Or, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Spanish has two verbs which are translated into English as “is”: estar and ser. These verbs are, importantly, not synonyms in Spanish. Generally speaking, estar is used to refer to temporary conditions and ser to intrinsic qualities: Estar: La manzana está verde. The apple is green, i.e., not ripe….
Month: October 2010
The suicide “epidemic”
In the wake of recent high-profile suicides of young adults over sexual orientation, the media has been buzzing with words like “surge” and “buzz.” I was curious about whether such a phenomenon was really occurring. First off, it’s very important to keep in mind that, sadly, about 4000 young people (15-24) choose to end their…
The gay agenda
I was just commenting to my wife that I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the media has suddenly noticed a “surge” in gay teen suicides about the same time that certain gay rights organizations are pressuring Congress to push the Safe Schools Improvement Act, which “would require schools receiving federal funds to implement bullying…
What is “bullying,” anyway?
I think we may be losing sight, in the wake of incidents such as the Tyler Clementi suicide, of what “bullying” really is. For instance, I’ve been seeing reality TV being blamed as a major cause of the perceived increase in bullying: Reality TV communicates that humiliation is an acceptable form of entertainment, says the…
“It gets better”: What does?
The national media’s attention is currently on the plight of young gay men who choose to commit suicide, and the social forces that encourage that decision. One of the recurrent themes in this media attention is that we need to communicate that “it gets better.” It’s easy to assume that there’s some moment, upon graduation…