Caer Corvus

We have a running joke at home about our cat Kipper taking the car to play trivia in bars. (Long story - ok, not really so long but still… don’t ask.)

BB,

Janice

Normally I work hard at avoiding reading or participating in blog memes, but this one was pretty funny:

1. Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess…really, who buys a Zune?)
2. Press shuffle songs.
3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song?

First up on iTunes for me was Bob Dylan’s “On the Road Again,” which is probably no longer controversial enough to be scandalous. At #3 was “Wishful Thinking” by the Ditty Bops. Lesbian pop might cost me the GOP nomination, but wouldn’t kill overall Presidential ambitions, I’m guessing. #6 was “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but still seems like not enough to cost me Ohio in the general election. #12 was “God Smack” by Alice in Chains, which I suspect would nail me for good. If there was any support left #34 was Roger Waters’ “Too Much Rope,” which would definitely finish me.

As Scott Jennings put it: “Roll for initiative, Claudius”

(From a 2003 auction.)

Too bad the original paperback rules for Catacombs & Chimerae appear to be lost to history.

My post on same-sex marriage finally becoming legal in California, was going to be a lot different, more edgy, more challenging. Then I went back East to do the baby-naming ceremony for the youngest child of my wonderful friends Kix and Cathy. And I realized there is only one thing I need to say.

This, too, is a family:

Who has the right to deny it?

Congratulations to all the couples who will finally be able to make true before the State of California what has been true in their hearts, many of them for decades.

Blessings all,

Janice

So, Big Media is finally declaring what’s been obvious for weeks: Obama’s the nominee. Finally, and damn am I glad that’s over.

I hope most of the Clinton supporters are like this and don’t go as far as some of the more obviously deranged ones who’ve been making the news with threats of convention fights, voting for McCain, and other similarly self-destructive acts.

Now that we’ve put Mark Penn, Harold Ickes, Rahm Emmanuel and many of the other Democratic sleaze merchants and weak-ass opportunists out to pasture, can we get on with the important business of debunking the McCain-as-maverick BS and drive a stake through the hearts of the Roger Stones, the Swift-boaters, and all the other demons the GOP will summon up from the depths to lie, smear, obfuscate, and divide us?

No, not the tornadoes or freak thunder storms this week, exactly, but things like this from the National Weather Service:

... Record daily maximum rainfall set at Lancaster...

a record rainfall of 0.01 inch(es) was set at Lancaster today.
This breaks the old record of trace set in 1974.

While I’m very happy about today’s California Supreme Court decision striking down the abominable ban on same-sex marriage, it does mean every talk radio station in SoCal is inundated with the predictable range of yahoos trying yet again to justify their bigotry using the same old bad arguments.

Strangely enough the ones who just outright lie and yell and stamp their feet bother me a lot less than the more ‘reasonable’ crowd who torture logic and history well past their breaking point to try and come up with a dispassionate case for their hatred. No, marriage throughout history has most certainly not been solely to support human procreation. And no, marriage throughout history has not been the exclusive domain of one man and one woman. And yes, if your argument is a catalog of these, you fail.

(And yes, my car will be in the shop for quite a while longer, which means no iPod on my commute, which means lots more random rants here based on which hot buttons the various asshats on the radio have pushed each day. You Have Been Warned.)

Please say prayers or light candles for the people of China. I have no deep words, no sentiment that won’t sound cliche. So I’ll just ask you all to consider donating to Half the Sky or Love Without Boundaries.

Many blessings to all,

Janice

Just weird enough to be true (via unbossed.com and the Great Orange Satan).

China’s 2007 “Reincarnation Law”. The case of the 11th Panchen Lama raised implications for what happens upon the death and subsequent reincarnation of the current Dalai Lama (the 14th) living in exile. Apparently mindful of its previous experience with the 11th Panchen Lama, Beijing late in 2007 took steps designed to solidify its future control over the selection process of Tibetan lamas. On August 3, 2007, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) issued a set of regulations, effective September 1, 2007, that require all Tibetan lamas wishing to reincarnate to obtain prior government approval through the submission of a “reincarnation application.” In a statement accompanying the regulations, SARA called the step “an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas.”

My next project proposal will definitely plagiarize the final bullet point above. Who wouldn’t want to make “an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas.”