Under Attack from Within

I am deeply concerned by Bush's State of the Union address, especially the Republicans' renewed attack on gay marriage. It reeks of entanglement between Church and State, referring to secular marriage as a "sacred institution". Worse, it reeks of theocracy. Speeches like this one give me hope, but it may not be enough to stop those who seek to turn those they view as sinners into second class citizens.

One amendment towards intolerance is too many. But do you really think that, for the Religious Right, one amendment could ever be enough?

Update: After a long argument with kristinanity about my original icon, which couples a modified version of this poem with images of bigoted protesters, I have changed the icon on this post and deleted the original icon from my userpics.

Not a Millionaire

Grant Hutchins, an Olin student, was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? today (although the show was taped months in advance). He did fairly well, securing $25,000 before missing a question about gerrymandering (the term originated from the redistricting of Massachusetts, not Virginia). Yeah Grant! W00t!

A Few More Things

In politics, some good news.

From Bruce Holland Rogers, I have three free three-month subscriptions to BHR's Short-short Stories to give away to people who aren't currently subscribers (three stories a month, sent via email). Provide your email address if you want one.

This afternoon was the first session of Engineering Discovery at Hillside Elementary school. Although the program was hindered by some bureaucratic problems, those should be resolved by next week. Things went well with the first lesson, though. We discussed static electricity, and helped the kids build electroscopes.