My Marti just turned 11!

Whew, time sure flies really, really fast! My Marti just turned 11 years old last October 8, 2010 and although we had a very simple celebration, Marti was very happy. And that's what's more important!

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Anderson Cooper on Vince Vaughn's Gay Joke

Sometimes bullying is not physical, mere insults could just be as devastating. This was my fear for my Marti when he started schooling in my Catholic alma mater. Was afraid that he'd be teased as an "illegitimate child" or "fatherless", knowing how kids could be cruel especially in a strict environment like that. Thank God nothing like that happened and Marti is known as one of the friendliest in his school. Even got surprised that he had friends in different grade levels!

Anyway, was surfing the net and read an article from the Huffington Post about Anderson Cooper discussing his shock to seeing a previes of Vince Vaughn's latest movie where he makes a "gay" remark.

From the article, Cooper says:

As Anderson (without naming Vaughn or the film) tells Ellen (on the Ellen Degeneres Show):

I was sitting in a movie theater over the weekend and there was a preview of a movie, and in it, the actor said, 'that's so gay,' and I was shocked that not only that they put it in the movie, but that they put that in the preview, they thought that it was okay to put that in a preview for the movie to get people to go and see it.

I just find those words, those terms, we've got to do something to make those words unacceptable cause those words are hurting kids. Someone else I talked to recently said that the words people use and the things people say about other kids online, it enters into their internal dialogue. And when you're a kid, it can change the way you see yourself and the way you think about yourself, and the worth that you give to yourself. I think we need to really focus on what language we're using and how we're treating these kids.

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