Memorial Weekend Review

Saturday: Attended graduation at San Francisco State. Watched 8,000 young'uns including Cynthia walk in bright purple robes. Enmassed in the middle of Cox Stadium, they resembled a Barney the dinosaur convention. Listened to Ben Fong Torres of Rolling Stone and Chinese New Years Parade fame. Will have to pick up his book some day. Also heard from Manny Masoud(?), founder of Bebe. He won alumni of the year, but it probaby wasn't much of a contest after he donated $10 million to his alma mater. Had dinner at R & G Lounge in the city. This place remains one of my favorite Chinese food places. Somehow it's the only Chinese restaurant in SF Chinatown worth going to.

Sunday: After an early service at church, headed up to Berkeley. Lunch from the Thai temple. There is a Thai temple up in Berkeley that serves up a huge lunch as a fund raising event every Sunday. Very tasy. Also had some wine and cake and hung out with friends. Celebrating some birthdays. It was a great day out there. We left Berkeley at 1:30. The original plan was to go to Sunset and change and head to the wedding at the War Memeorial Opera House by 4:30. But the traffic crossing into San Francisco was intense. It was already passed 3 when we hit downtown San Franisco. So Plan B went into effect and we changed at a bathroom in a Safeway near downtown, and took care of some hair issues in Noe Valley.

80 guest in the lobby of the Opera House. They did a really nice job with the Opera theme. The programs were done up like those Play Bill things you get anytime you get to the theater and the seating was done on little printed opera tickets. I've been to a lot of weddings over the years, but this is the first time I've seen the bride crying as the officiant told spoke and as vows were exchanged. It was great to see how much this meant to her. The groom is a nice guy, but he's from Texas. I think it's the first time I have ever slow danced to a country music song (not really recommended). You could tell which guys were from Texas because they knew the lyrics to all those songs.

Monday: Maybe it's a small coincidence that we were at a War Memorial locale yesterday and today is Memorial Day. I don't personally know anyone who has died serving our country, but I hope we remember to honor them today. No one should have to die in war. Our country does not do a good enough job of avoiding war or protecting our troops that do serve. Nearly 2,000 of our countrymen and neighbors have died in a war that should never have been fought. I feel these things, and I should champion them more. I really should. But today will mostly be a day of rest for me. May has been a busy month and too many of the chores at home have been neglected.

Emporer Bush

I hear some right wing folks are boycotting or otherwise attacking Lucas over the latest Star Wars flick. They believe Bush is being equated with the Evil Empire. The Star Wars story was a long time coming. I'm doubtful Lucas was setting up this storyline back in the 1970s to make Bush look bad today. If there are any points of similarities it's probably the other way around. Bush is using the Empire as a model to make sure liberty dies in our world as well as Yoda's. The whole idea is just a little silly.

Back from Reno/Tahoe

I had a good weekend in Reno/Tahoe. The weekend seems especially fun after sitting in my office all day cranking out work and attending to the line of people at my door. There was certainly enough to make up after missing two days in the office.

My new realization of the week is that Bachelor Parties are not a rite of passage. When I went through it, I just thought, okay, like the rehearsal dinner, this is just one step to go through on the way to being married. What I realize now is Guys have simply invented a great excuse to go out and hang together. Hazing the bachelor is only a small part of it. It's something the bachelor does for his friends, not the other way around.

It's Thursday and I'm not sure I've recovered all the sleep I lost over the weekend. I'll have to make some more up tonight.

Off to Reno/Tahoe

I have that somewhat excited, somewhat dreading feeling I get before I head off to somewhere like Reno. It's different than normal daily life. It could be fun and exciting. But it could also be a miserable trip where we all just hang out in casinos and blow cash. I think half of any trip to Nevada is the unrealistic expectation people get of winning it big. Only in the movies. Got lots of stuff left to do before I head off. So keeping this short.

Dogtown

My writer friend is putting out a little literary rag called Dogtown Review. He's going to be selling these at a writer's geek off called WisCon. His rag includes one of my little stories. Previously, anything I've published has been on the Net so I could send the link out for friends and family to see and it didn't cost anyone more than two minutes of time. This time they'll have to purchase the rag which will be selling for an overpriced $4-$5. (I'm not getting a cut.) So, I'll probably buy a couple copies to hand out to close friends but I'm not inclined to tell too many people about it. Maybe that's a curious statement for a blog, but I'm still not convinced anyone is reading this.

hESC

What I learned about human embryonic stem cells (hESC) research today.
1. Bush has restricted research to about 20 cell lines. None of them have any clinical value because they have been tainted by mouse viruses at some point.
2. There are dueling bills going through the legislature. Some people are trying to do something to overturn Bush's ban on new cell lines. Others are trying to criminalize anything to do with cell lines. Imagine taking a sick child to Europe for stem cell treatment and both you and your child being jailed as soon as you get back to the US.
3. Bush has really escalated the exposure of this area of study, galvanizing people on both sides of the issue. Maybe too much so. The research is interesting and has a lot of potential, but they might find out that there are too many barriers to potential health improvements. People might have their hopes a little high when it comes to potential cures.
4. Other countries do not have the moral and religious qualms that the US does. Several countries are ahead of the US in this area of research.
5. The cell lines that do exist come from infertile couples attempting IVF. All rich white couples.
6. California voters have decided to support this research, but the legal challenges going on may tie things up for a while. (That happens to everything these days, doesn't it.)
7. The Institution where I work is very geared to take a significant chunk of the 3 billion dollar research fund set aside by California voters. Hence the training I received today. The trick is to keep hESC research separate from NIH funded moneys.

Activist Judges

The Constitution has served our country fairly well over the years. Has it survived because of its unbending principals? If you accept the premise that this is a living document, you should consider that it has the potential to grow beyond its original meaning in some regards.

Without "activist judges"
1. You could shout "fire" in a crowded theater and cause panic and be protected by freedom of speech.
2. You could not buy a condom.
3. You would not have a right to remain silent if detained by the police.
4. You could not have an abortion.
5. Our Congress would actually have to declare war before we invade foreign countries.

I agree with some of these things but not others, but overall I understand that someone needs to be the final arbiter of what the Consitution means and that is best left to judges.

One thing I think should be pointed out is that Tom Delay does not know what an activist judge or a strict constuctionist is. He's just using it as "code" for rightwing thinking. His agenda is pro-life and no affirmative action. He grouses because the federal courts refused to step into the Teri Schiavo case. But in doing so, they were actually "strict constuctionist" recognizing that the Constitution does not have a "right to live" or "right to die". He's just muddling the definitions and being an idiot.

No excuses.

Another thing you'll never see in this blog is any sort of apology for not having written. If other priorities come up- be it work, play or anything else that gets in the way it just means blogging doesn't get done. I don't think anyone would care anyway. It's really just my loss.