Quick Note

I feel like maybe I don't say this often enough or loudly enough, but I am tremendously grateful to be married to Beautiful Wife. 

Also, our President is fucking delusional

I mean, if you've been paying any attention at all this isn't a surprise; dude can barely string a coherent sentence together. But here in his second term (and for that matter during his re-election campaign -- and I'll never forgive the media for glossing this shit over) he's been showing pretty obvious signs of adult-onset dementia. And unlike Reagan, he's neither contained enough to hide it nor surrounded by halfway-sensible advisors who can keep things running semi-smoothly anyway. He's too public, too much of a TV personality, and the fact that he's coming completely unzipped is just... right out there in public. 

By the time this hit the rest of social media, Iran was firing missiles at Israel again. Dude is literally just hallucinating heroic victories for himself. (I'm really hoping that this is a hoax and he never actually posted any such thing, but as far as I can tell that isn't the case and he's really just this far gone.) 

I.

Am.

So.

Tired. 

Annnd then we bombed Iran

So, to be clear: the U.S. is once again committing war crimes by attacking a sovereign foreign nation -- in this particular case, because Israel decided to commit war crimes by attacking a sovereign foreign nation, but I swear to fucking God this happens every single time we get a Republican president in office and I'm going to really need people to quit electing these assholes. 

And by all accounts it was an amazingly sophisticated tactical operation, which is almost a shame since the strategy behind it appears to be 100% bullshit all the way down. Current reports -- the ones that aren't just idiotically repeating the White House's claims, anyway -- suggest that we probably didn't destroy any fissile material, we don't currently know where Iran's supply of it even is, and we've given them a splendid rationale for actively creating nuclear weapons of their own. No point in non-proliferation if the nations making treaties with you are just going to turn around and attack you anyway. 

Plus, we've got our own secret police -- what else can you call them when they show up in masks and refuse to identity themselves in any way? -- kidnapping and disappearing American citizens, legal visitors to the country, and the "good ones" who are seeking legal citizenship while the President is basically trying to sabotage the State of California by pulling the National Guard away from firefighting and having them sit around with their thumbs up their asses in Los Angeles instead. A president whose chief of staff -- the guy currently vetting security for basically the entire Executive Branch -- apparently hasn't submitted any of the paperwork to get vetted himself and probably isn't at all who he says he is. And that's after the unelected druggy billionaire and his cronies got turned loose to data mine government data -- data that's now almost certainly in the hands of anybody who wants it, because these guys have a worse sense of operational security than my younger son did at age six.

I'm so tired. Angry, but also so tired. And I really don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that's it's going to take the country forty years or more to recover from this assault; with this much damage done, we're going to have to rebuild the federal government from the ground up -- and without the collected institutional knowledge of how it used to work. 

On the bright side... My family's healthy, the boys are happy, we aren't struggling for resources (yet -- the tariff bullshit has a pretty long fuse, and disappearing farmworkers is going to have effects downstream sooner or later) and nobody is currently bombing our suburb. If I didn't give a shit about other people, it'd be pretty easy to pretend everything was fine. 

Challenge: Karma

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Do you believe in Karma? Why or why not?

Easy answer: I don't believe in Karma. Not in the colloquial sense of, "If you do bad things then bad things will happen to you," and not in the more esoteric sense of "The weight of the good and bad things that you do in this life will determine what sort of life you will be born into next time around." Though if the latter version is true, then I can only hope that I have worked hard and advanced my soul enough to be reincarnated as one of my family's housecats.

As for the Why or Why Not? Well... look around. The super-rich are some of the most horrible, exploitive, damaging people on the planet, and they sure don't seem to be suffering much in the way of consequences for it. Whereas some of the best people I know seem beset on all sides with problems that aren't their fault and are frankly beyond their control. 

That said... I do think that actions have consequences. I think that, in general, if you show yourself as untrustworthy, over the long term people aren't going to trust you. If you're a hateful, abusive person then over the long term people aren't going to want to be around you. But that's not Karma; that's just... people.

Challenge: Memorable Advice

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: A piece of advice I'll always remember

I'm not sure this technically counts as advice, but at one point I was sitting with a Tai Chi instructor in a living room in Australia... Okay, right, maybe some background is in order here. 

Ages ago, I got involved with an online writing/roleplaying site for Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time called The Grey Tower. At the time, I was still doing a fair amount of martial arts, in particular Tang Lang (Praying Mantis) Kung Fu. (Northern Praying Mantis, if you're enough of Kung Fu geek to be curious.) So one of the things I did was help help people develop their ability to write believable fight scenes. And, as a result, periodically I'd get asked for advice about studying martial arts in real life. 

I'm actually weirdly proud of being able to help with that. One kid was asking about learning swords, and I suggested a couple of things including Aikido, since I thought that it would be an easier sell for his single mom if he could find a good local teacher. He did, and a couple of years later I got a nice email back as he was finishing high school saying that he and his friend had gotten as far as brown belts in Aikido, and thanking me for recommending it. 

And this was similar, except that it was an adult woman in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, and Tai Chi, and an American instructor that she'd convinced to fly in and hold a seminar on using the jian, which is commonly referred to as the "Tai Chi sword". And, of course, as the person who'd helped her make the connection, I was invited also. So Beautiful Wife and I flew down, and I attended a lovely and very educational seminar on swordsmanship while Beautiful Wife (who was pregnant with Firstborn at the time) mostly played tourist. 

So that was how I ended up sitting in someone's living room in Australia watching unrelated swordsmanship videos with a very accomplished Tai Chi instructor. And I forget exactly what it was that prompted it, but at one point I wound up saying, "With no offense meant to your wife, I married the best woman ever." 

He said, "Every man should feel that way about his wife." Which isn't advice, exactly, and I suppose could be stated more generally, but still: it's stuck with me over the years.

Everybody should feel that way about someone in their life.

Weekends are restful, and other delusions

 So... I think I might be getting my sleep schedule back on track. And I'm keeping up with Duolingo, which is perhaps more of an amusement than a practicality at this point, but still worthwhile. And I managed to run a (short) D&D game for (most of) the youth D&D group, so we're getting that back on track too. And really, the weekend was calm and restful and... {snicker} restorative and.. {guffaw} relaxing...

So over here in Reality, Secondborn skipped his meds on Saturday, which makes us crazy but also means he has an appetite. He had a hearty breakfast, a good lunch, a solid dinner... and by evening, he threw up a fair amount of everything he'd eaten. Most of ended up in the toilet, at least. We got him down to bed, and he went to sleep. Firstborn, meanwhile, got his COVID booster on Friday and woke up with a 103 degree fever on Saturday morning. The home test was negative for COVID, so it was probably a reaction to the booster, but... Not. Relaxing. Still, a bit of Tylenol brought the fever down and we got him through the day and down to bed for the night as well. I even got a bit of the dishes washed.

On Sunday I woke up a bit after seven -- apparently I've hit the point in my life where I only need about seven or seven and a half hours of sleep. So I got out of bed, feeling somewhat refreshed despite the day's trials, and walked into the bathroom and found that the handle for the shower was sitting on the edge of the sink. 

All right, I thought, in a fit of laughable optimism, we can deal with that if we must. I took my morning meds, and then realized that the strange sound I was hearing was someone whimpering. 

It was Secondborn. He had a stomach ache. He had the kind of stomach ache that was acute enough to lay out him -- which is impressive, since it takes a pretty fair amount of pain for him to even notice. So I tried to get a laxative into him; he promptly threw it back up. I got some probiotic into him, and cleaned out the tub so he could climb into a bath. Beautiful Wife woke up at about that point, and gave him an enema, and he pooped out a solid sphere of poop that I swear to the gods was about the size of a softball, followed by a more poop of more regular consistency. Beautiful Wife cleaned the bathtub after that one. 

At which point he was unmedicated, unfed, and feeling much better: the perfect combination for making us all crazy. We got some more food into him, and then his meds, and finally got him settled in just in time for me to try to pick back up on the D&D game for Firstborn and his friends. 

Y'all... I am so done. I have nothing left. I'm going to drop him off at school, get to work, and try to start sorting things out again... but I'm either going to be dragging, or I'm going to be running on unbroken adrenaline. We're going to have to keep Secondborn on regular laxatives for at least the next two weeks, and we're going to have to make sure he eats. (Part of the reason we hadn't realized he was so constipated was that his ADHD meds kill his appetite, so he doesn't eat enough to have the kind of side effects that make it obvious.) Firstborn made it through Sunday with no noticeable fever, so that was almost certainly a reaction to the vaccine... but that didn't stop it from adding another set of knots to my shoulders. 

The house is a mess and I've done very little about it, if anything else comes up I don't know if I'll be able to cope, and I swear by the dark and forgotten gods that I will stab the first person who suggests that "life never gives you more than you can handle" or any other positive-thinking bullshit. This -- this weekend, the week that preceded it, all of 2022 so far, the last three years of global pandemic and related gaslighting -- has all been a lot and it's a fucking miracle that any of us are still functional. 

So if you're still doing anything, however minor or however haphazardly, just remember that you're doing good. None of us are okay right now, I don't think. And anyone who is, is probably in denial. Take care of yourselves, gentle readers; take care of each other. If the only way out is through, then the best way through is together. Keep the faith; keep staggering forward as best you can.

New Year's Resolutions

Okay, it's here. In 2019, I will:

1. Do more writing.
2. Take better care of myself.
3. Be kind to people.
4. Summon the dark gods from their restless eternal entrapment and plunge the world into darkness, fire, and silent chaos.
5. Learn to bake!

The sum of my life's wisdom

The sum of my life's wisdom, compiled:

1. "I hope to God I'm making the right decision under the circumstances, but who the hell really knows?" is a succinct summary of the entire experience of being an adult.
2. A big part of being a parent is never having time to just go hide in a hole and freak out.
3. Parenting always comes back to the poop. It never really *stops* being about the poop, especially with pets. There is no escaping the poop.
4. Frying pans without fires are few and far between. (I might have stolen that last one.)

This... this is the legacy and the lore that I will share with my children, and my children's children.

Human Nature

I'm beginning to think that a surprisingly large number of problems in our society actually boil down to the fact that a large percentage of the population can't tell the difference between Decisive Leadership and Basic Assholery.

Just make it a priority

A rant on Twitter:

Can I talk about the "Just make it a priority to ___" school of advice for a minute? 'Cause I hate it with a deep, burning passion.

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

Like, my reaction to "Quit making excuses and just start {whatever}" is basically just "Fuck you."

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

Or here's another one: "You just have to make it a priority!" Listen, if it wasn't a priority, I wouldn't be stressed about it. 1/2

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

2/2 It's just that it's one priority among many, which include things like "eating" "remaining employed" and "spending time w/ my family."

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

If the shit was as easy as any of these bits of advice made it sound, we'd be *doing it* already.

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

And I see this stuff for all kinds of things: exercise, writing, martial arts, learning music. 1/2

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

2/2 And just... no. Fit it in as best you can, take care of yourself, do what you can do, and try not to add unnecessary stress.

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) November 7, 2017

Trump is Trump

Meanwhile, Donald Trump -- Donald Trump -- is now the Republican candidate for President. I am baffled by this to a degree that I find a bit hard to articulate; it's one of those things that makes me wonder just when we slipped out of the real timeline and into this bizarre alternate history. Still, Trump could not have secured the nomination if he didn't seem like a reasonable choice to a significant portion of the electorate, and I am not prepared to dismiss that portion of the electorate as merely "stupid" or "bigoted" or what have you.

But -- and again, this is merely my personal take on it -- Trump kind of scares me. And it's not because of his politics; it's because I'm not entirely convinced that he actually *has* any politics, in the sense that normal, reasonable people would use the word. To put that a slightly different way, I don't think he has much at all when it comes to studied, considered views on matters of policy. What he has, I think, is more akin to a sales pitch.

Trump has been a public figure for my entire adult life. During that time, he has always hovered on the edge of being a joke: an apparent narcissist and manic self-promoter, whose primary claim to success was that he was able to keep telling people how successful he was. He has always struck me as the sort of person who would be a small-time hustler with a shady past, trying to get you to buy in on his latest Get Rich Quick scheme, except that he was born into enough money and influence that the usual rules and consequences didn't apply. He went on from there to become a Reality TV star, which strikes me as something that a successful real estate developer shouldn't have time for. He seems to have essentially one strategy, which he uses for everything: lay down enough razzle-dazzle to bring in the investors, then let them do the work and pay the bills, collect the profits and get out before the bills come due, and bluster and threaten if anybody objects. That seems to have served him well enough to keep him afloat (again, given the advantages he was born into) but it's not what I want in our President.

I watch him in interviews, and what I see is this:
1. He thinks of everything primarily in terms of how it relates to him. I don't see that he has any other perspective, or any awareness that there might be other perspectives worth considering.
2. He weighs everything in terms of power balances, and his primary goal is to make sure that he's the one who dominates.
3. He has the attention span of gnat on crack. I can't even begin to imagine him sitting down for an hour-long situation briefing; I think he'd get bored, "take charge", and start giving ill-considered and uninformed orders in the first ten minutes.

Unfortunately, this man has a decent chance of actually becoming our next President... so I really, really hope I'm wrong about all this.

Not holding my breath for a 3rd Party savior

Over on Facebook, a friend of mine asked:

So... Anyone else hoping that a strong independent that can take the best ideas of the right and the best ideas of the left and can actually FIX this country will emerge for the election?

Here's how I see it (and I'm trying to be brief, so this is going to sound reductive and dismissive, but bear with me):

1. The 3rd Party candidates aren't viable. They're getting more recognition as people (in general) get fed up with the limits of a two-party system, but most people only ever hear about them in election years. That means, in essence, that there's nobody on their teams. It's kind of a Catch 22: nobody is going to vote for them because they can't win, but the reason they can't win is that nobody is going to vote for them. We could hit a tipping point where that changes, but we aren't there yet and it doesn't look like we will be any time soon.
(The best way to get there, I think, would be to have people running for local elections under those third parties, and working their way up until those parties really had a base and a following. That... doesn't help us now.)

2. Yes, theoretically, a "strong independent" could announce a platform and run, with or without an actual party; theoretically, such a candidate could even win if they got enough votes. However, without the backing of a party, they essentially never have the resources or the platform to make that even remotely possible; the closest I can recall is Ross Perot, and his campaign took 18.9% of the popular vote and nothing whatsoever of the electoral vote. It might or might not be worth noting that Trump didn't even try this approach.

3. In practical terms, that means that we get to choose between Trump and Clinton. Nobody else is in position to swoop in and save the day. And Trump is... well... Trump. If you're a liberal, he's temperamentally unfit to be in charge of a little league game, let alone the entire country; if you're a conservative, well... I'm not actually going to presume to speak for you, but from where I'm sitting he looks like a crass betrayal of every value the Republican Party has ever claimed to stand for.

There's a meme going around that says that having to choose between Clinton and Trump is like having to choose between Lex Luthor and The Joker. That's actually not a bad analogy, particularly if you think that Hillary is scheming, dishonest, and crooked -- basically, Lex Luthor in a pantsuit. But here's the thing: Lex Luthor might destroy the world, but if he (she) does, it'll be after careful thought, weighing the available options, and carefully calculating the risks and rewards. The Joker, on the other hand, might strike the match just to see how the world looks when everything's on fire -- or because he didn't realize he was standing in the middle of a refinery.

I call this song

So, I've been hearing this song on the radio a lot lately:

I think it can be fairly described as a song about a woman who can't take a hint.

So, I'd like to propose a lyrical reply:

You called my phone again last night
No message left but that's all right
Whatever you are going through...
I just don't want to hear from you

Chorus:
Why would I want to talk to you?
You told me that we were all through
But you keep coming back again
You just can't seem to let it end

I ignore it every time you call
That doesn't slow you down at all
We're over now and I've moved on
But somehow you just won't stay gone

(chorus)

We're done - why can't you let it be?
You're not someone I want to see
I don't care what you have to say
It doesn't matter anyway
That's all you're gonna get from me

(Chorus)

Maybe you hope that I'm still sad
Or guilt has got you feeling bad
Nostalgia's got its teeth in you?
Or maybe all of that is true

I fell for you and I got burned
But that's done now and I have learned
to let it go - it's nothing clever
No one's gonna grieve forever

(Chorus)

Let it end... (x3)

Anybody want to put this thing to music?

Webcomic Artist Adam Ford Doesn't Hate You, Either...

So, I'm back to looking at this webcomic again. If you haven't seen it before, you should probably go give it a once-over; it's instructive, I think, even if you disagree with it. Maybe especially if you disagree with it. Last week, I wrote an extended criticism of a single panel in the comic; I didn't say much about the rest of it, or the overall message, because I'd already read some very good general responses here and here.

This week, I want to write a partial, limited defense of Adam Ford's comic. This is because, while I think the argument he's making with his comic is basically a giant load of bollocks wrapped in a sack full of three-day-old manure, I do think that on one level, he kind of has a point. He says:

I am a Christian who believe the Bible is the word of God, any homosexual practice is sinful, and marriage will only ever be the life-long union between one man and one woman.

But I promise you, I don't hate you.

And I believe him. I don't think Adam Ford hates gay people. Though, as I mentioned in last week's response, I don't think he loves gay people, either. I don't believe he knows any gay people well enough for either love or hate them. And I think that this is a common (and disruptive) problem in trying to talk to people who believe that homosexuality is inherently sinful about why we think they're wrong, and what it is that they're doing.

The problem, at least I see it, is that both hate and love (as they are commonly perceived and understood) have an emotional component. They aren't just a matter of policy; they're a matter of personal feeling. And so, if I try to tell Adam Ford (or any number of people who share his views, including some of my extended family) that their views are "hateful", they're going to blow me off. They're going to discount what I'm trying to say, and (from their perspective) rightly so: I'm accusing them of feeling a certain way towards gay people, and they know from their own experience that they don't feel that way at all. Saying that their views are "hateful" comes across as an attempt at gaslighting.

In some ways, I think this would be less of a problem if they would apply the same standard to the concept of love. I say this because I had a conversation with a Christian not two days ago, in which she stated unequivocally that she "loved everybody" because she was "commanded to do so". Now, that's not "love" in any sense that I would ordinarily use the term; love is a personal relationship, whereas that seems to be using the term as a shorthand for "behave in a loving fashion towards", which (as a matter of moral or theological policy) is not the same thing. Loving someone is a feeling and an experience. Loving everyone is more of a political stance -- it's general and theoretical, rather than concrete and specific. And that's precisely the problem.

The heart of the problem with Adam Ford's (and his ilk's) view of homosexuality isn't that it's hateful. It's that it's harmful. It may be working from a place of love -- love as policy, theoretical love, hypothetical love -- but in real, concrete terms with actual people in specific situations, it does clear, measurable harm. And the problem with their "love" for gay people is that it fails to offer help, hope, or comfort to real people in actual situations (and, very often, far-too-real pain).

That kind of love is only loving in the abstract. It doesn't do any actual good. And that's why I refer to it as "useless". If you're a Christian, and you're serious about loving your neighbor as yourself, then you're going to have to get to know your neighbor as yourself. That's what loves requires; that's what love means.

It takes work; it takes humility; it takes what the poet Keats called "negative capability" -- the capacity to embrace doubt, uncertainty, and ambiguity. It doesn't mean abandoning your principles, but it does mean accepting that some things you thought were carved in stone might actually have been written in sand instead. It means examining the actual situation first, and only looking to see what moral rule might fit afterwards. (This is not, in my experience, the way people normally operate.)

Hate and Love don't make for a terribly good framework to discuss all that. They're too easily misleading, too easily distracting. It's far, far too easy to get lost in theories and abstractions. Take a breath, and let that go. Talk to people. Hear their stories. If they'll tell you honestly what has hurt them (and, far more importantly, what is hurting them still) then listen. Don't just follow the map; stop and take a good, hard look at the terrain.

Then, then, do your best to go forth in love.

Webcomic Artist Adam Ford Doesn't Love You...

This is a response to this webcomic (or, actually, just one tiny piece of it) which you may have seen in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that essentially legalized marriage equality. If you haven't already, go look at it; this response won't make much sense, otherwise. But, if you want to skip that and continue, one panel in the comic says:

"The liberal 'churches' which are now saying, 'Oh hey! God changed his mind and is totes cool with the gay stuff now 4 real!' do not really love you. They want your approval."

As someone who grew up in one of those liberal churches, this is about six different kinds of infuriating. First of all, Adam Ford, I’m not aware of any church, anywhere, that’s saying "God changed His mind." That message just isn’t out there. So either you’re not looking — you’re making unwarranted assumptions about what those liberal denominations are saying and not bothering to do even a cursory check of the facts — or you’re lying outright. Either way, you’re bearing false witness against your neighbors. So that part where you keep protesting that you’re not super-perfect, and even with God’s love and guidance you screw up regularly? Well. You’re doing it again. You’re doing it again right here.

Second of all, Adam Ford, pointing out that those churches "don’t really love you"? Nobody loves people they don’t know. So this actually applies to everyone in your "[fill in the blank here] doesn’t really love you" list. You know what? That includes you. That little red circle at the bottom of your comic with "There’s love here. Lots, actually."?? Yeah, that’s pretty much bullshit. Maybe you have some sort general good intentions and friendly feelings towards gay people, but until and unless you really know them, those feelings are abstract, theoretical, and essentially useless. That’s not love. That's duty, or obligation, or maybe just theological policy.

Third, Adam Ford, if you’ve just finished listing all the people who are, y’know, actually supportive, and explaining why they don’t really love gay people, why on Earth would you expect gay people to think any differently about you? You don’t really love gay people; you just want to tell them the Truth Of God’s Word(tm). Or maybe we should all just nod along, and think No, it’s okay, this guy sketched this out in a cute little cartoon. He couldn’t possibly have any ulterior motive. Is that it?

Fourth, Adam Ford, did you just put scare quotes around the word "churches"? Do you really mean to imply that liberal denominations aren’t real churches, don’t really worship God, don’t do their limited human best to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ — just like you do? Do you really want to get into the "who’s a Real True Christian(tm)?" contest? Are you really that threatened by differing viewpoints? And, if so, why should those of us who don’t share your particular theological views assume that you have anything useful or even interesting to share with us?

The general line from those liberal churches you so blithely dismiss isn’t that God changed His mind. It’s that our understanding is limited, and as far as we can tell we have now come to a better understanding of what God wants for and from His people on this particular issue. In particular, arguing that gays shouldn’t have (committed, consensual, and — yes, a thousand times yes — sexual) relationships does real, measurable harm, and is therefore in conflict with Matthew 22:39, and is therefore immoral and in fact sinful.

They are treating this as a moral issue, just as you are. And they are arguing that you are on the wrong side of the issue.

What, in all of that, sounds like "They just want your approval"?

As you can see, this is a rebuttal to one panel. Just one. For responses to the whole thing, check out Jarred's Open Letter (where this comment was originally published), or Jonathan Nichols' extremely well thought out answer.

Homosexuality and the Bible

These are just some (probably incoherent) thoughts on the Christian view of homosexuality, in relation to the recent Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality.

Does the Bible say that homosexuality is a sin? A lot of people read it that way, certainly. There are other, more nuanced readings that suggest that the "clobber verses" (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, Jude 1:7 in the New Testament) are considerably less certain and/or more ambiguous than English translations make them appear. There's a decent case to be made that what the Bible condemns doesn't really have anything to do with our modern conception of homosexuality at all. Social conservatives, however, tend to dismiss those arguments as products of sinful people trying to make the Bible say what we want it to say, rather than what it clearly says. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that those verses do refer to homosexuality, and the Bible does condemn it.

That's still not a massive condemnation. I mean, yeah, there are some strong words in there (it's hard to see "abomination" as a term of gentle reproof) but even if those verses all mean what socially-conservative Christians say they mean, the Bible overall just doesn't pay much attention to homosexuality. You have to go hunting to find those clobber verses, and they're generally included as part of other discussions rather than topics unto themselves. As something that Thou Shalt Not do, homosexuality doesn't even make God's Top Ten list. Compare that with the topic of, say, usury, or divorce, and you'll find that the Bible addresses those issues much more directly and much more comprehensively.

Yet, as a general thing, I don't see Christians threatening to set themselves on fire if divorced people are given the right to (re-)marry, or calling for civil disobedience if we don't make it illegal for banks to lend money at interest. Even those incredibly predatory payday lending places, which are just about exactly the sort of usury condemned in the Bible, aren't what you'd call a popular topic for Sunday sermons.

And then, of course, there's Romans 13:1-7. I mention this one specifically in relation to the Supreme Court decision:

1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy." Ezekiel 16:49

Just watch...

It's awesome. In both senses of the word.

The march of marriage equality

Watch marriage equality come to all 50 states. Read about it here: http://bit.ly/1LtTaeD

Posted by Vox on Friday, June 26, 2015

A Promotion Within The Family

Firstborn, age 9, has just been promoted to age 19.

Why?

Because Microsoft is being an massive bag full of dicks, and has apparently decided to make setting up a new Windows machine as much of a colossally intrusive pain the ass as humanly possible. Either that, or they've come up with a plan to make the whole thing much more user-friendly, only they turned the implementation phase of the plan over to a bunch of socially-challenged software engineers. But personally, I'm going to go with the "giant bag of dicks" explanation.

Firstborn got a new computer for his 9th birthday. It's both a laptop and a touchscreen, so it's Windows 8.1 -- and setting it up as his computer with his own user account turns out be even more horrible than setting up Windows 8. And Windows 8 was... No! I won't think of it! You cannot make me think of it!

I use Windows machines because that's what I'm used to, because I can generally get one that suits my preferences for less money than I would need for a Mac, and because there a few programs I like -- games, mostly -- that only run on Windows. But if Microsoft is going to insist on making it hugely difficult to install their software -- as they are -- and if their software is randomly going to deactivate itself -- as it apparently does -- then I'm perfectly prepared to abandon their platform completely. I use my computer mainly for 1) Writing stories, 2) music and movies, and 3) browsing the Internet -- and there is nothing that Microsoft produces that's essential for any of those functions.

Listen up, Microsoft. I should not need to have a "Microsoft ID" in order to install your software. I shouldn't need to have a Microsoft ID at all. But if that's too much to ask, then at the very least could you manage to not reject the account that I just created -- at your insistence -- for my son's computer, on the basis that he's too young to have an account?

Seriously, fuck you. Keep this up, and I will shell out the extra money for a Mac. Hell, if it comes down to it, I will learn NFBSKing Linux. You are not the only game in town. You are not even the best game in town. Stop acting like you are.

Jade Helm and the Specter of Government Takeover

Jade Helm isn't really stirring up anything new. It's just providing a convenient lodestone for all the crazy that's already out there. Years ago, when I was driving on the stretch of I-35E between Dallas and Waxahachie, there were billboards -- big ones! -- with pictures of soldiers and tanks. "Could U.N. Troops Occupy Texas?" asked one. (Answer: No. U.N. troops can't keep order in an economically-collapsed country roughly the size of Rhode Island. They wouldn't stand a chance in Texas.) Another sign announced, "Marshall Law is coming!" (I don't know who Marshall Law is; I presume he's the rural equivalent of Judge Dredd.)

There was a phone number. I called it. The minister who answered sounded painfully embarrassed, but he insisted that the Bible said that this stuff was really going to happen. I explained about the need to verify one's spelling choices before purchasing large and presumably-expensive billboards with one's phone number on them. He thanked me stiffly and hung up.

There are people who are genuinely scared of this. (I suspect there are also people who are genuinely excited by it -- or at least excited by the prospect of taking up arms and turning back the tide. I further suspect that a lot of these are the same people.) They may not know how to spell Martial Law; they may not be entirely clear on what Martial Law actually is; they may not realize that the federal government has no need to take over Texas, since it already did so back in 1845 at the request of Texas. But they are out there, and they've been out there a long time.

The Friendzone Sounds Awesome