Posts Tagged As: Appalachian Trail

Indiana Legislator Gives A New Meaning To “Talking About Baseball”

Jim Burroway

August 26th, 2011

New rule: it's not gay when you're talking about sports.

There was a time when hiking the Appalachian trail meant, well, hiking the Appalachian trail. It doesn’t anymore. In today’s adventure in euphemisms, Indiana State Rep. Phillip Hinkle says that when he went trolling on Craiglist’s Casual Encounters section under “m4m” to find an eighteen-year-old man to pay $80 for companionship with the promise of a $50 to $60 tip for a “really good time”  because Hinkle loves “getting and staying naked,” it turns out what he really had in mind was talking about basketball baseball. Which totally makes him not gay.

Update (8/27): Basketball, baseball — they’re the same thing, aren’t they?

Gov. Sanford Admits To “Hiking the Appalachian Trail”

Jim Burroway

June 24th, 2009

if you know what I mean:

Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) admitted that he had conducted an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina who he had gone to visit over the last five days — during which time a massive media story developed over where he was and why.

“I have been unfaithful to my wife . . . I developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend,” said Sanford.

He said that he had met the woman, who he did not name, roughly eight years ago and that it had become romantic within the last year. He visited her three times during the past year, Sanford said, and noted that his wife, Jenny, had been aware of the affair for the past five months.

I have a feeling that “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” is fast becoming a new euphemism for “that whole sparking thing.”

Gov. Sanford hasn’t resigned as governor yet, although he has resigned as chair of the Republican Governors Association. The Values Voters Summit quickly scrubbed Sanford from their list of invited speakers The State has posted emails from Sanford to the unnamed woman they obtained last December. They haven’t explained why they held those emails until now. Maybe it’s because they feared publishing it would be a crime against the high art of purple prose:

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night\’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details.

Sanford was serving in the House of Representatives during President Clinton’s impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair, which he described as “reprehensible”:

This is “very damaging stuff,” Sanford declared at one point, when details of Clinton’s conduct became known. “I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)… I come from the business side,” he said. “If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.”

Explaining his decision to back impeachment articles against Clinton, he added, “I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible… I feel very comfortable with my vote.”

Sanford is against same-sex marriage and civil unions, and voted against allowing gay couples adopt children. He also chose to spend Father’s Day away from his own wife and four kids. Go figure.

    

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