Archive for the ‘All’ Category
A Day for Smiling
On the "Marriage Bureau" page of the Superior Court of [Washington,] DC, there is this note, rendered in red at the top of the page of instructions on how to get a marriage license in DC (thanks Jason): NOTE: Pursuant to the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, A18-248, effective March […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
No Stay in DC
The news has just this moment reached my ears that the Supreme Court today (meaning, in this case, Chief Justice Roberts) refused to grant a requested stay of Washington DC's implementation of marriage equality starting tomorrow, Wednesday, 3 March 2010. Take all the negatives out of that sentence and it means that, starting tomorrow morning, […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Moyers, Boies, & Olson
I've just listened to the segment of Bill Moyers Journal in which he talks with David Boies and Ted Olson about their case for marriage equality. He talks to them for nearly fifty minutes, not just two minutes for the juicy soundbites. I don't think I can embed the video, but here's the link to […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Hearing Wedding Bells
When I was very young, my age in single digits, I once declared that I would marry my best friend. Said friend, of course, was also a boy. In those days parents did not get hysterical at the idea because, then as now, young children always say this and it is an announcement that really […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Way To Go, Wayne!
I want to congratulate my long-time friend Wayne on being recently named the Wolfskin (Oglethorpe County, GA) Volunteer Fire Department "2009 Firefighter of the Year". Wayne is dedicated and enthusiastic about his work for the department, and I think it's a well-deserved honor. The plaque is cool too; you can see a picture at his […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Personal Notebook
Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church
In some sort of debating context, Stephen Fry (noted actor, intellectual, atheist, and gay man — all of which I think of as very positive attributes) argues persuasively for about 12 minutes — 12 minutes that go by very quickly when his speaking is so electrifying — to support the proposition "that the Catholic Church […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Plus Ca Change...
The Return of Civilization
Releasing Us from our Snowy Confinement The sound of this machine, clearing snow from the road in front of our house on Friday last (12 February 2010), was what we woke to. At that point it was a sweet, sweet sound, the tune of our deliverance from cabin fever, our return to suburban civilization. The […]
Fear of the Gay Penis
I think my favorite pull-quote from this brief video ("Ac**kalypse Now", from That's Gay), which makes mock of gay panic in the US military and fear of the gay penis, is: "Why go to a gay bar or log on to manhunt.com when you could fly to Afghanistan and risk your life just to sneak […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Metaphorical Inaccuracy
Some people hold a boning knife like a conductor's baton during a particularly slow part of Pachelbel's Canon. [Tom Mylan, a Brooklyn butcher, quoted by Kevin Purdy, "A Butcher's Tips for Avoiding Cuts in the Kitchen", Lifehacker, 10 February 2010.] Unfortunately, Pachelbel's famous "Canon" has only one tempo, one speed. Sections of the work have […]
In: All, Feeling Peevish, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
We Actually Stage Our Staged Shows
Today and yesterday I've listened to the announcers on my local radio station interviewing one or another conductor whose group is presenting a "concert version" of a Broadway show. "Oklahoma!" was one, "Follies" was the other. They explain that their productions are "fully staged", but done without sets and costumes. Oh, and without most of […]
In: All, Feeling Peevish, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXXXVI: Fall of the Roman Empire
it's been awhile, far too long really, but I'm back with more beards of interest, at least to me. This week's handsome granite-colored beard belongs to British actor Anthony Quayle (1918–1989). I saw him a few night ago, looking as he does in this photograph, when we spent a snowed-in evening watching the film "The […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
"Star Wars": Awesome Fathers or Awesome CGI?
From an interesting (and short) essay on the morality–or rather, immorality–of the "Star Wars" films, this piquant observation: But culture and craft aside, I think there’s still a problem of intention. Lucas started out as a rebel against the authoritarian Bad Father. That’s what his movies were about, back before they were about the awesomeness […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, The Art of Conversation
Truth in Snark: Justice Stevens on Corporate Personhood
While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics. [US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, dissent to majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, quoted by Mary Hall, State of the Union: Obama Walking in the […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Feeling Peevish
Special Relativity: A First Reading List
A long-time friend of mine, quite inadvertently and perhaps to his lasting regret, brought up the subject of special relativity : we briefly touched on the idea central to special relativity that the speed of light (in vacuum) is constant (as measured) in every inertial reference frame.* At first hearing it's a rather unsettling idea, […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Shopping Attire
Just this week I was having lunch and a man came into the shop wearing unusual flannel trousers, green flannel that was printed with little figures of some sort that I couldn't quite make out but that might have been teddy bears. Well! I thought, that's unusual. I hadn't seen flannel trousers quite like these […]
In: All, Laughing Matters, Personal Notebook
Shalikashvili Calls for End of DADT
“Studies have shown that three-quarters of service members say they are personally comfortable around gays and lesbians. Two-thirds say they already know or suspect gay people in their units. This raises important questions about the assertion that openly gay service would impair the military. In fact, it shows that gays and lesbians in the military […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
NOH8
There has been some rejoicing on the side of equality (and some pursed-lipped tsk-tsking on the anti-equality side) since Cindy McCain came out in support of marriage equality and joined the "NOH8" campaign. I suppose it's gratifying to have a prominent Republican do the right thing, but how many gold stars must one dispense to […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Reflections
Sanders on his Move towards Equality
Jerry Sanders, mayor of San Diego, appeared this week as a witness for plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, and he's written about the experience and his own conversion to equality. The pull-quotes: "I realized that all opposition to same-sex marriage, including my own opposition, was grounded in prejudice." "When government tolerates discrimination against any class […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Merkley on Republican Anti-Science "Political Stunts"
Today one of my Republican colleagues introduced a proposal to brazenly overturn sound scientific work done by our nation's leading public health experts and prohibit the Environment Protection Agency from doing its job to protect the health and welfare of the American people. This extremely damaging proposal is a political stunt designed to effectively strip […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Spring Flowers at the Arboretum
Sometimes–okay, most times–spring can't come soon enough to suit me, so the arrival of crocuses, then daffodils, is always most welcome. When the daffodils appear I love to visit the US National Arboretum to take a walk in "Fern Valley" (where the daffodils used to be, but where one still sees a nice collection of […]