reasons JJ's coach went there, but I don't think it was lack of attention from older males. All JJ has in his life are older males.

Let me show you my sad face, Everyone else is stoked about a pretty happy feel good chapter, but to me it feels like a wind down chapter for Paternity. After 14 months Paternity might end and I just don't really want it to. I like Will and Wade as narrators and can't imagine who will narrate the next story or when it might start. Don't do it Mark! Don't end Paternity! Paternity Now and Forever!

At the rate we are progressing I will die from rising seas due to global warming before the CAP gets to 2012.

So you are wrong on pretty much everything in there. I deal with two organizations that deal a lot with children and each has in place policies and safeguards when it comes to the adults who have interactions with children. Both the organizations run background checks on anyone involved in the organizations. Every Olympic NGB I know of has similar policies. Involving the police and USFSA would not involve the names of those involved being publicly revealed, CA has shield laws for minors and shield laws for victims of sexual abuse. There would certainly not be any blowback from USFSA towards the victims. They might have some blind spots when it comes to trying to keep their skaters images clean, but they would bend over backwards, forward and sideways to support the victims because to do anything else in 2000 would have been suicidal for an organization. Also bear in mind that we are only about 14 months out from the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and that USFSA couldn't do anything that reflect negatively on their organization (like blaming 14 year old boys for getting molested by a USFSA coach) or they risked having Mitt Romney pull them as the sponsor of the figure skating events. Both of the organizations I am involved with have had their share of sexual abusers in the ranks and not once has either ever "circled the wagons". If anything, they react too quickly the other way when allegations surface, the accused is quickly removed and restoration is difficult even if the allegations are proved false. ****** As I said in my review, this places JP in a bad place because in CA he is a "mandated reporter" and it leaves not only the current skaters under this coach who have been molested in a bad place, but potentially skaters in the past and any other boys he has come into contact with, like friends of his kids. If his actions are not revealed a lot of kids who could have come forward and maybe gotten help, won't and a lot of other parents who don't understand why their kids are acting up may be coming down hard on these kids. And what if those one of those kids kills themselves because they didn't know how to deal with it? I get it is cooler and more dramatic to whack the guy, but that doesn't make it the right thing. Just the easier thing and certainly easier to write.

I admit I don't like the idea of them "handling things themselves". It puts JP in a bad place because in CA he is a "mandated reporter" and it leaves not only the current skaters under this coach who have been molested in a bad place, but potentially skaters in the past and any other boys he has come into contact with, like friends of his kids. If his actions are not revealed a lot of kids who could have come forward and maybe gotten help, won't and a lot of other parents who don't understand why their kids are acting up may be coming down hard on these kids. And what if those one of those kids kills themselves because they didn't know how to deal with it? In 2000 no way would USFSA be blaming kids who got molested by a USFSA coach; maybe in 1970, but by 2000 most Group A USOC NGB's would have had policies in place to cover how to handle allegations and programs for prevention.

C0*k teasing effin bitch!

Wow a kid in the drama department who's done musicals announces he is gay! Who ever would have thought that!

Then I am not sure why you are reading the CAP series since inter-generational sex seems to be a staple including this book with Brad & Wade and Will with his succession of over-aged lovers over the last two stories. Going to the police and USAFS would be the right thing to do. It doesn't mean that the case has to be high profile, especially when there is photographic evidence. Just because some people got whacked in previous books doesn't mean Brad solves every issue with a hitman.