(The middle top photo is not him, though. The blond in the middle lower photo is his girlfriend of 5 years, also on the show.)
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
I like
(The middle top photo is not him, though. The blond in the middle lower photo is his girlfriend of 5 years, also on the show.)
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Opposites attract...and repel
From the opening section of Psych, Season 1. Shawn tries to sneak past his dad so he won't see...
Child abuse!
A comment after an article about parenting mistakes. Sounds about right.
Just tonight my 6yr old son said to me,”Mommy, I don’t think I will like this green bean.” I said without thinking “You’re right, and you won’t like the spanking you’ll get if you don’t eat it.” He ate it.
Disingenu Islam
A nice Muslim guy wants everyone to know that the Iranian pastor, a convert from Islam, should not be put to death because that's not in the Quran.
Which is true. The Quran does not prescribe a penalty for apostasy.
But the guy is being disingenuous.
Since we live in a post-Protestant culture in the US, where the default assumption is that religion is based on The Book Alone, this kind of stuff can fly. But sola scriptura is a funny deviation which arose in northwestern Europe a few centuries ago. The vast majority of Christians, both in historical time and numbers, did and do not hold this narrow and obsessive point of view. The Jews had their Torah-alone movement, the Karaites*, and the Muslims, too, had their scripture-only moments, but they did not make it to the major leagues.
So what the Quran says is not enough. Even the Five Daily Prayers, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, are not in the Quran.
Ninety percent of the world's Muslims are Sunni. This means that they follow the Sunna, the way, of the Prophet as recorded in the accepted collections of his sayings and doings, the hadith. And in addition, Muslim theology is really Muslim judiciary. So we have sharia, over a thousand years of what is a kind of Muslim Talmud. That, as a whole, is what runs Islam. And in real Islam, apostasy is a crime. The only disagreement is what kind of punishment it deserves.
So, Mr Liberal Muslim, your attitudes are praiseworthy, not wanting to kill the apostate, but please don't try this whitewashing by omission. A sin of omission is still a sin.
I wrote a similar comment on his site, where comments are moderated. So far, mine has not appeared.
*The only Karaite synagogue in America is located just a few miles south of SF.
Which is true. The Quran does not prescribe a penalty for apostasy.
But the guy is being disingenuous.
Since we live in a post-Protestant culture in the US, where the default assumption is that religion is based on The Book Alone, this kind of stuff can fly. But sola scriptura is a funny deviation which arose in northwestern Europe a few centuries ago. The vast majority of Christians, both in historical time and numbers, did and do not hold this narrow and obsessive point of view. The Jews had their Torah-alone movement, the Karaites*, and the Muslims, too, had their scripture-only moments, but they did not make it to the major leagues.
So what the Quran says is not enough. Even the Five Daily Prayers, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, are not in the Quran.
Ninety percent of the world's Muslims are Sunni. This means that they follow the Sunna, the way, of the Prophet as recorded in the accepted collections of his sayings and doings, the hadith. And in addition, Muslim theology is really Muslim judiciary. So we have sharia, over a thousand years of what is a kind of Muslim Talmud. That, as a whole, is what runs Islam. And in real Islam, apostasy is a crime. The only disagreement is what kind of punishment it deserves.
So, Mr Liberal Muslim, your attitudes are praiseworthy, not wanting to kill the apostate, but please don't try this whitewashing by omission. A sin of omission is still a sin.
I wrote a similar comment on his site, where comments are moderated. So far, mine has not appeared.
*The only Karaite synagogue in America is located just a few miles south of SF.
Hitting the sexual jackpot in Berlin
Sorta. A funny piece about an American woman in a Berlin sex museum with live inanimate people (sic) to practice finding the g-spot on. Boyfriend activates the female mannequin's quickly; Miss America, inexperienced, tries the male:
Hey, who said the decline and fall of a civilization lacked moments of humor?
While the female mannequin appeared multi orgasmic at the hands of my boyfriend, I could not find the male mannequin’s g-spot. It was just a smooth piece of plastic and the ins and outs of anything’s asshole, including my own, remain thankfully mysterious. But I finally found it. Boy, did I find it. The female mannequin was subdued in comparison, this thing went off like a land mine.HT to the eternally vexed and irritable Canuckess, Kathy Shaidle, who titles the link: "Confirmed. We didn't kill enough Germans." She occasionally opines similarly about Japanese and atomic bombs. And in detail about southern Italians. And people think I'm a curmudgeon. And she's young(is). And female. And Catholic. And Canadian! From Ontario!
“OH YEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” it echoed across the quiet floor, causing everyone in earshot to whirl around and find me knuckle deep in a mannequin’s asshole. For a moment they all just stared and my previous lax attitude vanished. I could see it now; dumb American girl gives mannequin ball-shattering orgasm, gets kicked out of Europe.
Or so I thought until everyone in the place started cheering, including my boyfriend.
A group of British guys came over to congratulate me on my apparent sexual prowess, giving me high fives and patting me on the back as they did. One dude jokingly held his hand up to his ear and whispered, “Call me.”
Hey, who said the decline and fall of a civilization lacked moments of humor?
Monday, October 17, 2011
The individual and the group
I am not "against" groups --pointless-- but I am rarely comfortable in them. My basic reaction to them is suspicious. INTP.
Two recent moments bring to mind the complex dance between the one and the many for me.
Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the San Francisco wedding of my friend J and his partner Bob. Readers of this blog may recall that I am not a fan of gay marriage, but there I was, at their request, standing as their legal witness at City Hall. The political issue was not as important as the honor of being asked and my own instinct to honor two good men who have been partners now for more than a decade. Since I was the witness...best man, I guess...I felt it behooved me to note the date, so I sent them a bottle of Zinfandel, which I discovered they both like. They were very happy with it. Went with the lasagna they'd prepared for dinner.
On Facebook, I got a notice that a former patient of mine was recommending that I do an "I Like" of his business. I don't know how he found me. This is the second time a patient has apparently discovered me on Facebook. This time it unsettled me. Why? Because this fellow, whom I worked with for a couple of years, is a very liberal guy and if he found my Facebook posts, he'd discover that I am not and that this might be unsettling to him. Now I realize that FB has a privacy screen and, if it works, he would not be able to see anything of my postings. But FB connects me often with people I have had no FB connection with at all and so I am assuming there is some kind of monster algorithm privacy-busting program working the background.
In both cases, my friend and my former patient are connected with positions and actions of which I am not a big supporter. But it is simply a fact of my character that while I am well aware of an individual's "membership" in various kinds of groups --some of which I definitely do not like-- I cannot get myself to relate to that individual --if I make a personal connection-- in a way dominated by his group(s). I grew up in a NY 1950's world where we all knew each other's differences in ethnicity or religion, for example, and made robust fun of each other but still were friends and neighbors. Bracketing, the foundation of a free society.
When it comes to politics and the couch, for instance, pretty well all my patients are very liberal Democrats. And it is not uncommon for me to hear them speak to me on the assumption that --because I am gay-- I am on the same page. Very rarely do I respond, and only if their attitude in this field connects with an attitude in the rest of their life that is part of our work together. Otherwise I let it go by. It's not relevant.
And when I was asked to be the wedding witness, I wondered if it was wrong of me to agree, since I don't think that matrimony and male/male couples are a match. As much as I put energy into my beliefs about all kinds of things, I have a background awareness that beliefs can change --I am exhibit A in this-- and so I am much more likely to place friendship first.
Unless there is some severe question of conscience...which, being a 5, I rarely have :). My question is not "Is it right?" --That's for the insufferable 1's-- but "Does it make sense?". One of the upsides of my natural emotional distance is that I can make room for things in people that the more feeling and intimacy driven types can't abide. Really, as long as I know I'm right and you are not going to impose your position on me, I don't much need to convince you to change your erroneous mind, especially if I like you.
The conscience of a conservative?
Two recent moments bring to mind the complex dance between the one and the many for me.
Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the San Francisco wedding of my friend J and his partner Bob. Readers of this blog may recall that I am not a fan of gay marriage, but there I was, at their request, standing as their legal witness at City Hall. The political issue was not as important as the honor of being asked and my own instinct to honor two good men who have been partners now for more than a decade. Since I was the witness...best man, I guess...I felt it behooved me to note the date, so I sent them a bottle of Zinfandel, which I discovered they both like. They were very happy with it. Went with the lasagna they'd prepared for dinner.
On Facebook, I got a notice that a former patient of mine was recommending that I do an "I Like" of his business. I don't know how he found me. This is the second time a patient has apparently discovered me on Facebook. This time it unsettled me. Why? Because this fellow, whom I worked with for a couple of years, is a very liberal guy and if he found my Facebook posts, he'd discover that I am not and that this might be unsettling to him. Now I realize that FB has a privacy screen and, if it works, he would not be able to see anything of my postings. But FB connects me often with people I have had no FB connection with at all and so I am assuming there is some kind of monster algorithm privacy-busting program working the background.
In both cases, my friend and my former patient are connected with positions and actions of which I am not a big supporter. But it is simply a fact of my character that while I am well aware of an individual's "membership" in various kinds of groups --some of which I definitely do not like-- I cannot get myself to relate to that individual --if I make a personal connection-- in a way dominated by his group(s). I grew up in a NY 1950's world where we all knew each other's differences in ethnicity or religion, for example, and made robust fun of each other but still were friends and neighbors. Bracketing, the foundation of a free society.
When it comes to politics and the couch, for instance, pretty well all my patients are very liberal Democrats. And it is not uncommon for me to hear them speak to me on the assumption that --because I am gay-- I am on the same page. Very rarely do I respond, and only if their attitude in this field connects with an attitude in the rest of their life that is part of our work together. Otherwise I let it go by. It's not relevant.
And when I was asked to be the wedding witness, I wondered if it was wrong of me to agree, since I don't think that matrimony and male/male couples are a match. As much as I put energy into my beliefs about all kinds of things, I have a background awareness that beliefs can change --I am exhibit A in this-- and so I am much more likely to place friendship first.
Unless there is some severe question of conscience...which, being a 5, I rarely have :). My question is not "Is it right?" --That's for the insufferable 1's-- but "Does it make sense?". One of the upsides of my natural emotional distance is that I can make room for things in people that the more feeling and intimacy driven types can't abide. Really, as long as I know I'm right and you are not going to impose your position on me, I don't much need to convince you to change your erroneous mind, especially if I like you.
The conscience of a conservative?
Self control and a pleasanter day
I saw a line on Drudge that said "Texas students forced to sing Mexican national anthem and recite Mexican pledge of allegiance".
I did not open the link. I was having breakfast and neither wanted to have to clean up expelled food or broken items. Or have to write nasty hateful things like, "The teachers who did this would, in a country with a healthy national identity, be lynched."
Close call.
I did not open the link. I was having breakfast and neither wanted to have to clean up expelled food or broken items. Or have to write nasty hateful things like, "The teachers who did this would, in a country with a healthy national identity, be lynched."
Close call.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Is it just me
For those who think manhood is code for Neanderthal, the table of contents lists important masculine roles: Survivor, Provider, Athlete, Hero, Gentleman, and Philosopher.
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