Ack. Glad TCG is okay, and I hate that he was in an accident.

Cindy, as always I appreciate your thoughtfulness and self-awareness.

I am with Laura in my frustration that we waste so much time and energy on things that "should" be clearcut and simple.

Matt, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I miss seeing your pixels.

That looks like a beautiful place to get married, sj. Congratilations!

And sorry about the accident, but I am very glad TCG is okay (and thank you for leadng with that!)

and thank you for leadng with that

Now if I can just teach TCG to lead with that.

Yikes! Glad TCG is okay!

wrod. There was an excellent Special Comment about that yesterday(yes, I generally love them, but the historical metaphor was more spot-on this time.Wondering whether I should have shaved my legs, however, remains inappropriate.) And that whole issue is totally a kerfuffle. Too bad when the critics come up, Gibbs can't just say "Well, Charlie(George, or Brian) we've decided not to feed the energy creatures on this one. Next?)

Glad to hear that TGG is alright.

And congrats to Gris on getting married! (and ~mas and happy birthdays for everyone else in the past 2 months).

ION: I'm hiding in the computer farm, enjoying the air conditioning, thinking about when it won't be so hot so I'll be able to get out of here. It's almost 17:00. And yes - that hot).

I need a better link about the Muslim community center NOT opening on 9/11/11.

Well, it's a construction project in NYC. The only way they could possibly open it on 9/11/11 is if it were scheduled to open six months ago.

Dirty secret not posted elsewhere: Yeah, I actually think the folks that want to build the community center in lower Manhattan ought to say, "Oh man, this is ouchy. Never mind. We'll pick another spot." This is a moral judgment, not a legal one.

Trudy already responded with my own thoughts on this - it's not ouchy to the people living there, and I'd really love it if the rest of the country could go back to just pretending New York only exists in the movies.

It reminds me of the Simpson's ep where Barney and Homer and training to be astronauts and they're told "In a way, you're both winners. But in a more accurate way, Barney is the winner." In a way, 9/11 happened to all Americans. But in a more accurate way, 9/11 happened to the the Financial District and the Pentagon and the people who died on United 93.

I think I'll start a Facebook group protesting zoning laws in Kansaas. If NYC has to check in with Real America before we can develop our communities, it should damn well go the other way too.

(This is because I replied to someone on Trudy's FB who spouted off that date, which is patently untrue.)

Oh dear, I haven't been over there yet -- I just lost my shit and went to bed.

Now I am sore afraid.

If NYC has to check in with Real America before we can develop our communities, it should damn well go the other way too.

Makes just as much sense. I barely have time and energy to run my own life, never mind those of people several hundred miles away who I've never met and likely never will meet.

The Gingriches and others screaming about the cultural center remind me of the old jokey definition of the colonial Puritans: A group of people deeply offended by the idea that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. Building the cultural center where it's planned may or may not be wise, and it may or may not be offensive (in an objective way -- obviously, many people are offended). But if freedom of religion and other rights were limited to being used wisely and in a manner that didn't offend people, we'd be living in a very different society.

Sigh. I iz dum. I've got a collection of bookmarks, the sort given out with each purchase at independent bookstores. A lot of them are really pretty or have cool graphics or whatever, so my plan is to wait until I've got a few more, and then make some sort of collage thing with them, frame it, and hang it over my bookshelf. Anyway, I usually keep them in a little pile on a bookshelf. When I was packing up my books, I put them inside a book so that they wouldn't get bent or torn during the move.

You can probably see where this is going. I don't remember which book. I've got to now open every book I own to find them.

I probably would have put them inside a hardcover, so I guess I'll start there.