Tag: Times Union

Recycling my gay marriage/SCOTUS post

The post was featured on the TU’s online Best of the Blogs, and it generated quite a few comments to boot.

I have a blog at the Times Union newspaper, the local Hearst-owned daily, where I write far less frequently, and generally have a difficult coming up with topics there. I KNOW what I want to do here in THIS blog, but after over three FIVE years there, not so much.

It’s the week in late March of the Supreme Court hearing two cases about gay marriage, or same-sex marriage, or marriage equality. The latter term may be preferred by advocates – of which I am one – but the former two are more descriptive. It’s like talking about interracial marriage, which was a marriage equality issue in the US in my lifetime. Most people these days don’t say, “Hey, there’s an interracial couple,” do they? Well, generally not to their faces.

In any case, I thought I should write something, but my time was limited, and I needed something while the issue was still hot. So I went to this blog, found a piece I had written in December 2012, changed maybe a half dozen words, and reposted it on my TU blog.

This turned out to have been a great decision. The post was featured on the TU’s online Best of the Blogs, and it generated quite a few comments to boot. Some of it was about how opponents are always dragging bestiality into the discussion.

One guy, Steve, who was self-described as a gay man, was particularly perturbed by it, and I understood this, possibly in a different way. Some let’s say less-than-enlightened folks have made comparisons between black people, especially black men, and lower primates.

In any case, though I think it ought not to need to be said, I oppose bestiality because there’s no free will on the part of the beast. Indeed, that why there have been rules concerning the age of consent about humans, that one wants to protect a child from being exploited.

Related: there was some argument by Justice Scalia in one of the SCOTUS cases, that if you allow gay marriage, you have to allow gay adoption, and that the science is unclear about the efficacy of that. Except I don’t believe that to be true. The issue of gay adoption was addressed in the amicus curie brief that the American Sociological Association filed in the very case Scalia was commenting on.

Here are some interesting figures from the American Consumers Newsletter about support for gay marriage. And, according to his younger daughter, Ronald Reagan would have supported marriage equality.

Checking the Checking Account QUESTIONS

Do YOU check your bank balance online, and if so, how often?

There was this column in the local paper a few weeks ago about a fitness club that kept debiting someone’s checking account after the person had canceled the service. Terrible, awful, etc.

Then another columnist picked up the story, noting: “As someone who logs on to my bank account about once every week-and-a-half and who makes sure every charge on her credit card statement has a matching receipt, I can’t fathom how an adult would allow this to happen.” And the subsequent commentators also had fun at the victim’s expense, how she should have noticed the $20/month over a THREE YEAR PERIOD. And that’s true, of course.

But in attacking the victim, more than a few of them showed their own idiosyncrasies:
“I check my account multiple times a day and if my checkbook is off even .01 i have to find it.”
“I check my account Every.Single.Day. Even multiple times a day. I even have checkbook register app on my phone. If it doesn’t “add up”, I freak out.”

Since I’ve gotten access to online banking, I tend to check my primary checking account once, maybe twice a week, but never as frequently as daily. Seems checking multiple times a day is a sign of ADHD or at least obsession.

Do YOU check your bank balance online, and if so, how often? Do you balance your checkbook to the penny? I haven’t for years; both my wife and I tend to round the check amount up. For her, it’s a source of secret money; for me, it covers up some automatic withdrawal that I had forgotten that I had set up.

October Rambling

Stan Lee becomes a Jeopardy! category

A sure sign of madness: I’m now participating on the Times Union Getting There blog. Here’s my introductory piece, and you’ll find more along the way.

A Graveyard Of Commerce: Albany’s walled-off waterfront offers a boat launch, some casual tourism, and raw sewage

W. enters a local school board race – in Colorado

For mixed family, old racial tensions remain a part of life

The REAL Way to Get Wall Street’s Attention:

GO to OccupyWishList.org to provide some necessary supplies to various Occupy groups.

Bad Lip Reading – I enjoy this more in concept than in actuality

U.S. Skater Nailed First ‘Quadruple Lutz’. No, I don’t know what it is either, but my wife does.

25 Words You Might Not Know Are Trademarked -actually most of them I knew. But there were a few in comments that I did not.

A segment from Family Feud that came out eight months ago; never said I was ahead of the curve.

Ken Levine answers my question. He’s a TV writer of some note (Frasier, MASH).

And Then There’s………Maude.

The Dick Van Dyke Show Blogathon: In Praise Of Laura Petrie’s Capri Pants (or something like that); the article’s better than the title. And related to D.V.D., the Carl Reiner Tribute at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Obscure 1987 Sitcom Predicted Muammar Gaddafi’s Death Year.

A spider in the lampshade! And speaking of spiders, Spider-Man Swing dances, and Stan Lee becomes a Jeopardy! category.

From Jim Shooter, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics: old Superman Syndicated Strips. Plus Spooky or Inexplicable Events – Directory Assistance. Quite moving.

Nursery Rhyme Comics: Great comic illustrators do Mother Goose

MAD guy Al Jaffee’s greatest fear

Paul McCartney Toasted John Lennon At His Wedding Reception

The Porkka Boys cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Folks from Finland are particularly fascinating to me. In any case, not a wretched excess version, such as William Shatner’s jaw-dropper.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced the appointment of Dr. Anne C. Beal, M.D., M.P.H., as its first chief operating officer. PCORI was created by Congress as an independent, non-profit research organization to help patients and those who care for them make informed health decisions. Anne, BTW, is my cousin.

An interview with singer, songwriter, poet and my e-friend, Amy Barlow Liberatore

Did you know of Frank Kameny, who died this month? You will after you read these pieces by Arthur at AmeriNZ and, and watching this piece from CBS News.

Patti Page recently rerecorded “Doggie in the Window” as “Doggie in the Shelter.”

Science fiction writer David Brin shared this fascinating blog post about the social and cultural meaning of Star Trek

Never say science fiction is just make-believe. We live it every day

(Thanks to JA Fludd for some of these)

I got nothing. Well, except…

Interview of me in Monday’s (Albany, NY) Times Union

I’m just getting back in town from our annual work conference. The Internet connection was not the fastest in te world, let’s just say.

But hey, you can read this interview of me in Monday’s (Albany, NY) Times-Union. Or you can read my intro to last week’s ABC Wednesday blog.

Somebody asked me about whether I had any insight re: last week’s “end of the world” pronouncement. The answer is no. But I am totally mystifed why this particular blowhard got such play; I just don’t get it. At least the December 2012 Mayan thing, I’d been hearing about for a while; the coverage of this one caught me by surprise, given his previous (lack of) success with such projections. I never mentioned the recent declaration in this, or any other blog, previously because I had nothing to add.

That said, I appreciated the insight of a buddy of mine, who e-mailed, “In a twisted sort of way, the Rapture flap reminds me of this episode of The Twilight Zone. “

(Photos courtesy of the TU)

Old Father 2010

I’m no more, or less, disillusioned by politics than I was last year.


So what kind of year was 2010?

I’m still sad that my local YMCA closed. I was a member there from December 1982 to April 2010. I played racquetball there, and occasionally volleyball as well. My attempt to play racquetball elsewhere proved unworkable.

My bike was stolen; majorly bummed by that.

The blog I do for the Times Union newspaper got excerpted in the print edition at least a half dozen times this year. The problem with that, of course, is that the blurb may be confusing to the reader out of context. Still, people actually recognize me from this, which, I guess, is a good thing. I’m notorious enough to be asked to participate in that To Kill A Mockingbird readathon.

I’ve been attending my current church and singing in the choir for 10 years. We got a new choir director this fall. After eight years of stability, the last couple of years were full of transition in the leadership of the choir; hope this guy sticks around a while. I’ve been a Presbyterian for eight years, after being a Methodist – or nothing – for most of my life; STILL learning about it.

I attended no funerals this year; that’s actually quite unusual for me.

After attending the school where my wife works for a year, my daughter is now attending her neighborhood school in the city, and I take her there most days, while her mother picks her up.

We’re going to an international reunion next year, and we all got passports, not just on the last day, but the last 15 minutes, before the rates went up.

I’m no more, or less, disillusioned by politics than I was last year.

When the Golden Globes movie nominations came out, I realized that, outside of the animated films, of which I saw Toy Story 3, Tangled, and 30 minutes of Despicable Me, I saw only one movie for which either the actors and/or the film was nominated, and that was The Kids Are All Right.

My TV DVR is constantly at 75% full, give or take 10 percentage points. I have yet to see an episode of 30 Rock or The Office for this season, I’m weeks behind on Glee. I skipped the JEOPARDY! college tournament. I AM up-to-date with The Closer and Grey’s Anatomy, however.

I have in excess of 140 sick days available at work, a function of being there 18 years.

I blogged every day this year, again.

Johnny B. re Captain Beefheart

I didn’t realize until I saw this TCM clip that THREE members of the cast of the movie Airplane! died this year: Peter Graves, Barbara Billingsly, and Leslie Nielsen.

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