It's not about reproduction

I really like the point being made by Alec Baldwin in this HuffPo posting, "Why Childless Straight Couples Make the Case for Gay Marriage," even though I prefer the term "childfree" to "childless." Childless sounds to me like children were desired and attempted but never accomplished (like "barren"), and childfree, to me, sounds like a choice was made. That's how it is in my case.

I find it offensive when people equate marriage (or even relationships) with childbearing. Two. Different. Things. Bearing and/or raising children is an option – not a requirement. This can be done whether you are single or married, and raising children may be done by persons of either gender. It can be done by one person or several, and it should be done by choice – hopefully by people who will be good at it.

The concept of “sanctity” in marriage is purely religious.

I really believe that it is only a matter of time before it becomes very obvious to the majority of people that putting gender qualifications on who can marry whom is unconstitutional, and also silly.

Person A can legally get married. Person B can legally get married. If you are saying that Person A cannot marry Person B, and your reason is not because they are too closely related (and might produce offspring with birth defects) then your reason for that has to be religious – especially since two people of the same sex will not produce offspring.

My chosen family consists of 1 human partner and an assorted number of cat kids. I've got a piece of paper for the human. That's what this is about. We chose to get a piece of paper, and we had the right to get one. A Judge did the ceremony in a hotel room, and we are just as married as we can be, even though a church had nothing to do with it and we decided there wouldn't be any more little humans added.

Let's get the Religion out of our government - that's the best way to preserve the sanctity of many of the brilliant secular ideals held by The Founding Fathers. Rights and Freedoms.

Why do these sanctity of marriage people hate our freedoms? Why do they hate America?

Waking Life

I have insomnia. It's the chronic type. I've had this sleep disorder for years... more than 5 years, maybe 10 years. It's hard to go to sleep, then I wake up a lot during the night and it's hard to go back to sleep. I can generally sleep in the morning between 5 and 8 AM, but unfortunately, that's when I get up every weekday - at 5 AM. I *might* get 4 hours of sleep a night (and that doesn't mean "in a row")

I don't think I have just one cause. For the past several years, a lot of it has been cat-related: 4 cats and some with serious health problems. Now we are down to 2 cats, but one of them is elderly with various health problems that seem to keep my brain awake most of the night. I can't blame this on the cats (not anymore). I'm a worrier. I'm working, even when I'm trying to sleep. Deadlines loom and I can't forget about them. Naps have been almost non-existent for the past 4-5 years. Dreams are not restful either, as I seem to spend them searching for someone (person or pet) who's lost until I am hopelessly lost too, and never get anywhere. Sometimes they are post-apocalyptic. Do you think I've seen too many movies?

Anyway, after recent major changes in the employment department, I've decided it's a good time to make major changes all the way around. I need to start taking care of my health. I need to try and get time off occasionally (OK... that's unlikely for another year or two), I need to stop worrying about everything, get some exercise, and accept circumstances. Try to relax and go with the flow. Relaxation has become an alien concept to me over the past few years. Must. Learn. To. Relax.

As for meds, I really don't want to resort to prescription sleep drugs (like I don't already worry too much now, I don't need to worry about those). I'm giving up my nightly dose of diphenhydramine (an anti-histamine and the primary ingredient in most OTC sleep remedies) for awhile. I've taken so much of it that it no longer makes me drowsy so that benefit is gone. I've been taking an OTC product called "Calms Forte," and it might be helping a little. It might be buying me an extra hour a night, but not much more.

I think I'll open a frosty, cold beer, and get out a cheesy novel. How's that for therapy?

Big box recycling

Strip malls tend to start dying nearly as soon as they're built, especially these days when even the previously successful ones are starting to go belly up. In fact, these days, the discount-style strip malls are more likely to continue to hang on than many with high end shops. This one (at Westgate and Wm. Cannon) used to have an Albertson's supermarket as its anchor with a women's gym at the other end. The Albertson's has been closed and empty for a long time, and the mall has starred the Dollar Store (which is sandwiched between 2 banks, one which has failed and has been absorbed by the other). Now, the Albertson's old big empty box is getting some use.

The space is being used for small business vendors of all types. The individual stores just consist of cubicle walls. Some shops featured handcrafted stuff and some didn't. There was a little video store with videos in Spanish, and even an Avon store, where I picked up some Skin-So-Soft (to repel mosquitoes). When the rest of the inner space is filled out, there will be a farmer's market, a bakery, and a game area with Moonwalks and pool tables...

... and even a Psychic Advisor offering palmistry and tarot readings.

Madame Sofia, will we survive this recession and keep a roof over our heads?

Fresh ideas from an old source

It's the birth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917), and here (audio only) is a very interesting speech on the topics of secrecy and the press. Also, it's nice to listen to some different audio snippets from JFK, he's got some classic hits, but they do get a lot of airplay.

Time to freak right out - again!

GE... we bring good things to... BLAM!!!

Here's another tale of corporate negligence, followed by danger to consumers, followed by a bullshit explanation that attempts to put the blame on the consumer and is obviously a CYA lie.

GE microwaves are exploding, sending glass shards and who-knows-what-else all over the kitchen and occasionally people. It's not just the glass breaking through consumer misuse (as they allege) - these things are going BOOM when they are not even in use.

Check out the article, where there is also a video than I couldn't embed here, and you might want to look into this further, especially if you are a GE microwave owner.

Has it come to this?

Yes, you can call it "pee-cycling." [LINK]

Yes, it has some definite usefulness in certain situations... I only hope to not be in those situations.

Should the sight of something like this encourage you to conserve water in areas where drought is becoming a larger problem all the time?

{yup}

P-Bucket hates artwork with butts showing

Awhile back I had to replace the above image stored on Photobucket that had been removed for obvious indecency (who's the censor over there? John Ashcroft?). It is called "Three Graces" and was painted during the Italian High Renaissance (around 1501) by Raphael. Well, just recently I discovered that they had also removed the one on the right - an ad (this one from 1958) that Coppertone has plastered all over magazines, billboards and in many other very public places using various versions of the same ad. We all grew up looking at this ad! I used it in a post from last Summer called "Heliophobia," where I also used the image below. So far, they have not removed that one... probably because it does not contain a classic painting or illustration featuring a female butt.

Darwin Award candidate?

"Half-cocked" now has double meaning for bad guy wannabe.
[LINK]

I think the Darwin rules might apply, or at least an Honorable Mention.

Furbaby Friday - Jax's mug

Jax wonders why he is being forced to pose for a mugshot, even show he's done nothing wrong. He doesn't mind much though, and loves to show off his striking profile. You don't see a chin like that every day. I only wish he had smiled for the camera.

"Officer, the perpetrator had one white whisker..."

Tags and links: Friday Ark - Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival is at House of the (Mostly) Black Cats - Cats - Catblogging

Learning something new every day

[From Dictionary.com Source Link]
The rumor that "orange" rhymes with no other word is incorrect. Orange rhymes with Blorenge (a mountain in Wales) and sporange (a sac where spores are made). "Silver" has the same rumor going for it, but it actually rhymes with Wilver (a nickname) and chilver (a ewe lamb).

Wow. Don't say this blog never helped you in Scrabble. I totally forgot about Blorenge, sporange, and chilver.

Weekends: Friday and Monday

Friday was MrBs birthday, so we splurged and went to the Nutty Brown Café to see Del Castillo, one of the best live bands you can see. The Nutty is a really nice outdoor venue/bar and restaurant, and it always seems like there's a breeze blowing. It's down the road in Dripping Springs instead of Austin, but the crowd is probably mostly Austinites. Here's Mark during his jaunt through the audience.

Here's some silliness on the part of the brothers. They took cameras from folks and used them for slides (all in la familia, nobody minded at all).

I was super tired from my week - hell, the last few weeks - stress from ditching my business (for the most part) and changing my employment status in light of our recent underemployment crisis, and the usual stress of kitty cat health problems, and Henry keeping us up all night every night creating a state of sleep deprivation in addition to work stress exhaustion (I don't earn enough to keep us afloat and unemployment checks may not start for several weeks), so something needs to happen - and I believe it will. We are being patient and trying to stay on a budget. We are also leaving more lights on during the night. It helps relieve Henry's distress due to failing eyesight. Anyway, Saturday and Sunday were used for resting and NOT going out.

Saturday we had rain and Sunday a wonderful cool front came through, taking the temperatures down to where, on Monday, the high didn't even break 80. Perfect weather. We went down to Waterloo Records to see Steve Earle's in-store performance, which was wonderful. Now, I saw Steve Earle a few years ago at the ACL Festival, it was from a good distance when he headlined on a big stage with a full band. It didn't do much for me. I later picked up his Washington Square album in the free KGSR bin, and became a fan. This show was just him and his guitar, playing free for a small crowd. Here's a video someone took, we were further back but still have a clear view of him. Glad this was captured. I think I'd rather hear him this way.

He played for about an hour, then we down a few blocks to Opal Divine's to hear MilkDrive on the patio. I was a good night and we got home at a decent hour, as they say.

American Crusades

Just when you thought you couldn't be more disgusted by the Bush administration, along comes one more thing.

[See the rest at the SOURCE LINK]...documents from the Rumsfeld Pentagon mixed religion and war

In the days surrounding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, cover sheets - like the ones in this exclusive GQ.com slideshow - began adorning top-secret intelligence briefings produced by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon. The sheets juxtaposed war images with inspirational Bible quotes and were delivered by Rumsfeld himself to the White House, where they were read by the man who, just after September 11, referred to America's war on terror as a "crusade."

I noticed that many of the scriptures used on the cover sheets are from the Old Testament, a book also sacred to the people we were invading... much like the original Crusades, which didn't go well either.

Found this link via http://twitter.com/colinmeloy (of The Decemberists)

Slumdog Millionaire - with SPOILERS

Curmudgeony "just gotta disagree" movie review

I've been putting off seeing this, even though it won all those awards including the Oscar for Best Picture, because the trailer made it look like one of those pictures that gratuitously play on your hopes that the underdog good guys will win the big prize - and then they do - and then everybody is happy, end of story.

First of all, I liked the way they told the story about how the guy came to know all the answers, and how they used that to construct the whole plot. Very nice. I guess the part I didn't like was the ending itself - because it DID end up being one of those "underdogs win in spite of impossible odds" movies. (I'm not saying I don't like any of those, I love Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope, for example.) In this case, it seems like the message the movie delivers is "All You Need is Money," or "First, Get Some Money and It Will Solve Everything." That message just leaves me feeling cold, just the opposite of the warm and fuzzy that was no doubt intended.

The woman (who is kept as a mistress/slave by a rich man) will not go to him while he is poor, asking "what will we live on?", even though he, the romantic, wants them to live on love.

He does win the big prize, and is joined by the woman, and their worries are over. There is a wonderful choreographed street dance (which is enjoyable, as is all the music in the movie), but I feel that we are actually robbed of the real ending. OK, having the money and the woman is great, but aren't there any loose ends? How do they spend the money? What about all of those people (including sooo many children) who are still living they way that they grew up, and have no hope whatsoever? Do they help them? Or not? Ironically, the young actors who starred in the movie, in spite of getting some financial benefit, are still living in the conditions depicted in the movie. One of them recently had his shack demolished after his family was run out of it by authorities threatening to beat them with canes. These are the living conditions that the movie is about, and being as it was sooo highly touted as a thing of wonder, I would have liked a better end to the story. There are loose ends, there are raw nerves, there is unfinished business. I want to see those things (and I don't mean in a sequel).