this bit started out as something different, but i’m changing gears. i can tell when i’m getting too serious because i start using capitals to start sentences.

q: can you spot the difference in these headlines?

“Extortion Laws Don’t Apply to Abortion Clinic Protests, Court Rules”
vs
“US Supreme Court Backs Abortion Protesters”

which do you think is the news article, and which the opinion piece? confident in your guess? you’re wrong — both are news articles. one takes the subject matter and makes a coherent, informative headline (san jose mercury news) and the other is calculated to stir up a knee-jerk response from everyone who has a strong opinion in the abortion debate.

given all the abortion coverage lately, you’d think that’s everyone in the damn country, but it isn’t. i, for one, will be happy when roe v. wade is struck down.

gasp!

did i mention that i might be a little conservative? but it’s not for the reason you think. believe me, i have no problem with death, or killing, or murder or the unborn or any other kind. i’m not that kind of conservative. i’m all in favor of a convenient means of disposing of an unwanted pregnancy. we have too many people in this country as it is. i am, however opposed to any measure which takes away a state’s right to govern locally.

(didn’t we fight a war over this? yes, yes, the rich people with the factories and shoes won — shut up.)

the minute roe v. wade is gone, it opens up the books for states to write their own laws on how it should be handled. chances are, new york, california, and a host of other states will remain abortion friendly. the deeper we get into jesusland the less likely that is to continue. but that’s a good thing. that’s democracy. that’s people getting to choose what’s right for them — these things aren’t a national standard. we’re not one people, we don’t have uniform values from sea to shining sea. less federal, more state. less national government, more local government.

see, democracy isn’t scalable. the more people you add, the more it becomes the rule of the mediocre, a system … [read more >>]

last night i had two segments of dream. in one, i was rachel rae’s boyfriend (though she had blonde hair in the dream, clearly and badly dyed), but walked out on her during our ’valentine’s day’ cruise because she wouldn’t leave the cameras and interviews alone for a few days. i ended up working as a dishwasher in a restaraunt somewhere in portland, arguing with emeril about the best way to plan the dishwasher’s work area.

the dishwasher was neat—rather than the usual in one side and out the other operation, it had a conveyer that pushed it up through the bottom, then out the side. you could stack several trays of dishes in a queue, and it would run them through sequentially, spitting them all out to the right (and cluttering up no end of counter space, in this case).

and no, i hadn’t been watching the food network.

the second segment was space opera—i was a clarinet player (who has interstellar adventures, natch) who was ?captured by unknown folks and put into a sort of zoo. there were no bars. the goal of my being there was to learn to play an instrument i’m calling a stalephone, made from an exceptionally smooth and resonant stalagtite. it was kinda like an oboe. they didn’t know how, but knew that it was an instrument. i put my clarinet reed in it (was all it needed) and began to learn to play. it had no holes, no covering mechanism—differences in tone were achieved by dampening the vibrations in different places on the instrument. the goal of the instrument was to sound out hollow chambers and weak spots in caves, in addition to making music. not sure how i knew that in the dream, but there it is.

there may be something to be drawn from the fact that i had to disassemble one instrument before the other would work. hrm.

lesson: crawfish, beer, and software development shouldn’t be undertaken before bed.

i know your garden is full
but is there sweetness at all?