h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for the synopsis. I'd assumed it was a 19th-Century story. So it's set in the 1960s? Wow.

They'd have stood a better chance in the 19th Century, when remote places were safer for diversity at times. Lots of the 19th-Century cowboys *were* gay. And smoked pot, too, apparently.

There will always be gay cowboys. The problems in the story came because Jack was looking for a gay relationship, and Ennis wasn't. Both men went on to marry women and father children. Ennis's marriage wasn't great, but it could have plodded along were it not for Jack's insistence on showing up two or three times a year to take Ennis "fishing" somewhere in the mountains. Ennis's wife saw the men kissing once, and deduced that she'd married a gay man. After that, the relationship was stormy, Ennis denying everything and his wife chewing him out for lying. Jack wanted to start a ranch somewhere with Ennis, but Ennis remembered two gay ranchers who had been murdered when he was a kid. He didn't want to die like that, but what he ended up with was a life in which he had been denied the one great passion he would ever know. This caused him unimaginable agony.

Oh, sad story. But honest, I expect. People get tangled up a lot. It's hard to sort out.

It is just a rehashing of the old "Boy goes sheep-ranching. Boy meets boy. Boy loses boy. Boy gets married, has kids story."

Formulaic...

There's an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today about gay rams.

Quotes one of my favourite books, 'Biological Exuberance' by Bruce Bagemihl.

Now *that* might make a good guide entry...the general gayness of nature.

This is unusual in that it's aimed at a mainstream audience. It isn't just for gay audiences. When I saw it yesterday, the seats were all full, and there were people standing in the back of the hall.

Now *that* is . And high time, too.

I WAS joking about the "formulaic" bit, you know....

We know.

The manager of one of the bookstores I worked at refused to carry (and balked at special ordering) "cowboy" books (Zane Grey, et al) because he considered them to be "drivel. He certainly didn't mind carrying Danielle Steele and her ilk because he really didn't care that women read "drivel".

I had to laugh, though, when we started getting in a whole lot of gay erotica. He just about went apoplectic. However, the owner had ordered them, not him and they stayed.

Right on.

Do you know Margaret Cho? I've heard her say in an interview that her Korean parents ran a bookstore in San Francisco - all her babysitters were gay men. And I think they carried books and videos for them, even though they were very traditional in every other respect.

What a wonderfully diverse world it is.

Apopleptic must be one of my favourite words

And to the diversity of the human race.

I'm all for diversity..... as long as people are just like me....

I thought you Canadians were a cultural mosaic?

We are! All blue pieces.... LOL (though the US thinks we're all Red).

Good for you for being blue. In the US, red states now means Republicans, Blue means Democrats. From the election returns, you know.

Well, here in Canada, Blue is Liberal, Red is Conservative, and Orange is NDP. Green is Green, needless to say.

Of course, I meant Red as in Communist, since TPTB in the US think that we are all Commies. After Harper's rebuttal to the article that painted him a (US-style) Conservative, they are even convinced that our Conservative Party is pretty close to Far Left of Left.

Truth be known, I will either vote Orange or Red, this time around.

My Mom is on the Executive for the local Provincial NDP riding office.

I should say that, the majority of Canadians do not vote along party lines. I think that the outcry in the US over remarks made by Martin on softwood lumber and Kioto illustrate the lack of understanding of a good many of Americans (those that actually bother with such matters) and American politicians that Canadians don't vote for the party but on the issues.

The fact that Harper joined that outcry is baffling to me.

If he isn't talking about these issues, he should be because the average Canadian cares more about issues like the FTA and Kioto than they do about whether the Conservatives are going to beef up the military or cut our taxes. These are issues which will affect our future and Canadians want to know that we will have a government that will stand up on these issues. We all know that we can pressure our government to spend more on the military (if we get off our cans and tell them to). Most Canadians care more about having affordable health care than lowering taxes (sure, we like lower taxes as much as the next guy but we also know that 1) it ain't the poor who get the tax cuts and 2) those taxes help us make life better for those of us who it matters to).

Harper and his ilk badly misjudge what the average Canadian wants out of our government.

While all of us are irate about financial scandals I also think that most Canadians are more afraid of what a Conservative government means.

One of the battle-cries of the Conservatives has been that the Liberals have been in power for longer and more often than the Conservatives. Of course, what they fail to "get" is that the reason for this has everything to do with the Conservative Party, itself.

Why have the Liberals been in power longer? Because they get elected.

Why do they get elected? Because their stance on issues beter serves Canadians than those of the Conservatives. Duh!!!!

Sounds sensible to me.

And you're right - Americans are by and large too lazy to look at the issues, and go for the party, because they think it's football, or something.