The Agenda:

Testing the Premise: Are Gays a Threat to Our Children?

What the "Dutch Study" Really Says About Gay Couples

Federal Hate Crime Statistics: Why The Numbers Don't Add Up

Refuting Christianity Today

  Favorites:

Still Life At Sunset

Anderson Cooper and Scooter

Wandering, Wondering

The Aperture of Memory

Easter's Birthday

The First Time I Cussed

  Photo Essays:

The Anasazi Ruins of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Monsoons of 2004

Miracle Mile

Now Showing / Reflection on Hayden, Arizona

Perfect Camera
Wednesday, October 27, 2004

They say the camera doesn’t lie, but what do they know? People who say that believe everything the camera tells them. They will tell you that seeing is believing.

Where theater requires the suspension of disbelief, the camera insists that we believe. The camera is faith-based that way.

But the camera will only show us what it wants to show. It looks neither to the left nor to the right. It only looks at what is out front. It does not scan the horizon; it neither questions nor investigates. There are no cameras in Fallujah, Dafur, or the Oval Office. Or if there is, it is sworn to secrecy.

The camera says, “This is the truth”. The camera says, “You deserve the good life.” The camera says, “Rain tomorrow, and your teeth will be whiter in seven days.”

The camera says, “This will make you sexy.” The camera says, “This will make you worthy.” The camera says, “This will make people like you.”

The camera says, “All is well; nothing to worry about here. Unless you make the wrong choice.” The camera says, “This man is trustworthy; that one is not.”

René Magritte infuriated the world by painting a picture of a pipe and declaring, “This is not a pipe!”

Well, you know, it was not a pipe. In truth, her hair is not really that color. In truth, they are not apprentices for a mercurial New York developer. In truth, they’re not roommates, locked up in that ridiculous house with cameras in the bathroom. He’s not a doctor; he just plays one on TV.

The camera used to put on ten pounds. Now it takes off seven years. But I am still not persuaded. This is not my American Idol.

Because when all is said and done, René Magritte was right: that is not the president. It is a picture of some guy in a suit behind a podium. The president is actually a man who looks just like him, but he’s is not in front of the camera. The president is a man who believes and speaks about the pictures of his own making; his own private camera; his own perfect camera.

His own faith-based camera.

He looks into the camera, and the camera says, “Look – he’s just like you and me.” The camera says, “Look – you can trust him.” The camera says, “Look! Seeing is believing.”

The camera says, “Look for yourself! Would I lie to you?” The camera says, “Cameras don’t lie. You can see it with your own eyes.”

But you cannot see it with your own eyes. The camera is in the way.

Out of Touch
Friday, October 22, 2004

I will be doing my imitation of George Bush next week: I will be out of touch and spending all of my time in a swing state. This is the week of our annual family reunion in Ohio. Chris and I will be spending most of our time in southern Ohio and Kentucky, where we'll be checking out some beautiful Ohio River Valley scenery, and maybe a Shaker village outside of Lexington, Ky. We will also be seeing R.E.M. in Cincinnati Wednesday night in the Rock For Change concert at the Taft Theater. Then we will start working our way up to Akron for the family pig roast and apple butter stir on Halloween night.

I'll have my laptop with me, but I doubt I'll post anything while we're gone. Meanwhile, there are lots of great bloggers on the links page to keep track of, including two amazing new ones to my blogroll. Check out Ajax In The City and Holding the Man. They both are worth keeping an eye on.

We're experiencing a rare rain shower in Tucson this evening. We have the windows open, and it's just stating to get a little chilly in the house – just the way I like it. It feels like a little bit of Ohio in the desert. But I think after spending a full week there, I'll be happy to be back when the week is over. But I'll have a couple of jars of apple butter to keep me tied over until next year.

The Difficulty of
Satirizing the GOP
Thursday, October 21, 2004

If you go to www.whitehouse.com, you get a nasty porn site.

If you go to www.whitehouse.gov, you get the official White House web site, which is just as nasty.

If you go to www.whitehouse.org, you get what the White House web site should look like. Yes, it's satire, which is not an easy thing to do. After all, how do you satirize a farce?

Anyway, go there, laugh, and enjoy articles like this one with the unwieldy title "Mrs. Cheney's Irate Response to Senator John Kerry's Cheap Debate Reference to Her Beloved Daughter's Vile and Repulsive Lifestyle Choice":

But by saying... that... that L Word, John Kerry is trying to get voters to conjure another vision of the Cheney home. A sick, twisted tableau of unnatural perversion, in which our wholesome family gatherings are infiltrated by my daughter's friends: rugby-playing, braless Amazons wearing denim vests and vibram-soled work boots, who shamelessly suckle at one another's leathery, tattooed teats right out in the open!

It's so funny because it's so true!

Mad Props
Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Chris and I went to a great concert last Saturday. Jonny Lang was the headline act, with the legendary Buddy Guy opening for him. If you've never heard either one, you're really missing out. Buddy Guy, in my estimation, gave one of the finest live performances that I have ever seen. I don't think I've ever witnessed a blues artist enjoy himself so much with the audience. He was there to have fun! It was amazing, and there was a silly grin on my face the whole time he was on stage. And yes, all the while he was playing the blues but you know, the blues isn't all about being sad and low down. It is about going on and living despite it all.

Jonny Lang turned in a great performance as well. He's only 22 years old (he recorded his first album at 15!), but he has an incredibly strong voice, and he tears up the guitar like nobody else can. He's as talented as just about anybody else out there, and as he grows older his artistry will only continue to grow with him. But already it's amazing that someone so young can play the blues so authoritatively because at that tender age you just know there ain't been no woman who's done him wrong. Not yet, anyway.

Besides he is sooooo cute.

Chris was downright embarrassing. We had fourth-row seats, so he practiced all week getting his underwear off without removing his jeans so he could throw them onto the stage. Fortunately he got it down to 7½ seconds so my moment of shame was mercifully brief.

Okay, I'm only kidding, but this part is true: during the encore we tried to move down in front of the stage but we were stopped by an extra-wide security woman because we were "too old".

That hurt. There were grandmother bikers down there, but we were too old. But no matter what security mama said, I'll get over it because Jonny looked at me. Twice.

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: it's so not pretty when you refuse to grow old gracefully. Point taken. It's not an easy thing to do, this growing-up thing. I've been practicing it for quite a while, but I still haven't gotten the hang of it. Acting like you're 23 at the age of 43 can lead to some pretty embarrassing behavior. It sucks having to be age-appropriate.

Just ask this guy. Former seventies studmuffin Jackson Browne was on the Rock For Change concert broadcast on the Sundance Channel last week. He turned in a pretty weak performance with Bonnie Raitt and Keb Mo. He's just too lightweight to try to collaborate with those two outsized talents, and he no longer has his boyish good looks to carry him through.

It was sad. The poor guy tried so hard to be hip. He really did. He introduced the next act – some hip-hop act (do they still say hip-hop?), and no I don't remember their name anymore because I'm too old myself to keep up with such things. Anyway, when he talked about how much he admired their oeuvre, he used the phrase "mad props".

Yeah! I know! "Mad props!" Can you believe that? What is he, like 57 or something?

I had flashbacks to my father telling awkward jokes to my high school friends in a feeble attempt to be "with it", as he used to think we said. He meant well, but there are just some things that nobody under 40 should try to do, and a surprising number of those things somehow involve language or clothing.

So anyway peeps, mad props to Panchesco for his latest offering, in which his television receiver apparatus could benefit from some bling. No, not bling, something else. I forget what it's called, but it's something cool like that. Anyway, word!

Onward Christian Soldiers
Thursday, October 14, 2004

I've had a very long day at work, and then I came home and saw the debates. This one was much more even than the others, and I have a feeling most of the pundits will conclude that this one was a tie. Our lecturer-in-chief apparently was a no-show, and instead we got a nice calm guy instead. Maybe he took my advice and decided to give some of that Canadian Xanax a try.

Like I said, I had a very long day, and frankly, the first part of the debates was excruciatingly boring. It's bad when the most interesting thing about it is watching that little bit of foam start to form out of the corner of Bush's mouth. Fortunately, he was able to bring it under control.

So, somewhere in about the middle of the debates, I am afraid I will have to admit that I started to doze off. Not for very long, mind you – five, ten minutes top. But then I was startled awake, and in my confusion, I thought that maybe Chris switched channels on me.

Now, you look at these two pictures and tell me honestly that if you ran into them on the street that you wouldn't make the same mistake I did.

Rev. Bush		Rev. Robertson
Jason Reed / Reuters		CBN

I swear, it was all right there. I heard the heavenly choir. And lo, a dove alighted upon His shoulder, and the Armies of Compassion rejoiced. For yeah, though we be divided by hardship and lib'rals, and the enemies of freedom snap at our ankles like jackals, we shall not be defeated by the twin evils of terrorists and taxes. We shall not be deterred by adversity, deficits or logic. We shall overcome the evil-doers – the naysayers, trial lawyers and the media (except for Fox, Clear Channel and Sinclair, of course). We shall not be overrun by nasty Canadian drugs (Oh, wait! We need your flu shots Canada, if you don't mind. Pretty please?). We shall smite them all – for if Tom Delay is with us, who can be against us?

But then I woke up from this half-sleep / half-wake state, reached for another michelada and watched the rest of the debate.

Go vote kids. 'Cuz if they're gonna steal it, we should at least make them work for it.

West Virginia Living
Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Martha Stewart is in prison while Osama and Kenny-boy are free. Feel better now?

Betty Alderson, selling tee-shirts in Alderson, WV.	Jon C. Hancock / AP

I dunno... it could be worse. Alderson can't be all that bad, as far as prisons go. West Virginia is one of the friendliest states in the nation, as long as you don't try to act like you're better than everybody else.

Okay, maybe it will be tough going for Martha after all...

I know West Virginia gets a bad rap. For too many people, it conjures up images of Deliverance. But before you get all hoity-toity about it, maybe you should stop and think: if everything you know about West Virginia comes from a Burt Reynolds movie from 1972 that was actually set in Georgia, then who's really the hick after all?

Martha should take some advice from my brother who just moved to that fair state. He and his family moved to a beautiful mountaintop deep in coal country last summer, and so far they really enjoy their new home.

Anyway, my brother and his family have found a nice, simple home with hardwood floors and a wide porch across the front. It doesn't have a railing, so it makes quite a nice platform. Two weeks after they moved in, some neighborhood kids asked if they could use the porch as a stage and put on a rock concert. My brother and his wife agreed, and before they knew it all of the neighboring families gathered in the front yard with their lawn chairs and charcoal grills, and everyone enjoyed a nice impromptu block party with the kids providing the entertainment. It doesn't get more bucolic than that!

So yeah... that's how my brother and his wife met the neighbors.

Now, my brother has always had a terribly bad case of eczema. He's had it for as long as I can remember. He used to undergo steroid treatments to try to keep it under control. But you can't stay on steroids indefinitely – only about two weeks or so at a time. So he'd use the steroids until the rash almost cleared up, then he'd have to stay off of it for a while. Then when it got really bad again, he'd start another course of treatment. Back and forth it went like this for decades. But since moving to West Virginia, he's discovered that an old folk remedy – a  mixture of coal tar and Head 'n' Shoulders conditioner –  clears it up much better than the steroids ever did.

He's been off the steroids for several weeks now and is doing much better.

So cheer up, Martha. Maybe you can make good use of your time in West Virginia after all. Those friendly folks are full of helpful pointers like that, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind it at all if you use a few of them on your television show when you get back to Connecticut.

Just make sure in the meantime you don't get above your raisings. That'll just make them madder than a wet hen.

Great Scott!
Friday, October 8, 2004

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that our lecturer-in-chief has vowed to steadfastly oppose the Dred Scott decision. Slave owners everywhere are now on notice: you can run, but you cannot hide!

So, the next time someone asks George Bush whether he has ever made any mistakes as president, maybe now he can look back on that stirring speech and have an answer ready.

And when he answers that question again, maybe he'll keep his voice down. I swear, I thought he was gonna call out a few people in the audience for a brawl, mano a mano. Cause, ya know, that's how they settle things in Texas.

After all, it takes a tough president to stand up to them sneaky Canucks. You can't have them slipping their third-world prescription drugs across our border.

Although to be honest, after seeing his scary hyper-agitated demeanor tonight, I'm thinking some Canadian Xanax might do him some good.

Oh, and another thing – Internets?

Be Kind To Your Elders
Thursday, October 7, 2004

Poor Dick Cheney. I know it's probably hard, being undead and all. The memory goes at a certain point. But he seems to think this was his first time meeting his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Edwards.

In fact, we know that they met several times before, including this nationally televised meeting at the National Prayer Breakfast. But then, he didn't get a good glimpse at John Edwards there either.

And yes, yes, it's hard keeping up with this Internet thingy. FactCheck.com, FactCheck.org, yadda yadda yadda. You get the idea. He just wants you to go there so you can see this article about how he didn't benefit financially from Halliburton's no-bid contracts.

Unfortunately, that's not what Sen. Edwards was talking about. Hearing is another thing that goes when you're approaching undead status. Sen. Edwards was actually talking about something else completely different – about how Halliburton worked around sanctions against Iraq and Lybia using off-shore subsidiaries while Cheney was CEO. So if you actually go to FactCheck.org (and not FactCheck.com), this is what you see:

Cheney got our domain name wrong -- calling us "FactCheck.com" -- and wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton.

In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right.

Busted again!

I don't know about you, but I know who I'd prefer to see in the position of being "only a heartbeat away from the Presidency".

Mark Duncan / AP

Rick Wilking / Reuters

In fact, somebody probably ought to check on Mr. Cheney's heartbeat. He barely had the energy to shake Edward's hand after the debate.

Straight-Acting
Tuesday, October 5, 2004

As I was walking into work this morning, a coworker turned to me and said, "Jim, you're always dressed so well, I'd say you're probably the best-dressed engineer in the building."

Uh, thanks. I think.

The best-dressed engineer. That's like being the most sociable computer expert. Or the most soft-hearted Arizona Republican.  Or the most erudite jock.

Engineers are a strange lot. And since I am surrounded by them all day, I work in a rather strange bubble. The good thing about working here is that when somebody says something to criticize your work, you can almost never take it personally because it is nearly always a matter of "does it work?" or "does it not work?" – there is usually not a lot of middle ground.

Technology is nice that way. If something meets spec, everything's great. If something doesn't meet spec, then analysis kicks into gear to figure out what's wrong, whether we can live with it or not, and how to work around the problem. It's pretty easy to define success under these circumstances. There's very little left that's subjective, which is good. Engineers are, as a whole, completely lost whenever there's a subjective goal to be met. They just keep going around in circles, never quite reaching a definitive conclusion because "definitive" implies a hard and fast definition. If one doesn't exist, how can you say you're finished?

Although truthfully, it's sometimes entertaining (or exasperating, depending on your point of view) to watch engineers trying to meet a subjective goal. That's when their extreme nerdy tendencies come into full view.

But I have to admit that in this world, I am comfortable with clear and objective criteria on which success is measured. I always know exactly what I need to do. Things go in a straight line until something changes. Then I step back, evaluate the new line, and go from there. It's all pretty simple that way.

Of course, this is why engineers make lousy marketers. And this is also why they rarely are renown as great lovers. Or even good dressers. Or even good at personal hygiene in general. It's all too subjective.

But there's another side to me. I'm an Aquarius, which if that means anything, it's supposed to mean that I'm subject to sudden flights of whim and fancy. But in truth, I think my inner Aquarian is in a constant battle with my inner Engineer, with the result falling somewhere in between, in an ill-defined region between the left brain and the right, where the logical order of the universe is observed through a multifaceted looking glass, revealing new points of reference at every glance.

So in the end, I'd like to think that I'm not a typical engineer. In fact, I'd like to think that if I hadn't told you that I was an engineer, you'd assume that I was an ordinary person. Maybe it's me and my internalized engineeraphobia, but I work hard at appearing straight-acting whenever I'm around my non-engineering friends. After all, the last thing I need is to be shouted out in the crowd: Hey you! Geer-head! Yeah, I'm talking to you!

So I enter the building every morning in a nice button-front shirt, dress pants and good shoes. No sneakers, jeans or tee-shirts for me. That way, when I'm away from work, my non-engineering friends won't think there's anything, you know, funny about me.

So, here I am. The best dressed engineer in the building, which isn't that difficult at all. It's sort of like being the speediest postal worker. Or the best high-school cafeteria chef. Or the least dramatic gay man.

Which, by the way, I think maybe I'm that too.

◄ September 2004
► November 2004

My Mother Has Found My Blog!
Friday, October 1, 2004

Yes, that's right. A modern miracle has occurred: my mother is back on the internet, doing all of the things that mothers do when they have internet connections. They send e-mail, they surf motherly websites, they exchange jokes via e-mail, they look up recipes, they... they... okay, I really don't know exactly what mothers do on the internet to be honest. All I know that with my mother's level of technical sophistication, I consider it a minor miracle every time I get an E-mail from her. And given some of the problems that she's had with her computer over the years, I suspect she considers it a minor miracle as well.

So now, imagine my surprise when I discover that she found my blog and has been reading it.

I always knew this day would come. And it's okay by me. After all, I rarely cuss, I don't often post pictures of scantily dressed men, and I never talk about my sexual escapades. (See? No hyperlink for that!)

When I talked to her on the telephone last weekend, I asked her what she thought of the website. "Oh, it's pretty good, I guess. You know, some things I like, some things I don't..."

<<Awkward silence...>>

"Yeah?" I say.

<<A long awkward silence...>>

"... The puppy's cute!"

© LookingForSam / Chris G.

What a coincidence! Just as I was toying with the idea of changing the direction of this website: towards all things Twister!

Seriously, it's an idea whose time has come. After all, whenever I post pictures of Twister, my site statistics go through the roof. More people leave comments and gush about how adorable he is. And more importantly, it somehow makes me appear to be a loveable, softhearted soul whenever I write about Twister and post his pictures.

See? Doesn't it make me look soft-hearted and loveable? Puppies do that every time. All you bloggers out there, try it sometime. It works better than talking about sex. If I were single, I bet he'd get me a lot of dates.

Not that I would ever do that, Mom. Just so you know. That would be so very wrong.

So now I can use this blog to tell you about how he's become quite the little grown-up watch dog, protecting our patio against coyotes, birds, crickets and other evil-doers.

I can tell you about his ever-expanding vocabulary and his love of travel. I can tell you about how all we have to do is shout out "Road Hound!" and he runs to the garage door, eager to jump in the car and hit the open road. He loves to travel, whether it's to the dog park, the Sonic drive-in, or an overnighter on a long weekend. He's a great traveler. Sometimes when we get to our destination, he's not much interested in leaving the car. Unless, of course, we're at the dog park.

And I can tell you about how when he goes to the dog park, he only wants to play with much bigger dogs than him. He has no interest whatsoever in playing with dogs his own size. The other dog owners are always impressed that he has so much heart when he plays with German Shepherds and Labs. He has no fear of any of the other dogs in the park.

And I can tell you about how he doesn't mind too much when he has to take a bath after playing in the mud at the dog park. He tolerates it pretty well now, better than he did the first time we gave him a bath and immortalized it in this picture.

So, in short, this blog has a whole new mission. It's all Twister, all the time. I think this theme is something we all can agree on. Especially bloggers' mothers.