Metacentricities

This week, I’m on "vacation" - it feels a bit strange to take a vacation from a "job" I only started a month ago or so. But I decided that now was the best time to take some days off to write, before a big project that I’ll be working on will get going full steam. Well, actually, I’m editing, not really writing. I am finally going to finish editing the novel I wrote last summer, and print up copies to send around to people that have been waiting far too long for it. I have a list of names of people to send it to, but if you are interested in getting one, let me know. I’m happy to get any feedback that I can.

Next week sometime (or perhaps eariler, if I want a break from editing) I’ll be moving this blog off of typepad, and onto WordPress - great open source blog software that I can put on my virtual host, and stop paying Typepad, which will be nice. Two years ago when I moved the blog to Typepad, I other blog software wasn’t really ready enough for me, since I wanted to focus on the writing, and not the technology. Wordpress has advanced, and will allow me to still focus on writing. And save some bucks in the meantime. Good thing.

I’ve been pondering a lot the role of this blog. My technology blog is very focused, and has a good audience. This blog has a much smaller audience, and, of course, is a lot less focused. I still want to keep it going, but I’m pondering about the directions in which I might take it.

Spring has finally sprung here in the valley - our forsythias have now gone by, our lilacs are in full bloom, and the mosquitos are out in full force. The bugs here are ferocious! We’ve resorted to buying all sorts of poisons to spray on ourselves - lest we be completely bereft of blood, and covered with bites. Actually, we are already covered with bites. 

Jerry Falwell died today. The progressive religious blogosphere is full of Christian kindness.

But, of course, he did not share this Christian kindness towards people like us. This is the man who blamed gays for AIDS, who said “”I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’“ and ”[Homosexuals are] brute beasts…part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.“

This is a man who, at the same time as he professed to be a spokesperson for Christianity, certainly didn’t really ask the question WWJD (what would Jesus do?) I just finished reading The Last Week by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. In it, based upon the Gospel of Mark, Borg and Crossan make it so clear that Jesus was a religious and political activist, working to upend the Roman domination system that was actively supported by the temple hierarchy, and that’s why he was executed. And Falwell was working on erecting a Christian theocracy which would be the kind of domination system Jesus would have fought against.

We didn’t just disagree with him. We are willing, because of our philosophy of life and governance, to allow people like him to speak. In fact, we would fight so that he could speak. Meanwhile, he would have rather wiped us off the map. I don’t really ever know what to do with that disparity.

Christian kindness is a good thing, but I would rather the progressive religious blogosphere had decided to have some moments of silence, instead.

Technorati Tags: jerryfalwell, religion

I love Freecycle. It’s an amazing community of people who give and get things that they need for free. When I left the valley in 2005, I “freecycled” (it’s becoming a verb!) a lot of stuff. And, in moving back, we’ve gotten a lot of very useful stuff lately on freecycle - a nice grill, some varied furniture. We’ve also given a fair bit of stuff away. It’s a great way to get things you need or want, and a great way to give away things that you don’t need or want, without them going to the landfill. Anyway, today, this came across freecycle - and it’s by far the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.

From: xxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com

Subject:[FreecycleAmherst] WANTED: Husband

Date: May 14, 2007 10:42:21 AM EDT

To:freecycleamherst

Looking for something soft and plushy, not worn out. Must be in good shape, and from a non-smoking household. My current husband is so old and tired and needs replacing. I’ll take any color - I’m not picky. Husband will be used mainly to lie down on the bed with. Surely you have one of these just kickin’ around the house you dont need anymore?

Update: It turns out, this is for a “Husband Pillow!” (Didn’t know these things existed.)

Technorati Tags: freecycle

I’ve been a reader of The Nation on and off over the past 20 years or so. I’ve subscribed several times. These days, I pick it up once a month or so at newstands to read it (because I can’t keep up with it weekly.) I picked up this week’s Nation, and Alexander Cockburn had a column, called “Is Global Warming a Sin?” It was such an atrocious article, I felt I needed to write a letter to them.

Here’s my letter:

So I’m assuming Alexander Cockburn’s column on carbon credits is mostly a joke. Certainly, the part about the carbon credit trade was serious. Buying carbon credits does certainly serve to make people feel better, without a whole lot of evidence yet that it works. It might work, but it probably won’t.

However, I’m assuming the rest of the column, suggesting that human-caused global climate change is a hoax, is a joke. The same kind of joke that one might play on April fool’s - suggesting, for instance, that the theory of evolution is a hoax. Or, perhaps, that the world is flat (really, it is, if you look all the way out to the horizon, you don’t see any curvature! How can it be round?)

It’s not worth spending my effort to describe in detail the mass of data that shows the role of human activity on the climate. Others perhaps have done that. Scientists have reached a consensus that human beings have caused the current change in climate and CO2. Picking out one single graph, to suggest that this graph invalidates the huge mountain of other data is absurd. Suggesting scientific expertise by his discussion of CO2 and the atmosphere doesn’t make a difference. Alexander Cockburn isn’t a scientist, and there are virtually no reputable scientists left who don’t think that human activities have caused current increases in CO2 and temperature.

Human caused global climate change is, in many scientists’ opinions, a threat to the very survival of human beings on the planet, at worst. At best, it will kill, and disrupt the lives of millions of people, mostly poor, in all parts of the world. And this is mostly due to the lifestyles of us here in the United States. If you are going to continue to print Alexander Cockburn’s series suggesting that the idea that humans are changing the climate is a hoax, I’m going to stop reading The Nation. It no longer counts as a reliable progressive voice.

Technorati Tags: globalclimate, thenation