One Annoyance Less Annoying

The way this came about may not be the best but one of the most notorious buggers -- I mean bloggers -- in the world has announced that he plans to be less katty and annoying. Mario something or other who calls himself Perez Hilton told Ellen DeGeneres that in this time where the media has decided to talk about the suicides of gay teens and those perceived as gay and bullied for it he has decided to be less of a bully himself. He has outed a few movies or TV stars which I won't name here. And he has in the past built his reputation on making up insulting nicknames for celebrities. He has decided no more outing or mocking or bullying at all. So it remains to be seen what Perez Hilton will do with his time and whether his nasty Nancy Nazi followers will stick with him. To be honest I've only seen whatever quotes of his make it into the "news" and a few youtube clips to form whatever opinion I have of this person. People will kiss up to him for marketing reasons, but his success is reason enough to ignore the media hype machine altogether. That said, I can understand the rush to try to claim a Tom Cruise as part of his team. It's the "red rover, red rover, we call the movie star over." The diddlers on the other hand, so to speak, will always be the ones left unchosen by either team. Officially, a man groping a boy's penis is supposed to be heterosexual because he claims to be and goes home to a wife (unless the culprit is a Catholic priest without the benefit of a wife to hide behind). A movie star doesn't get that benefit of the doubt. He may claim to be straight and also to have a wife or two, but the gossips and outers like Perez in bully mode knew better. They have that special insight, that sensitivity. Meanwhile we the ostensibly straight figure (unless we want to help spin doctor the mess to protect gays from further hate) male hand on boy's penis for some sort of rush equals NOT straight. The newest publicity about kids being called fag or being humiliated into suicide is at least though something that is being taken seriously. A few decades late, but as Robin Williams once quipped, "Better latent than never." Not that there's anything funny about this example of despair and loss. But we'll see how long the A.D.D. zeitgeist keeps attentive to this and whether it reforms the schoolyard rules that have been unofficially in play since there were schools. Kids are pre-moral, for the most part. Adolescents maybe have the bar raised a little higher. College students I suppose it's reasonable to expect adult responsibility and comprehension. But it will still be tough to get people to be tamed. Is the prank of a bully any less a self expression than somebody else' romantic interests? That question might actually be taken seriously some day.