War on holiday cards

So you think there's a "war on Christmas"? The reality of it is that there's a much stronger "war on non-Christians". Before Dubya got in there and fired up the xian right-wing, this time of year was more peacefully settling in to what it really is: an ancient holiday held around the solstice to honor certain gods or prophets, some of which have virgin-birthdays around that time... a time when people bring out their own particular choice of traditions that come from various influences over hundreds to thousands of years. It's also a time of year when people feast and imbibe quite often and buy things like there's no tomorrow.

I've always had a very weird and dysfunctional relationship with Christmas for various reasons, even when I was a Christian myself (many years ago). What it has come to be for me is a list of obligations that I would rather skip except in a few cases where it means getting in contact with friends. Mr B's family still require cards and simple gifts to be sent (and besides, he is not a godless heathen like I am, although he's a bit heretical) so we are down to just a small pile of those. Fortunately, although they are Christians, they are not of the evangelical variety (there is lots of wine at family gatherings), so they don't give a hoot if it says Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or what... as long as it's a nice card and not something with nudity like this, or something that's not rude or in bad taste, but funny is alright. My family, on the other hand, are of the other variety of Christian... Baptist, Pentecost, Assembly of God, right-wing protestant dominionist, blah blah blah etc. So because of the political climate that has developed (the war on non-Christians) I no longer send them anything. I don't want to potentially insult them with my secular greetings.

I'm rather stubborn, and rather than taking an "I don't give a crap, it means nothing anyway" attitude, I go with my conscience, so I refuse to send out cards that say "Merry Christmas" because that has become a political statement. Now see what you did, all you Christian Warriors? You've created an ugly divisive wall where there wasn't one before. I believe in tolerating other people's beliefs as long as they don't involve hurting others. That's why "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" work for me. There's shouldn't be anything offensive about them at all.

Holiday cards can be really odd, can't they? Look at the one above with the guy shooting at you (WTF?) and how about this one from the Swingin' Sixties? (click to enlarge, as always) What is that? Interspecies Erotica? (sorry, we just watched "Clerks II" last night, which is pretty funny if you like just a bit of tastelessness, and I do) Is this like a manly-man's fantasy? A woman's body with a trophy head? [snort]

Tags: Xmas - War on Christmas - Christmas - religion

December 8

Catblogging - Most Favored Neighbor

Here is Claw, the sweetest cat on the block, second only to our own Henry. Must be a tabby thing. He lives next door, actually he lives outside most of the time. His adult parents let the children take care of him, so he doesn't get good care. A few weeks ago, he showed up with a foot that was swelled up bad, he wasn't able to walk on it. There was no blood so we figured maybe it was a bee sting or a cactus needle injury. I carried him to their door, and the kids said "yeah, we know about it", but nobody ever took him to the vet. He gets left out on freeze nights, and 100 degree days. Also he's not neutered, so before long there will be even more kittens on this block where we almost have a colony of roaming cats now. But we love this cat dearly. Originally it was him and his sister, Heart (who has won the Catmodel of the Week banner contest). I have not seen Heart for months, but there is another cat over there now, someone we don't know. I hope that Heart has a good home somewhere -- no idea where she is. Here is sweetie-pie Claw curled up in the feather grass. He is 100% adorable. I need to get him into the CotC gallery. Yes?

Update on the sick boys: Alex is feeling a little better. It hasn't quite been 2 weeks since he was overdosed by the vet, and it's supposed to take that long to get over it. He's still shaky and trembly, but tonight he pounced Henry (who is twice his size and then some) so he must be feeling better. Duncan is hanging in there, not eating very well and losing weight too fast. But he is playing a little, and purring like crazy. Duncan is not really going to get better. Time to go put medicine in his ear.

EDIT Friday night: We took Duncan in to the vet. He was having some problems breathing, like we were told to watch for. He had a lot of fluid in his lungs and other places where isn't supposed to be fluid, plus one lung was collapsed. They siphoned a lot of it out, and the good news is that his current blood work shows that he is not in kidney failure -- the previous readings must have been caused by the extreme dehydration from the medical rescue from his heart failure 3 weeks ago -- so he is not a kidney patient -- but he still has the heart problem. We can give him lasix though, which will help with the fluid buildup, and he feels much better tonight than last night. They shaved a big patch out of his side though, so the other cats will have something to tease him about. (((Duncan)))

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

Young cons giving Fox News something to talk about.

A story I've been meaning to blog, another example of "young conservatives do the darndest things". Pinkdome has a post on it, including this picture. They are attempting to show a nativity as they conceive it would be made by the ACLU: same sex couple, solstice replacing Christmas*, famous Fascist or Communist "wise men", terrorist shepherd and Nancy Pelosi as angel, and finally... no Jesus (they explain on video that Jesus is a religious guy, so wouldn't be allowed, and besides he's a baby so he would have been aborted). This has been erected on the UT campus. The ACLU's reaction is that the views expressed are an inaccurate perception of them, but they defend the group's right to expression and freedom of speech. I wonder how YCT would like the government telling them they couldn't express their political views without an organization like the ACLU to help them out? Krazy Kids.

Here's the YCT's press release which includes article and video links (CNN and more).

*Helllooo!! McFlyyyy!! Guess which one was celebrated first? And why do you think they picked that day for Christmas? You're supposed to be a college student. Do some homework, and while you're at it, google "mithras".

EDIT: I think they could have cast themselves as "the sheep".

Tags: Austin - ACLU - nativity

Silly Science

2006 Ig Nobel Prize

I would suspect that some projects are undertaken merely for the chance to be included in these awards (which are presented by Nobel Laureates). They are for real, even though it's hard to believe that real money and time were spent on these studies. A Fark headline would go on to say, "Still no cure for cancer". The link above has full information and references. Here's the brief description of the awards:

ORNITHOLOGY: exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

NUTRITION: for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.

PEACE: for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying high-pitched noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but probably not to their teachers.

ACOUSTICS: for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

MATHEMATICS: for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed

LITERATURE: for the report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

MEDICINE: for medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"

PHYSICS: for insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

CHEMISTRY: for the study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."

BIOLOGY: for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.

I am using the "weird" tag a lot lately. It must be my mood.

Keep It Weird

This cartoon was in the latest issue of the Austin Chronicle. The phrase "Keep Austin Weird" was started back in the year 2000 by a caller phoning in a pledge to KOOP radio, and thanked them for "keeping Austin weird". The phrase was picked up and used in a general campaign and movement to encourage people to buy local, support small businesses, and encourage positive entrepreneurship rather than let chains like Wal-Mart and Starbucks make everything everywhere look the same. Other cities in the country have since picked up the phrase, so you can now keep Louisville and Santa Cruz Weird... and more. Erie PA claims to have started it all over 20 years ago*, but I guess Austin is the one that built a fire under it.

*This is according to an article in the July 2005 SW Spirit magazine, not online.

I really don't like the gentrification-type development that is going on, and since money talks so loud, there's nothing that can be done to prevent these things. Over on Barton Springs Road, for example, I was really disappointed when Austin Java (now known as "previously weird") moved in and replaced Pizza Nizza -- a great little pizza restaurant with funny crap on the walls and a huge tree growing inside it that went right through the ceiling! (they didn't cut it down but it's no longer a prominent feature, so one small favor there) Austin Java's style is more modern and yuppie-fied, and they have bands playing on the deck that purposefully interfere with the bands across the street at Flipnotics (don't deny it AJ, Flipnotics was there first, all you're doing is creating cacaphony and unpleasantness). Now we hear that the owner of Austin Java is getting rid of that great little trailer park that has been there forever nestled between Shady Grove and whatever -- and putting up condos. Austin Java is off my good list. Here is a sign that one of the trailer park residents has in his fence that faces the sidewalk. Mister, you couldn't put it any better.



LINK: Keep Austin Weird

Tag: Austin

This is not what it looks like.

You could wash your hands with this. Literally! It's soap! Not only that, it's cappucino-scented, and you can buy it right here! The website offers it up as a great little stocking-stuffer, and you can even have it delivered by an elf. (I might be interested in that if the elf was Legolas... and he gets to stuff the stockings too) (Just teasing Mr. B, who will try to convince me that elves smell bad)

Nope. It's Soap.

Green Party

Poor Mr. B. He's trying to be a good food do-bee, having a nice big salad: Central Market fresh organic spring mix! Very fancy. Trouble is, not only was this guy in it, so was his twin brother! Both alive. Very green, just like the salad. Now we are hoping he wasn't a triplet.

Maybe we should have specifically gotten the vegetarian lettuce. Blaaah!!!

Bingo was to blame-o

[LINK] Worst. Excuse. Ever.

Dogs, Jugs, and Spankers. Man, that's Austin.

We got out for a benefit show (suggested donation, $5, so that's just about our speed right now) over at Ruta Maya, one of my favorite venues. We saw four good Austin bands. First one was Combo Mahalo, which plays fun Hawaiian music, that pretty much sums them up. Hire them for your wedding reception! Next was Barrelhouse Dogs, a band I never even heard of but they did a fine show. I love this town. So many undiscovered treasures you'll never find them all.

Next up was a great set by my beloved South Austin Jug Band, (that page has music clips to play) just unbelievably great pickers -- you wonder how one town, let alone one band, could have that many. The Asylum Street Spankers closed out the night with what must have been a 2-hour set! I first heard of the Spankers on the Bob and Tom show, an crude, crass, comedic syndicated morning radio show from Ohio (I listened to them pretty much every morning until they lost their affiliate here), and the Spankers (a swing jazz group being of the crass comedic genre themselves... even their acronym is A.S.S.) had a regular spin on that show with I think it was "The Scrotum Song". If you're not familiar with the Asylum Street Spankers, here's a video of one of their rare political songs. They said that when they had just done this one in Ft. Worth, two women in matching track suits got up and walked out. (Audio NSFW, be warned)

Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV

Saying on a t-shirt for sale at Ruta Maya:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Bush is President

There's one more video I wanted to post, but this Blogger template strongly objects to it for some reason. It's a cultural commentary, really hilarious, called "Hick Hop". I will post a link rather than embed.

HICK HOP

Tags: Music - Austin - Texas - Texas Music

Some local sad news

I have just heard that Pat Cieply, the bassist for Pieces of East, died this past Monday from an illness. This may not mean a lot to most of you, but I know that a few of my readers are Eric Johnson fans or other Austinites. Pat goes back with Eric all the way to Electromagnets, read his diary entry here about the 'magnets, etc. (looks like a deserted part of their website, the picture links are broken but the text is intact). I did the cover art for their first CD, Shadow Box, and we became fans/friends of the band. They were the opening act for Eric's acoustic show at the UU back in 2004, and also shared a gig with him at Stephen Barber's last Day of the Dead concert where Terry Bozzio, Barber and EJ jammed. I saw both of those shows, plus we've gone to see Pieces of East quite a few times as well. I remember being backstage at the UU show when they gave EJ a copy of their CD (with my cover art), and I just felt all kinds of proud for them (and some for me too). Here's a blog entry that I found on them with a nice little sum-up and review of the band. Here's more on the Electromagnets.

Tags: Music - Austin

Bumper wisdom

Both seen on the same car 2 nights ago:

Friday Cats - Update on Alex and Duncan

We've been on a bad roller coaster ride for a couple of weeks with these kitties. Duncan nearly died from heart failure the day after Thanksgiving. His checkup a week later showed that his kidneys are at failure level, so we are just making sure he's eating, he gets a heart med (propanalol) by ear gel (so no more pills) but the lasix for his heart problem had to be stopped because his kidneys need hydration and lasix is a diuretic. If he's not hydrated, he won't eat, so there we are. A dilemna. Can't fix any of it, neither of the problems were caught early. Here he is at the vet where he is NOT happy (and his mom is not too happy either).

He's been in a good mood at home though. He's purring and even playing a little (not too vigorous). We are enjoying every minute that we get to spend with him. Click on the "Duncan" label at the bottom of the post to read about his recent problems.


Alex would like you all to know that, yes, he has felt and looked better. A week after Duncan got sick, this little guy went in the hospital and we thought we were going to lose him! Click on the "Alex" label at the bottom of the post to bring up his recent misadventures. His recovery from the toxic dosing will be slow, around 2 weeks probably, and we can't be sure he will recover 100%. He is eating, and the plumbing is working fine, but the food just doesn't stick to the old bones that well anymore. That's not from the OD, it's his tummy trouble -- and his old age. (sorry Alex, it's true, you are an old dude). He is feeling a little better each day and is starting to meow a lot just like his old self. Like Duncan, he is getting LOTS of TLC, and pretty much anything he wants... except for leftover salad. Alex loves lettuce, and although he's asking "are you going to finish that?", I doubt he would be interested in that olive... not as food anyway.



Tags and links: Friday Ark - Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival is at Catymology - Cats - Catblogging -