Underneath The Blue Skirt

Her skirts may be a deep, rich azure, but her petticoats are as scarlet as the blood in Cheney’s veins.

Sadly, it appears that asking a candidate how she will vote on a piece of legislation is verboten. It’s more of the same, “Shut up and sit down over in the closet until after the election - then we’ll talk” nonsense. One needn’t be gay to be mortally offended by such an attitude. I sure as hell am.

It was such a pretty blog, too.

From whence came the art:

That visual commentary on the BlueNC blog is my own work on their logo, and would fall under fair use.

J.P. Protests the Pledge Peaceably

Update at the end of this post:

My wife and I just returned from a parent-teacher conference at the middle school. My son occasionally (read - pretty much always) has motivational issues. He’d rather be skateboarding than doing homework. Duh. So would I. He’s actually been doing much better lately though, and for that, I’m very relieved and proud of him.

During the course of the conversation with his four teachers (they work as a team, one unit - great idea, by the way), his homeroom teacher (who is also his science teacher) mentioned that James has been declining to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I was startled, actually. I had no idea.

I asked the reason, and Mrs. R. told me that he’s protesting the “under god” phrase in the Pledge. Wow. Really?

(More after the jump, please keep reading.)

Au Revoir, Les Habitants

In the final minute, Mike Knuble slammed the door on the Montreal Canadiens with an empty net goal and sent the Habs home for the summer. After trailing 3-1 in the middle stanza, the Flyboys scored three goals in just under three minutes to go up 4-3. The Canadiens wouldn’t go down without a fight however, and tied it up at four in the third period. With less than five to go, Scotty Upshall deflected a shot from Jeff Carter to score what would be the game winner before Knuble sealed the deal on the Canadiens’ season.

After having his bell rung repeatedly throughout the series, Montreal goalie Carey Price had been pulled in the previous game in favor of Jaroslav Halak. As can be seen in the photo to the right, Halak faired no better against Philadelphia snipers. Showing all the guts of a future champion, the rookie Price returned to his place between the pipes last night with a brand new catching glove. Hoping the new glove would bring him better luck in the area where the Flyers had victimized him so badly all series, young Price started the game with determination and made several good saves early on. His resilience was no match for The Orange and Black though, who lit the lamp six times.

It was an exciting game to finish off the series. The Flyers won four straight games after the top seeded Habs took game one in overtime.

They now await the winner of the Penguins/Rangers series to see who they face in the Conference finals. Pittsburgh leads that series three games to one, and they’ll mix it up with New York this afternoon on the left side of the Keystone State. Look for the Pens to close it out, and make this a Turnpike series.

UPDATE: See you in Pittsburgh.

After having finished last season dead last in the NHL and with the worst record since the team’s inception in 1967, the Flyers are certainly Back With A Vengeance.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled NHL.com’s Frozen Moment For 5/1/08, by MPR529.

I’m Twenty Nine Today

For the thirteenth straight year, bitches!

From whence came the art:

That cameraphone snapshot is of Shakespeare, and was taken by Little John.

Licensed Driver

Kay passed her driving exam today, and can now legally drive herself around without me.

I sent her to the grocery store. (Not really, but I’m going to.)

She’s out on her first solo now, gone to visit her Mom at work. I’m so proud, and so damned old.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Entering Hyperspace, by Éole

Teach Both Sides

Expelled Exposed

The Hockey Gods Reward You

“…but I give him so much credit because he has just kept playing as hard as he could every shift and when you do that, very often the Hockey Gods reward you.”

Buh Bye Caps

It was game seven.

It was tied three games to three.

The score was two to two.

It was overtime.

It was win or go home.

The Caps went home.

Buh bye Washington Capitals. See you next year.

Next up: The Habs.

That image is titled Playoffs Center Ice, by The700Level

Meet Anton Plattner

This good looking chap happens to be my great great grandfather, Anton Plattner.

He was born about 1846 in either Austria or Germany, depending on when you asked him. The borders were a bit fluid at the time, and his English was never very good. When speaking to my grandmother, he always said “The Black Forrest”. He came to the United States in 1869, and came alone. He didn’t talk at all about his family or childhood, though when asked about his limp he said he’d been “shot in the war”. Timing would suggest that it would have been the Austro-Prussian War.

Yes, Grandpop Plattner is a member of The Brick Wall Gang. I’ll forgive him though, because he’s such a handsome devil.

He married my great great grandmother, Catherine Neusslein, in 1877 in Philadelphia, and they cranked out nine little rugrats, though only five lived to adulthood. Catherine herself was born to immigrant parents from Germany, George and Mary (Grasser or Groesser) Neusslein.

Sadly, in 1886, a pair of fraternal twins, Frank and Lizzie, died in or shortly after childbirth. I haven’t yet found the birth or death records for the other two children who died in infancy. My grandmother told me that Catherine had been permanently crippled while giving birth to the twins. She assumed that was Frank and Lizzie, but it’s possible that the incident occurred during the birth of the other two children, which may have been later.

Grandpop Plattner’s story is continued below the fold…

Expelled Tanking Quickly

Currently floating around 8% 7% 6% 5% and nose diving at RottenTomatoes, critical reviews are beginning to come in for Ben Stein’s “documentary” Expelled.  (ETA - back up to 9%, on the strength of a review by Christianity Today.  Yep, All Science So Far!)

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “Typical of all propaganda, it also distorts language.“

The New York Times: “One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “a slick but intellectually dishonest documentary “

E! Online: “A flunkout of a documentary, this features Ben Stein….Stein’s credibility is blown on this poorly constructed diatribe, and you’d be smart to save your bucks.“

Seattle Times: “A hard-core, fundamentalist bit of right-wing propaganda”

Kalamazoo Gazette: ” ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ (PG) — Ben Stein stars in a controversial satirical documentary asserting that ‘intelligent design’ (creationism) advocates are being persecuted. Rave Cityplace 14, Kalamazoo 10, Lakeview Square Cinema in Battle Creek. Grade: F”

Orlando Sentinel (my personal favorite so far): “…a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they’re losing the ‘intelligent design’ debate because of academic ‘prejudice.‘ “

Further down:

“Shockingly, the ‘experts’ Stein hurls against evolution are disgruntled, under-credentialed academics dismissed from lesser colleges, they say because they say they wanted to teach creation rather than science. Other ‘experts’ in the film come from anti-evolution ‘think tank’ cranks.“

Actually, it’s only shocking if you haven’t been following the shenanigans of The Intelligent Design Creationism Hoax for more than five minutes.

One more little bit from the Sentinel:

“Expelled relies on the viewer’s inability or unwillingness to wrestle with a complex corner of science, double-talking its way toward a ‘must be a miracle’ solution to anything that science may not claim to have an answer for. Dismiss that for having no basis in fact, and you’re infringing on ‘academic freedom.’ “

Edit to add my new favorite review, from FlickFilosopher:

“It’s apeshit crazy nuttiness right from the opening moments of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, as imagery of Nazi atrocities and the terrors of life behind the Berlin War are smugly deployed in a demented attempt to editorialize away basic scientific fact. And in a saner universe than the one in which we live, you could scoff at Stein and dismiss him and not give this propagandistic nonsense another thought.“

Even their target audience is panning it outright.

Nell Minow, the Movie Mom at beliefnet: “he should understand that freedom of speech also guarantees the freedom not to have to listen to mangled, manipulative, and disingenuous rhetoric like this.”

Ouch.

For the actual lowdown on this piece of third rate garbage, pop over to the National Center for Science Education’s website at ExpelledExposed.com.

HT - Carlsonjok and Rich Hughes at AtBC

That image of Dr. Dr. NeinStein is titled Dr. Dr. EvilStein and is used with permission, courtesy of Quidam at AtBC. (I even have the latest version before the boys at AtBC do.)

Expelled Exposed

There are few things in the world that annoy me more than liars and propagandists.

Expelled Exposed

Hello. My Name is John Smith. I Hope You Die.

I’m an addict. I’ve occasionally found the will to put my addiction down for several months at a time, but I always pick it back up. I can’t help it.

It always starts the same. Someone in the family dies, or has a baby, or gets married and I’m just going to take that one little hit. I can handle it. I’ve been clean for months, one little hit won’t hurt. I’ll put it right back down.

Weeks later, it occurs to me that I’m hooked again, and I’m planning my life around my addiction. I’ll quit tomorrow. Right after one more hit. John Smith is waiting, and I have to find him. I hate John Smith. He wants me addicted. He thinks it’s funny. I’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.

So’s his buddy, James Shackleton. Actually, there’s a whole gang of them. John and James hooked up with Tom Bancroft and Priscilla Sutcliffe and started a little gang of zombie pushers who keep me coming back. There’s hundreds of them now. They call themselves The Brick Wall Gang, and they span continents.

I hunt them like Buffy.

(Continued below the fold.)

Hate it too.

I agree with JanieBelle (which is less often than one might expect). I’m just going to repeat what she said exactly, word for word:

I log on. I start Firefox. I see my front page. I love it. I go to my WordPress Dashboard. I turn off the computer. Every. Single. Day.

In a million years, I could not deliberately design a better example of how to utterly and completely ruin a piece of software.

I’m turning the computer off now. Right after I figure out where the hell they put the publish button.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Retrete, by Daquella manera @ Flicker

Long, Long Ago In a City Far, Far Away

What does Ben Franklin have in common with George Lucas?

A museum in Philadelphia.

We went to visit Diana and Wonderman (and little WonderDude) in Philly this past weekend, and while there, visited The Franklin Institute. The Franklin Institute is the coolest Science museum in the universe, and it’s always a treat to go. One of the most famous permanent exhibits is a huge model of a human heart that you can walk through, following the path of the blood. There are a gazillion other cool things to see and do, lots of stuff for kids of all ages to touch and play with, an IMAX theater, a skybike, the list goes on.

But this trip was a little extra special for a bit of a return to my childhood. For a short time, the Franklin Institute is being visited by the traveling Star Wars exhibit. I took some pictures, but my little digital camera takes pretty crappy pictures indoors. I’ve done the best I can to enhance them for you. I’m a good host like that.

Head below the fold to check out the best of my pictures of some of the props from the Star Wars movies, and click them for really big versions.

Thanks for All the Squirrels

or, Lessons from Lawrence County.

It’s an intricate business, writing an obituary. My father-in-law left for California last week, but not before he passed on some priceless wisdom. I’ve been honored to write the obituaries to be read at both Mom and Dad’s funeral, but there’s only so much that can be stuffed into an obituary. There’s so much about a person that just won’t fit. There are so many lessons and stories that can’t be easily compressed into a two minute reading, and those lessons and stories are much too valuable to be lost. Things like how Dad taught me to hunt squirrels out on the back forty (which was more like the back seventy-two plus the adjoining properties). And like squirrel hunting, there’s a bit of an art to it.

Y’see, you can’t just pick up a shotgun and walk out into the woods and expect to come home with a bag full of squirrels. You have to know what you’re looking for, where you’re going and how to get there. You have to know what to take along, what to leave behind - what’s safe to ignore, and what can kill you.

The first thing you do is scope the territory out ahead of time. You have to know where you’re going, and where you’re going is wherever the squirrels are.

Gone to Say Goodbye

I’ll be gone for a few days.

It’s the Little Things

(I’m crossposting this from a post I wrote at BlueNC.)

I found a little something to smile about in an otherwise disappointing Letter to the Editor.

From yesterday’s Jacksonville Daily News, there is a rather disheartening Letter to the Editor entitled Politics run amok cancels blood drive.

From the title, I guess it was obvious that the ending would not be a happy one.

If I’d Have Known You Were Coming

I’d have baked a cake.

(UPDATE: As the updated image would indicate, I’ve had a change of heart about the BlueNC blog, and can no longer recommend it in good conscience. See here.)

Welcome BlueNC community members. I was a little surprised at the welcome and the link love on the front page there, so let me first say, “Thank you”.

Have a look around. There’s a section on the right side bar called “Some Personal Favorites” that contains some things I’ve written that are… well… personal favorites. There’s some information about me and this blog here on this post. The Incident of the Red Dress is documented mostly under the tag Aunt Helen, if you’re interested in seeing me in a dress. I hope you are brave. The deep background on that incident is over at UDoJ.

That ought to keep you busy for a while, so pull up a chair and relax. Feel free to get half lit and post a comment. Say hello.

For the rest of you who happen by here from time to time, I’ve recently reacquainted myself with Thomas Brock’s blog, called Bloviations, and a link there led me to BlueNC, a community political blog. I’ve been reading there to become more familiar with the political scene here in my little corner Down East.

You might have also noticed I’ve done a little rearranging to accommodate the Atheist Blogroll (bottom of the left sidebar) a little better, and I’ve added a few blogs to the Monkeysphere.

Afarensis is a great anthropology blog at ScienceBlogs, and Bob O’H has moved Deep Thoughts and Silliness onto the Nature network. I found out that Dr. Gary Hurd has a blog to which he occasionally posts, and you might take a moment to visit Stones and Bones and encourage him to write a little more often.

Natasha Yar-Routh has returned to the blogosphere at A Gender Queer View and by the way, who the heck knows where Kevin went?

From whence came the art:

That visual commentary on the BlueNC blog is my own work on their logo, and would fall under fair use.

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

So I often wonder if I’m totally sane. I don’t hear the Voice of Metatron in my head or anything. I don’t really have three people living in my head, although it seems that way sometimes.

But maybe I do have three different aspects of my personality in there. Maybe that’s the real advantage to having the girls around. Maybe that accounts for why so many people think of us as three separate individuals.

I’m a lot like JanieBelle in some ways, or I guess more accurately stated, she’s a lot like me in some ways. She provides a vent of sorts for a portion of my personality. Overtly sexual yet oddly demure and coy about some things from time to time. Opinionated, informed but still not thoroughly educated. She certainly won’t suffer a fool to continue in foolishness. That part is probably least like me. I’m more likely to allow a creationist (for example) to drone on an on for a while before I step in and say something like, “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you? Get an education.”

I’m pretty liberal with the swear words at home, more like Kate. I tend to use them less in public out of appropriateness, but I won’t avoid them if I find them useful. I don’t really care much about whether what I say offends people. Don’t think you’ll like my answer? Don’t ask the question. Disagree with me? That’s your fault.

Kate doesn’t say much or blog much, but kind of reads and learns. She’s less articulate, more forceful.

It’s funny how different people who know us all have preferences. Some folks address me when emailing, some JanieBelle. I try to accommodate whoever is writing and answer in the appropriate voice. Mostly it seems that JanieBelle gets the most play. I’m not jealous of that, though I’ve been asked if I am. Hey, she’s pretty attractive, I understand. I think of that as a pretty major compliment, actually.

Having the girls around gives me this place, though. All the craziness and the politics and sex and what-have-you going on over there gives me a quiet place over here. Here I can be mellow and talk about my kids and my dreams and nightmares, memories and my extended family. I like this place.

I’m glad I was talked into keeping them both around after the gag was over.

Am I nutso? Probably.

But I’m OK with that.

From whence came the art:

That photograph is titled The Voices Are Back!!, by goodnight_photography.

Medical Merry Go Round

It just doesn’t seem to end sometimes, y’know?

So both kids were out of school most of last week, sick. JP had some sort of stomach thing going on, Kay a virus exhibiting different symptoms. Kay was bad enough that we took her to see Doc Pace. Love that guy, btw. He checked her out, did a throat culture (which is where the worst of the symptoms where rearing their heads), gave her some antibiotics on the chance that it might be bacterial rather than viral. He was pretty sure it wasn’t strep or mono, at least.

She gets better by Friday and goes to school, James not so much.

He’s feeling better by Monday and goes to school, Kay finishes the course of antibiotics and begins to feel worse again.

Yesterday, I pick JP up from school, and he’s dragging ass getting to the car. He gets in and I say, “Yo, there are cars behind me with kids to pick up, what’s up with you?” He’s wincing in pain.

Now, he’s still wearing the boot from the ankle fracture he got at the end of football season so he’s not supposed to be on his skateboard or anything, but… yeah, like that would really stop him anyway. I figure he’s found a way to injure himself while on the field trip, undoubtedly doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“My side hurts.”

“Where?”

“Right here.” He points.

“OK, we have to go to the hospital.” Kay’s home sick, I’m trying to get some writing done, I had not really anticipated appendicitis when I planned my day. I was in my PJs.