House of the rising Moonglum

This song has been stuck in my head all day. Please make it go away. I’ve even tried the nuclear bomb of clearing stuck songs, “Roxanne” by the Police. But it is still there.

They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.

Aiiig! Make it stop!

I’m just mad about saffron, saffron’s amad about me.
They call me mellow yellow, quite rightly.
They call me mellow yellow. Quite right.

So I finally finished the book that I took with me to NY last time: The Philosopher’s Stone. I have to say, it was much better than I anticipated, having seen both movies already. The thing that impressed right off the bad was the level of the writing. The sentences are actually put together with care. It was fun just going from one to the next looking for that odd turn of phrase that describes the scene perfectly. That could have come in part just from the fact that I was reading the UK version rather than the US one, but I have a feeling that is part of what makes her popular with more than just kids.

And speaking of popularity with kids, it is certainly a kids book, breaking rules, getting detentions, dealing with bullies, even too high expectations from your parents (in a very meta way in Harry’s case). Just with all of the reality taken away. Very real problems that kids can relate to in an unreal situation. With of course a little extra precociousness on the part of the kids.

And of course the entire time I was reading it I was looking for differences in the movie. There were shockingly few, though there were a couple notable ones. For one thing, the only way in which Harry is the “hero” in the book is his quiddich skill. Pretty much everything else is done by Hermione. Especially at the end, no flocks of keys trying to kill Harry, he was much more of a military leader, telling the other kids what to do, in order to round the key up. Much more interesting IMHO. The other difference that jumped out at me was the general derision that the rest of the school felt for harry for most of the book. Them losing that 150 points for being out was a major event. And they were out to save Hagrid, which IIRC was resolved in the movie by Norbert being banished, not the kids convincing Hagrid that he can’t have a dragon as happened in the book. It really seemed like if anyone found out about it he would have been fired. Also the centaurs were more interesting, but a movie only lasts two hours. The differences must get more pronounced at the books get longer.

Salam Pax has some interesting thoughts on Kurdistan. I have read a lot from Kurds talking about what their views are, but very little from Iraqis about what they think of the Kurds demands, oh oops, I mean thoughts on the make up of the future government.

Ever wondered what the difference between the two are? Don’t know what I am talking about? The Islamic world is divided into two major groups, the Sunni and the Shia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is Sunni, as are most American Muslims. Iran is mostly Shia, as is two thirds of Iraq. The other third of iraq is Sunni and non Muslim. (There are the non arab Muslims as well as well, who would probably balk at being thrown in with the arab Shia or Sunni, but this is about religion not race, not that they are independent.)

But so the difference is important in Iraq, since the two groups seem to spend a lot of time shooting at each other. In any case, the only reason I posted was just to say that Salam has been posting a little bit about the history of the Shia movement. It makes for an interesting read, and also helps explain what is going on in the upcoming Ashura festival. This is the big Shia holiday where they beat themselves bloody (hey, just like that movie that just came out!) on the tenth of every islamic year. Some interesting historical perspective and pictures too.

So Bush wants to amend the constitution. Why you might ask? Because he thinks that someone is doing something wrong. I’m just so mad about this that I could spit. But I don’t want to rave like a lunatic, so let me pick two things that I think are wrong about this and talk about them. A lot of people have a lot of reasons for not liking this, but I am going to attack it from the religious perspective.

First: Separation of Church and State. Everyone knows that the first amendment protects the freedom of speech, but it also attempts to keep the government’s hands off of religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. People have taken this to mean “Separation of Church and State” but really it is protection for people who were persecuted back home. It is bad enough to have religion inform the decisions that Bush makes about where our country is going, but to have him decide that he knows what it best for religion is certainly against the first amendment! (Of course that could be why he wants an amendment, since anything less (e.g. laws) would probably be struck down by the first amendment.)

In my opinion there are two things: civil union (taxes, rights, etc) and marriage (religious). Unfortunately the United States Code seems to conflate the two pretty regularly. I have a funny feeling that Bush doesn’t. Which means that I think he is trying to legislate religion. And as a side effect take away rights from a segment of the population (one million of whom are Republicans!). But bush is trying to tell the religions what is and is not legal in terms of marriage. And that just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

Second: Making decisions without due consideration. Churches all over the world are currently struggling with these issues (large PDF). My church in particular, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has put together a commission to study these issues, understand the general feeling, study the biblical texts, study the historical context, and then after six years put together a list of findings and perhaps (I repeat perhaps) put together a statement of the church’s decision on committed homosexual unions. The document I link to tries to be an evenhanded study guide for getting congregations to reason about and discuss emotional issues in such a way that an understanding can be achieved. And it is taking a freaking long time! And bush comes out and in one day decides that this is so bad that we need to legislate it away, as if he is the Pope or something! What if the ELCA decides that gay marriage is ok? Then we are a forbidden religion in the US according to the constitution, because of one quickly formed idea of one man.

On the other hand, maybe he has been spending all of his vacation time thinking about this.

There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

So one thing I like about Live Journal is the mood and music tags. Today’s music here is Dire Straits. The first CD I ever bought (in the summer of 1990 when I bought myself a cd player (the demon possessed Aiwa that wouldn’t stay open so you needed to use reflexes to change discs for those keeping score) with the money I still had left over from my trip to Germany (by not drinking as much beer as the other people in the class) was The Wall by Pink Floyd, since I listened to it twice a day for the previous year. (That is not a healthy thing to do, by the way.) But once I got that out of the way, I decided that I couldn’t buy CDs that I had bought on tape. Well I still had some bucks to blow (the place where I got the player was next to a tower and gave you a coupon for some cds when you bought a player), so I decided to replace my poor dub of Money For Nothing, and bought all of the Dire Straits albums as well.

That was the best purchase I have ever made. Dire straits is just an amazing band. Music: Dire Straits. Sort them by date in iTunes and hit play. Oh yeah. “Your hands are cold, but your lips are warm.”

If it’s late and you can’t get your program working, maybe it is time to go to bed, and just look at it in the morning. That is much better than getting all pissed off and then not sleeping well. *sigh*

problem:

image.getPixel(y, x);

Hmmm… maybe x, y would work better!

Just saw these at the Schubert Theater. They were really funny! I’m not sure that I had ever read any Moliere before, but man was he ahead of his time! It is amazing that we still have the same problems that he was talking about a few hundred years later. If you have a stifling husband/boyfriend, this is the play to see. It is a very interesting statement on trust (you need to have it) and fidelity (won’t have it if you don’t have trust). I highly recommend them.

I was just reading the European Constitution. Wow, just wow. Man I really like our constitution. Lay out the basic guidelines and the rest will come. Theirs is so specific that they are painting themselves into a corner in the future. The constitution should lay out exceptions to the rule of the majority, rights that the state and other people can’t take away from you. Once everything becomes that, there is no way to make forward progress. Article II-35 “Everyone has the right of access to preventative healthcare…”. Oh really? Article II-38 “Union policies shall ensure a high level of consumer protection”. So if you have a recall, you are going against the constitution?! C’mon that is for the courts to deal with, not the constitution. Every singe court in the union will have to be a constitutional court. What a mess.

Having been married recently myself, I have to say it is a wonderful thing. And to deny it to some seems, well, just not fair. So it looks like the south side, Catholic mayor has no problem if the clerk wants to hand out the licenses.

I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day, and he said that his one fear is a massive backlash. His solution? Just go for civil unions (get all the same rights) and the rest will follow. His fear (if I was reading it correctly) was violent backlash, but I really don’t think that is going to happen. People, for the most part, just don’t care. It’s just that the ones that do care are loud about it.

None the less, if more people are like Daley none of this will be any problem. My favorite quote from the article:

“Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don’t tell me about marriage. You’re not going to lecture me about marriage. People should look at their own life and look in their own mirror. Marriage has been undermined for a number of years if you look at the facts and figures on it. Don’t blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community. Please don’t blame them for it”

After a hard fought decision about which game to play next, and having even started FFX, I decided on Suikoden II. Mostly because it is harder to go back to older tech games once you have played the newer ones. But now that I have started Suikoden II I have to say that it is much cooler than I anticipated. The cut graphics are awesome, and so far the story is truly engaging.

I was just watching “Moments in Transition” from the fourth season of Babylon 5, where Ivanova and Sheridan find out that Earth was shooting down Civilian transports. So they get mad and Sheridan delivers this great speech about how they are going to take Io, and then Ganymede, and then Mars and then Earth!!!

But as I was listening to it, the only thing that I could think of was Dean’s speech. But Sheridan didn’t say Yaarg! at the end of it.

Apparently an ftp url under Panther will mount the ftp directory as a network mounted device in the finder. Not sure wether I like that or not…

Looks like the Iraqis repealed the resolution turning family law over to Sharia. Of course it also looks like the woman who ran that campaign is now getting death threats. And given how things are going in Iraq that has to be taken seriously.

Some guys spent their entire childhood making their own version of the Raiders of the Lost Ark. This looks to be quite impressive. I’d love to see it, sounds too cool!

This is a better chunk of dialog that I have seen on “global language” than I have seen in a while:

A: When I went to Europe, everybody under 70 spoke english
B: and coming from Europe, when I went to East LA nobody was speaking English…

(from slashdot)

All the members of the Lair of the Haggis have been warned!

Damnit! I didn’t mean to be prophetic! I don’t know if there is anything here, but it is pretty annoying. I wonder if it is just going to end up that everyone has done stupid stuff in their lives, and it is just up to the other side to find out first. Maybe we just can’t hold it against our leaders, W skipping out on Duty and doing drugs, Kerry doing an intern. Maybe it’s time to looks past all this and vote for people based on what their platforms are, and then hold them to it.

On the other hand, maybe this is just how our country works. We love scandal. And of course when your own personal history clashes with what you legislate, then I kind of have a problem with that. *sigh* Bring Clark back!

Saw hairspray today, what a great show! It had a touch of cabaret in it as well. Bruce Vilanch (playing the mother) stopped in the middle and made some seriously funny topical jokes. One part had the husband come up behind him and grab his fake boob, and he turns and says “Careful, I’m not Janet Jackson!” Turns to the crowd and says, “wardrobe malfunction, Sure!”

Later he said, “I love it when you talk hebrew to me, it turns me on!”. only one small part of the audience laughed, so he pointed over there and said “Skokie!, Du nimmst din leebschen zum theater for valentine’s day!” (Sorry I don’t actually speak yiddish, so that is from memory.)

It was a great time, thanks mom!