GQ Should Do a Cover with Shawn Hornbeck

GQ vs. Esquire? No contest. Esquire is inconsistent, has no image, no niche and is just random and weird but not in a good way. GQ is much more relevant and fresh. I was thrilled by their Shameless Left-Wing Magazine Agenda^TM message to Congress ("Dear Democrats") on the last page of the February issue:

1. Protect gay marriage
2. Environmental protection
3. Stop trash-talking the immigrants
4. Step up gun control
5. Legalize euthanasia
6. Respect separation of church and state
7. Iraq war reforms
8. Legalize marijuana

Granted, I don't agree 100% with this agenda, but it's the best I've heard anyone suggest to this Congress so far to help get our country back on track.

I was just listening to the radio and every five minutes the radio host (Richard Bey, fyi) wants to say something that he "can't say on the air". THERE IS NO FREEDOM IN THIS COUNTY ANYMORE. It died with 9/11 and the Bush administration. It took a few years of living abroad and then coming back to realize this because they have everyone here on subliminal mindf**k. Everyone is brainwashed with rhetoric, but bottom line is that we are awash with anachronistic restrictions.

Forgive me flying off the handle.

Anna Nicole Smith dead? I never heard of her before, and when I went to look now I saw she is uglier than Brittany.

Survey says most women would give up 15 months of sex for a new wardrobe. Hey, isn't the wardrobe to help you look attractive to the opposite sex? If you are abstaining anyway, why do you need the nice clothes? That's how a man sees it. I guess for gals it's different. Or the results are inaccurate.

"Some people say clothes make the man, but the right clothes can even replace him," fashion designer, stylist and TV personality Carson Kressley from the reality TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" said in a statement accompanying the poll.

Did anyone else notice that Shawn Hornbeck is really cute? I know, it isn't PC to say that about a boy who spent most of his teen years as a captive to an alleged child molester, but I think it's an important point and this goes back to the Anna Nicole Smith story. America is paying attention to stories about good looking people.

There was a recent scientific study done about implicit effects of political party affiliation on aesthetic judgments of candidates' appearance. Similar pictures of Bush and Gore from the 2000 presidential campaign were shown to participants, who were asked to judge physical appearance of the pics. Sure enough, party affiliation predicted aesthetic judgments with impressive accuracy.

It is foolish to deny the effects appearances have on us. Let's own up and then we can deal with the effects and correct our decisions. I hate to harp on the poor Aken family, but they composed a message published on their website and signed by Shawn that just wasn't written by a 15 year old boy. Especially one who hasn't been to school since 5th grade. He seems like a smart kid, but this speech was written up by lawyers and to sign Shawn's name to it - whose interests does that serve? Why the deception. But it's a delicate case. And one I'll probably be paying especially close attention to because its implications for forensic psychology may make it a fantastic term paper topic.

Oh and about the Aken family, this was a juicy, if irrelevant, factoid that the Post picked up on: Shawn's father Hornbeck was convicted on sexual assault charges and did prison time during Shawn's early childhood. He was released on parole around 1997, but Mrs. Horbeck divorced him and Shawn never had a relationship with his father after that. Shawn's mother remarried to Aken in 1999, three years before Shawn's abduction. That should clear up the name confusion (Uhduh why are Mr. and Mrs. Aken dragging Shawn Horbeck around the country...)

My deepest sympathy, and I know this is not enough, to all who have been hurt in this disturbing (I refuse for the time being to call it tragic; we don't have enough details yet to know if it was that. Remember your Shakespearean tragedies where everyone dies in the end and then you know it was a tragedy? Well here everyone is alive and possibly well) episode. And especially to you, Shawn, you're the greatest. (At least, I think you are; I don't really know you.)