CHE BELLO is smitten (again).
While perusing a photo gallery of CBFH, I came across this absolutely precious photo taken with his nieces at the Nim’s Island premiere. We would make such good double daddies, wouldn’t we? ::swoon::
CHE BELLO is triumphant.
Today marks a milestone on my journey to becoming the gloriously in-shape person I am inside. A mighty force against which I have struggled for all 20 years of my life has finally been vanquished. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the blue sky through the clouds, and all of those other clichéd things that people see when they finally get things right. What was this earth-shattering occurrence, you ask?
I spent a weekend at my grandparents’ house and did not make an absolute and utter pig of myself on anything and everything in sight, specifically PopTarts, frozen mozzarella sticks, large Tupperware containers full of homemade chili and chicken salad, Doritos, Vanilla Wafers, and Breyers Vanilla ice cream. (Listing everything helps me resist it. The more I have to say its name the more I think about what it actually is and wonder why I ever wanted to put that in my body in the first place.)
I’m in the best shape of my life and things are only getting better. While I’ve not been particularly large for quite some time now, I’ve still hung on to that last spare tire around my midsection, thick enough to completely hide any muscle development going on whatsoever. But those days are over. I used my government tax refund check to hire a personal trainer for a month. I see him twice a week and I’ve already learned so much that on days when I don’t see him I can still get a killer workout. There have been days when I’ve been so sore that I can barely walk, but when you’re floating on that much self-esteem you never even feel it.
So here’s to a new me, uninhibited enough to be the person I’ve always wanted to be. Taking charge of my life and doing things my way, accepting no less. Come along for the ride?
CHE BELLO’s public service announcement.
A quick post today, but I’m working on a few others in my head for this week. Recently, I stumbled upon maybe the best thing that’s ever happened to me in life. It’s called Shop It To Me, and it’s basically an electronic personal shopper. You tell them the brands and designers you like, the kinds of items you’re interested in, and your measurements, and it sends you a daily e-mail with items from all different stores, both new stuff and stuff that’s on sale. It’s pretty much amazing and makes online shopping even more fun than it already was. Oh, and did I mention it doesn’t cost you anything? Yeah, see, I told you this was good.
Let me just make it clear, I am in no way affiliated with this product or any company involved with it, I’m just a satisfied user of their service who wanted to share.
CHE BELLO loves the peen.
For the past week I’ve had at least one person every day reach my site through search engine results for “peen.”
Pick up your jaws, dear readers, as I am likewise shocked.
Now don’t get me wrong, I welcome the peen-searchers. Lookin’ for a little peen now and then never hurt anybody. But I don’t understand how they’re getting here, as I’ve never used that word on my blog (as confirmed by a Google site-specific search). But since you peen-searchers are here anyway, I’ll give you a tip: it’s much more likely that you’ll find said peen if you use a search term other than peen. You know, something erotic that’s actually used by people, unlike peen. Check urbandictionary.com for some alternatives, as I refuse to profane the good name of Che Bello with such filthy syllables.
Oh, and, by the way, I found some peen for you, peen-searchers:
CHE BELLO’s difficult realizations, part I.
I only said it was difficult being your friend because I knew I would never be attractive enough for us to be anything more, which is what I wanted at the time. I miss the friendship that I damaged.
CHE BELLO’s problem with organized religion.
I promised more posts about my religious wanderings, so here you go. From a sociological standpoint, I think American organized religion (or at least the varieties with which I have come into close contact) has abandoned the communal values religion it is supposed to espouse, instead warping religion into an arm of an overly capitalistic state. The way I see it, the overriding theme of religion is universal love. We’re promised a God who loves us and cherishes each of us as his own creation. This universalism is missing from most mainstream American churches — God’s love is reserved for the few who contribute to the building of a new super-huge sanctuary, or those who propagate the perfect family for the front of the church directory. Universalism isn’t a characteristic of the values espoused by most denominations anymore.
Also missing from the values I feel religion should be espousing is a responsibility to our fellow man. I’ve seen people pray for a big business deal to go through, and not half an hour later watched them pass by a hungry homeless person without blinking an eye. Organized religion, through telling people that God will give them the successes they desire if they behave, has made people believe that all they have to do is not screw up majorly and God will fill their wallets. American religious conservatives have married their religious views to their social and economic views: a concern for themselves first, and a strongly-held belief that individuals who work hard will be rewarded. I look around this country and see plenty of people who are working hard, and the only reward they’re getting is a big ol’ shaft from life, as they can’t afford healthcare for their children, or food to put on the table.
And where are the religious nutballs when that child has to go into the hospital? At their country club, sipping Michelob Ultras and thanking Jesus for helping them seal the deal on their new clients. I’m appalled by the arrogance and lack of humanity I see every day which, in my experience, has been bolstered by organized religion.
CHE BELLO is fed up.
Here’s the deal, father. (And I know Father’s Day is a rotten time to do this, but you’re the one who brought it up. And if you’re going to continue to read my blog, then I think it’s appropriate to directly address you here.)
Stop trying to micromanage me and what I do or say here. Think about how much of my life I spent not being myself because of fears about how people would react. Think of how many wonderful friendships with people in my community I may have passed up because I was too afraid to come out and show everyone who I am. And then think about how destructive it is when you continue to try to influence my actions or presentation to others.
I’m tired of being censored, and I’m tired of being in the shadow of what you want me to do. So here’s the deal: it stops right now. I’m not trying to turn this into a huge fight, but I’m not going to put up with it any longer.
The next time you try to influence what goes on here, I’m going to post lots and lots of hardcore porn every day for a week. It’ll make my readers (well, a fair number of them) happy, and it will horrify you and maybe even show you that what I do here is not so bad. (Although even if it were bad, it would still be my prerogative to do so.) This isn’t the blog where you get to decide what to read or see. If you want one of those, start your own.
The end.
CHE BELLO’s emerging atheism.
I’ve been struggling a great deal lately with the concept of religion. Having always been of a rather rigorously logical mindset, blind acceptance of supernatural forces doesn’t neatly mesh for me. But these are concerns for a later post, perhaps. I want to start a new series of posts which will serve to quickly summarize new academic research and break it down into easily digestible chunks. So much of academic writing (and I’m guilty, too) is inaccessible to anyone except experts in the field, what I see as a disservice to what we’re supposed to do as generators of knowledge. So today starts Che Bello’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Enjoy the first installment.
- Professor Richard Lynn of Ulster University has published a controversial paper in the journal Intelligence. His major claim is that increased intelligence leads to decreased likelihood of belief in God.
- A survey of members of the UK’s Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3% believed in God, and a parallel survey of members of the American National Academy of Sciences found a rate of only 7%.
- Gordon Lynch of Birkbeck College warns of the dangers of characterizing religion as primitive, which he says is “perhaps not the most helpful response” in an age dealing with problems of religion and cultural pluralism.
- Lynn’s study does not take into account social, historical, or economic factors which are widely believed to influence the likelihood of religious belief.
What do you think, dear readership? Are those of higher intelligence really less likely to believe in God? Do other conditions have greater impact on that likelihood, such as poverty, living in areas of endemic conflict, or being chronically ill? Do we risk angering the religious through studies like these and, if so, which should be more highly valued, pure intellectual curiosity or the social stability of a society which may subvert the truth?
Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/256025
CHE BELLO needs your help!
Today I StumbledUpon the blog of a letterpress printer with a lot of absolutely gorgeous work. She’s selling some wonderful bookmarks for a song, so I need your help, dear readership! Help me write some lyrics for the Moontree Letterpress Song. If I use anything you come up with, I’ll share some of the loot!
Thanks in advance, and go check out the Moontree Etsy store to support this fine shop.
CHE BELLO gets political. (Yet again).
A little re-cap of some of my recent political ramblings, centered around four figures:
John McCain: The most striking thing about this war-mongering monster I’ve read recently comes from The Daily Mail’s Sharon Churcher, who tells us about his first wife Carol and their unbelievable divorce. A gorgeous swimsuit model when they married, Carol was horribly disfigured in a car accident while John was a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. When he returned to the United States and saw his wife’s condition, McCain, unlike someone with family values would have behaved, began running around with other women, meeting his current wife Cindy, heiress-apparent to a large fortune, in Hawaii. He began pushing to divorce Carol soon thereafter, marrying Cindy just one month after the divorce proceedings were finished. To keep her quiet, McCain has been paying all of her medical bills since the divorce, and gave her a condo in Florida and a house in Alexandria, Virginia. The most gut-wrenching part of this story, however, is that Carol doesn’t see John as a horrible person, saying that he wanted to make up for lost time after being a prisoner of war for so long. In fact, she still supports his candidacy. (All of this seems to me like a defense mechanism to keep from admitting how horribly betrayed she feels, but I won’t make that assertion firmly, as it’s her business.) The bottom line: not only is McCain a hawkish Xerox of George W. Bush whose tax policies will only serve to further stratify our fragmented society, but he’s also a TOTAL DOUCHEBAG. Please, for the love of God, do not vote for this man. (You should also see Stephen’s most recent post if you’re even considering McCain as a viable choice.)
Michelle Obama: Somewhere underneath that calm demeanor and killer smile, there is a black woman. And as a gay man, I can understand how that black woman wants to react when she’s described on FOX news as “Obama’s Baby Mama.” So Michelle, honey, give me a call and you can vent. I won’t call the media, I won’t even blog about what you say, but I know you need to let it out. 478-718-1683. Use it, darlin’. You deserve the same respect given to any other candidate’s wife, and there’s no way that would be said about Cindy McCain. But in an effort to make it a little better, I’ll call her a low-class whore, which you most certainly are not.
Kathleen Sebelius: I believe in you. I think you are a fantastic administrator, and wished beyond wishing that your talents were being used here in my home state of Georgia instead of with the unappreciative Biblethumpers of that Republican wasteland known as Kansas. But, I digress. As much as I believe in you and as much as I would like to see Obama choose you as his running mate, I think it would be fundamentally wrong of him to do so. Hillary Clinton has become the shining beacon of female political ambition in this country, and to choose you as his running mate would be a direct insult to what she has built. Keep doing what you’re doing in Kansas, and your day will come. (With one minor modification, for your own good: find some way to build at least a minimally-lengthy foreign policy resume. Start writing for Foreign Affairs, something, anything.)
Michelle Malkin: In the immortal words of Miss Ouiser Boudreaux: “Eat shit and die.” (All I would add is “, you unbearable fucking bitch.”
