I'm moving to Iowa.

Here's the skinny-It's a Church of Christ church in Debuque, Iowa. Church of Christ is an autonomous Christian sect in the U.S. and they set them apart from others with their particuar take on the bible.

There are probably a few other Church of Christ congregations in town, one's probably called, 1st COC and it's common to see CoC's named after the area of town or a major Street.
The sect splits often when a number of parishioners start interpreting shit differently to suit their needs.

For instance, most CoC's agree that the God forbids musical instruments in the house of worship-(Talk about your uptight, white motherfuckers!) It follows that there are very few minorities, persons of color or SOUL, in the congregations of these churches, not to mention a fundamental absence of common sense.

Yeah, y'know? Tell me how fucked-up your take on the Bible has to be to assume that God does not want accomp..accommm...accompaniment during the local communion of worship and praise??!

Who the FUCK, decided THAT is the real mystery!!??

this is mariah cary? well anyway, im glad that miss iowa endorses recreational pot. very nice answer.

Iowa Iowant Iosoma Ioweed.

If anyone wants to read more about Stephen and LGBTQIA youth, here is the NYT article.

The New York Time's

Generation LGBTQIA

By MICHAEL SCHULMAN

Published: January 10, 2013

STEPHEN IRA, a junior at Sarah Lawrence College, uploaded a video last March on We Happy Trans, a site that shares "positive perspectives" on being transgender.

In the breakneck six-and-a-half-minute monologue - hair tousled, sitting in a wood-paneled dorm room - Stephen exuberantly declared himself "a queer, a nerd fighter, a writer, an artist and a guy who needs a haircut," and held forth on everything from his style icons (Truman Capote and "any male-identified person who wears thigh-highs or garters") to his toy zebra.

Because Stephen, who was born Kathlyn, is the 21-year-old child of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, the video went viral, garnering nearly half a million views. But that was not the only reason for its appeal. With its adrenalized, freewheeling eloquence, the video seemed like a battle cry for a new generation of post-gay gender activists, for whom Stephen represents a rare public face.

Armed with the millennial generation's defining traits - Web savvy, boundless confidence and social networks that extend online and off - Stephen and his peers are forging a political identity all their own, often at odds with mainstream gay culture.

If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn't whom they love, but who they are - that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation.

But what to call this movement? Whereas "gay and lesbian" was once used to lump together various sexual minorities - and more recently "L.G.B.T." to include bisexual and transgender - the new vanguard wants a broader, more inclusive abbreviation. "Youth today do not define themselves on the spectrum of L.G.B.T.," said Shane Windmeyer, a founder of Campus Pride, a national student advocacy group based in Charlotte, N.C.

Part of the solution has been to add more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The emerging rubric is "L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.

"Q" can mean "questioning" or "queer," an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. "I" is for "intersex," someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And "A" stands for "ally" (a friend of the cause) or "asexual," characterized by the absence of sexual attraction.

It may be a mouthful, but it's catching on, especially on liberal-arts campuses.

The University of Missouri, Kansas City, for example, has an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Resource Center that, among other things, helps student locate "gender-neutral" restrooms on campus. Vassar College offers an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Discussion Group on Thursday afternoons. Lehigh University will be hosting its second annual L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Intercollegiate Conference next month, followed by a Queer Prom. Amherst College even has an L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.A.A. center, where every group gets its own letter.

The term is also gaining traction on social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr, where posts tagged with "lgbtqia" suggest a younger, more progressive outlook than posts that are merely labeled "lgbt."

"There's a very different generation of people coming of age, with completely different conceptions of gender and sexuality," said Jack Halberstam (formerly Judith), a transgender professor at the University of Southern California and the author, most recently, of "Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal."

"When you see terms like L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," Professor Halberstam added, "it's because people are seeing all the things that fall out of the binary, and demanding that a name come into being."

And with a plethora of ever-expanding categories like "genderqueer" and "androgyne" to choose from, each with an online subculture, piecing together a gender identity can be as D.I.Y. as making a Pinterest board.

BUT sometimes L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. is not enough. At the University of Pennsylvania last fall, eight freshmen united in the frustration that no campus group represented them.

Sure, Penn already had some two dozen gay student groups, including Queer People of Color, Lambda Alliance and J-Bagel, which bills itself as the university's "Jewish L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Community." But none focused on gender identity (the closest, Trans Penn, mostly catered to faculty members and graduate students).

Richard Parsons, an 18-year-old transgender male, discovered that when he attended a student mixer called the Gay Affair, sponsored by Penn's L.G.B.T. Center. "I left thoroughly disappointed," said Richard, a garrulous freshman with close-cropped hair, wire-framed glasses and preppy clothes, who added, "This is the L.G.B.T. Center, and it's all gay guys."

Through Facebook, Richard and others started a group called Penn Non-Cis, which is short for "non-cisgender." For those not fluent in gender-studies speak, "cis" means "on the same side as" and "cisgender" denotes someone whose gender identity matches his or her biology, which describes most of the student body. The group seeks to represent everyone else. "This is a freshman uprising," Richard said.

On a brisk Tuesday night in November, about 40 students crowded into the L.G.B.T. Center, a converted 19th-century carriage house, for the group's inaugural open mike. The organizers had lured students by handing out fliers on campus while barking: "Free condoms! Free ChapStick!"

"There's a really vibrant L.G.B.T. scene," Kate Campbell, one of the M.C.'s, began. "However, that mostly encompasses the L.G.B. and not too much of the T. So we're aiming to change that."

Students read poems and diary entries, and sang guitar ballads. Then Britt Gilbert - a punky-looking freshman with a blond bob, chunky glasses and a rock band T-shirt - took the stage. She wanted to talk about the concept of "bi-gender."

"Does anyone want to share what they think it is?"

Silence.

She explained that being bi-gender is like manifesting both masculine and feminine personas, almost as if one had a "detachable penis." "Some days I wake up and think, 'Why am I in this body?' " she said. "Most days I wake up and think, 'What was I thinking yesterday?' 

"Britt's grunginess belies a warm matter-of-factness, at least when describing her journey. As she elaborated afterward, she first heard the term "bi-gender" from Kate, who found it on Tumblr. The two met at freshman orientation and bonded. In high school, Kate identified as "agender" and used the singular pronoun "they"; she now sees her gender as an "amorphous blob."

By contrast, Britt's evolution was more linear. She grew up in suburban Pennsylvania and never took to gender norms. As a child, she worshiped Cher and thought boy bands were icky. Playing video games, she dreaded having to choose male or female avatars.

In middle school, she started calling herself bisexual and dated boys. By 10th grade, she had come out as a lesbian. Her parents thought it was a phase - until she brought home a girlfriend, Ash. But she still wasn't settled.

"While I definitely knew that I liked girls, I didn't know that I was one," Britt said. Sometimes she would leave the house in a dress and feel uncomfortable, as if she were wearing a Halloween costume. Other days, she felt fine. She wasn't "trapped in the wrong body," as the cliché has it - she just didn't know which body she wanted.

When Kate told her about the term "bi-gender," it clicked instantly. "I knew what it was, before I knew what it was," Britt said, adding that it is more fluid than "transgender" but less vague than "genderqueer" - a catchall term for nontraditional gender identities.

At first, the only person she told was Ash, who responded, "It took you this long to figure it out?" For others, the concept was not so easy to grasp. Coming out as a lesbian had been relatively simple, Britt said, "since people know what that is." But when she got to Penn, she was relieved to find a small community of freshmen who had gone through similar awakenings.

Among them was Richard Parsons, the group's most politically lucid member. Raised female, Richard grew up in Orlando, Fla., and realized he was transgender in high school. One summer, he wanted to room with a transgender friend at camp, but his mother objected. "She's like, 'Well, if you say that he's a guy, then I don't want you rooming with a guy,' " he recalled. "We were in a car and I basically blurted out, 'I think I might be a guy, too!' "

After much door-slamming and tears, Richard and his mother reconciled. But when she asked what to call him, he had no idea. He chose "Richard" on a whim, and later added a middle name, Matthew, because it means "gift of God."

By the time he got to Penn, he had been binding his breasts for more than two years and had developed back pain. At the open mike, he told a harrowing story about visiting the university health center for numbness and having a panic attack when he was escorted into a women's changing room.

Nevertheless, he praised the university for offering gender-neutral housing. The college's medical program also covers sexual reassignment surgery, which, he added, "has heavily influenced my decision to probably go under the Penn insurance plan next year."

PENN has not always been so forward-thinking; a decade ago, the L.G.B.T. Center (nestled amid fraternity houses) was barely used. But in 2010, the university began reaching out to applicants whose essays raised gay themes. Last year, the gay newsmagazine The Advocate ranked Penn among the top 10 trans-friendly universities, alongside liberal standbys like New York University.

More and more colleges, mostly in the Northeast, are catering to gender-nonconforming students. According to a survey by Campus Pride, at least 203 campuses now allow transgender students to room with their preferred gender; 49 have a process to change one's name and gender in university records; and 57 cover hormone therapy. In December, the University of Iowa became the first to add a "transgender" checkbox to its college application.

"I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to," said Santiago Cortes, one of the Penn students. "And I got into a few of the Ivy Leagues - Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn. Strangely not Brown.

"But even these measures cannot keep pace with the demands of incoming students, who are challenging the curriculum much as gay activists did in the '80s and '90s. Rather than protest the lack of gay studies classes, they are critiquing existing ones for being too narrow.

Several members of Penn Non-Cis had been complaining among themselves about a writing seminar they were taking called "Beyond 'Will & Grace,' " which examined gay characters on shows like "Ellen," "Glee" and "Modern Family." The professor, Gail Shister, who is a lesbian, had criticized several students for using "L.G.B.T.Q." in their essays, saying it was clunky, and proposed using "queer" instead. Some students found the suggestion offensive, including Britt Gilbert, who described Ms. Shister as "unaccepting of things that she doesn't understand."

Ms. Shister, reached by phone, said the criticism was strictly grammatical. "I am all about economy of expression," she said. "L.G.B.T.Q. doesn't exactly flow off the tongue. So I tell the students, 'Don't put in an acronym with five or six letters.' "

One thing is clear. Ms. Shister, who is 60 and in 1979 became The Philadelphia Inquirer's first female sportswriter, is of a different generation, a fact she acknowledges freely, even gratefully. "Frankly, I'm both proud and envious that these young people are growing up in an age where they're free to love who they want," she said.

If history is any guide, the age gap won't be so easy to overcome. As liberated gay men in the 1970s once baffled their pre-Stonewall forebears, the new gender outlaws, to borrow a phrase from the transgender writer Kate Bornstein, may soon be running ideological circles around their elders.

Still, the alphabet soup of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. may be difficult to sustain. "In the next 10 or 20 years, the various categories heaped under the umbrella of L.G.B.T. will become quite quotidian," Professor Halberstam said.

Even at the open mike, as students picked at potato chips and pineapple slices, the bounds of identity politics were spilling over and becoming blurry.

At one point, Santiago, a curly-haired freshman from Colombia, stood before the crowd. He and a friend had been pondering the limits of what he calls "L.G.B.T.Q. plus."

"Why do only certain letters get to be in the full acronym?" he asked.

Then he rattled off a list of gender identities, many culled from Wikipedia. "We have our lesbians, our gays," he said, before adding, "bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual." He took a breath and continued. "Pansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender. Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual. Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous."

By now, the list had turned into free verse. He ended: "Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human."

The room burst into applause.

Correction: January 10, 2013, Thursday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article and a picture caption referred incorrectly to a Sarah Lawrence College student who uploaded a video online about being transgender. He says he is Stephen Ira, not Stephen Ira Beatty.

Source NYT

Fair Use

I once sold a telescope to a man in Austria named Norbert. I ordered the lens for it from a man in Germany named Markus. The lens was made in Russia, but was designed in Ohio by a man named Thomas. I designed the tube assembly but had a guy in Iowa named Richard machine it for me.

So many ways to mince up the map in the US to accommodate everyone. Hell, the west coast is already hemp-friendly and lush, freaks can live in Washorefornia.

Assholes, criminals, politicians-types can have Illinois,Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, and they can all live without guns, drugs, or a fucking clue.

Lesseeee, what new regime runs the east coast from Rhode Island to D.C. because no one south of the Carolinas wants anything to do with them northerners...

Folks from the E.U. can handle the idea..You can fit 5-11 tidy little nations within North America. Dial-in your way of life, restrict travel for assholes and douches between countries only(establish universal test for asshole/douche/shitbag, etc).

Lame. You are entirely wrong about everything (once again).

Let me enlighten you:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^entr0py:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'm not excited about a Romney presidency or anything, but I think it's pretty much over. That is, unless the Obama campaign has an October surprise up their sleeves.

I'm not sure which polls have you convinced, but you have to remember that the only thing that matters are electoral votes, and the president still seems to have a lead there. It's tricky to know which polls to give weight to, but betting markets seem like a good aggregation and they still have Obama ahead.
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474
http://www.npr.org/blo
gs/itsallpolitics/2012/10/19/163249835/they-call-the-election-a-horse-race-it-has-real-bettors-too

Well Florida and NC and Virginia are very likely to end up with Romney at this point. Obama has lost ground everywhere and Romney is nearly even with him in Ohio and Wisconsin. He is tied in Iowa. The latest Gallup polls have shown him 5 - 6 points ahead of the president nationally. Even if he lost Ohio he could make it up with Wisconsin and Colorado. Obama needed a reset in the last debate and he didn't get it; the momentum is still Romneys. The presidents campaign is just frankly out of steam. They spent 100 million dollars creating a caricature of Romney which Romney dispelled in an hour and a half in the first debate. Besides "kill Romney" the president hasn't had any ideas to move this forward. Now he is going around talking about "Romnesia" which shows he has nothing left up his sleeve. So, with everything trending Romney I don't see what else the president can do to stop the momentum from swinging this Romneys way. That's why I say that he has had it.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^shinyblurry:
I'm not excited about a Romney presidency or anything, but I think it's pretty much over. That is, unless the Obama campaign has an October surprise up their sleeves.

I'm not sure which polls have you convinced, but you have to remember that the only thing that matters are electoral votes, and the president still seems to have a lead there. It's tricky to know which polls to give weight to, but betting markets seem like a good aggregation and they still have Obama ahead.
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474
http://www.npr.org/blo
gs/itsallpolitics/2012/10/19/163249835/they-call-the-election-a-horse-race-it-has-real-bettors-too


Well Florida and NC and Virginia are very likely to end up with Romney at this point. Obama has lost ground everywhere and Romney is nearly even with him in Ohio and Wisconsin. He is tied in Iowa. The latest Gallup polls have shown him 5 - 6 points ahead of the president nationally. Even if he lost Ohio he could make it up with Wisconsin and Colorado. Obama needed a reset in the last debate and he didn't get it; the momentum is still Romneys. The presidents campaign is just frankly out of steam. They spent 100 million dollars creating a caricature of Romney which Romney dispelled in an hour and a half in the first debate. Besides "kill Romney" the president hasn't had any ideas to move this forward. Now he is going around talking about "Romnesia" which shows he has nothing left up his sleeve. So, with everything trending Romney I don't see what else the president can do to stop the momentum from swinging this Romneys way. That's why I say that he has had it.

Take any one statement of Bill O'Reilly here (for example, "You can't be on top as long as the Fox News Channel has been on top, 'annnsell'-(slurred, cocktails @ 2pm) and sell a product that's inferior or dishonest, it's impossible in this country.")

What the fuck does that actually mean? Nothing. Anyone that has an I.Q. of 90 should see his blathering for absolute shit.
NOw...

Compare that statement to any statement taken out of context during a speech by either party's candidate to the presidency and you will hear he same rhetorical bullshit regarding fuck-all and who cares. FOR EXAMPLE:

"Are we going to make it easier for you to afford your degree and pay off your student loan debt? (Applause.) Are we going to build more good schools and hire more good teachers, so that our kids are prepared to attend colleges like Iowa State, and prepared for the 21st century workforce? (Applause.)"....to robots at Iowa State University,Barack Obama - August 28, 2012.

Meaningless phrases strewn together cliche', with positive verbal gestures and cued pauses inducing applause as to be rendered ephemeral as soon as they are uttered.
Now kids-Go back to your dorm rooms, remember to vote on Nov. 2nd for the Not-Mormon, and play some more Mario Cart for quarters.

All news channels in the UK and the U.S. are total, and complete, sheit....great for infotainment and a sort of barometer of our progress towards idiocracy.

>> ^Reefie:

>> ^Yogi:
Fucking Move.
I know I know there's reasons and principles and shit but if I was in a place that sucked nothing could keep me there. Fucking move everyone, lets all just move somewhere where you're treated right.
Ok story time. My brother is sort of weird and effeminate. Not really gay, just kinda goofy and girly. My family moved to North Carolina, cause there was a job for my dad. The kids at the private school were utter fucking dicks. Always mean, backward little fucks. So they picked up and moved again, this time to Iowa. They couldn't be happier, tons of nice people about and a school where my brother is accepted.
So yeah, you don't like some place, or some place doesn't like you well this is America.
Fucking Move.

By your logic people should run away from problems instead of confront and eliminate them? Sure, I understand how easy it is to just ignore a problem however ignorance of the issue doesn't benefit society as a whole. See, that's the problem with a significant portion of society today - always looking for the path of least resistance, yet they go ahead proposing "solutions" like moving away that are actually way more hassle.


Yes that's all very logical except the timeframe. It's going to take too long to solve the problem according to this person so move now. It's not about ignoring a problem, it's about soloving it through going someone else. This isn't like the last place in the US where Planned Parenthood exists, it's one of the worst backward places that's trying to get rid of it. So go somewhere where you can have it.

Also while you're moving you can fight for society as a whole, you don't have to suffer in that place to wage that battle. If you're not treated right or respectfully in a place, why stay there? You make a good point but it doesn't counter mine adequately at all.

>> ^Lann:

Not exactly easy if you are low income and don't have an independent form of transportation. I don't think she was making this video to bitch about it only for herself. She made a point of how long it would take someone to get to one of the 13 clinics with public transportation. If someone is dependent on public transportation, they are not likely going to have an easy time moving to another state.
There are sometimes situations that make fucking moving impossible.
>> ^Yogi:
Fucking Move.
I know I know there's reasons and principles and shit but if I was in a place that sucked nothing could keep me there. Fucking move everyone, lets all just move somewhere where you're treated right.
Ok story time. My brother is sort of weird and effeminate. Not really gay, just kinda goofy and girly. My family moved to North Carolina, cause there was a job for my dad. The kids at the private school were utter fucking dicks. Always mean, backward little fucks. So they picked up and moved again, this time to Iowa. They couldn't be happier, tons of nice people about and a school where my brother is accepted.
So yeah, you don't like some place, or some place doesn't like you well this is America.
Fucking Move.



No there isn't. People hitchhike, or walk. They leave war torn countries everyday. Leaving and starting over is never impossible, it's just hard.

>> ^Yogi:

Fucking Move.
I know I know there's reasons and principles and shit but if I was in a place that sucked nothing could keep me there. Fucking move everyone, lets all just move somewhere where you're treated right.
Ok story time. My brother is sort of weird and effeminate. Not really gay, just kinda goofy and girly. My family moved to North Carolina, cause there was a job for my dad. The kids at the private school were utter fucking dicks. Always mean, backward little fucks. So they picked up and moved again, this time to Iowa. They couldn't be happier, tons of nice people about and a school where my brother is accepted.
So yeah, you don't like some place, or some place doesn't like you well this is America.
Fucking Move.


By your logic people should run away from problems instead of confront and eliminate them? Sure, I understand how easy it is to just ignore a problem however ignorance of the issue doesn't benefit society as a whole. See, that's the problem with a significant portion of society today - always looking for the path of least resistance, yet they go ahead proposing "solutions" like moving away that are actually way more hassle.

Not exactly easy if you are low income and don't have an independent form of transportation. I don't think she was making this video to bitch about it only for herself. She made a point of how long it would take someone to get to one of the 13 clinics with public transportation. If someone is dependent on public transportation, they are not likely going to have an easy time moving to another state.

There are sometimes situations that make fucking moving impossible.
>> ^Yogi:

Fucking Move.
I know I know there's reasons and principles and shit but if I was in a place that sucked nothing could keep me there. Fucking move everyone, lets all just move somewhere where you're treated right.
Ok story time. My brother is sort of weird and effeminate. Not really gay, just kinda goofy and girly. My family moved to North Carolina, cause there was a job for my dad. The kids at the private school were utter fucking dicks. Always mean, backward little fucks. So they picked up and moved again, this time to Iowa. They couldn't be happier, tons of nice people about and a school where my brother is accepted.
So yeah, you don't like some place, or some place doesn't like you well this is America.
Fucking Move.

Fucking Move.

I know I know there's reasons and principles and shit but if I was in a place that sucked nothing could keep me there. Fucking move everyone, lets all just move somewhere where you're treated right.

Ok story time. My brother is sort of weird and effeminate. Not really gay, just kinda goofy and girly. My family moved to North Carolina, cause there was a job for my dad. The kids at the private school were utter fucking dicks. Always mean, backward little fucks. So they picked up and moved again, this time to Iowa. They couldn't be happier, tons of nice people about and a school where my brother is accepted.

So yeah, you don't like some place, or some place doesn't like you well this is America.

Fucking Move.