The Six-Sided Dilemma

Dick Wolf, king of my favorite series of ever-proliferating shows, "Law & Order," likes to say that his favorite episode -- which they've never been able to accomplish yet -- would involve all six main characters (including the Lieutenant and the District Attorney) having six separate, valid, points of view on the case at hand.

I feel like I've got about three of them, at least, in my own head about this one.

It would seem that in bottomless pit of discovery that is some peoples' interpretation of the Bible, that it is okay to picket funerals. In the name of God. Who hates America. Because we support (well, some of us, yours truly included) gay rights issues, like marriage and equality.

If your head isn't spinning yet, hold on to something. Yes, that's right: God wants you to picket military funerals, because the military is a representation of the government, and some elements of the government (although really, there is no federal support for any element of homosexual lifestyles; the few governmental organizations who have dedicated any legislation to the issues at hand have been individual states, but I suppose National Guard funerals aren't nearly as frequent or press worthy) are less than hateful towards gays. And people with AIDS. Who, of course, are gay. Must be. Can't be any other way. Mark of Cain, y'all.

How we got from "love thy neighbor" to "picket thy dead soldier" is almost more than I can stand. My contempt for the human race ratchets up a notch.

On the other hand -- this is the most cynical element of my head -- I'm just loving, loving, loving the Republicans, who have supported this kind of crap every which way except for now, who have nurtured this bad seed until it flowers into this bizarre insanity -- being the ones to come down against it:

The sponsor of the House bill, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said he took up the issue after attending a military funeral in his home state, where mourners were greeted by "chants and taunting and some of the most vile things I have ever heard."

"Families deserve the time to bury their American heroes with dignity and in peace," Rogers said Wednesday before the House vote.

But finally, and this is the lawyer in me, I can't go along with the legislation.

Demonstrators would be barred from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries under legislation approved by Congress and sent to the White House Wednesday....

Under the Senate bill, approved without objection by the House with no recorded vote, the "Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act" would bar protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

Once again, I may not like what you have to say, but you have the right to say it. And we do have the right to free assembly in this country. Slowly, the GOP has been winnowing it back -- you can't show up at a George Bush speech with, say, a Democratic-oriented shirt on. Think you can, and you'll find out differently.

From 10/14/2004:

Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and thrown out of the President Bush rally at the Jackson County Fairgrounds Thursday night, after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil liberties."

The Democrats have played this game, too, though to less effect since they haven't held the White House for six years now.

Anyway, my point is this: On First Amendment grounds (which includes the right to free assembly), these people have a right to be there. Unless I'm mistaken -- and I'm willing to be wrong -- military cemeteries are public, not private, property. Funerals are open to the public. That being so, barring them from the gate is unconstitutional. (I argue also that this is not the same as barring some of the same fanatics who probably show up at Planned Parenthood Clinics to shout, because then they're on private property, once they get off of city owned sidewalks.)

I don't want the Klan to march down my street. I don't want Bible-thumping crazies to protest at funerals. But I also don't want someone else deciding what I'm allowed to do and don't do, just because it ruffles some feathers. For the reason that I want to be able to choose do do what I want with my body, for the reason that I want to be able to show up at a Bush rally with an "I hate Bush" shirt on, and for hundreds of other reasons, I can't agree with this law.

Not that anyone asked me, of course.

A Mighty Wind

It's the AP versus Reuters in a weather-related headline death match!

Who will emerge victorious? Or, at least, correct?

Tune in later this summer, assuming the whole Eastern seaboard isn't blown away (Reuters), when with luck we'll be sunning and surfing happily (AP).

Inconceivable!

So, I'm waiting for "The Da Vinci Code" to start already. Some guy next to me has spilled soda on himself, so I offered a Kleenex and we've been talking on and off for a few minutes. One of the young women next to him notes that "The Da Vinci Code" was some really great writing.

"Are you joking?" I ask.

"No, it really was good."

"Look, just because something sells a million copies doesn't make it good writing. John Grisham, take him, he can't write."

"Of course he can."

"He can write a good plot, but he has no characterization and doesn't know how to end a story."

"Oh. Maybe I should go back and read it again."

Advisable.

The New York Times review also takes note of Dan Brown's writing skills:

To their credit the director and his screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman (who collaborated with Mr. Howard on "Cinderella Man" and "A Beautiful Mind"), have streamlined Mr. Brown's story and refrained from trying to capture his, um, prose style. "Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair." Such language — note the exquisite "almost" and the fastidious tucking of the "which" after the preposition — can live only on the page.

Speaking of "inconceivable" --

In the movie, there are a lot of killings. And a lot of Europeans, some French, some Italian. Late in the game, someone is poisoned with a swig of alcohol (naturally after saying an unintentionally ironic phrase along the lines of "I will take the secret of your identity to my grave," which shows us that he's got about 10 seconds to live). I digress. Anyway, it felt familiar. Then I realized: The film is actually paying tribute to "The Princess Bride," as when Vizzini and the Dread Pirate share poisoned drinks and Vizzini says:

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha --" (thunk)

So very clever, Ron Howard. So very clever indeed.

I Mess With Texas, Part 14

Part the first:

I have resolved to end this messing once I find 10 things good about Texas. I currently have three:

1) The Dixie Chicks
2) Austin
3) Future governor Kinky Friedman

However, since that is barely halfway there, the messing shall continue. Onward.

Part the second:

Oh, my God, it's the plague. Seriously.

Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas

Web Posted: 05/12/2006 10:51 AM CDT
Deborah Knapp
KENS 5 Eyewitness News

If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas.

Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.

Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors.

"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.

While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.

"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.

While Savely sees this as a legitimate disease, there are many doctors who simply refuse to acknowledge it exists, because of the bizarre symptoms patients are diagnosed as delusional.

"Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all — down to the most minute detail — saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."

Travis Wilson developed Morgellons just over a year ago. He called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion.

"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson said. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out."

The Wilson's spent $14,000 after insurance last year on doctors and medicine.

"Most of them are antibiotics. He was on Tamadone for pain. Viltricide, this was an anti-parasitic. This was to try and protect his skin because of all the lesions and stuff," Lisa said.

However, nothing worked, and 23-year-old Travis could no longer take it.

"I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," Lisa Wilson said.

Just two weeks ago, Travis took his life.

Stephanie Bailey developed the lesions four-and-a-half years ago.

"The lesions come up, and then these fuzzy things like spores come out," she said.

She also has the crawling sensation.

"You just want to get it out of you," Bailey said.

She has no idea what caused the disease, and nothing has worked to clear it up.

"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," Bailey said.

Harriett Bishop has battled Morgellons for 12 years. After a year on antibiotics, her hands have nearly cleared up. On the day, we visited her she only had one lesion and she extracted this fiber from it.

"You want to get these things out to relieve the pain, and that's why you pull and then you can see the fibers there, and the tentacles are there, and there are millions of them," Bishop said.

So far, pathologists have failed to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions.

"Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences.

Wymore examines the fibers, scabs and other samples from Morgellon's patients to try and find the disease's cause.

"These fibers don't look like common environmental fibers," he said.

The goal at OSU is to scientifically find out what is going on. Until then, patients and doctors struggle with this mysterious and bizarre infection. Thus far, the only treatment that has showed some success is an antibiotic.

"It sounds a little like a parasite, like a fungal infection, like a bacterial infection, but it never quite fits all the criteria of any known pathogen," Savely said

No one knows how Morgellans is contracted, but it does not appear to be contagious. The states with the highest number of cases are Texas, California and Florida.

The only connection found so far is that more than half of the Morgellons patients are also diagnosed with Lyme disease.

For more information on Morgellons, visit the research foundation's Web site at www.morgellons.org.

Various and Sundry, May Edition

In no particular order.

No. 1
For some reason, text in my Firefox browser is completely messing with my life. The cursor just doesn't land in front of the individual letter, and if I ever make a mistake and have to double back, I can never find the right spot. Oh, Lord, how can I make it stop. Life is hard on me, I know.

No. 2
T-shirts I want, or want to make for friends:
"I love my country. I want it back."
"Sorry? Sorry don't feed the bobcat!"
"Is it a date?"
Reference - last night's dinner conversation at the Blue Fin, wherein two adult women and men had a heated and heatedly amused discussion on what defines a date. Result: Agreement to a specific place and time on both sides of the issue. The latter had to be included because one of the men said "so if I plan to go home at a specific time and spend it with my couch, is that a date?"

These are men's issues.

As for the second one, don't even ask. Long story. Quote from a cop. Seriously.

As for the first, saw it on the T-shirt the female icon wears here. The T-shirts rotate, so you might not see it right away.

No. 3
This is pathetic.

Hirsi Ali is a woman who fled an arranged marriage in Somalia and became not just a Dutch MP, but an outspoken, courageous representative of women's rights, specifically Muslim women's rights.

(A side note here, which is neither original nor deep but continues to irk me. The theory in Islam, as I understand it, of the women having to be covered up is that their bodies, their hair, their very physical representation, is a temptation to men. The same people who run the world. Who are physically stronger (in most cases; ask me about the Amazon Hurricane one time). Who are (some would say) intellectually superior. Who have a "right" to the world.

But show 'em some hair or leg, and they're just uncontrollable. Unable to have any responsibility for their actions.

If this is the case, I feel they really shouldn't be running the world. I mean, even these weak vessels of women are only considered dangerous once a month, for about a week. Clearly, men have an ongoing weakness that cannot be restrained, and they should be put away for their own good. Or, at least, their eyes should always be covered in front of women.

Who came up with this moronic, contradictory, illogical system? Oh, wait ... men?)

But I digress. Anyway, Hirsi Ali now has to leave the Netherlands because she lied on her asylum application. Which she says everyone already knew anyway; this is merely the pretext. It has become harder to protect her (harder = more costly) from extremists who want her dead for speaking out.

So, she is (most likely) coming to the U.S. Lord, I hope we can care for her better. Even if the hashish isn't legal here. And by "care for" I mean, not permit her to be killed.

But my one question is this: Why is she coming to work for a conservative think tank?

Note: Wikipedia, however questionably, indicates it may not be quite that conservative.

No. 4
Someone in my office is making smelly odors. I don't know if I would quite call them gaseous. But they are frickin' close. And it's very annoying. Silent, but deadly.

But not this deadly, mercifully.

No. 5
What happens when white Christians are told they'll be the minority in the population sooner than later?

a) threaten birth control / women's rights to their own bodies
b) close the borders
c) haul out the old classics about every other religion aside from Christianity. And don't worry, Catholics, they'll be after you soon enough. (Links too numerous to include here.)

Does that about sum up the news of late?

The discussion over religion, contraception, and immigration is not unconnected, folks. Again, probably not an original thought here. It stems from a largely unexpressed fear of the dark man taking over, and perhaps deciding to play by the same rules whites have used for centuries. That is, the unfair ones.

It is coming. The question is how much apartheid we'll accept before there is civil unrest, or even war. I sense both are coming, and that the idea of living in a pluralistic society is on the wane, whether we like it or not. The same gonzo doofuses telling women to cover their shit up are also the ones running this country, too.

Technical difficulties

This is sad.

Extreme religiosity is, apparently, not considered a mental illness by families; if I'd decided to fast for 40 days in honor of the little green men in my backyard, I'd be in the funny farm posthaste.

I was particularly touched that she trained as a carpenter. Might as well go all the way here.

But I would like to nitpick with the article writer. To wit:

Religious experts said yesterday that although fasting was common in many religions on such occasions as the Jewish Sabbath, Lent and Ramadan, cases of death were extremely rare.

Last I checked, the fasting is done in Judiasm on Yom Kippur. On the Sabbath, we just do the candle thing.

Clearly, New Zealand needs a few more Jews.

I Mess With Texas, Part 13

And so, I went to Texas.



Mind you, this was back in April, and I've been slacking a bit. Needless to say, the place didn't disappoint. There was at least one full display indicating that the absence of Texas-messing was, in fact, a cottage industry. I also saw one yo-yo -- a tourist, mind you -- wearing such a shirt.



But that said: This was Austin. And because of Austin, Texas can be temporarily forgiven much. I liked Austin, sensed I would. It relies heavily on music -- not arrogance -- for identity, the state capitol is held hostage there, and again: From what I found, there was just the one yo-yo and the one display of Texan ego worship. With more time, I might have found more, but what I found more extensively were people who said "hello" to you on the street, interesting shopping opportunities...



And racks for the tired biker -- affixed to the front of buses. Agreed, you have to hope the bus doesn't ram anything or anyone, but this is a nice touch you just don't see in New York. It also promotes biking, which is always a good thing.



The capitol building is quite efficiently lovely. I remember standing where I took this photo, though, asking Larry if this part of the world was naturally this green, or just the result of a lot of extra watering. He said the latter. I got peeved, but didn't say so: What could be more boring than eco-consciousness without an outlet? Should I care that the desert has been made oasis? Probably not. We went inside the capitol, and I got a tour while Mom and Larry waited. (Too much walking for them.)



Texans are very excited to be in Texas. I mean, extremely pleased. Even in Austin. Everything possible reminds you that you are in Texas, from the stars engraved/etched/painted/indicated on just about every piece of public property...



To the lights. This light (look closely; each set of bulbs spells out a letter in "Texas") is inside the capitol, either the representatives or senate side. Probably both.



With some free time, Mom and I went to nearby Georgetown, which bills itself as the Red Poppy Capital of the World, as well as being the county seat. (Which explains all of the lawyers offices around.) This picture was taken around midday, during the week. Can you almost feel the tumbleweed approaching? It was that quiet. The place was cute, and had lots of trendy country-style shops and used/antique stores, and I can be quite happy in both. Interestingly, this part of the world had/has a lot of Czech and German immigrants, so the antiques and used remnants have a very different flavor than I'm used to, from Maryland and New York experience. But I liked Georgetown, despite the empty feeling.



And then there's Round Rock. Craig lives there; Mom and Larry are in the neverendingly-hilarious Pflugerville. (We spent the weekend adding "p" and "f" sounds to just about everything possible. So it's the Pflugerville Pfanthers, for example.) Those two "towns" may at one time have been little communities with Main Streets and hearts and minds, but they've been cannibalized by the strip malls and neverending building of air-conditioned mini-mansions (and some reasonable homes). If there was a plot of land, it either had completed houses, houses in the making, or a sign indicating it was for sale to builders, or recently sold. Or it had a strip mall. And down there, they have a glut of space to the extent that they don't just have Wal-Marts, K-Marts and Targets, they have Super Wal-Marts, and Mega Targets and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious K-Marts. Okay, I made that one up. But after a while, the sense of overwhelming muchness becomes, well, overwhelming.



There is no poetry or sense of design in the planning and existence of such places. They grow and multiply like viruses, not even weeds. My brother was able to pick a home on the corner edge of a cul-de-sac, and has his home facing the cul-de-sac. All well and good, except when you turn into the street from the larger road, the back of the house and the fence faces you. It may be the most efficient based on the plot of land, but it just has a gracelessness that uglifies the whole structure. Which, on the whole, is not ugly itself: Like most of the other houses in the area, it has white or off-white stone for its walls, and Craig was able to customize the inside.



I love the winding staircase Kris and Craig have; I can always go for a spiral staircase. But the house -- again -- is just so ... much. The main master bathroom reminds me of a gym bathroom. A very tasteful one, but: There are two sets of showers, with two glass doors, separated on the exterior by a stone wall. It's big enough to have at least 8-10 people in the shower alone; there's also a tub that's really a jacuzzi. I'm no interior designer, but somebody should have been advising on taste here.



Whenever someone points out the closets in a house, I can't help but think how they were touted in the selling of homes in "Poltergeist." Anyway, some of the closets he has (this picture was taken in one) are larger than some New York apartments. The idea that anyone could have enough stuff to fill up this space kind of grosses me out. At the moment, they don't.



Sydney was generally quite sweet and delightful, and enjoyed her bubbles immensely. But she's not terribly social, and they're a little worried about her development: She hates playing with other kids, for example, and loud sounds continues to irk her. On the one hand, I really hope nothing's wrong, and I hope nobody makes her neurotic for nothing (I'm not into medicating every single kid for every single issue). On the other hand, a 2-year old should want to play with other 2-year olds, right? So hard to tell on these things.



But Craig loves her, so that's all that really matters.

Bottom line: Austin, thumbs up. P-ville and Round Rock: Eh. The rest of Texas: Still on the shit list.

Ice in heaven

Mysteriously, another great Australian musician is suddenly gone. We lose them from down under far too quickly.

How's a girl gonna sing all her songs when the world's gone quiet?

RIP, Grant McLennan.

UPDATE: The Village Voice's Robert Christgau has a nice rememberance. And also makes McLennan's departure even more tragic, if that seems possible.

Thanks from a grateful nation

Stephen Colbert deserves our love.

Tell him thanks here, and see the videos at the same time, from the Correspondent's Dinner, where he kicked ass.

He believes it is yogurt, but he's skeptical on the butter situation.

(via Lynda)