A little too close to home!

Ladies, Gentlemen, we need to do something about this. Aside from this kind of conservative thinking being a threat to RvW, and a woman's right to choose, it is openly hostile towards women at all. We all need to work together if we are going to eliminate this kind of bias.

A valuable lesson to learn...

When taking pictures, especially for selling anything online, keep this website in mind!

Who says music and politics don't mix?

Bernstein gets political
In 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy was running for President on an anti-war platform. The war in question was in Southeast Asia, and many American artists were, like Senator McCarthy, openly calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
On today's date at a New York fundraising event for the anti-war movement entitled "Broadway for Peace," some music by Leonard Bernstein received its premiere performance, with the composer at the piano accompanying Barbra Streisand.
The song was titled "So Pretty," with lyrics describing the tragedy of the Vietnam War from a child's point of view.
Well, Richard Nixon, not Eugene McCarthy, became President in 1968, and was re-elected in 1972. At Nixon's special request, the final piece on his January, 1973 Inaugural Concert was Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," which struck many at the time as a deliberately bellicose selection, considering that the Vietnam War was still raging. As a protest, Bernstein, McCarthy and others arranged a counter-concert at Washington's National Cathedral, scheduled at precisely the same time as Nixon's, but presenting Haydn's "Mass in Time of War" instead of Tchaikovsky. Three thousand people crowded into the Cathedral, and another twelve thousand stood outside in the wind and rain.
Whether the music of Tchaikovsky or Haydn ultimately made any difference in resolving the conflict, history does note that a Southeastern Asian armistice was signed in Paris a few days later

I like happy goo that stops disease!

How cool is this?

2008 is kinda a long time, but this is really fucking cool. Non-paranoid sex for everyone!

Well, okay, maybe that was a little premature...

To Kill an American

The following was emailed to me by a student of mine, and I thought I would share...

You probably missed this in the rush of news recently, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . so they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German,Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian,Mexican,African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian,sian, orArab, or Pakistani or Afghan. An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans. An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan.
The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the
The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness. An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. When Afghanistan wasover-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!
As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to th e poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed.
These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It\'s been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Harvard does something different

Several months ago I posted an article about Yale eliminating tuition for their graduate students in the school of music. I think that is wonderful. The way they are approaching it is to maintain the very highest of musical and academic standards without allowing money to get in the way. It seems that Harvard has jumped on that bandwagon.

When I have better formulated my complete response to this...I'll share

Morning Snow

I love looking at snow on tree branches. There is very little, I think, that compares with the absolute beauty of it.

Now before you all start laughing at me, think about it. Before dirt from passing cars is vomited across it's pristine white surface. Before some neighborhood animal has a chance to ruin the overall picture with some splotch of yellow...

The perfectly balanced, weathered beauty of snow piled high on an eighth of an inch wide branch. The silvery lacey pattern it forms over houses and roads. The silver-dollar sized pieces that fall onto cars below. Or the tell-tale holes left by chirping fat chickadee's. Just picture a bright red cardinal posing on a marshmallow covered evergreen tree.

That was how I started my day. I end up smiling the whole time I'm in the car in weather like this. I love looking out the window and see my neighborhood decked out in white. And tomorrow is supposed to be back in the mid-forties. The snow will be gone for a while, and I will once again forget how lovely the world is when it's been frosted like a cake.

I love PostSecret

If you're not hip to PostSecret, you should be. It is delightful, in a gossipy, voyeuristic sort of way. Anyway, it's fabulous and I check it weekly, and my guess is you will too.

One of these days I'm gonna send them...something. Not that I really have anything that's a secret. Perhaps I'll go acquire a secret just so I can have something to send in.

Any suggestions?

And if any of you mention or redundant it is to ask for suggestions for secrets...I'll just...well...I'll just do nothing about it what-so-ever.

Invader Update

They're gone now, thank god. Actually they left about 2:30 Sat. afternoon, and this is the first I've been back to report to you all.

Every past encounter with them has not only left me feeling incredibly intruded upon and as though my every move has been put under a microscope. Today at least along with that there was a successful and fairly uneventful tub/shower re-caulk, and new water heater installation.

Hopefully we won't have to see them again until we move out. I know that is a little ambitous, but hey, Tony is always telling me that I've gotta have goals...

They've invaded!

Ahhhhhh!!!!

Our landlords have invaded, and they brought their "friends". I hate that. Aside from my believing that they are incompetent when it comes to home maintenance, they're in my home, and I didn't invite them.

I know that they own the place, and I know that they are "trying" to keep it up, but I hate this feeling. It's very similar to the feeling of meeting the person who used to have your job, while they are in the office to consult on your work, as an outside contractor. It's so invasive.

Here are people, I don't know, wouldn't hang out with if you paid me, and would probably avoid if it were left completely up to me. And they're in my home, milling about. The paranoid in me is terrified that at every turn they are making judgments about how my house isn't clean enough, or "look at all this shit" or "isn't that cool, let's take it." There is nothing I can do about it either. They own the house Tony and I live in, they refuse to let us maintain it and be reimbursed....what an awkward position to be in. Part of me wants to escape. However, if an emergency occurs, which is more likely than if professionals were here, then not only should I be here to help with damage control, but if it's really bad, I can't very well take the car and leave Tony stranded.

Okay, I'm a little better now...maybe for once they'll do a good job and be out of here soon.

I hope

Alito Links

Editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/opinion/12thur1.html

News: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011006I.shtml

Do something truely patriotic...

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost." --Aristotle

This country was built on the idea that there would be three branches of government. An executive branch, a judicial branch, and a congressional branch. The Presidency has already been usurped by war hungry fascists. Congress is nigh on ineffectual because it is pays little or no attention to it's constituency, partially because "The People" aren't talking. Now, the Supreme Court hangs dangerously close to becoming a slap in the face of everything this country was founded on.

It isn't enough that Alito wouldn't recuse himself willingly when a conflict of interest was brought to his desk. Or still more terrifying, he is the single largest threat to women's equality and independence in decades. But now we, as a nation, are dangerously close to allowing a man to ascend to the Supreme Court, who doesn't value that branch of government. How can we, citizens of a democracy, allow the nomination and progression of this man who has no respect for the position he is being considered for?

It seems to me that anyone that believes in the "supremacy of the President" has no business working in a position that is of equal importance. I urge all of you to call your representatives. I believe that phone calls are the most effective means we have to express our wishes to those individuals that are supposed to carry our wishes to the highest levels of national decision making, however here is a website that will assist you in producing the most effective communication no matter what the medium. Make your opinion known as often as possible, share it with those in power. And please educate and help others do the same, this is no time to sit passively and hope for the best.