General: November 2003 Archives

I was exhausted last night. I went to bed at 9:30 and fell asleep when my head hit the pillow. I slept through the night. Then, this morning for some reason, was wide awake at 4:00am. The house is dead quiet, except for the occasional cat that strolls by demanding that I drop everything and pay attention to them. I have it figured out that the average cat nap is about 24 minutes. They seem to come by pretty much on time. I wonder if that has some cosmic significance. Cats are very perceptive. Perhaps they are connected to the real cosmic clock. Maybe we aren't on a 24 hour clock. Maybe something major is happening every 24 minutes that we are unaware of. It's as if they wake up every 24 minutes so they don't miss it... whatever "it" is.

I came across this in the news. It's the Patriot Act starting to effect our lives. We are going to see more and more of this as time goes on, thanks to John Ashcroft, et. al.

LAS VEGAS (AP)--Rebecca Foster couldn't believe it when a bank cited the USA Patriot Act and asked her and fellow homeowners association board members for their Social Security and driver's license numbers.

"They said they had to check us against a terrorist list,'' said Foster, a grandmother whose five-member board oversees a Las Vegas community. "That seemed kind of preposterous. None of us are terrorists.''

A week earlier, the FBI in Las Vegas acknowledged agents used Patriot Act authorization instead of the grand jury to investigate a striptease club owner and several elected officials. .....

"It protects the lives and liberties of Americans, rather than detracting from them,'' said spokeswoman Monica Goodling from Washington, D.C. "It is simply an update of the laws that was needed to help close gaping loopholes in our ability to fight modern-day terror.''

You just keep telling yourself that honey. But someday, your information will come back to haunt you when you least expect it. And so it goes.

General Clark Promotion Moves Toward Vote

I suppose if you wait long enough on any controversy, it will just go away. The U.S. Senate has just proven this. The promotion of General Robert Clark has been approved.

Gen. Clark's promotion was being held up and reconsidered because of the atmosphere of hate and homophobia that existed under his watch at Fort Campbell, KY. That atmosphere was the cause of the murder of Pfc. Barry Winchell, who was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by two other soldiers. General Clark knew about the harassment and did nothing to stop it.

Now, he's being promoted. Thank you U.S. Senate for showing us that hate and intolerance are alive and well in our government. Thank you President Bush for your nomination of General Clark and showing that you are so genuine in your value for human life.

Other mentions I've made of General Robert Clark:
April 6, 2003 | May 18, 2003 | June 18, 2003 | June 19, 2003

There are rumors floating around AGAIN about Prince Charles being gay, or at least bisexual. This from stuff:

Desperate efforts by Prince Charles' staff to quash rumours of a sexual incident involving the future king have failed, buried under a tidal wave of media reports around the world.

Though still not officially confirmed, the rumours surround a purported sexual contact between Prince Charles and Michael Fawcett, one of his closest advisers.

While British papers are fighting a court battle to publish the names of those involved, other parts of the world are not bound by the legal ban.

The New York Times says the allegations come from a tape found in a mahogany box owned by the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

George Smith, a former royal servant who suffered from alcoholism and post-traumatic stress syndrome after fighting in the Falklands War, said on the tape he had been raped by another male royal aide.

But far more explosively, he also claimed to have witnessed a compromising homosexual encounter between a senior royal aide and a member of the royal family.

I guess I want to say... so what? Being gay or bi isn't the end of the world, even if you are a royal badass. I want to tell Charles and his mother the Queen, "get used to the idea that the whole world doesn't revolve around YOU. So your son likes a bit of diversity in his sexual appetite. Maybe if you ask nice, he will let you watch!"

To Charles specifically: "Be a man! If you are gay or bisexual, you do everyone (especially gay and bi people who are courageous enough to be open) a great disservice. You are also not setting a very good example to young people (that includes your two sons) about personal integrity and honesty. You can lie all you want but this is not the first time that these rumors have come out and the evidence that they are true is in their favor."

To the ROYAL FAMILY in general: "You used to have class. That class was called "Diana, Princess of Wales". You treated her like dirt and really didn't deserve her. Perhaps more accurate, she didn't deserve you. She is gone now and with her, any sense of class and future that you once had is gone with her."

Enough of that....

It's been great weather here this weekend. It finally feels like winter and was very cold last night. I managed to stay outside just long enough to snap a nice photo of the lunar eclipse. That was enough for me. I came back in and had a nice cup of Earl Grey Tea, with a bit of honey (made from the loving efforts of local Coventry bees, of course). After that, I sipped on 20 year old Scotch Whiskey and watched the movie Blood Work (Clint Eastwood movie).

Today, we finished blowing all the leaves off our lawn and made final preparations for what everyone is predicting will be a hard winter. In a few minutes, we are going to get ready to go to the UCONN campus for a concert.

The Hartford Symphony will be performing Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture, and Maxim Philippov (silver medallist of the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Competition in 2001) will perform the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3. I believe that will be followed by the Dvorak Symphony No. 8. It's going to be a heavy concert emotionally I think - heavy works.