Civil union bill killed

Civil union bill killed in Colorado. Well, I can't say that I'm surprised by this one. As long as I live, I don't think I will ever fully understand the political system in this country. It really makes very little sense if you think about it logically. The bill was killed on a vote of 8-3 when the information and technology committee voted on it. How it ended up there I have no idea. The committee's chairman, Shawn Mitchell said "The bill attempts to create the substance of marriage without the label. All experience and all statistics show that when a man and a woman stay together with their children, the children grow up happier and better equipped to deal with life." With all due respect, the only thing that I have ever had to really "deal with" in life are narrow minded people who can't see beyond their own nose. But then again, I suppose that is why they are in politics deciding the outcome of other people's lives. Yeah, that really makes sense!

Hate-crimes bill passes in Cincinnati.

Convicted gay basher set to die in Texas. I remember when this particular crime happened. It was particularly brutal and was basically an execution. I guess that's that the killers meant when they said it was a crime that just "got out of hand".

My God, I haven't listened to the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony in many years. I had forgotten what a monumental work it was. Very depressing, but I suppose if I went through what Tchaikovsky endured I would be depressed as well. He never found happiness and lived at a time that was horrible for homosexuals. I suppose that is what makes his music so powerful and mournful. Ironically, it's why we love his music. This opens up a whole discussion on what it is that makes an artist what he/she is. An artist, whether it be a composer, musician, or painter, will be to a large extent a reflection of the current situation in the artist's life. Today, I'm sure Tchaikovsky would end up in some therapy group for gay men along with his prescriptions for depression. In coming to terms with it being "ok" to be what he was along with the antidepressants we have today, he wouldn't really be Tchaikovsky anymore, would he? The very thing that defines his music would be therapeutically altered with drugs and psychotherapy. How many artists living today are altered by such medication and how does that effect their product? Would Sylvia Plath have committed suicide if she were writing today? Would her work even be the same? If such determinations could be concluded, would it be ethical to withhold such therapy for the sake of what their art could/should be? Most people would say that they should be treated for depression - that's the ethical thing to do. But, we all know that society does what is in the interest of the majority in power which isn't necessarily the ethical thing to do.