I'm just a dork with a blog, but this dude is supposed to be a real "writer". So how come he sucks so much?

::sigh::

I just read a very stupid article by Orson Scott Card in the Mormon Times. And I am so sick and tired of people talking out of their butts when it comes to gay marriage. If you oppose it, fine, but at least have the integrity to have real, valid reasons for it, even if your reasons are simple bias or even just a desire to not talk about it. Whatever, I can deal with that. But relying on half-truths and distortions and, sorry, hysteric stupidity, is just too annoying anymore.

So I'll grit my teeth that he likes to put gay marriage in quotations, as though the thousands of gay couples that ARE married in Massachusetts and California are somehow just a illusion. As a matter of fact, I don't like the term gay marriage either, I think plain old marriage is more accurate, but I don't think that is what he meant.

He starts off with

The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.

Oh no! The end of democracy! We are doomed! The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Except that, well, it isn't. Lets see, so what exactly is the job of judges? They look at laws, and either a) decide if people broke the laws, or b) decide if a new law is compatible with all of the other laws that were passed before it. That is pretty much it. Sometimes they decide a very popular law is incompatible with current law like, say, rules meant to deny minorities the vote, or to ban interracial marriages. That isn't anti-democracy. That isn't "judicial activism". That is their job. If we don't agree with their opinions, then there are legal recourses to take: appeals, or in many jurisdictions where judges are voted into office, you can not vote for them, or not vote for the legislators who appointed them, or whatever you want. Forgive me, but that sounds an awful lot like democracy to me.

Secondly, these "judicial activists" in Massachusetts and California were hardly acting all by themselves in a little bubble of activism, forcing their will on the masses. In Massachusetts, the Legislature voted to uphold the ruling. Several times. The same legislature that was voted into office by, gasp, the people of Massachusetts. Which, again, is exactly how democracy is supposed to work. We don't have popular votes on every single question our government has to answer, we elect people to answer them for us. Again, if we don't like the way they start answering, then we have the recourse to vote for someone else the next time around. The thing is, not a single person who voted for marriage equality in Massachusetts was voted out of office. On the other hand, several people who voted against it, were voted out. Sounds like the voters of Massachusetts had their voices heard to me.

In California, their elected legislature voted TWICE for marriage equality. The elected governor vetoed it both times, saying, in a bit of irony, that instead of having the elected legislature make the move, he wanted to wait for the judges to decide. The double talk was pretty silly, but whatever, it was his right to make that call, and if I was living there and was annoyed enough by it I could have voted for someone else the next election. So how do you call the decision by the judges "the end of democracy in America"? They did their job, the legislature did their job, the governor (who is standing by what he said and now opposes the new ballot initiative) did his job.

Even the ballot initiative, which I obviously oppose for all sorts of reasons, is STILL the way democracy works. So, Mr. Card, and all other lazy, lazy writers on morality out there, get a grip.

The rest of the article is similar, and makes me wish I had a valium to give Mr. Card, as his hysteria seems to know no bounds. If I could just use a marker to indicate every time I had to roll my eyes as I read the article, it would be a lot easier. Especially funny is when, talking about the one man, one woman model of marriage he says "These two premises are so basic that they preexist any known government. In most societies through history, failure to live up to these commitments has led to extreme social sanctions -- even, in many cases, death." Why does he mention that? Does he think it is an appropriate punishment? That is somehow bolsters his argument? I'm just curious what he thinks of his own heritage then, was Brigham Young an "activist prophet"? I know, that is just a snark, but c'mon.

Finally,

With "gay marriage," the last shreds of meaning will be stripped away from marriage, with homosexuals finishing what faithless, selfish heterosexuals have begun.

I guess I just don't get this magical meaning some people put into a word. To me, marriage is a union designed to maximize personal happiness, establish financial responsibilities and protections, provide some stability to assist with the raising of children, and so on, but mostly to help a couple stay together through good times and bad and to encourage families to take care of each other as we get older. That is why we give one spouse the social security benefits of the other after death. That is why we let them inherit each others money without crazy tax consequences. That is why we let them visit each other in the hospital when they are sick without having to call in a lawyer first. (And I personally know people this has happened to, in New York City no less, so don't say that it doesn't.) We want to encourage them to stay together and take care of each other. I just don't get how giving these same CIVIL protections and responsibilities to gay people is going to destroy our democracy, or whatever. But tell you what Mr. Card. You vote for your guy, I'll vote for mine. And how about you stop advocating for civil war if you don't get your way.

CD Baby: 1, David: 0

Back story: While we were in NY, David recorded some songs for a cast album of standards that was supposed to be an original show about the history of Judy Garland growing up in a vaudeville family. At the last minute the Garland family withdrew their support, so the album was instead released under the generic name "Made In America". A few years later, after we had left NY, they re-recorded the album using the same leads, but since we were gone they replaced David, and re-released the album.

Cut to last week. David says to me, "CD Baby gave me a slap to the face." Turns out they sent David an email since we've bought a few things from them before, suggesting things he might want to buy. One of them was "Made In America". He laughed and clicked on it - but it was the version he isn't on! D'oh!

Bad hair day

I've been biting my tongue, because if you can't say something nice and all, but really, shouldn't Bob Costas be able to afford a better toupee?

I don't hate Michael Phelps, BUT

Why is NBC trying to make me hate Michael Phelps? Look, I think what he accomplished has been amazing, the win by 0.01 of a second was astounding, and as long as he NEVER drinks and drives again, he seems like a nice guy who makes a great role model. Plus I love his mother, and his crying sisters made me cry along with them. But come on, how many times do I have to sit through yet another video montage about him? I watched all the races, I don't need to be reminded about how amazing he is every other commercial break. Then I notice at the bottom of the screen is "To purchase the Michael Phelps video call 1-800..." NBC, sell your crappy videos on your own time. This is the Olympics, and all this screen time could be far better served with another video montage of, say, A DIFFERENT athlete. How about Alicia Sacramone, who I think is a hero in her own right. Or what about Usain Bolt, whose completely ridiculous 100-meter dash amazed me. Yeah, I think it is sort of lame that he started celebrating and slowed down before he reached the finish line, and yet still he set a world record, and if winning was his real goal, well, that is his right I guess. Or how about Shelly-Ann Fraser, who was totally adorable after she won the same race for the women. Heck, pick one of the vollyball players, or the trampoline jumpers, or the bicycle chase race. I watch it all, but I'd enjoy it all more if I knew more about the athletes. And that means that as much as I love him, I am now done with Michael Phelps. Time to move on. (The HEADLINE on yahoo today is how Michael Phelps wants to eat some junk food. This is news? Really? I mean, really?)

The American volleyball team is currently killing the Japanese. Their star player to me looks like a sexy version of Richard Hatch. Well, he does.

I have to admit that I watched the entire women's marathon. In real time. I am such a nerd.

Seriously. There is ANOTHER Michael Phelps: The Greatest American Champion commercial airing right now. Who is really going to buy that? I hate you NBC.

So many of the runners have yellow shoes. I like that. One woman in the marathon, where most everyone was running in variations of a bikini, was wearing a little green mini-dress. Why couldn't we have a video montage about her? I was so curious!

I go back to work tomorrow, which after almost three weeks off I can't really complain about. But I'm working an overtime shift next week too, which means I'm going to really fall behind again on the Olympics. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but thank God for Tivo.

We tried to have burgers today at a new place in the neighborhood that is run/owned/whatever by some guy named Spike that was on one of those Top Chef shows. (I know, a reality show that I didn't watch? Amazing!) But they were closed until dinner. I know fancy restaurants sometimes close between lunch and dinner, but this is a burger place. Whatever. We were not impressed by your pretend fanciness, burger joint.

CV - Ferry to Newfoundland

We took a ferry (with our car) from Nova Scotia up to Newfoundland, which ended up taking about eight hours. We met some people onboard which helped pass the time, since the ride was fairly rough and lots of people were getting sick. Even I got borderline queasy, which has only happened once before on REALLY rough water going scuba diving in Puerto Rico, although I blame it on the stinky and greasy french fries with gravy that David ordered for lunch. ::grin:: The port city of Port aux Basque was much more attractive than I'd assumed it would be with its colorful houses all over the shore. Our biggest concern was that due to delays we'd arrived over two hours later than we thought we would, and still had almost a four hour drive to get to our next destination. People kept warning us, "Don't drive after dark. Seriously, you will hit a moose." Just to prove the point, just out of the terminal we stopped at the information center and as we pulled up the attendant was out on the lawn. "A moose just ran by, I hope he doesn't run onto the freeway!"

Moose. Awesome. As long as we don't hit one, of course. Luckily, we had run into some line problems getting onboard the ferry, with someone ahead of us having some sort of problem that backed up our line for almost an hour. We were sweating it, but once we were finally let on board we ended up being 3rd in line to get off, so at least we were able to get going right out of the gate. We thought about stopping, but didn't want to pay for a hotel when we had a free room waiting for us. We called our hosts, and they were much more casual. "Be careful, but we make that drive at night all the time."

We made it all but the last half hour in daylight. The first moose we passed was on the side of the road, we could barely see it in the shadows until we were right next to him, just a big shadow looming on the periphery. The next one jumped right out in front of us and made me slam on the brakes - luckily I was driving far under the speed limit. He was massive, with a huge rack on his head. We scared him as much as he did us though, and he trotted awkwardly over the guard rail and disappeared into the night.

Our new couchsurfing hosts were terrific. One of them works for the Gros Morne National Park, and the other was a retired teacher who was managing a writers/music/theatre festival. They host a lot, so we were lucky they had room for us, someone else having just left that morning.

The next day we spent the entire day hiking, doing three different hikes in the park. An amazing lookout trail, where we saw three kinds of carnivorous plants including pitcher plants in bloom. As we were walking down that trail, rather briskly, David was ahead of me, and as I turned a corner a huge lady moose lifted her head out of the bushes not even two meters off the trail. (We decided to use Canadian measurements while we were there, but that is less than six feet.) She looked at me, startled, and I looked at her, startled even more. My first thought was "Find your escape route!", so I dashed past her along the trail so I wouldn't be separated from David. My second thought was "Get a picture stupid!" But it was too late. Once I was past her she went back to eating, so I was able to get a photo of her butt, but it isn't a pretty picture I'm afraid. I was tempted to go back around, but she was just too close, and I didn't want to risk upsetting her. Moose are big. BIG. Even the ladies.

We then did a hike down to the ocean, and then another to a place called the tablelands. The earth there has been thrust up from deep down inside the earth, and is such a rare and weird kind of soil that no plant on earth has adapted to growing in it. So it just sits there, reddish and barren and pretty amazing.

We hiked somewhere around ten miles that day, a good portion uphill, so we were pretty pooped. We still had some more fun in store, but I'll have to get back to that. We are finally caught up on the Olympics, but there are more airing right now, so I don't want to get behind again.

Mostly swimming

Watching all of the Olympics from the weekend, so lots of swimming and gymnastics. Surprisingly there hasn't been much else besides the bike race, but I suppose there is plenty more to come.

One thing I'm a little bummed about is that I don't feel like I'm getting to know the athletes as well as I have in years past. I love all the video packages, but so far they have all been about the athletes I already know - Aaron Piersol, Natalie Coughlin, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, and of course Michael Phelps. Not that I mind getting reacquainted with people I loved in Athens and even Sydney, but I just wish there was time for more.

I'm sad for Brendan Hanson. Also that crazy good Chinese gymnast from the parallel bars that made my heart jump and then she fell and despite clearly being one of the best there won't get to compete for a medal. Sucks! But how rad are Dara Torres and Oksana Chusovitina? Both have had babies and yet are still in shape to compete at this level. And Oksana is competing against girls almost half her age, in her 5th Olympics as a gymnast, that is just crazy. I haven't seen her medal attempt on the vault yet, just her qualifying round, but wow.

I love the gymnastics of course, although I wish the girls were all older, if not in their 30s at least in their twenties. Those Chinese girls look about 12. Somehow for me it just means more when an athlete is old enough to really appreciate things. I was a mess at 16, well, relatively speaking. No way I could have handled that kind of pressure.

Speaking of that, had my life been, you know, totally different, I would have liked to have been a competitive swimmer. I'm not psychologically suited to the stress of gymnastics (nor would I want to sacrifice my 6'1" height), and diving is similarly not my style. But I love the water, and I could see that being super fun and rewarding. Plus I'd love to be able to eat 10,000 calories a day. Can you even imagine? Man oh man, you know once he stops swimming Michael Phelps is going to be fat. There is no way you can go from eating that much back to a normal person diet. Ian Thorpe was in the audience (I heart him!) and while he was always a bit more on the thick side, he was looking positively chunky in his retirement.

Oh, Katie Hoff, you almost had it! I can't feel too sorry for someone who just won a silver medal, but dang that was close and you were looking so much better than we were led to believe you could do. You are awesome. Jason Lezack, holy crap, I can't believe how you won that relay. Those French boys are so sad right now. I can't believe how they crushed the world record, by four seconds - the Swiss team in 5th place and even they beat the previous world record. How can you be disappointed with that? But I bet Lezack just earned himself the most memorable moment of the Olympics. (But I'd sure be glad to be wrong about that!)

CV - Hopewell Rocks

From Saint John we were going to drive up to Sydney in Nova Scotia to take the morning ferry across to Newfoundland the next day. On the way up we stopped at a place called Hopewell Rocks. The tides in the Bay of Fundy rise and fall 30 feet, which in itself is pretty amazing. But here it has carved the rocks into some cool formations, which you can only see in low tide. They have warnings all over to make sure you get out before the tide comes back in and traps you - they even have an "escape platform" just in case someone is stranded to at least keep them out of the water until the next low tide. It was far too crowded, which always diminishes the luster of a place, but it was still pretty cool.

We were intending to camp once we arrived in Sydney, but it was raining pretty badly, so we went to a cute B&B instead. The place had just opened two weeks earlier, and was immaculate and gorgeous, right on the water. We've never stayed in a B&B before, and were totally spoiled. I even took a photo of the mattress label I slept so well.

David had read about the blueberry-man statue somewhere, and was intent on finding it. We did, and he was happy.

CV - random thoughts

Things we noticed about Canada:

They sell milk in gallon-sized plastic bags. Like, "Honey, can you go pick up a bag of milk?". Weird. I asked Andrew why they sell it like that, and he matter-of-factly said "Oh, we just cut off the bottom corner and drink from it like a nipple."

They have sharps containers in public bathrooms, which is pretty cool. I'd think America would have a way higher proportion of diabetics, why don't we have anything like that?

Canadians share my taste in cars. There were red Matrixes everywhere. Also the look-alike Vibe and a Honda. It was funny.

CV - Saint John, New Brunswick

The last night in Acadia it rained like crazy, and sadly after a few hours our otherwise awesome tent started to leak from the seams. The rain stopped long enough for us to pack up, and nothing really got all that wet inside, but we were happy to stay in a real bed the next night.

We drove up to Saint John in Canada, and made our first couchsurfing stop with Andrew and Jeff. If you ever want to visit New Brunswick, look them up, they were the best hosts. Not only did they take us on a great hike (where we may or may not have run them a bit ragged with our New Yorker pace, but they were too gracious to ever admit it), but they even took us shopping for a tarp to protect our tent from the rain.

Best of all, they gifted us with music, songs of the Maritimes that we listened to while we drove. We had brought lots of music with us on the iPod, but the only thing we actually listened to was the Anne of Green Gables musical, but more on that later. I hadn't realized how much Irish and Celtic influence and history there was to the Maritimes, but we loved all the Irish jigs and fiddles and literally sang our way across Canada.

They took us to a great little pub, where David had a "rich man's fish and chips", which was made from salmon. He still hasn't stopped talking about that. Then they took us candy bar shopping. For some reason they have all the candy bars we have here in America, but then they have all these other weird ones. My favorite was called a Wonderbar, or something. Peanut buttery deliciousness, and I am hardly a candy bar kind of person.

Couchsurfing, we love you. Seriously, everyone should do it, it is the best thing ever.

Opening ceremonies rock

Those light drums are ridiculous. How the heck do you choreograph that? Amazing.

Wait, there are people in those moving boxes? Speechless. David is crying now.

Their suits light up! Their suits light up!

Gosh darnit, you know we just missed like a million dollars worth of effects during that lamely placed commercial break.

I don't understand how this show was put together. I've done group choreography with just a dozen people that took hours and hours and hours to figure out the spacing and how to keep our lines, and we always had markings on the stage to keep our place. How are 2000 people able to keep in concentric circles? It boggles my mind, I absolutely cannot fathom how what I'm watching is being done. This whole thing is obviously a trick of CGI. Otherwise my brain will melt.

Sydney had an amazing opening ceremony - heck, it was that event that got me hooked on the Olympics in the first place. Athens in 2004 was, well, ok, pretty visuals but not all that inspiring. This, though, has been truly spectacular. How is London going to top this? Dang I wish we could have been there in person.

We've just decided that at some point we are going to go on vacation and see an Olympics live. Summer for sure, probably not London, I want something more exotic. We'll have to see who has them in 2016, that might be our year.

Olympics

The actual Opening Ceremony hasn't even started yet and I'm already crying. Crap I love this.

CV = Canadian Vacation

Things that only happen to people like us:

At our campground in Acadia lived a dove. Not just an ordinary dove, but a dove that loved musical theatre. Specifically, "Tradition" from Fiddler On The Roof. He didn't know the entire song, just the first five notes of the intro, but every time the bird would call, all I could hear was musical theater. Cute, but the bird needs a bigger repertoire if he wants to attract the discerning lady doves.

SYTYCD Finale

Not much to say, too busy thinking about Olympics, but this was a great season for dancing. I wish they'd done a few more of Katee's routines, because I loved virtually everything she did. I have no problem with Joshua winning, he was awesome and charismatic and fun. But Katee was, for me, the best dancer of the season, helped by the fact that virtually every dance she was given was great. (She never had to be a matador or whatever for example. Kherington was robbed!)

I LOVED that both Mary and Nigel danced. They may not to be able to do some of the things they could do when they were younger, but you can tell they both know what they are talking about when they talk about dancing.

Please, don't have Adam Shenkman back next season. Please.

Also, Cat kept making jokes about how if people didn't stop goofing off she would "have to get nasty" with them. And no one called her on it! I imagine everyone in her presence is just so spellbound they can't manage to speak, even when she hands them a joke on a silver platter.

Canadian Vacation

Our first stop was Acadia National Park in Maine. We camped there two nights at a great private campground on the quiet side of the island. We were lucky enough to be there just days before the summer season onslaught started, so the campground was nice and quiet.

The drive through Maine was gorgeous, despite some rain clouds that followed us around the entire vacation. Actually we were very lucky with the rain considering how much of it we got. Ten minutes away from our campground it was pouring down and we weren't sure what we were going to do, but as soon as we arrived at the spot the rain stopped and didn't start again until late that night after we were comfy inside the tent.

The next day we did a gorgeous 6-mile hike along a lakeside, and a few smaller hikes down to the seaside. (We saw the coolest mushrooms, brown ones and red ones and orange ones and purple ones and grey ones and even fluorescent yellow ones.) At times the fog was so thick you couldn't see the boats in the harbor. We had wanted to do some hikes up the mountains, but with all the fog we knew there would be no view to see so we just kept it simple, but had no complaints really. Even with all the hiking we did, this was probably the only part of our vacation you could call relaxing. David and I don't really vacation, we travel.

We are home.

Yesterday we drove for 19 hours, through ten states (and one Canadian province), getting home at 3:30am this morning. We thought we would stop, but we were just on a roll (and didn't want to spend a hundred bucks for a lame hotel just to get stuck in traffic driving home in the morning.) So we pushed it and David was awesome and even drove the last two hours once I started seeing double.

Anyway, we are pooped, happy, and have lots to do. I'll be blogging a lot coming up, because not only do I have tons of awesome vacation stories (Newfoundland ROCKS!), but also I have the freaking Olympics to watch and talk about. I have, what, like 40 hours Tivo'd to watch to get caught up on, and then the next week and a half are sports gold for me. We came home from Canada a bit early, for a few reasons including too much rain, utter exhaustion from driving and hiking and exploring, but also I am a crazy Olympic fan and couldn't bear missing anything.

Sorry if I sound distracted, but before we start Olympics we have to watch the finale for SYTYCD. Joshua and Katee are currently being gorgeous. I'm expecting him to win it, but we'll see.