Gene Robinson: Bishop, Gay Bishop, or Gay Alcoholic Bishop or (my personal favorite) Divisive Anglican Bishop

Let’s hear it for unbiased news.
I searched for the news about Gene Robinson’s alcoholism treatment. Turns out what makes it newsworthy is that he's, um, GAY.

The AP, New York Times, Portsmouth Herald, ABC and MSNBC, GayToday and PlanetOut, headlines are variations on
Gay Episcopalian Bishop treated for alcoholism.

The Church of England ‘s newspaper headline sez,
Bishop Gene Robinson treated for alcoholism.
They cordially managed to point out that “A letter from the Standing Committee of the Diocese of New Hampshire said that the Episcopal Church had “long recognised alcoholism as a treatable human disease, not a failure of character or will.” The Standing Committee said this week that they fully supported the Bishop and commended him “for his courageous example to us all”." This message is missed in most press reports in the states.

But this is my favorite:

Christianity Today says,
“Divisive Anglican Bishop in New Alcohol Controversy."

The first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has this week admitted that he is participating in treatment for alcoholism.

“The troubled bishop, who is also divorced with two daughters and a granddaughter, had also previously admitted to undergoing unsuccessful therapy to rid himself of his homosexual thoughts.

This week the bishop has issued an optimistic statement, describing his alcoholism as a disease and not a sign of a weak will. He also compared his period of rehabilitation to the resurrection, in a statement that is likely to provoke his critics even more”

First of all, this divisive, openly gay, troubled bishop in an alcohol controversy who admitted that he is participating in alcohol treatment... previously admitted to undergoing unsuccessful therapy to rid himself of homo thoughts? Wow, they're so encouraging of his recovery, aren't they?

It's not a sign of a weak will.
It's not a sign of a weak will.
It's not a sign of a weak will.
It's not a sign of a weak will.

Which are you going to remember, that alcoholism is a disease or weak will?

And he damn well did not compare his period of rehabilitation to the resurrection, he said, "God is proving His desire and ability to bring an Easter out of Good Friday." It's an analogy stupid.

(Analogy : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike.
Comparison: the representing of one thing or person as similar to or like another.
And even if you want to use the word comparision, the comparison isn't the rehabilitation to resurrection, it's rehabilitation to Good Friday)


But how did this information become public and where did they get this particular take on things? Why we can thank David Virtue. (Not to be confused with David P. Virtue who almost made my wedding rings, which instead we got a pool and two low cost gold bands.)

Mr. Virtue (the most unfortunate and inaccurate name), who if you recall, was the individual who walked up to the microphone at the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop and asked,

"Do you know that Gene Robinson’s website is linked by one click to 5,000 pornographic websites?" No, responded both bishops. Virtue followed up, "Well, now that you do know this, will this change your vote on his election?" Gibbs replied, "I would doubt the veracity of such information at this moment. It seems like a last-minute ploy." Virtue walked back to his seat shaking his head.

It was in fact a last minute ploy, and proved untrue.

Now he says lovely things like these:

Here we have a man who was married to a woman with whom he had two children, divorces her, meets a man he shacks up with while he is an Episcopal priest, and then gets consecrated as a bishop, Two years later announces he has an alcohol problem, which the Episcopal Church Left is already spinning to make him look like a victim of his own drinking.

It is one more example of the Left trumpeting sin as a noble cause. The Global South bishops will not be happy, and they will see it as one more nail in the coffin of ECUSA.

There is, of course, a standing joke among Episcopalians, that wherever three or four are gathered together there you will find a fifth, (and it is our good friend Jack Daniels).

Alcoholism is not exactly new, and there is little shame admitting the fact that one has a drinking problem. Many people find Christ for the first time in an AA program, though it is no longer specifically a Christian organization, even though its founders were. I have a number of friends who are recovering alcoholics. (One is on my board).

There would be more shame in declaring you were an alcoholic if you were a Baptist than an Episcopalian. Baptists have a 'no drinking' policy, which for the most part holds up pretty well. Episcopalians, by comparison, drink like fish.

"During my first week here, I have learned so much," said Robinson. "The extraordinary experience of community here will inform my ministry for years to come. I eagerly look forward to continuing my recovery in your midst. Once again, God is proving His desire and ability to bring an Easter out of Good Friday. Please keep me in your prayers and know that you are in mine."

So there is no admission that it is personal failure, just a "disease". It's the same argument that homosexuals use for practicing anal sex. "It is hard wired, I can't help myself." Then the person gets AIDS and dies, cutting 40 years off of his life. Blame it on the disease. Never admit to personal responsibility.

The truth is Bishop Robinson is a fraud. See, I told you so.”

The text of Bishop Robinson's emailed message can be found here.

I have been working 12 straight days and I'm, um, CRANKY

A POEM:
I love my job,
don't get me wrong.
But if one more person tells me there should be special rules just for them and a special one-on-one meeting or orientation just because they didn't read the yearly calendar they got in September, the special RE Newsletter in early January, the announcements in the Sunday Times, or the letter I mailed out a month ago, my head will pop off. It takes a great deal of effort to respond gently and respectfully and thoughtfully to these individuals who invariably approach me in the middle of the sunday morning chaos, a day or two before the deadline or event in question. So I've got a little resentment stored up.

This poem is best imagined as delivered from a soapbox on the subway platform, perhaps under Boston Common.

Ladies and gentlemen,
if your DRE sends you a letter in the mail,
please consider reading it when it arrives.
Consider the possibility that
perhaps, just perhaps,
your DRE worked for hours carefully crafting the information
so you would be fully informed and
able to make thoughtful decisions for the benefit of your children and family,
and
perhaps, just perhaps,
if it wasn't complicated or important s/he would have just written a note in the Sunday Times or left it as a brief comment in the monthly newsletter,
and
PERHAPS, JUST FREAKING PERHAPS,
s/he wouldn't have sent a personal letter
with a list of check-box rsvp options to your house unless it
CONTAINED INFORMATION THAT WAS ACTUALLY DIFFERENT THAN NORMAL AND THAT REQUIRED YOUR ATTENTION, FORETHOUGHT, DECISION MAKING ABILITY AND PLANNING AHEAD.


Thank you for your attention to my poem. I welcome your donation of nickles and quarters in this tin can before you get on the train or into the UUA. In fairness to your ability to make informed decisions, let me note that if I don't get enough change, I may share another "poem."

Congressional staff actions prompt Wikipedia investigation

Seems staffers of House and Senate members have been re-writing articles on Wikipedia when they dont' like the way their boss is represented.
Congressional Staff Actions Prompt Wikipedia Investigation at en.wikinews.org.
Articles changed included Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, Norm Coleman, Conrad Burns, Tom Harkin and Tom Coburn.

The Lowell Sun (in my lovely state of Massachusetts) broke this story.
"Rewriting History under the Dome"

The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned.

The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics.

Nod to my LessCrankyButAlwaysLookingOutForMeBrother for this one.

Inquiring Minds want to know, "What's a pissy snook?"

I made it up. Perhaps you can help me. I suspect that each of you regular, oh so gentle and uncranky readers, had some sort of understanding of what a pissy snook was when you read my last post.

I wonder if what you percieved was what I was trying to communicate. Such is the great challenge of communication - most especially of online communication where most of you don't even know me in real life.

It's my dad's inquiring mind that's inquiring, and so I open it up to you to define for him. And for me. What is a pissy snook?

Please comment below.

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin' -- gas mileage

It seems so simple to me. and yet I'm a hypocrite, or at least not as thorough as I might seem.

Slow and easy acceleration uses less gas than punching it.
Braking is a waste of gas and brake pads. If I coast to a nice and easy roll then brake I've used gas to propel my car and not had to waste the energy by braking it away.

Speed -- each 5 mph over 60 mph increases the wind drag so much on the car the cost in gas is about 10 cents per gallon.

Other basics, decrease the amount of weight your car is hauling, decrease the wind resistance in any way posible, and paying attention to the road conditions so you aren't surprised by stop and go traffic all help immensely.

That said, this (250 Tips for improving gas mileage) is my new favorite webpage. It makes me look positively lazy about saving gas.

Of course, the fact that I drive a 4WD Subaru and not a hybrid or bio-deisel makes me look like a pissy snook about saving gas.
Yea sure, opinionated cardrivin'chick drives the next largest thing to a SUV, which ridiculously unnecessary size she complains about constantly.

oh well.

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. "

Simultaneously funny and pathetic; What if George Bush gave a State of the Union written out of statements he's already said?
It would look like this according to Jamie O'Neill, George Bush in his own write at SFGate.com.

What's the difference between kidnapping and detainment?

This June 10,2004 document outlines the detainment of a nursing mother in an attempt to get her husband, the "primary target." The document is available here.

Another is an email exchange regarding the detainment of Kurdish women who are "ladies" who "fought back extremely hard during the original detention." Yea, so would I. My paradigm for this is the 1984 film Red Dawn (watch the trailer here) where high school students fought Russian, Cuban and Nicaraguan communists in the Northwest of the U.S. Yup, tanks roll into my town and people who speak a language I can't understand "detain me," I'm going to fight back extremely hard.

So if US forces can kidnap nursing mothers, and assume that fighting back is a sign of guilt and knowledge of terrorist activities, can someone please tell me how are any Iraqis going to see kidnapping of, say, US women reporters as anything different?

Excuse me for a second,

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH U.S.?????

ok, better now.

On the flip side, the story is breaking, the ACLU got the government to release the documents, which the gov't did so in compliance w/ court orders, and these are results that might not be available in other countries. So the glass is, perhaps, partially full.

For us, if not for them.

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin' - nice people

The woman was clearly having a challenging life.
It was 4 degrees outside, as I stopped my car on the way to work. The line was formed at the new light in town that everyone hates, (you know, every town has a location where you used to just yield, er, slow and go, and now you have to stop and not turn right on red). This is the light that people are pushy and honky about.

Anyway, there was this woman who was clearly having a challenging life. She wore a pink puffy coat that was open, and under it hung an old paisley button down shirt which was only buttoned at the top four buttons or so. Her belly hung out from under it. She was carrying a plastic bag of stuff in one hand, and the other was balled up in a fist against the cold. I watched as she walked on the sidewalk with her eyes firmly fixed on the other side of the street.

As I sat at that red light, third in line, she approached the intersection and crosswalk. It didn't look like she was going to make it before the light changed. She didn't look as if she were going to wait for cars before entering the crosswalk.

The light turned green. The red Ford pickup in the front of the line didn't move.
The Gremlinish car in front of me sat patiently.
No one honked in front of or behind me.
She crossed the street safely, if slowly.
The light turned red again.

We all waited, knowing that no one ever died from having to wait a minute at a light.
Except maybe poorly dressed people in freezing weather.

It felt good, and I was both grateful to not be having that hard of a life, and grateful that at that moment nothing mattered more to any of us than to see that she crossed the street and got herself indoors.

So although I've not had time to post anything in weeks (except these Norwegian drivin'bloggin' posts) because of my crazy busy work and home life, I'm so grateful for that life I'm posting this at Cranky Cindy.

So there.

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin' Headlights on for safety

Today's tip is very simple and not at all cranky. Your headlights aren't only so you can see, it's so others can see you. Twilight and dawn are dangerous times on the road for people.

Car A without headlights can see good enought not to drive into a telephone pole, but might get slammed at an intersection or corner by Car B which never saw the darkened A.

This would be bad.

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin' -- It's not how fast you can drive

it's how fast you can stop.

I remember my first fast car. Well, my only fast car. A '72 Cougar I acquired in 1985. It handled like a charm. Zinging around corners. If I drove 85 on the highway it got 29 mph. (around town was only 8 mph, but I looked good in it.)

SUV's, big cars, big trucks, these are vehicles designed to go fast. But they don't stop fast.

"Braking distances" advertised by manufacturers don't factor in the amount of time it takes your brain to think about what's coming up, instruct your foot to move to the brake and push it, and start pushing it. On dry roads, "thinking distance" adds about 25% more time to stopping. So if braking distance in circumstance A is 100 feet, and you're actually looking right at the car ahead of you when it slams on it's brakes, so you see right away that you need to stop too, you've got to be 125 feet back from it to stop in time. Of course, if you're on your cell, or flicking ashes, or combing your hair, or swatting at your kid in the backseat the thinking time goes up exponentially until you notice there's a problem.

On wet roads, the stopping distance is just less than double what it is on dry roads.

So Why, oh Why, do big vehicles drive 65-80 mph 1 car length off the rear end of the car in front of them?

You have to have the thinking time distance, at a minimum, in order to stop without rear ending the car in front of you.

I say you, and I could also mean me.

But I don't.

Safe following distances used to be the 2 second-rule, or the 3 car length rule. Now it's this:
Dry, clear road you need a two- or three second gap.

If you are on a wet road then you need to have at least a four-second gap.

And if it's icy or you are driving on compacted snow or somewhere you know that something slippery (such as diesel fuel) has been spilled, then it is wise to create at least a ten-second gap.

Three car lengths is the closest I'll get on the highway, and people are constantly cutting in front of me around town because I leave more than one car length between me and the car in front and so, I guess, what, people think I was just saving them a place?

I'm pretty big into getting there in one piece, ("it's better to test your patience than to test the resilience of your head as your car slams into the vehicle ahead") even if it means I get there a couple of minutes late. And I learn to leave earlier next time.

Are you a big car driver who cuts me off and tailgates? Can you explain to me the rationale?
Really, I'm sure it must make sense to you, so please, hit comment and let me know.

Cranky Cindy's Top Ten

and can I crank that i hate that blogger won't let me modify formatting properly when I cut and paste? so you may be seeing curiously large letters mixed in with normal ones.

On behalf of Church Administrators, custodians, and sextons everywhere
(this one's kind of a cheat b/c i posted a link to it on the LREDA list)

This is My Blog. Censorship, Community, and Public Dialogue

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin'
Jesus for the Sex Industry

Breakfast Club to Dead Zone and a rant about racism on tv
My own words bite me in the butt

The Rubix Cube of Racism and classism
Race as Meme and White Privilege
Sponge Bob has Square Pants
Pirates of the Caribbean Commentary Track
Why is this breaking News? Albert Einstein was actively opposed to lynching, segregation, and racism


There's not really a bottom ten on this blog -- almost all my posts are read by 10-20 people, no matter what. Thanks regulars, whoever you are!

Happycindy had a much more defined low point.

Wednesday Drivin’Bloggin’ – Stop Signs and Red Lights are for Stopping

If it was safe to yield, there would be a yield sign there.

According to the National Safety Council, in a study of Good Drivers that got killed while driving,

Sixteen percent of drivers in our analysis were killed because another driver either did not see, purposely ignored, or showed poor judgment at a stop sign.

Note this link is to a downloading .doc file, don’t click on it unless you’re comfortable with that. Otherwise, this link, at least for now, is to the html google cache of it.

This article puts the onus of being wary of bad drivers on the good drivers, and doesn’t yell at the bad drivers.

Red-light running turned out to be another deadly accident for innocent drivers, killing eight percent of them. When the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety monitored a busy intersection in Arlington County, Virginia, for several months, they found a driver running the light every 12 minutes on average. It was as high as once every five minutes during peak rush hours. "That's more than 100 chances a day for an unsuspecting motorist to become a crash victim," says Institute safety expert Richard Retting.

Two days ago, a man in a pick up barreled through the red light of a left turn arrow in front of me. I was leading the oncoming traffic and watched him as he floored it 4 or 5 car lengths before the intersection as the green turned yellow, then barreled through the red. Luckily for me at least, and perhaps for him, I had seen him speed up and instead of accelerating into the intersection and dying, I leaned on my horn.

In general, I think horns should be reserved for safety violations or to bring someone’s attention to a dangerous situation, and not for expressing anger, but I think my bringing his ahole behavior to his attention then turned into an expression of anger as he looked up and waved to me.

Not a “oops, sorry,” wave, or a “my mother’s in the hospital and I’ve got to go,” wave, or even a “yea yea, I probably shouldn’t have,” wave. It was a “Hello you silly woman, have a nice day, I just ran this red light and you can’t stop me,” wave. You know, those elaborate FU waves that are energetic and go on and on. I continued to lean on my horn throughout.

So while he was waving at me, he almost ran over a woman who was walking across the street, she thought, with the light.

So I accept that my part of it wasn’t innocent.

What would he have said if he had hit her or me? “It was an accident; I didn’t mean to hit the woman”? “I only meant to run the red light”?

It wouldn’t have been an accident. Accident are unforeseeable and uncontrollable. It is perfectly foreseeable that when rolling through a Stop, flooring it to beat the red light, or turning into oncoming traffic you might Kill Someone.

So the National Safety Council can say, that “Please people look out for idiots.”

Crankycindy sez, "Please Idiots, Stop Running Red Lights and Stop Signs!"

slc24a5 -- Melanin and Me

99.9 percent of human genes are the same. Of 3.1 Billion (how many zeros is that? 3,100,000,000?) letters in the human genome project, slc24a5 "blocks the creation of a protein whose job is to move charged atoms across cell membranes, an obscure process that is crucial to the accumulation of melanin inside cells." from the Washington Post article, which I send you to b/c the last line is great.

Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9 percent genetically identical has proved that race has almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims that race is a phony construct have not rung true to many nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian Ota Wang of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda.

"You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So unless we take that into account it makes us sound crazy."

The title of the article in the Washington Post (Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin)
is misleading -- this gene mutation accounts for northern european white skin, but humans with light and white skin which genetic origins are from asia, those are accounted for by other mutations.
The original article in Science is linked for you really really smart people.

Read or listen to NPR story.

jenn at reappropriate.com says

Race is not about genetics, it's about social inequality and disenfranchisment. As cool as this finding is, we must be careful not to conclude that we can therefore simply erase the effects of racism by pretending it doesn't exist.

This is new and not much commented/discussed yet by the religious right, conservative right, but the racist right's picked right up on it.
For now, keep an eye on comments at MajorityRights.com as a jump off way to link to the conservative right's take on this.

Or spend some time at the racist right, where at stormfront.com comments are going like this:

Hmmmm. How can it be just one gene (i.e. locus)? If it was, then race-mixer's would reproduce according to simple mendel laws right? I.e. there would be limited shades like very black, very white. This if alleles would be strictly dominant/recessive. Or, if recessive allele played a role too, then there could be a one or two middle shades. How comes there're so many shades of skin color?
It looks like there have to be severel locuses involved... or not? Can somebody better educated in genetics explain?

and

Read the article, seems a bit like PC bull****. There's still confusion, but by default we are all black, my ass. Ask the fish.

and

When we mix, we are destroying the blessing and miracle of the creator, we are sending the love letter written in nature and translated by us back unopened. This is suicide, it is choosing death.

more here.

We may have all 'come from africa' and were brown skinned at that time. BUT just as we evolved into who we are so too the black african evolved into who they are. We evolved differently and sharing a common ancestor does not in any way negate who we are today nor invalidate any of our goals and achievements.Indeed, I see such scientific discoveries confirming the fact we ARE genetically different and strengthens our position. [from this page]

from the same page, my favorite

I've always thought skin color was ostentatious

Wednesday Drivin’Bloggin’

Passing me like a fool to beat me to that Red Light.

So I'm starting a Wednesday Drivin’Bloggin’ meme because there’s nothing, except maybe people who cut in line right in front of me while I'm looking right at them, that irritates me more than stupid and aggressive driving.

Today it’s people who cut in line with their cars. (Merging will be another day) I’m a speed limit goer, especially in town. Kids dart out, squirrels and cats dawdle, and people roll through stop signs. You never know.

Why do people feel it necessary to act the fool and pass my speed limit going self in a double yellow line area, or in front of the music school straightaway, only to arrive one car ahead of me at the next red light?

They wasted gas (the physics of coasting to stop signs saving brakes and gas another time), endangered their life, mine, and the kids at the music school bus stop, and got my blood pressure up!

It's Unacceptable. Fool Passing People should go to the naughty mat!

Four girlz and a gay guy

Ok, so crankycindy believes that popular media television sucks -- and absolutely loves it. Years ago I made fun of my new partner's love for the TV show Survivor. But I sat through it with her... and here I am years later, celebrating that a group of players came up with a strategy that takes into account age and gender discrimination in a way that works for women and a gay man.

On the other hand, I could go on for days about how for the most part, Survivor producers pick white folks to play this game. Women of Color have had some small success (yea Sandra and Vecipia!), men of color who aren't of african decent are very few and far between, and the occasional African American man selected for the series can't swim, or hate bugs, or are somehow otherwise completely unprepared for outdoor survival.

There are exceptions of course, and but given that there are what, 11 seasons of Survivor, and 20 people per season, the experience of people of color hasn't been all that great -- I suggest that this is not because of the individual prejudice or racism of participants, but because of who the producers choose, and how they choose to edit.

And because it’s a 40 day experience, edited down into a few hours, we’ll never know for sure what the role of white supremacy or heterosexual/male/Christian privilege really is in this show. They show Big Tom (a stereotypical white poorly educated farmer guy) threaten to shoot Clarence, an African American man, but they've also managed to edit it to show Clarence as simultaneously lazy and a physical threat to the players. We'll never know for sure, but I'm confident that the "reality" that Survivor producers intend to show, is the reality of 60's cowboy movies meets Swiss Family Robinson. (hunker down, build a shelter, and protect the womenfolk.)

Interesting essay/ article on racism and editing.
The white supremacist Vanguard News Network, that bastion of all news perspective and lies racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic, has an interesting, if stomach wrenching, take on racism/editing and the stereotypes the Survivor producers chose to portray. It's good sometimes to remember that there are people who still perpetuate the racist myths that underlie much of our more well intentioned unconscious racism.

But that's not the point of this post.

Given that it's edited, this is the way we see this show --
A whole group of people row to an island, or run 11 miles through the woods or over the desert to get to their two camps.

Then we see young adults quickly divide between 'hard workers' and the 'gotta rest a minute' and 'gotta catch some rays.' The older adults work as hard as they can to keep up with the young strong ones.

They arrive at their locations and have to build camps.

The older people w/ outdoors or building experience work on building structures and get frustrated w/ younger people laying around, or: older people with nursing or teaching experience nurse the young kids back to health after the kids hurt themselves. After they've been and helpful to the team effort,
the older people get kicked out one by one.

Then the funny looking, geeky, dweeby, too pushy, “too-black,” and “too-queer” get kicked out/voted off. I think gay guy Richard Hatch won the first season only because no one else understood the concept of alliances, and so he controlled the game by controlling alliances – that’ll never happen again now that everyone understands it’s a game of alliances, trust and backstabbing.

The “Cool Kids” who often include an occasional quiet mom/pop-type person run the place (Every neighborhood has a "cool mom.") They’re generally the cool white kids, mostly men, who define what is normal (on a fake survival island surrounded by cameras!) and determine what’s too different...too pushy/black/queer.

Sandra and Vecipia and Tina (middle aged white woman) won Survivor by staying under the radar for a long time. When I watch this show I always want to go on it. I think I could win.
My partner says I’d wouldn't, that I could never be an under the radar middle aged woman – she thinks I'd be the first one out -- I'd be there trying to tell them they were doing something wrong, how to build the shelter toward the wind, or away from the water, or whatever, and I’d be the first older opinionated person out.
I think that’s only if it was her voting.

I would would like to think that while I could never stay under the radar, I might be able to pull off being the mom/pop type person that the cool kids want to hang with.
...Except that I’ve never been a cool kid or a cool kid hanger-on, and I’m funny looking, geeky, dwebby, pushy, and queer. So maybe not so much with the winning.

So anyway, last night, three people got a chance to plot and plan away from the rest of the group -- one woman who is a cool kid, one who had her head on the next nights chopping block, and the gay guy who has made it this far by being gay and athletic. (Perhaps the first time producers have picked a strong gay man.)

And damn if the game doesn't turn in a way it never has before.

They voted off the guy who thought he was the leader of the cool kids. Oops.

And damn if we don't have four women and a gay guy playing the last rounds of Survivor. Rafe, the gay guy from a huge Mormon family, is, I think, best suited to win this game -- he's an experienced outdoors educator and wilderness guide. The women are Danni, a young white model who was Miss Kansas, Miss USA runner up, and won Star Search. Then there's two time Survivor Stephanie, a young beautiful white woman and accomplished athlete, Cindy, another young beautiful athletic white woman, and Lydia , a middle-aged woman who (I don't know what name she gives her heritage,) was born in Japan of a Puerto Rican father and after leaving Japan, grew up in Puerto Rico, and lived a life of army-style multicultural/multinational life experience as an adult. Example of the producers editing choices? Everytime they show Lydia's name on the tv, they call her a "fish-monger." Her bio lists her as having 18 years experience with one company, and is currently an assistant manager there.

So it's such a mixed thing, this show Survivor. I'm cranky and happy. go figure. This is probably why most people only have one blog.

Jesus for the sex industry

JC's Girls Girls Girls. Honest to God. Especially check out the fuzzy blurry glamour poses.

Why do you use glamour poses on your site?
We designed our site to reflect the girls we are trying to reach. Our desire is for the girls to instantly know this site was made just for them. Based on Heather's experience, we know for many girls in the industry physical beauty is so important and the thought of having to change their appearance is terrifying. We just didn't want this thought to keep them from learning that God cares little about outward appearance and desires to develop the spiritual beauty inside of them. from their Q&A page.

Additionally, Heather can be seen here. The comments are hysterical!

"nice tats."
" i like the bible too god bless you"
"Hey how are you doin Heather? just seein what my new friend was up to and whatnot, well hit me back sometime and then maybe we could talk if you would like to :) -Anthony"

On behalf of Church Administrators, custodians, and sextons everywhere

Congregational administrative support, administrators, sextons, and other behind the scenes people who do the day in and day out labor that allows us to have our time thinking about deep things and inventing new curricula and saving the world through love, peace, and justice get the short end of the stick way too often.

Instructions for Working with your Support Staff. A Guide for DRE's, Ministers, and lay people in congregations.

1. Assume Good Will. Your support staff intend to support the work of the congregation. They did not intentionally screw with your phone system, email accounts, pile of stuff you left in the corner for next week, or reimbursement checks. If an error happened, it was an ERROR.

2. Recognize their knowledge. The only people in your congregation who have a complete grasp of the multiplicity of policy issues involved in anything that someone wants to do is the staff. The committee chair that wrote the policy on publicizing announcements before worship is now on the activities committee, and no one else on the publicity committee even knows there was ever a written policy. (See also #6)

3. Do not even think of scheduling an event before checking it out with the staff. There is nothing more that should need to be said about this. But of course, there is.
Just because your calendar you got in your newsletter doesn't have anything listed for Saturday afternoon, does NOT mean the building is available on Saturday afternoon. It could be carpet cleaning day, it could be an outside wedding rental, it could be that the Coming of Age class is having a sleep over that wasn't open to the public and so was not on the calendar. The use of the kitchen is not auotomatically ok.

Related: Your cousin's friend Johnny doesn't get to have his wedding here for free just because you said you'd be the official responsible person and use your key instead of having him do a contract through the ofice. Also true for our not-UU non-profit but really important events, for our book signings, our carpentry classes, our free one time legal advice clinics, or our group education classes that are really an opportunity for people to see what a great therapist/coach/teacher you are so they can hire you privately.

Related Related: If you give up a reserved room because you're going to have an event in your living room instead, don't change your mind back and expect to have the room back after it's been given away.

4. The office staff's desks don't become public property on Sundays when they aren't in.
The computer has a password because there is private financial information in it, as well as emails of a personal nature from parishoners to the office. Don't hack the password just because you want to print the lyrics to this is my favorite song and I want to read it during Joys and Concerns and forgot them at home. The markers belong in the marker drawer, the lables are for mailings not name tags, the expensive paper that was hidden below the desk is for Canvass, not your Sunday School fold-up activity, and File Folders are not a substitute for oak tag posters.
And used tissues go in the TRASH.

5. It is no one's job to clean up your half-distributed flyers and keep them for you till next week. If you don't clean them up yourself, they will be thrown away. Then don't get mad that your flyers aren't around, and don't yell at the office staff for how much paper they use when you look at the budget at the end of the year.
Related: The xerox machine is not there for your christmas letters, poems, or kid's cute picture.
Related Related: If you're going to sneak a copy, and the copier jams, don't be asking the office staff to spend 30 minutes to fix it for you.

6. There is no staff person who can read your mind just because you did something a certain way last year. You have to ask for what you need, completely, and well ahead of when you need it. This is especially for committee chairs who have not changed committees.

7. It is not the Sexton's job to wash your dishes. and yes, just these two cups does matter.
Related: It won't kill you to put the extra toilet paper roll ON the roll instead of balancing it on the edge.
Related Related: Running a vacuum after you give the kids sprinkles for art would be a nice kindness.

8. It is not the administrator's job to explain to you personally every little decision s/he makes. That falls to his/her supervisor. What you can do is ask questions...

Always refer to #1 - Assume Good Will, and to #2 - Recognize their knowledge

BAD WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH STAFF
Why didn't you [fill in here with My Way]....
Didn't you know that [fill in here with My Idea or special knowledge that you obviously don't have] ...
You can't [fill in here with What I Didn't Like] ...

BETTER WAY
I was surprised by that...
I thought we usually...

BEST WAY
Thanks for letting me know. I didn't realize that before. I'm sure there was an error, or that there is something I don't know about our policies that meant that [thus and so happened,] if I have questions about that, to whom should I address them?


Add more?

Buy Nothing Day

True story.
This morning at 7:30 am I was in my living room talking on the phone to my recovering alcoholic friend S, while she was entering the mall preparing to DVD and CD shop.
She said,
"I was bummed this morning when I heard on the radio it was buy nothing day and I turned the car around ' cause it sounded like a great idea and I had to do it. But then I heard them say that you shouldln't even buy a cup of coffee, and I already did, so since I blew it anyway, I turned back around and I'm here now at Circuit City."

Anecdotal evidence of the addictive nature of consumerism?

See also Michele's post about Buy Nothing Christmas.

If Harriet Miers had made it to the hearings - Doonsbury unpublished

cartoons available here.

Confidential to the Transcendentalist Super Hero

Dear Sir,
I have seen your website/blog and materials you have posted in links to groups over the years. I think we all have.

You have done an incredible job of submitting your new blog and citing yourself and linking in groups and lists, heck, even to your own blog repeatedly so that it shows up all over the internet, in Google searches, and in other search engines. You have recently begun to take clips of various UU bloggers words and managed to work them into the subject of your blog.

There is no missing your presence Sir, and it is no longer necessary to entice me, (or, I suspect, anyone else in the UU blogosphere) to go to your website. It is no longer necessary to post off-topic, or faux-on-topic comments on my blogs in order to get me to read your commentary or supporting newspaper articles that have been copied into various groups on the Net. I already did.

My Statcounter makes it evident that you read my criteria for posting, from a a library computer at McGill University, prior to your submitting your last comment, therefore violating that criteria almost immediately. Your obvious intelligence and articulateness makes it clear that you did not misunderstand, and suspect that you were attempting to find some sort of loophole in the criteria I posted, perhaps testing to see if I would post your almost-on-topic-but-not-quite-and-still-managing-to-direct-the-reader-back-to-you comment.

I wish you well in your life, but I am not interested in discussing your concerns with you, I am not going to permit my blog to be part of your carefully crafted internet publicity campaign, and I will not allow any links from my blogs that support your concerns.

Normally, I would send a private post to someone who wasn't commenting on subject, asking them to refrain from off-topic comments, but given that I have read your blog, and supporting materials, I am not comfortable enough that my words wouldn't come back poorly, or perhaps mis-articulated, and so I am posting my request plainly and relatively politely here in public.

Please stop commenting on my blogs.

Please don't take this personally, it's not particularly personal -- I am also not interested in why white chocolate is yucky, if lava has the properties of a liquid, or if Matt Drudge is Gay.
So please stop attempting to post on my blogs, it is unnecessary to your purposes.

I don't want anyone to comment here on this particular subject, so I'm turning comments off for this post.