Marriage – spreading like wildfire!

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Thanks again to Bill of Bill and Kent’s weblog for the link to this story …
S.F. defies law, marries gays – it seems 90 gay and lesbian couples wed Thursday in San Francisco.

Of course, the clueless lawmakers in our State of Virginia are trying to shut the gate to keep out any smoke …

From the Washington Post Feb 13
RICHMOND, Feb. 12 — The Virginia House of Delegates gave preliminary approval Thursday to legislation that would ban the recognition of same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships, mirroring efforts by states across the nation to prevent gays from enjoying the same rights as married couples.

Virginia is one of 38 states that already ban the recognition of same-sex marriages. The bill would add to Virginia’s “Affirmation of Marriage Act” a ban against recognition of same-sex civil unions or partnership arrangements allowed in Vermont and California.

With all the other things the legislature could be working on, like the school system, employment, the economy, air pollution, you name it, going after Gay Marriage and civil unions is simply a distraction … much like a magician’ banter keeps you from seeing the extra card slipped into the deck at a critical point.

Could it be that after all the uproar over President Bush’s war on Saddam Hussein, the lack of WMD, and continued plumet of Bush credibility, that a wedge issue like Gay marriage is just another way of avoiding the real issues that face America?

Is Gay Marriage the Willie Horton of 2004?

iTunes

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Emma’s been in Richmond visiting her mom this weekend, and while she’s gone, I’ve been backing up all the files on my PC, preparing to move everything to the Mac G4 coming tomorrow (Feb 9).

While I was going through the partitions, I found some old MP3 files from Sigur Ros and a few other artists. In the past I’d always used WinAmp – avoiding the DRM issues of the MS Media Player 9 (which I refuse to install!). On a whim, I downloaded the Windows version of iTunes to see what the fuss was all about.
It’s pretty neat – has some nice sort options, and has a place to stick the cover art when you load albums into it.

Its got a Visualization feature – but it doesn’t seem as well done as the visual plugins for WinAmp – it doesn’t seem to be modulated by the music as much as
the winAmp modules. I did find a site with info for adjusting the visuals –
http://doors.stanford.edu/~sr/itunes/.

Family losses … and some surprised kin

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I had a call earlier this week from my Dad … he said there had been some kind of an accident with a gun and my cousin Ronnie was dead. I hadn’t seen him in probably 15 years – there had been a family reunion at his farm in Lovettsville, VA – back when I was still living in Laurel with Jeannie. It was a gorgeous place – a big 10 acre farm – across the road was another farm, and mountains on the horizon …

That was a long time ago for me – before my changes – and a long time ago for him – before he got divorced. That side of my family was baptist/fundamentalist – so I never was particularly close to any of them, but its still a big shock to my aunt and the rest of the family, so, out of respect to the family, Emma and I’ll will be going to the visitation on Sunday.

Dad’s sister’s son (he was the eldest of her two kids) died around 20 years ago – on reflection, I’d say he may have been part of the first wave who died of GRID … no one says anything like that – but looking back on it, he had the signs of being “family”. Dad’s brother had 4 sons, and Ronnie was his eldest … Of course, I’m the eldest of Dad’s kids – and I’ve had my struggles over the years … but since I met Emma and finally sobered up, life has been great.
Anyway – this makes me the remaining eldest of this generation of cousins …

We’ll see how the service and all that goes – I expect to be as low key as possible about everything – but I’m sure there will be the inevitable questions of who I am “… oh – I used to be … ” ” and this is my partner, Emma”
I’ll take it as low key as possible … but its over 10 years since the change
I’ll be polite and educate them gently … “we are very nice people and
we want to go to Massachusettes later this year and get married!”

Ah well ……. we’lll see …

Big Fish – pond frozen but thawing!

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Busy times – The weather has turned warmer so the snow and ice are finally melting. We walked through the remains of the backyard snow yesterday to check the pond and saw the goldfish peering up through a hole in the ice. After that we headed to Merrifield to see the Tim Burton film “Big Fish”, before it leaves town. The critics at the Washington Post are completely wrong – what a great film – and its not just our opionion – everyone in the theatre sat in their seats to the end of the credits and the houselight came up …

After that brief warm spell, of course – the weather folks are calling for ice storms again later in the week …

Eno and Gabriel to launch musicians’ union

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On Monday Jan 26, Rock legends Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno plan to launch a musicians’ union to help artists stand their ground in the digital age. The union will be called Mudda, short for “magnificent union of digitally downloading artists”.

Update Jan 28 MUDDA website


Threee cheers for the Evolution of the music industry – from Entertainment syndicate – to Artists direct outlet
Cut the Middlemen … and the RIAA heavies!

Continue reading →

Where You’ve Been

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Thanks to Caitlin for this bit of fluffy goodness!

Legend: bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /


Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Makin’ it MAC

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photo of a Mac g4
I’ve been looking into getting a MAC for the next computer I buy.
In the past, I’ve assembled my own PCs; from the 286-20 I built in 1989 and started the BBS with; through the intermediate AMD machines; to the Pentium-4 tower I use these days. From MS-Dos with DesqView and QEMM through Win 2000, all have been on the WinTel hardware platform.

Frankly, its just too vulnerable anymore. I’ve got antivirus and firewalls and all of that – but MS just leaves too many opening for their “partners” that translate to open doors for all the crackers and scammers out there. Well, no more.
All I do is webwork and graphics anyway – why not use a machine better made for such work. I’l look them over for the next couple months, and hopefully by June … I’ll decide and … get either a G4 or G5.

Imperial Humour …

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Troops
One of the folks in a list I read had this to say:

“A group of very talented videographers got together with a project idea… to make a parody of the “COPS” television program in StarWars style with StarWars characters and StarWars special effects. The premise is that the Storm Troopers from StarWars are the “COPS”, in this case “TROOPS”.

There are several ‘incidents’ filmed. I find the Jawas (who scavenge for parts, build robots, etc) scene, where they are apprehended, particularly funny. The characters are kept true to form: the Storm Troopers do not hesitate to shoot, they are rather disconnected from any emotional connection with their opponents. Jawas are slippery little schemers. The husband and wife altercation is sort of odd in a StarWars way.

There is actually work related information in this. The videographers managed to get many authentic flying and hovering craft in primary and secondary background of the shots (primary background is interleaved with primary characters, secondary background is behind primary characters). The costumes are excellent and the scene placement is near perfect. We some of the same professional video production tools at the CTO and have he capability to apply these techniques to captured video (AUSA, Signal Symposium, etc) in a very professional “broadcast quality” way. ”

Glorious morning

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I came down with that flu bug New Years weekend, and it stuck with me into this next week! I stayed home sick on Weds and that seemed to help – by Friday I was breathing clearly and by sunday mostly myself. So this weekend I could just take some time for myself and relax …

photo of feet proppped up on a footstyle, two cats sleeping nearby, and a norfolk Pine glowing in sunlight, indoors

Sometimes there’s nothing finer than time spend reading, sitting in a quiet room, morning sun rising through the trees, surrounded by sleepy kitties, with good coffee and tasty biscuits at hand … ahhh…
and yes – this is the same living room with the floor to ceiling bookshelves – but looking the other way (the bookshelves are behind me) …

Thats Dali Llamma Diva on the hassock, Sir Teddy is sleeping in sunlight under the coffee table …

Nag Hammadi and the Gnostic Library

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I’ve gotten quite intrigued by the Gospel of Thomas – one of the documents found at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Its a series of 114 sayings from the early years of Christianity – and has what we think of now as a very eastern feeling – many of them sound very much like Zen koans.

  • 3 Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
  • 68 Jesus said, “Congratulations to you when you are hated and persecuted; and no place will be found, wherever you have been persecuted.”
  • 77 Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”

Anyway – its quite fascinating stuff! I’ll write more as I get time to read further.
This stuff was all considered heretical – much of it was written as a way to find esoteric knowlege, truth, without requiring a need for a larger church community – which wasn’t a desired or helpful view in the early days of the Christian church community. Small wonder these writings disappeared between 340 and 400 CE.