Thanks to fuzzygruf for mentioning his difficulty getting a hotel room for this year's squaredancing convention in Anaheim. After reading his warnings, we snagged rooms this morning for June 28 through July 4th. Already some of the dates available when fuzzygruf called yesterday were gone (June 26 and 27th). When Hollis tried the 800-number (800 228-9290) this afternoon, the 28th and 29th were not available except at the rack rate of $450/night. They also were booked on the website. Hollis wound up calling the hotel directly and prevailing on them to give her the convention rate of $112 for all nights... but, she is a [...]

It is a criminal offense to use the Internet to "incite subversion," or to "divulge state secrets"...  The laws "safeguard the security of the State and the public interest." I can almost hear Vice President Chaney's voice argue that the President has the Constitutional authority -- and the moral responsibility -- to vigorously enforce these reasonable security steps in the War Against Terror. Except, of course, these are statements from a 2000 position paper from the Chinese National People's Congress on the Internet.  The Wall Street Journal Monday included them in a feature on a program called Freegate which allows Chinese to surf [...]

Who knew? I found out when I received email about it from my church's headquarters in Boston.  Unitarian Universalists were lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts case that legalized same-sex marriages there. The denomination's general assemblies have come out in favor of marriage equality, and our ministers do lobbying for the issue around the country.  The denomination's president, Rev. William Sinkford, is on the Human Rights Campaign's  Religion Council. His essay on "Whom God Has Joined Together" is available on the HRC's website as part of the week celebration. Still, I didn't know there was a week for marriage equality. I bet the cards are [...]

Google Video is featuring Why Macs Suck by Hunter Cressall. Great fun.... especially for those of us who have been pummeled about the head and shoulders by Macophiles ever since they gave up beating the drum for their Betamax players.

Dear Supervisor Dufty, My church, the First Unitarian Universalist Society at Franklin and Geary, houses and supports a free, after-school program for 24 students from John Swett elementary.  The after-school program, Up On Top, has been going on for several years and keeps kids from very-low-income safe and nurtured after their classes. If these kids are transferred, it is likely that they cannot continue in Up On Top. Currently, volunteers and staff walk the children from the school to the church up Franklin Street.  If John Swett closes and the children are further away, we cannot get them into our building. Up On [...]

Gill Gross on the 3 pm ABC network radio news reported on a state supreme court (Florida?? I wasn't listening) ruling that said that the state university had to provide domestic partners with certain benefits. The only hitch, the reporter said, was that the partners had to prove that they were having sex.  Gross concluded, "Fortunately there is no such requirement for married couples."

The old joke has the man who murdered both of his parents beg the court for mercy because he's an orphan. Clarence Ray Allen's legal pleas remind me of that black junior high school humor.  Allen is asking courts to declare that executing an old, sick man is cruel and unusual punishment.  Of course, he's only old and able to be sick because he's worked the justice system for 20-some-odd years.  He's aged to a normal life expectancy since being convicted of murdering a witness to a previous murder he committed.  That he is infirm is a function of his [...]

I'm ready to pronounce the holidays officially over. Drinking mint tea, listening to the light rain on the skylight, cozy on an otherwise damp and darkish morning, I have gone through the stack of late-arriving cards.  The ones mailed on the 23rd, 24th, and even later.  The ones that didn't make our Christmas Eve opening and reading festival. News of jobs lost and found. Pictures of handsome mothers and fathers with predictably, satisfyingly adorable children. Handwritten notes. Typed annual letters. Great stuff.  A happily complete holiday season. Over for another 11 1/2 months.