captainrick

Hi Kurtie, Don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for but: the theme song from the feminist movement in the 70's was Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" http://www.lyricsdepot.com/helen-reddy/i-am-woman.html Dr. Martin Luther King's theme song from the Civil Rights era was often considered to be "We shall Overcome" http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/We-...8256AF3003CD7BC se this link too. It's better. http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/americ...l.overcome.html don't know if that's what you're looking for, but it's the first thing that popped in my head. Rick

Happy Birthday! hugs, Rick

[sniffs, blows nose, dries tears] Dom, We'll miss you sooo much. James is right, you have such a talent. You could easily do this professionally and I hope you at least consider that at some point. You said something about your LAST story. Dom, please, you are VERY young. Please don't quit telling stories or even think about it. Not yet. Your work gives so much pleasure and entertainment to so many, and inspiration to write to others like me. Take a break, step back and think about it. Even the greatest of writers take sabaticals. It is a good thing to clear the head, especially if the personal problems seem overwhelming. This could also be why the writing seems like a chore. Please promise to think about it anyway. We all love you and support you! Rick

Myr, I want to add my name to those who find this site therapeutic in a sense. Before I found this site, I would never have attempted to write a story even though it's something I've been wanting to do for years. The great authors and storytellers here inspired me to give it a shot. Dom, Vance, Com, all of the great stories gave me the shove I needed. Writing has been absolutely therapeutic for me. It has helped me face a lot of issues in my own life. GA and the support staff, and members have been nothing but encouraging! The biggest shock is that some people seem to enjoy reading what I've written, and that gives me even more immense pleasure than I could ever have imagined. Myr, without this site, none of that would have been possible. This site gives much joy and happiness to the vast majority here. You ask is it worth it? If you make a difference, a major difference, in just one life, is it worth it? If you bring one scared teen out of life-threatening depression or help him or her deal with their sexuality in a healthy and supportive environment, is it worth it? I think anyone with half a brain would scream YES! No silly emoticons, no false feelings, just sincere gratitude. Keep up the fight Myr. I assure you it's worth it. You and this site ARE making a difference in the lives of so many. Thank you is simply not enough. Many many sincere hugs from a grateful member Rick D.

Her blog is gone to, but her member profile page is still there. It can be read there. After a recent brief PM exchange I had with her, I can't say I'm surprised. Too Bad. I was enjoying "Are You Christian?" Rick

I don't know whether to be "honored" for makeing CJ's list or not. hmmm. Postaholic? Little ole me? Naah. Just becuz I saved up my 100th post for a chapter announcement, nah . Just because I'm sitting here writing this, ????!!! Well, uh, Probably Great, when I first joined this site, I was a Domaholic. Now I'm a Postaholic, --Quick, call in the GA shrinks! :wacko: :wacko: There's something in here causing mass hysteria and mental illness. Whatever it is, I suspect it's caused by goats.

Hey, what the hell does an Echidna know about time anyway? Really, an egg-laying mammal with spines that sucks bugs outta rotted logs. Sounds like a biology experiment that went horribly wrong. I loved this Chapter!!! Best yet! BUT . . . How dare you leave me in such a cliffhanger. You're evil! I would never do such a thing I hope they beat the crap outta Eric WHEN they catch him! This kid needs to be taught a serious lesson. Oh, and I believe this is post no. 98. Didn't I say I was saving #100 for something? Hugs, Y'all Rick PS, you may wanna go back and change the topic thingy on the thread to mention Chapt 5!

Aaaarrhhh! I takes exception to the pirate crack matey! As for goats, being from rural Mississippi, I have had some experience with those -- Platonic, of course, and find them relatively docile creatures, but not known to be shy. As for echidnas, never having even seen one, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on being different, but aren't we all, thank God. 95 -- does this mean a chapter post is coming soon?

Actually, I hear the malady is transmitted by goats. I believe this is 94.

Damn! I think I started a friendly war. Oh well, as wars go, this is fun! The purpose of this post, umm, well, absolutely none other than I'm getting close to 100 and I want that one to be a chapter announcement. Hugs all, Rick

AHA! I knew there had to be a culprit!

Where did everybody go? There were maybe a dozen posts yesterday, and most were mine, Graeme, or that notorious lurker CJames. C'mon, Guys, POST! Dom posted a chapter and there were only 3 comments in his forum this morning including mine. What the hell??? Hugs everyone, and have a great day! Rick

Dom, I'm so sorry you had such a miserable Thanksgiving. These things are tough. I wish I had some pearls of wisdom, here, but I don't. The one thing I would suggest is to try to talk to your Dad. You are such a gifted writer, maybe a special letter or card would be in order. I lost my Dad a number of years ago to cancer. Now there's so much I would have liked to have said. Anyway, these things only fester when communication breaks down. I understand you may not be able to communicate with the your stepmother, but she is his wife. It's absolutely evil of her to make him choose between time with his children and time with her, but it sounds like that's what she's doing to him. Maybe someone should point that out to him. (HINT HINT) Family is a special thing to have. I'm an only child and have now lost my mom and dad. It's lonely out here. On the other side of this, I'm beginning to see how you have so much drama in your stories. They're a reflection of the drama in your real world. I kinda like the Jerry Springer idea, too. Maybe in the meantime, you just need a distraction to get your mind off of all these issues. I KNOW! How about posting a chapter of TOSOM or WT? Yeah, that's the ticket. A distraction that would just thrill all us starving Domaholics! We're going through miserable withdrawal. Seriously though, However you deal with this problem, I wish you the best of luck. Rick

I was laughing my ass off half the time, gloating for these two the rest. I absolutely loved it!! The dad's response was great. Very real. You made this whole improbable scenario come together with the explanation to the rents. It worked! Rick

Count me in too!! BTW, isn't this why we copyright this stuff? I may know a certain member here who may be a decent lawyer in his other life. "Hint Hint" :2hands: :2hands: Rick

See my first post in this string, edited today. Great news. A fifth country has recognized Gay marriage on a national basis. Rick

drum roll please . . . ta dum ta dum ta dum ta dum . . . . . Never before published.. super super super secret. Straight from the backwoods of Mississippi, my grandmother's super secret southern pecan pie recipe guaranteed to be authentic and with enough sugar and cholesterol to clog the healthiest arteries. 1. get 5 medium to large eggs. let them warm to room temperature but don't let them spoil ! 2. crack the eggs into medium or large mixing bowl and beat with wooden spoon or egg whisk thoroughly for several minutes. DO NOT USE ELECTRIC BEATER/MIXER 3. add 2/3 cup sugar 4. add 2/3 cup light karo 5. mix thoroughly (do NOT use electric mixer) 6. add 1 generous teaspoon vanilla 7. add a pinch of salt. a pinch is just that. maybe 1/4 to 1/3 tsp. 8. mix thoroughly again with spoon or whisk 9. stir in one cup of CHOPPED pecans. Don't mix, just stir. 10. Pour into prepared pie crust. (the frozen variety one finds in the grocery is fine, but thaw first and perforate the bottom of the crust several times with a fork. Don't ask, just do it.* 11. Bake in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for ten minutes then reduce the temp to 350 for thirty-five minutes. (If your oven is really large or "slow" you may need to add five minutes.) 12. It's done. take it out, let it cool. ENJOY! (That wasn't so hard was it?) HAPPY THANKSGIVING! hugs Rick *for those of you concerned about excessive calories, you may want to run the mixture through Ron Popeil's patented calorie extractor. Available through Ronco for 4 easy payments of only $19.95.

Thanks, Colin, and guys, This type of discourse is exactly what I was talking about. :2hands: Maybe, just maybe, there are those out there who are finally listening to reason and science and not the repeated dogma that so pervades the message of "the religious right." Maybe "tolerance" is finally becoming "acceptance". Maybe it's left over optimism after the elections a couple of weeks ago. Maybe, just maybe, it's becoming "fashionable" or "Politically correct" to accept gays as we accept other minorities. Whatever it is, maybe the momemtum has begun. Of course racism and bigotry and homophobia will unfortunately always be with us, but a basic understanding and acceptance of the biology over choice argument is a necessary first step in global acceptance of homosexuality. These are exciting times and they are our times, and will be what we make of them. (Ooops my pragmatism is showing!) Thanks again guys. Rick

I just got a chance to read chapt. 3. I have to admit, I was having some serious problems with credibility (Graeme's comments earlier in the thread) with story. When I was that age, I don't think I would have given the little shit all my savings no matter how much I liked the guy, especially if I was convinced he was straight and knew I didn't have a chance in hell of getting in his pants. But then again, I'm sure there are several elements in my own stuff that stretches the imagination to the point of invisibility too. The fact that Steve had been paying the little creep thousands$ too, was just too ... funny aint the word, weird? f--ked up? I don't know, just a little too something. Anyhow, I enjoyed Chapt 3 mainly cause I like the revenge thing. Payback's just hell ain't it. Keep on posting, I'll keep on reading! Rick

When I posted the original thread, I wanted to start some debate on the hypocricy of the so called "Christian" churches that control the neo-con dogma that pervades the anti-gay movement. (Yeah, I know we're not s'posed to discuss politics here and I'm walking a damn fine line. but...) this is the closest thing to an olive branch that I've seen in a very long time. These are exciting times and evidence of change that some of us only dreamed of just a few years ago. BTW, would someone mind posting some comment on my last chapter in the efiction story discussion forum. I don't care if you absolutely hate the last chapter, I'm starving for feedback! Rick

I actually had to read this twice to make sure it wasn't some kind of bad joke. http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20061120/...sitscredibility hugs, I've edited this post today, Friday 11/24/06 to add the following: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5120100583.html S. Africa's Top Court Blesses Gay Marriage Parliament Given One Year to Amend Law By Craig Timberg Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 2, 2005; A16 JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 1 -- South Africa's highest court on Thursday recognized the marriage of two Pretoria women and gave Parliament a year to extend legal marital rights to all same-sex couples. The ruling, greeted with jubilation by gay men and lesbians but with frustration by some church leaders, will make South Africa the first country to allow marriages between gay people on a continent where homosexual activity is widely condemned and often outlawed. Only four countries in the world -- the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada -- currently allow same-sex marriages nationwide. Several others, mostly in Europe, recognize civil unions between gay partners. "I'm ecstatic," said Marie Fourie, 54, speaking by phone from Pretoria after the ruling by South Africa's Constitutional Court. "It is wonderful for the gay society." Fourie married Cecelia Bonthuys, 44, on Dec. 11, 2004, a decade after they began living together and several weeks after they won the right to wed from the nation's second-highest court. But after the ceremony, officials in the government's Department of Home Affairs refused to recognize their union and appealed the decision to the Constitutional Court, the nation's highest. That appeal resulted in Thursday's 111-page opinion giving the government a year to begin treating such unions in the same way as those between men and women. Fourie predicted the change would lead to declines in what many gay leaders said was persistent discrimination, while also giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, such as the right to open joint bank accounts and visit each other as family members in hospitals. "There's always remarks," said Fourie, who recalled often being addressed by a slur in the Afrikaans language for gay men and lesbians. "You learn to live with it. But after today, I think they will swallow all that." The court's judges unanimously agreed that South Africa's 1996 constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, guarantees the right of gay men and lesbians to marry. One justice, in a limited dissent, argued that the law should be overturned immediately rather than within a year. That delay upset some activists, but both supporters and opponents of the ruling agreed there would be no way for Parliament to avoid approving the required amendments to the law. "We have to accept that," said Efrem Tresoldi, a spokesman for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, speaking from Pretoria. He added that the church would continue to lobby against same-sex marriages on moral grounds. "The church respects that people have certain sexual orientations, but we will never accept speaking in the same breath of same-sex unions and heterosexual marriage," Tresoldi said. Word of the ruling raced through the nation's tight-knit community of gay rights activists, who saw the case as crucial to curbing discrimination. One serious abuse, they said, is the rape of lesbians and even some gay men in a misguided effort to change their sexual orientation. "It's really, really difficult to be black and a lesbian in South Africa," said Thuli Madi, director of Behind the Mask, a Web-based magazine focused on gay life and issues. "As a woman, you are constantly harassed by the males in your community." Elsewhere in Africa, attitudes are even more harsh. Gay and lesbian sex is illegal on most of the continent, with the death penalty a possibility in some cases. Many religious and political leaders call homosexuality un-African. In Nigeria, opposition to same-sex marriage is so passionate that Anglican leaders have broken off relations with their counterparts in Canada over the issue. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said last year that homosexuality was "unbiblical, unnatural and definitely un-African." On Thursday, some South African religious leaders criticized the ruling, but reaction was generally muted. The South African Council of Churches said it provoked such diverse reactions that the body was unlikely to have a unified position. Ray McCauley, a well-known pastor, said he believed most South Africans did not agree with the decision. "It is a sad day for South Africa when the very bedrock foundation of society, the family, is redefined by a court," McCauley said, according to the South African Press Association. "This ruling totally undermines marriage as we know it and the cherished formation of healthy, loving families." No law in South Africa has prohibited gay men and lesbians from holding weddings and living as spouses. Many have signed contractual agreements stipulating joint ownership of property or distribution of assets after death. But they still run into barriers when seeking to open joint checking accounts or visit each other in hospitals. More broadly, activists said, the prohibition against marriage made them second-class citizens. "I'm not really sure I want to get married," said Glenn de Swardt of the Triangle Project, a gay and lesbian rights group in Cape Town, speaking by phone. "We want it because it will give us an equal opportunity. Whether I want to access that choice is a different thing." The romance between Fourie, a carpet cleaner, and Bonthuys, a nurse, began after the two neighbors each discovered the other was a lesbian, Fourie said. They bought a house together and lived as a couple, deciding to have a wedding only after the first ruling, in November 2004. They exchanged vows in the church of Andre Muller, a gay pastor driven from the Dutch Reformed Church. "In the past, gay people have always been ridiculed, belittled," Muller said from Pretoria. "Now that this ruling has come, they are on an equal footing. Justice has been done."

The vid is working! I just registered again using my alternate email address and it let me vote again. The voting is a little complicated. You have to check the little box or circle under the vid, then press submit before it registers. But I did get my two votes in. Thanks for helping. Looks like a good cause. Rick

I saw this link on another site. Click on "We Belong" It's a video produced by a gay high school kid who . . . well, watch the video. Gutsy kid. Reminds me of our own Razor. Register and vote for this kid's vid. He only needs a hundred or so votes to put him on top. here's the link to the vid http://www.current.tv/make/vc2/sot;jsessio...2A6CBBC9CFA92EF hugs, Rick