I find it ironic that McCain spent ~2 years moving himself toward Bush’s positions in order to make himself more electable, only to find out when he got there that (a) it still wasn’t enough for the Uber-Republican base, necessitating a choice like Palin to mollify them, and (b) Bush had lost so much popularity that among the rest of the voters, the association was now a liability… leading him to trot out the “maverick” characterization that no longer remotely reflects his position.
Halloween Bust
Halloween this year was a bit of a bust. Katie had made herself up as a vampire, and we’d bought three bags of candy, but I was so exhausted when we got home that I flopped onto the bed for “10 minutes” that turned into an hour and a half. But the entire evening, not a single trick-or-treater knocked on our door. Katie saw groups tromp up and down the stairs right next to us, but they passed us by entirely. She figured there must be some sort of signal you’re supposed to put on your door to say, “We accept trick-or-treaters,” and no one told us. So I figure I’ll just take most of the candy into work on Monday. It’ll go pretty quickly.
Generic Store
Spotted this store in Costa Mesa.
I didn’t have time to take a closer look, but from what I can see online, they appear to be focused on making and selling environmentally-friendly clothing made from recycled materials, overstocked fabrics, etc.
Their website doesn’t say, but I imagine the name is a response to the overly brand-conscious nature of today’s fashions. (Ironically, it’s turning “generic” into a brand itself.)
Same-Sex Marriage
Gay and lesbian couples in California have been getting married for months now. In Massachusetts, for several years. In that time, thousands of straight couples have continued to get married, and neither state has been mass-annulling straight marriages. So “traditional marriage” clearly isn’t endangered by same-sex marriage, and banning the latter isn’t going to “restore” the former.
If California’s Proposition 8 does not pass, no marriages will be ended. If it does pass, all those same-sex marriages will be wiped out. If you’re really serious about “protecting marriage,” the clear choice is to vote against the proposition.
Some other things to consider:
This is not about “activist judges.” A bunch of judges didn’t say, “Hey, let’s make it legal for same-sex couples to get married!” They heard a case, looked at the law, and determined that the only thing preventing gay marriage was a law that conflicted with a higher law: the state constitution. That’s what judges are supposed to do. At least Prop. 8 is going through proper channels by amending the constitution instead of just trying to pass another unconstitutional law. Of course, I think it’s a bad idea to inject discrimination into the state constitution.
(While we’re at it, the whole concept of “activist judges” is a smokescreen. It basically means “judges who strike down laws that I would rather stayed in place.” I imagine that most people railing against this decision would be perfectly happy if a group of judges overturned Roe vs. Wade.)
As for children: Let’s not forget that there are plenty of straight couples who can’t have children either, whether for age or medical reasons. Should they not be allowed to marry? How about straight couples who choose not to have children? Should they not be allowed to marry?
And teaching marriage in schools? Shouldn’t a child know something about marriage by the time they start school? Neither of us remembers being “taught” about marriage when we were children, it was something learned through observing and asking parents. And we both went to public school. In different districts. Katie spoke to a fifth-grade teacher recently who remarked that the only time she even talked about marriage in class was when students asked about it, and then district policy prevented her from answering most of their questions. I can only assume that the objection is that children might find out that same-sex marriage exists.
Oh, and that “classroom trip” mentioned in the latest pro-8 ad? It was their teacher’s wedding, it was a creative arts charter school, it was organized by the students’ parents (note the headline that they surprised the teacher), and it was optional. The school approved the trip because, whatever happened, it was a notable event from a civil rights perspective.
To anyone who thinks that civil unions or domestic partnerships should be enough: would you be satisfied with the state saying you could only have something that’s almost, but not quite a marriage?
NBC 3D
[Tonight] we went up to Anaheim to see a showing of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was the new 3-D version, and it was at a theater (Cinema City) that looked astonishingly like the Irvine Spectrum theater on the inside (in decor, not layout), but wasn’t an Edwards or Regal theater. We wondered if it had been built or renovated right before the whole industry went through its consolidation phase a few years back.
There were maybe 12-15 people in the theater by the time it started, all adults. Perhaps some high-schoolers at the youngest. Naturally the pre-movie programming was aimed at children. It’s animated, right?
The movie was good, as always. It was the second time we’d seen the 3D version, which works quite well, though there was one problem with the presentation: This theater uses all digital projection, and the resolution isn’t quite as high as it should be. In scenes with high contrast or fast movement, we could see the pixels at the borders.
Editor’s note: I’ve replaced a rather sparse imported tweet with a more thorough bit from my LiveJournal that I wrote a few days later.
Ragged Clouds at Sunrise
View from our back yard this morning. I had to tweak the colors a bit to approximate what it looked like to the naked eye. It’s still not quite right — there was a bit more pink in it, and maybe a bit less purple.
Sometimes it’s worth getting up at this hour.
Holiday Seasons: Then and Now
When I was a kid, I remember the last few months of the year broke down like this:
- Back to School in early-to-mid September
- Halloween for the second half of October
- Thanksgiving for the second half of November
- Christmas in December
- New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day
These days it seems more like this:
- Back to school in August (July, really — as soon as the Independence Day merchandise goes on clearance.)
- Some weird mix of Oktoberfest, Halloween, and Thanksgiving as “Autumn” or “Harvest” or some such thing covering all of September and October, resolving into Halloween specifically for the last week.
- Christmas from November through December, with a short break for Thanksgiving
- New Year’s
Everything’s crept earlier. There aren’t any breaks between seasons. And Christmas has swallowed up Thanksgiving as if it were merely an appetizer for the main meal.
Seriously… can’t we let Halloween be Halloween? And let Thanksgiving be Thanksgiving? And let Christmas be something special instead of taking up 1/6 of the year?
When Christmas starts showing up before Thanksgiving — never mind before Halloween! — I always find myself thinking of the story about the little girl who wished it would be Christmas Every Day, and found out why that wasn’t so appealing after all.