By now, you know the drill.
That’s all I got time for right now.
With my morning pretty much sewn up with work and meetings (and since I’m no longer taking my laptop to meetings) at work, it’s hard to say whether I’ll get around to writing or posting much at all today. I’ve got something almost written, and a couple of things I’ve been wanting to write for weeks now. But they will have to come after everything else.
In the meantime, I might as well do here what I spend most of my time doing anyway: promoting the writing of others who have time to write, whereas I don’t. Granted, it’s not so much writing, on my part, as just copying-and-pasting, but it fills this space. And if you came here looking for something to read, the least I can do is help you find it.
Via Ex-Gay Watch. This doesn’t surprise me at all.
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) sent out a mailing today titled “NAACP Rocks,” referencing a 2006 letter of appreciation from the organization to PFOX. According to the attached copy, PFOX held an exhibit at the NAACP annual convention that year. It is not yet known if they participated in 2007 or if they will be there this year, but the email suggests they plan on participating in 2009.
The PFOX exhibit displayed useful information on unwanted same-sex attractions and tolerance for the ex-gay community. We distributed many brochures, flyers, stickers, and buttons. The attendees were enthusiastic about our booth and our ex-gay volunteers staffing the booth were well received. Many people remarked at how glad they were to see us and took extra handouts to distribute at their church back home. Gay groups like the Human Rights Campaign have exhibited at the NAACP for many years, but PFOX was the first and only ex-gay booth there.
We would like to exhibit there next year. Please make a love offering at http://www.pfox.org/donate.htm or send a gift to the address below so we can pay the exhibit booth fee.
Thanks and see you at the NAACP convention next year!
Here are examples of the brochures PFOX might have circulated.
Two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity have named themselves as co-sponsors of S. J. RES. 43, dubbed the Marriage Protection Amendment. If ratified, the bill would amend the United States Constitution to state that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).
Craig, who entered a guilty plea to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, was detained and charged for attempting to engage in sexual activity with a male undercover police officer. His arrest and plea became public two months later. At that time, Craig attempted to withdraw his plea and enter a new plea of not guilty. To date, his efforts have been denied by the courts.
In July of 2007, Vitter was identified as a client of a prostitution firm owned by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, commonly known as The DC Madam.
With a Democratic controlled Congress it is unlikely the bill will be brought up for a vote in either the Senate or House of Representatives.
Of course it wouldn’t occur to them to start with own.
Well, all they need now is Ted Haggard to do the T.V. spots.
I’ve got some stuff in mind to post, but first I have to get lunch and do any number of things. And I might not get around to posting anyway.
Since a big portion of my day job is promoting other people’s writing, I might as well do the same here. Besides, I come across more worthwhile content than I have space to promote at work. And if I’m not creating any content myself….
Anyway. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading this morning.
I really should have paid more attention in English class. Or, rather, I should have paid more attention to my grammar lessons. (Probably any hard-core grammarian who’s read the blog would concur.) But I spent the better part of my time as an English Lit. major in creating writing classes, and post-war literature. (My advisor finally told me I had to take the requisite pre-1800 literature classes. I realized then that I’d have been better off as a comparative lit. major.)
Had I spent more time diagraming sentences, then maybe I could make sense of the recent Supreme Court ruling on D.C.’s gun ban.
Is it possible to go on strike over something that isn’t even your job? I’ve been thinking about staging my own writer’s strike. But what would I be striking for, or against?
I’m not really sure. I think it’s mostly out of frustration. I mean, I’ve found something I enjoy doing, and that I think I’m reasonably good at. (Enough that at least people have been wanting to read what I’ve been writing for the last few years.) But here’s the thing. I don’t make a living at it.
It’s given me opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and taken me to places I certainly wouldn’t have gone. But I don’t make a living at it. It doesn’t pay a single bill. I’m not a writer at work. I don’t get paid to write. So am I really a writer at all?
I think Chris Rock has had the right idea all along.
Image details: DC Mayor Reacts To Supreme Court Ruling On DC Gun Ban served by picapp.com
Well, the finally did it. I first mentioned it years ago, when this blog was in its infancy. So I guess now I should say, thank you Kay Bailey Hutchison. Thank you. By the time you take your ass back to Texas, there will undoubtedly be more guns on the streets of Washington, D.C.
It’s time for what we call where I come from a “Come To Jesus Meeting.” Except that now we can have a bit more variety. We can have a “Come to Jesus/Allah/Buddha/Krisha/Oshun/Zeus/Xenu Meeting.”
OK. Maybe I’m getting carried away, but a conversation I had with my coworkers got me thinking this morning.
I was in meetings at work, most of yesterday today. Which means I have a lot to catch up on, so it’s hard to say whether I’ll be able to blog much at all today. In the meantime, there’s other stuff out there I highly recommend.
Probably the best place to start is Jonathan Rouch’s post — also published in the Wall Street Journal, “Gay Marriage is Good for America.” I don’t necessarily agree with Rauch about everything. (He leans libertarian. I don’t.) But I think if more people took his invitation to “imagine your life without marriage,” we’d be a bit closer to marriage equality.
Five-year-olds, for those who don’t know, ask a lot of questions. No. Really. I mean a lot of questions. Questions about questions, even. My policy, as a parent, has been to answer the ones I can (age-appropriate answers, of course), and to say “I don’t know” when I really don’t know the answer.
Some questions are easy. Parker had noticed that Daddy is a vegetarian, and the stuff that Daddy eats doesn’t taste like the stuff that Papa eats. So, I just explain to him that Daddy doesn’t eat meat and Papa does. But after reading this Washington Post article, I realized that there’s another question coming my way sooner or later, and I haven’t really thought about how I’m going to answer.
“Daddy drinks wine. Why don’t you?” asked my son Nico at dinner not long ago. Taken aback, I considered my response: “Because I’d just guzzle down the whole bottle plus the two more in the fridge before passing out in the mashed potatoes” would have been true but probably not the appropriate response for a 3-year-old.
Instead, I lied. “I just don’t like the taste, sweetie. You know how you don’t like, um, corn?”
Nico wrinkled his nose with distaste, and we moved on to other subjects, such as why cats have mouths but still can’t talk and whether Hugo from school is in fact mean or whether he was just having a bad day.
Comparing wine to corn seemed to work in the short run, but I knew it was only a temporary solution. What do you tell your kid when you’re an alcoholic and a heroin addict in recovery? Or if you have other skeletons in your closet?
I had been sober for five years when my son was born, so he never knew me in the days when I used to walk around with smeared lipstick and a tendency to vomit.
I now have a life story to hide or reveal.
It’s been almost 16 years since I had my last drink. Do I have a story to hide?
(Update: Per Kip’s comment below, there are numerous news stories circulating about, which say that the pregnancy pact may be a hoax. That’s what I get for writing a post at night, scheduling to post the next day, and not checking Google Reader in the morning. But I think the rest of what I said below, re: sex-ed, is still pretty valid.)
Maybe it’s because Dylan is six months old, and I’m still sleep deprived. Maybe it’ because I’ve one of my “assignments” this past week was to pick up a copy of The No-Cry Sleep Solution, which I will spend some time reading each night, between the time Dylan goes to bed and the first time Dylan wakes up. (I’m the night-owl in the family, so I am generally still awake for the first wake-up, between 11:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.).
But this story makes me want to scream.
I going to try and spend some time today working on a couple of things I’ve wanted to write, but haven’t found time for lately. So, since I’m not sure how much actually blogging will be going on here today, it seems like a good time to post a round-up of some of the more interesting blog posts and news items I’ve seen in the past week or so. (And earlier, since I’m perpetually behind on my blog reading these days.)
I ‘ve often been told that being gay is all in my head. Well, it’s true. Actually, it’s in my brain. Thus, I think like a girl.
It’s the kind of thing that’s easily written off as a photo opportunity: a presidential candidate sitting down with a worried student and a financial aid administrator, working out a plan to help the student pay for her education. But, not if the candidate is one who understands the importance of education, and the difficulty of paying for it. So, when I read about Barrack Obama helping a college student with her tuition concerns, I nodded with recognition.
A tearful Wayne County Community College student got advice and encouragement from Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday, as he touted his plan to improve financial aid and tax credits to college students.
Marilyn Pace is about $1,500 short of paying for tuition and supplies for her dental hygiene studies, she told Obama at a meeting arranged by his aides. After she described the costs of supplies and exams, gas to get to and from classes and her father’s disability, which keeps him from working, a financial aid counselor told her and Obama that private loans should be able to close her financial gap — prompting tears from her and encouraging words from the candidate.
I read about this foolishness over at Jack and Jill Politics, but I just break off a piece for myself.
open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutionsWell.
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
I was never one of those who claim “there’s no such thing as bisexuality.” I’ve known too many bisexuals to buy that the “don’t exist.” So, I’m not surprised that a study now indicates there is too such a thing as bisexuality. In men, that is.
Apparently, it’s hard to build a successful television show around someone who’s (a) unlikeable and (b) had no discernible talent beyond reproducing.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
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