One of these days I’ll settle into something I like. Until then, I’ll keep thrashing my home site until I get things the way I like them.
Oh, well. ;P
Please ignore the 1969 dates as I’m cleaning things up. It may take a few days. I’ve also lost a few archives, so all I’ve got are posts from a period from late 2004-early 2005. I’m pulling in files from all over the place, so I’ll add to things as time goes on.
Here’s a CNN link to a Reuters feed article about some dolphins.
Seems they saw a great white shark in the area of some human swimmers, and the dolphins herded the people into a tight group and set up a defensive perimeter.
After elections, politics, and people being very pissy and divisive, Mama shows us that even other species can work together to make the world better.
Here’s what I learned: do the best you can, with what you have, for everyone involved, so that we all benefit. The dolphins could swim better, fight the shark better, and did so to protect the swimmers. Nice job, guys.
Go read this. And then look at this.
I had to post the following to Mr. Thibodeau’s jackbooted Sieg Heil. (By the
way… Nazi stands for National Socialist. I find it funny that the liberals
call the conservatives Nazis these days.)
Anyway, my response:
As a fiscally conservative southerner who voted AGAINST the gay marriage
amendment in my state (which means, of course, that I have absolutely no
problem whatsoever with two men or women enjoying each other’s company however
they please), I find your complicity in that pile of dogsqueeze you call
rhetoric rather apalling.
Case in point: you and the author of fuckthesouth.com (Whose name portends to
be Jonathan Swift, which I doubt) seem to think that the “wealthy blue states”
pay for the welfare benefits of the “red states.” Guess what? The welfare
recipients almost as a whole voted Democrat, buying into the class warfare and
bloc voting strategies of a party that simply wants to keep the little man
down. Why do the poorer people in this country vote Democrat? For the
largesse, of course. It’s the middle-class votes who voted for Bush.
The founding fathers were mostly split evenly amongst the population centers
of the 13 original colonies. of the founding fathers, which ones moved on to
become presidents after the constitution was ratified? Virginians, as a whole.
What you would call a red state.
This whole red state/blue state thing and the absolute hatred both extreme
sides have for each other is sickening. If you think that you’re superior to
the “stupid dogmatic moralistic hypocrites” (I’m paraphrasing. Please correct
me if I got it wrong), take your Christian superiority and remove the plank
from your eye before you pull the flake from my Pagan peepers.
And think about it. We’re ALL Americans. We ALL have a crappy government. If
the best your party can put up before the public to run for president is Mr.
Career Politician and gold-digger poodle Kerry, with his wannabe Robin Hood
pocket lining trial lawyer runningmate Edwards, then you deserve to lose to a
whiny little big-eared primrod like Bush.
Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian. Even if Badnarik is an isolationist.
Hokay, folks, I’m about to stir up some thick pudding here. For those of you who don’t know, pagans are, by and large, extremely liberal in the political spectrum. It’s true! Many pagans arrived to our path having found the conservative, moralistic Christian world oppresive and heavy. Others simply found a religion in which all people were treated… not exactly equally, but with tolerance. (mostly - just listen to some yound pagans Christian-bashing at times. Whatever happened to ‘An it harm none?” and “Thou art God/dess?”) Suffice it to say that many, many pagans have an extreme mistrust and even dislike for what most would consider the “establishment.”
That being said, quickly wander over to the Witches’ Voice. The site has grown to be a central point for online Pagan communication. Thus, the pre-election poll held Bush to a 17% vote. (Not margin… but vote. Some of the responsive essays were the typical vitriol and bitter-root filled tripe I’ve heard from most other online liberals. You know, those of the Sorry Everybody school. They’re worried about their religious liberties being taken away by the religious Right. They hate the war in Iraq, and even more, they have Bush and his crew of people who brought us the PATRIOT act, anti-Gay Marriage amendments in 11 states, and more.
And there’s something to be said for that. There is. I can see both sides of the coin. I’m more conservative than liberal myself, but the gay marriage thing is pretty sick, as is the PATRIOT act and the weakening of strong, positive international treaties like the Geneva Convention. Not to mention the Rule of Law principle being thrown by the wayside like it has been for Jose Padilla.
However, there’s much to be said for Tax Reform, maintaining our sovereignty, protecting our rights to bear arms (so we can defend ourselves against tyrants who will REALLY opress us.) Plus, by traditional activism like writing our congressmen (and women!), making ourselves known, and being well-known people who are not ashamed of our faith and are willing to not only practice openly, but publically identify ourselves, we’ll become PART of our community instead of APART from it.
And the next Pagan I hear talk about the return of the Burning Times will simply be slapped out of hand. Sheesh.
Last night was the weekly Stonecrest Border Pagans meeting: a group of eclectic pagans who meet at the Border’s bookstore at Stonecrest Mall east of Atlanta. Had a good time and met some new folks. The transient guy fron New Orleans (who was not pagan, but was friendly and curious) made for some fun conversation as well.
I mentioned a few websites for the people there. Here they are, in case you’re interested:
And I thought I had some odd ideas about feminism and women’s lib, but this takes the cake. I’m not really right-wing or fundamentalist Christian to be reading Newsmax, but when I wandered across this link on Technorati, I had to click.
Uhm… I know that the Vagina Monologues are suppsed to be empowering and liberating for women of that mindset, but Jane Fonda leading a get-out-the-feminazi-vote rally called Vaginas Vote is rather disturbing. Let me poke at it from the Men’s Movement perspective: would a voter’s rights group for men named “Penis Ballot” go over well?
Again, I’ll reiterate: I’m not the only blogger who notices that these women have boiled their self-worth and self-identity only to their reproductive organs. Wasn’t the SAME crowd trying to tell us that they were more to a man than dinner, housecleaning, and child-rearing? And now then identify themselves only by their plumbing?
Someone please tell me Women’s Studies programs haven’t gone that far.
Meta-markup: textile
A good friend of mine just posted a great commentary on the whole Tax Cut schtick Bush has dredged up. BTW - it’s based on the Fair Tax Plan.
I’ve patched in Rick Crawford’s code. Now you
can display nifty numbers in your category menu showing how many articles
you’ve got in each category.
Get it here.
Last night my wife and I went to see The Punisher, mainly because we wanted to do something and it was the only film that wouldn’t have us out past 2:00am. I used to read a lot of comics in college, and the recent spate of comic-book movies has been pretty good, so we figured what the heck.
We found out what the heck. Punisher had always been a pretty gritty book, but this movie had little grit… it was replaced by so much gratuitous violence that I was appalled. To explain, I have a morbid curiosity about death and gore, and I occasionally browse over to Ogrish or BME/Hard (Warning, if you are in any way squeamish, *DO NOT* hit those links). The explicit nature of the photos on those sites have nothing on this movie. It seemed as if the director, Jonathan Hensleigh, just wanted to see how many ways he can show people’s death on screen.
I left the movie with a greasy feeling, and one of my main rules in life is don’t be greasy.
Wow. That’s about all I have to say about the Dervish show I saw last night.
I’ve been a fan of the group for a few years now, and I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to see them live. I got my chance last night: their first ever show in Atlanta, and they put on quite a nice show indeed.
The show started s little slow, with the sound engineer having difficulties with the levels. Members of the band kept asking him to change this or that, and at one point some pretty nasty bass feedback came from somewhere in the direction of Seamus O’Dowd’s guitar. Even with the setbacks, the music was pretty good, and toward the end of the first set, the band hit their stride and played some impressive stuff.
After the intermission, Seamus came back by himself to try out a blues song (Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of said song) on a steel resonator guitar he just bought in Nashville. I’ve heard better slide blues before, but it’s been a very long time. For an Irishman who’s obviously a big blues fan, he put on a good show.
Then… they blew the roof off. The rest of the songs were a mix of traditional (_Lone Shanakyle_) and progressive (_Whelan_ from their latest album), but they must have found their groove. On Whelan, a set of jigs played to an odd beat, the group just took off. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard a tighter performance from a group that large before. (Maybe the Presentation Hall Jazz Band, but that’s it.)
Bottom line: If Dervish ever hits your town, go.
