Mama,
I miss you very much. I'm doing fine and nothing to worry about. I sold your house. They were nice people or I wouldn't have. Gully left us last week and I know you loved him very much. As I clean through the house and dust and iron and mop I think of you. You were the best damn housewife I ever met. Thanks for teaching me all these things. My house and my partner thank you. I better get back to the kitchen. I only wish I was half as cute as you when I set the table.
Me
Not only was I blessed with a wonderful mom but I also had the good fortune of finding somebody to spend my life with that has the only mom who can hold a candle to mine. Miss Jessie Elliott is the finest Mother-in-Law a guy could ask for. My life is fuller and richer because of her. Not only do I love her son but I also love her. She is perhaps the most kind and generous person I have met and in addition to being a good person she has also been a good mom. I am grateful every day that I have her in my life. If I had an idol, she would be it.
Mildred Loving: RIP By: James Withers More on: Leon M. Bazile, Loving v. Virginia, marriage rights, Mildred Loving, Richard Loving
If you ever described the same sex marriage movement as an extension of civil rights, then you know Mildred Loving (if you don’t you really need to be ashamed). Mildred Jeter Loving was the wife of Richard Loving; in 1958 the then young couple decided to get married. He was white, she black, and the laws of Virginia, their home state, did not look kindly on their union because it was a violation of the state’s Racial Integrity Act. The couple were arrested in their home late one night and sentenced to a year in prison, a punishment that was voided if they left the state and did not to return for 25 years. Here are the words of their sentencing judge, Caroline County Circuit Court Judge Leon M. Bazile:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
The passage of time allows us the privilege of mocking the good judge’s ahistorical mixing and matching of history, theology, and politics; however, his opinion, the law, and most citizens were against the Lovings. What’s important to remember about the couple is two things: 1) they had no intention of being activists (they didn’t even attend their own Supreme Court hearing, Loving v. Virginia), and 2) the couple just wanted to make a life for themselves and their children among family and friends. The couple did that when the Supreme Court finally struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, returning to their Caroline County home. It would be nice to give this story a happy ending, but Richard Loving died in a car crash in 1975. From then until her death this week, Mildred Loving stayed away from the press, letting her love and marriage do all the talking.
True Civil Rights Giants. Not by choice but because they were in love. If you are Bi-racial or in a marriage of mixed race you owe a great debt of gratitude to the Lovings. They changed the laws of the land simply by not allowing society to tell them they couldn't be in love. In the end love won out and the Lovings changed the face of this nation forever.
I can tell you without a shred of doubt in my mind that the kid who made the drawing can look forward to an illustrious career in corporate logo design*. With a little polishing, this would make an awesome logo for a vasectomy clinic:
*Don't be lazy! Click the link! It's integral to the humor of the post.
Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!
Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule. Thanks for your patience!
Last week, we announced the winners of the HP "What Do You Have to Say? Theme Design Contest and promised you we'd make the winning themes available on Vox in the coming weeks. After a little more thought, we decided you shouldn't have to wait a second longer to use these creative and inspiring designs on your blogs, so we made them available for you today. Who says good things only come to those who wait?
Let’s face it: Superhero movies are a dreadfully mixed bag. Most kick all sorts of ass visually, but their plots can vary in quality from superb (Batman Begins, X-Men) to fairly decent (Spider-Man, X-Men 2) to offensively terrible (Fantastic Four, Catwoman). I just took the kids to see Iron Man yesterday – the newest offering from Marvel and Paramount – and as you might expect I have opinions to share.
But first, silly ramblings!
Opening weekend is positively the worst time to see a movie. Every facet of the experience reminds you how contemptible the average Joe really is – from the endless line of people so mottled and moist you wouldn’t touch them with a set of salad tongs to the intermittent, phlegmy rattle of the mouth-breathing TB victim in a nearby seat. The only voluntary events I can think of that are similarly galling are dining out at buffet restaurants and swimming at public water parks.
The line wasn’t that bad, actually, since we showed up a good half-hour before show time, but whatever anguish I avoided by being prompt was duly made up for by my having to surrender the entire contents of my wallet (including my coupon for a free crunchy taco from Taco Bell) and one of my testicles (they let me choose which one; I went with the right).
We didn’t stop by the snack counter because 1) I hate having to visit the restroom halfway through the movie and 2) I really wanted to keep my other nut.
Seating Derangements
There were maybe a dozen or so people in the theater when we sat down and most of them were the odd types who like to sit right smack up against the screen, which is something I have never personally understood; but who am I to judge, especially when it means the best seats in the house – halfway back, dead center – are left available for me and mine?
Now, it's not as if I was expecting to have the whole damn row for just the three of us, this being only the third day of release and all, but I also didn’t think the place would be so crowded as to force me to fight for the armrest. And it really wasn’t that crowded at all; it was just that the pimply guy with the sideways baseball cap and anorexic girlfriend lacked any normal level of social tact and felt it appropriate to drop his bony ass, with a surprising thud, into the seat directly adjacent to mine.
I’d have been alright with the cozy atmosphere Pimples tha Gangsta had just created, except that he smelled like a sweating salami smothered in cigarette butts. What’s more, he had tried to cover over his meaty aroma with a liberal dousing of some musky cologne that I’m guessing was a member of the patchouli family. Had I been blind, I would have figured Death himself had made a quick stop at a delicatessen before coming to the theater to take me to the other side.
I weighed my options: I could let my new movie companion know what I thought of his personal scent by vomiting ramen and iced tea into his lap; I could spend the entire movie covering my nose with one arm and defending my share of the armrest with the other; I could call an usher and ask him to clean up the pile of rancid salami some jerk had left in the seat next to mine; Or I could simply get Zach and Amanda to scooch over a couple seats. Any of the first three options would have been as entertaining as the movie itself, but I decided on the last option because I’m unpredictable like that. Sadly, once we’d scooted over a couple seats, Lanky McLunchmeat and his girl moved over as well. He was able to keep his lap ramen-free, however, by astutely leaving an empty seat between us.
Just before the lights dimmed, a group of Jr. High boys sloughed in and started looking for three seats together in the front section. They were dressed entirely in black, right down to their fingernails, and each had the definitive slab of jet-black hair pasted down over one eye. Bits of metal could be seen glimmering from several points in each of their pale, forlorn faces.
“Look!” said Amanda, “Emos!”
“Wow, how rare to see them in the wild like this,” I replied. Panda burst out laughing. “Shhhh, careful! You’ll spook them!”
The Actual Review
I’m going to go ahead and admit Iron Man has never been one of my favorite superheroes. For me, he’s always had a sort of ho-humness about him. I feel the same way about The Human Torch and Flash. I can’t really quantify it other than to say they just didn’t do enough for my adolescent imagination; didn’t intrigue me the way heroes like Spider-Man and Batman did. Nevertheless, when I heard one of my favorite actors of all time, Robert Downey, Jr., was set to play Tony Stark, I knew I’d be unable to wait for the DVD. Then, when I finally saw a trailer, I actually got excited enough to entertain the idea of seeing the film during opening weekend.
The CGI is, of course, nearly immaculate. The special effects team outdid themselves smoothing the seams between reality and computer-generated imagery. The comic book movements of the characters were, in my view, more realistic than what we’ve seen previously (even if the laws of physics are still more-or-less ignored) and the mechanical functionality of the suit was very believable indeed.
Like any good science fiction story, there are socio-political allegories drawn, but none any more overt than what you’d read in Iron Man comics. The movie has just the right amount of humor delivered at just the right times and, thankfully, neither Stark’s alcoholism nor the romance between Stark and Pepper are played up to any significant degree. It’s mostly just good old punch-em-up, blast-em-down action! I’m trying very hard to avoid giving away any spoilers, so forgive me for the lack of details.
If you dig superhero movies but really felt screwed over by Hulk, I’d encourage you to let that old wound heal and go see Iron Man. It's two full hours of shiny superhero goodness.
Oh, and one last tip: stay in your seat until the lights come back on! You’ll want to know who shows up at Stark’s house after the credits roll.
One of the things we have thought about more than anything is how will Tater be once Gully is gone. She is devastated. So we have been doing our share of pampering and spoiling and trying to help her cope with Gully not being here.
Truthfully, Tater came to me and told me she was worried about Kevin and suggested we take him to the park. So we did and a good time was had by all. I think I saw a few smiles on each of their faces and I am sure a few showed up on me as well. Kevin has always walked Tater and I always walked Gully. I felt him missing but tried not to let on. Much to my delight we saw people Fencing, people shopping, kids riding bikes, and sunshine and fragrant flowers. Life, as they say , goes on. We do the best we can and look after those we love. By living richly and meaningfully we truly honor those who are no longer with us.
Next time I am definately taking my swimming diapers.
Zachary and I went out to my parents' house this morning to do a little work on their computers. On the way home, Zach happened to have his laptop running and I was amazed at the number of unsecured networks that started springing up on his screen. As we passed out of range of some, other new ones were quickly located. There were at least a half dozen completely vulnerable networks showing at any given moment.
Ignorance is costly. Secure your networks, kids. You never know how many people with fewer scruples than Zach and myself might be driving by your house armed with a laptop and an unending supply of malicious curiosity.
