Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

SOME NOLA PIX

Just back in town long enough to pack and have a job interview (I know!). Meanwhile, I thought my public might enjoy some pix from our trip. Molly and I weren't doing much picture taking at the wedding, of course, so the best pix will probably come from other people. I have always depended on the digital cameras of strangers . . . posted by Carlton at 1:15 PM

Sherry gives a short lecture on marriage . . . or Shel Silverstein . . . or something.   posted by Carlton at 1:07 PM

I'm the new Number 2!  posted by Carlton at 12:46 PM

cold feet?  posted by Carlton at 12:45 PM

showing the rock  posted by Carlton at 12:44 PM

The lovebirds  posted by Carlton at 12:43 PM

I won't be posting for a little while! 

ETA:

Just thought I'd add a bit before going on hiatus. There are some new developments. I'm angling towards a lawyer-type job that would last a little while, and we're having serious conversations about our next steps, professionally and geographically. The wedding is actually the most well-defined part of the whole next several months. We have been trying to nail down the thousand different details accompanying the event -- I don't mind saying that Molly has really taken it by the horns, and I've just been her ignorant helper.

This period immediately before the wedding is really nutty. Anything bad that happens now will be fraught with extra significance: "He had a car accident the week before their wedding!" "He got food poisoning a week before their wedding!" I imagine that a graph of this phenomenon would show the "fraught with significance" level to plateau in this week and then spike sharply on the day itself, when even minor events will seem like omens and portents: "He got a parking ticket on the day of the wedding!" "He woke up and found he had a hangnail on his wedding day!" Then, of course, it will drop off and nothing will have any significance ever again.

Oh, and a note from Carlton Manners: [Edited to remove comment that a person might correctly perceive to be aimed at him- or her- self.]

Ciao, everyone. The wedding is on May 21, 2005, at noon. The Satanic cathedral was booked at midnight, or we would have had it then. We are offering up Molly's younger sister as a sacrifice. posted by Carlton at 9:53 AM

BECAUSE YOU ONLY GET SICK WHEN YOU ARE WORKING, RIGHT?

Here is a link to a post at a blog called Suburban Gorilla (read the one called "National Disgrace") by a woman facing the prospect of losing 1) her job, and thus 2) her health insurance, and 3) her leg from a mysterious illness. I'll spoil the suspense by telling you that she doesn't actually have bone cancer (which is what she feared). But if she DID, and didn't have health insurance, what would she do?

This is a subject close to my heart, as you might imagine. I think it's shameful that we link health care to working at a job a certain number of hours a week -- not only because it leaves a lot of people with no coverage (or paying through the nose for COBRA coverage, like yours truly), but because it is an active brake on business and entrepreneurship in this country. If I were a guy with a great idea for a new business, I would be discouraged from quitting my job at Megacorp, Inc. to set it up, not only because of the financial risks involved but also because Little Freddie Otis Lawless King might get sick and not get proper care because we don't have insurance. And then, even if I get the business going, I will actually have to get into the health insurance business for my employees, paying my share of the rising premiums and facing unbelievable admnistrative hassles.

Makes you think the people behind health policy in this country want to keep the little guy down, at the mercy of his corporate bosses. But that can't be the case, can it? posted by Carlton at 1:28 PM

I DIDN'T KNOW BAPTISTS EXCOMMUNICATED

You may have thought I was kidding about a religious war coming in this country -- actually, I thought I was kidding about a religious war coming in this country. But having just been thinking about such a scenario, this story is a bit discomfiting.

This link is to a local news story in North Carolina -- seems the pastor of a Baptist church there told his followers that, if they supported John Kerry over George Bush, they were against the church and had to either leave or "approach the altar and repent and agree to support George Bush." (The quote is from the video, a link to which may be found here.)
The pastor later said that the move was not "politically motivated." He did not say whether the fact that he is an utter dimwit had anything to do with it, however.

Soooooo . . . that's pretty disturbing. My overriding question here is: who is George Bush that people should identify him with God? Putting aside the questions of whether he's a jerk, a quasi-illiterate, a drug addict, a felon, a deserter, a murderer, and an outright liar -- he's just a man. And take my word for it, he's a man who doesn't really care about a lot of the issues that get the religious right out of bed in the morning: abortion, gay marriage, stem cells. He doesn't care about them at all. posted by Carlton at 10:42 AM

JUST CALL ME CARLTON X

Today's David Brooks Op-Ed in the NY Times calls on, of all people, Lincoln to help us steer our way through the prelude to the upcoming religious war in this country. After telling an anecdote about Lincoln, illustrating the religious conviction of the Great Emancipator, Brooks writes:

Today, a lot of us are stuck in Lincoln's land. We reject the bland relativism of the militant secularists. We reject the smug ignorance of, say, a Robert Kuttner, who recently argued that the culture war is a contest between enlightened reason and dogmatic absolutism. But neither can we share the conviction of the orthodox believers, like the new pope, who find maximum freedom in obedience to eternal truth. We're a little nervous about the perfectionism that often infects evangelical politics, the rush to crash through procedural checks and balances in order to reach the point of maximum moral correctness.

[Emphasis mine]

I have a couple of things to say about this:

1. Who are these militant secularists? My initial reaction was to scoff, because that sounds so much like a conservative straw man, of the same ilk as the welfare queen and Willie Horton. But then I thought about it, and realized that, hey, I'm a militant secularist. I've been secular for a while, I guess, but I was surprised to realize that I'm militant. How long has this been the case? I'm sure it has something to do with the current resident of the White House.

I don't know who Robert Kuttner is, but let's talk about "enlightened reason."

I think that our government, courts and military would work better without any overt references to God being made.

I think that a public school science class should teach the consensus of scientific opinion at the time -- some of it being incorrect, of course, but hopefully the children receiving the instruction will be inspired to find out what is correct and pursue careers in science.

I think that parents teaching their children values at home are infinitely more powerful than teachers in the classroom; that, as a matter of public health, it is vital that children get the basic facts about procreation and STDs somewhere; and that children armed with both school-taught facts and parent-taught values will be far better able to make good decisions than children armed with one or neither.

Is there something wrong with that?

2. David, I know you don't read my blog, because no one does, but give this a listen: I appreciate your revelation that you are conflicted about all this God stuff. I'm heartened that the evangelicals' desire to make every building in the land a church and to burn every book that isn't the Bible bothers you a little bit. I mean, you're late, but I'm sincerely glad to hear it.

But on the day that they take control -- real, unfettered, gloves off control -- do you know where people who were mildly conflicted but figured it could never get THAT bad will be? That's right: waiting for the next train, because all the cattle cars were full on the first one. posted by Carlton at 5:08 PM

GOD PLAYS 'BURY THE BONE'

Funny post here.

Which kind of leads to this sound file, by Bill Hicks, from 1992. (Lots of profanity.)

I kind of expect I won't be posting as much in the near future as I have been. Which is probably better for all concerned. posted by Carlton at 12:16 PM

OVERTURE

I present, for your listening pleasure, a new permalink at left to KEXP Seattle. A correspondant on a political blog recommended this radio station as the best in America, and I can't gainsay that. I've been listening it to it constantly while at the computer for the past few weeks, and I am hearing new and interesting music every day. What's more, they don't seem to play any U2 at all -- so I got my wish!

Listen. Maybe you will get yours. posted by Carlton at 10:17 PM