Here's where we need to get upset.

Selling a video where one of the people involved claims to be freed from homosexuality and is found - conclusively - to be having sex with those of the same gender and lying about his HIV status to his sexual partners. That's what gets me really upset. Saying bad words is wrong. Lying is wrong and damaging. Selling videos that have false information and lies is insupportable.

There's a balance. And where we shouldn't allow the use of bad language, what should really upset us is is lies. And that is what's happening with Focus on the Family, Americans for Truth, and the American Family Association selling this video.

Firing - nope

I read another call for Isaiah Washington to be fired even after his apology. I was more of that mind after he denied using the 'f' word, but mostly still think that what people should be graded on is the quality of their work rather than the contents of their private speech. The first use was on the set, but still even hurtful and bigoted words shouldn't be grounds for firing unless there's a repeated useage. And the public denial of using the 'f' word was worse, but still... it seems to me a tempest in a teapot. I

The example of Isaiah Washington is bad, but I'd rather get worked up over school districts not allowing the formation of Gay/Straight Alliances by whatever name. I'd rather get worked up over the violence that continues when people are percieved as gay. WhatWashington did wasn't right and denying it is worse, but just accept the apology. If there's a continuing pattern, then it will be time to do something, but one or two instances... that's not enough for firing someone even if they're a public figure.

Homosexuality and illness

Every once in awhile I hear a claim that homosexuality is bad for health. I recently found a nice little summary of why this claim is false at replace the lies with truth.

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?

Well, another quiz that doesn't quite put me where I think I am.

Your 'Do You Want the Terrorists to Win' Score: 81%

You are a terrorist-loving scoundrel who hates our dear leader and the values he defends. There are few redeeming qualities about you. You most likely celebrated when the evil-doers hit us on 9/11, then opposed the Iraq war when we tried to pay them back. You hurt us at every step and cause troops to die in the field by questioning Bush's decisions. You are most likely a lost cause, doomed to be a brainwashed victim of free thought and liberalism forever. No dose of Ann Coulter's prose can save you now.

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Another Clinton for president

In many ways I admire Senator Clinton. She has done a great deal for her state and she is a good role model. But I just don't believe that she should be running for president. She is too much the polarizing figure. Maybe she will win. I would applaud that. But I just think there are too many people who will vote for anyone but her. I could be wrong. She might bring together enough support to win.

Take responsibility rather than reorganize

A news article Friday mentioned that the House has overhauled the oversight committe for pages. But the problem wasn't with the committee structure, it was that people failed to exercise their responsibilities. The chair was told of a problem with Foley's, but didn't tell anyone else. That's a failure of responsibility not a failure of structure. My suspicion is that the same lack of communication will continue to happen if problems between adults and teens are treated as partisan issues rather than issues of responsibility. No manner of equalization will prevent the problems until they are thought of as a weed that will overgrow everything else rather than an issue that others can bring against us. And the latter is what happened. The issue was covered up and not dealt with.

Instead of changing the system, the person who failed their responsibilities - the former chair of the committee - should be held responsible.

Family and including others

I was looking over my family phots from the reunion this summer and realized something. The photos of my aunts and uncles - the one's that are just of the siblings - include my Aunt Pat. Aunt Pat was married to my mother's brother but he's been gone for awhile. Uncle Lyle's funeral is when I had the chicken pox. She's been married to her second husband for longer than I think Uncle Lyle was alive. I don't remember the photos of the siblings from the reunions when my dad had survivied my mother, but I suspect when I find them they'll show my dad.

That's what I call family values. The generation before me includes the spouses even after their brothre and sister have died. Another story about that inclusion is also about my Aunt Pat. When she decided to remarry they walked across the farmyard to tell his mother, then drove down the road and told my grandparents, and finally got to her parents. And when they celebrated their 25th anniversary all three sides of the family came - her side, his side, her first husband's side.

And should I mention that the youngest in this photo won an age discrimination suit, is past sixty-five and is working as a ditch rider?

Friedrich Nietzsche

"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you,"

- Friedrich Nietzsche.

Ben Franklin

"I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."

Ben Franklin

Harsher than usual

I appreciate the judge in the Ney case imposing a harsher sentence than usual. It was done for all the right reasons. If we take a position of public trust we should be held to a higher standard. Here's a quote,

"The sentence was harsher than recommended by prosecutors, Huvelle said, because Ney had violated the trust placed on him as a public official. "Both your
constituents and the public trusted you to represent them honestly," she said.

Right on.

A matter of interpretation

Someone says that they were told to 'go easy' as one story, while the response is that we said 'to singe not burn.' I really don't see the difference between the two. And don't see it as a matter of controversy. If I writing poetry or for a professional journal or something similar then accuracy would be really important. But in commenting on what one was asked to do the difference between being asked to take it easy and singe not burn is less than the distance between one eyelash and the next.

Looking for jobs

I'm sometimes puzzled by job applicants. I know I've talked more than once about how irritating it is to get a phone call when our ad says, "No phone calls, please." But there are other things. The ad says, "Apply in person" and some don't seem to realize that means you do everything yourself. When someone else picks up the application that's not following the directions to apply in person. When I say, "I'd like you to fill out the application over there." that's not an invitation to take the application home.

I'm looking for someone who can follow directions. If you make a phone call or have someone else pick up the application, then I wonder if you can follow directions. If you ask, "Can I take this home?" after I've said 'fill it out here" then I wonder if you know how to pay attention to customers. And when I receive an application that has been folded in half or quarters or with something scratched out I wonder how careful you are.

I begin to wonder whether people really want a job when they're rude to my desk clerks, are dressed in a sloppy fashion (or worse) and more. There are many ways to lose a chance at a job. And I'm sure I've not seen all of them yet.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

"There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King day has come and gone for another year. But I hope the message he brought has not disappeared. For if what we have is just a holiday, then we've missed the point. And if all the phrases that we've come to remember such as "I have a dream" and "injustice for one is injustice for all" become quotes that we recite, then the work of King is in vain. The dream of justice should still live in our hearts and be expressed as we walk with those who suffer and hold hands with those who are oppressed. The message of King is not for one day out of the year, but for every day in the year.

Grey's Anatomy and the 'f' word.

While I'm still only thinking better late than never. I am still appreciative of the apology from Isaiah T. Washington. The word he used is just not acceptable to use about another person at least not in polite company.

John W. Gardner

"The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions."

John W. Gardner

A debate

Is the problem religion or fundamentalism? Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan debate. Details at beliefnet.com.

Another not so ex-gay?

Wayne Besen has an article about the recent re-release of a video by the American Family Association and Americans for Truth that is full of what comes out of the hind end of cattle who have pr0vided the main ingredient for Rocky Mountain Oysters. The problem with the video is that one of the main characters presenting themselves as ex-gay was having sex with people of the same gender while telling the world that he had conquered his same-sex desires. The AFA and Americans for Truth surely know this, but they're still promoting a video that has a distinct lack of truthfulness.

Albert Einstein

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

Albert Einstein

What Intelligent Design isn't doing.

Here's a link to a great article about why Intelligent Design isn't being treated as science. It's not hard to understand. ID proponents don't produce research, don't produce ideas that can be tested and spends most of their time talking about a controversy that just isn't there. So ID just isn't science.