Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Make a Crescendo to Reach a Climax
1962 saw the release of "The Manchurian Candidate", directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Building to a shattering crescendo…. [John Farr, "Presidential Pictures: Top Movies About The Top Job", Huffington Post, 25 April 2010.] Sorry, stop right there! "The Manchurian Candidate" is a perfectly good movie that I quite enjoyed […]
In: All, Feeling Peevish, Such Language!
Beard of the Week LXXXIX: It's Cool that No One's in Charge
I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences. At least I have. (And in the empirical study I'm performing about interacting with the […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Common-Place Book
Thoreau on Credulity
It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden [Among his many professions Thoreau could claim surveyor. Early in 1846, while he was living at Walden Pond, he surveyed it thoroughly, including measuring its depth. He related that he […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Plus Ca Change...
Those Gay Priests
The catholic church and its not widely loved leader has been making headlines lately, a combination of an outburst of child-abuse complaints about priests, cover-ups by the church and the Pope, and plenty of cardinals telling us that the Pope is a nice guy, he didn't know anything even though he signed the papers, and […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week LXXXVIII: Doppelgänger
Today's beard belongs to a man named Phil Jackson (b. 1945), unknown to me until today. A native of Montana (I like this bio in the "Cool Montana Stories" section of montanakids.com), Mr. Jackson is the current head coach for the LA Lakers basketball team; a position he held once before, Grover Cleveland fashion. He's […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
To Be A Single Lady
Who could possibly be so cold-hearted that they would not feel an outpouring of sympathy for the plight of this young person, searching only for happiness but subjected to the whims of his gender-imperialist father? Bad father. [YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.] (H/T Joe.M.God)
In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Philip Pullman, Happily Offensive
It seems that Philip Pullman has written a new book published with the title The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In this short video, recorded at an event at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on 28 March 2010, he responds to a man in the audience who says that, as a christian he finds […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Writing
Adopt a Greyhound
Isaac tells me that April is National Adopt-A-Greyhound month, a concept sponsored by The Greyhound Project ("Adopt a greyhound, make a fast friend!"). They have a nice website with information about greyhounds as pets and adopting a former racer, as well as a database of adoption groups around the world, so there's no reason you […]
See a Scientist Being Scientific
Today in my email I got a link to a video* with this startling title: NASA Oceanographer Uses Science to Study the Sea Right there, in a video under two minutes in length, we were being offered the chance to see an actual scientist using science! Not only that, it was an oceanographer using science […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Such Language!
Beard of the Week LXXXVII: The Amazing Randi
This week's magnificent, brilliantly white beard belongs to James Randi, aka "The Amazing Randi". I like this succinct summary from his official biography (bio & photo source): James Randi is a retired professional magician (“The Amazing Randi”), author, lecturer, amateur archaeologist/astronomer. Born in 1928 in Toronto, Canada, where he received his high school education. He […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity
Fantasies of Unintended Consequences
Following the signing by President Obama of the new health-insurance bill, and trailing off the spectacle of "freedom"-loving teabagging bigots pelting elected representatives with various slurs and epithets in the name of do-it-my-way-or-else "democracy", we have the new spectacle of states' attorneys general rushing to join a federal suit against the legislation. This, of course, […]
Violence is not a Tool of Democracy
Armed insurrection has a mythic status in the US, with good cause. The emphasis, of course, is on "good cause". We have founding notions about our American revolution as an escape from tyranny and a bid for liberty and the freedom of self-government, all deemed a "good cause". Residing inside the ivory tower of establishment […]
In: All, Current Events, Reflections
Lammy Finalists for 2010
The finalists for this year's Lambda Literary Foundation awards ("Lammys"), the 22nd annual event, were announced recently; winners will be announced on 27 May. I am delighted to report that I am again nominated for about 7% of a Lammy. My memoir, "Tom Selleck's Mustache" (written under my usual nom de plume, Jay Neal), is […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook, Writing
The Laws of Thermodynamics
You just never know what might come up in conversation sometimes. This did over dinner with friends tonight. In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics. — Homer Simpson Here's the YouTube clip in case you'd like to hear it for yourself. The occasion, of course — I say "of course" because virtually everyone […]
Dancing with Humanists
There are many times–unless I can think of a really snarky and sarcastic approach to take–that I take a pass on talking about the seemingly endless stories of self-righteously hypocritical homophobes and ultra-fundamentalist anti-science wackos responsible for many recent headline. There are several good reasons but largely it's because I really prefer to take a […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Reflections
Tutu: Lesbians & Gays in Africa Living in Fear
Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear. And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Husbands and Husbands
In this very short, very cute video (via Joe.My.God), a young boy learns about "husbands and husbands" for the very first time. He's so traumatized by the experience that he says "You must love each other very much — I'm going to play ping-pong now — You can play too, if you want to." Alas, […]
Friday Soirée X: Stephen Fry is QI
I'm told that the internet is a morass, a quagmire of links into which, after just a few innocent clicks, one can disappear and never bee seen again. I'm usually much more focused in my clicking and manage to stay out of the quicksand and keep my head above water–except that tonight I succumbed. I […]
In: All, Friday Soirée, Laughing Matters
Perpetually Park
Bob Park, in his "What's New" this week (5 March 2010) had two items on perpetual-motion machines, an idea, like creationism, that seems not to go away but just to get repackaged on a regular basis, said new packaging bagging lots of new, credulous believers–rather like creationism. I particularly enjoyed 'it's not a perpetual motion […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Snake Oil--Cheap!
95 – 21 = ?
This is a fine development in UK news for people LGBTness, but my interest in this excerpt is in the second sentence/paragraph: The House of Lords voted to lift the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in churches and other religious premises last night. Peers voted by 95 to 21 – a majority of 74 – […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Personal Notebook