Sometimes My Computer Sounds Like a Mosquito

Sometimes my computer sounds like a mosquito. I don't mean somewhat like a mosquito, but exactly like a mosquito. It imitates not just any mosquito, but the kamikaze mosquito that incessantly buzzes by your ear. The mosquito you can never quite spot in an attempt to squish it with a pop. So you wave you hands around you head like a crazy person in the state hospital.

The mosquito noise started about a week ago during our big migration to XP. Why we couldn't just switch to XP I have no idea. We had to migrate. Maybe the word migrate is more geek sheik. Who knows? Either way, the point is, I had to switch computers, and while my new computer (or at least new to me) is reasonably suitable, it sometimes buzzes like a mosquito. I was actually waving and looking around when I first heard the noise. It took me about four hours before I realized the sound was coming from the back of my computer. I'm sure my coworkers were slightly amused by my odd display of arm waving and slightly audible mutterings.

Perhaps it is retribution for failing to decorate my cube. Decorating ones cube is almost a pastime in my office. People take great pride and care in their cube decorations. Personally, I don’t care much. I have my coffee mug and a window to the outside world. I can see sunlight all day; well when Portland actually has sunlight. Still I tried. I brought in a calendar and hung it up on the wall. There is a picture of me and my dog. I even brought in a picture of me, two friends, seven drag queens and one Michael Jackson impersonator. Did I mention it is just creepy to want to impersonate Michael Jackson? (Ah Las Vegas…good times.) Still the pressure is on to do it up right. Who knows, maybe once I decorate the office, my computer will mysteriously stop buzzing like a kamikaze mosquito.

How cool. I can blog from my phone.

Brandon's Birhtday Photos

Here are some of the pics from Brandon's Birthday. Happy Birthday Brandon. We love you.

Brandon's Birthday 2005

ICE Your Cell Phone

This is an interesting story I heard on the news last night. In theory this seems like a good idea.

Here is a link to a KATU story on how ICEing your cell phone could help in an emergency. http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?id=78608

It's Just Wacky

What an incredibly crazy week it has been. It is only 1/2 way through Wednesday and I think I already have 30 some hours under my belt. I need to find my life again, or at least a cocktail. Lord know I will need one by the end of this week.

Speaking of Portland wackiness, I went to Flicks on the Bricks last Friday at Pioneer Courthouse Square to see Back to the Future. I am in love with cheesy Portland community activities like Flicks on the Bricks. What could be better than hanging out with people you don’t know, drinking a beer, watching a movie that everyone knows the words too and is unafraid to heckle? Good times! I think I will go back this Friday for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is a movie I like so much better than Back to the Future. I’ll remember to bring my pillow this time. Two hours sitting on bricks makes your ass hurt. I think I walked funny for an hour after the last show and didn’t even have…. Well you get you the idea.

Flicks On the Bricks - Back to the Future

Anyone feel up to a little outdoor movie?

July 15, 22, 29 & August 5


Flicks on the Bricks

Friday Evenings - Movies Begin @ Dusk

July 15 - Top Gun

July 22 - Back to the Future

July 29 - Raiders of the Lost Ark

August 5 - Ghostbusters

Outdoor movies are the latest rage across the nation and Pioneer Courthouse Square is bringing a gigantic, inflatable movie screen to Portland 's ‘Living Room.' We are partnering with sponsors to bring quality family-friendly movies to the Square that everyone will enjoy! Movie-goers are encouraged to bring low-back lawn chairs or bean bags down to the Square and truly make it their ‘Living Room' for the evening. Food and beverages will be available for purchase and this movie series will be FREE and open to the public!

Rally At the Capitol

If you have not done so don't forget to sign up for the Rally At The Capitol tomorrow.

Give Oregon Civil Unions a Fair Vote!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

http://chocolatefactorymovie.warnerbros.com/

If ever there was a story that was tailor made for Tim Burton and
Johnny Depp, it has to be this story.

Rally At The Capitol

Give Oregon Civil Unions a Fair Vote! Click the image to sign up.

The Heterosexual Revolution

July 5, 2005
The Heterosexual Revolution
By STEPHANIE COONTZ
Olympia, Wash.
THE last week has been tough for opponents of same-sex marriage. First Canadian and then Spanish legislators voted to legalize the practice, prompting American social conservatives to renew their call for a constitutional amendment banning such marriages here. James Dobson of the evangelical group Focus on the Family has warned that without that ban, marriage as we have known it for 5,000 years will be overturned.

My research on marriage and family life seldom leads me to agree with Dr. Dobson, much less to accuse him of understatement. But in this case, Dr. Dobson's warnings come 30 years too late. Traditional marriage, with its 5,000-year history, has already been upended. Gays and lesbians, however, didn't spearhead that revolution: heterosexuals did.

Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. Heterosexuals were the ones who made procreation voluntary, so that some couples could choose childlessness, and who adopted assisted reproduction so that even couples who could not conceive could become parents. And heterosexuals subverted the long-standing rule that every marriage had to have a husband who played one role in the family and a wife who played a completely different one. Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too.

The first step down the road to gay and lesbian marriage took place 200 years ago, when Enlightenment thinkers raised the radical idea that parents and the state should not dictate who married whom, and when the American Revolution encouraged people to engage in "the pursuit of happiness," including marrying for love. Almost immediately, some thinkers, including Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Condorcet, began to argue that same-sex love should not be a crime.

Same-sex marriage, however, remained unimaginable because marriage had two traditional functions that were inapplicable to gays and lesbians. First, marriage allowed families to increase their household labor force by having children. Throughout much of history, upper-class men divorced their wives if their marriage did not produce children, while peasants often wouldn't marry until a premarital pregnancy confirmed the woman's fertility. But the advent of birth control in the 19th century permitted married couples to decide not to have children, while assisted reproduction in the 20th century allowed infertile couples to have them. This eroded the traditional argument that marriage must be between a man and a woman who were able to procreate.

In addition, traditional marriage imposed a strict division of labor by gender and mandated unequal power relations between men and women. "Husband and wife are one," said the law in both England and America, from early medieval days until the late 19th century, "and that one is the husband."

This law of "coverture" was supposed to reflect the command of God and the essential nature of humans. It stipulated that a wife could not enter into legal contracts or own property on her own. In 1863, a New York court warned that giving wives independent property rights would "sow the seeds of perpetual discord," potentially dooming marriage.

Even after coverture had lost its legal force, courts, legislators and the public still cleaved to the belief that marriage required husbands and wives to play totally different domestic roles. In 1958, the New York Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the traditional legal view that wives (unlike husbands) couldn't sue for loss of the personal services, including housekeeping and the sexual attentions, of their spouses. The judges reasoned that only wives were expected to provide such personal services anyway.

As late as the 1970's, many American states retained "head and master" laws, giving the husband final say over where the family lived and other household decisions. According to the legal definition of marriage, the man was required to support the family, while the woman was obligated to keep house, nurture children, and provide sex. Not until the 1980's did most states criminalize marital rape. Prevailing opinion held that when a bride said, "I do," she was legally committed to say, "I will" for the rest of her married life.

I am old enough to remember the howls of protest with which some defenders of traditional marriage greeted the gradual dismantling of these traditions. At the time, I thought that the far-right opponents of marital equality were wrong to predict that this would lead to the unraveling of marriage. As it turned out, they had a point.

Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children- was an immense boon to many couples. But these changes in the definition and practice of marriage opened the door for gay and lesbian couples to argue that they were now equally qualified to participate in it.

Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process it has become more flexible, but also more optional. Many people may not like the direction these changes have taken in recent years. But it is simply magical thinking to believe that by banning gay and lesbian marriage, we will turn back the clock.

Stephanie Coontz, the director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, is the author of "Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage."

The Beach, Boys and Crocodiles

I had the strangest of dreams last night. I am not sure exactly what
I ate, or didn't to prompt such a bizarre dream.

Like a lot of dreams, the location was fuzzy and seemed to transition
back and forth between my home and the coastal beach. Or perhaps they
were merged together; a beach floor with the walls and furniture of my
home. My couch and coffee table were sitting on the sand floor, and
in my dream this seemed perfectly logical. Then somehow in my dream I
met a hot boy. How I met this boy was never clearly revealed. He was
hot, smooth, ripped, and wanted to be my boyfriend.

We were in love and we went skipping through the sand…err around my
house…and made love all day long. (That part of the dream was quite
erotic.) Then one day the hot boy (he never did reveal his name) came
over and we made mad passionate love. (Seriously, this part of the
dream could have lasted longer. MEN!)

Later that evening I was to meet up with him to go to some party.
When I arrived at the bar, which seemed very similar to Crush, but
with a sand floor of course, I remarked to him how great he performed
earlier in the day. He gave me a funny look. It was the look of
surprise. He didn't know what I was talking about. Then the look was
replaced with suspicion.

We started to argue about the weather or not we had mind blowing sex
that morning. We were screaming at the top of our lungs as people in
the bar stopped what they were doing to see what drama had developed.
Then through the doors walked a boy that looked just like my hottie
boyfriend. This hottie look-a-like walked right past us and winked.
I was in total shock. Had I slept with the look-a-like and not my
boy?

The hottie boyfriend ran out of the bar, in tears, not sure what to
think or believe. I ran after, but when I opened the door in the bar
to head outside, there was nothing but sand and swamp and crocodiles.
Big, nasty, pissed off crocodiles were everywhere, and they were not
happy to see me. Still I ran after the hot boyfriend, weaving and
dodging crocodiles. As they snapped and hissed I would leap over them
like in a Mario Brothers video game.

Behind me the hottie look-a-like had set chase as well. I could not
tell who he was chasing after. He would be beside me, and then behind
me, then ahead of me. He was all over the place. I was surrounded by
the hottie look-a-like, and I could no longer find my hottie
boyfriend. I was out of breath and running out of energy.

Finally, I made it through the croc fields. There was still no sign
of my hottie boyfriend, but I had to slow down and stop. The hottie
look-a-like slowed down beside me to stop. I had my hand on my knees
and was bent over trying to catch my breath. I looked up at the
hottie look-a-like and noticed that he looked different somehow. I
stood up straight to get a good look. Then I noticed it. He was part
human, part crocodile.

That's it, and then I woke up. Now what the hell does that mean?

Happy Birthday Scott

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday ya big bitch
Happy Birthday to you

Love ya baby! Happy Birthday

-Adam

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Happy Birthday Brandi! I'm so glad that all the boys were around to help celebrate. I will get pictures up this week. Love ya!

-Adam

Oregon Seanate passes Civil Unions and Prohibits Discrimination

We are now one step closer to Civil Unions in Oregon. The Senate approved SB 1000, which prohibits discrimination and creates Civil Unions in Oregon. The measure now moves onto the House.

For more information:

http://basicrights.blogspot.com/2005/07/senate-passes-sb-1000.html

http://gayrightswatch.blogspot.com/

A Supreme Court Justice For All of Us

This Petition sponsored by six term US Senator Joe Biden, urges
President Bush to nominate a US Supreme Court Justice that can receive
unanimous support. Follow the link below to find out more or sign
this petition.

http://uniteourstates.com/

Pictures from the 4th of July 2005

Hey kids! Here are some pictures from the 4th of July 2005. Jeremy and I hit up the Portland Blues Festival with Felicia and Eliot before meeting up with the boys and Courtney's beautiful sister. Boating was an interesting experience to say the least, but good times for sure. Fireworks over the river...what could be better.

Click here for 4th of July 2005 photos.

NYTimes.com: United Church of Christ Backs Same-Sex Marriage

July 5, 2005

United Church of Christ Backs Same-Sex Marriage
By SHAILA DEWAN

ATLANTA, July 4 - The United Church of Christ became the first mainline Christian denomination to support same-sex marriage officially when its general synod passed a resolution on Monday affirming "equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender."

The resolution was adopted in the face of efforts to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. It was both a theological statement and a protest against discrimination, said the Rev. John H. Thomas, the president and general minister of the denomination, which has 6,000 congregations and 1.3 million members.

"On this July 4, the United Church of Christ has courageously acted to declare freedom, affirming marriage equality, affirming the civil rights of gay - of same-gender - couples to have their relationships recognized as marriages by the state, and encouraging our local churches to celebrate those marriages," Mr. Thomas said at a news conference after the vote by the General Synod.

The synod's decisions are not binding and the vote will not require pastors to provide marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. Some United Church of Christ ministers already perform such ceremonies.

While the United Church of Christ has not had the widespread divisions other major denominations have experienced over homosexuality, some member churches had said that such a vote could prompt them to leave the denomination, and one group called for Mr. Thomas's resignation when he announced his support of the resolution.

One amendment offered on the synod floor, and accepted, added a phrase acknowledging the "pain and struggle" passage of the resolution would create.

Yet the resolution, submitted by the church's Southern California-Nevada Conference, appeared to have overwhelming support on the synod floor, where the vote was done by a show of hands among the roughly 800 delegates after about 45 minutes of debate.

"Every indication was that it was going to go that way," said Brice Thomas, 42, a United Church of Christ pastor in Lebanon, Ohio, who is gay. "But still, to hear it come to a vote and see it processed in such a positive way to me was transformative."

Some, like Harlan Hall, a delegate from Wisconsin, supported a failed effort to change the resolution to apply to "covenanted relationships" rather than legal marriage. "As a well-over-30-years-old, heterosexual white male capitalist, who seems like he's losing his position in the church - but still can vote, I am in favor of the proposal," Mr. Hall said. "I could find it much easier to sell back home."

But another delegate, Gregory Morisse, who opposed the amendment, said, "Covenanted relationships are not under constitutional threat."
Hector Lopez, a minister from a small Latino church in Southern California, said he was not at first enthusiastic about same-sex marriage. But after officiating at about a dozen such ceremonies in Oregon and seeing the respect and commitment of the couples, he said, "I experienced a passionate conversion."

Several major religious groups permit same-sex unions, but do not give them the same status as marriage, including the Episcopal Church, with about 2.3 million members; the Evangelical Lutheran Church, with 5 million; and Reform Judaism, with 1.7 million.

"Today's word is not the last word in the U.C.C. about marriage," Mr. Thomas said. "It is a crucial and groundbreaking first word in a difficult but important churchwide discussion."
He said the church strove to have "diversity without division, unity without uniformity." His hope, he said, is that "we will not run from one another, because if we run from one another we run from Christ."

There was some evidence that the denomination could comfortably encompass dissenters, in part because the mood after the vote was more conciliatory than triumphant. The Rev. Barbara Headley, pastor at a predominantly black United Church of Christ church in Hartford, said she voted against the resolution and that many blacks were more "orthodox" in their interpretation of Scripture.

"There are those of us who live in the tension of affirming love and relationships for people who have not had enough of that, and feeling like the theological evidence for it just hasn't been presented," she said.

Ms. Headley was with Beverly Deloatch, another black delegate from Connecticut, who said, "I voted for it, and I agree with everything she's saying."

Jeanette Mott Oxford, who described herself as the first openly lesbian member elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, said she was pleased by the "brave prophetic witness" of the vote, but "very concerned about my brothers and sisters who may be hurt by this."
The United Church of Christ prides itself on being in the forefront of human and civil rights issues. On its Web site, the denomination says it and its predecessors were among the first churches to take a stand against slavery, in 1700, the first to ordain a woman, in 1853, and the first to publish an inclusive-language hymnal, in 1995.

Its slogan, "God is still speaking," is meant to suggest that the Bible is not the sole source of divine instruction, and that Scripture must be interpreted in today's context.
The equal marriage rights resolution states, in part, "Ideas about marriage have shifted and changed dramatically throughout human history, and such change continues even today." It continues, "In the Gospel we find ground for a definition of marriage and family relationships based on the affirmation of the full humanity of each partner, lived out in mutual care and respect for one another."

Last year, two major networks refused to broadcast a United Church of Christ commercial that showed two bouncers standing in front of a church, allowing some people to come in and refusing others, including nonwhites and a gay couple. "Jesus didn't turn people away," the text said. "Neither do we."

America's Birthday Over

Portland Blues Festival

Happy Forth of July!