Horizon

Doesn't the "National Alliance for the Mentally Ill" have that "for" in its name because it's really an organization of the family members who put people away, not the folks who get put away themselves? It seems like people who have directly spent time inside the mental health system, either as staff or as patients, have much more ghoulish senses of humor about these things. They have to.

BTW how's your snowstorm going out there, Bobby? The news here says New England is getting as much as two feet tonight.

Parts of NE did get two feet. The part I'm in sits across the lake from the Adirondacks and well northeast of the Mohawk River Valley in NY, so this storm did not hit us.

Jon Carroll in the SF Chron is rooting for the crazy bears this morning.

Oh -- and our new Secretary of Education has devoted his valuable time to a hissy fit over the revelation in a PBS cartoon that lesbian weddings are a thing they have in Vermont -- along with, for example, maple sugar. (Better talk to the Secretary of Energy about that maple sugar. Where I come from in Massachusetts the sugar maples aren't worth tapping any more thanks to global warming.)

Actually it sounds like a slightly strange way to present the situation: "Ooh, let's go to Vermont to see the lesbians! We don't have any of those here, oh no! It's Vermont that has lesbians and maple sugar. Our own regional characteristics are hundred-percent heterosexuality and barbecue with mustard sauce..."

What baffles me is a business based on men buying women teddy bears for Valentine's Day? Are women impressed by teddy bears?

Beats me. Lotta women out there. Suppose there must be some who are.

This leaves me waiting for a "Fusco Brothers" punchline to occur but it's not surfacing. Anyone want to help?

My guess is that there are more women who would appreciate stuffed bears than there are women who would appreciate some extra SDRAM.

Why that should be I've no idea.

The Fusco Brothers wouldn't appreciate SDRAM either. Probably think it was something to eat.

Excuse me, that should have been "...devoted *her* valuable time...." The new Ed Sec's a woman. Meanwhile Josh Marshall has the United Church of Christ making gestures of inclusiveness toward Spongebob Squarepants.

..."Absolutely, the UCC extends an unequivocal welcome to SpongeBob," the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, said, only partly in jest. "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

For that matter, Thomas explained, the 1.3-million-member church, if given the opportunity, would warmly receive Barney, Big Bird, Tinky-Winky, Clifford the Big Red Dog or, for that matter, any who have experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace....

What a very strange planet this is.

So I guess this means Barney's going to convert? What was he in the first place? Unitarian?

I wonder if I can get my sweetie to buy me a backup hard drive for Valentine's.

What a strange holiday. I feel slightly dirty for even typing it.

Get flash memory. It's cool stuff. I'm incubating a novel with a flash memory stick as McGuffin.

P.S. Why would Barney be a Unitarian? That repetitive "We're a happy family" stuff sounds more like an evangelical faith or even some kind of cult.

BTW am pleased to report that the Newspaper-Reading Cat just made a four-foot standing jump from my desk to the couch. Not much of a leap for a cat, you say, but this is an egg-shaped kitty on pr*dnisone with a collapsed middle lung lobe so good for her.

Get flash memory.

Are you kidding? I'd lose one of those little things within a week. I prefer to keep my work in progress on a server. Harder to lose one of those.