SoCo and WaMu? WhaTheHe!

Giving yourself a hip nickname and hoping it catches on strikes me as a desperate act. What would you think if I went around calling myself Flash or El Guapo? When people started calling Ben Affleck BenLo and Bennifer, it was cute. If he had started calling himself BenLo, that would have been sort of sad.

These things are supposed happen organically. Only after "FedEx" had become a common verb did Federal Express change its name. Sure, KFC was eager to drop "fried" from its name, but everyone called it that by the time they changed their logo. Target has enough dignity not to play along with the French pronunciation (Tar-zhay) despite its popular usage.

So I reject Southern Comfort's attempt to re-brand itself as SoCo. I suppose they think drunks are struggling with the two extra syllables and they are losing market share to Jim Beam. Or maybe they're trying to make inroads in Yankee states. Did they even stop to check what soco means in Portuguese? (I did. It means punch as in blow, jab).

Their new ad must have aired six times during last week's SNL re-run. Ah, there's another one. We all call it SNL, but NBC generally uses the full name. Can you imagine? "L, from New York, it's SN!"

Even more hokey, Washington Mutual Bank now wants us to call it WaMu. Its new headquarters in Seattle is called the WaMu Center. As hip and now as WaMu might sound (see San Francisco's SoMa and New York City's SoHo), I'm not moving my accounts there.
I'll stick with BofA. And that's not "Bee of Aye" like most people call Bank of America. I pronounce it "BOE-FA." And if that catches on, I won't even mind if the bank starts using it too.

Newsflash: Live-in Nanny Was a Man

The Today Show covered a story yesterday about a kidnapping in Tennessee. Erika Sadowski was arrested on Saturday after she was found with the two children, 15 hours after they were reported missing. Sadowski has lived with the family for the last five years, caring for the children.

About 800,000 children are reported missing in the United States every year. So why would The Today Show find this so newsworthy? The story is not newsworthy, but it is sensational. Ms. Sadowski, it turns out, is biologically male, but has lived as a woman for the past 20 years, which was news to the children's mother.

Like their staple scare stories about the next epidemic or unsafe cars, NBC seemed to be sending out a public service warning that she-males may be walking among us where we least suspect it. Watch out!

Unfortunately, making fun of transgender people is still fair game on network news, Felicity Huffman's Transamerica notwithstanding. The report likened Sadowski to Mrs. Doubtfire, showing clips from the 1993 comedy which has Robin Williams dressing in drag to land a nanny job caring for his own children. The local sheriff quipped, "Let's just say Robin Williams had a much better makeup artist."

The look on Katie Couric's face after the story finished seemed to say, "Screw this garbage. CBS Evening News, here I come." I may be giving her too much credit, but I just want to believe that she was disgusted at the insensitivity of the story.

The Knoxville NBC station seems to have zero understanding of transgender issues. "Edward Sadowski was arrested in Dyersburg over the weekend and was listed as Erika Sadowski at the time," the station reports, even though Sadowski legally changed her name to Erika 20 years ago. There's no evidence that Sadowski was out to deceive anyone or that she lived as a woman just to get a babysitting job. She's a transsexual, not a transvestite.

The Associated Press apparently has yet to distribute its new edition of the AP Stylebook to its own journalists. The 2006 edition has this new entry:

transgender Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If there preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

Yet the AP story published in the Knoxville News Sentinel included this: "Sadowski apparently changed his name sometime around 1986 after being discharged from the U.S. Air Force after a 20-year career, according to a background check."

When someone is arrested for a heinous crime or discovered doing something stupid, few people rush to defend them against ridicule. There are a lot of idiots who are playing for my team that I would just as soon trade to other side. I could do without any association with conservative White House "reporter" and gay prostitute Jeff Gannon. Matt Lauer would have had to call him a limp-wristed sissy to get a rise from the gay community. Serial killers like Andrew Cunanan and "Monster" Aileen Wuornos did nothing to advance gay and lesbian acceptance. Maybe this is why I have yet to find any response to the Sadowski story from the transgender community.

Without defending the alleged crime, why is it so scandalous that Sadowski was not born a woman? The implication seems to be twofold: that transsexuals are unfit to care for children and that transsexuals are obligated to disclose their gender history lest they be deemed deceitful.

It's too bad so few people will ever see Transamerica. In it, Felicity Huffman's character, Bree, makes the point that, "Just because a person doesn't go around blabbing her entire biological history doesn't make her a liar." Throughout the film, we understand that Bree is just trying to live her life with dignity and authenticity.

Though it's none of anyone's business, Sadowski apparently has not undergone sexual reassignment surgery, though through hormone therapy, she has some feminine characteristics. Prison guards discovered this during a strip search. Given that she's been working as a nanny, I would conclude that she has never had the money to complete a gender reassignment surgery.

Nevertheless, she clearly identifies as a woman. The media should respect how she identifies her gender and leave the sensationalism to Jerry Springer. NBC owes the transgender community an apology.

Denial denied

It's over. I can't fake it any longer. I'm amazed that I've been able to keep myself in the dark as long as I have. My ability to deny the obvious was stunning. The facts were right there blaring their ugly truth right at me.

Here's the ugly truth: my favorite burrito at ¡Una Más!, the Gallito, is killing me softly. Focusing on the tasty grilled chicken breast and the fresh tomato salsa, I had convinced myself that this little piece of heaven was an acceptable part of a healthy diet. Never mind the huge flour tortilla, the handful of jack cheese and the half-cup of guacamole.

Hey, it's not McDonalds or Taco Bell. Now that's junk food, I reasoned. There's no drive thru at ¡Una Más! No plastic toys to lure children. No meal deals or super-sizes. I perceive ¡Una Más! as wholesome, fresh, quasi-Mexican food.

The thing is I've been going down to my local ¡Una Más! Mexican Grill about once a week before heading to the gym where, as it turns out, I'm only burning enough calories to cover the first three bites of my precious Gallito.

After looking at the nutritional information, I found out that all this time I'd have been better off skipping the gym entirely and grabbing an 8-piece Chicken Tender from the BK.

As it turns out, if I'd chosen TWO cheeseburgers from In-N-Out Burgers, I'd still consume fewer calories. I could have the six-piece boneless spicy chicken wings from KFC and have fewer grams of fat.

990 calories.

Just under 1000, as if the restaurant cut ten calories in an attempt to enable my denial even further. No, the party is over. My Gallito is packing 60 grams of fat! More than the huge Costco muffins I've been avoiding for years. More than three slices of the Pizza Hut Meat Lovers pizza.

I know--everthing in moderation. But, the only way my Gallito can fit into a balance diet is if I take up marathon running or bulimia. That ain't going to happen.

Adios, dear, dear Gallito. I'll miss you.

More Abu Ghraib Atrocities Revealed

Yesterday, Salon.com posted the most complete yet of photos and videos documenting abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Along with the now-familiar images are dozens of newly released ones taken over just a few weeks in 2003, illustrating just how sadistic conditions were. Salon.com concludes that the only thing unique about this collection may be that a trail of photographic evidence exists.

After they followed the trail of an odd liquid seeping under the locked door of a shower room, Corporal Charles Graner and Spc. Sabrina Harman found recently deceased Iraqi detainee, Manadel al-Jamadi, who died during a CIA interrogation hours before. Forget claims that these photos were used to intimidate other prisoners--these sick puppies snapped 30 photos of the dead guy on ice.

Their weirdness tends to obscure the disturbing questions about the prisoner's death. In the morning, the CIA stuck an IV in the corpse and wheeled him out to avoid calling the attention of Iraqi detainees and guards. As Salon.com reports, no one at the CIA has been prosecuted, even though al-Jamadi's death was ruled a homicide. Furthermore, to date no high-level U.S. officials have been brought to justice in a court of law for what went on at Abu Ghraib.

Just three days after her necrophilial photo session, Spc. Harman was forcing naked prisoners to form human pyramids. She only got a six month prison sentence while the infamous Pfc. Lynndie England got three years for her thumbs-up antics.

Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice praised the budding democracy of Indonesia on Tuesday for its new commitment to human rights and stated, "Great democracies, like Indonesia and like the United States, cannot turn a blind eye to those who still live under oppression." I wonder how that talking point plays in Darfur and Chad these days given our country's tepid response to the genocide there.

The U.S. has a long way to go before regaining the moral authority to point out the human rights abuses of others. With an administration that refuses to rule out torture, that long journey isn't likely to begin any time soon.

Da Vinci Code: Truth or Fiction?

If you're confused, just ask the Catholic League.

On Monday, the arch-conservative Catholic League, placed an ad in the New York Times, urging Ron Howard to put a disclaimer at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code noting that the movie is a fictional account. As a reward, the organization's far-right president, William A. Donohue got to appear on the Today Show on Wednesday.

After Donohue appeared on the Today Show last November and claimed that the Catholic Church's pedophilia problem could be resolved by routing out all the gay priests, I was surprised he'd get another invitation. I would have thought Mr. Donohue would be relegated to Fox News and The 700 Club where inflammatory, malicious rhetoric has found a cozy home.

For the movie's producers, the Times ad is nothing less than great publicity. Hell, Sony Pictures might just slap a "Coming This May" banner on top and run the ad a few more times themselves. Keep talking, Mr. Donohue, and we might be looking at a record opening weekend.

I read The Da Vinci Code just recently. I found it fascinating that there were many more than four gospels, more than four accounts of the life of Jesus. Mortal human beings ultimately decided which ones would make it into the New Testament. The novel says that some of those gospels portrayed Jesus as a wise, noble, but mortal man.

I don't know how much of Dan Brown's story is true--the fictional narrative is interspersed with some measure of historic truth--but it did inspire me to learn more about the historical Jesus and the early Church, beyond what has ended up in the Bible. Alas, the juicy proposition that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a thing going on doesn't seem to hold water.

Donohue's gripe is that fable is mixed in with story lines that could be confused as fact. I understand his concern. Donohue is correct that "the consequences are real" when people are led to believe that a fable is incontrovertible fact. Indeed, graveyards around the world are filled with the fallen victims of zealotry rooted in fable. It follows that Donohue would agree that the Book of Genesis warrants a similar disclaimer, knowing all we know now.

The missing disclaimer may be why a majority of Americans believe that "God created man exactly how the Bible describes it" according to a Gallup report released Wednesday. How this majority explains away dinosaurs, carbon dating and fossil records is beyond me. Evolution needs its own set of evangelists. But those of us in the minority have better things to do with our time than to argue with people who start and end every philosophical argument with "I believe it because the Bible says it's so."

The pollster concludes that "several characteristics correlate with belief in the biblical explanation for the origin of humans. Those with lower levels of education, those who attend church regularly, those who are 65 and older, and those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to believe that God created humans 'as is,' than are those who do not share these characteristics."

I have no doubt that humans have evolved, but it looks like the process has come to an abrupt halt.