This is the second in a series of posts by Change.org writers, reflecting on the bullying or harassment they experienced growing up, by compiling a top ten list of the things in life that got better once they made it out of some rather homophobic settings. Check out the original piece in this series here, and if you have your own list, please feel free to include it in the comments.
1. College: Nothing in the world beats suffocating parents and intolerant high school mates than a good dose of college freedom. It’s miraculous how in a matter of literally minutes you can go from total dependence to utter freedom. You can shed everything that you don’t like about your life when you walk through that campus entrance and create a safe, like-minded environment with friends, potential lovers, and even classes that suit your little gay heart. College is the ultimate equalizer and if you can only hang on until then, things can instantaneously get better the moment you lay those extra long twin fitted sheets on your dormitory bed. (Not to mention that in college, I got laid a lot and had the best time of my life).
2. Graduate school: I know, sounds like a dorky second choice, but for me, graduate school was the most enriching experience of my life. This was a time in my life when I pushed my brain (and my time management skills) to the max. I also made lifelong friends with some pretty amazing artists and anarchists and intellectuals. I made connections that would help me in my career in media and that I still hold on to and value today. Plus, I got to attend the high-brow, snooty academic cocktail parties, where I sipped red wine and talked about the state of society and how dreadfully wrong everything and everyone was. Plus, those parties always had awesome cheese spreads.
3. Love: I Loved. And I lost. And I loved again, and lost again. But what did that famous, insightful writer once say, “Better to have had your heart ripped out of your chest and stamped on with a stiletto than never to have had that sloppy make-out session in the bathroom of the gay bar at all.” I paraphrase, but I would not for a second trade all of the loving and losing I experienced since high school. Sure, the relationships I’ve been in weren’t all perfect — hell, none of them were — but they were all worth it.
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Stewie the beagle spent the last three years of his life in a cage at Professional Laboratory and Research Services, one of nearly 200 dogs and 54 cats who were the subjects of toxicity testing, abuse and neglect. An undercover PETA investigation revealed that the PLRS staff held a malicious hatred toward their wards — screaming at the terrified animals, manhandling the cats, blasting the dogs with pressure hoses, bleaching kennels with animals still in them, and exposing them to unnecessary, painful procedures.
When the cruelty was exposed, PLRS shut their doors and turned over all the animals. The Animal Welfare Institute and the Humane Society of the United States were able to find more than a dozen shelters and rescues in the area to take in the animals, rehabilitate them and find them homes. One of those shelters was the Guilford County Animal Shelter in Greensboro, North Carolina, which ended up with 15 beagles and 4 cats from the lab.
And now, Stewie is the first of Guilford’s research rescues to graduate to a new life in his own home.
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Can’t you see that picture?
Are you proud of your people ?
We aren’t they are discusting murderous evil barbarians!
How can you condone this?
If you were there would you stop the men as they raised their weapons?
How can you let?them bring those?hooks ect?swishing down to rip through those innocent creatures?
Can you not see the evil in their eyes, the enjoyment?
What dont you understand?
It is wrong and everyone knows it!
Shame on your?country!
I would like to say how much distress finding this information and writing it has caused me, and would therefore greatly appreciate it if you could read this and take my plea seriously.
This will be sent to the governments of:
Japan
Faroe Islands
Solomons Islands
And peru
We the undersigned?Want To Stop all drive Hunts!
For all species of Dolphin and Whales.
In Japan,The Solomon Islands, The Faroe Islands.
And we want the law More enforced in Peru.
We are aware that a more humane killing method has been introduced in Japan but this is not good enough!
There is no compromise with life and death!
We want a law where there is no loop holes, we want no Dolphin or whale killed anywhere.
Please read below to see for yourselves why this needs to be stopped, its vicious, if those men are capable of these vicious murderous hunts, then they are murderers just like human murderers! Do you want them walking the streets, i dont want to be on the same planet never mind the same street!
The hunting is done by a select group of fisherman. When a pod of dolphins has been spotted, they are driven into a bay by the fisherman by banging metal rods or stones in the water to scare and confuse the dolphins. When the dolphins are in the bay, it is quickly closed off with nets so that the dolphins can’t escape.?The dolphins are usually not caught and killed immediately, but instead left to calm over night. The following day, the dolphins are caught one by one and killed. Those that have remained too far in the water are dragged onto the beach by driving a steel hook into the blubber of the animal, though they are more often dragged by putting a hook in?their blowhole. When on land, they are killed by cutting down to the major arteries and spinal cord at the neck.?The time it takes for the dolphins to die varies from a few seconds to a few minutes usually, depending on the cut. Though many fisherman stab the dolphins to death with spears in shallow waters. The killing of the animals used to be done by slitting their throats, but the Japanese government banned this method and now dolphins?can only be killed? by driving a metal pin into the neck of the dolphin, which causes them to die within seconds, it is questionable whether this law is being enforced, because many times, since the ban,?have been reported when they where still using the slitting of the throat methods. Also you cannot go to see whether they are abiding by the laws, because it is now common for the final slaughter to take place inside a tent or under a plastic cover, out of sight from the public
DOESN’T THAT TELL YOU IT IS WRONG? THEY EVEN KNOW IT IS WRONG!!
?They are even hiding what they are doing because they even know it is wrong!!
In Peru, even though it is illegal they catch the dolphins, then they are driven together with boats, and encircled with nets, then they are harpooned, dragged to the boat, and then clubbed to death if they are still alive.
DOESN’T THAT TELL YOU IT IS WRONG? OTHER PLACES HAVE BANNED IT!
Different countries kill different species:
In Japan, Striped, Spotted,Rrisso’s and Bottlenose Dolphins are most commonly hunted, but several other species such as the Falsekiller whale are also occasionally caught. A small number of Orcas( Killer Whale)?are murdered too.
Solomon Islands murder Spotted and Spinner Dolphins.
The capture and trade of wild Doplhins is prohibited in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands!
DOESN’T THAT TELL YOU IT WRONG??
On the Faroe Islands mainly Pilot whales are killed by drive hunts. Though officially this is the only species hunted, other species are also slaughtered on rare occasions such as the Northern Bottlenose whale and Atlantic White-sided Dolphins.
Thank you for your time
Jade Owen
Stop All Drive Hunts! (Whales and Dolphins)
Soldiers in Iraq are packing up their rucksacks, turning in their Kevlar and helmets, cleaning their guns, and piling into C-130 aircraft to fly home. On the long flight home many of the soldiers will pass the time on the flight talking about all the things they are going to do when they get home. Some will get married, many will start a family, go back to school, lay on the beach. Soldiers will salivate talking about grilling a steak with corn on the cob and washing it down with an ice-cold beer. There will be as many “when I get back home plans” as there are soldiers.
Some of the soldiers will be returning to their childhood bedrooms at their parents’ house, and the high-school memorabilia will still be on the walls because these young soldiers went straight from high school to boot camp. The older reservists and National Guard will go back to their “regular jobs” as accountants, mechanics, waitresses, doctors, and stay-at home moms.
All of the soldiers both young and old will be reflecting on what they saw during their deployment in Iraq, including many of the soldiers with multi deployments in the seven and half year war.
They will be thinking about the 4, 416 soldiers that have died in Iraq. Maybe one of the dead was a bunkmate, or a brother. They will think about the 31,882 injured. They will think about their comrade that lost their leg, their arm and their face. They will think about the soldier that lost their eyesight, or hearing, or the many soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.
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