Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Social Security Murkiness
As I read and listen to people talk about the current administration's steamrolling push to privatize — rather, "personalize" social security, the continuing surprise (similar to the surprise that so much truth about the president can be exposed and people will still vote for him) for me is that so many people seem so accepting […]
Love Crimes
Also at 365gay.com, a story about attempts in Pennsylvania to soften their hate-crimes laws: (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) A bill has been introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature to remove several classifications including gays, lesbians, and the transgendered from the state’s hate crimes law. The legislation would also remove protections for people who are victims of crimes due […]
Were Dinosaurs Gay?
The question comes about in my mind after reading about concerns at the zoo in Bremen, Germany over their three gay penguin-couples. (I'm reading the story at 365gay.com.) It seems that the zoo is going to separate the couples (who fooled zoo-keepers for a year apparently by acting all traditionally husband-and-wifey), and then introduce imported […]
In: All, Splenetics, The Art of Conversation
Acceptance, Tolerance, or Indifference
In his opinion piece, "Fan behavior not a laughing matter anymore", in the Lexington [KY] Herald-Leader, John Clay relates an incident wherein sports fans at the University of Kentucky, in a confrontation with "Florida" (no doubt "University of …" or "… State", but the rules for shorthand versions of names in the context of sports […]
Basic Freedoms
In an opinion piece in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Sexual orientation must be the right that religious affiliation is), columnist Thomas Shapely has put down in his paper an important truth about the "gay rights" struggle, something pretty obvious that nevertheless eludes great numbers of people. These days, a lot of anti-gay types like to "argue" […]
Nostalgia Yet Unshattered
When I was much younger, and my age was in the single digits, my mother's parents owned and ran a farm in rural Missouri (the nearest big city was St. Joseph, home of "Cherry Mash" candy bars, and I vividly remember seeing the huge, illuminated image of the candy bar on top of the building […]
In: All, The Art of Conversation
Election Reform: My Simple Proposal
For many of the most recent federal elections — and this is long before I became so cynical as I am — I've been excessively irritated by the election bean-counters: those people who tote up how much each candidate has spent and simply presume that the prize will go to the one who spent the […]
Militant Kindergarten Agenda
Sometimes the silliness just is too much and one wouldn't be able to breathe because one couldn't stop laughing if only it were actually funny. It seems that the [Montana Congressional] House Education Committee was having hearings on the idea of extending kindergarten to full-day sessions. Apparently things got a wee bit out of hand […]
Tight Trousers
In an Op-Ed today in the NYTimes, Frank Rich said the following while discussing the import of right-wing attacks on cartoon surrogates in promoting the militant homosexual agenda: This, too, has its antecedent in the McCarthy era. In his novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," Michael Chabon was extrapolating from actual history when […]
No Debate
Jim Muir, a reporter for The Southern Illinoisan wrote, in "Buster Reveals A Larger Argument": Here's a challenge for you. If you disagree about Buster the Rabbit, why not, instead of calling me names, explain why lesbian parents should be on a children's cartoon? Convince me I'm wrong and show me the error of my […]
Swedish Neutrality
I just wrote, and quoted, as some length from the article Without a Doubt, by Ron Suskind, so I decided to put this somewhat longer excerpt about the president (who clearly does not live a reality-based lifestyle) in this separate post. In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
The Reality-Based Lifestyle
It has taken awhile, but I finally tripped over a reference to the text of an article I'd been wanting to read: Without A Doubt, by Ron Suskind (which appeared originally in The New York Times on Saturday 17 October 2004 and is available here through truthout.org). Why was it on my to-read list? Because […]
To Be Yellow & Full of Holes
My attention was finally attracted to this story (Muddling SpongeBob: Gay or straight?) in The National Business Review [New Zealand] about the whole SpongeBob thing for reasons that we'll get to in a moment. But first, a second-hand excerpt from an interview that The Syracuse Post-Standard had with Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob: Let […]
Liberals & The Truth
People used to point out that physicists (of which I am one) were not suited to certain occupations because they tended to believe people too readily: since physicists are accustomed to interacting with nature, who is generally thought to be incapable of lying, they are ill prepared to deal with people who actually do lie. […]
Call for Special Rights
In a story by Sara Faiwell ("How coming out opens doors") from The Daily Herald [Chicago, IL], this chilling anectdote: It wasn't until last year that being an openly gay high school student really set in for Andrew Kennedy. "I was in the locker room and I heard a group of kids plotting out my […]
Oh, Canada
This article from The New York Times, Church Fights Gay Marriage Bill, about the full-court press the "Catholic" Church is putting on the Canadian Parliament in an effort to turn back or deflect progress in marriage equality, must be fascinating because it keeps presenting these outrageous statements that just beg for comment. For instance: " […]
Exactly How Many?
From The Los Angeles Times story U.S. to Overhaul Training of Iraqi Forces, reporting on the confirmation hearings of Condi Rice as Secretary of State, comes this extraordinary statement: The Pentagon wants to train about 135,000 police officers, 62,000 national guardsmen, 24,000 army troops and others for a security force totaling 271,041. What is extraordinary […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Quartos, Splenetics
Mere Heroes
In The Seekers, Daniel J. Boorstin quotes this bit from Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV: Of those who have commanded battalions and squadrons, only the names remain. The human race has nothing to show for a hundred battles that have been waged. But the great men I speak to you about have prepared pure and […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, The Art of Conversation
Ukraine & Murry High School
Here we are with yet another silly riddle: What do Ukraine, Ohio, and Murry [Utah] High School have in common? The answer, as revealed in the story Murray school's 'cutest couple' title awarded to lesbian pair (by Jessica Ravitz, in The Salt Lake Tribune), is: voting irregularities. You see, after seniors had voted for "cutest […]
Progress is No Disgrace
I am reading Daniel J. Boorstin's The Seekers. I was fascinated by his chapter on the rise of Christianity (and "The Church" as corporation) in the mid fourth century. Particularly interesting was his observation that St. Augustine's The City of God was written as a Christian apology for the sack of Rome (i.e., that he […]
In: All, Splenetics, The Art of Conversation