glomph

And it would be anachronistic if he didn't. Sure there were many schools of thought in psychology back in the '70s, but the bulk of psychiatrists were mainstream traditional freudians. It would be interesting to rewrite the play with Dr. Bob Hartley (also of the period) instead of a psychiatrist. The kid could get his teeth cleaned in Jerry's office while he was there. Or we could update it with Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil, or maybe Dr. Ruth. Wish I had time (and could write). That sounds like a fun series to do.

Most people in our country are straight. If gay people can't assimilate, then they should all get on planes and go to countries where the people are gay. Oh, and be sure to use the restroom before you leave home. We don't want you in our airport restrooms playing footsie.

It ran for years on Broadway. Richard Burton played the psychiatrist for a while, then Anthony Perkins took over, then Burton did another run, and then Perkins came back for a while. I saw it during the Perkins era. I don't recall who played the young guy at that time. I probably have my old Playbill somewhere among some souvenirs boxed away somewhere. One of the main characters is a psychiatrist and is about his quest for why the kid blinded the horses, so of course he interprets events from a freudian perspective: He's a psychiatrist. I think the blinding of the horses is the only thing the play has in common with the real events that inspired it.

It's a very powerful play. I saw it on Broadway long ago, back probably before Daniel's parents entered puberty.

The choice/not-choice argument is often largely political and based on the assumption that if it's a choice, then it's OK to deny certain folks basic constitutional rights and such, and conversely if it's not a choice, then that's not OK. I don't agree with the assumption, so I'm not in agreement with either side of that debate. P.S. As for a movie making you gay, I wonder how many teenage boys watched the recent high school musical sequel on Disney. All those musical production numbers and Zac Efron shirtless, it was sure to have an effect. There was even a not-so-subtle subplot about the almost stereotypically gay rich younger brother and his eventual acceptance by the jocks. Look at the scene and musical production number on the baseball field.

Um. Choosing between the Communists and the Klan, the devil and the deep blue sea, Iraq and a hard place.

The choices are too interdependent to rank in importance. Even though no one has voted for it so far, the choice of a belief is rather central to them all, a worldview, a belief in onesself (or lack thereof), etc., etc. I guess it's how you take it. if by choice of a belief one means adopting some set of propositions that don't really have much to do with your real life, then yes, it shouldn't get any votes. The choice of a partner could determine where you live. And where you choose to live will help determine the people you meet who are potential partners. Or you might choose to live somewhere that you think improves your odds on finding an appropriate partner. Similarly, you might choose a place because you got a job there, or think the job prospects are better there. Obviously.

It is a strange land, but we see no reason to take perfectly good -or Latin spellings and insert a 'u' from the -eur cognate French words.

I read somewhere that the sting operation was in response to numerous complaints, not from a desire of the police department to waste funds or to grandstand for political gain. One might argue that having a uniformed officer just stationed in the outer section from time to time would have been as good a deterrent. The right to relieve oneself without listening to heavy breathing, having someone play footsie with you, or seeing them wave their wedding ring under the partition may not be the most important fundamental human right, it is still an important one. I would put this sting in a different category from Pee Wee Herman's arrest in Florida. I think it was more than one policeman who were staking out the porno theater. That seemed to be a big waste of public resources. I mean, there were patrons of the theater who were shocked! shocked! that someone might masturbate during porn?

He recently was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.

famous for ending music in a minor key with a major chord

You're in the perfect situation for Netflix.

If there's a difference measured at all, I think gay men average higher testosterone levels than straight men. Or maybe that just happens in all-male or mostly-male environments.

No, it's not fair at all. But we do it anyway. The person didn't ask to be our hero in most cases, probably aren't aware they are. If they don't live up to our standards for them, that's more our problem than theirs.

I think it was Mark Twain who said that the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco. It looks like November on average is just 8 degrees cooler than it is in July. Being surrounded by water, it is somewhat protected from temperature extremes.

My introduction to Fry and Laurie was the "Wooster and Jeeves" series. I have the DVDs on my Netflix queue, so I'll rewatch them some time in the next few months.

Please fix the spelling of "definitely."

The last time I was in Dallas I was skirting a traffic jam caused by a PFLAG parade. Funny how times change. If you have the gathering on November 3, please have it in SF or on the East Coast, not in Dallas. I'll be in Ft. Worth then, and would be unhappy to be so close but not able to attend.

If homosexuality is not a choice, then why would it be a source of pride? It's like someone says they are proud to be an American, and I say I'm not. I was born here. If I had struggled to leave another place and come here and learned a new language and built a new life and worked hard to be an American, then you bet I'd be proud to be an American. But I was just born here, so I can't take any credit for it.

The Russians were upset about Dobby's appearance in the movie. They said he was modeled after Putin. I was upset with him because he sounded and acted like Jar Jar Binks.

Ray Charles? Ray Stevens, maybe. Or did you just have Georgia on your mind? The song is from the 1940's, BTW. Oh, and I'm my own distant cousin (third cousin once removed, I think).

I'm at an akward stage in life where I need to ask each given place at what age their senior discount starts. (BTW, I tried to update my age in my profile here a while back, and it wouldn't let me. So I thought phooey with that. I'll just stay 56 here forever. It's not like I'll get a senior discount or anything.) When I turned 32, it seemed to me that ages 16 to 32 had progressed in about the same time frame as between ages 8 and 16. Ages 4 to 8 seemed to take about the same time, too. If both I and this board are still here when I turn 64, I'll let you know if I then think 32 to 64 was about the same psychological time span. (But then you'll wonder how I know, since I will be just 56.) The summer after I turned 22 was such an amazing time in my life, but 26 and 27 were pretty intense and had really magical times. In some ways I can't imagine having ever been that young, and in others, it seems like I haven't changed much other than having less hair and weiging 5 or 6 pounds more.

Well, that's economics, too. Marriage equaled support. The marriage ceremony was in part a transfer of property. The woman went from being the property/responsibility of her father to the property/responsibility of her husband. The bride was "given away" by her father, at which point her right hand was conveyed from the father's to the groom's. The phrase "to have and to hold from this day forward" is language from property transactions. Deeds and some of the mess of papers you sign at a property closing have phrases like that.

Coincidentally, after I read the early messages in this thread, I saw an item about a woman who had sexual relations with twin brothers over the same time period. (Not at the same time. Supposedly neither brother knew what the other was up to. They were both her type, apparently.) She then became pregnant. The court has to decide which one is the father. Of course DNA tests come back positive for them both, so they are no help. As for our theoretical half-brother-cousins, they would on average be no more genetically alike than the sons of any other twin brothers by each of their wives. They each get a different mix from half the chromosomes from each father, besides the contribution of the other half from the moms. IOW, they do not receive identical genetic material from their fathers. The pairs of chromosomes split, almost certainly in different ways before they are passed on to the sons. Let's suppose for the moment that the men have the rare blood type AB and the boys' mothers have coincidentally the very common type 0. Each boy has a 50% chance of being type A and a 50% chance of being type B. The O they each get from their mothers is recessive, and so of no consequence in this case.