Knowing the bgasic truths just don't seem to matter: Today someone said the civil rights movement "started' in 1945, and that the feminists have brou

In a sense it is frustrating, but it just shows that even serious people don't always seem to know how to say facts without trying to put them in context. On a morning news show a reporter/commentator started a segment by giving what would be discussed and apparently for some reason it is a legal case from the 1945 era and he said, this was the beginning of the civil rights movement.

Then a good discussion was held on C-SPAN's morning show, based on the cover story of the current Atlantic Monthly, by Rosen-she was taking questions. And her article seems to be well documented. But it still left confusion in some people's minds about why men are becoming a minority-I didn't know, for instance, that apparently in Australia they have some sort of affirmative action for boys. But the question of did feminists and NOW cause this fact that men are losing jobs more than women, graduating from college less, etc.

Poor men.

It seems to me that in a few paragraphs you could tell anyone our history, including the slow growth of women's rights, civil rights in general, etc. How wars played a part, loss of jobs men do due to strength, etc.

But that would not include necessarily a list of names and dates. BUT to say the (black) civil rights movement started in 1945 (apparently with a trial, which would mean that the homosexual movement started with Dale Jenning's trial in L. A. in 1952)., or with Dr. King's march in Selma, or at Stonewall is just nonsense and it is time we demanded that the media stop being lazy and pushing for sexy leads, teasers-how many times can a reporter say, the world is coming to an end, more right after the commercials?

And a glance at the documentary Word is out, shown on TCM this week, puts in perspective that we have been "out" at least since 1978, all over the nation, in small towns, etc. So why even then did the media ignore this? Why do they ignore it now? Why will any writer claim no one was out before someone or some event happened-which that THEY didn't know anything about the issue till THEY discovered it, whenever.

Another point I continue to find important and maybe others don't is, last Sunday, on CBS' Sunday Show, they did a segment on men's underwear-something we would have been arrested for if ONE had done it. On Comedy Central's show, Tosh.O, they did a song whose lyrics talks about anal sex, again, think about what the closet queens would have thought if they got a magazine in the '60s with such a poem, etc. If you haven't seen such examples of discussing of sexuality recently, you have not been watching TV. That to me is progress. Beyond what Playboy, etc did on the subject in the late '50s and '60s.