forgotten tidbit

5 planets will be in alignment and should be visible in the evening for the next few days. They're also supposed to be visible again in the wee hours of the morning sometime around the end of the year.

Too bad it was overcast last night. Then again, I left the office around 9:30pm last night, so I guess I would have missed it anyway.

It's about time...

Spring made a cameo appearance today. I hope she'll get signed as a regular cast member soon. That cold and rainy (and snowy) business was getting old.

We played disc during lunch today. Four-on-three. Despite forecasts for an overcast day, the sun was out. It must have been over 60. I wore shorts. I didn't need the extra long-sleeved shirt. No more frozen-solid ground. No more patches of frozen slush.

I'd forgotten what grass felt like. Soft. And, well, springy. (I guess it is Spring, after all.) It SMELLS like Spring. I'll try to remember this time once the summer sun has baked the ground into adobe and I'm complaining that it's too hot.

* * *

Tidbits:

• New Harry Potter trailer! (recommend against WMP format; it didn't play right on the home machine)
• I had no idea what this was talking about on Wil Wheaton dot net until I stumbled on a link to this. I think we need to get real cable again. I really miss Adult Swim.

Meta 1.5

Found this Blog survey after wandering onto chak.org. I thought it provided some context for the whole public/private thing about posting online.

There was also another point brought up in section 11:

" b) Performing for an audience
Even though blogs have been hailed as the ultimate venue for personal expression; a world that is all about the self, it turns out that blogs are not necessarily that egocentric. In this survey, various respondents expressed the pressure that comes with having an audience. Even in its current elusive form, a blog’s audience can become such a powerful element of the writing action that it can affect what the blogger chooses to write about. "

It's probably not something I have to worry about here since there is no audience as far as I know. But I also can't help thinking about how people interact in the "real world." Perhaps it's just me, but I'm often acutely aware of the public face that I put on when dealing with different groups of people. Nothing sinister. I play a highly knowledgeable and professional engineer (or at least I try, sometimes) when I'm at work. I'm a responsible adult that needs to make real financial decisions. I'm confident about who I am, and what I want, and where I'm going. I've got my shit together. I'm a grown up.

No.

No, I'm not.

...but I play one in real life.

we've been reminded

I keep forgetting this because we don't have real cable at the house (our channels end at 23), but... the Daily Show rocks! The SOOTTAD says, "Dude, Jon Stewart for President!" We are only reminded of this when we get links to video clips via email or I catch something in a blog I'm reading. The ones that had us cheering tonight were this one (on the fake Medicare news spots) and this one (on the recent Richard Clarke controversy).

Keep up the good work, Jon.

Meta, Part 1

I gotta say, this whole blogging thing has been kinda weird on a couple of different levels. I've got a couple of different takes on this, so I'm going to try and break it into several posts. Hopefully I'll actually get back to it, unlike some of the other things I've started which appear to be stuck in eternal draft mode.

* * *

There's a weird public/private boundary that gets blurred on-line. The SOOTTAD is extremely suspicious of this and thus is extremely careful about what gets posted about her on the 'net at large. There's a reason there aren't many (any) pictures of her floating around with her name attached. Quite frustrating, I must say, speaking as someone who was once trying to find out more about her when we first met.

I, on the other hand, dove in head first. Under the auspices of creating a website for my fencing club and the local division, I also created a personal homepage complete with a few photos, interests and geographical information. You know, so people would know who designed the pages. (I hate the new club site, BTW. It's certainly prettier and flashy, but to me senseless Flash is just a waste of bandwidth and CPU.) Really, it's just the 21st century version of seeking your 15 minutes. The SOOTTAD has definitely rubbed off on me. I've gotten a lot more careful about what I put out there in this brave new world of identity theft and web-enabled crazies. There's a reason there are no direct links to our on-line photo gallery or even my old site. Plus it's fun to use aliases and nicknames for people. (something that I'm only just starting to do, and probably not do very much)

Ok, it's getting late and there are a bunch of other things about posting that I'm just gonna bullet item here. Maybe I'll come back later and clean it up.

• There's something inherently (narcissistic? self-absorbed?) ...perhaps a self-consciousness or self-awareness when you post about yourself to the great sea of the internet at large. (ok, maybe it's just me) Am I being totally honest and open with you? Probably. Maybe. (again, maybe that's just me, though) It's been easier to rant. Or point -- "Ooh look, pretty!" And sometimes there are also legitimate reasons to watch what you say.
• Sometimes, by the time I get home from the office (I'm trying not to post when I'm at work -- ok, post less), the last thing I want to do is sit back down in front of a computer. It becomes work.
• Sometimes, the spirit that moved me, moves on. The muse exits, stage left. Whatever.
• Still other times, something interesting happens, but I'd rather write it in my "brick-n-mortar" journal. (Yes, if I really want to keep a thought, I want it on paper, in my journal, in my house. Not unseen on some server somewhere out in the ether.) And then, it's written, and it's a little weird writing it all again.

* * *

OK, bedtime. Maybe I'll get to the client-side commentary next time. Or fix up the stuff above.

More signs of Spring, good and bad

Saw what looked to be a magnolia tree starting to bud out on my run during lunch today. And it was clear and sunny, too. (although not much above freezing) Some of the bulbs don't seem to be faring as well -- several that survived last week's snowstorm have been unceremoniously dug up, presumably by squirrels. I'd probably be less upset if they just ate them, rather than chewing them up, leaving them half-gnawed and strewn about the disheveled earth.

We had the same problem with the raspberries last year, although thankfully, they didn't take too many. But every few days, you'd find one perfectly good raspberry lying on the ground, or sitting on the fence (so you know it didn't just fall there), with maybe a little piece taken out of it. Maybe we're just lucky and we have squirrels that don't like fresh fruit.

About

Originally uploaded by foodnerd.

• The tall asian dude is pretty tall... for an asian dude. The SOOTTAD (significant other of the tall asian dude) says that he's pretty tall for most people. Admittedly, while falling below the average height of the Boston Celtics, he is taller than their shortest player.
• The tall asian dude likes to think that he still looks like he's in his 20's, even though he isn't -- and hasn't been for a while. He's really just a big kid pretending to be an adult, although recently he's been feeling like he's been forced to grow up some.
• The tall asian dude lives with the SOOTTAD and their last remaining (crotchety old eccentric) cat in the cozy Boston suburb of Waltham, MA.
• Having recently bought a new house and sold the old one, he is quite thankful that he first bought before the housing boom hit its stride in the late 90's.
• The SOOTTAD spent almost 2 years living and working in Chicago after having lived in Massachusetts for almost her entire life, which really bummed out the tall asian dude. Thankfully, the SOOTTAD moved back to Massachusetts in early 2007.
• In the summer of 2007, the tall asian dude and the SOOTTAD got married and are actively engaged in the process of living happily ever after.
• Although the tall asian dude grew up in southern California and has willingly chosen to remain in Massachusetts, he is, in fact, not crazy.
• The tall asian dude considers himself to be a pseudo-geek, mostly due to his occupation (engineer) and education (engineering degree). However, he much prefers getting irradiated running around outside than sitting in front of a monitor. Sitting outside working on a laptop would still fall in the latter category and thus is behavior to be avoided. He is geeky enough to realize that TFT screens, and really even CRT monitors, don't generate all that much radiation.
• The tall asian dude completed a program in muscular therapy and now has a small part-time massage therapy practice in Newton, MA that he runs with a friend and former classmate.
• The tall asian dude's primary passion, outside of the SOOTTAD, is ultimate frisbee. Technically, it's "ultimate disc" or just "ultimate" but generally when the tall asian dude used to say that, people would look kind of perplexed. The sport has grown in popularity so it may no longer be as much of an issue, but the tall asian dude is always just a shade behind the times, it seems.
• The tall asian dude has been known to swing. (dance that is. Lindy hop, specifically.)
• He likes running, too.
• The tall asian dude is aware of how silly it is that he's writing this description in the third person, but seems content to continue doing it anyway.

[UPDATED: Fri Jul 29, 2007, 09:37:29 PM EDT]

I probably should be studying right now, but I've had a few things on my mind that I wanted to write about. But I'm also beat, so it's been hard just to sit down and try to draw the things out of my head. Low on energy. I feel like all I've been doing recently is having the life sucked out of me at work and studying Chinese, with some sleeping, eating and driving between the two squished in between. I know it isn't really that bad, but sometimes it feels that way anyway.

I'm sure part of it is the crappy weather. I know this is New England, not California. I can appreciate 40°/50° temperatures, especially considering that we were talking single digits and below zero just 2 months ago. But Spring is supposed to be right around the corner. And yet when it hasn't been snowing or raining, it's still been pretty gray most of the time. Right now, I can see little glimpses of blue every so often, but it's a gradient of dark threatening clouds to the north, and when July and I took a short walk around the neighborhood an hour ago, it was mostly wind and gray. I should be happy it's not snowing, but I'm dwelling on the daylillies and tulips whose tips we had spotted last week which are only now reappearing through the melting snow, after being buried by the snowstorm Wednesday.

So anyway, it's not really that bad. I played hoops yesterday before class, had a great dinner at the John Stone House in Ashland with friends. I've been running during lunch with some folks at work (although only once last week because of travel and weather). I suspect the travel has been throwing me off. Hopefully I'll get back in sync next week, and maybe the current work crisis will finally settle down.

* * *

So while I was driving home from hoops yesterday, this cool song came on the radio. And I thought to myself, "Hey, this song is pretty cool. It sounds like Norah Jones. I wonder if it's from the same new album of that other song I keep hearing?" Because for probably the last month or so, I've been hearing the same last 30-seconds-to-a-minute of this one Norah Jones song on the radio. I'd be flipping around from station to station and I'd hit this song which reminded me of some other song. (I'll let you know if I ever figure out what that other song is.) And eventually I'd hear enough to realize that it wasn't this other song, but maybe a cover. And then I'd hear the chorus and I'd think, "no, it's a different song." But I still thought it was pretty cool, so I'd keep listening, waiting to hear the next verse. And then the song would end. Doh. This had to have happened at least six or seven times. I'd land on the song, think to myself, "This is it! I'm finally going to hear more of this song!" And then, disappointment. Ok, my bad. I flip stations a lot (certainly more than I used to), or maybe I'd be listening to a language CD ("Na, ni xihuan zuo shenme? Wo zhi xihuan chi fan, shui jiao...") and the current lesson would end and I'd switch back to radio. So anyway, I'm listening to this new song and it's playing along and I'm driving and it hits the chorus and I realize, "oh, this is that song!" Heh. Well, at least I've now heard the whole song now. I'll still have to wait to see whether another song gets any airplay and I can decide whether or not to buy the album.

* * *

Clouds have broken up; it's almost dusk. Maybe it's time to do some studying. Perhaps I'll write more later.

flying home; flying home

So I just got back from another whirlwind trip to the west coast. The 2nd in as many weeks. I flew into LAX on Saturday and came back on the red-eye Monday night. I hate LAX. And I hate red-eyes. But I made exceptions for this trip because this trip wasn't about me, it was about my dad.

I've been living on the east coast for pretty much the last 18 years now, and I'm generally back home only for the Christmas holidays and occasionally a random trip in late spring or summer. So I'm never around for things like... birthdays. And I hate to admit it, but I've always been bad at finding presents for my parents. Dad in particular. But this year was one of the big ones. Wo fuqin jinnian shi qishi sui. He turned 70 this year. When I talked to my mom about it the week before, she said that he had been saying it wasn't a big deal. But, apparently he'd also been talking up that this year he actually had 4 birthdays because in addition the date on his driver's license, on the lunar calendar, his month shows up twice this year. And, if you trace back the lunar date to the actual year he was born, you end up with a different date on the Julian calendar than the one on his driver's license.

Anyway, it was also important to me that I do something. And I realize that while we don't necessarily DO stuff when I'm home, he's usually happy I'm around, even if we're just sitting around watching a basketball game on TV or something. So I booked my flight, reserved a rental car, and Saturday evening I appeared at the front door of my parents' house and actually surprised my dad for a change. He's always been a big fan of setting up surprises for other people, (Mom, in particular) but I wasn't sure how he'd respond. I ran the idea by Mom; she seemed to think it'd go over well. It was also good to coordinate to make sure they'd actually be home.

Good thing, too. I forgot my housekey.

My brain also didn't actually get past getting my physical self to the house, so I also didn't remember to check the weather or I might have known that it was already summer in Los Angeles. It would have been nice to have packed a pair of shorts and maybe have something other than flannel shirts to wear.

Anyway, it all worked out. Dad was initially unwilling to open the door for some stranger carrying a bunch of bags, probably begging for money or something; Mom had to open the door for him. He was happy to see me. Pleased. Contented. Over the weekend we didn't really do a whole lot, but it was still good.

Spending time together with the family generally revolves around eating. We went to Sam Woo which is basically a franchised Chinese deli, had the tires changed on Mom's car, ate at JiRaffe (Mom and I both favored the scallop and ravioli appetizers, Dad has a thing for their roasted chicken), visited my grandfather (who was also surprised, and happy, to see me), ate at Sue's Kitchen (a little noodle shop in Torrance) and had a family dinner at home. I got a little help with my Chinese, too. (although it turns out that Mom's mandarin isn't so great, nor is Grandpa's.)

I tried to stay on Boston time, so when I woke up at 6:30am PST, I'd get up. Did a little tai chi. Studied. Unfortunately, I was still going to bed around midnight -- 3am back home. Whoops.

I got back into Boston Tuesday morning around 7am; not much sleep to be had on the plane. July picked me up at the airport. Home again(, home again), a short nap and in the office a little before 11am --mostly useless-- I manage to make it to 5pm; it takes a little over an hour to drive home through the... snow? (Wasn't it just summer?) I call home to let the Folks know I got in ok (I don't think the message I left at 3am PST on Dad's cellphone made a lot of sense), and tell them I'm going to bed. It's 8:30pm. i hear ringing and i think i'll let july get it but it's probably not for her so i should reach for the phone what time is it? Mom calls. It's 10:30pm. I guess she didn't get the message from Dad. Apologies... Sleep... Cat on my head... 3am? 6... 8:30.

Aaaah, much better. (Wow, just 12 hours. How 'bout them apples?) Reentry was a little rough, but I think it was worth it, all around.

OK, I really should be working now, but clearly I'm not.

I just wanted to note (of all things) that since I started poking around the Bostonite webring, it's been strange seeing that other people are using the same template that I am. (I may have to address that when I have a real chunk of free time -- ha.) This shouldn't be a surprise to me; it IS publicly available after all. But it's like going to a party and running into someone else who's wearing the same fab red polyester jumpsuit (Ok, so these aren't necessarily red or polyester) that you are (I hate it when that happens). It's one of the reasons I stopped wearing company swag a couple of years ago (along with not being particularly fond of the logo golf shirt anyway). Perhaps equally strange is that I just noticed that the default colors are a pretty close approximation to the colors of my winter parka... hmmm, weird.

OK, back to work. Maybe I'll finally write something about last weekend after I get home from Language Exchange tonight.

work distraction; armageddon

The continuation of the State constitutional convention is going on today. I made calls to my representatives yesterday; I wanted to thank them for fighting on the side on lightness and good by opposing the attempts to write discrimination into our state constitution and to let them know that I preferred that they not accept any compromise resolutions. I even called the Senator from Milton whom I read about online in the Globe:

"We are charged with exercising our judgment," Joyce said. "It is our responsibility to cast votes, even when the matter is controversial. . . . I am unconvinced that civil rights should be decided at the ballot box when emotions are so inflamed. Had the ban on interracial marriage or the decision segregating schools been put on the ballot, each may have been overturned. That does not mean those decisions were wrong."

Anyway, I did what little I could do. Today I was going to let them do their jobs and I was going to try to do mine, and get some work done. And I did OK until about 15 minutes ago when I broke down and read an update on the debate, and now I'm pissed off again and I gotta get it out of my head.

What upset me was several quotes from people who were opposed to gay marriage. From the Globe article:

"No Hatred. Just loving biblical truth," read posters held by some of the opponents of gay marriage who gathered on the Statehouse steps. . . .

"Unfortunately, they believe we don't like them," said Maria Reyes, 51, an elementary school teacher who came to support a same-sex marriage ban with the Hispanic Baptist Church. "That's not the issue here. We need to obey God's will."

AARRGHH!!!

What can I say here? It makes me so angry to see people trying to impose their belief systems on others -- on me -- that I have a hard time formulating a rational response. In America, we have Freedom of Religion. You know, that whole First Amendment thing, along with the freedom of speech, press, the right to peacible assembly and all that...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

That means that you are free to practice your religion; but it also means the government (and that includes you by way of the government) has NO right to tell me how to practice mine. The best I can do is pull a quote from one of the founding fathers of our country, Thomas Jefferson:

"Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights."

You go, Tom.

But I don't know if that's even enough. He talks a good talk, but it seems like a lot of people aren't listening.

I dunno. I think if I were to have taken Jesus as my personal savior, I'd probably think that W was bringing about Armageddon. And when the day of reckoning came (likely sooner than later), all those people who fanned the flames of hatred and bigotry in the name of the Big Guy, righteous, arrogant, holier-than-thou... all of them -- straight to Hell. And probably all the people who were only good so they could get into Heaven. And probably me too, for being so bitter and spiteful. But then I'd at least be able to say, "This sucks; but hey, at least it's fair."

Thinking back on the desert

[Kelso Dunes in the rain, March 2004]

I find it hard to believe that it's been almost a week since we got back from our most recent desert odyssey. It's probably because I'm still feeling sleep-deprived.

For those that don't know, we flew out to Vegas, met up with friends (Natasha from Maryland and Hae Jung from Los Angeles) to go camping and hiking around the Mojave National Preserve and then caught a show back in Vegas before flying home. Five days, if you include the days spent flying out and back. Tuesday was actually the perfect day. Despite having light rain at the Kelso Dunes, the rain also served to drive away any other people so we had the Dunes all to ourselves. Then, after our return to civilization, we were able to show Hae Jung the complete Vegas experience: sex (in the form of a Las Vegas show -- Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity), booze, good eats (oysters at NY, NY and a 24-hour Korean BBQ restaurant) and, of course, gambling.

It was a great trip; I just got a lot less sleep than I had originally intended. Unfortunately, it means that while fun, and a nice break from work, it wasn't the restful trip that I was counting on to energize me and get me focused once I got back to the office.

I guess there are worse things. But I am more or less back where I started -- restless and unmotivated, and looking for the next good opportunity to escape.

[Scaling the Dunes, March 2004]

[Pictures are up on the gallery, BTW, if you know where to find it.]

Lost in Translation lost on America

I just saw Lost in Translation over the weekend and loved it. I thought it was a beautiful film, both in its visuals and its story. Two lost souls that somehow manage to connect in a foreign world. It resonated. I felt it. (There's a tangential thought in there that maybe I'll get to later.) Anyway, I really enjoyed it and I can't really get it out of my head.

So July hasn't seen it yet and we were talking about taking in a movie, but I thought I'd pop on over to Amazon and see how the price compares to the 'Co (not too bad it would seem), and was shocked when I started reading down the Customer reviews.

"Boring." "Pointless." "No redeeming qualities." "Complete farse[sic]."

Did these people watch the same movie? Well, yes, even though some of the details were occasionally off. ("scenery of Hong Kong?" uh, and that would be whiskey, not vodka) But those are only minor points. I realize that part of why I enjoyed the movie is that I could feel with the characters -- I thought that's what it did so well. What the actors did; what the film did. And I guess there were a lot of people out there that just didn't get it. Which leads me to two possible conclusions neither of which is particularly heartening (ignoring the one reviewer that takes the elitist "measure of intelligence" point of view):

1. The movie resonates because I've experienced the same feelings of loneliness and being lost that the characters are going through, but apparently that isn't that common. So once again, I've found another litmus test that highlights how outside the mainstream I am. (although I guess that argument doesn't hold much water since the film is getting significant positive critical review. But then again, critics themselves have been criticized for not truly representing mainstream America.)
2. Much of America is emotionally dead inside. They may have experienced similar feelings at one time or another, but it was much easier to just ignore it, mask it or take it out on somebody else than it was to just feel it or understand it. And that ability to connect with how other people think and feel is gone.

I guess the fact that some people didn't like this movie shouldn't bother me so much, except that it serves as a reminder that there are many people in this country that just don't see the world in the same way I do. And even that shouldn't be a big deal, except the part where they see it in a way that says that other people aren't as important as they are.

First signs of Spring

14Feb04 18Feb04

This is the second winter that this maple seedling has survived. About two weeks ago, I thought I had killed it for good, but I suspect I had the same feeling around this time last year. Actually, checking the photo archives indicates that it didn't bud until the beginning of March last year. Perhaps that's a good sign that we'll have a real Spring this year.

It's also interesting to note that it doesn't seems to want to bud-out at the top, but rather at the same lower joint that it started from last year. Maybe I shouldn't have snipped the top off last year after all...

fun with numbers...

An article in the Washington Post that I read over lunch (and I won't comment on the article itself, since I'm sure you can guess my reaction if you've read some of my other posts on the subject) ends with this:

A Feb. 5-8 poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey asked: "Would you favor or oppose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution saying that no state can allow two men to marry each other or two women to marry each other?" Of the 814 adults surveyed, 49 percent opposed an amendment, while 42 percent favored it.

That was a reversal of an Annenberg poll a few days earlier that asked, "Would you favor or oppose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow marriage only between a man and a woman?" With that wording, 59 percent were in favor and 33 percent were opposed.

Which says to me, that along with the 10% of the population that is supposedly gay (and I won't provide a link to a source for that number since everything I could find on the subject seems to be biased to one side or another) and the four-out-of-five dentists surveyed that prefer sugarless gum for their patients that chew gum, it would appear that 16-17% of Americans (that's about one in six) couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag. They may mean well perhaps, but some of those higher order processing skills seem to have gone missing. But hey, at least they're trying to be good. More or less. (well, maybe more less than more, if you follow me.) Anyway, that leaves us with a nice round 42% of the population being bigots. I suppose I'm actually being a bit optimistic (the numbers are something of a swag) since the pro-amendment folks (see, I'm not even lowering myself to calling them the anti-freedom-back-to-the-dark-ages supporters) probably didn't have to think too hard to figure out what their opinion was.

I always thought that Jerry Springer was just some asshole who had an awful (but hugely popular) television show. I had heard that he was once a mayor somewhere in the Midwest, but I never really gave it a second thought. That is, until today, where he showed up in a segment of This American Life.

I was looking online for a story someone had mentioned last night at dinner. Something about rented storage space... but Jerry Springer's name caught my eye and I had to check it out. (I never did find that piece on storage space) The show was called "Leaving the Fold" (FYI, that's a Real Audio link) and is about "people abandoning the life they've made for themselves, for an uncertain future somewhere else." The segment about Springer talks about his original career in politics and how he transitioned to the Jerry Springer show that we all know today. Much of it made me sad, really-- because it paints a picture of a good man, with good ideas and a good heart, who had the potential to do great things, and ended up--here. I kept thinking to myself, "what a waste." And yet the segment seemed to give me hope (for me? for him?). To finish on an up-note. The show to him is just his current gig: it pays the bills, "just a way to eat." But it sounds like it leaves him empty and he's now ready to try again to make a difference in the world.

It's heartening. Yet, perhaps not surprisingly, I feel a sense of betrayal in myself. "How could you support someone like that?" He represented the worst in television; he brought out the worst in people. Am I that desperate for someone to say what I want to hear?

Well, to be honest -- yes, I am. But I think it goes beyond that. I like him not because "he seems like a guy I'd like to hang out with at a bar and have a few drinks" (Not that I'd ever have wanted to do that with W), but because what he says resonates with me. It makes sense.

He didn't run in the U.S. Senatorial race in Ohio last year because he was/is still under contract to produce the show. (check out these excerpts from an interview with him on CNN. I particularly like the way he indirectly criticizes the interviewer -- and news media in general -- in response to a fairly holier-than-thou comment from the interviewer) But almost certainly he'll make a run the next time around.

July was listening from the other room and thought he should run for President. Yeah. Definitely. Too bad he can't, having immigrated to the U.S. when he was 5. But hey, the next senatorial race will be 2006. Go Jerry!

"How about I give you the finger... and you stop f'ing with the Constitution?"

So the Governor (along with house speaker Thomas Finneran) is supporting a state constitutional amendment to "define marriage as a union between a man and a woman." In other words, prohibit same-sex marriage. I've mentioned it before. And now it looks like it's also going to be coming up at the Federal level as well. Anyway, I started composing a letter. And while doing some additional research, I came across an article which put me over the edge. Basically, it describes an editorial that Gov. Romney wrote in the Wall Street Journal which urges other states to use the constitutional process to ban gay marriages. I've been pretty upset about this issue since it reemerged in the news with the latest Supreme Judicial Court opinion, but on reading the article, I totally lost it. Perhaps ill-advisedly, I called up the office of the Governor and ranted unintelligibly for about a minute. (For the ambitious folks, the number is 617.725.4005)

I actually subscribed to WSJ online just to read it. It was well written. I also found it deeply troubling. And scary.

It generally reads quite fair and reasoned. But it suffers from the same accusations of "judicial tyranny" that I've heard regarding some of the recent Supreme Court rulings. It's interesting to note that ALL of the sources of this rhetoric that I can find appear to be Republican or Convervative Advocacy groups. (see for yourself) He claims that the judiciary is silencing the voice of the people. Funny, I thought it was protecting my voice from the majority. The other part that fails is his argument that opposite-sex marriage==stable society. From the editorial: "That benefits are given to married couples and not to singles or gay couples has nothing to do with discrimination; it has everything to do with building a stable new generation and nation." Bullshit. It has everything to do with discrimination. And prejudice. Strong families can contribute to a stable society. That includes mixed race, mixed religion and same-sex. I'll buy that marriage can strengthen a family, but a marriage and a family are not synonymous. I think in math terms, you could say that their properties are neither commutative nor associative. Denying the right to marriage only adds additional hurdles to legitimize a family in others' eyes because it denies rights while at the same time codifying ideas that breed bigotry and prejudice.

So why bother to say all this, since I've probably said it before, and I've already established that nobody reads this blog? So I can say this: write a letter to Governor Romney. Write to your state representative. Write to Congress. Write to the President. (Yeah, I know, it's mostly pointless. But I keep hoping that with enough personal letters, maybe he'll catch some kind of clue.) And maybe just one more person will get involved. And maybe it's just one more person that we need to turn the tide.

Ok, so I just heard W's announcement regarding the appointment of the bi-partisan commission. It's still not supposed to deliver an conclusions until March of next year. But what really struck me, is that he *still* can't pronounce "nuclear" ...and he stumbled twice on the word "proliferation."

I've been having a lot of trouble concentrating at work recently. And both July and I are having trouble falling asleep at night.

Why?

There's just too much badness going on in the world right now. It's not the threat of terrorism or fear of an attack from a foreign nation, it's what's going on here at home that's keeping me awake at night.

I wonder if I'm just being silly. It is really that bad? I suppose that's what I thought when Bush first took office back in 2001. How bad could it really be? I didn't agree with any of his policies when he was campaigning, but it's just one politician versus another. The true variation in impact on everyday life is close to nil, right? And yet, from the get-go, I'd wake up in the morning and hear something on the radio that would really worry me. Or anger me. Or scare me. Every day. And it wasn't just the same old news being rehashed and overanalyzed ad infinitum by the commentators, it was always something new, another policy, another public comment, another scandal.

The current turmoil is being caused by the recent landmark ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The ruling itself is a good thing. "For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain..." No, the problem is the response to it. Both the Massachusetts Governor and House Speaker are opposed to gay marriage and are pushing for a constitutional amendment to explicitly exclude same-sex couples. A constitutional amendment to discriminate. The response from Washington is the same -- the White House is advocating the passage of a constitutional amendment at the Federal level.

Many use the argument that the courts have overstepped their bounds. "Judicial Tyranny" they call it. I'm aghast when I hear that. As some, but clearly not enough, point out, the purpose of the judiciary is to protect the rights of the individual from the tyranny of the majority. But I guess some people forget that, either never having been on the outside, or perhaps desperate to never be left out again.

Anyway, that's just the big one. There's also a new chapter in the CBS/censorship controversy. Apparently, there's a new ad being developed to sell the new Medicare bill that seems to amount to nothing more than new election year propaganda. Moveon.org is trying to get another call-in campaign going to highlight CBS' hypocricy, but it's interesting to note that I can't find a single news article on it. More indication of media bias or the first symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia? I did find the original article about the ad itself. But here are Moveon's own words about it:

Dear MoveOn member,

We didn't think the hypocrisy at CBS headquarters could get any worse. But it just did.

As you know, CBS refused to run MoveOn Voter Fund's "Child's Pay" ad -- perhaps the most tasteful and uncontroversial advocacy ad in history -- during the Super Bowl. CBS executives claimed they had a blanket policy against all so-called "issue" ads.

Yesterday, we learned that the network plans to broadcast an ad promoting the Bush Medicare prescription drug law. This is part of a $13 million taxpayer-financed TV campaign to take the heat off the White House for pushing through a drug plan that benefits drug companies and insurance companies more than Medicare recipients.

The White House ad features the tagline "Same Medicare. More Benefits." But a report by Consumers Union last month said that most people covered by Medicare will wind up spending more for prescription drugs, as a result of the provisions in the law which favor drug companies. According to the Washington Post, the campaign is intended "to counteract Democratic criticism that changes to the (Medicare) program will harm older Americans."

You can read about the questionable politics behind the ad itself here. Yep. Oh yeah, and then there's the hand-picked commission to investigate the intelligence on Iraq, reporting back well after the November elections? (Here's a Reuters article) Which doesn't even begin to address the whole thing with the Patriot Act's erosion of rights to privacy, fiscal irresponsibility and pandering to business interests. (Oh wait, I just covered that, sorry.) "Uniter not a divider?" Liar, lair, pants on fire. And what ever happened to that investigation into questionable behavior on the part of John Ashcroft? (briefly mentioned here)

Y'know, I never followed politics that much. Sure, I've voted in the national elections, but it's otherwise been pretty much a quiet buzz that's flown under the radar. But it's pretty hard to ignore. I see flashes of George Orwell everywhere. Maybe we really are headed towards Armageddon (and most of those links just reinforce how bad things really are -- mostly in their prejudice and bigotry)... and saying it makes it that much worse. Because it's not even like I'm joking about it anymore.

*sigh*

There's more. There's always more. But I really gotta get to work.

cool things

Two things, of the sequential art variety, that I've recently come across:

1. BOP! a new collection of Box Office Poison stories by Alex Robinson. I originally found Box Office Poison in my local comic book shop (Outer Limits in Waltham) -- the 3rd to last issue of the original series. I think it was the dialog that sucked me in initially. Fortunately, they released the entire collection in a single edition only a few months after my initial discovery, so I didn't have to tear out my hair trying to track down every last issue. BOP! is a follow-up collection of (apparently) all the short stories involving the original Box Office Poison characters. Way cool. Check them out if you haven't already.
2. Dungeon, by Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim. Thankfully (for losers like me) NBM translated the series from the original French.