Immanentize the Eschaton

Not even Lord Obama the Most Merciful can help Santa now!

Man, it’s been a busy few weeks.  We’ve had visitors for the past three weekends.  It feels like we’re running a bed-and-breakfast!  The brother-in-law and a couple of friends came down the weekend before Thanksgiving.  My brother and his daughter came down for Thanksgiving weekend, and my wife’s cousins came down this past weekend.  Throw in work, kid’s activities, and the extra housework one has with visitors, and it’s hard to find time for anything else.

i had a good time with my brother.  I hadn’t seen him since we moved to NC three years ago.  He had fun playing Guitar hero with the kids.  We also shot some hoops, ate, and watched a couple of movies.

I’ve been following the news about Gov. “Blago” with some glee.  Yet another “This is not the Blago I know…” from Lord Obama the Most Merciful (LOTMM).  LOTMM had to know how corrupt (both politically and morally) Blago is, since LOTMM was one of Blago’s advisors during both of Hot-Rod’s campaigns.  But the MSM will keep this from hitting Obama.

I know, lame post.  More later (whenever that is)

I just saw a story about eHarmony having to create a “same-sex dating site” to settle a lawsuit brought by a gay man. I was not aware that eHarmony did not allow same-sex matchmaking on their site. It was founded by an evangelical Christian to reflect the values of his community.

Apparently this got Eric McKinley in a snit, and he filed a discrimination suit. Another plaintiff sued in California. As noted above, eHarmony settled the suit; the settlement also included free memberships for gays who claim they were discriminated against.

My initial thought when I read about this was “just who do these people think they are?” My second was that tolerance seems to be a one-way street. We are supposed to bend over backwards to show our tolerance of all “certified grievance groups (CGGs),” even having to go against our beliefs. In the meantime, anyone who doesn’t agree with every point in a GCC’s agenda is a bigot or a racist or a homophobe.

Hey Eric, here’s an idea for you: If eHarmony doesn’t want your business, and you can’t find a dating site that caters to you, START YOUR OWN FUCKING SITE! No one will stop you! You might even make a pile o’ money! You DON’T have the right to force the people at eHarmony to act against their beliefs! You’re being as intolerant as you accuse eHarmony of being. Tolerance is not the same as celebration!

I went out this morning to take a few pictures.  Union County is mainly rural, but the growth around Charlotte has worked its way down (that’s how we ended up here).  We seem to be on the border of rural and semi-suburban.  Here are a couple of pictures:

Farm on New town Road

Well, three Greeks and two Greek-Americans!

My brother-in-law, two fo his friends, and the mom of one of the friends came down from NYC last night.  I made pork BBQ and ribs.  AISOT, the temperature was not high enough to get the pork “pullable”, so it ended up as sliced pork.  Made a vinegar sauce as well as a red sauce.  The ribs were faaantastic!

Val, the moms, and one of the friends have been playing a Greek card game called biriba all afternoon.  Not a real fan of this game.  I watched some of the Jets game, then edited and uploaded some of the pix I shot this morning.

Three out of the four visitors have iPhones.  Sia wants one so badly she can taste it.  She also wants Facebook page, but that ain’t happening!

I have a feeling Val expects me to cook dinner tonight.

While I was eating lunch, I took a quick look at Val’s “Entertainment Weekly.” There was a photo essay on this year’s “Breakout Stars” (or something like that). As I leafed through the article, the only one I recognized, or even heard of, was David Cook (late of “American Idol).

Later I took the Civics quiz at American Civic Literacy (the one that 71% failed). Got 33 out of 33 right.

I must be doing something wrong.

I didn’t have a blog when this was first in the news, but the morning shows, Ophrah, etc. are covering it again, so I’ve got another shot.

A woman has a double mastectomy. She later has a baby (and then maybe another one). There’s nothing special or interesting about it (unless you’re the woman in question). It happens frequently. If Christina Applegate got pregnant, it would be in the news because it’s Christina Applegate, not because she had a double mastectomy.

So why is anyone making a big deal about the so-called “pregnant man”? This is not a biological miracle. S/he was born with ovaries, a uterus, and a vagina. S/he had her breasts removed and took hormones to grow facial hair and increase muscle mass (much like the East German Swim Team). Why is it a big deal that s/he got pregnant? S/he was born with all the necessary equipment! Personally, I think it would be more newsworthy if, after “gender reassignment surgery”, s/he fathered a child! THAT would be a feat worthy of not only Ophrah, but the whole hour on “60 Minutes”!

I guess it’s the freak-show aspect of it. It’s like the Bearded Lady in old-time side shows. Ophrah and Diane Sawyer and everyone may say they’re exploring issues of gender and identity (though personally, I don’t know any men who want to get pregnant), but in reality they know that if they advertise a pregnant man, they’ll get RATINGS. Even if it’s really a breast-less woman who has been taking male hormones.

(And why isn’t anyone screaming about the effect of those hormones on the baby? Or are we only concerned with “the children” in the abstract?)

I had a busy weekend.  Saturday started off with the usual cleaning chores (I get the bathrooms and vacuuming).  Fixed lunch, then the power went out.  I dug out the corded phone and plugged it in, while Val used her cell to check the power situation at our neighbors.  Sure enough, the whole subdiviion was off the grid.  I called Union Power Co-op and got the auto-robot.  I wnet through the menu, reported the outage, and then the robot asked “if you know the cause of this outage, please let us know so we can more easily fix it.”

I used the opportunity to clean up the office a bit, and try to review some specs for work.  The boy was getting restless and tried to call one of his buddies in the neighborhood.  We kept getting the “Your call did not go through” message, so he had to abandon that idea.  I went to Lowe’s on Cuthbertson Road to pick up some shelf brackets, and there were THREE crews from Union Power working on a pole.  They were gone when I drove by on the way back.

The crews were gone, but our power was still off.  As darkness fell, I took Ian to Target to get a couple more lanterns and batteries.  I told him that as soon as I opened the boxes and put the batteries in, the power would come back on.  Sure enough, about one minute after I loaded up the second lantern, on came the lights!  Went out to pick up some pizza, watched a couple of DVR’d shows (Life on Mars; Best Week Ever), and hit the hay.

Sunday I went to H-T first thing (needed to pick up some things for breakfast).  I took the opportunity to grab a couple of shots of the dairy farm behind H-T:

Dairy Farm on Waxhaw-IT Road

Here’s cropped version:

Dairy Farm on Waxhaw-IT Road (Cropped)

Got back, made breakfast (French Toast and Sausage Bake), read the paper (well, the comics).  Helped clean up, then I spent the rest of the day doing yard work.  After a shower, I went over the specs again.  We ate dinner, I tucked in the boy, and made the lunches for today.  Watched TAR, then bed.

Work today seemed slow by comparison!

I was cleaning up the kitchen last night, and the wife was watching the results of “Dancing With the Stars”. Our kitchen is open to the family room, so I heard much of the show.

Now, these shows always need a LOT of filler; they can’t just announce the results, ’cause then they’d have maybe 5 minutes of program. One piece of filler was a segment on how professional ballrom dancers are really athletes, and ballroom dancing is a sport! WTF???

I don’t deny that dancers have incredible control of their bodies, and need to have a great deal of stamina. But a sport? Do they really think that? It’s a competition, but not all competitions are sports! To me, a sport direct, one-on-one (or team-on-team) competition,as well as an objective scoring system. No judges handing out scores (no, I do not consider figure skating, gymnastics, diving, etc., to be sports. Just because something is in the Olympics does not make it a sport). Football is a sport. Boxing is a sport. Track and field is a sport. Ski-jumping, not a sport. And ballroom dancing is DEFINITELY not a sport!

Well, I made it back on Saturday.  The light was better and, on the advice of soem folks on a photo forum, I tried some different angles.  They definitely came out better!

Some farm implement:

Some context: