Priest attached to party balloons vanishes in Brazil

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing today off the southern coast of Brazil.

Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found.

I *just* heard that mentioned on the radio.

touching my boobs may be theraputic, too bad you're a loser

- that is the shirt I'd wear.

ION, my brain is being my enemy right now.

As for the boobie kerfuffle I am so tremendously creeped out by a guy achieving the level of "healing" depicted in LJ just by touching a strange woman's breasts. What is wrong with you that gets fixed that way?

I find it incredibly creepy--not the touchy touchy part of it at all--I've done way too much groundwork to be bothered by that, but by the allusions to undoing highschool psychological damage.

See, my issues are (1) how PROUD he and his cadre are for coming up with the idea of the Magical Healing Con Grope; (2) yes/no BUTTONS??? seriously???; (3) ....wait, #3 is too long for a list.

(3) Okay, fine. People who know each other asking for/offering up a grope, whatever. I have no room to complain, as I am -- if you will all kindly remember -- one of the founders of Too Much Candy, which is also an opt-in situation. And Too Much Candy is all yay!fun (I hope) among friends (I hope). But to go so far as to make it all official and shit, with buttons and whatnot? That's just (a) lame and (b) unacceptably intrusive upon the people at the con who don't even want to know it's going on, much less that they can codify their assent/dissent via a color-coded button.

LAME.

And finally, (4) I have 2 words for you: Sexual. Assault.

Although mostly, what bugs me the most is subsection (b) of item (3) -- the fact that this tee-hee Magical Healing Groperie is being nonconsensually forced into the awareness of the con-goers. That's so fucking inappropriate, I don't even know where to start.

What do all of the downtrodden women who were damaged by high school get to do to compensate?

They get to have their boobs groped, thus proving to themselves that they are "good enough."

And I am so not making that up.

Really? It's not locked.

I got it when I tried again. Oy vey.

The whole groping thing is just messed up. I have nothing to add that isn't covered in Steph's itemization.

(3) Okay, fine. People who know each other asking for/offering up a grope, whatever. I have no room to complain, as I am -- if you will all kindly remember -- one of the founders of Too Much Candy, which is also an opt-in situation. And Too Much Candy is all yay!fun (I hope) among friends (I hope). But to go so far as to make it all official and shit, with buttons and whatnot? That's just (a) lame and (b) unacceptably intrusive upon the people at the con who don't even want to know it's going on, much less that they can codify their assent/dissent via a color-coded button.

It was pointed out in an lj thread that the con where this originated is a pretty small, tightly knit group. To me (aside from the the "save the world by treating women like objects who exist to heal your wounds") it's the institutionalization element that skeeves me, that they have this vision that they'll spread this to every con, every event...and suddenly, if I were thinking of going to DragonCon, I'd be seriously re-thinking at this point. Or any other con these jackholes were likely to show up at. Because the whole thing is just so abhorrent that any sighting would pretty much sour me on the whole thing.

And how easily one more hostile environment is born.

And Too Much Candy is all yay!fun (I hope) among friends (I hope).

I think friends is the operative word there. I'm much more comfortable with hugs and other displays of affection among friends than I am with random people at public events who allegedly share some of my interests in entertainment. Also, I can't recall anyone ever being whinged at or insulted if they didn't want to participate in Too Much Candy.

Too Much Candy is so fully consentual and easily modified.

Dammit.

And utterly not sexist.