The Chron gave Theatre Rhino's Family Jewels: The Making of Veronica Klaus a second hugely positive commentary in the Datebook today. The story by Edward Guthmann is the first of a series on transsexuals and the transgender community. Guthman quips: 'Family Jewels,' playing at Theatre Rhinoceros until April 1, might be subtitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Ask About Transsexuals But Were Afraid to Ask. But, it's clear from the whole article that show and Veronica are more than an educational lecture.  They're fun, revealing, and ultimately very human. More on the Rhino show from their website (which is one I [...]

Only 10,000 people rallied against the war today in San Francisco.  "Only" because that number sounds low given the widespread distress with the Administration's war execution and the go-it-alone tone of the foreign policy.  Neither plays well in this progressive city with our strong internationalist community. The live coverage of the speeches and march reminded me why I didn't consider going.  Along with the comments on the war -- the stated purpose of the event -- the reports told of the speakers and placards that:castigated the management of San Francisco hotels who are in a labor dispute with the lower-level [...]

Low-key, reasonable, and slightly cynical were not the adjectives I expected to use to describe Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff when I started off to the Commonwealth Club speech this morning. He was just those things. Chertoff several times himself brought up how the government could make the country much safer, but only by a dramatic disregard for civil liberties.  He talked about trade-offs, managed risk, and focusing on the true horrors of terrorism while acknowledging that there were holes which would let some bad things happen.  Complete safety, he said, would be possible only if we transformed America into [...]

Folks are showing up at our church saying that they found us by taking an online quiz. Statements like that bring out my old fogginess. I see someone hunched over a keyboard, working through a meme, and discovering that they channel Star Trek's Captain Kirk. Then they click to the next test and find out they are a Unitarian Universalist. Some unevolved part of my inner mind is screaming, "Things aren't done that way!" But, of course, they are done that way and have always been done that way. My mother's generation could not have decided to check out a [...]

My Oregon friends tell me that Bend, in the central part of the state, is a new hot spot for outdoor recreation. Hiking, skiing, fishing, golfing... all kinds of healthy, outdoorsy stuff going on there! This week I published version 1 of a web site for a Bend vacation rental home. I think the site looks pretty good, although I'd appreciate comments and suggestions. I confess to having some writers block as I wrote the copy about the near-by recreation opportunities.  Hiking is something that I indulge, but skiing, fishing, and golfing?  They're just not on my list. I think I'd [...]

Kudos to Theatre Rhino for getting a nice mention in the Chronicle's SF Gate for their current production, Family Jewels: The Making of Veronica Klaus. The Chron is notoriously fickle and doesn't show up for a lot of local theater events.  Many productions and theaters aren't reviewed simply because the Chron doesn't even send a reviewer. It's a coup to even get a bad mention.  The show has to be special to get a good mention!

I find it especially disconcerting to have to pigeon-Indian my way through my customer service request when I'm calling an iconic American institution.  But, "Phyllis" at Smithsonian magazine was not a native English-language speaker. It kinda feels like everything is for sale and we're even outsourcing our culture. 

I am not a big fan of the self-righteous sport of publicly answering "What would Jesus do?" to a host of modern issues.  Too obviously spiritual thought is glaringly missing from the self-serving pronouncement that follows. But, I did find myself wondering this morning "What would Muhammad do?"  I am no student of Islam.  But, I have a feeling that a prophet of any stripe would be in a state of dispirited weariness. I am no prophet.  But, I am in a state of dispirited weariness.

I guess if I read that Scrapbook offers "Full integration with your LiveJournal" enough times, I'll get it. Even if big words sometimes puzzle me. The latest version of Semagic got me to figure it out.  The version change notice touted the ability to copy an image to the PC clipboard and paste it into a LJ entry. (Semagic first saves it on my disk and then points to it as file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Galen/My%20Documents/file2.png . When it's uploaded, the image URL gets changed to a Scrapbook URL.  ) I haven't figured out a way to view all my LJ post pictures in [...]

Irresistible quotations about our modern Aaron Burr