If any of several different people I know die suddenly, I have a job.

Not executor, not funeral planner.

I’m the guardian of the delicate sensibilities of their next of kin.

My name is CC, and I’m a smut buddy.

If any of these friends dies, I am to go to their house and steal their smut collections, their toys and in one case a decent selection of books.

Maybe it’s that I’m pretty tolerant and understanding of the wide variation in what people think of as fun and sexy. Also, I tend to end up with keys to people’s houses. Probably it’s that once a casual acquaintance finds out that close friends of mine sometimes receive custom erotica on their birthdays, they tell me things they don’t want their Mommas to find out. After that, I’m the logical person.

I was talking this over with a friend the other day, one who was mostly concerned about his collection of lesbian catfight porn.

“It’s not so much my parents seeing it, it’s that they might think it was my wife’s.”

Ah. Good point.

“Most of the visual stuff is on computers, so I don’t think that would matter. We have plenty of written erotica around my house,” I said. “My mom wouldn’t like that, but I don’t think it would upset her too badly. I mean, we don’t have anything REALLY freaky. I mean, we have, like, ‘Screw the roses, send me the thorns,’ but that doesn’t even count, does it?”

He let my words hang in the air. Oh yeah, that book might be a beginner's guide for dabblers/erotica writers/bachelorette parties, but it would SO bug my mom. And the Chalicerelative? I shudder to imagine.

So clearly, theCSO and I should add this to the list of end-of-life issues we need to discuss.

CC
Who doesn’t want her mom to find her friend’s lesbian catfight porn at HER house, either. Guess we all better live a long time.

CC's phone has been getting increasingly wonky, and she is campaigning for an Iphone.

Do any of y'all have one?

Is it awesome?

Have you ever dropped it?

Do you have a good protective case that you like that doesn't inhibit use of the phone?

Please share.

CC

You Are a Powdered Devil's Food Donut

A total sweetheart on the outside, you love to fool people with your innocent image. On the inside you're a little darker, richer, and more complex. You're a hedonist who demands more than one pleasure at a time. Decadent and daring, you test the limits of human indulgence.

CC
Pleased to be the Angelina Jolie of donuts

All the talk about conventions just reminded me. TheCSO, Jana-who-Creates and I are likely coming to Boston for ROFLcon on April 24 and 25. I don't know how much time I will spend at the Con as I will be studying a lot, but I'd really like to hang out with some of my Boston friends.

CC

On a youth retreat until Monday.

CC
Recently voted second best lay in the UU blogosphere. Ah well, when you're second best, you try harder.

I really don't get the difference between "having a strong point of view" and "doing the same thing over and over."

You knew Jillian the Whiner was going to do some tight little jacket (though it was interesting to see her do the “lining matching the outfit” thing that Chris did last week) and Christian was going to do big puffy sleeves. And that's good?

And Rami's admittedly gorgeous draping done over and over and Chris' using something similar to that funky collar he did for the couture episode is bad? WTF?

I’m glad my Big Gay Boyfriend Chris will live to make it work another day, but it all seems very arbitrary. I worry that Chris has to do the runoff challenge with Rami and that Rami’s technical skill will lead to Chris getting kicked off. But Rami has been getting worse and less interesting. Here’s hoping he self-destructs.

CC

Could someone explain to me the politics behind The Dismantling of Continental YRUU.

Though I am a youth advisor at my own congregation, I've always been pretty skeptical of YRUU on a national level. That said, it seemed like a valuable thing to have.

Why kill it?

Didn't UU youth of color have a national organization? Did this kill it, too?

What's going on?

Will the youth still have a voice at GA? Organized by whom?

CC

Picture it: Fairfax County, 1996. A young CC, rather depressed that the SAT she had been planning to retake has just been snowed out, decides to take a walk out in the snow to see if the local creek has frozen over. As she gets close to the creek, she slips, hitting her head hard on the ice. Head bleeding, she stumbles back home and sits on the kitchen floor, still sort of shocked.
“You need to go to the hospital,” her father says.
“Ummm… No. I’m fine,” she responds.
“No, really, you should go to the hospital. Let me take you” her mother says.
“I’m FINE.”

It goes on like this for awhile until CC, who just wants to be left alone, stomps off to her room, locking the door behind her.

The ChaliceDad breaks down the door.

She goes to the hospital.

Picture it: Fairfax County, 2008. It’s 11:00 at night, after a night of driving to school and back in an ice storm. I’ve just snuggled into bed next to the CSO. We’re talking, as we endlessly do, about plans for renovating the very kitchen I bled all over those years ago. The phone rings.
“Jason,” TheCSO says in the same annoyed tone of voice he always uses when talking about my brother.
I go pick up the phone anyway, “It’s Dad,” my brother Oliver is screaming, “He fell on the ice and he’s bleeding really bad and he won’t go to the hospital. Mom says it doesn’t look that bad.”
Oliver sees everything as a tragedy, my mother is the sort of person who assumes that using expired meat can’t be all THAT dangerous.
Fuck. There’s only one way to tell what’s going on.
TheCSO and I get dressed. He brings his laptop. He knows he’s in for a long night.

Yep, Dad is bleeding from the head still, an hour after his fall. It's an ugly wound, the kind of wound one can't really get from a fall without shaking one's insides.

“Dad, we should take you to the hospital”
“No,”
“It’s the smart thing to do,”
“No,”
“We’re all going to worry about you if we don’t,”
“NO!”

Jason and Oliver yell, my mother whines, I argue, theCSO does handyman chores. We break off and conference in little groups. There's lots of yelling and arguing, especially on my brothers' parts.

“You’re father is afraid of doctors,” my mother says.
“I’m afraid of head trauma,” I respond. But that's a weak argument and we all know it. My nervousness over a theoretical head injury is nothing to what my fether is feeling. My father's fears are strong and run very deep. When he's faced with one of them, he becomes hysterical, like a drowning man who pulls a potential rescuer under the water.

“We could call the paramedics, then claim he’s not being rational if he doesn’t consent,” theCSO says. "They would take him." Nobody argues that this wouldn’t work. After all, it's probably the truth. Rational people go to the hospital after they hit their heads. Besides, everybody else is dressed with middle class respectability. My father has that Unabomber beard that the mentally ill tend to get because of the difficulties of giving them a razor or keeping them still long enough to shave them. We're the crazy guy and his dysfunctional yet well meaning and respectable middle class family straight out of central casting.

“He’s so afraid,” my mother says. “What if the stress is worse for him than the head trauma would be?”

We look up the symptoms of a serious concussion on the internet. He pretty much has all of them. And has had them to an ever-increasing degree for the last ten years as he’s had stroke after stroke.

He’s still bleeding a bit. Head trauma aside, he could use some stitches.

It’s 1 a.m. at this point. The streets are a sheet of ice. I go back into the living room and crouch, putting myself at eye level with my father. Nobody ever looks in his eyes. At least, I don’t.

“Listen,” I say. “We can’t tell if you’ve hurt yourself or how badly. Ideally, we would stay here and keep bothering you until you consented to go. But theCSO and Mom and I have work in the morning, and we can’t play this game all night. Will you go to the hospital?”

“No!” he says. He’s not in good condition, but he’s still an ex-opera singer. His denial seems to shake the room a bit.

“OK, then. We’re going to go with that decision, theCSO and I are going home.” His whole body relaxes. “But, the really dangerous thing with concussions is getting two of them. At this point, we're playing the odds. Odds are good you’re fine now. But if you fall again, the odds become very bad. If I were you, I would stay off the ice and not leave the house if there’s an ice storm for some time, because if you fall again, we are taking you to the hospital. We don’t care what you have to say about it. Jason, Oliver and I are each bigger, stronger and meaner than you are and there are three of us. Do you understand?”

He grunted a “yes.”

And we went home, ever conscious of how family roles change over time, even when the personalities don’t.

CC

Bill Clinton was just on the radio as I drove in to work this morning and was absolutely fantastic. He was funny and engaging and sounded completely in love with Hillary and proud and impressed. He said nice things about everyone in the race, but most of all crowed about his wife.

He told a joke that Huckabee had told about him, laughing at himself and noting how funny it was. He did a nice job playing up what a wonderful person Huckabee was, I'm assuming because he doesn't want the Republican candidate to be decided while the Democrats are still fighting amongst themselves.

He was completely brilliant, yet I would totally hang out with him. It was awesome.

CC
Aware that doesn't say anything about either candidate.

This year, I've heard that more people than usual are coming for minister days and not sticking it out for GA.

Would it make sense to have our blogger dinner (usually on Friday night) on, like, Wednesday night instead? That would have to be lateish, perhaps too late. But it would be awesome to try to have hangout time that could include the people who are leaving early.

Failing that, do some of y'all want to find a quiet bar for Wednesday night? Last year we had this blogger-dinner-afterparty where we sat up until two in the morning discussing lots of topics I don't remember other than one blogger telling me that he/she would like to make out with another blogger. (Your secret is safe with me beyond that.)

It was way, way awesome.

I haven't planned a blogger dinner yet, and if nobody else wants to, I'm happy to do it this year. But some input on the timing would be helpful...

CC

Is it supposed to be getting in a person of another faith and asking them to speak at length on the more intolerant aspects of their faith, not once challenging or questioning anything they say?

Isn't there supposed to be, well, dialogue? I can get why responding to a lengthy bit about hellfire with "Actually, in our faith, our members typically don't believe a loving God could do that. How would someone of your faith respond to that concern?" might not be optimal, though I wished somebody had done so.

But couldn't we talk about what our faiths have in common just a bit? I don't think we need to deny that there are differences between other faiths and our own. But I don't think putting nastiness on display and leaving it unanswered is real dialogue.

A frustrated,

CC
who started to think about leaving when the gentlemen of another faith talked about refusing to shake hands with women being a sign of respect for women, and did stand up and walk out when an answer to a question about 9-11 began with an observation that to the British, Thomas Jefferson was a terrorist*.

*Jefferson did say some very nasty things about the British and I'm sure the British didn't like Jefferson, but to phrase it the way I heard it this morning is 31 flavors of crazy. It's setting up a ridiculous comparison to even try to equate writing the Declaration of Independence with murdering thousands of people.

Why do people play the "that thing you're doing is just like what that dictator did" and "this thing I'm doing is just like what that admired person did" game? At least in my case, when people violate Godwin's law and/or compare the people they agree with to the Founding Fathers, Jesus etc, it does NOT make me see their point. If anything, the comparision a. makes them look like they aren't smart enough to have a sense of proportion and b. highlights the difference between the two.

Any fool can compare themselves to a civil rights hero and their opponents to Pol Pot. What impresses me is when people can argue rationally without having to pull crap like that.

Posted by request

I point them out when they're good:

Dance like it hurts,/ Love like you need money,/ Work when people are watching.
- Scott Adams

FWIW, lots of people want to know who this Tozy Rezko cat that Bill Barr is talking about is.

Salon has a story about him up.

CC
Who really doesn't see much there there. I pretty much read it and thought "Yep, Chicago politics." It's certainly less exciting than a leading candidate recently using ethnic slurs.

Edited to fix a typo, specifically the one Bill alludes to in the comments.

I think that having a president who uses racial slurs would be a terrible thing.

But I'm inclined to cut torture victims a lot of slack, particularly when they are talking about their captors.

Opinions?

CC

ADDED LATER: Everyone's points make a lot of sense, particularly Jeff's point that McCain is painting all Asians with a slur intended for his torturers. (It's better in Jeff's words. Check the comments.)

TheCSO and I weren't as nice to each other last night as we like to be. This morning, he wrote me a snuggly make-up email. I wrote him one right back.

The google ad my "No, Sweetie *I* was a jerk, I'm trying to do better and I love you lots and lots"-themed email generated was:

Get a purpose driven Life - www.vocationsplacement.org - as a monk, nun, or priest. Free Online Test to see if you're called
Sponsored Link

Goodness, it was just a little argument. Let's not be drastic here!

CC

I'm having a weird allergy thing. It's been bugging me for a couple of days. I cough a lot, sneeze some and feel exhausted and cranky. Whatever productivity I have today is solely the result of spicy pad thai* and sugar-free Red Bull.

Oh, and the murder mystery dinner theater rocked mightily and raised big money for those kids in El Salvador. I will have a more complete account later.

I'm going to take another slurp of Red Bull and go back to drafting the complaint I was working on. But before I do, shall we practice the traditional Chalicechick self-care exercise and watch the "Alan Rickman 'I'm too Sexy" YouTube video?



Ah. Feeling better already.

CC

*Spicy pad thai cleans out my sinuses. LinguistFriend told me last night that his father, a veteran of many 1950s-era civil rights marches, reported much the same effect from tear gas. The Chalicerelative, a veteran of many protest marches of the same sort, gave me strict orders as a kid to walk calmly and directly away from any police officers and/or violence I ever saw at a protest march. So far so good, I've never been gassed.

I'm making props for the murder mystery play tomorrow night, and I needed a fake paycheck stub.

So I blithely googled "Sample paycheck stub," not once considering that 99.99 percent of the people who want that are commiting fraud. Boy, there are some skeezy websites offering this.

I know, duh.

CC

I've been interested in Hillary Clinton and the seemingly irrational hatred people have toward her for a long time.

It has been interesting to watch the Democratic claws come out this election season. Given the actual evidence, I don't really understand the whole "eight years of Hillary would be like eight more years of Bill, and that would be a terrible thing" argument coming from liberals. But I've read it over and over.

I owe y'all some more issue breakdowns, but one thing that has struck me in preparing for them is how truly similar Obama's ideas are to Clinton's. I don't really get where his claims of "new ideas" are coming from. My impression is that his supporters don't know either. In fact, every time an Obama supporter tells me in a breathless tone that Hillary believes in some awful thing, I've checked Obama's website. So far Obama supporters have a perfect record of being against Hillary for supporting things Obama also supports. (There's a small sample size here, but still...)

That said, I may well vote for Obama myself. But I don't get Democrats who hate Hillary, and I wonder if sexism is behind it.

Now with Repulicans who wear Citizens United Not Timid shirts, I don't have to wonder.


CC

Fans of "News of the Weird" got to read recently about the girl who got kicked off a bus because her boyfriend had her on a leash.

She's 19, her owner is 25. I can assure you that a 25-year-old* guy who thinks keeping a female "pet" is the thing to do is not MY idea of great dating material. And I'm channelling Ogden Nash+ a bit and wondering what will happen in 15 years or so when this 19-year-old kitten has become a 34-year-old cat with no job skills and an owner who decides he wants a kitten.

But what mostly cheeses me off is the lede buried in the following paragraphs:

Maltby -- who lives on state benefits and got engaged in November -- said her choice of lifestyle might seem unusual but was harmless.

"I am a pet," she told the Daily Mail. "I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don't cook or clean and I don't go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It's my culture and my choice. It isn't hurting anyone."

Yep. She's a pet on state benefits, a.k.a. welfare.

But don't worry, it's not hurting anyone.

CC

*When will teenage girls learn that when a guy in his twenties/thirties wants to date them, it's because the women that are his age won't have anything to do with him?

+"The trouble with a kitten is THAT Eventually it becomes a CAT" -Ogden Nash

Ahem, The UU Blog Awards Nominations are up.

January

I do my best to write about my own church as rarely as humanly possible. But sometimes my YRUUers are so awesome I do it anyway. That was the case with When a YRUU overnight and a meeting of the region transgender group happen on the same night at the same church

Again, I don’t like to write posts about my church, but I’m really glad I wrote that one. In fact, I liked it so much that I read it at the blogging workshop at GA.

Also, I really liked this picture Weird Stuff You See at the Post Office

February

Ms. Kitty seemed depressed one day in February, so I decided to cheer her up by telling her about how my friend’s kid was married to a skunk. That kid is ZombieKid, btw, I just hadn’t started calling him that at that point.

And I don’t know that The most beautiful words in the English language was all that well-written per se, but I have to say it’s a sentimental favorite of my own.


March
I served up some well-earned snarkage in Oooh Crappy Starr King Youtube Ad, but otherwise March wasn’t such a great month.

April
The Don Imus controversy had me writing about offensive humor, and where we should draw the lines in CC’s Complex feelings on Don Imus

Throughout April, I participated extensively in UU-blogosphere-wide discussions of little kids in church, Michael Moore’s trip to Cuba and the Brown-Bag-lunch issue.


May
I did a little series that began with the Founding Fathers as Asshat Humanists and went on from there.

June
RevSparker and I decided to talk to rather than at each other over the Brown Bag lunch issue CC and RevSparker say a quick ‘hello'

I wrote about GA 2007 quite a bit of course, both snarkily and thoughtfully.
I like to think I did both with: Things that didn’t speak to me, things that did.

This was a good month. I also wrote my favorite narrative post of the year Lunchtime.

July
A massage of words found me rethinking my own introversion and the benefits of having dinner with an extrovert every now and again.

I like this short post: All people should be like this

And I also liveblogged Harry Potter and the Dealthly Hallows over two days and wrote a little something after every chapter.

I also wrote a lot about swinging and polyamory. It was a sexy month.

August

Even cat pee couldn’t keep me from talking to Jana-who-creates in Lying in Cat Pee Friendship

September

The fall brought a big slowdown in blogging as I started law school. But I still took time to write about the Independent Affiliates situation. I also commented on the the New UUA Commercial.


October

I wrote Symbolic Outrage as an answer to the question “Well CC, if you don’t approve of protest marches, what sort of political action DO you like?”

November

Much snarkage about the movie Across the Universe can be found here.

I haven’t written many really personal posts this year. But I wrote A Response to Peacebag’s depression thread and it was pretty good.

And I wrote a silly post about my love of MyCokeRewards points called CC the Coke Fiend.


December
Most of my better posts aren’t about law school, but So, CC, how’s law school going? was pretty good.

And I finished out the year with If you simply must protest a look at why I think the gay marriage issue is far more worthy of protest than the
checking-IDs-at-the-door-of-GA issue.

Sigh.

Protesters who are delusional enough to think that their protests make people care about their causes are plenty annoying enough. Protesters who KNOW they are just doing it to be hurtful really get me.

The one tiny bright spot is that I was reading the comments on an article about the Westboro Church's actions
and somebody linked to this.

I should clarify that people who dedicate large chunks of time to maintaining parody Christian sites mostly scare me and remind me very much of the people they are parodying. But this one is small enough and silly enough to not bug me.

CC

By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty.


Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

CC

This bar/cinema/restaurant I like but never quite go to is having an event where a band I like is opening for the movie Office Space.

Naturally this will occur while I'm sitting in Torts class. (Actually, I could probably make the movie, but I'd miss the band.)

Luckily, the same establishment is having a "Fiddler on the Roof Singalong" on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks later. It sounds like major fun and it's a benefit for a women's shelter. But that's a different kind of awesome.

Ah well.

CC

So...

Someone I know from church knows a guy who knows a guy who says that there is a secret coterie of older UU ministers who more or less handpick the UUA president and they've handpicked Laurel Hallman.

Is this true? To what degree is it true?

CC

"So what are you doing with a weekend all to yourself, Miss Sue?" TheChalicerelative asked, a reference to theCSO being out of town until Tuesday.
"Dunno. I'll help you pack some, and I'll spend some time at work, I expect," I said into the phone, keeping my eyes carefully on the road.
"What about this evening? If I'd thought about it, we could have gone out to supper."
"It's OK," I said. "I have class anyway, and afterwards I thought I might see Sweeney Todd."
"Again?"
Damn. I'd already told her I'd seen it. "I like it," I said lamely. The Chalicerelative is the sort of person who might well draw negative conclusions about the mental health of someone who willingly saw Sweeney Todd multiple times.
Instead, she sighed. "Your father loved that show."

While it's not accurate in the strictest biological sense to talk about my father in the past tense, for all intents and purposes, one might as well. Still, the Chalicerelative's words set off a chain of memories.

I don't know how young I was. Young enough to be comfortably held. And my father was saying, his voice that of someone delighting in telling a dreadful secret,
"Do you know what happens next? His friend Mrs. Lovett makes MEAT PIES!" I can remember my own childish squeal, then my father would roll out the words with Hestonesque vigor, "Meat pies made of PEOPLE."

When theCSO says that all my snuggly childhood memories sound like child abuse to him, this is probably what he's talking about.

Something in that movie really reaches out to me. Tim Burton often does. I saw the Corpse Bride three times and I love how his adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really evoked the spirit of the book*.

My father doesn't leave his house when he can avoid it. But I'm still tempted to call up my parents and see if they'd like to catch a matinee.

So that's what I'm thinking about tonight.

CC


*Yes, I know you love the 1971 version. Roald Dahl and I disagree.

And "Snopes" reminds me of me.

CC

Bummer. This place looks like so much fun...


CC

I normally portray my childhood in the suburbs of DC as having been fairly multicultural. That's the way I remember it. I hung out with the daughter of the ambassador to Nigeria. Being Jewish was, if anything, more normal than being Catholic. There was a Muslim girl from Iraq who wore a headscarf in the sixth grade and I recall thinking she must wear a headscarf because she's from Iraq and thinking of it like a French girl wearing a beret.

But now there's a Muslim girl who has special uniform requirements and the National Federation of State High School Associations won't let her compete.

So I guess the rest of the nation still has some catching up to do.

CC

9:21: CC gets an email from the office administrator at her firm who has e-mailed the entire firm to ask if anybody knows somebody who speaks Ukranian.

9:23: CC emails LinguistFriend.

9:33: CC emails office manager, saying "I know someone who probably speaks Ukranian. Lemme check"

9:35: CC calls LinguistFriend at home. LF says his Ukranian speech isn't that great, though he can read it when he has to. CC says "Ok" and rings off.

9:37: LinguistFriend calls CC back to point out that every Ukranian LF has ever met is bilingual in Russian*. CC thanks LF, rings off again.

9:41: CC calls office manager, explains about the Russian. Office manager says she has just heard from another attorney who used to work with a guy who speaks Ukranian. She thanks CC, but says she will probably go with the other translator, who is an attorney.

An email to a medium-sized law firm yields two Ukranian translators in twenty minutes.

I heart globalization.

CC

*Russian is LF's favorite language. LF is AWESOME in Russian.

Observe.


CC

I really approve of the Democratic candidates making nice at the Nevada debate last night. I don't understand why we have to spend so much time tearing the candidates that we don't like up at the PRIMARIES. It seems like the definition of counterproductive.

Romney's win in Michigan leaves the Republican race more wide open than ever. I hope we can pick a candidate and get behind them.

This very moment, I'm leaning toward Obama. But at the same time, I'm really appalled by the sexism in the way people are treating Clinton. That Edwards has in the past painted himself as a "woman's candidate" seems pretty laughable at this point.

TheCSO and I were talking about this the other night, and I brought up the incident a few months ago where somebody asked McCain "How do we beat the bitch?" and he launched right into his response without even mentioning that he didn't see her that way or that "bitch" was not a proper way to describe one's female opponents.

At that time, I was making the point that if the supporter had been talking about Obama and asked "How do we beat the (insert racial invective here)," I'm quite certain McCain would have commented on the terminology.

TheCSO pointed out that the right has had sixteen years to paint Clinton as a bitch, so at this point lots of right-wing people are used to thinking of her this way.

I'm still confused on that one. Don't bitches leave cheating husbands and embarrass them rather than sticking by them? Do bitches raise daughters like Chelsea, who is easily the most well-adjusted and successful presidential child in decades?

And besides, if for sixteen years, the Republican party had been painting Obama as a "lazy (insert racial invective here)" then I would think somebody would have called racism on it and made them cool it.

CC

Ps. I'm rethinking the "Midlife Crisis" issue. I don't think I expressed what I meant well, and what I meant might have been wrong, too. Thanks for keeping me honest.

Maybe this is just because I'm still pretty young, but I don't get the whole "Mid-Life Crisis" thing.

First off, it just seems like such a lame middle-class-American thing to have. Nobody cool has a mid-life crisis. Imagine, say, Patrick Stewart having a midlife crisis. Hard to do, huh? How about Emma Thompson? Don't see it. Now try imagining, say, Donny Osmond having a midlife crisis. Easy, huh? Hell, the last few decades of Donald Trumps life are arguably one big midlfe crisis.

Why do people mourn the fact that they aren't cool anymore by suffering the least-cool malady ever?

Secondly, why do men have mid-life crises at not women? Women are the ones who are expected to do everything men do, and be sexy.

Anway, a psychiatry professor is with me on this one and has written an article about it in the NYTimes.


CC

Ps. Oh, and Diane Keaton? No mid-life crisis around here.

A friend of mine just joined a facebook group called "Six word stories" that challenges people to write true stories in six words.

Hemingway was asked to write a story in six words (though I don't think the truth requirement was there) and came up with: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never used."

Margaret Atwood's response was "Longed for him. Got him. Shit."

So far this A.M. the stories I've come up with are:

True of me:

"Incompetant as secretary; lawyer results pending."
"How 'bout it?" + "ok" = Gen-X Engagement
Junior High Memories make Universalism difficult.
ChaliceMom's accident sees life as lagniappe.
Kindergartner campaigns for younger siblings; regrets.
Functional adulthood is the best revenge.

Six word challenge reveals latent OCD.

Fictional, but interesting:
In Case of Emergency, contact: Nobody


I will add more as think of them.

CC
who got
"Jump into the bathtub,"

WHAM!

Dumb kid.
Down to seven words, but no fewer.

Ps. More on the candidates tonight.

Pps. Please see the comments, where Jeff W. compares what I wrote to what Margaret Atwood and Ernest Hemingway wrote. True, I come up lacking, but that's still the nicest compliment my writing has gotten in awhile.

TheCSO thought I shouldn't bother with Paul, so I decided to compare Romney and McCain instead.

I am using the candidates' websites and only their websites to write this. Also, I'm going to tell you how easy it is to find each topic on the website as I assume there's a rough correlation between the percieved importance of the issue by the campaign and how easy to find it is.

Lots of the below is word-for-word, sometimes I've paraphrased for space.

I'm going to throw in a bonus question for each subject. For education, it's "What do they think about No Child Left Behind?"

Edwards on Education:

How easy is it to find on the website: Not very. Go to issues and it is in the third group of issues over halfway down the page.

Ideas:-Fund Universal pre-school
-$5,000+ bonuses for teachers that teach in “bad” schools
-A teachers university “West Point for teachers,” that will train high-quality teachers for “bad” schools

On “No child left behind”: Edwards will radically overhaul No Child Left Behind to live up to its goal of helping all children learn at high levels. The law today judges children based on cheap standardized tests, forces schools to narrow the curriculum, fails to accurately identify struggling schools, and imposes unproven cookie-cutter reforms. Edwards supports better tests, broader measures of school success such as measuring students' progress, and giving states more resources and flexibility to identify and reform underperforming schools.



Obama on Education:

How easy is it to find on the website: Very easy. It’s third on a drop-down menu on the front page leads to a page with a bunch of interesting but somewhat vague ideas. From there you can get a PDF with a 15-page education plan

Ideas:
-Create Early Learning Challenge Grants to stimulate and help fund state “zero to five” efforts.
-Quadruple the number of eligible children for Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both. Barack Obama will provide $250
million in dedicated funds to create or expand regional training centers designed to help Head Start centers implement successful models.
-Provide affordable and high-quality child care that will promote child development and ease the burden on working families. The Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program provides critical support to low-income families to pay for child care. However, the Bush administration has funded this program at a constant level, while costs per child have increased...Barack Obama will
reverse this policy and ensure that CCDBG remains adequately funded every year.
-Create a Presidential Early Learning Council to increase collaboration and program coordination across federal, state, and local levels. (I’d be amazed if something like this doesn’t already exist. -CC)
-Encourage All States to Adopt Voluntary, Universal Pre-School
-Teacher scholarships
-A national teacher assessment that is much more holistic than the current exams that are used for licensure. (I’m not sure about this goal, even if it were possible.)
- Barack Obama will provide $100 million to stimulate teacher education reforms built on school-university partnerships. (Sort of a teaching-hospitals model.)
- Obama will provide $1 billion in funding for grants to create mentoring programs and reward veteran teaches for becoming mentors.
-A bunch of stuff about science education, how important it is and how the above-mentioned plans will be good for it.
-Obama believes that the secret to lowering the dropout rate is to improve Jr. High.
To wit,
-Requiring states to develop a detailed plan to improve middle school student achievement.
-Developing and utilizing early identification data systems to identify those students most atrisk of dropping out.
-Investing in proven strategies such as: (1) providing professional development and coaching to school leaders, teachers and other school personnel in addressing the needs of diverse learners and in using challenging and relevant research-based best practices and curriculum; and (2) developing and implementing comprehensive, school-wide improvement efforts and implementing student supports such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction and extended learning time that enables all students to stay on the path to graduation.
-Double the amount of money used for research into what actually works and actually helps students learn.

On No Child Left Behind: Obama will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama believes teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

Clinton on Education

How easy is it to find on the website: It’s not intuitive. It's mixed in with daycare, senior care and a bunch of other "family" type issues.

Ideas:

-Hillary Clinton is proposing a national Pre-K initiative that would provide funding to states to establish high-quality pre-K programs. States would have to devise a plan for making voluntary pre-K services universally available for all four year olds in the state in order to participate. In addition, they would provide pre-K at no cost to children from low-income children and/or limited English homes. As states increase participation and growth their programs, the federal government will be their partner, scaling up its investment in concert with states. Hillary Clinton is committed to achieving big goals while maintaining a commitment to fiscal discipline. She will invest in providing pre-k for all children without increasing the deficit by ending the abuse of no-bid contracts and cutting the number of contractors working for the federal government by 500,000 over the next ten years through an Executive Order, saving $10 to $18 billion a year

-Early College High Schools - As President, Hillary will support early college high schools, which are small schools designed to give students - especially those who are under-represented in higher education today - the opportunity to earn both a high school diploma and an associate's degree or up to two years of credit toward a bachelor's degree. Early college high school creates a smooth transition from high school to college by integrating students' high school and college experiences. When students complete early college high school, they not only have a diploma but also have enough college credits - or even an associate's degree – to go to a two- or four-year college or university, making higher education more accessible and affordable.

There’s also a bunch of stuff aimed at at-risk youth that isn’t exactly education.

No Child Left Behind: Doesn’t mention it in any obvious place.



McCain

Currently no position paper on education



Romney on Education:

How easy is it to find on the website: Not bad. Go to “on the issues” It’s at the bottom.

Ideas:
-Lots of support for vouchers
-Homeschooling tax credit.


On No Child Left Behind: Governor Romney Will Improve Upon And Enhance No Child Left Behind (NCLB). He believes that No Child Left Behind has played an important role in stressing the role of accountability and high standards in improving our schools. Governor Romney will improve NCLB by giving states that meet or exceed testing requirements additional flexibility in measuring student performance. He will also improve the law by focusing more attention on individual student progress, rather than the overall progress of schools.


Analysis: Obama absolutely has the most ideas, but Clinton's seem a litter better thought out in places and she seems to have considered how she would pay for things, which is always a plus. I like Obama's idea that preventing dropouts starts in Junior High. I'm not sure about the "teaching hospitals" model of teacher training. But it's interesting.

Advantage: Obama
Honorable mention: Clinton



* The rules: I’m looking for ideas, not ideals. “Recruit more math and science professionals to be teachers” is a nice goal, but unless there is a method for doing so, I’m not adding it to the list. If something seems like a newish idea, I might still include it. Don’t like the way I’m making this distinction? Start your own list.

TheCSO and I are having an evening out.

who was very physically attractive, with a deep, compelling voice. He talked about getting American life back to normal after a war and inspired the people. He won his election handily. He was presidential in appearance, popular and...

...a complete failure as a president, because I'm talking about Warren G. Harding, who ran possibly the most corrupt administration ever, had a girlfriend who extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the Republicans and probably him, and didn't do much else. He died in office and historians still argue about whether he was murdered because his possibly imminent impeachment would have done lots of damage to the Republican party.

Sorry, I'm a little tired of "I *like* this guy. I don't know what he stands for, and he doesn't have much experience, but I *like* him."

Seems to me that's what got us President Bush. (OK, maybe you didn't like him. But a lot of people did.)

So that's why I'm doing the side-by-side issue comparision. Because a candidate's ideas are supposed to matter more than his/her soundbites.

Anyway, will look at the candidates stands on education in a bit. Am also planning to do foreign policy and the economy. If there's a comparision you'd like to see, please feel free to comment about it.

CC

1. Be talking about Hillary Clinton with a professor at a party.

2. Find out mid-conversation that said professor worked for the Office of the Independent Counsel investigating the Rose Law Firm during the Whitewater scandal.

Luckily, I hadn't said anything I wouldn't have said if I'd known this information at the beginning of the coversation. But I've vowed to keep closer tabs on my professors' backgrounds.

CC

First off, Sniffle.
Goodbye, Richardson, candidate that I loved, Candidate who thought globally, Candidate who wanted to scrap "No Child Left Behind*," four-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, the man who had SAT ACROSS A NEGOTIATION TABLE FROM SADDAM HUSSEIN AND GOTTEN THE RELEASE OF TWO AMERICAN PRISONERS FOR CRYIN'OUT LOUD, not that anybody cared.**

Anyway, I am candidateless for the moment, so I'm going to start a series where I compare where the candidates stand on the issues. If I help myself figure out where I stand, great. If I help you, that's even better.

But first, my initial impressions of the candidates going in:

Edwards:
Honestly, I've never liked the man. His understanding of economics doesn't impress me. His assholishness about Hillary's crying (particularly given his own frequent use of his wife's cancer and his son's death) was a helpful reminder that sexism still does very much exist on the campaign trail. Seriously, he may not want an emotional woman's hand on the nuclear button, but I don't want the hand of a guy who proves his masculinity by being a bully either.

For the record, I do NOT think that an Edwards supporter should refrain from voting for him because he's not black and he's not a woman. But I think there are a lot of better reasons not to. And in fairness, I also don't believe in voting FOR Edwards because you think that Americans are too sexist and racist for a Democrat to win the white house any other way.

I get an asshole vibe from the guy. At the same time, I don't know that I want a man whose wife is dying running the country. Maybe I'm a bitch for that, but I'd rather not be speculating which role is getting short shrift, president or husband/father. And I'm going to be speculating that everytime there's a fuckup in the Edwards presidency while his first lady is dying. Again, maybe I'm a bitch for that.

He's really young. My inclination right now is to say "Go home, dude. Take care of your wife and get some experience and some class and I'll reconsider my position in four years."

But I still basically think he'd do a good job.

Obama:
I'm not sure that Morgan Freeman has done the world a service by playing seemingly a billion "mystical and wise African-American man" roles. I think Obama has both profited and suffered from that stereotype. But at least people aren't making fun of him for crying and making a fuss over the fact that he has wrinkles and calling his laugh a "cackle"***.

I don't know about this guy, y'all. He has vision, but so did a Clinton circa 1996 and while Clinton did a good job, none of his visions came true and his experience sure came in handy. And honestly, Richardson's foreign policy creditials make Obama look like a Junior High School math club president by comparison. ((I know, I know, I need to let it go. But give me a freaking break, Obama cast some (admittedly) good votes on Darfur, while Richardson went to Darfur to negotiate for peace. He WENT TO DARFUR and got them talking. Didn't work that time, but still... I know, I know. Let it go.))

What I know about Obama seems fine, but that I know so much less about the substance of his views than I know the other candidates bugs me.

But I still basically think he'd do a good job.

Clinton:
I do think LBJ doesn't get the credit he deserves for the good he did. But that was still a stupid thing to say.

Moving on, the Clinton years were awesome ones in many respects. Again, people, largest peacetime economic expansion in the nation's history. I'm pretty sure we would STILL be electing Bill if it weren't for term limits.

My impression is that she's the only remaining candidate to have a truly global foreign policy, but I hate that much of her domestic policy has a populist "there oughta be a law" ring and I think she's way wrong on criminal justice issues.

As a former aspiring First Woman President candidate myself (age 4-8), I have to say that having the first Woman president be someone who more or less got the job because of her marriage annoys me. Because if she wins, she will have.

But I still basically think she'd do a good job.


Paul:
Yep, the racist articles in his newsletter really sucked and show poor judgment. It was awesome to have someone out there getting people excited about the constitution. I hated some of his views, but I really liked other ones.

For the record, I don't think Paul was a racist and I still think the argument "Well, a guy whose probably lying said something bad about someone I don't like, so it must be true" is bizarre and crappy coming from liberals who are quick to accuse Republicans of believing in "truthiness."

Paul and I have similar taste in political enemies.

And I get that the man doesn't have a chance in hell. I'm going to look into his ideas anyway, if only to emphasize how similar the other three candidates really are.

And I don't know if he would have done a good job. But he would have been fun to watch.

______________________________

I will continue the candidate comparison later/tomorrow with my first four-way examination of the issues.


CC

*The remaining candidates want to overhaul it in similar-sounding ways. A comparison will probably be Chapter two in this series.

** I'm still mad at the American public for not watching Veronica Mars, and now they pull this?

***Having the most annoying laugh of anyone in history hasn't held George W. Bush back much.

We have a week-long winter term here at GULC, and I'm in the middle of a superspeedy class on international law that is focused on deportation/rendition/extradition and related issues. For the last few days, we've been doing a simulation exercise and I played a judge in the European Court of Human Rights. It was fun, but exhausting. My questioning was hard enough on my peers that my TAs didn't think I was a wuss, but nobody hates me either as far as I know. I also emailed my Con law professor from last semester and asked him if he wanted to submit an amicus brief. (He didn't.)

It's weird to hear the professor referring to people from other countries as "aliens." As a Chick who was raised on ET and Star Trek, I've never had the negative connotations some people have for the word. But I'm not used to hearing it at this point as UUs tend to regard it as non-PC.

It's raining a lot here, which is a good thing as it follows the drought from this fall. I hate to drive in the snow, and I'm not very good at it, so I'm pleased that at least we haven't had snow.

I'm looking forward to seeing the YRUUs put on the play I've been writing. Admission is $20 a head and the profits go for University Education in El Salvador. I'm humbled by the idea that I'm writing something that will help even a few folks in El Salvador go to school and live better lives. Kim wrote in the comments that I should let other churches perform it. I had been kicking around something like that for awhile. I'm going to look into the proper language to license it so that YRUU groups may perform it as long as at least 50 percent of the profits go to a non-political charity.

But yeah, if you have a charitably-oriented youth group, shoot me an email and we can talk about it.

I'm also working on an RE curriculum on Christianity in the Culture, though I haven't field tested that one as much as I wanted to this year. I don't suppose anybody reading this knows the proper person in the UUA to send those when I finish them?

Anyway, life is actually pretty good. Probably the reason I'm so bummed is that the ChaliceRelative is moving to the Presbyterian Home in a month. (No, smartass, not Scotland, it's an old folks home in DC that is run by the Presbyterian church.)

When I was a child, the Chalicerelative lived in our basement. She was the RE person at a large Presby church in DC. Once, her car was broken into while it was parked in front of our house, but all that was stolen was a volume of The Interpreter's Bible.

Upon hearing of the crime, my five-year-old self, a Nancy Drew devotee, ran to her room, grabbed her notepad and started looking for clues. After a bit, I came into the house and proudly announced

"Well, we know one thing. The thief loves God, but he hates Justice!"

This is probably the most told-and-retold family story about CC, especially since I got into law school.

Some years ago, the Chalicerelative asked me what I wanted in her will. The first (and really only) thing I asked for was the remaining volumes of that Interpreter's bible.

Now the Chalicerelative's Interpreter's bible is boxed and in the backseat of my car. When I was helping her pack on Sunday, the Chalicerelative reported that the Presbyterian home has an excellent library and she gave it to me. She won't need it and she knows I want it.

Well, I thought I did.

CC

When I talk about how I feel like UUs don't do as much charitable work as they should, I am NEVER talking about my youth group.

My YRUU kids collect canned food and sort it at the All Souls Food Drive, they recycle printer cartridges, they assemble medical kits for migrant workers. They pretty regularly serve at soup kitchens and leftovers from our events invariably go to a food bank. A dozen of them go to El Salvador every year to do community development projects.

And they hold fundraisers.

Ye gods do they hold fundraisers. They do a coffeehouse for "Save the Music," they sponsor kids in developing countries, last year's Monopoly Tournament was for La Clínica del Pueblo and they did a Murder Mystery Dinner for Beacon house. They went on a help-the-homeless walkathon. They do Unicef Boxes.

On the 26th, they are having this year's "Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre," which will be for secondary education in El Salvador. Or something like that.

Naturally, we're broke. Our youth director announced this on Sunday.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." One of the youth said, then went back to talking about doing some sort of environmental project.

"No, seriously. We're at the bridge. We don't get much from the congregation and the re-usable shopping bags we were selling didn't sell well. We need money."

Yep, the fundraising-est youth group I've ever seen needs to do some fundraising for itself.

And it is really odd for us/them/me.

We have a plan to fix it, of course.

We're going to have a "Parents' night out" when we will offer babysitting services at the church for several hours on a Friday or Saturday night. Parents can park their kids with us, then go have dinner and a movie. The nice thing is, our youth will probably be willing to repeat the trick as many times as is necessary to ease our budget crunch.

But as the youth are selling tickets for it, I wonder how it will be for them to be asked "what's it for?"

I'm hoping that instead of worrying that they aren't answering "homeless kids," they will confidently look the questioner in the eye and say "We're going on a retreat."

While I'm talking about it, if anybody in the DC area would like to come to a murder mystery dinner, it is coming up. I'm writing the script. It should be awesome.

And it's for a good cause...

CC

The head of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture is a UU.

Note that I said "National Campaign" not "UU Campaign." It's an awesome, inclusive organization that helped put together "Evangelicals for Human Rights" and is reaching out to religious people of lots of creeds and trying work for human rights together.

It's interfaith and awesome and it received an award from NYU's Program for Survivors of Torture for NRCAT’s “extraordinary work” in seeking to abolish torture. In making the award, the NYU noted that NRCAT’s “moral leadership brings the light of hope to this dark time in our nation’s history.”

This is doing it right, kids. I'm so proud of this woman, and to our faith for supporting her.

CC

This guy was just killed in Iraq.

CC

Ironically, we had a sermon about the Parable of the Talents in my church last week.

It wasn't like this.

CC

I'm going to pick on Iminister here, though she's only the most recent person I've seen make this argument*.

Iminister writes about Hillary Clinton: Her husband's behavior in the White House was not her fault, and I honor her for apparently forgiving him for it and continuing with the marriage, but in making him such a prominent part of her campaign she's forgotten something that nobody else has, which is what a miserable episode that was and how it laid an important part of the goundwork for the even more miserable time we're having now.

Maybe, in order to forgive Bill she had to tell herself it was all no big deal, but it was a big deal. So while I admire Hillary the wife, Hillary the politician has made a terrible mistake.

The man was a tremendously popular president. Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history and left office with the highest approval rating of any president leaving office in modern history. They have a five-story mural of him in Kosovo.

He's also a brilliant campaigner.

Hell, even I like the guy. I was furious at him for welfare reform, but that welfare reform has been so successful that it is being copied all over Europe. Even the CHALICEMOM likes welfare reform now**. My bad.

IMHO, Gore's fussy refusal to use Clinton on the campaign trail (again, despite Clinton's huge popularity rating and Gore's lack of charisma) only made Clinton's actions seem more unforgivable. Given how close Gore came to winning and how the people who were truly anti-Clinton weren't going to vote for Gore anyway, I'd say Gore made a huge mistake in not getting Clinton to campaign to moderates, who love him. Clinton reaching out to moderates would have allowed Gore to shore up his base and keep more of it from going to Nader. Need I remind you how a tiny amount of energizing of the base could have changed that election?

THAT laid the groundwork for where we are now, not Clinton's personal weaknesses.

Good for Hillary for not repeating Gore's mistake. (Though Hillary is a moderate like Bill, so he can't do quite as much for her. Gore's liberal credentials were better.)

CC
who has the weirdest urge to go watch "Primary Colors" again.

*The fastest way to get criticized on the Chaliceblog is write on your UU blog about something that has bugged CC when she has seen it other places.

**The Chalicemom works in low-income housing and has for decades. She deals with poor people on a daily basis and knows a lot about this stuff, both in theory and how it has effected the people she's around all the time.

CC witnessed a bad customer service experience on her Jetblue flight back to DC from Vegas, and sent The Consumerist.com a copy of the letter she wrote to Jet Blue.

They posted it.

As of this writing, 95,649 people have read the letter, 1462 have "digged" it and 108have left comments.

So anyway, I'm hoping this means JetBlue will have a talk with their stewardesses about only using warning cards for people who are actually being disruptive.

CC

like this guy.

But it's pretty clear he's getting punished for not perjuring himself.

Sigh.

In happier news, this prosecutor has given CC someone new to admire.

CC

PG asked: CC, as a Virginian you should know better than to think it's totally wild that a prominent politician would meet with white supremacists. That said, I agree that the NYTimes made a huge mistake here, and one that they made only because Paul is a fairly marginal candidate -- this sort of thing would not happen with any of the top 8 or so candidates.

Meet with white Supremacists once or twice? Sure. It's stupid given that White Supremacists at this point pretty much have negative political influence*, but people do it.

That said, there's a difference between meeting once or twice and "Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays"

Meeting a few times is believeable. What I don't get is why people reading the story about him meeting REGULARLY with white supremacists while RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT don't find it fishy.

You really don't think the press would catch on to that? Really?

Also, I don't get why people keep talking about the evolution debate and abstinance-only sex ed, in both cases assuming that Paul plans to impose his views on both when he's been pretty straightforward in saying that the Federal Government has no business doing so.

If these are examples of the reality-based critical thinking I keep hearing about, color me unimpressed.

But don't worry, even though Paul is beating Giuliani and tied with Fred Thompson in Iowa. Fox News isn't going to let him debate the other Republican candidates in their New Hampshire debate.

So the liberals are lying about him and the conservatives are keeping him out of the debate.

If this man is so awful, why is everyone so afraid to hear him talk?

CC
who is, again, a Richardson supporter.


*When addressing my concerns about the fact that the New York Times had corrected the story before she was even spreading it, the lady who wrote the blog post I was sent said:

Of course I'll admit Bill White was probably lying through his teeth. In fact, I admitted it right there in the piece. Remember that bit about how "Bill White is hardly the most reliable reporter on any subject"? That's a nice way of saying he's probably lying.

Which, as others have pointed out, is beside the point anyway. The point, of course, was that the white nationalist crowd recognizes Paul as one of their own -- and, as I've noted here quite recently, there are times when we do well to take right-wingers at their word on stuff like this.

So, yeah, the sheer fact that the Nazi likes him discounts him completely.

Someone smarter/less hungover than I am could probably come up with several apt metaphors for my party last night.

At the height of the party, ZombieKid and theGnome watched a movie upstairs, the engineer contingent (four of them, including theCSO) watched a different movie in a different room, while Big Gorilla played his guitar downstairs next to the bar and everybody else talked and drank. We had over a dozen people and everybody seemed to have a good time. We polished off lots of gin and champagne.

My brother Jason had showed up and made a drunken ass of himself in front of our friends and theCSO and I had to devote lots of energy at 2am to trying to figure out how to get him home while he insisted that nobody should drive him.

Finally, we disabled his vehicle and locked him out. That sounds really harsh, but he only lives a mile or so away, so we figured he'd find his way home or call himself the cab we'd been trying to get him to let us call for him.

So my past was evident enough. That said, even as a kid, I dreamed about throwing parties where smart people came to hang out with me and talk about important things. And brother or no, smart people do hang out at my parties and discuss important things. (And watch movies, and talk politics, play geeky card games and in Big Gorilla's case explain how Warren Zevon was a misunderstood genius.)

May we all spend 2008 getting closer to becoming the people we want to be.

CC

Deaf guy is just trying to buy something at the Family Dollar. When he doesn't respond to something the clerk says, the clerk decides he's a racist who is snubbing him and hits him with a crowbar.

When told that the guy was deaf and wasn't ignoring him, the clerk said, "Oh."

Can we please stop automatically thinking the worst of each other in this world?

Please?

CC

I have long thought that poeple who said things like "I stood up for what I believed. I wrote a letter to somebody" or "I fought for gay rights by disagreeing with a homophobe on the internet!" or "I spoke truth to power by signing a petition to..." were morons.

To me, any form of protest that involves either sign-waving or strongly-worded-emails is nearly a laughable waste of time.

Now Bill Maher has gone and written an awesome column about this phenomenon as applied to the Obama-doesn't-wear-an-American-flag-pin controversy, a controversy, I should note, that I have never actually heard of but that I can easily imagine.

Before people ask, here are a few examples of non-pointless ways to change the world.

1. Vote, and research your local candidates carefully before doing so.
2. Read, become informed about both sides. If you can't answer the question "why might a reasonable person disagree with me on this?" Then you have not done your homework sufficiently to be talking about a controversial issue. Don't make me have the Head Start converstion with you.
3. Talk to actual people about actual issues, listen to people who disagree with you.
4. Quit asking the government to be the change you want to be.
5. Set an example of how you want other people to behave. Don't want people to be jerks? Then don't be a jerk. I am constantly amazed at how often people miss this, to me obvious, point. When you see someone treating others badly and treat them badly in return, you do not teach them the lesson that treating other people beadly has negative consequences. If anything, you teach them that treating people badly is acceptable behavior. After all, everybody's doing it. Two wrongs don't make a right. Duh.
6. Don't come up with a pretentious name for what you're doing. Please don't fight for freedom, speak truth to power or kick ass. Just think about things, talk to people and try to figure out solutions to problems.
7. People are watching you. Set a good example. Behave the way you want your opponents to behave.
8. Don't sacrifice the good in a quest for the perfect.
9. Don't alienate people from your cause unnecessarily. I do not vote for people like me, I want people who are smarter than me running the country. But lots of people do like to vote for people like themselves and support causes supported by people like themselves.

OK, back to my homework...

CC

If I can ever find the paper I wrote in college on Doris Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor, I will post it here. It was two pages of tasty snarkage. (Dystopia novels don't work for CC.)

Abovethelaw.com's headline on Gore was "Law School Dropout Wins Nobel Peace Prize."

Snerk.

CC

Gun control is not my personal hill to die on one way or another*. That said, I do think guns make people stupider.

I noticed a prime example of this today as I was reading this article about a teacher who is getting divorced and is afraid her ex-husband is going to come after her and how she wants to be allowed to bring a gun to school. Also, she wants to defend herself from school shootings.

From the article:

Katz won’t say whether she has ever taken her 9 mm Glock pistol to school, but she practices with it regularly and has thought about what she would do if she had to confront a gunman. She would be sure students were locked in nearby offices out of the line of fire, and she would be ready with her pistol.

And everybody would be fine, because, you know, the shooter would allow the students to be safely locked in offices before his dramatic showdown with Katz, in the school shooting she has staged in her head.

This reminds me very much of post VA-tech school shootings when Michell Malkin was criticizing the students who survived for not singlehandedly taking the shooter out when he stopped to reload.

I do think it is human nature to imagine awful situations and figure out how we might cope. I'm sure lots of people have ninja fantasies when they imagine themselves being able to take out a gunman who is hurting other people. And it always works out. The desks are always arranged in a way that facilitates us sneaking around, the gunman always falls for our bluff, we're always able to dodge the bullets and our heroics never put anyone else at risk. Oh, and we're a crack shot when we're scared for our lives. Really.

But IMHO, one has to be a special kind of stupid to ASSUME that the situation is going to work out that way, the way Malkin and Katz do. I think most of us get that the whole "our friend fakes a heart attack and while the guy is distracted, we knock the gun out of the guy's hand, which surprises him so much he goes right down when we jump him" genre of fantasies is a fantasy, and that things we're not prepared to cope with will almost certainly occur in a violent situation.

The thing is, I'm afraid it's exactly the sort of stupid owning a gun makes some poeple, as if the power of owning a gun magically gives one the power to dictate the rest of the situation.


CC

*That said, I am against the "trespassers can be legally shot" laws some states have. During my time in North Carolina, I saw two or three cases of actual burglers being shot and half a dozen cases of teenage kids sneaking out, teenage kids' friends sneaking in, people having car trouble who were looking to see if the lights were on before knocking, being shot. It really seemed to do FAR more harm than good.

Conservatives understand that cultural change is a long, gradual process of small but cumulatively deadly victories. Liberals want it all now. And that's why, in the culture wars, conservatives often win and we often lose.

I think of myself as both moral and practical, and those two aspects of my character are waging war over this issue.

CC

1. Why the fuck is it still in the high eighties in Washington? It's October and I'm tired of being so warm all the time.

2. One of my professors said "A lot of law professor questions take the following form: 'I'm thinking of a color' Don't worry about it, just raise your hand and suggest a color and he will keep calling on people until somebody says the right one."

This is the most useful thing anybody has said to me in the last five weeks.

That said, intellectually I get that I'm not alone, so why do I feel like the only colorblind person in the class?

3. How is it that a religious person with a deep fondness for her fellow humans and typically great tolerance for other people's foibles can grow to genuinely hate someone in five minutes just because she would not stop asking the professor the same question over and over again and thus prevented my question from being asked at all?*

4. Sigh.

CC


*It was literally like:

Person: Can you give us a more complete sample of what you want?
Professor: No, I don't think it would help you as much as you think.
Person: Why do you do it this way when a sample would be so useful?
Professor: Well, partially because I don't want you just working off my sample.
Person: But you gave us a sample for certian parts of the paper? Why can't we have a sample of the whole paper?
Professor: Well, those are the parts that you should be focusing on anyway.
Person: But If I could have a sample that included the introductory paragraph...
Professor: You could make an introductory paragraph by looking at the topics you're going to address and explaining what you're going to talk about. Try reading the first sentence of each paragraph.
Person: But if I had a sample of the paper...

(CC begins to ponder banging her head into the desk until she loses conciousness.)

Imagining a UU version of this boggles the mind.

Best quote: “No one can beat pornography on their own,” he said. “If you try to beat pornography on your own, you’re going to lose.”

Snort.

CC

But "Chuck" is awesomesauce.


CC

I like this column.

CC

Ummm... Wow.

I don't hate it, but hm... one of the things I want in a marketing campaign is that I'd like it to attract the sort of people I actually want to attend church with, and I'm not sure that will.

It's a little angry almost, and I think San Francisco is a weird market for an ad that is really obviously directed at people who have a very polarized view of God. San Franciscans, whatever my other complaints about them might be, seem hip to the idea that people have lots of views of God.

My guess is that commercial would get us more members in a market like Atlanta or Austin, where sophisticated people live surrounded by those who have a more polarized view of God. People who think "Mango thoughts in a meatloaf town," as Meg Barnhouse put it.

Such people are often still pretty angry, though.

That said, I've only ever even seen one commercial for a church that made me want to attend that church. The Methodists made it. Though oddly it isn't on YouTube, you can view it here by scrolling about halfway down the page and looking to the left.

CC
who realize how upper middle class and snobbish parts of her reaction are, but feels like honoring her upper middle class snobbishness in this instance because upper middle class snobs are a pretty reasonable marketing segment for us.

(The below started out as a response to Joel's comment, but I'm posting it with the rest of the message because I'm thinking the original message didn't get my point across.)

(((Joel Monka said...
The Mormons make good commercials, too. But those churches have the advantage of a uniform creedo accepted in every congregation within their denominations. What could we possibly say in a commercial that would be true of every UU congregation other than what was said in that commercial?
)))

Don't judge the Methodist commercial by its denomination.

Watch it first.

Or if you can't, know that the commercial features a woman driving around town leaving packages in public places, most notably in what looks like a more run-down area, as non-descript music plays in the background.

She pulls into her own driveway, and a package just like the ones she has been leaving around is waiting for her on the porch of her very nice-looking house. She looks around, surprised and pleased as the picture fades into the methodist logo.

The voiceover says:

"If you're searching for your ways to share your gifts with others, and possibly even recieve something in return, our hearts, our minds, and our doors are always open. The people of the United Methodist Church."

There's not a bit of creed in there, and nothing our commercials couldn't say or do. I see God acting through that woman, but the commercial doesn't dwell on the point in any way that would be offensive to even the most sensitive athiests.

It's slightly on the sappy side, but I find a lot of things slightly on the sappy side.

Mostly, I think it's brilliant. It makes me want to join that church in doing good, not join a church in sneering other churches.

And, I should mention, it came out in 2003, and I never forgot it.

CC

But that was really good.

Sorry I haven't had much to say over the last few days.

CC

Local Amigos:

Some of my pals and I are going to the Maryland Renaissance festival on October 21 (will be nice and cool, plus it's the last day so lots of stuff will be on sale.) If you're planning to go anyway at some point, go that day.

CC

This is really funny.

I've had a crazy weekend, culminating with six people coming over for Sunday dinner. We're having fajitas and everything is FINALLY chopped and marinating.

Yesterday, I woke up at five and did homework, then we spent much of the day at the renaissance festival, the only place I ever get sunburned on the tops of my breasts. I thought last night I'd escaped it, but I woke up this morning slightly red.

Then last night, theCSO and I met Joel Monka and his wife for dinner in the city. We had a wonderful, many hour conversation. Joel and Ginger are hilarious and lots of fun. I highly recommend having dinner with them if you get the chance. Usually when I meet a UU blogger and spouse, the blogger and I mostly talk about other bloggers and blog stuff while both our spouses watch, eyes glazed.

Last night wasn't like that. I couldn't begin to list the things we talked about and theCSO and Ginger were full participants in the conversation. It was awesome. I think they should come back to DC as soon as possible and will be exerting all possible peer pressure to get them to come to GA.

OK, I'm going to do a bit more homework before my dinner guests arrive.

CC

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09232007/postopinion/editorials/the_jena_six.htm"> Check it out.

1. Jeff's comment on the Reverend Al Sharpton is well taken, and did a bit to revise my opinion of Sharpton. That said, I think I'm far from alone in my kneejerk mistrust of Sharpton and I still don't think he does causes many favors from showing up. I would consider him more honest that Michael Moore, but in the same basic ballpark.

2. I really didn't give sufficient background on the bible stories topic, so here are a few clarifications:

-My youth seem to know many of the basic bible stories, especially those that Unitarians like and/or those that are particularly palatable to children. They aren't totally ignorant and I'm certainly not planning to teach them all of the Bible in an hour or attempt to.

-A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a case for Property class where the Judge makes a reference to the Tower of Babel wherein he not only assumed the reader knew what it was, but assumed the reader knew it well enough to apply its implications to the situation at hand. I of the Presby upbringing was ok. It made me wonder how well my youth would do with it, though.

Thus, I am looking primarily for bible stories that aren't so well known that they would know them already, but do come up in society.

That said, the responses here have convinced me that a series of classes on this are in order.

Thanks, guys!

CC

1. Was discussing the Jena six case with some people I know. Oddly enough, I was the only one who knew the basic facts, though various people had various impressions.

One lady said "what that makes me think is that it all would have worked out fine if the kid they jumped had a gun."

There was an odd silence as I thought "Ummm... So some cracker kid pulling a gun in a crowded cafeteria is going to IMPROVE the situation? I think it can be said that some cracker kid pulling a gun in a crowded place isn't going to improve ANY situation EVER..."

I'm pretty sure that everybody else thought that, too.

But we let it go.

It's not worth explaining some things to some people.

2. Another thing I don't get is why, what with the nooses hanging from the trees starting this, that local officials keep saying this isn't really about race and it is just the national media playing up that point. Sigh. I read a really good book on the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. at one point and residents of Jasper, Texas made much the same claim.

3. Six on one is not a "fight." The white kids deserved to get charged, too, of course, but I do object to people describing this as a "schoolyard fight." I think the violence was well past the "schoolyard fight" stage on both sides.

4. I'm not going to ask for a how of hands on this one, but I winced when I heard that Al Sharpton had shown up. In general, I view the appearance of Sharpton as a red flag that an issue is being overblown. In this case, it's not true. But I don't think I'm the only one who distrusts the man on sight and it might well be better for his causes if he stayed home.

CC

This week in YRUU, I’m teaching. In reading some of my cases for school, I’ve noticed over and over that certain Christian stories are referenced in a way that suggests everybody should know what they mean.

As our youth mostly weren’t raised to get all the implications possible in a short references to say, the Tower of Babel, I thought I would put together a Bible story cheat sheet of biblical stories you need to understand to function in our culture. Right now, I’m thinking of summarizing each story in a few sentences, then giving a few sentences about the story’s typical cultural interpretation as I understand it.

I will stick it up here afterwards so Chalicessuers can use it for themselves, too.

So, please, give me some bible stories that I should make sure the youth know about...

CC

Arrr.

CC

I'm very excited about a project I have to do for my Civil Procedure class. I'm supposed to sit in on Landlord Tenant Court for a few cases and write about what I see.

This is especially cool because the ChaliceMom works for a low-income housing project and takes people to landlord tenant court. (Not often, mind you.) The other day, I told theCSO that I was looking forward to writing it up.

"Plaintiff: My Momma," I said.

"Defendant: Yo Momma," he added.

Well, maybe you had to be there. But it was funny at the time.

CC

So since you're here, would you mind putting Hohfeldian analysis into english?

CC

I know, I know, I'm awful

But some of the comments were really awesome.

CC

Ms. Kitty recently wrote a thoughtful post about Ego and Ministry that probably set me up to be thinking this way, so I should credit her right from the start.

Tonight, in my smallest class, we informally argued out the issues in a case out of the Massachusetts district court where a Rastafarian who worked at Jiffy Lube sued for religious discrimination since Jiffy Lube instituted a professional appearance policy and gave him a position with no customer contact because he said his religion forbade him from following the policy.

(One wonders how a Rastafarian got past the drug test that insurance companies make the employers of those who use power tools administer, but my professor has already talked to us about not arguing issues that aren't in the case, so I bring that up here instead.)

We divided into teams. I was put on Jiffy Lube's side. The Rastafarian's team went first, and their central argument showed they either missed a small fact of the case, or took a gamble that we'd missed it.

Either way, they lost.

As I heard the argument, I remembered the fact. I paged through until I found the fact, circled it and calmly handed my copy of the case printout to my group's token extrovert, who was arguing our case for us. She looked very excited, showing it to the people sitting near her.

When it was our turn to argue our side, she began by demolishing the other side's position before moving on to ours. She's really smart and really quick on her feet and she absolutely made the most of what I'd given her. But when the debate was over, it was me everybody was thanking and smiling at.

It had been, at most, a fifteen-minute exercise. But having handed the other team their asses so thoroughly felt wonderful. As I packed up my stuff and left the room, I felt like I'd been shot up with morphine. I glided out to my car, feeling stupid for being so happy, but victory was still a lot of fun. I tried to call LinguistFriend on my way home, but he wasn't there. (He should consider this his invitation to dish if he had a hot date.)

My joy in this is, of course, rooted in insecurity. I'm still a little creeped out by an interaction I overheard in property class that went something like

"I'm Bob."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Montgomery. Hey... Where did you go to school?"

"Yale."

"Really? Me too!"

(I believe that's word for word other than the names.)

So yeah, that aspect made this all feel especially good to the girl from St. Andrews Presbyterian College.

I'm troubled at how much I liked it, though. First off, my impression is these little debates happen with varying degrees of formality throughout law school. I will face a lot more of them, and I am totally aware that sometimes I'm going to lose, so getting addicted to that feeling is asking for trouble.

Part of this is probably rooted in my good Calvinist upbringing and mistrust of anything I like too much, but I also know I've seen the people who get off on this stuff, and I really don't want to be one of them. Being dependent on external validation, to say nothing of the sort of external validation that comes from besting other people in insignificant competitions, seems so cheesy to me, but there I go.

One of the attorneys at my firm and I were talking last week and I made reference to what I mistakenly said was the McNaghten rule, which she pointed out was properly pronounced "M'Naghten." She said almost everybody makes that mistake and if I can keep the proper pronunciation in mind, I will look "Smarter than the average bear."

With apologies to Yogi, I realized at that moment that I was A-OK with being the average bear in class discussions, though being a superior sort of bear when it comes to test-taking would be nice. But fundamentally, I'm still pleased to be a bear at all.

Well, unless I'm remembering a debate-winning fact and kicking ass, and then I get all warm and fuzzy about it, and feel goofy for feeling that way.

I'm guessing this too will pass.

CC
off to hibernate for a few more hours before work.

I wonder sometimes if the things I write about here are irrelevent, if the blogosphere is a sort of rarified air where we talk about things that ordinary UUs don't care about.

Then I go to porch chat every year.

Porch chat happens on my church's all-church retreat. The ministers hang out (on a porch, fittingly enough,) and answer informal questions from the congregation.

Just about every UUism debate I see on the blogosphere is rehashed, particularly the politics in church one. I usually just listen.

This year, a lady said "I went to a book signing Richard Dawkins did a few weeks ago, and there were SO MANY young athiests there. We need more young people, and I think the probalem is that our services are too theist. How can we make our church more athiest as to attract more people? If we don't, our church is going to die..."*

It's been my observation that cold war era kids all had justifications why their hometown, wherever they grew up, was the first place the Russians were going to attack.

I can't help but think "There are billions of people out there who believe what I do, and the church is dying because it has not properly conformed itself to what I believe. If only UUism were more theist/athiest/spiritual/pagan/multicultural/activist, then it might have a chance, but it's not and indeed my people are terribly discriminated against, so it is surely doomed" comes from the same impulse.

Why do so many of us get off on feeling so persecuted,while at the same time believing that our message will be salvific for UUism?

Why is "Free religion means you're free to build a barn for your own beliefs, it does not mean that a barn is provided or that everybody is going to like your barn and treat it with the reverence you believe it deserves" such a difficult concept?

CC

*CC's church is pretty solidly middle of the road, and indeed is growing.

This story is really well-written and cool.

CC

One thing crucial to this debate, and something I haven't figured out yet, is exactly what it means to be an Independent affiliate.

One of the most frequent complaints is that they will not be guaranteed space at GA for a workshop.

My suggestion for that is as follows:

1. Somebody should convince his/her congregation to sponsor the workshop.

Failing that, the organization can:

2. Go here. Pick a hotel. Call said hotel, say “Hello, I am bringing my organization into town for a conference on June 25-29, 2008. I would like a conference room for two hours or so one afternoon during that period. If members of my organization agree to rent five rooms from you during that period, can have that room for free?”

Failing THAT,

3. Send a letter to your members. “We would like to have a GA workshop, but we have to sponsor it ourselves. As the president of the organization, I’m willing to pay $50 toward photocopying fliers advertising our event, but we still need $100 to rent a hotel conference room for two hours. Will five of you please kick in $20 for this?”

If an organization can’t get five UUs to pay $20 apeice, then I don’t think it would be possible to make an argument that the UUA should be supporting them in any way at all. Clearly, they do not have sufficient support among UUs to be worth the UUA’s attention.

At GA this year, the humanists had to do this anyway even though they had an official slot in the program because whoever assigned the rooms assumed that just because William Murray had just written a book and a widely discussed UU World article and is a well-respected UU smart guy, that didn’t mean all that many people would show up to hear him talk. (Literally hundreds of people were turned away. CC was one of them.)

While some IA’s the UUA could live without (IMHO, the political ones that are poor men’s versions of actual political advocacy groups that non-UUs care about,) I see the Religious IAs as good things.

I just don’t see why the level of affiliation to the UUA is or should be an especially important point.

I've also heard around that the IAs get a discount on advertising in UU World. I asked Philo in his editor hat exactly how much the "affiliate discount" was and he responded, "UU World hasn’t adjusted its advertising rates yet for any of the organizations affected by the board’s decisions this year concerning independent affiliates, and is waiting for the administration to clarify its policies in response to the board’s decisions."

Here’s what I would do if I were trying to get my IA to have an influence on the congregations, and none of it has anything to do with getting listed in official UUA directories. (I don’t recall EVER even looking at a UUA directory.)

1. Have an active internet presence. A big website, a message board for discussing things, constantly updated links talking about what’s new. Enthusiastically review good books about your issue by non-UU people with name recognition and try to get them interested in your organization. Write about your organization’s take on what’s going on in the world and how it relates to your issue. Offer an e-mail mailing list for ministers and RE professionals. If the Chaliceblog can get 150 hits a day on a good week, and your organization isn't doing better, there's something wrong with your website.
2. Every year, every minister or board president and every RE director gets a letter saying that the Organization is happy to provide speakers and RE materials at a low cost. Send a really good “Time for all ages” story or something along with the letter.
3. Have a “sermon packet” with LOTS of information about your issue and your issue’s take on various interesting things ready to go and a well publicized phone number where ministers can call to request it.
4. Run a charitable project every year, ask churches to help or offer to partner with one large UU church a year.
5. Have some sort of GA program at a nearby hotel to energize the GA attendees and send them home with cool materials.
6. If your issue becomes very important in the news (E.g. You’re the Buddhists and the Dalai Lama dies,) be ready to send out a letter to the congregations with lots of information about what has happened, how your group is reacting and ways people can become more informed.

I’m guessing that the total cost of these suggestions is about two thousand bucks in the first year, less if you know a web designer willing to donate some work and/or if you can handle some of the letters over e-mail. And they would all take a decent chunk of time, though I’m pretty sure one really committed person could do it all if he/she had to and with spreading the labor to a few people it wouldn’t be bad at all. (Again, probably less work than the Chaliceblog.)

This is, by design, a bare bones plan that ignores the social and focuses on educating the congregations about who you are and what you believe. Obviously, the more members you have, the easier it is to have a conference, have every worship committee chair get a call from your organization, etc. But nobody has suggested that this affiliates issue will matter much to the larger affiliates anyway.

CC


Edited: I removed the Ps. about postmasters, which was germane to something I edited out.

This is an interesting case.

One of the side effects of having felon brothers is that the line between the concepts "Criminals" and "people like me" is pretty faint. (Some people seem ton construct quite a wall there.)

Anyway, I've thought through things like "what would I do if I went to prison" and "become a jailhouse lawyer, help people write frivolous appeals, and thus get enough respect to be left alone as much as possible" was the best answer I ever came up with.

CC

Whoopi Goldberg says it was.

I have no idea what to do with this information. Because I kinda believe her. I did a story on the local animal shelter in South Carolina when I was a reporter there. This being rural South Carolina, the county animal shelter was a room full of cages at the county landfill. The landfill manager was a good guy, though, and seemed to really care about the animals. He told me that people came by all the time asking if he had any pit bulls, and that a fair number of the dogs that ended up in his shelter showed signs that they had been fought.

Of course, bars that require memberships but won't sell them to black people are also a part of Michael Vick's culture, or at least the southern culture he grew up around.

It's very hard to know where to draw the line. I value kindness to domestic animals. (TheCSO and I have five of them, all from shelters except for the cat our last housemates abandoned at our house.) Our most recent acquisition, a Basset Hound named Rebecca, is a daily reminder of how abuse can scar a dog.

Even if dogfighting is a cultural practice, I feel safe in saying that it's wrong. (FWIW, a Jain is perfectly free to tell me that the fact that I eat meat and swat flies is wrong. I see distinctions there and won't necessarily agree, but I get that my view of these things isn't the only correct one.)

I do consider dogfighting wrong and at conflict with my values.

I've mentioned that I really like Jewish culture, partially because Jewish culture values a lot of the same things I value.

I never know what to do with culures that don't. Dogfighting is a glaring example. I want to be tolerant of other cultures, but I can't tolerate that.

For an even more subtle distinction, I really don't know what to think when I see cultures where education isn't valued and indeed, people who do value it and try to go to college are viewed as "trying to be white" or some such.

Mainstream upper-middle-class culture (I find it hard to call it "white culture" because there are sufficient numbers of successful people of all colors in my area that the term seems weird to me. I intuitively understood it more when I lived in the south.) does have its drawbacks. We're isolated from our neighbors, we like money, etc, etc and soforth.

But my sympathies are still with the kid of another race who likes science, or reads novels, and gets a lot of crap for it from his or her peers. Hell, it's hard enough to be the geeky kid in WHITE culture. I can't imagine what it must be like to be considered a traitor to your friends for wanting to be a doctor and being willing to do the work to get there. Historically, education has been shown to be the way to wealth and power. I want there to be people of all races who are wealthy and powerful.

The white, male faces of the Georgetown Law class of 1920-something stare out from a picture on a wall next to one of my classrooms. My classes don't look like that, and in my opinion, that's a wonderful thing.

TheCSO says that the non-white kids who took honors classes at his high school in Charlotte were shunned by their peers of the same color when they weren't being openly harassed. It depresses me to think that some of my peers in law school might have gone through that.

I don't like it, I would even say I think it's wrong. But I wonder at what point I am, albeit in my own head, imposing my culture on somebody else. I don't want to do that.

But again, my sympathies are with the geeky kids and the dogs.

It's a question I've been chewing on for a long time in various forms, and Goldberg's defense of Michael Vick has me thinking about it all over again.

CC

1. Learning the law is like learning a new language (Heard at least five times.)
2. Various comparisons of law school to drowning.
3. The general structure of the courts.
4. Mandantory vs. Persuasive authority.
5. Primary vs. secondary law


Sigh.

I know someday I will long for the days when law school was sort of dull.

CC

I don't know if I should be pleased or worried that the first note I made in my property textbook was a quote from Eddie Izzard.

CC

First try, kids. I swear.

You're Virginia!

Part of the old school, you like both historical sites and crazy
amusement parks. You like saying the word Commonwealth but couldn't really explain the
concept or how it applies to your life. You like five-sided shapes, five-cent pieces,
and possibly anything else having to do with the number five. Every now and then, you
discard chaff from yourself that you just don't feel you need. And since you've been
wondering... yes, there is a Santa Claus.


Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

SAPC's Accredidation was just forcibly reinstated by the courts until further notice.

Or as the update on the website puts it:

With the agreement of the parties, Federal District Court Judge Carlton Tilley of the Middle District of North Carolina today ordered St. Andrews reinstated into full membership into the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) until further order of the court. This action by the parties and Judge Tilley means our college will continue to be accredited as the case continues in Federal Court. Importantly and as specified in the order, St. Andrews students remain eligible to receive state and federal financial aid and full credit for their course of work.

This shall remain in full force and effect until further order of the judge.



OK, back to my very busy day.
CC

Hat tip to Above the law

CC

I don't even understand

a. Why he was arrested. (OK, that one is more rhetorical. I guess what I really mean is "What kind of cops have nothing better to do that guard bathrooms?")

and

b. Why he pled guilty rather than making up some kind of weird but not impossible excuse. ("Those shoes looked like my campaign manager's, so I was messing with his head. I admit it wasn't a very politically correct or mature joke to play, and obviously I'm really sorry, but it was really spur of the moment silliness rather than an actual proposition."* is the first excuse to come to mind after two minutes of thought. I'm sure a political spinmeister could come up with something better.)


CC

*My experience is that homophobic humor is uncommon but not unheard of among congressional staff members working for Conservative congressmen. I can totally see some legislative assistant for some midwestern R doing this to his friend.

An accounting of activities from between the time I left work Monday and arrived at work Tuesday.

Drove back toward home.

Looked for nearest beauty supply store, found it closed.

Stopped at second beauty supply place looking for hair dye, they didn't have it.

Went to shopping mall.

Wandered mall aimlessly for two hours, finding no new clothes I wanted to wear. Bought embarassing number of Dead Sea Salt skin care products from Russian saleslady who would not let me do otherwise. On the upside, my hands feel nice. Downside, Sephora doesn't sell hair dye either.

Went toward home, bought rotisserie chicken for me and soup for the Sick CSO.

Crashed on bed, ate dinner, watched CSI rerun and did a bunch of data entry of wage information for one of my claimants.

Finished dinner, turned off TV, drew up settlement documents for second claimant.

Talked to LinguistFriend for an hour, mostly about law school nervousness.

Dyed hair auburn with hair dye I had around after all.

Made lame attempt to clean up bathroom, which always resembles a murder scene after I dye my hair. Will complete cleaning tonight.

Slept.

Woke up, watched episode of "Cold Case."

Did two loads of laundry.

Ate breakfast.

Got dressed.

Came to work, arriving half an hour early.

Am I justified in feeling just a bit like Jack Bauer?

CC

NY Times

And to think, I was just looking for the news on the burglary at Chris Dodd's office.

CC

I've been in a really bad mood recently, and my fellow youth leaders have done me the great favor of being pretty cool about it and giving me some distance on this retreat.

It hasn't helped that today has been steamy hot with the sort of heat that seems to stick to one like wet clothes.

I've hung around with my leader friends for a bit, also spent some time to myself, reading, working on a sexy piece of short fiction, trying to get some of the frustration out. (The youth were doing a ropes course all morning.)

I was buckling down to tolerate a campfire and singalong later on when a storm broke. Now the whole camp is soaked in a hard rain and the heat has faded. Something about the stormy outside has calmed my insides and I'm listening to the youth brainstorming a covenant and I'm feeling relaxed, focused and finally cool.

CC

SAPC's Appeal Denied

The court action starts on Wednesday.

CC

The last week before law school starts has not been the R+R CC would have hoped for. First of all, it's very hot here in northern Virginia, the sort of heat that stuffs itself down your throat and makes you gag when you step outside an air conditioned building. I associate that sort of weather with New Orleans, but I've noticed it quite a few times here this summer.

Jana-who-creates is back, so life is improved on that front. I went out to lunch with them this week and as I sat down in the car, I looked over at TheGnome and said:

"Gee, you've grown! You look old enough to have a wife and kids!"

TheGnome gave me a puzzled, offended expresion, "I'm only SEVEN!" he reminded me sharply.

ZombieKid was similarly adorable, though I'm sure JwC got tired of having the "Just because CC likes the Zombie face does not mean we do it in the restaurant" talk with him.

Anyway, I'm telling you all this because I'm going on a youth retreat where I may not have signal, so I might not be posting for a bit.

Ciao,

CC

I'm not one for petitionary prayer, so I'm not going to ask for that. But St. Andrews has its appeal before the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools tomorrow.

It's a good place that has made a difference in a lot of lives. They don't train people who grow up to be famous or rich, which is likely a big part of the college's financial problems. But I've seen a lot of dumbasses, potheads, rednecks and fuckups go there and turn into salesmen, elementary school teachers, nurses and non-profit workers and for a small southern school that's not a bad record.

So please, keep St. Andrews in your thoughts.

SLSW

I also ran across an article about how the Obama girl video confused Barak Obama's six year old daughter. When asked about the video, Obama said "I guess it's too much to ask, but you do wish people would think about what impact their actions have on kids and families"

I went to elementary school with Dan Quayle's daughter Corinne. THAT was a family nobody gave a shit about, and the Obama girl video is so mild by comparison.

Seriously, Obama, suck it up, and don't let your six-year-old watch TV unsupervised.

CC

Buried lede of an article about the Canadian Quintuplets

The Jepps drove 325 miles to Great Falls for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity, Key said.

That the family had to drive to (population: 56,690) Great Falls, Montana because all of the hospitals in (population: 1,019,942) Calgary, Alberta were full does not make me excited about Canada's much-praised nationalized healthcare.

To me it begs the question, if we were to get nationalized healthcare, where would the Canadians go when they REALLY needed something...

CC

I've actually known another person who claimed to be a pedophile, but said he didn't touch the girls. I to this day think that guy was just saying it for the attention. (He seemed to say lots of different things for the attention.) Either way, he wasn't breaking any laws and while I wouldn't hire him for a babysitter, he never did anything to suggest he wasn't harmless.

But I don't even know what to root for in the case of the pedophile blogger. I'm not sure why he is choosing to express his desires they way he is, and while again, the photographing the girls in a public place is legal, I can understand how awful that must be on the parents.

I guess I still view his actions as legal, but I wonder what kind of person you have to be to make that much of a spectacle of your own perverse desires, knowing said spectacle will create pain and fear. I'd like to think that the choice this man made came down to something a little more complicated than:

"It would be fun to put this stuff all over the internet, but it would cause a lot of innocent people a lot of pain and worry that I will hurt their innocent children. Oh well, I'll go for the fun..."

But I'm having trouble seeing how it does.

Thoughts?

CC

Link: The Calvin Or Hobbes Test written by gwendolynbooks on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I have no idea how I have become the one who is usually pretty grounded in many of my friendships. But I have.

CC

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, your favorite kind of sandwich, or maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.


Here's my response to the questions I was asked by Fishy


1) do you talk to objects that you work with (when other people might hear you)

Yes, most often my printer, who sometimes has to be coaxed to do his job.

2) what do you want to have done before you die?

My friend Katy-the-Wise says that the meaning of life is to figure out what’s important and work to preserve and promote those things. (Paraphrased)

That sounds good to me.

3) what do you do to keep your mind flexible?

Blog memes? Seriously, I read a lot and I find myself trying to figure things out. I have a pretty analytical approach to life anyway, so lack of thinking is rarely my problem. I’m always analyzing situations and trying to figure out why people think and feel the way they do.

4) what do you like about working with the UU youth group?

One time, the kids were upstairs in the service and Jana-who-creates and I were preparing the room for youth group. An awkward teenager I don't know very well came in and was talking to us because he didn't feel like going to church.

I needed a folder from the RE office upstairs.

“Hey,” I said to the youth. “If you go get the YRUU folder from the RE Office, I’ll give you a dollar and Jana will give you advice on being cool.”

“Ok,” he said. When he brought me the folder, I handed him a dollar. I expected Jana to say something like “Watch Buffy, imitate Spike” or something else silly, but she regarded him seriously and said,

“What do you need to know?”

“Well, sometimes I want to talk to someone about something, but it’s not their thing and they are interested in something else. How do I talk to them about stuff I like, and how do I talk to them if they like totally different stuff?”

She started out explaining that sometimes the secret was to connect your interest to something they like, explaining that she reads comic books and can usually find a comic book about anything that might interest anybody else. Build a bridge between your interests and something they care about.

I then explained that people loved to talk about their interests, and if you get someone else talking about something they like, they will like you more and you will probably find that what they are talking about sounds pretty interesting just because the talker is enthusiastic.

I was just screwing around when I said my friend would give the guy advice on being cool, but I think we really helped him, and in a way that I wish somebody had helped me when I was 15 or so.

That's what I like.


5) if you had to grow all your own food, would you be a vegetarian rather than raise and slaughter your own meat?

Hmm… I’m awfully lazy. I might starve. More seriously, I find myself imagining some combination of eggs, fruit trees and fish. I suck at fishing, but I think I could learn.

I am usually the one who explains conservative positions to my liberal friends, but the idea that “homosexuality is a choice.” confuses me.

My father is not a tolerant guy by the UU definition of the word. He told me once that he believes homosexuality to be a genetic disease and that homosexuals were to be pitied because they could never feel for one another what he and my mother felt for each other.

(Seventeen-year-old CC was tempted to respond “What? You don’t think homosexuals can be indifferent?” but refrained.)

Now to UUs, that theory sounds pretty intolerant and awful.

But as anti-gay theories go, the “yes, homosexuals are born that way, but lots of people are born with evil urges they have to control to function as a decent person. God gave them a test and they shouldn't fail it” argument at least makes sense. While there’s a whole lot of opinion mixed in, it fits the facts and is internally consistent. (As well as setting up a parallel to pedophilia that conservative types use to imply connection. My impression at least is that pedophilia is no more a choice than any other sexual attraction, the people we think of as evil are the ones who act on it.)

I don’t at all get the “homosexuality itself is a choice” idea. I’ve known a lot of proud gay people, but I’ve also known some miserable gay people who would do anything to be straight. The idea that, say, teenagers would choose to join the group with the highest adolescent suicide rate in America floors me. It simply doesn’t make sense.

I’ve known gay people who led lonely lives for fear that telling their families the truth would mean they would be shunned by everyone who cares about them. I don’t get why anyone would choose that.

It’s a pretty standard conservative tactic to simply dismiss any scientific evidence that the arguer doesn’t agree with, so I’m sure the studies showing differences in brain chemistry don’t trouble the people who came up with this theory.

Some/Most of the people who make this argument are simply stupid, the sort of people who just don't think things through*. But my understanding is that there are rational people who feel this way.

What would be the motivation for the choice? Does anyone who grew up Conservative Christian know?

CC

*I've asked the smartest social conservatives I know, none of whom read this blog, and gotten answers that were all either variations on the "genetic disease" theory or expressions of indifference to the sexual orientation itself, but desire to keep the laws as they are.

I have a lot of nightmares, and I rarely write about them. Recently, my nightmares have been pretty-much law school focused, a break from my usual fare of being tied to a chair while little zombie children with big teeth climb all over me and that one where someone's chasing me that I don't actually remember, but that theCSO has heard me talking in my sleep about.

My dreams have recently been pretty standard insecurity stuff. I'm trying to join some sort of law student sorority, for example, and haven't quite passed the hazing.

Last night's dream was really involved. A good friend of mine had become an insurance adjuster for workers' comp claims. I was happy to be working with her, but I was troubled by a death claim where the facts just didn't add up to the accident the company was claiming. It sounded to me like their employee had been murdered.

I told my friend, and she went around asking questions and suddenly she was dead. Her ghost was haunting me, instructing me to find her killer and solve the case. TheCSO vigorously complained that if I were going to hold down a job, go to law school AND solve a murder case, I wouldn't have any time for him. Fausto and Linguist Friend were involved, too, in a way that I don't completely recall.

"I feel like I'm sresponsible for your death," I sniffled at one point.

"Yeah," the ghost said, "You are"

Around then, the dog started making a bunch of noise.

Thank goodness.

CC