Dr. Phil to the rescue

Wow, normally I’ll rather eat my own foot than watch “Dr. Phil” but this week, Oprah’s favourite TV therapist came through, devoting an hour to the delicate topic of “gender confused children.” The comments on his website are a fascinating window on where people are at on this. Now if we could just get these kind of shows to quit “balancing” the views of, in this case, a professional child psychiatrist guest with some lesser-light from the anti-gay activist group “Focus on the Family.” It’s like having a discussion on the rainforest with a National Geographic researcher and a member of the Flat Earth Society!

Also looking out for children is the Catholic Church — in an effort to solve their decades-old problem of paedophile priests (better late than never!), the Vatican will now have psychological screening for “homosexual tendencies.” Openly gay priests will be cast out while child molesters, who don’t see themselves as gay, will continue to infect their ranks. Nice shooting, Tex.

Here’s a fun drinking game for tonight: a shot for every drag queen dressed as Sarah Palin!

Godwin’s Law says the first debater to compare his opponent to a Nazi or Hitler loses the argument. Let’s hope that’s true in the gay marriage vote in California because, oh yes, they went there:

Another rough day on the campaign trail for John McCain: his spokespeople…well…just aren’t very good and now, in a really embarrassing moment, even Joe the Plumber has abandoned him!

On election night Tuesday, CNN will try something new: Wolf Blitzer won’t talk to McCain and Obama surrogates via split-screen as usual but via holograms of them in the studio.

 

With this experiment on Blitzer’s show, the news network is curious how people will react to a fuzzy simulation slightly out of phase with reality. Not to mention the hologram!

“Sometimes homophobia is seen as less important than racism,” says Irish president Mary McAleese, “Nobody should have to suffer because of their sexual orientation in this country.” Someone across the pond please buy the lady a Guinness!

Hospitals are finding their blood reserves at their lowest in ten years. Anything I could say right now would just sound even more snide than usual so let’s wrap things up with a blast from the past: KISS performing on a 1976 Halloween special hosted by legendary bitch Paul Lynde. Happy Halloween everybody!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

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