Verbisaurus Blogicus

Thursday, 10 May 2012

 Yesterday, during a news interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, President Obama finally came out of the closet, declaring his support for same-sex marriage.

I’m glad he did. In the past, he had stated his support for such unions, but ever since he began his run for the White House, he’s been in some sort of middle ground. I assume that Obama, like most politicians, was trying to do what he felt would give him the greatest chance of getting elected.

The big word he used for the past four years was “evolving,” like in this article from last June. I was a bit disgusted that Obama would take that spineless middle ground for so long. Obama – moreso than any previous Commander-in-Chief – should recognize the harm in slighting one particular group of Americans.

Alas, he finally came out. This article by the Huffington Post cites several reasons, but basically, Biden had already expressed his support, so the pressure was on. Additionally, it’s an election year, and Obama’s stance likely solidifies support from, well, many people who were probably going to vote for him anyhow.

Making this sort of stance is often termed “flip-flopping.” I absolutely hate that politicians and reporters use this word in referring to candidates’ and politicans’ changing views. In fact, I hope that our politicians flip-flop on matters over time. As people – me included – learn new information or accumulate new experiences, our ideas change. If they don’t, then we’re dead…and while a corpse may be preferable to some live politicians, I am still hedging my bet that the best person for President is a living person.

In the 1960s, Nixon indicated he did not care for environmental issues. But then he signed the bill creating the EPA. Guess he flip-flopped. Good for him! Either he realized that enviromental issues were important, or he realized he needed the support of constituents who did care about the environment.

In 1988, George Bush, Sr. said: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” But then he got elected and created new taxes. Again, good for him. I’m glad that once he came into office, he realized he couldn’t get the support of Congress and get the budge to work without raising taxes.

A bunch of congressmen recently signed some pledge saying they wouldn’t raise taxes. I’m glad they feel that way; I’m not crazy about taxes going up everytime the government needs more money, but I think signing a pledge is a bit excessive. Surely, you never know what might happen or what might change in the future. So, please, flip-flop.

Of course, since it’s an election year, GOP candidate Mitt Romney had to make a stand in response to the President’s. He said: “I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name.”

This, of course, is a flip-flop from his stand back in 1994, when he claimed to be sthe better choice for gays among Senatorial hopefuls (his competitor was supre-liberal Ted Kennedy). Here’s a chart that shows Romney’s and Obama’s evolving  flip-flopping.

And notice how Romney states he only supports civil unions, as long as they’re not equal? Wow. That’s crazy. During the first half of the 20th Century, the United States tried out “separate but equal.” It didn’t work out, primarily because separate never was equal (and because complete implementation would’ve been cost-prohibitive), so they dropped it. But this…this is worse. Romney has no pretenses that gays should be treated equal. He wants them separate AND unequal.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I wish certain parties would join the 21st century: GLBTs deserve equal rights, we need to protect our environment, and women should get final say over their own bodies. Can’t we just agree on that? Because then, we can debate things like foreign policy and the economy and it would actually be interesting to hear the different views and to have to think about who I will vote for.

Monday, 07 May 2012
At a local yogurt shop with Owen this afternoon, while we sat quietly eating out comsetibles, a song came on over the speakers. This conversation ensued:

Owen: What’s “hoomor”?

Me: What?

Owen: “Hoomor.” H-O-O-M-O-R. The lady in the song keeps saying “hoomor has it.”

Me: Oh. No, actually she’s saying “rumor has it,” and it’s spelled R-U-M-O-R.” [Note: Yes, I know Adele spells it “Rumour,” but I didn’t want Owen to learn it the wrong way. Adele is British and British people always get our language wrong.]

Owen: Oh. Well what’s that mean?

Me: Rumor? That means, like, something you’ve heard but you don’t know if it’s true or not. Like if I say that I heard a rumor that you’re going on a vacation, but I don’t know if it’s true or not until I check with you.

Owen: It still doesn’t make sense – “rumor has it?”

Me: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, it technically doesn’t make sense. “Rumor has it” is a colloquialism. Do you know what that is?

Owen: No.

Me: Well, it’s like a fun way of saying something. Like, she’s singing about how she’s heard rumors from her friends that her boyfriend doesn’t love her anymore, so she is telling her boyfriend that she’s heard rumors, but instead of saying “I have heard rumors that you dont’ love me anymore,” she says “rumor has it.” It’s just a funny way people say it. It doesn’t really make any sense, and it’s tough for kids, like you, who are learning the language, because they might understand all the words, but not understand what the words mean when they’re put together like that. People who move here from other countries have the same problem.

Owen: Are there other colloke…colloquil…

Me: Colloquialisms? Oh yeah. There’s loads of ’em. [Thinking for a minute.] I can’t think of any right now, though. [Thinking some more.] Nope. I can’t think of any. Listen to this part of the song, she’s about to say “rumor has it” a bunch of times.

Owen: Why do they play this song?

Me: It’s just a popular song right now. She’s a famous singer, and when famous singers make new songs, radio stations like to play them.

Owen: Why is she famous?

Me: I don’t know all the reasons. She’s a good singer, but I suppose there’s a lot of good singers who aren’t famous.

Owen: Why is she a good singer?

Me: Well, she can sing really high and really low. And she can change pitch pretty easily. She also does things with her voice that most singers can’t do.

Owen: I bet her mom and dad are proud of her.

Me: Yeah. Hopefully they are. I hope they would be proud of her even if she wasn’t a really good and famous singer, though, right?

Owen: Yeah.

We got up to leave, and as we passed the cashier, I said, “See ya!” Then I said to Owen, “Hey, that’s a colloquialism – ‘see ya’. See? It doesn’t really make sense, it’s just a fun way of saying “Good-bye, we will probably see each other again sometime.”

Owen: My hands are sticky.

Tuesday, 08 May 2012
As today was the last regular class of “The Twentieth Century and You” (or whatever it’s called), the professor asked what we felt were the most important accomplishments or issues for the United States between 1900 and 2000.

One student raised his hand and said, “Civil rights.”

Yeah, that’s a good answer. You might hear ‘civil rights’ and just think of the racial issues of the 1960s, but that’s just the most memorable part of it. The whole century, really, featured women’s rights issues and black-white issues. To a lesser extent, there were pushes for Native American rights, prison reform, gay rights, and reforms in immigration, poverty, and education.

The next student said the triumph of democracy. I think this is a good answer, too. On the one hand, it’s not right to say democracy has triumphed, since many places are without democracy, and many other places (including the US) could go a long way towards becoming a true democracy. But really, indigenous groups have pushed for their freedoms and for expanded rights. The Nazi and Soviet systems are no more, and the majority of the world – under European colonialism in 1900 – is now under self-determining rule. Did you know that as of 2004, the majority of the world lives under democratic law? And look at a world map: oodles of countries (where “oodles” is defined as “196”) and very few colonies.

A third student said “The ascendancy of technology.” This is another good answer, and not just because the student used the word “ascendancy.” This dovetailed into the related issue of the US’s change from isolationist, to shared superpower status (first with Britain, then with the USSR), to it’s standing as the sole colossus on the globe.

A fourth student said “Vietnem,” which just proves not everyone understands basic American history.

Wednesday, 09 may 2012

I met with the professor today to hammer out a few questions regarding the upcoming exam. While talking with her, she commented on my vote for a 45 minute exam yesterday. Let me take you back one day real quick…

So, in class yesterday, the professor asked if anyone had any questions about the impending exam. I raised my hand and said: “Last week, you said the exam would be 45 minutes, but today you said one hour. Which is it?”

She said: “Which do you want it to be?”

I shrugged as if it was obvious, and said, “45 minutes.” A bunch of my fellow students balked at this. One student turned to look at me and said, “Why would you want only 45 minutes?” I hurriedly explained, “If she’s only expecting 45 minutes of writing, we don’t have to prepare as much, and we can write for, like 50 minutes and get all the info down.” The professor put it up to a vote.

I was the only one who voted for the 45-minute option. Everyone else, it seemed, wanted the teacher to expect an additional 25% of work.

So, today, in her office, the teacher said, “I don’t think those other students knew what they were voting for.” I laughed and said, obviously, I agreed with her. “They way I see it,” I said, “If you are only expecting me to write for 45 minutes, then I can write for close to an hour and I’ll be able to cover everything. But if you’re expecting an hour’s worth of writing, now I have to write for, like, 70 minutes to fit in everything you’ll want.”

She agreed. She said a lot of the students are still young and are overwhelmed by all the issues of the late 20th century. I asked her if she’d every heard “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Friday, 04 May 2012

Since today is Star Wars Day, my University was planning a few events. The email I received about it said the events would go from 1:00-5:00, so I figured I could pick up Owen from school at 4:00, then cruise over to Hamline and partake in some activities.

Now, in the past, they’ve had similar activities. I’ve occassionally shown up at these, usually right at the tail end and, invariably, they’re over. Like one time, they were having free pizza from noon to 4:00. I showed up at 3:45 and…no pizza. Not even anyone sitting around to tell me they were out of pizza. Just…nothing.

Not wanting to take any chances with Owen involved, I emailed the appropriate coordinators and asked if, indeed, they really meant 5:00, and not 4:00 or something earlier like that. No response.

Oh well.

I prepped Owen by telling him that if nothing was happening, we wouldn’t get upset, we’d just go do our own thing.

When I got to Owen’s school, he ran to meet me, and then we ran to the car with him saying how excited he was. He was looking forward to the Star Wars pinata and to light-saber dueling with others.

We arrived at 4:20 and (brace yourself) the events were pretty much over. There were two people sitting around on a couch, and there was a Star Wars X-box game on auto-play. I asked if my son could play the video game, and the lady sitting on the couch said sure.

There was a bunch of candy sitting around, and the guy said we could have a bunch. He shared his pretzels with us, too. Oh – and they let Owen have the remnants of the pinata.

Here’s Owen playing X-box and wearing the pinata:

Then we went upstairs to help ourselves to some tacos, but most of the ingredients were gone and the ones that were left (re-fried beans, lettuce) looked unappetizing. We walked over to the grill where a guy told us there would be patties and hot dogs available at that table (he pointed to a table) over there. Owen and I poured ourselves some lemonade and waited for the burgers and dogs. After fifteen minutes, I noticed that students were walking up and just taking stuff directly from the grill, so Owen and I got up to stand by the grill. This kid who was grilling – and he grilled as if he was afraid of the grill, honestly, he was like, the worst griller I’ve ever seen – told us that he’d bring the food over to that table. I said, “Yeah, we were waiting over there for, like, 15 minutes and never saw anything, so we figured we’d stand right here.” The kid just laughed like he didn’t know what to say. He must not be an English major.

Typical Hamline.

Saturday, 05 May 2012

Today was a very full day.

We ventured to the Living Green Expo this morning. We took the bus there and back, which cost us all of $0.00. Woo-hoo! I bought a book, Jennifer cought some spoons, we got a radon test kit, and Owen made some crafts in a kids’ area. On noticing how long and hard Owen worked at a craft, one lady volunteering at the kids’ area said, “He’s a very persistent child.” Yep…he is. He takes after his parents.

We caught the bus ride back during a rain storm. Which, though cold and wet, was kind of adventurous.

I began work installing a new garage door opener this evening. I installed an opener on the other garage door some months back and, at the insistence of our renter, finally broke down and installed one for the other door. Work proceeded quicker than last time, primarily because I vaguely recall installing the last one. This helped minimize my errors and head-scratching.

Some people came over to inspect the California Closets-style closets that we’re selling. They said they have to go home and take some more measurements, and then they’ll get back to us. I hope they buy them. The money would be nice, to be sure, but I’d like to clear out that room so that we can start getting it ready for Isla. I want her to have her own bedroom by the time she’s 13.

06 May 2012

I finished installing the garage door opener this afternoon. I meant to go outside at about 9:00 and get working on it, but when I went downstairs to use the basement bathroom this morning, I was greeted with standing water. So, we had to mop and clean that up.

The up side to this is that it forced us to clean up our basement a little bit. We moved the furniture to better spots, I removed all the old Sheetrock that had been in a big pile since I tore it off the ceiling months ago, and we threw away lots of boxes and papers and other crap that we don’t need.

Anyway, I was outside working on the garage door opener by about 10:30. At around noon, we walked to Subway for lunch (incidentally, the Subway by our house employs the most incompetant people at any Subway ever – seriously, come visit my place one day and we can walk over there for laughs). By 12:45, I was back in the garage and had the whole thing wrapped up – including testing the door tension – by 2:55. I’m so proud of me. If anyone out there needs to install a garage door opener, it wouldn’t kill you to ask for my help. In fact, you should, because then you’ll owe me and I can get you to do stuff for me.

This evening, I completed editing and rendering this short video of our kids. It’s on Jennifer’s YouTube page. Enjoy:

Isla Eat the Bubbles

:

Thursday, 03 May 2012

I delivered a short speech for the Day of Reason today. In between the Minnesota director of the ACLU and Representative Phyllis Khan, I spent six minutes speaking. I didn’t really like the venue; I was competing with horrible acoustics and a loud protest just upstairs from the rotunda. This forced me speak ridiculously loud and I spoke fast (just to get it over with). Also, for some odd reason, the microphone was off to the side of the lectern, so I was standing in an odd spot and had to keep turning my head way to the right to see my notes.

People laughed (at the right time), even though humor is very difficult when the sound is bad. It’s all about timing, you know? People applauded after I sat down, and a man even came over to me and informed me he had recorded my speech and would be making it available to the Senate. I guess he’s their media guy , or something, and he wanted to make sure he had my name spelled correctly (since it’s such a weird name).

Anyway, I think it went as well as expected under the circumstance.

A few people asked for a copy of the speech. I’m still working to see if I can get the audio quality good enough on the video to make it worthwhile to post, but in the meantime, here’s a transcript of my speech:

I’d like to take this opportunity to declare my support for the proposed “Religion Amendment” to the state constitution.

You’ve heard about it, right? The amendment is proposed to read: “Religion shall be defined as a union between one deity and one non-Christian theist.”

True, there are many Christians in Minnesota, but this ballot measure is not discriminatory! In fact, I don’t hate Christians at all; I just disapprove of their lifestyle choice. After all, they weren’t born Christian – they chose that lifestyle, and now they’re trying to redefine “religion” to fit their so-called “new testament.”

When religion was founded, by our founding fathers 4 score and 7,000 years ago, it was intended to provide answers to a complex world, comfort people who lost family members in death, and explain suffering.

But Christians have redefined it to mean something else. They want it to mean things like:

-Bowing your head and talking to yourself gains you access to extraterrestrials

-Speaking obnoxiously in a dead language can turn wine into blood

-And members of the LGBT community should not be permitted to marry

How twisted!

But in fact, what’s more deplorable about religion’s intrusion into government and our constitution isn’t their bizarre beliefs, troubling as that it. No, what’s worse – and worrisome –is their hypocrisy.

Consider: The anti-gay marriage ballot measure was approved by 68 Republican Representatives who, ostensibly, ran on a platform of government non-interference, and 2 Democratic Representatives who hypocritically voted against the very platform they were elected on – since the Minnesota DFL platform states:

“We oppose discrimination against any person on the basis of race, creed, sex, sexual or affectional orientation.”

 

Though the hypocrisy of politicians is as old as the Christian belief that Jesus will return tomorrow, consider the hypocrisy of Christians who champion anti-marriage laws:

-Do they support laws against premarital and extramarital sex?

-Do they believe we should amend the constitution to outlaw divorce – after all, god hates a divorcing?

-Do they wish to outlaw eating shellfish, worshipping idols, lending money, and children who talk back to their parents?

If they don’t support all these measures, then they’re hypocrites.

And I would know. After all, I used to be a Christian. Or, at least, I was a Jehovah’s Witness. And, as an obedient sheep, I subscribed whole-heartily to the Watchtower’s stance that homosexuality is – to use their words – detestable, dangerous, wrong, repulsive, vile, and unnatural. I thought it was so unnatural that, when a classmate confronted me on my belief, I replied that it’s obvious that being gay is not natural, as no animals engage in homosexual behavior. She had a fascinating rebuttal that I chose to ignore.

Later, my friend Jeremy came out of the closet. He left the religion. He had to – there was no other option. Like the good Christian sheep that I was, I shunned him – a difficult task as he was not only my friend, but also my co-worker. His presence made me nervous, and I eventually transferred my employment to another location in an effort to more completely avoid him.

For my wife and me, this was a great test of our cognitive dissonance. There didn’t seem any valid reason to shun Jeremy. He was not evil; he was neither picking our pocket nor breaking our leg. He didn’t seem to be redefining marriage.

Ignoring a friend, simply because of his sexual preference, was a wasted opportunity…and, deep down, we knew it. While performing volunteer work for the church, one woman shook her head in dismay at the mention of Jeremy, saying she couldn’t understand why someone would give up God’s love for the love of men. Her comment was the embodiment of Pascal’s observation that “men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” I was so troubled by this woman’s comment; I feigned illness and left early.

Obviously, my wife and I finally saw the light. All of our loving Witness friends and family summarily shunned us like dutiful sheep – and, incidentally, I find it funny that Christians equate themselves with sheep, since the Sept 2003 issue of Endocrinology noted findings that 8% of rams exhibit homosexual behavior.

I was nervous to reconnect with Jeremy – afraid that he would be angry with me for turning my back on him just when he needed my friendship most. Alas, Jeremy and his partner were not as closed-minded as the Christians who were shunning us. They welcomed us into their life with open arms.

I cite my story, because, like me, there are many out there on the capitol steps, with their eyes closed, and their faces buried in the ground. They’re missing out on countless friendships and superb opportunities. In the name of love, many of them are currently shunning loved ones and they are supporting a discriminatory ballot that will only further disenfranchise their life from reality.

Thankfully, though, here in America we can do more than just talk about religious and political hypocrisy. We can give our blood, sweat, and santorum in defense of equality and reason. And while Jehovah’s Witnesses, mercifully, do not go to the polls, members of other heterosexist cults do vote. So those of you who champion reason better vote, too. Otherwise, the sheep win.

Monday, 30 April 2012

Today, I wrapped up the busy month of April by venturing to my University this evening, where the editorial staff of the student literary and arts journal, The Fulcrum, held a release event.

The event, held at the university’s classy Kay Fredericks Ballroom, had food, beverages, and  desserts. There were copies of past editions of The Fulcrum free for the taking. The paintings and photographs in the book were on display in original format on easels and some of the authors read their poems and short stories. I was one of those authors, and so I got to read my short story “The Third.”

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know I wrote three pieces of creative non-fiction last fall, and their titles were “The Third,” “Three,” and “Park Three?” Yeah, of course you didn’t know that. Oh – I also wrote a piece called “Andy,” too. “Andy,” along with “The Third” was accepted for publication in The Fulcrum. When one of the ladies heading up the event came over to me this evening and asked which of my works I would be willing to read, I selected “The Third,” because it’s only about one-third the length of “Andy,” and I didn’t want to stand up there and read a four page story when everyone else (I suspected) would be reading a half-page poem.

My wife couldn’t join me tonight, which was too bad, but we didn’t have a baby-sitter. See, we really only have two baby-sitters, and we used both of them in the past week, so we didn’t want to bug either of them again. I put out a call on Facebook a few days ago seeing if anyone wanted to come and have some free food and support me in my big-shot short-story public reading. Alas, no one seemed to give a rat’s ass (this is consistenly surprising to me since I have often ventured far – and at odd times – in support of friends’ endeavors), except for a former co-worker. In a way, it was odd…I wouldn’t have expected a woman I used to work with to care enough to come to this event…but on the other hand, it was fun to catch up with someone I hadn’t seen in two years. Thanks, Tina!

Oh – and if you’d like a copy of the 2012 edition of The Fulcrum, let me know. I took some extra copies. “Andy” details my friendship with a guy named Andy (yes, I know, my title is very clever) and “The Third” has a sexual subtext.

Monday, 01 May 2012

Today in class, we talked about Gulf War, Part One. Do you remember that? I do. It was back in 1991. I was a teenager living with my parents and sister at the time. Here’s a Wikipedia article about it.

One interesting thing we discussed was President Bush’s (also Part One) strong deisre to ensure this “would not be another Vietnam.” He worked to make sure there were clear objectives, that the fighting would be brief, that other nations would back us, that the UN would be the main flag under which the US fought, and that the US exited once the primary objectives were attained. All in all, I think he met those goals – especially considering that he could have ordered the troops to continue on to Baghdad and get rid of Sadam Hussein, but he didn’t.

Anyway, I stayed up late on January 15, 1991 – that was the date the UN set for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. I laid awake in bed with my headphones on waiting to see what would happen once midnight passed in New York (home of the UN) and Washington (home of Bush). I was nervously excited since, for one thing, if the war dragged on for three or four years, there seemed a very real possibility the government would try to draft me and, second as a Witness, I thought any big development like this portended Armageddon.

Thankfully, neither expectation came to fruition. Two days later, the US began bombing the crap out of Iraqi forces.

Wednesday, 02 May 2012

I had a routine physical today. I showed up over an hour early, because I mixed up the appointment time, and I’m just that stupid sometimes. The lady at the front desk said I was welcome to wait and “there’s a chance you’ll be able to get in early.” Hm…I wanted to ask what that chance was. Was it 0.001%? Because I don’t ever recall anyone, ever, getting in to see a doctor early. Instead, I went home for 45 minutes, then went back.

Turns out, I waited for 20 minutes in the waiting room. This wasn’t really a problem, as I had a book with me. I’ve learned to bring books with me to things like this because the absolutely garrish magazine selection in most waiting rooms just makes me more impatient.

The idea of today’s physical was to make sure I was still healthy enough to live, especially after being so sick about a month ago. Turns out, I’m gonna make it!