Anderson Cooper announces he is gay:
The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.
I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don’t give that up by being a journalist.
Steaming sack of shit with a red neckbeard and Media Research Center decency nanny and wingnut welfare recipient Brent Bozell reacts:
Stay classy, Republican scum.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
This is who they are. Bozell is yet another example.
Mark S.
Wow, that was really scummy.
SiubhanDuinne
You’re being very cruel to actual steaming sacks of shit.
SatanicPanic
Nothing says public decency like bringing up niche sex acts.
Maude
Does Bozell have emotional problems?
Scott S.
It would be appropriate if Bozell’s tweet got him barred from TV interviews, don’t you think?
jl
This means we can call the teabaggers by the original name they themselves adopted, which is teabaggers, and not be uncivil?
Yes it does.
I am relieved, because I knew going in that teaparty implied they were high on weed. I didn’t know what teabagger meant until the teabaggers went ballistic and my innocent pure mind became evilly curious that I had maybe missed something.
And good on Cooper.
Edit: But wait, first Roberts, then Krohn, now Cooper, giving libs some good cred. Deep waters, very deep indeed.
aimai
Wow! Do people like Bozell think that if it happens on Twitter its not vulgar? These are people who clutched their pearls and fell into a faint, supposedly, when they discovered that M4M was not the most appropriate slogan for “Millions for Marriage” and specifically when “Teabaggers” turned out to be an equally unfelicitious choice. Now all of a sudden he’s tweeting the concept all over town? These people really are pathetic.
aimai
Mnemosyne
This is probably the least surprising coming out since Nathan Lane’s. But I’m not surprised an attention whore like Bozell would take the opportunity to desperately try to draw the spotlight to himself. Bozell just can’t stand knowing he’s irrelevant, can he?
Female on the Beach
well, this is a surprise to no one but me, apparently!
beltane
Brent Bozell is too stupid to be a steaming sack of shit. His little comment is something that only a socially maladjusted 12 year old could find funny.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Sounds to me like Brent needs to find a less destructive way to process his latent fantasies.
gbear
Would it be safe to assume that half of Bozell’s followers are going ‘I don’t get it’?
JenJen
Even for uber-scum Brent Bozzell, that was extraordinarily dickish. And revealing!! He seems to fantasize more about the machinations of gay sex than the average male.
Tractarian
@SatanicPanic: This.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I can’t be the only one who thought, “Brent who?”
(See? So obscure I messed his name up.)
Omega Paladin
F*ck you guys. Cooper started the insults with his own “teabagging” crack against Tea Partiers on CNN (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/anderson-cooper-its-hard_n_187318.html). Have you forgotten already? Or is it hilarious when Anderson Cooper calls us tea baggers, but gosh awful when Bozell jokes back?
scav
Yeah, well, it’s that whole “So long as we don’t acknowledge reality is, well, happening, it isn’t really happening” schtick. See also SC and sea-levels.
andy
Brent Bozell- classy as fuck, always has been, always will be.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Omega Paladin:
Yes, and yes.
Mnemosyne
@Omega Paladin:
Dude, if you’re going to call yourselves “teabaggers” without bothering to look it up in the Urban Dictionary first, you deal with the consequences.
andy
@beltane: And you can be sure every troll shitting up newspaper comment threads across the country will be repeating tomorrow too.
JenJen
@Omega Paladin: You called yourselves teabaggers. Historic fact.
gbear
@Omega Paladin: All in all, it’s just gosh awful to be a teabagger. Seek professional help.
LAC
Ok to call him a chinless fuck or is that something that could upset chinless folks?
jl
@JenJen:
I agree. Weird, classless and nasty comment by Bozell.
Most of the reactionary zealots are revealing that they have some serious psychological ‘issues’. I am not savvy enuogh to figure out what those issues are exactly, but they are definitely there.
Yutsano
@Omega Paladin: Methinks the Paladin doth protest too much.
Raven
@Yutsano: No shit, I still don’t know who the fuck Sully is! (don’t bother telling me cuz don’t give a fuck)
Brian R.
I’d be mean to Brent Bozell, but God already beat me to it. That dumb fuck looks like Dr. Zaius from “Planet of the Apes,” if Dr. Zaius had been the offspring of two retarded orangutang cousins who mated.
Hill Dweller
Isn’t Bozell the guy that compared President Obama to a crackhead?
Nylund
Bill Maher really was right about what it means to be a conservative:
Step 1: Be a dick
Step 2: There is no step 2
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Bwahahaha. OP walked right into that one.
Great Odin's Raven
Wouldn’t expect anything less from the nephew of that bigoted hack William F. Buckley.
Anoniminous
New word:
Bozell n, an uncouth boor
v to do or exhibit such in a public space such as Twitter
Examples:
Sheesh but that dude is a real bozell. (n)
He was kicked off the site after a spate of bozelling. (v)
Warren Terra
I’m confused: is it “not news” that:
1) Anderson Cooper turns out to be Gay, like people surmised.
2) Anderson Cooper turns out to be Gay: his professional life isn’t very interesting, and no-one should care about his personal life.
3) Brent Bozell turns out to be a raging asshole.
None of these seem really to be worth talking about, and I’m not sure to which your title referred.
JenJen
@LAC: I prefer calling Bozell “Labored Neck Fat” to “Chinless Fuck” but either will do.
shortstop
This is like when my cousin came out. I’d thought he was out. I thought Cooper had always been out.
LAC
@Omega Paladin: And fuck you right back with a rusty herpes invested pitchfork, you dumbass teabaggin’ bitch. Please take your precious fee-fees somewhere else. Bozell’s ass sounds like a good place.
eric
One more gay shoving it down our throats….
Graham / Lieberman 2016
SatanicPanic
@Omega Paladin: Dude if you think it’s a good idea for Brent Bozell to repeat every name the left calls the right, I’m sure we can supply him with some more material.
scav
It’s also just a wee bit funny that the tea they put in the bags is usually the really shit cheap stuff, the broken leaves, mixed up with dust, et cetera. If one wants good tea, whole loose leaf rather than pre-packaged junk, way to go. Consider the deeper philosophical message in that . . but that would be cruel now, wouldn’t it?
smith
@Omega Paladin:
You (and others) chose to call yourself a “teabagger”. The word teabagger has been a synonym for a sex act for a long-ass time. It’s not our fault you people are too stupid to do a basic Internet search. Deal with the consequences crybaby.
quannlace
And has the usual Fox guests gift for predicting the political future:
“Whitewash: How The News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton’s Path to the Presidency “
pseudonymous in nc
Can Bozo tell us what it’s like spending all day in the shit mines? He does look a lot like a shit-mining dwarf.
NonyNony
@Anoniminous:
Why haven’t you added this to urbandictionary yet? I’d upvote it.
Ben Cisco
That’s Bozell for ya – more fucking projection than a multiplex.
Older
I’ll bet Brent has a pretty boring sex life. Just sayin.
shortstop
@Omega Paladin: Well, no. Although the official GOP Alternative Reality meme is that Cooper was the originator of the word “teabagging” to describe these brave patriots, noted dirty fucking hippie liberal Jay Nordlinger tells the true story.
Rafer Janders
So I opened up the post and saw that it was by Cole. Then I read down very quickly and must have missed the first line, because the first thing I read was “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.”
And then I thought, huh. Good for John, but I didn’t see that one coming.
It was only after some moments that the light dawned.
eemom
heh heh. My elderly Greek mother is not gonna like this.
BUT, it is gonna be my SECOND big fat I told you so in five little old days. Riiiiight Cole?
hee hee hee
EconWatcher
@beltane:
I do believe that immaturity and arrested emotional development are the key factors in making people wingnuts.
Coming from a predominantly wingnut family, I have given this matter careful thought. And it is wrong to say that wingnuts are ignorant and stupid. Many are very smart and well-educated.
But all of them, without fail, show emotional immaturity: Weird and unprovoked resentments. Inappropriate fixations. Inability to learn from mistakes. Angry reactions to any suggestion that they might be wrong. In short, the qualities of a petulant four year old.
Keith
@Omega Paladin: It’s not as hilarious as how serious you folks take yourselves. And if it wasn’t destroying your health, I would say it’s also hilarious how worked up your team gets over every perceived slight or deviation from your view of how the world should work.
rikyrah
not new news at all. pretty obvious.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I think Cooper ought to give Bozell all of his expert opinion in Tea Bagging, while Bozell is strapped in a chair with his eyes wired open so that he has to listen to every detail.
Rafer Janders
Or maybe Mrs. Bozell could enlighten us?
Because as far as I’m aware, this is not behavior restricted to gay couples….
Bnut
@Omega Paladin: Maybe they should ditch Teabaggers and go with something better, like Blumpkins, or Cleveland Steamers.
jl
@SatanicPanic:
I do not recall the vile unfair and ugly term t*b*gg*r being considered a joke when people in the know began laughing and the people who gave themselves that name in the first place accused everyone else of being all crude, unfair and engaging in thuggish political tactics.
First I heard of these nutcases was when the calls to teabage the WH were reported on the media, and I saw a crazy Congresscritter on TV waving two teabags on either side of his head on a morning show.
See, the teabaggers corrupted poor little innocent me, then after my pure innocent mind was debauched, they accused my side of being dirty. For shame, fie, for shame, teabaggers.
If they were really teapartiers, we could excuse them on grounds of being high.
hueyplong
Bozell just couldn’t help but jump in the first time he finally got the chance to run a “teabagger” joke that wasn’t at his own expense. D1ckishness simply met up with a thin skin, and were civil unioned in his tweet.
One day, God willing, they’ll be married for real.
Mnemosyne
@Warren Terra:
I think the “not news” is both (A) that Cooper is gay as has long been rumored and (B) that professional asshole Bozell was an asshole about it.
Frankly, I’m encouraged by the recent spate of comings-out (?) which have basically been, “Oh, sorry, I thought everyone knew that already.” It was a similar thing with Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory,” who was basically like, didn’t any of you entertainment reporters ever wonder why I was at every industry event with the same guy for the past 10 years? Duh!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Omega Paladin: Um, no, the baggers started calling themselves Tea Baggers before they realized what the sexual reference meant. Remember, they used to hang tea bags from their hats to symbolize it.
eric
@Mnemosyne: can tom cruise be that far behind? i mean, c’mon tom, the water is warm.
the Conster
@eric:
Also too.
Steve
@Rafer Janders: Wait, assuming for the minute that the quote was about John like you thought, you really didn’t see it coming?
cathyx
I figured since I knew Anderson Cooper was gay that he was already out.
scav
@eric: He better hurry if he wants to make anything at all resembling a splash. Then again, it might just already be too run-of-the-mill for him to bother with.
Mnemosyne
@eric:
I honestly don’t think Tom Cruise is gay. He’s got way too strong a history of publicly chasing after women and using his religion to hit on women (Google around and see if you can find Scarlett Johanssen’s story of him trying to take her to a Scientology center for a date, er, a job interview, yeah, that’s it). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s using Scientology to “treat” something else he doesn’t want to deal with, like bipolar disorder or ADHD, but I really doubt he’s gay.
John Travolta, on the other hand, is Gay Gay Gay and really should just give it up at this point.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: Where you been?
jibeaux
I still don’t know what Tea Bagging 4 Jesus is, but I doubt Anderson Cooper does, either.
Seriously, good on AC and sheesh, how revolting can one guy get. I mean, honestly, that beard.
hueyplong
My take on Cruise is that he’s only gay in the sense that he’s got the hots for himself, and he himself is male. What’s that, “monosexual” or something?
Thoughtcrime
I’m all for Republicans letting their freak flags fly.
(Not talking about Cooper – don’t know his affiliation)
eric
@Mnemosyne: perhaps, but it is really lindsay graham that we are all waiting for….sort of like waiting for the belle of the ball.
Ash Can
Kudos to Cooper for his candor. And Bozell is a schmuck.
Rafer Janders
@Steve:
Well, he does own a cat, that is true.
Donut
@Warren Terra:
This.
First, if you hadn’t figured out that Cooper was likely not straight by now, uh…well, I guess your gay-dar is done been broke…and more importantly, that tells me you don’t read D-Listed. Michael K has been posting pix of Anderson + partner since, oh, forever.
Second, proof that Bozell is an asshole is hardly difficult to come by.
That is all. Carry on.
Bubblegum Tate
Cooper should just respond with “Sure: You’re uninformed, frequently malicious doofuses in tricorne hats who hate government spending that goes to anybody but yourselves.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
The only news is that he’s being so upfront about it. My impression is that he’s never particularly tried to hide his orientation, but that he didn’t want to be blatant about it because he goes on assignment in places where being gay (or at least having gay sex) is a crime. Apparently he’s decided that isn’t necessary anymore.
Violet
Isn’t Bozell gay? That’s what I heard.
@Mnemosyne:
Why’s Kelly Preston (Travolta’s wife) still married to him? Is she gay too and they’re both each other’s beards?
dr. bloor
@jl:
If by “most” you mean “all” and by “some” you mean “all,” I heartily agree.
We’re basically talking about a group of people who never made it past Piaget’s preoperational thought stage of cognitive development. Whatever their emotional issues might be, they simply aren’t equipped to deal with adulthood on a cognitive level.
Yutsano
@Roger Moore: I think he treats it the same way he treats being a Vanderbilt. He knows who he is but doesn’t want his career defined by that. IIRC he is Gloria’s only heir.
NonyNony
@Mnemosyne:
Wait a minute – I don’t really think that Cruise is gay either, but these two statements don’t follow from each other.
Scientology is run by folks who are big on expanding the faith. Cruise is (or at least was) a hot commodity in Hollywood known for his sex appeal with women. That the leaders of Scientology would want him to exploit that fact to expand their membership is really not surprising. If Cruise is as much of a true believer as he appears to be then he would work right along with the idea of sublimating his own identity to do what the leadership told him to do and concentrate on using his appeal as a sex symbol to recruit for the cult.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: I remember explaining that several times to Mike K at Political Animal. It was too much for his thrice-divorced little brain to take in.
Female on the Beach
as for Mr. Bozell (I can’t remember why I am supposed to know who he is) self-loathing closeted gay men are the worst
The Moar You Know
I suspect Bozell knows far more about teabagging that Cooper ever could.
Gotten the “Larry Craig in a bathroom stall” vibe from that creep since the first time he crawled out from under whatever vile rock bred him.
shortstop
@eric: That was hilarious.
NonyNony
@Yutsano:
You know, I thought that Cooper came out a long, long time ago.
But I had no idea he was the son of Gloria Vanderbilt.
ericblair
@hueyplong:
Maybe autosexual. It’s all about the Individual Man-Date.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
In the immortal words of Bob Marley, emancipating myself from mental slavery.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
That doesn’t sound at all like someone looking for a beard.
scav
@Mark S.: That doesn’t sound like someone looking for a second date.
Jamey
@beltane: Even 12-year-olds eventually wise up #JonathanKrohn
Jewish Steel
@Omega Paladin: Hi, Brent!
Ben Cisco
@ericblair: The internets, you have won them for today.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
I suspect that’s the case, but she’s at least smart enough not to be caught in public kissing her girlfriends. Plus lots of people will do very strange things for money and power.
@Mark S.:
If you’re looking for a beard, why choose Scarlett Johanssen? Or Penelope Cruz, for that matter? Rock Hudson married his secretary, not a starlet. I’m sure there are tons of ambitious unknowns in Hollywood who would love to be Mrs. Tom Cruise — heck, there’s probably a few dozen who are already Scientologists anyway.
Maybe it’s just me, but in this day and age, if someone marries someone of the opposite gender more than twice, it seems pretty likely that they’re not gay. YMMV, of course.
Yutsano
@NonyNony: Indeed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Cooper#Early_life
(Tunch eted my buttons.)
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with you that he is not gay but there’s obviously something bizarre about the way his religion seems to control his relationships. i had no idea that when the soon to be ex Mrs Cruise started dating him she had a Scientology minder with her for all her interviews. I read the long New Yorker piece last year about the religion and this just confirms the whole thing for me, weird weird weird.
dr. bloor
This is good to know. I’ll take Scientology Center right off my list of first-date possibilities for when Scarlett starts returning my calls.
God, what an infuriating putz.
SenyorDave
@Mnemosyne: OMG, Nathan Lane is gay.
shortstop
@Valdivia: I think we should have a Scientology-Mormon cage match. I’d watch that.
Gemina13
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Agreed. Teabaggers, this is why technology, and Google in particular, is your friend.
Valdivia
@shortstop:
oh oh oh! that is a great idea! I totally sign up to watch it too.
When I read the New Yorker article I was on a train and I kept looking up and finding someone to ask–can you believe what this bs? I was slack jawed.
SRW1
@Omega Paladin:
Dude, it’s your job to check for precedent and known use if you wanna establish a brand. Haven’t done your homework have ya!
Odie Hugh Manatee
AC’s gay? Is this supposed to be news to anyone?
What’s wrong with what Bozell said? It sounds like he wants to compare his expert opinion on teabagging with AC’s. Heck, maybe Bozell is angling for a date with AC.
Just Some Fuckhead
Who is the new political blogger?
Steve in DC
@Valdivia:
Scientology is pretty crazy. As for the job interviews it’s more complicated than people think. Tons of powerful people are scientologists, so they leverage a sort of network. The church can land you a job and amazing contacts through it’s own internal network. This works out well to them if you become a member and start forking over the $$$ to remain in the church and advance.
They also focus on isolating people. Shortly all your friends will be scientologists.
They have a church by my old office and one of Hubbards houses, and the founding church is in DC as well. They drag a lot of people in there who don’t get what they are dealing with and then stalk the crap out of them.
Valdivia
@Steve in DC:
this tracks with what the New Yorker piece said but the interviews Mrs Cruise was doing were to promote a movie she was in and was released at the time and the journalists found it bizarre she wasn’t allowed to answer personal questions…
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne: If you’re so far in the closet that you’re almost in Narnia, you’re going to marry the most attractive women you can find as many times as necessary to prove to yourself that you’re totally, not in any possible way, attracted to men.
See also: the fathers of a disproportionately large number of my friends.
ottercliff
Brent Bozo has been a sack of shit for so long that he is no longer steaming.
Steve in DC
@Valdivia:
Keep in mind people who do speak about the church are often subject to legal retribution. The organization is incredibly secretive at the higher levels. It’s not clear just how many of it’s more famous members joined for the networking abilities the church offers and how many are full blown crazy people though.
lamh35
OT, but very interesting.
gogol's wife
@Rafer Janders:
That’s cute.
shortstop
@Valdivia: I don’t actually find either of them stranger than mainstream Christianity when I think about it. It’s just that I’ve grown up around it and am more used to it.
gogol's wife
Can I just register a complaint about the idiot tea party people appropriating the uniforms of the War of Independence? I used to think the tricorn hats and all were pretty cool (as in Paul Revere and the Raiders, for example), but now they signify something ugly, bigoted, and stupid. That history belongs to ALL of us, not just to you creeps. Give it back.
Valdivia
@shortstop:
It is true that all religions have some strange ‘origin’ myths. For some reason the space ship one seems more bizarre to me, probably because I too grew up around Christianity.
Steve in DC
@Valdivia:
It’s not really the space ships that confuse me or cause the eyebrows to raise. It’s the ships kept in international waters and the sexual, labor, and other abuse that happens to people on them. It’s the fact that the founder is on record saying it’s all nonsense. It’s the fact it takes 100,000s to become top level. It’s the fact that drug fueled orgies with the higher ups were mandatory. It’s that people have been killed over it. It’s the insane lawsuits that have been filed.
I don’t think most religions and when to comes to actual “violence and crimes against humanity” Christianity and Islam pretty much top the charts leaving the rest in the dust. But Scientology is some pretty crazy and nasty shit. It’s really fucked up. Perhaps the only reason it’s track record isn’t as horrible as Islam or Christianity is because it has so few active members and exerts no political power in any real sense. But it’s just crazy.
shortstop
@gogol’s wife: At one of my volunteer gigs, I was recently given a bag decorated with the Gadsden flag and asked to take it and its contents to another volunteer. Well, they’ve ruined THAT, haven’t they? I was embarrassed to be seen with it.
Steve
@Darkrose: My efforts to marry the most attractive women I could find were generally shut down by the selfsame attractive women. Gay men must have it going on.
Valdivia
@Steve in DC:
very very true. good points all.
karen
@Steve in DC:
I didn’t know the COS started in DC. I wonder if any politicians are a member of the COS. It would explain tons.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omega Paladin:
Others have already pointed out what an idiot you are, but I’ll add my usual commentary that the Boston Tea Party was, by any definition, an act of terror, and furthermore, it was not taken against a government. It was taken against a corporation, the British East India Company.
So there are tons of irony involved with a movement that didn’t notice that the Federal Government had a deficit until a near guy was sworn in to the Presidency. Then, suddenly, it became the most important issue ever. Well, except for the REAL issue: the near guy.
Mnemosyne
@Valdivia:
I’m still convinced (like I actually know these people or something) that Cruise and Nicole Kidman broke up over religion — she got tired of Scientology and he couldn’t stay married to someone who wasn’t in the same church.
Hollywood has always been susceptible to creepy cults — IIRC, the big one in the 1920s and 1930s was Christian Science. Even Milton Berle converted and I think he officially stayed a Christian Scientist until he died. Scientology is bad because there’s so much money pouring into it and, as we’ve seen with the Catholic Church, money corrupts.
I do find it fascinating, though, that Scientology is actually becoming a “real” religion and not just a money scam like Hubbard set it up to be. You now have breakaway Scientology sects, which to me is one of the hallmarks of an actual religion. You don’t have a real church until it’s split in schism at least four times. ;-)
SFAW
“Ah, Grasshopper, we shall see if your Magic Underwear-fu is stronger than my E-Meter kung fu. But before we start, would you like to take a free personality test?”
Villago Delenda Est
Mormonism: the Scientology of the 19th Century. Every bit as nonsensical when you take a close look at it.
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
ha ha! like the joke about the jew on an a deserted island who two synagogues, one to go to another one not to go to! ;)
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Omega Paladim may not be sharp enough to get the reference, ya know. Even the use of ni-CLANG or blah might confuse him.
Although, O.P has a cute inscription on his bidness cards: “Have Dumb, Will Travel”
SFAW
@Valdivia:
No, that’s the Zen Buddhist you’re thinking of.
Valdivia
@SFAW:
ha! As an MOT I can tell you it’s more like 3 synagogues, not 2! :)
GregB
@Omega Paladin:
Could you repeat that? It was tough to understand you with Brent Bozell’s balls in your mouth.
Thanks.
Ruviana
@Odie Hugh Manatee: They better not go to the Scientology Center. Just sayin’.
SFAW
@Valdivia: MOT? I expect when you tell me what that stands for, I’ll do a facepalm, but for the moment, I’m as clueless as Ohmigod Paladim. Well, almost as clueless.
Villago Delenda Est
@SFAW:
I so wanted Obama to begin his inaugural address with “Let me whip this out…”
But, alas, it was not to be. At least we had the spectacle of Roberts stumbling over “Hussein”.
Valdivia
@SFAW:
Member of the Tribe, as sometimes Jewish people refer to themselves. :D
Patricia Kayden
No BOZO, ask T’Baggers to explain teabagging to you.
Davis
Mr. Decency certainly likes dirty jokes.
shortstop
@SFAW: Hee!
Steve in DC
@karen:
We have a few of the key ones. There is a Church here, a Founding Church, and then the Original Founding Church, along with various mansions and other properties they have bought up, and Ron Hubbard’s house.
The first church was in Jersey, and their headquarters are in LA, but it’s hard to tell with them just what is what. However on Dupont Circle Right by Con AVE where it hits Florida AVE (expensive as hell real estate) are a few mansions they own converted into Churches and some other properties.
I used to work there, so most of my interactions with them have been rather odd. They are always trying to give out free tests and all sorts of other nonsense. Typically though the way they catch suckers is via someone already in the Church who is well connected. They drag you there to “meet people and I can help you get a job” and next thing you know you’re dancing on couches on Oprah like a crazy person extolling the evils of anti depressants, it’s really amazing.
The guys in Dupont seem to target young LGBT folks, which makes sense for the area given it’s status as a gay and drug mecha of Washington DC. It’s all to easy to grab LGBT folks still fucked up from the prior night early in the morning for breakfast with a “personality test” and fuck with their minds something massive. For a while they were going after the day laborers.
What’s worse is you can’t get rid of them, even complaining about them results in lawyers coming out of the woodwork. They sue everybody into the ground, hence the original Anonymous attack at them when The COS got a South Park episode pulled.
It really is fucking crazy. I shudder to think I used to live on the same street two blocks down!
PurpleGirl
I recently saw two Scientology recruiting tables outside a local mall. I was so tempted to yell “Xenu, Xenu, Xenu” at them. But I thought that might be mean and rude. But it was so tempting.
The buttons are back. Thanks be to St. Vidacom of Cathode.
SFAW
@Valdivia: Well, I’ve heard the term, but not very often, so I’ll give myself a pass … this time.
But I do recall something about Injuns speaking Yiddish, which is probably where you got the “Tribe” thing from. You know, like the Tribe of Sioux-meon, Tribe of Levi Lenape, and so on.
Mark S.
@PurpleGirl:
Wow, the buttons are back!
Thanks be to Xenu.
Valdivia
@SFAW:
also too: the twelve tribes of Israel in biblical times :)
SFAW
Boy, if you were talking about Manhattan, I’d think you were talking about Ray’s, Original Ray’s, The Real Ray’s, New Improved Ray’s, and so on.
Of course, to some, having really good pizza is nigh unto a religious experience, so my confusion is not totally unexpected.
SFAW
I’m sure you meant “FSM.”
If not, then I call upon it to wave a noodle-y appendage in your pagan direction.
“The power of Pasta compels you! The POWER of PASTA compels you! THE POWER OF PASTA COMPELS YOU!”
Bago
A gay drug mecha? Popperzilla vs Methra?
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
I am only a 1/8 Member of the Tribe so my views may not be worth much, but I didn’t think “First Nations/Native Americans” at all. I thought “Twelve Tribes of Israel.”
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Oh wait, never mind, I see what you were doing there. Haha.
Steve in DC
@Bago:
Dupont circle is the gay area of DC, it also happens to be full of night clubs. It’s a lot less seedy than it used to be, but it’s kinda known for high rents, fabulous people, and being able to score blow or a blow job in any number of bathrooms… we can leave what happens in the parks for another thread.
The COS is rather predatory towards people stumbling around all spun out of their minds after a night of partying.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne: It was sort of a continuation of the President being near, and I got carried away. Like word association football.
Valdivia
@SFAW:
my own hearty duh for myself for not seeing that. hhis.
pseudonymous in nc
Scientology comes out of a weird place, because the anti-psychiatric element reflected a broader reaction to how institutional psychiatry was truly fucked up in the 1950 and 60s, with things like institutional ECT and lobotomies and high-grade pharmaceuticals. But its methodology (even before you get to the Xenu esoterica) is just sci-fi exorcism.
aimai
@Mark S.:
Yes, I agree. If you had the hots for Scarlett Johhanssen would you take her to a scientology time share meeting? I don’t exactly have gaydar, but if Tom Cruise was ever interested in sex with women I would be very surprised. I’ve always thought of him as anti-sexual and totallylacking in sexual charisma, a plastic person. But I don’t get the sense that he is turned on by women. Power, maybe.
aimai
Maude
Isn’t Scientology outlawed in Germany?
caring and sensitive
@SFAW: Member Of the Tribe. A luntzman. (Jewish)
caring and sensitive
@SFAW: Member Of the Tribe. A luntzman. (Jewish)
karen
@Valdivia:
I knew Tribe member and member of the Tribe or our Tribe but MOT? I’ll have to use that with my family sometime. :)
karen
@Steve in DC:
He was teasing you about your spelling. Mecca as opposed to “mecha” which is often used in Japanese movies and anime:
SFAW
Which is only slightly better than being a morrisman, I guess.
Or did you mean “Landsmann”? [Which, technically speaking, has nothing (or very little) to do with religious affiliation.]
Valdivia
@karen:
I love using it. Mostly because I am latina and it throws people off. Like–wow you are latina and jewish, how weird is that?
When I lived in Georgia, Atlanta, I got into a lot of conversations that left me feeling I was breaking their brains about which prejudice to apply first! :)
Rafer Janders
@Steve in DC:
No. No we can’t. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PARKS?
SFAW
Which of course begs the question that no sane (or compassionate) person would ask: If Paul Hewson were Jewish, would that make him a Bono MOT?
I swear, I crack myself up sometimes.
ETA: Upon reflection, I realize I could make decent money on a protection racket here. “Send money to my PayPal account, or I’ll deliver more lines like that last one. You think I won’t?” etc.
Valdivia
@SFAW:
I got that one! :D
SFAW
@Valdivia: And I bet you wish you hadn’t.
Jebediah
@SiubhanDuinne:
As someone who walks a large dog every day, I know from steaming sacks of shit. And I would rather spend time with them than with a Brent Bozell.
asiangrrlMN
Late to the game as always, but here is my own take on why this is important, even if it’s not exactly news. Oh, and Bozell can die in a blazing inferno.
Sad_Dem
Mnemosyne: Or Penelope Cruz, for that matter? Rock Hudson married his secretary, not a starlet.
That secretary was gay, IIRC. As for Penelope Cruz, she successfully transitioned from being “someone who starred in a movie in Europe” to being an American movie star, and her camera time with Tom Cruise didn’t hurt. My imagination on the matter is that even a very gay man might get some straight ideas around Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, or Penelope Cruz.
DougW
@aimai: HEY, cut it out. Teabaging is lot’s of fun!
gelfling545
@shortstop: Same with my nephew when he turned 18 & “came out”: no one thought he had ever been “in”. I don’t thing “Well, Duh” was the response he was looking for.
scav
@gelfling545: On the upside, he’s at least equipped with that near-universal crushing teenage experience of not being actually as shocking to your parents as you originally hoped.
brettvk
@aimai: Thanks, you’ve articulated why I’ve always been slightly squicked by Cruise and puzzled by his alleged appeal to others. He may be a gifted actor but his “offness” always distracts me — maybe he’s really asexual, and the tension of trying to be a public sex symbol is what he’s projecting. I’ve never been able to credibly picture him with either gender.
gelfling545
@Steve in DC:
Or maybe because it just hasn’t been around as long & is still warming up so to speak.
The Other Chuck
@Omega Paladin:
You act like it’s the first time you’ve been insulted.
Sit tight, it won’t be the last.
Terry
@Omega Paladin: We use the term in the spirit of Constitutional Originalism. You guys called yourself that, first. Who are we to read it any other way? :