Rock on — the first Star Trek: Nemesis trailer is online!
First reaction?
Oh. Wow.
Month: June 2002
Good ruling, bad timing
Okay — so the Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional, and everyone in the country seems to be up in arms over it.
My take on the whole thing? Good ruling, bad timing. I happen to think that the ruling is quite correct — for a country that is supposed to have a Constitutionally-mandated seperation of church and state, the two words “under God” in the Pledge have always stood out to me as being a bit inappropriate. Of course, when you realize that those two words were added in 1954 as a counter to similar pledges being recited by the “godless commies” during the Cold War, it becomes even more obvious that it was a deliberate blurring of that speration between church and state.
However, I don’t think that the ruling is going to stand. In today’s political climate, with both patriotism and religious fervor running high due to the (ahem) “War on Terrorism”, I just don’t think that even the Supreme Court (should the case make it that high) will have the will to uphold this ruling. A shame, too — no matter my personal religious beliefs, I fully support the decision that was made here.
Simplest solution? Why not just take the words “under God” out of the Pledge?
I know most of these
Here’s a fun little read — someone’s made a list of the top 40 gay themes, compiled not (necessarily) by popularity, but by the songs themselves and their relationship to the gay world. More interesting and less campy than I expected at first.
(via MeFi)
Political compass
Here’s an interesting online test — a Political Compass that adds a vertical Authoritarian/Libertarian line to the traditional horizontal Left/Right line and uses a series of questions to map out your political position. I ended up with a score of -6.12/-5.90, which puts me in the same rough area as Ghandi, from the looks of it. Here’s the analysis, though they recommend that you take the test before reading it.
(via Rebecca Blood)
I’m back! Really! I’m here!
I got back in Monday night, I’ve just been too caught up in either resting or getting life as usual going again down here to have tossed anything up on the page for the past couple days.
I’ll get a more detailed post up soon — in the meantime, I’ve uploaded some pictures of the trip: James and Stacy’s wedding, the post-wedding relaxation, the Pride parade, and having fun at The Last Frontier with some of my friends from the Alaska chatroom in Yahoo! Chat the pictures that used to be on my .mac server have since come down.
Enjoy!
St. Patrick’s Gargoyle
Dad loaned me St. Patrick’s Gargoyle last time I was in Anchorage, and it was exactly what he described it to me as being — an enjoyable little piece of fluff, basically. Using the concept that some of the Gargoyles we see on churches and buildings are actually angels assigned to Earth, Katherine Kurtz creates an entertaining little mystery story with a touch of light theology thrown in here and there. Not a lot to it — I read the entire thing between Anchorage and Seattle — but a fun little read.
Off to Anchorage
Well, Laura’s here, and we’ll be heading off to take me to the airport in the near future here. Then it’s off to Anchorage, to visit friends and see James and Stacy get married — woohoo!
If I manage to get any further posts up over the weekend, they’ll be from way up north somewhere….
The Blogger’s Manifesto
I just found the Blogger’s Manifesto through a link on Doc’s blog. As one of the many people across the ‘net who are blogging, it’s both interesting and amusing — however, for various reasons, I don’t think I’ll be adopting it.
Getting ready for Anchorage
Well, I’ve got one more day of work ahead of me, then I’ll be heading back up to Anchorage for the weekend — woohoo! I currently have no clue quite how the weekend is going to work out…it’s definitely going to be interesting to see what happens. I know I’ve got the wedding on Saturday, but aside from that, things are pretty hazy. Guess I’ll just have to play it by ear and see how it all works out.
Last friday Chad, Rick and I went out to Polly Esther’s Culture Club, a 70’s/80’s-focused dance club down by the Space Needle to celebrate my 1 year anniversary. Neither Rick or I had been there before, so we figured it would be worth checking out. End result — fun place, and good music, but too expensive to become a regular habit ($10.00 cover!?). Made for an entertaining night, though, and will be worth stopping by from time to time.
The past couple days I got to spend some time when I was off work with Prairie, who I’d met through Yahoo! Chat some months ago. She goes to school out in Ellensburg, and as she had some free time between the end of college and her boyfriend returning to town, she came out to visit and see Seattle. Made for a fun few days, babbling about everything from Alaska to musicals to various books, and she let me borrow her copy of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (the book that the movie Apocalypse Now was based on) to read — I’ll dive into that once I’m done with Gödel, Escher, Bach.
All in all, it’s been a good week so far. Tomorrow night Laura’s going to be coming out, we’re planning on hitting the Down Under to see a DJ she knows, then she’ll crash here so that she can give me a ride to the airport Friday morning. From there, it’s off to Anchorage — and on that note, it’s time for me to start packing!
Exactly
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
— Theodore Roosevelt