Rambling Thoughts on Morning TV

Today the A-Z playlist begins with: I’ll Be Waiting – Santana

If a blog is written in the woods, where nobody has internet access and it therefore obviously cannot be read, has it in fact been written? I guess, until or unless I decide to run for public office there is a certain deniability factor, at which time it will arise from the dead to attack. There, in one sentence I’ve managed to mix politics with an Easter Sunday metaphor while simultaneously keeping trendy with the inclusion of a zombie allusion. Now, if anybody – Pamela Anderson – has any ideas about how – Pamela Anderson – I might get this blog read – please feel to let me – Pamela Anderson – know.

Back to pompous blog-errata. . .

As the A-Z playlist advances to: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Bob Dylan

The big noise on TV this morning is gay marriage. The Supreme Court has heard a couple of cases, one involving DOMA and one involving Proposition 8.  For the sake of argument, and today’s blog, let’s assume that the Supreme Court does not take a weasel-route out making a decision.

I had written about 3000 words of pure brilliance (or drivel, depending upon you point of view) but decided that my legal analysis plus $3.50 gets you an Irish-crème sugar-free latte at Kelly’s and no more.

Yet, I fill up space. . .

To me DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, seems to be a clear case of exclusion by law based on arbitrary and thereby discriminatory criteria. Regardless of opinions on a definition for marriage, I fail to see how SCOTUS cannot give DOMA a slam-dunk good-bye.

Proposition 8 is a little trickier. It’s almost as much about state law and processes as legitimized discrimination. Still, legitimized discrimination seems a fair description. If SCOTUS were to uphold Proposition 8 it could be giving states the ability to create new brackets of discrimination in order to by-pass those not specifically mentioned by congress.

Somewhat related: Several years ago I thought that the ERA amendment – giving equal rights to women – was silly. Not because I was against equal rights for women but because I thought it was unnecessarily redundant; these issues were already covered in the constitution. If Proposition 8 is upheld then it would seem that nothing can be assumed to be protected unless explicitly stated

Slippery Slope.

 “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Inigo

There is no such thing as the Slippery Slope. Or, maybe everything is the slippery slope. Or, at least, I don't believe in the common notion of the Slippery Slope. “Darn” is just a wink and a nod away from “Damn”, but neither means I’m automatically on the way to bigger, nastier or harsher language.

Gay marriage is marriage between two consenting adults. It does not imply recognition of unions between seals and penguins, or dogs and senators. The notion that a slight yet reasonable step in one direction automatically opens the floodgates for everything imaginable is nonsense.   

One final word.

If you came here looking for Pamela Anderson, I apologize for the use of this cheap trick to generate traffic. Truthfully, though, I’m surprised that after all this time it still works.

And speaking on the sanctity of marriage. . .

Final play today on the A-Z playlist: I’m Henry the VIII, I Am – Herman’s Hermits

iTunes and the Bible

Background Music: And I Like It – Jefferson Airplane

This blogging is harder work than I ever thought it would be. The problem is not a lack of material; it’s trying to determine what subject falls into the who-gives-a-damn category. It’s a blog so there has to be some navel gazing, but I don’t want to gaze so deep that I can see the light at the other end.

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After years of resistance proved futile I gave up on Media Monkey and switched over to iTunes – all the better to feed my iPod and iPad. Well, iTunes was no Media Monkey but it was decent enough to handle my music collection.

Well don’t you know that once everything is working fine, and I’m getting along well with it, iTunes goes and auto-updates itself to a brand new busted version.

Why do so many software vendors think that we have nothing better to do than marvel at their clever changes? Most of us who use software outside of the workplace actually have something else in mind: Listening to music, watching a movie, reading a book, or even writing a blog. I don’t want to be a Luddite. Change can be good, even necessary, but changing a good process for what seems like nothing more than planned obsolescence – well that just annoys the customer. Will Ubuntu ever come of age?

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Around 150 years ago, shortly after the American Civil War, my great-grandmother, or her mother, or an aunt, purchased a Bible upon the occasion of my great-grandparent’s wedding. The 10” by 15” bible featured carved covers – a crucifix in front and back – and 3” brass plates to provide support for its 3” binding. It appears that my great-grandmother recorded most family events in permanent ink. She recorded marriages, births, and deaths. Sometime around the 1940’s the Bible fell into the hands of my great-aunt. I’m not suggesting anything underhanded. Whether it was by virtue of being the oldest or simply a case of disinterest from any other takers, her acquisition of the Bible was Honest.

My great-aunt continued the practice of recording marriages, births, and deaths. However, she switched from permanent ink to pencil. There seem to be several instances where she tried to erase the history of family members with whom she had been feuding. Luckily, pencil, doesn’t erase well from the glossy pages that had been reserved for recording genealogical information. So, except perhaps by total omission, little appears to have been lost.

Eventually the bible found its way into my mother’s hands. (Perhaps by virtue of my father being the oldest of the next generation.) In any event it was no too old to accept fresh ink, or much handling. The pages were dry and fragile. The width of the Bible had expanded beyond the capabilities of its hinges, which now hung loosely from the top cover, at least an inch too short to clasp shut. The bible now was hidden away in what was perceived to be a protective covering.

Of course, there were occasional, careful examinations of the contents. There were mysteries in there beyond the normal biblical scripture. There was, of course, the genealogy, sometimes altered – or corrected. The deaths of individuals were recorded who were otherwise unknown. Some were apparently infant deaths, or near infant deaths, but others were names without apparent origin. There are fragments of a letter started but likely never finished. It is the anguished apology from a mother to an alienated daughter. I don’t know if an apology was ever sent, or perhaps rejected. I have no idea what the daughter may have done that justified, at least to some, her being shunned.

There’s hair in the Bible. Who’s hair is subject of rumor but – unless somebody wants to spring for some DNA testing and exhumations – un-verifiable.

Today the Bible is in my grubby hands, in what I hope is a more protective container than was used in the past. Where it will end up next is anybody’s guess, but it appears to have had a better idea of where it was heading than any of the previous owners would have imagined, so I guess it will be OK.

And – with the “A” music list having advanced to “Angel of Music” from Phantom of the Opera – it seems like a good time to close this entry.

And not a moment too soon; next up on the “A” music playlist is “Angela” by Yoko Ono.

To the Blog

It appears as though I’ve been blogging since around 2005. For most people that would equate to around 100 blogs or 500,000 words, give or take a few. However, my reality is a little bit different. In all these years I’ve only managed to post a handful of times and seldom more than a dozen words.

Will this entry signal a change? I can’t say for sure. There are so many commitments and issues to deal with; a blog hardly seems like a priority item. But the truth is that at this point blogging may be more like playing scales on the piano – a necessary evil required in order to remain sharp enough to play “What Child is This” on Christmas Eve.

For this first step back into the waters of blog I’d like to offer my opinion – and that is the problem! Who gives a damn? My opinion is just one of approximately 6 billion floating around these days. (20 billion if you’re a regular Facebook user.) I offered my unsolicited opinion recently, on a matter of great importance in some quarters. I was sorry to have done so. Not because I might be wrong, but because coming when it did my opinion was unnecessary.

So why blog? If you’re a righter – or simply a writer if a sword is not your style – it may make sense. You can tell people who to vote for, tell them which party is evil, wrong, etc. I’m sure many a vote was swayed by me hitting a like button on any number of Romney or Obama jokes.

I think my reason for venturing back into the black hole of blogging is as implied above; exercise. Like pushing a car upwards of 53 miles an hour on a quarter-mile strip, we’re talking CorVAIRS here, there is an exhilaration that comes – for some – with crafting words in a manner that drives people to feel (The Cider House Rules), laugh (Sweet Thursday), ponder (Foucault’s Pendulum) or simply throw up (At least one section in every Clive Barker book). Such is the joy of writing.

Music plays in the background as I pound out these ponderings (“Alibi” – Elvis Costello). For me the challenge is to successfully capture the emotion of the two-minute song and repackage it in 50,000 words – more or less. I’m guessing this blog will end at around 400 words. Hopefully, I’ll maintain a regular schedule and with continued practice, eventually, maybe my aim will become true too.