Monday Maundering - Random babble again

I don't really have a purpose for today's post, except to ramble along about whatever crosses my mind. You have been warned.

Let's talk the media - specifically news outlets. I don't get my news from the mainstream outlets anymore. At least not the ones here in the U.S. Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, none of them. Firstly, I don't have tv. So everything I do is online or via the radio. And even on the radio I'm listing to NPR and PRI (a lot from the BBC, especially at night). BBC is the only mainstream media I listen to. I get better reporting on what's going on in the world from them than I do from our own newscasters.

I also read Huffington Post. I'll admit that they can be a little one sided as well, but at least I'm more likely to be given the facts behind a situation than I am with the other media outlets. If someone posts a link to another online news site, I'll go read that too. I'm very ecumenical. I give everyone a chance to tell me their version of the same story - as long as it's not Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and the others like them.

Names. What's in a name? My friend Joelle got a lot of comments on one of her blog posts about how she has a male character who uses the name 'The Queen'. He's not a drag queen. He's a very dominant personality. He's actually a dom in her BDSM book series. He's a fascinating character and very complex. As of yet, I don't know how he got the name but I'm sure it would be an interesting story to learn.

What we call ourselves is our business. I have my real name, which I don't generally use online. And I have my pen name, which is what people online know me by. There was a transgender woman (male to female) at my work place who preferred to be called Michelle. She was a sweet, wonderful woman. But some people couldn't get past the fact that she'd been born Jeremy and continued to call her that and refer to her as a 'he'. It upset her so much she actually quit, citing harassment as the reason. The people who harassed her? Didn't get into trouble. At least, not that I saw. Two of them boasted about having driven the 'freak' off. I was livid for days after that.

What does it matter what we call ourselves? A name is just a label we give ourselves. Some of us choose to keep the labels we were given by our parents. Others choose to change that label as they grow up. We use nicknames as a different label as well. Respect those around you and use the name they prefer.