Homosexuality and the Bible, Part 2

Dr. John Corvino is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Ya know fellas, I'm an old man now and it's gotten to be a chore, combing through porn pics trying to find some good ones to post each Friday. Jeezus, I never thought I'd say that, but hey - it could happen to you.

These YouTube vids aren't all that great, I know, but it's the best I can come up with these days. Enjoy.

The Pork Boys Do Thanksgiving 2013

Actually, we had our feast on the 19th due to work and family schedules, but M.P., whose favorite meal is turkey and dressing, did it up all right and proper and totally fabulous, as he always does. Wish you boys could have been there - it was something to write home about, for sure.  Click to enlarge any of these:

Les hors d'oeuvres:  roll-ups of very thin ham and corned beef with cream cheese, green olives, black olives, and the Pork Boys' perennial favorite, deviled eggs.

M.P. put out the lace tablecloth with an undercloth and napkins of golden silk damask, figured with autumn leaves, that he found on sale at the fabric store. He's right good at sewing, and as you can see, at napkin folding too.

The table setting from the side, with a wicker cornucopia centerpiece and the paper chain from our Halloween dinner charmingly redisplayed.

A view of the living room and electric fireplace, all decorated with seasonal things.

The perfectly browned bird, steaming fresh out of the oven and ready to carve.

The groaning board awaits us.

The menu:  turkey, stuffing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, twice-baked sweet potatoes, spinach and cheese soufflé, and featherbed biscuits - made with potato flour, they are marvelously light and delicious.  And of course, some white zinfandel to add good cheer to a delectable meal.

Two kinds of pie for dessert, both homemade:  cranberry mousse and ground pecan.  Lovely.

I hope all my truckbuddies eat as well today, with such good company.

Julia and Jacques Cook Turkey Dinner

Last week, the Pork Boys had a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner - no pics yet but my best friend M.P. nearly outdid himself on turkey and dressing and giblet gravy and twice-baked sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and pecan pie and cranberry mousse pie - and also some extra delights like asparagus spears with Asiago cheese and homemade hollandaise sauce, wrapped in freshly made crepes. Damn, boys - it was some kinda good, I tell you what.

M.P. is feasting with his grown kids and a new grandbaby tomorrow, but I came home with plenty of luscious leftovers that I'm still working on, so I'll be just fine. In case you fellas are planning on dinner guests tomorrow but not sure how to proceed, here's the Pork Boys' two most favorite chefs, Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, to show you how it's all done. Watch it even if you're an experienced cook yourself - you just might learn some handy tips.

Have a good one, y'all.

Marriage News Watch, 11/25/13

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports - this week, with a delicious observation at the very end:

Sunday Drive: Handel, Air from the Water Music

Homosexuality and the Bible, Part 1

John Corvino is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Fifty Years Ago

Yes, I know what day it is, but no, I don't want to write about it. I was there - not in Dealy Plaza, but in 1963, staying home from school with the sniffles and sitting up on my parents' bed watching TV when the first bulletin broke in on a soap opera - and the dark story slowly unwound itself across the screen all that long November afternoon, brilliant with southern sunshine. I remember it all quite clearly, the four days of sadness, and though I did later read several books and many articles about it all, now the trials and tribulations of my own life across six decades have left me too familiar with sorrow to want to borrow any.  It was a tragedy, not a piece of entertainment to be endlessly revisited.

RIP JFK. If the gaping crowds will ever let you.

The Address at Gettysburg

The Address as engraved on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial.

One hundred and fifty years ago today. An excerpt from the Ken Burns masterpiece, The Civil War:

Lincoln's last portrait photograph, February 5, 1865,
colorized by Sanna Dullaway for Time magazine.

Marriage News Watch, 11/18/13

I would post Matt Baume's regular marriage news roundup from AFER here - but I've been trying to open YouTube for thirty minutes now, and I keep getting an error message and a lot of gobbledygook, even after rebooting my machine. Is it just me, or has the end of the world started and nobody told me?

Meanwhile, rejoice that today is the 10th anniversary of the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts, which ordered the first same-sex marriage laws in the United States - and led us to where we are now, with 16 states and a third of the population living in marriage-equality jurisdictions.

Or if that doesn't get a rise out of you, maybe this will - provided as a public service by your Head Trucker:

Update, 5:40 p.m.: YT finally came back to life, so here's Matt.



Should I take down the butt pic now?


Update, 11/20/13:  Governor Pat Quinn signed the Illinois same-sex marriage bill into law today, making Illinois the sixteenth state to allow such unions. Marriages will begin when the law goes into effect next June 1.

Sunday Drive: Grieg, Adagio from Piano Concerto in A Minor

Another contribution from my truckbuddy Tim.  Wait for the exquisite piano part that begins at about the 2:30 mark - lovely.

Waitin' for the Weekend

The Prince of Wales at 65

Prince Charles, who was born on November 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace, celebrated his 65th birthday yesterday in a modest fashion at the British High Commission (read: embassy) in Colombo, Sri Lanka:




After years of wholly unjustified criticism about his opinions on organic farming, environmental awareness, and even the ugliness and dehumanizing effects of modern architecture, among other things, it seems the world - or at least the mainstream media - have finally come around to his way of thinking, judging by the many laudatory articles that have appeared lately in the British press.

Your Head Trucker has always thought the Prince of Wales a very fine man: highly intelligent, conscientious, and deeply concerned about people and the earth. He will make a fine king when the time comes. He is not, and never has been, just idly sitting around, twiddling his thumbs until the crown plops down on his head; as this interview with the Duchess of Cornwall reveals, the man hardly ever stops working on projects to benefit others - which the mainstream media rarely bothers to report on.

The business about Diana, well - all that is over and done now, and life goes on. So I send a birthday cheer of good wishes to HRH from Texas, and I hope all my truckbuddies will join in.

General Motors' Futurama, 1939

Go back to the future at the 1939 World's Fair.

Hawaii Says Aloha to Marriage Equality

Marriage equality is coming soon to Hawaii, as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports:

The state Senate, as expected, overwhelmingly approved a marriage equity bill today, sending the measure to Gov. Neil Abercrombie who has vowed to sign it and make Hawaii the 15th state to legalize same-sex marriage.

An invitation-only bill-signing ceremony is set for 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Hawaii Convention Center's Liliu Theater. The event will be streamed live at http://governor.hawaii.com.

Today's 19-4 vote, while historic, was a somewhat anti-climatic end to the legislative special session that began Oct. 28 and included more than 55 hours of public testimony, followed by two day-long sessions in the House where lawmakers approved the bill late Friday night in a 30-19 vote.

"I look forward to signing this significant piece of legislation, which provides marriage equity and fully recognizes and protects religious freedoms," Abercrombie said in a statement after the Senate vote.

The law will take effect on December 2.

Update, 11/13:  Gov. Abercrombie signed the bill into law at a ceremony in Honolulu this morning, making Hawaii the 15th state to embrace marriage equality, closing a circle that began with three Hawaiian same-sex couples in 1990.

Climate Change = Extreme Weather? NASA Says No

Is the frequency of extreme weather events a sign that global warming is gaining pace and exceeding predictions?

Bill Patzert, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says the evidence that extreme weather events have been more frequent in recent years is definitely to the contrary:




So now you know. Climate and weather - even extreme weather - are two different things.  Besides, as everybody knows - its teh gayz who are causing all them nasty hurricanes and such!

Muwahahaha!

Marriage News Watch, 11/11/13

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:




Meanwhile, the Hawaiian House passed its marriage equality bill on Friday, which goes now to the Senate on Tuesday; the Senate already passed an earlier version by a wide margin, and Governor Neil Abercrombie is eager to sign the bill into law.

Despite the fuzzy video, a must-watch today is this wonderful speech by 24-year-old state representative Kaniela Ing (D-South Maui), who though straight is a solid ally and, among other things, said:

Some testifiers have spoken about this bill ushering in an onslaught of 'gay lifestyle'. And they challenged your committee members: 'Mr. Speaker - would you wish homosexulaity upon your own kids?'

So I really thought about this. If the gay lifestyle they speak of pertains to the highly successful physicians, attorneys, economists, a world-renowned microbiologist and psychologist that we've seen testify - if this gay lifestyle pertains to the inspiringly commited couples who have been together for decades but are still viewed as strangers in the eyes of their government, if this gay lifestyle that they're referring to pertains to these brave people boldly standing in the face of hate to fight for equal rights for all - if that's what the gay agenda will bring - if that's how my gay children will be..then hey, sign me up. I'll take three.

Sunday Drive: Elgar, Chanson de Matin

Recommended by my truckbuddy Tim, who has such good taste in music:

Blitzkrieg on Shooters Hill, London

Happened to run across this 2008 British program, which really brings London's darkest days to life through archaeology of the not-so-distant past. It's what Winston Churchill was talking about when he declared, just after the debacle of Dunkirk:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . . .

Waitin' for the Weekend

Hadrian's Wall

I might have posted this one time before, a long ways back, but it's still pretty cool stuff for a lot of reasons, especially the recovered Vindolanda tablets. If you remember a bit of your high-school Latin, you can pull those up online and give them a read.  Mine is rusty as hell, but still the hair on the back of my neck stood up when I realized I could read a sentence that a Roman citizen scratched on a little piece of wood nearly two thousand years ago.

The Roman handwriting is hell on wheels, though.

Illinois Passes Marriage Equality Bill

A marriage equality bill was passed today by 61-54 in the Illinois, followed shortly thereafter by a 32-21 vote in the Senate. The bill is now on its way to the desk of Governor Pat Quinn, who has promised to sign it. Same-sex weddings will begin in the Land of Lincoln on June 1 of next year, making Illinois the 15th state of the Union to embrace marriage equality.

President Obama, who served for nearly eight years in the Illinois Senate, issued a statement:

Tonight, I applaud the men and women of the Illinois General Assembly, a body in which I was proud to serve, for voting to legalize marriage equality in my home state.

As President, I have always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally under the law. Over time, I also came to believe that same-sex couples should be able to get married like anyone else. So tonight, Michelle and I are overjoyed for all the committed couples in Illinois whose love will now be as legal as ours – and for their friends and family who have long wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones treated fairly and equally under the law.

I also commend the members of the General Assembly for approaching this issue in a fair and open way, and for recognizing the importance of our commitment to religious freedom by engaging the religious community in this conversation. Throughout this debate, they’ve made it clear that this is about civil marriages and civil laws, and made sure that churches and other institutions of faith are still free to make their own decisions that conform to their own teachings.

As I said in my Inaugural Address last January, our journey as a nation is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. And tonight, I’m so proud that the men and women elected to serve the people of the great state of Illinois have chosen to take us one step further on that journey to perfect our union.

Meanwhile in Hawaii, debate on a same-sex marriage bill continues in the House of Representatives, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 44-7. The Hawaiian Senate passed the bill by 20-4 on October 30. The House proceedings have been held up this week by the Speaker's decision to allow more than 5,000 members of the public to speak for two minutes each in what has been called a "citizens' filibuster," consisting of mostly Bible-thumping conservatives. 

However, some marriage-equality supporters have also testified, and the scientific testimony on the genetic basis of sexual orientation provided by geneticist Dean Hamer is well worth listening to:




Update, 11/8: Governor Quinn has announced he will sign the Illinois same-sex marriage bill on November 20 in Chicago.

Marriage News Watch, 11/4/13

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reports:

Sunday Drive: Our House

These guys are still going strong, can you believe? Recorded just last month at the Royal Albert Hall in London.




I never did know how this lovely song came to be, but thanks to my truckbuddy Tim, now I do: a sweet, sad story.

Waitin' for the Weekend

This week, a blast from the past.  Some of these guys were probably just brothers, or friends, or schoolmates or workmates - but still, it makes you think about the closeted lovers of all ages past, and "the love that dared not speak its name."