Reality Can Be Kind Of Icky

... so let's gloss over the icky parts and just talk about holding hands and colorful native traditions.

A while back, I began wondering if Brazil would be a decent second home. I bought Michael Palin's Brazil from Audible and got about an hour into it before I quit (at least for now). Michael's book is a travelogue. He starts in remote, northern jungles and makes his way south, chronicling his journey all the way. His first stop is a lovely Indian settlement that lives in the ancient ways of the tribe. Very little in the way of modern technology, lots of interesting native customs. Michael is charmed.

He talks about some ceremony (I forget what) where he participates. He talks about their clothes. He talks about what the women do, what the men do, what the kids do and how everyone lives in harmony. The tone of the whole segment is classic progressive ecotourist. It's a very respectful, "everyone does things differently and this is as valid as anything else because it works for them" sort of thing.

And then he leaves.

He doesn't stick around for women dying in breech births, for limbs being amputated from treatable gangrene, for molars rotting out painfully or any of the other charming, native customs they have to deal with on a regular basis. Instead, he scoots off with his camera crew to look at something else in Brazil.

Over in NYC, they have a new app for your smartphone. It helps you find out information about sex. The NYC Teen Website features this fun video promoting it.

Isn't it cool? Richie is so fine. He's just with Samantha. No one else. The two of them are cute, happy and ... colorful! Because, you know, Samantha is bi. Awesomeness squared! Since Samantha is worried about how she feels and what might be happening, she looks for help.

From the government.

Yay! Government! The school guidance counselor provides her with a handy booklet that gives her all kinds of helpful information. Information like this.

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side.' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.'"

Oh, wait. I think I got the wrong thing. That was Uncle Adolph, a completely different secular religious figure. Right. Here it is. Places to get, err, sexual help for LGBT teens who might be pregnant*. No judgment, no pressure. Nothing but help. Everyone is nice and loving and caring. "No matter who you have sex with," the worker says,"it's important they wait until you're ready." Like after you've hit the bong a few times and had some Jim Beam. Or something like that.

When it's all over, creators of Samantha's Story and the rest all go to their tony suburban homes like Michael Palin heading off with his camera crew to visit Rio. Left behind are the unseen, untold stories of child abuse, drug addiction, obesity, diabetes, unemployment, illiteracy, prison terms, gangland crime and more.

Oh well. There's hardly time to get into everything. The important thing is that the NYC Health Department cares.

* - Due to concerns over the length of the publication, certain portions got edited out. In particular, the portions where former abortionist doctors talk about pulling babies apart in the womb like segmenting chicken or delivering them into toilets and stabbing them in the necks with scissors were deemed too long and, err, unhelpful for the religious informational purposes of the campaign.