This AP photo scanned from yesterdays' Chronicle shows the danger of allowing your top managers face the press without proper media training.  A good consultant would have had the Cardinal practice appropriate kissing before the big event in front of the camera.

For the past 10 months I have been on the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist Society's Ministerial Search Committee. I have been reading hundreds of pages of sermons, philosophical statements, and background information from 34 ministers in the effort to identify the one who is the best match for our congregation. The Committee has conducted telephone interviews and reference checks.  We flew five top choices to San Francisco, and spent an intensive weekend with each of those ministers. This morning our eight-person committee announced to the Congregation its unanimous recommendation: Reverend Gregory L. Stewart. I'm excited and delighted.  Greg can communicate a Unitarian Universalist [...]

One of my co-religionists is the attorney for a Santa Rosa blogger who created the parody billboard (left). On March 1, the blogger received a cease-and-desist letter from Exodus International, a religious group that promotes "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."  The original image on the Exodus billboard bore the words, "Gay? Unhappy?" and a link to their website. Laurence Pulgram, the attorney, responded to the letter with cogent intellectual property law arguments, and on Wednesday the counsel for Exodus said that they would drop their legal claims. Congratulations to Justin Watt, the blogger.  And, "Thank You!" to Laurence, [...]

I hadn't seen this before.... Subject: Outsourcing the Presidency Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006  15:10:07 Read the Memo

Wow! Powerful political personal new song by the Dixie Chicks. You can read it and hear it on the Chicks' site. Thanks to campn for blogging about it and them. (And, I especially like his "following the bouncing flag" concept in one of the follow-on comment strings.)

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 [...]