Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Questioning Snobbish Validity
Each week I get from the Baltimore Sun newspaper people an email that tries to entice me to read online various of their "Food & Drink" articles. This week's "newsletter" had this curious teaser in it: A few gaffes, a lot of golds The July announcement set the wine blogs buzzing: Charles Shaw Chardonnay, the […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
No Lessons from Vietnam After All
I was reading something else when it hit me: there had been a rumor that the current president would be making a new, know-your-socks-off, back-in-the-saddle speech about his nice little war in Iraq — and evidently, that speech he gave early last week in which he said that his war in Iraq was, after careful […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
Approaching Mars
Before I even get that ridiculous e-mail about how Mars will soon look as big as the moon because of a close approach by the Earth, here's a note from NASA: August 21, 2007: By the time you finish reading this sentence, you'll be 25 miles closer to the planet Mars. Earth and Mars are […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Sometimes Higher Prices
Isaac and I made a brief visit to Wal*Mart yesterday, in search of something we hadn't been able to locate but were told they had. We went despite feeling that shopping at Wal*Mart is never really a peak shopping experience. As we shopped I thought about a number of the other shoppers, and thought about […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections
A Political Thriller
I've been thinking of writing a novel, a political thriller. The story goes something like this. There's this guy — not a terribly bright guy but easily managed — who comes from a rich, political family. Then there's this group of reactionaries, behind-the-scenes types who conspire to get the Guy elected president through a mixture […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
Gravel vs. States' Rights
There were two things that Hillary Clinton said in last week's HRC/LOGO presidential forum that have nagged at me a bit. Whether they're show-stoppers for me is moot right now since I much prefer Mike Gravel or Chris Dodd as my candidate of choice. Thing number one was, when discussing the "debate" over marriage equality […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
A Summer Evening's Dinner
Isaac is away for a few days at his annual conference of choral directors, so I'm doing my best to enjoy this small island of solitude. I redeemed some of the day's laziness by mowing the lawn tonight, which I completed despite the late evening heat that was a little more enervating than I had […]
HRC/LOGO LGBT Presidential Forum
I felt very 21st century tonight and watched the HRC/Logo Presidential Forum ("The Visible Vote '08") on Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-&-Transgender issues at my computer by streaming video. It was an historic first for presidential campaigning and for me, since it's the first time I'd watched a program over our new FiOS connection. I found it quite interesting, […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Meet 82 LGBT Lutheran Ministers
Here's an interesting sounding event taking place this evening at what appears to be a church-wide Lutheran conference called "Churchwide": What: [Cameras OK] LGBT Lutheran Pastors, from among the 82 ministers just introduced to the wider Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, speak out in favor of eliminating the policy that prohibits continued service in the […]
Camping in the Woods
We got back late Sunday evening from our weekend camping trip with our friends Tom & James. They have a very nice camper that they keep at The Woods Campground.* The Woods is an all-gay, clothing-optional campground; it's very easy to become immersed in that environment and returning to straight-majority, clothing-required civilization is a bit […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Red Queen Syndrome
Gosh but we seem to have been awfully busy this week and I don't know what we were doing to keep so busy; bits of this and that but no big projects that I can summarize neatly. I thought I'd mention, though, that we're going to take a long weekend to visit our friends Tom […]
I'm No Bigot, But….
A little while back my sister forwarded to me yet another of those lists of philosophical observations — typically reactionary attitudes told in the form of jokes with bad timing and worse punch-lines — this one attributed to Andy Rooney. (It's urban legend, of course.) Among it's pithy comments was this gem: I think that […]
Fruity Slow-Cooker Pot Roast
Last Monday I used the slow cooker to prepare a pot roast and, happily, it came out tasting to me just about exactly as a pot roast should, so I'm going to make a note of the recipe before I forget the details. This is somewhat modified by me from the recipe for "Lazy Day […]
Mt. Olive Pickles
Oddly, this post's title is not meant to be ironic, metaphorical, or symbolic. We had some Mt. Olive sugar-free sweet pickles with our dinner tonight, and I felt like writing a few words of praise. Mt. Olive is a brand of pickles and condiments and such things that is common is our area; I don't […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook
Bush Coup Finally Realized?
Fascinating, and so, so not surprising. The BBC, in a radio programme* called Document ("The award-winning investigative series returns, in which Mike Thomson takes a document as a starting-point to shed new light on past events.") that apparently aired this past Monday evening asserts that Prescott Bush, the First Grandfather, was once a conspirator in […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
MyPO
I suspect my mind was in neutral for a few minutes this afternoon — again — when two ideas collided: my own (lack of) personal finances, and the Supreme Court's apparent insistence that corporations should have constitutional rights, just like people. Hey! I thought, if corporations can do things just like people, maybe people should […]
Gay Marriage or Dick Cheney more Dangerous?
My ability to get a marriage license hurts nobody: Gay marriage is less harmful to straight people than Dick Cheney on a hunting trip. New York Assembly member Daniel J. O’Donnell [quoted in Robin Finn, "This O’Donnell Picks His Fights in the Legislature", New York Times, 13 July 2007].
Tammy Faye's Eyes
I have to admit that mostly I've just been perplexed by people's reactions — and devotion — to the late Tammy Faye for the past couple of decades. I always figured it for a camp motivation, but maybe not. I never thought much of her ridiculous performances for the PTL cameras in the 80s, and […]
Worth Staying Up
NASA alerts me that the upcoming Perseids meteor shower, on 12 August, may be particularly good this year, largely because it's the evening of the full moon: "It's going to be a great show," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The Moon is new on August 12th–which […]
Riefenstahl vs. Coulter
Avedon Carol offers this lovely essayette (The Sideshow, 18 July 2007) comparing Leni Riefenstahl with a the Odious Coulter: It occurs to me that someday, when Ann Coulter's oeuvre becomes part of the collection of works that are taught in college, along with the works of Leni Riefenstahl, as examples of using the media to […]