december 2006 Archives

To everyone, a very Happy New Year!

Change is what you make it. We create our own realities and live according to our own ethics and morals.

If your 2006 sucked, I wish you restitution of spirit in 2007. If your 2006 was wonderful, I wish you abundance to overflowing and the hope that you share it with others, creating more wealth for us all.

Technorati Tags: god of biscuits, happy new years

Sleep and Not.

Write and Not.

Comes the blanketing of the sky, thick clouds bursting forth from a small oblong pill.

There's Fine work to do, a specific handicraft called to task, and I'm wearing giant mittens made out of wooly-thought.

Swat at the walls with kite-sized mittens held hamfisted and ungainly, making a mess.

The need to sleep and the wish to not. Groggily we roll along, roll along, roll along! Tetchily we stomp it down, stomp it down, stomp it down!

Stomp it down, Skippy. It's time to surrender to the pill, even though it couldn't be buggered to better itself, fashion itself into an ambien CR. No, this ambien is a one-pump-chump, so I only get one shot at, well, the shot.

If my fingers stop aping my thoughts (such as they are) because I've wandered away from the MacBook Pro and, say, out into the flirty-bitter Dead Night Air of Northern Pennsylvania, how will they eulogize the irony of the small thoughts vanquishing the big head; how will they work their irenics to spin the dull dun deed into a rainbow of ironics?

How will they explain Thomas A-Quinone using his unstoppable force of mind to move the unmovable frozen body of the God of Ambien into Toby's Creek (pron: crick)? As nothing more than an attempt at a recipe he found in 1978 Mixologists Bible?

They slap their heads in a dozen individual “ah ha!” moments as they land on the final product: Gin & Chthonics!

Except they didn't become 100% sure until the limes were dropped in the tumblers.

Technorati Tags: adamhoskins, ambien, headache, into the woods, moments, OceanBeach

All you'll hear from rightwing bloggers is how the MSM (mainstream media to those of you who aren't total label-dependent losers) doesn't care about religion, about how it ignores the fact of wide-spread christianity in this country.

Riiiiight.

Yesterday on Meet The Press, Rick Warren and the Editor of Newsweek were on talking about christianity and religions for the entire show. Rick Warren got to pimp his ministries and tell the world how he's not like the other religions.

Tonight, ABC news had a whole special on christianity in this country, citing statistics like “79% of Americans identify as Christian, 26% identify as Evangelical Christian”. 26 was never such a scary number. Then the piece went on to talk about Christian schools and teen pledges of virginity and exploring the nuances of the jesusy teeny-boppers' concept of “messing up”. Which apparently means when a teen boy masturbates.

At least no kittens get killed.

So back to Rick Warren. I was watching him talk. He was saying all the right things. About how there's no respect among people who disagree. About how there are more important things in the world to be accomplished than political wins. Like poverty. Like education. Like HIV & AIDS.

Right on, Brother Warren!

And he talked about how the megachurches and politico-religious have forgotten that a central tenet of their religions is this: humility.

Can I really be hearing this? Is this the beginning of a new era of civil disagreement? Where everyone begins by respecting the basic humanity of one another while even vehemently disagreeing? Where not everyone walks in with the Correct Way to do things, without a socio-political Not Invented Here Syndrome? With—dare I say it—humility?

Off to Google. “Rick Warren”. “Saddleback Church”. “Purpose Driven”.

What did I find? I found Kay Warren, Rick's wife, ministering to the sick:

“I'm here to tell you there is hope because the Church of Jesus Christ is getting up, and when the Church of Jesus Christ gets up, things happen,” Gataha said. “When the Church is getting up, HIV/AIDS will sit down.”
“If we don't do something, who will? If we don't show God's love, who will? If we don't show up, who will?”

Ummm, 'who will?' How about the rest of us who have been trying to do and actually doing things for over twenty years, you stupid bitch? How about those who have been struggling to get people help, get prevention education in place, and all the while having to fight people like you who stopped us at every turn, who went on claiming that the wages of sin were death?

For someone who opts into a book of popular mythology which goes back over most of recorded history, you sure don't have a sense of the past, lady.

As if you thought her “humility” wasn't suffering enough already, she goes on:

Now she's leading Saddleback's HIV/AIDS Initiative and encouraging other churches to start their own HIV/AIDS ministries. “The goal I see is to end HIV,” she said. “Humanly speaking, it's impossible. When God enters the problem, suddenly things become possible.”

Ahh, so she does have a sense of history after all. She acknowledges that others have been trying to save peoples' lives. But where have our efforts fallen short? We haven't left it up to God to fix.

Well, how about that.

So let's think about all this “humility” floating around. These are like the cavalry, letting everyone else fight the good fight and coming in, refreshed and ready and loving the smell of abstinence in the morning, to save the day.

Not only that, but apparently, HIV is a blessing for Christians:

HIV/AIDS gives the Church the chance to do what it has been called to do – to love other people and to love God, [Robert Redfield] said.

•••

Sam Brownback, a senator from Kansas, said that American Christians have been given much and must use those gifts to help people who are suffering. “If we'll just give them the crumbs off our table, they can live and we can save our souls,” he said.

So there we have it. They do for their own rewards, offering the rest of us their crumbs, so they can sleep at night.

I write this while watching Saturday Night Fever on Cinemax. Tony Manero just said something relevant:

“Everybody's gotta have somebody to dump on.”

Well, how about that. Maybe that's the true anti-gay agenda. They just need someone to dump on.

And what, then, is humility? Humility is this: I welcome all their true efforts to end HIV and AIDS irrespective of their motives if it means life for more people. Not only do I welcome their help, I am begging their help, begging everyone's help. I miss Allen each and every day. I would do anything to have him back, including selling my soul so that Sam Brownback will give us those precious, supposedly life-saving crumbs from his table.

Technorati Tags: AIDS, god of biscuits, HIV, kay warren, rick warren, saddleback church, sam brownback, saturday night fever

I was working late, something that I actually enjoyed doing because my office sat at one of the obtuse angled corners of an irregular-hexagonal tower at the corner of Market & New Montgomery Streets in downtown San Francisco. From my desk, without even leaning to the back or the side, I could see down the length of Market Street almost to the Castro, and up Post to well past Union Square.

The office was also the first door off of a main corridor coming off of the lobby/reception area, and from my desk I could see the reception desk and the elevators behind it.

That night the sun was heavy on the day, sliding towards Twin Peaks where it would begin to intrude on my workspace. I drew the blinds and continued to work at my desk. The next time I picked my head up from my work, it was nearly seven; the sun was still out, so the chill I felt I chalked up to the drawn blinds. That's when I heard the elevator door open; it was late, but I just assumed that someone from another department had just ended a similar long day.

I looked back out the window, pondering my own departure, and that's when the chill became more profound. For whatever reason, I knew the feeling had come from out in the reception area. I looked, and who did I see? The Staypuft Marshallow Man Newt Gingrich!

My old company got started by getting into bed (ew!) with Christian Universities (it was a distance-learning company), and apparently also into bed with Newt (double-ew!). There was no one about. Just him and me. No more than 10 meters apart. It was disgusting, but I remember being disgusted not just for breathing the same air, but the fact that we were going to have to boil the whole of San Francisco. Thank Goddess (blessed be!) that the concentrated Evil that is Newt Gingrich was no match for San Francisco's yummy goodness.

Still, I can't help but be reminded of this once in a while, usually while walking past a urine-stenched alley, after I stop to feel bad that there are some people who have no choice but to piss there.

Speaking of pissing on public property, pay very close attention to the tactical change the Repubicans are beginning to employ. They've been cultivating it for a long time, this notion of being the “victim”. Victim of the MSM (that'd be all the news media except for FOXnews—they're victims, too!), victim of prejudice, victim of bad haircuts.

Now Newt is out there calling himself an outsider:

“I'm an outsider,” he claimed. “I have no interest in propping up whatever the current slogans [are] of whatever establishment you want to describe.”

Whatever.

He now says things like:

“I never went down to Langley, before the war, on Iraq intelligence. I went down on other topics,” he said. “I thought, frankly, the argument for replacing Saddam was so overwhelming that it was silly to base it on weapons of mass destruction. And it never occurred to me that [intelligence on weapons of mass destruction] would be such a total mess.”

But in late 2001, he wrote:

We are a serious nation, and the message should be simple if this is to be a serious war: Saddam will stop his efforts and close down all programs to create weapons of mass destruction.

And on Halloween (irony alert!), 2002, in a Washington Times op-ed piece in which he opposed UN inspections of Saddam's weapons labs:

President Bush and his administration have been abundantly clear why they believe Saddam must be replaced. They have convincingly argued that time is on the side of the Iraqi dictator, and that every day spent waiting is another day for him to expand his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction program.

Will the Right Wingers, notorious haters of “flip-floppers”, file charges against Newt? Hell no, they'll just claim he's the victim. Of the liberal press. Never mind that they can research and find his own words.

Technorati Tags: Twin Peaks, god of biscuits, newt gingrich, Castro

Technorati Tags: justin timberlake, SNL, god of biscuits, youtube, dick in a box

So Mary Cheney is pregnant. Done deal.

From a progressivist standpoint, she's chosen to have the baby, but her choice wasn't one based on anguish or even desperation. She chose before she got pregnant. It's obviously a bit more difficult than an accidental unprotected cock clasped in vagina for a gay couple to become pregnant. They discuss the idea, do whatever level of math on it that they're comfortable with, and take steps to make it happen. It's quite Pro-Life, actually, to decide in favor of bringing a new life into the world. So yes, from a progressivist standpoint, she will have the baby.

From a neocon standpont, she's stillllll pregnant! Only we all know ahead of time what kind of family the child will be born into. We know that the baby won't have a one-mother, one-father environment. We know, as neocons, that he or she will be under the influence of the Gay Agenda. We know, as neocons, that the one-man-one-woman context is better than any kind of environment a gay couple—simply because they're gay—could ever provide. We also know that we'd never “murder an unborn baby” because it's wrong...meaning, we know, from a neocon standpoint, she will have the baby.

Progressives—at least the ones who put humanity before politics—are happy that the child will have loving parents who will provide a stable home. The same subset of progressives—among which I fancy myself to be included—breathed a huge sigh of relief when the more famous set of the the child's presumptive grandparents announced how happy they were to be welcoming a grandchild.

We know that not all is well for the neocons. Janice “Vulvamatic” Crouse called the situation “unconscionable” and Carrie Gordon “Sugar Tits” Earll insisted that “Love can't replace a mother and a father.”

So why haven't the Crouses and Earlls of the world come forth to proactively be “prolife” and try to remove the baby from the custody of the two big dykes? I mean, if they want to live according to their principles, they should be fighting to remove the child once it's born from the clutches of the obviously inferior parentage and into a foster home that has a one-man, one-woman configuration. Those neocons less interested in the christianist side of the argument should be encouraging Mary to abort.

If they don't, they're just talking out their nethermouths and should shut the fuck up—but not before admitting their hatefulness and apologizing to Mary and Heather.

There's no way to directly contact Mrs. Crouse, but you can email her work to see how she intends to correct Mary Cheney's unconscionable act. As for Butter Nipples Earll, well, there's a less indirect route, but still not so satisfying as it could be. But then again, you'll be emailing someone who's probably never been truly satisfied in her own lifetime.

Maybe we should leave it up to that self-satisfied, never-satisfied screeder, Bill O'Reilly? From Salon.com:

the December 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex parenting to assert that “[n]ature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum” form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked “why,” if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, “wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?” O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, “you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy.”

Bill must have had some really good cupcakes in his day.

Technorati Tags: Mary Cheney

How did I not know until right now that two of my favorite actresses, Sarah Paulson and Cherry Jones, were a couple?

This is like Christmas come early! Ever since I saw Sarah Paulson in Down With Love, I knew she had that magnetic something going on. As for Cherry Jones, well, c'mon. Just look at her and you know there's magic going on.

I'm not sure if I'm happy because it's just two people who I admire, or if it's because I'm happy to share a demographic with two such talented people, or if my affinity for each of them makes me extra happy that they both have each other.

I'm just happy about it!

Technorati Tags: cherry jones, sarah paulson, god of biscuits

Matt Damon keeps growing on me. He is funny as hell in this!

Technorati Tags: god of biscuits, matt damon, youtube

Today Macworld announced its 22nd Annual Editors' Choice (Eddy) Awards, and Aperture was on the list!

Check out Macworld's page for the award. It gives you a pretty good idea of how Apple's been busy this year. It's nice to have contributed in some way to something that the public knows about (most of the work I've done in my career has been for in-house development), and something that kicks such serious ass.

Technorati Tags: aperture, apple computer, eddy award, god of biscuits, macworld

It's official. The Republicans in Congress have adopted a “Scorched Earth Policy”. They're going to be petty and take cheap shots and give meaningless busy work—some might call that business-as-usual—to the incoming Democratic-led Congress.

Take Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida (Please!), for instance. Here's a person who claims to be honored to be part of the federal government of a country which ostensibly espouses “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Now, maybe she's been getting a lot of backchatter from other Republicans as being a softie and a nothing because she has:

• a hyphenated last name
• a Jewish last name
• a vagina

But even that doesn't excuse a person in her station of calling for the assassination of a foreign leader:

That is one classy ass(assination).

Then again, maybe I am at fault for thinking that Mel Gibson Michael Richards her Republican colleagues are racist and Pat Buchanan Rush Limbaugh sexist and should cut her a break.

Maybe she's calling for an assassination of the Castro, the world's capital of Ass-Ass Nation. Sure, killing's a step up from quarantining and illegalizing, but it's really just a difference of degree.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I may have been wrong. My bad.

Technorati Tags: assassination of castro, god of biscuits, puppy, Ros-Lehtinen

Died-in-the-scapular Catholic Buttboy Andrew Sullivan states:

Language is the first victim of an attempt to insist on ideology over reality. Orwell memorably described this. Here's an update.

Tax “relief”. Repealment of “death tax”. “Trickle down economics.” The Kirkpatrick Doctrine.

Andrew's ideologies really shine like the bright light of a Spring Day. Andrew's nights, however, are spent riding his demagogic horse bareback. Either way, truth suffers from too much analysis.

If he agrees with Orwell, why does he write as if capricious use of language is a victimless crime?

Technorati Tags: andrew sullivan, god of biscuits

Just leave it to the crazy christians.

Again.

I wasn't about to say anything about Mary Cheney's pregnancy mainly because I knew others would well-cover it. I was, however, going to extend my condolences to the Kim family, who lost husband and father, James, in the freezing cold of Oregon. He died trying to find help for his family, trying to save the lives of his wife and daughters bravely, selflessly—and unfortunately—at the expense of his own.

But how do you write about something like that? Not having children, I cannot say I would/could do the same as he did, but I expect I would. Why? Because my own parents would. And that will simply have to do for me.

I could make James into a Hero, but fabrication and exaggeration, even of a person's better acts and traits is still a lie and still detracts from the essential humanity of James Kim's act. He was a hero to his family. And, I'm sure, well loved. His seven-month old daughter, Sabine, will likely not remember her father and that is a bona fide tragedy. How do I know? I have parents myself and my mind recoils at the very idea that I would not have gotten to know my parents over all these years. And that will simply have to do.

I could even say that I know what Kati Kim is going through because I do know first hand what it's like to lose your spouse, but I won't because I wouldn't assume that loss is the same for any two people. And that will simply have to do.

I say these things as a non-christian. I say these things as a person who has loved and lost and survived. I can empathize, but even empathy is not the same as knowing.

So here I sit. Gay man, super-ultra-liberal by nearly anyone's standards (merely pragmatically forward-thinking to my own standards). No kids. No ready-attainability of being a father. And I can't bring myself to politicize Mary Cheney's pregnancy.

But that doesn't mean others can't!

A kind old lady by the name of Janice Crouse of the “Concerned Women for America” calls the miracle of new life “unconscionable”! But that lil lady has herself one of them cute Ph.D.'s. Can you imagine? They let women get educated these days! Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to have some kind of say in what goes on in their reproductive plumbing! What a world.

Next up is a waxen pretty, effete feminine filly, Carrie Gordon Earll! She's only got an M.A., not a Ph.D. M.A.? Mistress of Arts-and-crafts? So she's, like, totally qualified! What does Ms. Miss Earll think of Mary Cheney's pregnancy? She says, “Love can't replace a mother and a father.”

Yeah? tell that to the Kim Family, you fucking cunt.

Can you tell I'm angry? These people, these Christians, who insist they corner the market on sympathy and grace and warmth are nothing even close to human. They are hideous, gaping caricatures of humanity, souless and horrible.

Is this what's become of the teachings of a man whose only Commandment to his followers was “Love one another as I have loved you”?

That's tragic, too.

Technorati Tags: Mary Cheney, Janice Crouse, Carrie Gordon Earll, james kim

Yesterday on npr I heard excerpts from President Bush speaking to children of service men and women at the White House. Strains of “Get them while they're young, Evita! Get them while they're young!” echoed through my echoless, blocked sinuses. Or maybe it was just the fever.

President Bush was jovial and agreeable, as everyone who didn't vote for him will tell you are the most important qualities to being a President. That, and not getting a hummer in the Oval Office. He stood there and said things like

I know it's tough to have your mom or dad overseas, and we wish you all the best. But it's really important work. And so we wanted to welcome you here to the White House to, first of all, thank you for your strength, and so that you would do me a favor and email your mom or dad who is overseas how much the Commander-in-Chief respects them, admires them and supports them.

He stood there in front of those children and talked about their parents who were overseas. His legions (now admittedly smaller in number) rallying around what he said, patting the agreeable man on the back and telling the word that that is how you support our troops overseas. Not cutting and running! Not bringing them home safe. None of that. His legions, though, ignore the fact that supporting our troops also costs money. It costs money to keep the barracks and military housing available. It costs money to provide healthcare for families of those in the service. It costs something that can't be measured in dollars to send your father or mother, your son or daughter, off to a “war” (when did Congress actually issue a formal Declaration of War, by the way?).

Another song comes to mind, this one by Elvis Costello, written about Margaret Thatcher and her stone heart. It's called Tramp the Dirt Down. An excerpt:

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it's only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn't angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say “Thank you” straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you've only got the symptoms, you haven't got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose head's like a tin-can
filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

And remember that the macho shithead policies that used to be cultural mandates but have mostly been kicked to the curb by, y'know, common sense? Be a man! Walk it off! Rub some dirt in it! Mental illness is just an excuse! Depression is for sissies! Don't ask, Don't tell! Oh, they all still exist. Soldiers bandy them about like they're the Commandments 11-20 (ok, technically the 11th Commandment was from Jesus Himself: “Love one another as I have loved you”). Never mind that seeing your friends blown up, or seeing the bloody results of your own trigger finger, might cause you some severe distress. The Army doesn't care; in fact, they'll punish you for complaining about it!

Of course, none of this kind of supporting of our troops matters to President Bush, as he continues to cut taxes and cut funding for military personnel. Legions? What say you?

Apparently, the Bush Twins can't be bothered with even minimal solemnity.

No, they're off partying in Argentina. But hey, they're 21 and so they managed to escape a 3rd strike (and they're out!) conviction. And it's no one's business what they do or don't do. You shouldn't punish them for their parentage. It's not like I've become a monk—well, ok, maybe I have, but not because of the war.

Anyway, Michael Kinsley wrote about the twins:

But no amount of eloquence can overcome the bald contrast between that rhetoric and how his own family lives. His daughters are over 21, and he can't control them, but that doesn't let them off the hook. They are now independent moral actors, and their situation requires that they either publicly oppose their father's war or do something to support it. Is it unfair to expect Jenna and Barbara to shape their lives around their father's folly? Of course it's unfair. If this is war, then unfairness comes with the territory.

What's my point? I'm fucking tired of hearing from the rightwing blogosphere that they own the recipe for supporting those who sacrifice. Hell, they think they own the definition of what sacrifice is. Sacrifice for others takes many forms, and I don't suppose that I possess the authority to claim that nationalism is a better cause than feeding the poor, that losing your life in violent action for the religion of patriotism is more laudable that devoting your life to defending the Bill of Rights.

I'm tired of those legions of fanatical Bush apologists vilifying Those Who Question while saying nothing about Bush's own family. Not every consistency is foolish, right?

Right, Right?

Technorati Tags: bush twins, elvis costello, god of biscuits, Iraq, michael kinsley, tramp the dirt down, war in iraq, white house

Saw this one on D.Lo's:

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say “let's go!” Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Technorati Tags: god of biscuits, meme

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well that's -- killers taking innocent life is, in some cases, sectarian. I happen to view it as criminal, as well as sectarian. I think any time you murder somebody, you're a criminal. And I believe a just society and a society of -- that holds people to account and believes in rule of law protects innocent people from murderers, no matter what their political party is.

That's from a White House Press Release

So I'm going to go ahead and assume that President Bush believes that the 100,000+ Iraqi civilians killed by the United States over the past few years are all guilty as Christian Sin.

Or, he's saying that America is not a Just Society.

Neocons out there want you to believe that there's a Good and an Evil. No nuance. No subtlety. No context. Yet watch them provide context for this, and then carefully and irresponsibly substitute Bush's vagueness for subtlety and nuance.

Technorati Tags: Maliki, Iraq, god of biscuits, george bush, Jordan

Technorati Tags: world aids day, god of biscuits