You know what I need? A round Tuit.

Ever heard of those? It’s for people who have a hard time committing to following through on things. All those people that say “I’ll do it when I get around to it,” really ought to check out this site that sells round tuits, although I guess you’d have to get around to telling someone else to get it for you because you’d never get a round tuit on your own, would ya?

Even better is this history of tuits with beautiful medallions being offered.

What the hell am I even leading up to, you ask. Last year, way back around Giftsmastime, I was at home in Dial Up Land and found an interesting article I couldn’t write about at the time. Now I have the time and, what’s more, the inclination. It was all about a popular children’s rhyme and how it may have actually been a hate crime to be singing and acting it out. You read that right. Hokey Pokey could be a hate crime.

according to the Catholic Church and some Scottish politicians, singing the popular tune that begins with the words “You put your right hand in, your right hand out,” may constitute an act of religious hatred.

A spokesman for the leader of the church in Scotland said the song had disturbing origins.

Critics claim that Puritans composed the song in the 18th century in an attempt to mock the actions and language of priests leading the Latin mass.

Now politicians have urged police to arrest anyone using the song to “taunt” Catholics under legislation designed to prevent incitement to religious hatred.

I wonder how that went. Since I never heard of mass panic in playgrounds, I guess it went the way of the dodo.

Supporters of Rangers FC have been banned from singing anti-Catholic songs at Ibrox stadium to taunt their rivals Celtic, a club with Catholic roots.

But fans of the club are said to be discussing on internet forums the possibility of getting round the ban by singing the Hokey Cokey at next week’s Old Firm derby between the clubs.

Peter Kearney, a spokesman for Cardinal Keith O’Brien, said:

“This song does have quite disturbing origins. Although apparently innocuous, it was devised as an attack on and a parody of the Catholic mass.

Or it’s about cheap and inferior ice cream and a song invented in 1942.

“If there are moves to restore its more malevolent meaning then consideration should perhaps be given to its wider use.”

According to the church, the song’s title derives from the words “hocus pocus”.

That idea has made the rounds, but Wiki credits Canadian soldiers in WWII for providing Jimmy Kennedy with the inspiration for what later became his Hokey Cokey hit.

Jimmy Kennedy Jr. quoted his father’s writing:

“They were having a hilarious time, singing and playing games, one of which they said was a Canadian children’s game called The Cokey Cokey. I thought to myself, wouldn’t that be fun as a dance to cheer people up! So when I got back to my hotel, I wrote a chorus based on the feet and hand movements the Canadians had used, with a few adaptations. A few days later, I wrote additional lyrics to it but kept the title, Cokey Cokey, and, as everybody knows, it became a big hit.”

According to Kennedy Jr., his father told him “the unusual title was to do with drugs [cocaine] taken by the miners in Canada to cheer themselves up in the harsh environment where they were prospecting.”

That’s even better than 17th century Puritans. It took some hunting to find the National Post’s response to this business, but it’s unclear if they’re reporting on what Wiki has, or if they’re Wiki’s source. Around and around, eh? I can’t find any sites explaining how many prospectors O.D.’d before scurvy got them or anything, but hey. It’s still one hell of a story.

People would rather take offense than do research first. A hoax is just good enough to be believed by one person who tells a few others and soon it’s as real is lemon sorbet. Mmm..sorbet…

Dealing with death

My local Freethinkers had a meeting about this topic today and one of the guys shared a few quotes about death and dying, including this one attributed to Albert Einstein:

“Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”

But what if it is the child who has died? What then?

In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. Faithful neglect has not been used as a criminal defense, but the claim is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.

This disparate treatment was evident last month in Wisconsin, a state with an exemption for faith-based neglect under its child abuse laws. Leilani and Dale Neumann were sentenced for allowing their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, to die in 2008 from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes.

It’s one thing if it’s an accident or some quick virus or sudden onset of one of the worst cancers and there’s barely time to say goodbye let alone get the right drugs into the system that may or may not be beneficial in the long run. But when something easy to treat that people can live with for years winds up killing a child because parents prefer to pray instead? It’s inconceivable to me.

In a nation founded on the free exercise of religion, the legal system struggles with parents who act both criminally and faithfully in the deaths of their children. This paradox has perplexed courts for centuries. One of the earliest prosecutions of such a case occurred in England in the 1800s, when the crown charged followers of a sect known only as the Peculiar People, a name derived from a translation of the phrase “chosen people” from the book of Deuteronomy. They were accused of killing numerous children as a result of faith-healing practices.

Today, the Old Peculiars are largely gone (their faith-healing views thinned their numbers considerably), but many other sects such as Unleavened Bread Ministries have prospered.

And I was reminded today that Canada is not immune to this. I can’t find a link to anything relevant to this country, unfortunately, but it’s been suggested elsewhere that prayer should be covered under health insurance. If you pay someone to pray for you, that person should be reimbursed as a health care provider. Christian Scientists in the States were hoping for it and while the original link has 404′d, Ed Brayton quoted some of that article.

After our meeting, a few of us moved into the lounge to continue discussions and the guy who mentioned this to us wondered how many ways hucksters and scammers could work a system like that. And if the person dies anyway, do you sue the guy you paid to pray at him, or take it out on the doctors? Assuming you even bothered to consult a doctor. And when it comes to the prayer part, do you go generic, or contact someone you can tell is affiliated with a church? Does the insurance company have to sign off on a person’s ability to pray first? Any testimonials of successful interventions in life and death situations?

And during the meeting, a woman who works for a memorial service brought up a study that was done regarding terminal cancer patients and how much life prolonging stuff they asked for in the week leading up to their death. The least religious were more likely to just let go, while the most religious in terms of coping wanted everything that might give them another hour, day or week of added personal suffering and added pain for family members – not just emotionally, but financially as well.

Clinicians need to recognize and be sensitive to the role that religious coping plays in medical decisions at the end of life. They may wish to include other health professionals in discussing these matters. For aggressive care at the end of life to prolong that life at all costs leads to a poorer quality of death and emotional issues for friends and family.

I’ll let the wise artists of xkcd.com have the last word.

Remember to put the Fest in “Festive” this year!

Definition of fest for those who want it:

–noun
an assembly of people engaged in a common activity (often used in combination): filmfest; gabfest; love-fest; poetry fest.

Over in Scotland, Dundee has declared December to be Christian Christmas free. No overtly religious symbolism will be allowed to honour that time of year in any public venues.

IT IS a story that could have come straight out of the pages of Dr Seuss’s The Grinch that Stole Christmas.

IT IS NOT. The Grinch wanted to kill any and all celebrations that were fun and full of songs and joy and gift giving. If anything, the Grinch was a Puritan. That he failed is evidence that joy and fun cannot be quashed for long and even the Grinch has a change of heart about surrounding one’s self with friends and being joyful. He was lacking it, thought he didn’t need it, and he was wrong.

City leaders in Dundee are planning a spectacular festive celebration – but with no references to Christianity.

So? December belongs to everyone, not just Christians. Not everyone buys into the Christian way to explain the day. There are traditions galore over what to do with the shortest day of the northern year, and how to spend the longest northern night. The winter solstice is not the sole property of any group. Anyone can have a party. My Freethinker club is planning a Festivus celebration for the 20th. I’m going and I don’t even like Seinfeld.

Hailed as a celebration of Dundee’s contemporary culture and innovative past, festive season revellers are being promised a visual feast of projections and lights later this month. It will be a “Winter Light Night” of festive season illuminations, audiovisual displays, music, street art performances and a children’s torchlight procession.

Which is quite similar to honouring St. Lucy, Hanukkah or Advent, by the way. Bringing light into the darkness, be it with real candles, or an enlightening belief system that promises to change the world with a Word.

But yesterday the city council and the event’s organisers were under attack from church leaders, who accused them of eroding the religious significance of Christmas by removing all references to Christianity from the annual switch on of the city’s Christmas lights.

But that’s just it. Christmas is one of many ways to celebrate the season. It’s been around for a long time, but it’s never been a world-wide phenomenon that everyone celebrates. “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?” Do they know where their next meal is coming from? Do they know why their country is in such dire straits? I’m sure that’s way more important than what day their benefactors think is holy.

And, instead of the traditional nativity story, the festival will feature a solar-powered disco, a continental market, a circus and a fairy on stilts.

That’s a flashing, sparkling, mirror ball of awesome, right there. Holy crap, do I ever wish my passport was up to date. That sounds like the best damn day ever organized!

Know what traditions existed before that nativity story got popular? Mithra had his birthday party on the 25th of December every year. Even ancient Romans acknowledged the existence of this Persian god of soldiers and chided Christian soldiers for lacking the same desire for “temperance, self-control and compassion — even in victory” that Mithras followers did.

Northern Europeans enjoyed the rituals of Yule for years before they heard of Christianity. According to Wiki, the secretly Christian King Haakon I of Norway started eroding Yule’s purpose and instigated the moves to blend the “heathen pagan” celebrations with Christian holidays and traditions until very little of the old Yule was left.

“The presbytery is concerned at the dropping of the term ‘Christmas lights’ in favour of ‘winter lights’ at the festival.”

Mr Webster said the Kirk’s convener was writing to the council chief exective to express concern. “Members of all the congregations within the presbytery are also being encouraged to take the matter up with their councillors.

“Christmas is a Christian festival, and the dropping of the term Christmas lights and the telling of the Christmas story is an erosion of the religious festival.”

I prefer to see it as reminding people that Christmas is not the only proper way to celebrate anything this time of year. It’s optional. Donkeys, inns, wise men. All optional. Santa, elves, reindeer. Optional. Candles, carols, mincemeat, date cake, all optional.

He added: “I don’t think there is anything sinister here. I think it is more a case of this having slipped through the cracks rather being any sort of politically correct move.

“The presbytery’s concern is that somehow, the Christmas aspect of the festival has fallen off the edge.”

Has Christmas ever been ruled as mandatory by a government? Celebrate Christmas or be fined and imprisoned. Hardly. I don’t think the town of Dundee is saying no Christmas decorations will be allowed anywhere in city limits. They’ve just opted to put on a faith free festival this year. Go ahead with your trees and tinsel and ornaments and baby Jesus displays in your homes and church yards. Nobody’s going to stop you. Celebrate the season in your own space however you see fit.

Dundee sees fit to celebrate the season without a label for a change, and I doubt attendance at their fest will be mandatory. Be a Grinch if you want and skip the whole thing. Nobody’s going to force you to join in.

World Net Daily confuses fact and fiction

I like the headline on this one, all set to raise instant ire in all who see it:

Billboard companies allow slam against God.

Gracious. Call the troops. Someone has slapped a billboard on the side of a building giving God a funny mustache and a stupid grin to make him look stupid in front of everyone. The shame! The travesty! It’s the end of the world!

In actuality, it’s just a statement on a billboard by a road. If you don’t believe in God, you’re not alone. Finally, some truth in advertising. It’s aimed at the people who may have turned from faith, or are at least starting to doubt it, and wonder what to do. Find people who’ve gone through it, boys and girls. We’re out here. Don’t be shy.

How does World Nut Daily spin it? It turns out the bigger issue is about billboard companies who’ll run those so-called “slams” but are unwilling to run WND advertisements based on worse lies and slurs:

Two major billboard companies are allowing signs that slam Christian faith, even though they rejected out-of-hand a billboard campaign that asked for documentation of Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president.

First off, they aren’t slamming anyone’s faith, nor aimed at any specific religion. No religion is being insulted. No believers are overtly getting insulted in the language itself. It’s not saying “God sucks!” or “Christianity sucks!” or “Everyone who believes in god is an idiot!” It’s just making a statement that there are people who don’t believe. What happens in the heart and head of the reader is a separate issue that has nothing to do with the advertising.

If the billboard company refused to run WND’s ridiculous birth certificate ads, they were right to do so. That was propaganda designed to sow seeds of distrust in a popular candidate. Slurs and allegations without any basis in fact, I might add, no matter how much “research” they’ve put in. Not finding any evidence for their claims has just made them cry “conspiracy” all the louder, instead of admitting to the possibility that they might actually be wrong about it.

“I found it ironic that the billboard … is maintained by Clear Channel,” wrote a WND reader who noticed the apparent double standard. “I seem to recall Clear Channel did not want to run any of the ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate’ ads on their billboards, because of the ’sensitivity of the issue.’”

They were being polite. They were also holding to their promise not cater to groups engaging in character defamation. The certificate signage was suggesting Obama was a liar and not fit to lead the country.

Company spokesman Tony Alwin did respond to WND’s request today for comment on the latest development, sending a link to the “code of industry principles as a guide for content” from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Specifically, it calls on companies to “Observe Highest Free Speech Standards.”

“We support the First Amendment right of advertisers to promote legal products and services, however, we also support the right of outdoor advertising companies to reject advertising that is misleading, offensive, or otherwise incompatible with individual community standards, and in particular, we reject the posting of obscene words or pictorial content,” the code states.

Alwin did not respond to subsequent questions from WND on whether his company has determined “Are you good without God?” doesn’t mislead anyone, doesn’t offend anyone and meets all community standards.

I’d hazard a guess that it’s because he thinks you guys are crackpots and has already given you more time than you deserved. The question is innocuous. It’s also reminding other non-believers to continue being good role models because the world is, quite literally, watching.

It’s not misleading. There is no offensive content in the language. There is nothing obscene in it beyond what readers imagine. If it offends you, you need to look at why. It’s not our fault if you can’t begin to fathom it.

“WND’s reporters have investigated this issue more extensively than the rest of the media combined – sending senior staff writer Jerome Corsi to Hawaii and Kenya in search of evidence,” he has said. “We have commissioned private investigators in Honolulu. There is simply no persuasive evidence to affirm Obama’s claim to a Hawaiian birth. There is no hospital on the island that will confirm the first black president of the United States was born there. It’s all conjecture. And no controlling legal authority in this country has ever asked Obama to provide the proof.”

Have they ever insisted someone prove it before? Has any president had to drag his birth certificate out to show it was real? Has every one of their certificates been given to guys who check for counterfeiting to make sure everyone was truly who and where they said they were? Or are you guys just picking on Barack because he’s different?

Did they not see the article demonstrating how Barack might be related to everyone who has ever been president? Only one guy out of all of them was not a descendant of John “Lackland” Plantagenet, once king of England and a signer of the Magna Carta. That’s quite the pedigree. Maybe Martin Van Buren’s legitimacy should be worked over with a fine tooth comb, instead. He was a Dutchman! The first Dutchman ever elected! Man, did nobody check if he was really American first?

Turns out they did, in a way. He was the first ever president born with the status of American Citizen. All the previous ones had been British subjects when they were born. Does that negate their legitimacy? Maybe Americans ought to discount the earlier boys and name Van Buren as first proper Prez. That poor sod got stuck with an economic downturn while in office, too, and he failed to achieve a second term despite popularity. Too many people blamed him for their problems, I guess. And the wheel just keeps on turning…

WND looks unwilling to give up on their billboard bullshit, but we can hope other companies like Lamar and Clear Channel have the public in mind as they turn away every attempt to discredit Obama.

Cash for grades? Whose crazy idea was that?

I’ll swap you two Cs for an A…

Not quite. Apparently it was a fund-raising scheme that backfired.

A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points – 10 extra points on two tests of the student’s choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.

Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money.

“Last year they did chocolates, and it didn’t generate anything,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd rejected the suggestion that the school is selling grades. Extra points on two tests won’t make a difference in a student’s final grade, she said.

But it does sell the idea that fake intelligence can be bought by people rich enough to afford it. Cripes, I’m glad this idea fell through. Kids are dumb enough as it is without parents paying schools to add bonus points to test results. Like that changes the fact that your kid has no idea where the Mississippi river is, or who was the first President or whatever fact got missed on the test in the first place. Good grief.

Carmen Zepp, a Raleigh parent, said there should be policies against offering students test credit for anything other than what they’ve learned.

Zepp objected this year when her daughter’s social studies teacher at Knightdale High School had students bring to school tissues and hand sanitizer. The supplies counted for 25 percent of a “supply check” grade.

“It’s awful,” Zepp said. “It’s indicative of the fact that our schools don’t have enough money. They can’t get tissues or hand sanitizer or whatever without bribery. And that’s pretty sad.”

Shepherd, the Rosewood principal, said her school needs more technology. She said any money raised would help buy digital cameras for the school’s computer lab and a high-tech blackboard.

What happened to low tech whiteboards, overhead projectors and handwriting skills? Surely most kids can get the tech at home anyway. Interesting note about tissues and sanitizer though. I recall in school we had tissue on our list of things to buy but we didn’t get graded on whether or not we actually brought the stuff to school. What a weird arrangement.

So, if money isn’t going into schools for supplies and necessary technical advancements (can’t say everything they want falls under “necessary”), where is it going?

You’re so vain, I bet you think this plate’s all about you…

Sorry. I don’t even like that song. However, it was all I could think of to lead into results of an attempt to bring Christian vanity plates to cars in South Carolina. Similar stories have been in the news before, but now the Daily Telegraph reports on the pro-choice judge who said the one word they never wanted to hear: NO!

The southern state’s legislature had already approved the licence plate, but Cameron Currie, the district judge, said the plate was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment, which requires the separation of church and state.

“Such a law amounts to a state endorsement not only of religion in general, but of a specific sect in particular,” Ms Currie wrote.

Well done, Judge Currie, for coming down the side of equality here instead of preferential treatment.

“Whether motivated by sincerely-held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same.

“The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defence of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation.”

Via Friendly Atheist, I get a link to more information showing just how petty and egotistical this plate war is.

some legislators openly admitted that they would not vote for similar plates for minority faiths.

Nobody would be forced to buy them; vanity plates are entirely optional. Generally I think they’re pretty stupid, but whatever. If your whole identity is tied up in how strangers see your car, you’ve got bigger problems than what your license plate says.

(If you think that’s bad…)

Pop culture vultures

If the entertainment world was a billiards table and every pop culture reference were a stripe or solid sitting on it, I’d be the cue ball that careens around the table yet drops into the dark corner pocket of cluelessness without ever knowing what I missed.

That’s not an entirely accurate analogy, but it’s close enough. I see movies (eventually), I watch some television (albeit a season or seven behind everyone else), and I have the internet. I’m never totally unaware of what’s popular in any given moment, but it might require a very annoying internet meme to be passed around the interwebs like a plague before I find out why.

What I do notice is that notoriety has become more interesting to our culture than behaviour that would actually be deserving of praise. On the rare occasion when I flip through a gossip mag or check a site, they’re all reporting on who’s doing drugs, who’s the babydaddy, and who flashed the camera flash again. She looks fat, he looks homeless. She’s still trying to “collect the whole set” of World Children, and he slept with someone who’s only reknown by proxy. So how come we still have to get news about him and a reality TV “star” who fell from grace? Who really gives a damn about any of them?

Although Andy Warhol is credited with saying “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” I’ve discovered he later refined the concept. He’s referring to Studio 54 (the actual club, not the movie based on it) here:

It’s the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, “In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.”

(source)

But will we be famous for any worthwhile reason? Will it be our choice, or random unexpected happenstance? What is the Star Wars kid doing these days? Did Ghyslain Raza’s parents have to sue the parents of the kids responsible for his unwanted infamy? Maybe, maybe not. But those asshole students did not ask Gaza’s permission to take something he made for fun at school nor did he know they’d post it online so the whole world could mock his high nerd factor. Those kids didn’t even know who Gaza was. Newsweek has a great article about Gaza’s experience (among others) and how the internet is proving Warhol right.

For people who use blogs and social-networking sites like diaries, putting their personal information out there for the world to see, this presents a serious risk. “I think young people are seduced by the citizen-media notion of the Internet: that everyone can have their minutes of fame,” says Barry Schuler, the former CEO of AOL who is now the coproducer of a new movie, “Look,” about public video surveillance. “But they’re also putting themselves out there—forever.”

Shaming victims, meanwhile, have little legal recourse. Identifying posters often means having to subpoena an anonymous IP address. But that could lead nowhere. Many people share IP addresses on college networks or Wi-Fi hotspots, and many Web sites hide individual addresses. Even if a victim identifies the defamer, bloggers aren’t usually rich enough to pay big damage awards. Legal action may only increase publicity—the last thing a shaming victim wants. “The law can only do so much,” warns Solove.

We are long past the point where people will forget what we’ve done. We may sink into blessed oblivion for a little while, but everyone, everywhere, may be only one click away from the world’s attention.

How do you want to be remembered?

Would it surprise you to know I’m not surprised?

A man wanted to be a cop and was apparently told he was too smart to get in.

Robert Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took an exam to join the New London police, in Connecticut, in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125.

But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Mr Jordan launched a federal lawsuit against the city, but lost.

There is a logic behind this. My cousin learned of something similar years ago while in the Canadian Armed Forces. They tend to want people of average or lower than average intelligence because smarter soldiers might stop and try to analyze the situation before reacting rather than simply following their orders and their training to the letter. And smarter recruits might be inclined to challenge higher-ups more often and could potentially be a source of dissension in the rank and file.

About the boredom – again, they have a point. Boredom can lead to loss of focus in a situation that requires full attention. But, they are wrong to deny him a job on the possibility he’ll get bored. They can’t see the future and predict what day that will happen or anything. They’ve got nothing except an assumption based on his smarts, and maybe past experience with other smart officers who did lose interest. But again, they could never prove he’d be one of them, so denying him based on that is ridiculous.

What it’s really about is the second part, the cost. If they put time and money into a person who doesn’t stick around, they’ve wasted their time and money.

Walmart approaches hiring the same way. I’ve never been in a job with a higher turnover rate than Walmart has. They invite everyone insane interested into a conference room and give them the spiel, their vests, their badges, and then a couple hours over a couple weeks to play with the CBLs, Computer Based Learning, that all associates have to complete. But, all they learn in a CBL is how to remember the right answer long enough to pass the little quiz at the end of each lesson. No retention required. No skill test five months down the road to see if they still remember the proper way to lift or hold a knife.

And they get very little in the way of providing good knowledgeable customer service. And so customers come in looking for someone who knows the difference between this humidifier and that one and the poor kid who took the call is probably the one originally hired for Pets and is currently covering four areas because others didn’t turn up for work or don’t exist, and there’s no way he can do anything to help beyond sounding out the words on the boxes. The customer is frustrated, the kid is frustrated, and he’ll take his frustration out on everyone else he meets that day because he’s only been there three weeks and he’s already fed up with the shit that goes on. He likely won’t even turn in his vest before he leaves for good.

Do I ever wish that had been me, but I needed the money more than I needed the sanity, I guess.

Well anyway, you see the point, hopefully. They pay a pittance and they don’t train and they don’t provide much in the way of benefits because they know most people will get bored and fed up and will quit long before they’d be qualified for a raise anyway. Cop training costs a lot more than a Walmart vest.

They want people who will be committed to staying on, either because they really like the job, or they really need the job, or they’re just the kind of people who still think commitment and loyalty to a workplace matters. Spending time on training that doesn’t get used – or worse, benefits some other job elsewhere instead – doesn’t feel like a quality use of time.

I’m not saying they’re right. I’m just saying I can see their side of it.

Brookstone can have my business, too

I love silly persecution stories. This one I find via World Net Daily. Apparently a man was ejected from his job with Brookstone for telling a gay co-worker how wrong it is to be gay.

Peter Vadala was fired, and the company says he violated a tolerance policy. But Vadala reports his dismissal came because he expressed his Christian view of homosexuality after a female manager made repeated references, as she approached him four times during work hours, to her plans to marry her lesbian partner.

“At the start of the day, she told me she was getting married. I told her ‘Congratulations,’ and asked, ‘Where’s he taking you on your honeymoon?’” Vadala said.

“She replied that her partner was a ’she,’” he continued, “So I immediately tried to change the subject.

“I think she knew I was uncomfortable talking about it,” he continued. “But, she brought it up to me three more times during the day.

Girls tend to do that when they’re getting married, so I gather. Rather than try to change the subject, Vadala could have asked her about the honeymoon destination, if it was going to be a large service or elopement, and be cordial and politely interested for a few moments before wandering off. What did he do instead?

What do Christian Scientists believe?

When my alarm went off this morning I caught the tail end of an interview on Saskatchewan’s Morning Edition where Sheila Coles was wrapping up a chat with Linda Feldmann, the Washington Christian Science Monitor correspondent about the governor races from yesterday.

Why would CBC use a Monitor correspondent? Wouldn’t a Christian Scientist rag be a teeny bit biased when reporting on results? Or would they be no worse than any other media? She sure seemed to be on Sarah Palin’s side, at least, and approved her endorsement of candidates.

I see that support for gay marriage collapsed in Maine and Washington State’s referendum to keep gay couple rights on par with hetero couples had similar problems, but narrowly won out in the end.

Beats me why people make such an issue out of that. Daft. Stupid bible, making a sin out of it. Stupid. Stupid.

Ah well anyway, that’s all I’ve got right now. I should probably care more about the political jungle that is the U. S. of A. We’re neighbours after all. I should be caring what Canada does, too. I’m one of the 70ish percent that never got around to voting against our mayor last week. I totally meant to…