Insert Trite Metaphor about a Corral Here

Posted on March 12, 2004 in Roundup

It’s politics Friday and do I care? Not a whole lot.

As soon as I sat down at the computer and started to type in the name “Weekly Roundup”, I felt like a plaster mannekin: cliche cliche cliche, even in that. But here’s the week’s steaks and cow patties:

Religion

• Jenny is examining her conscience regarding the Global AIDS epidemic and solicits your thoughts on the matter.
  
• Body and Soul reflects on how American Catholic bishops making abortion a central political issue killed Catholic progressivism in this country.
  
• Brian Kane writes:

  I completely realize that these people do not speak for everyone who espouses Christianity, but it seems to me that “mainstream” Christians have given the fundies a free ride on their psychopathic behavior because it makes their own level of hypocrisy seem more acceptable. The attitudes and behaviors being exhibited by the fundies gathered yesterday on Beacon Hill are, if anything, the very antithesis of the philosophies of a man who preached brotherhood and equality for everyone.

• Deborama reflects on why Britain appears to be becoming a country of n0nes:

  ….spiritual hunger that can be satisfied by strict rules and a theology of fear is a warped psyche, not a true spiritual questing. And the spiritual hunger that can be satisfied with warbled 300 year old hymns and a draughty building and a pious but unintelligible sermon does not exist.

• “Atheists are ironic in the extreme,” writes Rae “and amusing to watch. Why can’t they say ‘Buddha-dammit’, or take some other god-they-don’t-believe in’s name in vain?” Because Buddha never gives up on any of us?

Politics

• Jody at Naked Writing wrote about having to intervene in a heterosexual marital squabble where it was necessary to rescue the children because, well, Dad packed steel and lead. He writes:
  

  Gay people, gay families, have nothing to do with the pain and problems of heterosexual families. They don’t take away from the scant social services monies available for family care, nor the lack of adequate police resources, nor school deficiencies, nor access to preventive and protective health and medical systems. In short, blaming gay folk for these problems is a bogus argument, one that isn’t grounded in the reality of this world. It is rather a sales tool, offered by people scared of change, seeking any reason, any justification, to hold on to a world that never really existed.

• Camassia departs from her usual religious tone and investigates the political and social realities of marriage.
  
• I hope Jack Balkin is joking here.
  
• Andrew shares the experiences of a political campaign reporter who actually knew what the important questions were.
  
• Jeremy risks being called a friend of Bush by revealing a dirty little secret.
  
• Step by Step relates the mandible-fracturing moment when the “call came through” in San Francisco:

  The crash of energy and emotion in City Hall was just devastating. Our two members were in line just behind the couple who were stopped in the middle of filling out their license forms. It was almost surreal… for all that we knew that this act of liberation and demand for civil rights could be interrupted at a moment’s notice, none of us really believed that it would happen in the midst of a very human moment – and crash down upon very real, very beloved families who had traveled a long way.

• Old-Fashioned Patriot suggests that now may be an opportunity to turn Fundamentalism’s arguments against marriage on its head.
  
• Michael Doss says he likes the chicken trading cards that PETA members handed out in Indiana.

  Say what you will about PETA, but I think they’re a riot. They have a message to spread, and while they go about it idiotically a lot of the time, they’re not hurting anyone.

• Kathryn Cramer does a better job than snopes.com could in sifting through the spin about that U.S. military plane that was stopped in Zimbabwe.
  
• Stacy lets fly at Dubya and John K2:

  the lives lost in this “conflict” are the toys he longed for as a boy playing with his little green army men. like a giant, slow-witted gulliver, manipulating his “armies.” shit.
  
  

  my politics in general lean pretty far to the left (duh!), and i’m not thrilled about mr. kerry. but that’s me. just a yes man with no balls.

• Ratched, on the other hand, thinks she sees signs that John Kerry might be listening to Howard Dean.
  
• Kris suggests sending back the empty postage paid envelopes the Republicans send to you.

Culture

• marie contemplated how Martha Stewart wrecked homes. She looks forward to the time when the Queen of Doilies sits
  

  “behind bars for a while just to get a long enough break to let some dust accumulate on those newly painted shelves.”

• Loren veers from political matters to talk about the poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins.
  
• Coup de Vent wrote of her trials finding appropriate pastry for Purim.
  
• Lots of fine web design technique this week at MEG’s.
  
• Meta Manda muses and rambles upon the subject of proof in mathematics.
  
• Stu Savory gives you a reason to lose sleep:

  As soon as your mobile phone is switched on, even if you are not making a call, it reveals its position to the cell network. So spooks can track you, making a travel profile. Many phones also have an escape sequence called ‘babyphone mode’. It means that if the phone is switched on, someone can call the phone (silently, without it ringing) and turn on the microphone. An ideal bugging device.

Personal

• Raven meditated upon the magic of night.

• Francis Strand declares himself a “post-national“. It’s tempting to call myself a “post-American” but that would certainly bring on the hot orange mortar rounds from both the Democrats and the Republicans. For the record, I qualify as a dutiful American: I pay my taxes without complaint. Do you?
• Kimber’s husband John received thirty days notice that the warehouse where he works is closing:
  

  The good news is that the Teamsters are taking good care of us. We will have full pay through June and full benefits through August. On April 3rd they are having a meeting at the Union Hall to start job placement and to offer retraining. Keep your fingers crossed that there is some kind of training that John will like. He really is wasting his incredible intellect working in a warehouse.

• JJ shares lessons she has learned while job-hunting.
  
• Victoria declares: I’ve decided that I’m going to start boring everyone with my “week in review”. No one’s falling asleep here, Vic, you pest of my comments and tag-board! 🙂
  
• Mary Lou visited the ER.
  
• They’re sharing pictures of where they blog at Misbehaving.net. I guess I need to throw in a photo or two of my desk.
  
• Bill went plant rustling.
  
• Robert Brady writes of “butterburring“:

  Knowing how fast news gets around on the sansai (mountain vegetables) grapevine, we immediately went and got a nice basket and headed off to our favorite secret butterbur-harvesting locations, where we looked for quite a while, heads down, searching for something we hadn’t lost, feet poking gently through the new growth beneath the brown weeds of Winter for those little shy light-jade gems until we had about ten of them so we could have 5 each for dinner, you don’t want to eat too many at a time (can be toxic, if not properly prepared), not that that many come up at a time anyway, these plants have an ancient intelligence that has clearly served them well (we never weed butterbur that has managed to grow)….

• Desertviking rants about the conspiracy of silence surrounding Catholic schools.
  
• Yule kvetches about her iMac woes and cloth diapers.

Maybe on Monday, I might start a “great photos” pointer.