Engagement Fever

“Hello Young lovers whoever you are
I hope your troubles are few
All my good wishes go with you tonight
I’ve been in love like you

Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star
Be brave and faithful and true
Cling very close to each other tonight
I’ve been in love like you” - Rogers & Hammerstein

It seems like everyone in the known universe has caught the marriage bug. First Jesse pops the question to Nicole. Then Andy asks me, or maybe I asked him - actually, I think we sort of asked each other. Then Alex and Mike get engaged. Next thing I know, Mark and Whitney are getting married, then Gabe and Elissa, and now Jasmine and and Nash. And of course, let’s not forget Christina and Jordan ;-). Am I forgetting anyone? Good lord I hope not.

Best wishes to you all. Let’s keep in touch about wedding planning and all that wonderful stuff.

Seig Heil!

This pictures says it all.

More News about Christina’s New Album

The album, entitled Back to Basics is scheduled for a June release on RCA. Now I have two reasons to be super excited about June :-). The album features a collaboration with DJ Premiere of Gang Star - whose work on a song called “Jazz Thing” in the 80’s inspired Aguilera.

In other X-tina news, the singer recently purchased a painting by rogue artist Banksy that depicts Queen Victoria as a lesbian. Good to know that married life hasn’t caused her to throw her bisexuality out the window.

Now if she’d only do a guest spot on the L Word. C’mon folks, I know she’s dying to do a duet with Kit at the Planet.

On Polygamy

It’s official. I’m addicted to HBO’s new show Big Love. It’s the story of a man named Bill and his wife Barbara, and his wife Nikki, and his wife Margene. Bill is somewhat estranged from the fictional polygamist compound where he grew up, and eschews its practice of marrying young girls. All of his wives are adults who chose their life with him freely.

I find the show incredibly compelling because - unlike many feminists - I support polygamy. Of course, I don’t approve of the form in which it’s currently practiced both in the US and abroad. Marriages between men and girls of thirteen and fourteen are disgusting abuses of patriarchy. And the perpetuation of the idea that submission to her husband is the only way a woman can find happiness is deeply harmful. But while their marriage is far from perfect, the four partners that make up the core of Big Love support and care for one another. In a marriage of equals where all members are consenting adults, I see nothing wrong with polygamous marriages and I believe that they should be afforded some measure of recognition and respect.

That said, there are a lot of legal permutations that need to be taken into account. The gender of the partners should obviously not play any role. So were polygamy made legal, a woman should be free to take several husbands, and mixed groups of men and women should also be free to marry. This raises a number of questions. Should there be a limit on the number of partners? What guidelines should be in place in the event of child custody disputes? How would the tax situation work? The permutations are mind-boggling.

But I have to say that despite these very real questions, the only way to stop the abuses of polygamy as it is traditionally practiced by such groups as the FLDS [NPR Stories: 1, 2, 3] is to stop marginalizing the people who practice it as a relationship between free and equal adults.

I obviously haven’t thought all of this through, but I’m curious to hear what others think about how this would work, if it were given legal recognition. Ideas?

My Life

I’m currently buried in the writing process for the new Business Blogging Book, so sorry if my posts are short and sporadic again this week.

Here’s a photo album from Facebook that shows what else I’ve been up to.

Sick and Disgusting on Many, Many Levels

Warning: Images of Britney Spears giving birth - even when stylized and carved in stone are utterly and completely disgusting. What’s more disgusting is that this hideous sculpture is dedicated to the pro-life movement.

If I ever eat rotten shellfish again and need to throw up. I’ll be sure to look at that…

Gaah!

The Last Battle - Aslan’s Take on Salvation

Warning: at the risk of opening up another huge can of worms, I’m going to go there again with Narnia and Christianity.

I dropped my fiancé off at the airport today after he spent spring break with me up here in Seattle. It was wonderful to see him, and incredibly difficult to say goodbye. I’ve grown to associate airports with some of the most difficult moments of my life.

When I got home, I needed something to soothe my jangled heart, so I downloaded The Last Battle (iTunes), hoping that Patrick Stewart’s endlessly sensual bedroom baritone would distract me for a while. The story did the trick, but something caught my attention as I was listening to the end bit.

In the stories of Narnia, the Calormens are men who live to the North of Narnia. They make human sacrifices to a God called Tash who is regarded as a false God by the Narnians. Aslan - the great lion who is said to represent Jesus - is talking to a young Calormen man who has spent his entire life worshipping Tash. This is the only Calormen who has survived the end of the world, and he’s confused about why he is in Aslan’s kingdom when all the rest of his race have perished.

Aslan explains to him that all good deeds done in the name of any god - whether it is Tash or Aslan - are accepted by Aslan as deeds done in his name. If the whole Chronicles are indeed a Christian parable, then what Lewis is essentially claiming is that people who do good deeds and seek their God earnestly are saved - even if they don’t call him by the same name.

This is a radical departure from some of the doctrine I’ve heard from a number of Evangelicals. From what I understand, Christians today believe that you must believe in Jesus and ask him to wash your sins away before you can be saved. But according to Lewis - who is one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the past century - all are saved who do good deeds in the name of their God.

What do you make of that?

Bush Encourages Blogging

This video of President Bush encouraging people to blog nearly made me vomit. I hate how he uses people’s genuine faith to manipulate them into supporting him.

But the fact remains, blogs just got the presidential seal of approval.

Does Anyone Else Think This is a Bullshit Move that will Piss Off the Muslim World?

The Vatican said this week that it would be trying to “rehabilitate” the Crusades?

Umm…

Straight Rights Update

Don’t have a lot of time today. So I’m just going to reblog this post from Dan Savage’s column:

Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month, Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week, the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control. “If you hand out contraception to single women,” one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, “we’re saying promiscuity is okay.” On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—from being made available.

The GOP’s message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You’re going to have those babies, ladies, and you’re going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that’s too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What’s it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God’s sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Update 10:14 p.m. When Dan Savage talks about “crimializing hetero heavy petting,” he’s talking about this. How lame!

King County Mishandles Drug-Related Animal Cruelty Case

Animal abuse is a felony in the State of Washington for many reasons. No being - whether animal or human - should have to suffer needlessly. But just as importantly, those who are cruel to animals often escalate their sadism to human prey once the thrill of abusing dogs and cats wears off. In order to stop such things from happening, those who abuse animals need to be identified and punished.

This past week, a four-month old puppy by the name of Mooie was found horrifically burned over 98% of her body with muriatic acid - which is commonly used in the production of crystal methamphetamine. She was taken to Valley Animal Hospital in Auburn, WA - where she was euthanized when it became clear that she was in too much pain to go on living. The veterinarians then turned the body over to King County Animal Control - which cremated the puppy’s remains before a necropsy (animal autopsy) or a toxicology report could be conducted.

This was a serious breach of law-enforcement protocol, and now the authorities are stonewalling efforts to further investigate the case.

Something needs to be done to encourage King County to properly investigate this horrible crime - both to deliver some measure of justice for this poor little dog, and to make sure that someone who is capable of making a four month-old puppy drink acid is not wandering free among us. What’s more, we have an escalating crystal meth problem in the United States, particularly in Federal Way and the outlying areas. Any crime involving a key ingredient of such a dangerous and illegal drug must be investigated properly.

Pasado’s Safe Haven - an animal rescue organization in Washington State - has information about how you can take action to ensure that this case is not forgotten. For those of you who are impatient with sites that don’t split up their information, search for the words “What you need to do” to find out who to e-mail and who to call.

More importantly, please blog about this story and link to Pasado’s Safe Haven. They deserve all the Google juice they can get. Please feel free to post the button I have created in the sidebar of your blog, and to edit it to make it fit on any site you wish. Just please be sure to link to Pasado’s Safe Haven.

George Bush Screwup

For once I agree with the President the world would be better off if we got out of Iraq.

What the hell ever happened to conservatism?

What’s this about the bloody Republicans raising the debt limit again? Didn’t the Republican party stand for fiscal responsibility once upon a time?

The fact that 29 (!) Republicans tried to keep this from coming to a vote really says something about the state of the Republican party. They’ve kept the coalition together thus far, but the seams are starting to show. Old school conservatives are fed up beyond belief with the tax-cut and spend bullshit of these Neoconservatives who care nothing for the nation’s finances or its future.

At least the Democrats tax and spend, these guys just spend and spend and spend - like college kids with a credit card.

Lezzie McGuire

Last night, I had a dream that Hillary Duff was getting married to an aunt that I don’t really have. She was in our living room wearing a tiara and talking about how many Oscars she had won.

And then I turned to her and said, “hey, you’re not Lizzie McGuire, you’re LEZZIE McGuire!”

Oh I’m so funny in my dreams.

Sorry not so many posts

I’ve been knee deep in preparations for the upcoming Essentials of Business Blogging event in Los Angeles, so forgive me for my sporadic posting here at TeresaCentric.

I have come up for air long enough to notice and rejoice at the news that President Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to an all-new low of 36%.

Vomit-worthy shellfish from the Coho Cafe

Mondays and Thursdays after work, I meet my friends at the Vertical World in Redmond for a few hours of rock climbing. Afterwards, we go to Coho Cafe for happy hour hors d’oeuvres and wine. Tonight, I ordered the manilla clams and very much regretted my decision.

The first few were fine, they tasted fantastic as always. But then came a series of four or five that tasted really fishy and disgusting, kind of rotten and mushy and half-raw. I spat them out and called the server over to tell her that my shellfish were rotten.

She apologized and took them off the bill, and I went home and promptly made myself throw up. This is quite possibly the worst week of my entire life for me to have food poisoning. There’s no way that I’m going to miss Essentials of Business Blogging because of some bad shellfish.

I hate making myself throw up. The only other time I’ve done it was when I had the flu really bad and was horribly nauseated but wasn’t throwing up on my own. I’ve never done it when I felt fine before - but I was really worried about preventing myself from absorbing whatever awful crap was in those clams.

After having just ralphed up my whole dinner, I can safely say that I have no idea how bulimics can stand it. My throat is sore, my stomach hurts and I still feel a lingering sense that I’m going to have food poisoning.

Blech what a night.

Hillary Clinton Gears Up for 2008

She says she’s raising funds for her 2006 Senate re-election bid, but her fundraising tells another story. The New York Times reports that although New York Republicans are having a hard time finding a candidate to challenge her, she’s been fundraising as if she’s in the battle of her life.

But that’s because her sights are set on 2008, and the White House. This spate of fundraising all but proves that she intends to run, and win the Democratic Party nomination.

Now don’t get me wrong, I adore Hillary. I think she’s brilliant and smart and beautiful. But a lot of the country hates her because she’s not a paragon of traditional femininity. And for that sad reason, I have a lot of trouble supporting her.

But given how much money she’s raising, it’s possible that she could overturn her own unelectability. If she can afford the best of the best in the way of campaign advisors, advertising and image revamping, maybe she can win.

It remains to be seen whether I’ll be supporting her.

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