Silliness

( Read more... )

My state... and proud of it.

As of right now, Calif. has no legal way to ban marriage between two persons.

Gavin Newsome is justified.

I knew the court would throw out the marriages he issued licenses for, they had to, because as Mayor he doesn't get to set aside laws he dislikes.

But he also set the stage for the lawsuit, which let a judge look at the law on it merits, and declare it has none.


In his ruling, Judge Kramer said creating benefits for same-sex couples, such as pension rights, was not sufficient.

"The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal," he wrote. Opponents of gay marriage, and the main presidential candidates in last year's election, said they favoured giving gay couples equal rights, while insisting marriage should be between heterosexuals.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Judge Kramer wrote.

"The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional." (from The Guardian)

He also said, "California's enactment of rights for same-sex couples belies any argument that the state would have a legitimate interest in denying marriage in order to preclude same-sex couples from acquiring some marital right that might somehow be inappropriate for them to have,"

When the people who were arguing that it's all about, "the children" Kramer was just as succint, "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry."

It isn't over, not by a long shot. First, it will be appealed and, in all probability will go to the State Supreme Court. Regardless of the ruling that ought to be where it stops, since this a states' rights issue. There is no federal question (Though some have tried to argue the full-faith and credit clause applies, it's a very weak connection, since that line of reasoning could be stretched to make any case a federal issue).

Assuming (as I hope, and pray) that the Supreme Court of Calif. affirms the decision of the lower court (a simple denial to hear the case would do the trick.... and this was a Wilson appointed judge, a conservative, apparently in the best sense of the word) there will be an attempt to get the state constitution amended to ban it.

That attempt (to get an initiative before the people) will be successful. Prop. 22 passed, and that means enough people will sign the petition to get it on the ballot.

So the question is, how many people will turn out to vote on the issue?

Hard to say. Prop. 22, which is the law struck down, passed with 61.4 percent of the vote. That's a few percentage points shy of the 2/3rds needed to pass an amendment. On the other hand that was four years ago, during a presidential primary, so one can assume a larger than average number of people went to the polls, but that also means a small number (relatively speaking) of dedicated voters could have an effect all out of proportion to their numbers.

And it will also keep happening. Like the fight against evolution, they won't stop, and they have but to win once, to make it damned hard to beat them.

I'll close with something someone else quoted, when the streets of San Francisco were alive with happy couples, getting flowers from people across the nation, and allowed to show the world they were just like everyone else.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Nor bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



William Shakespeare

(1564 - 1616

Sonnet 116

Food Porn, while the scanner scans

I have a lot of film to sort through, and the scans are taking time.

I could do a fast scan, at 600 dpi, 8-bit, so I can store it as jpg and then send it out to people.

But I'm not. Nope, 2400dpi and 48 nit color, which I will then crop, tweak the brightness and contrast a bit, and then save as an 8 bit jpg. That's a slow scan.

So, in the meanwhile I have food to play with.

Today, planning for a small get-together for Thurs (small because lots of people have their finals out of the way and will be gone) to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I went ogling the meat dept. at Food 4 Less. I wanted a brisket of corned beef (it's not Irish tradition, but it is American Irish traditional, and my family is American Irish on both sides, so it's tradition for me). It was on sale, but hidden away. Amazing since this is the time of year they have the most of it. Because it was hidden in plain sight I saw something else, beef bones.

Mind you, I can get beef bones at Scolari's, but I don't. Why? Because Scolari's wants $2.50 a lb. Food 4 Less, they want $0.69. That I'll spend. They had nice bones too, some meat on them, and the femurs done in three cuts. The top was split in half (I bought a pair of these) the long bone done in disks (I left them behind, the marrow wasn't the color I liked, and they were a tad dry, to look at) and the bottom's were sliced in halve's and bits. I bought about three lbs. of those.

Slice three carrots and an onion. Put them in the bottom of a cookie sheet (non-stick) with some water, and the bones piled onto cooling racks. Heat at 375F until the house smells like a roast.

Toss the bones in a pot, and deglaze the pan with water. Scrape with a nylon skimmer and pour the cracklin's and the broth into the pot. Cover the bones with water, add some parley, celery, marjoram, shallots (which Food 4 Less sells for $1.39 the lb.) and a couple of bay leaves.

This will make brown stock.

Tomorrow I start to make pork stock with the pork neck bones. I use it where recipes call for veal stock, because veal bones are hard to find, and pricey. It isn't quite as sweet, but it serves.

For Thurs. I'll do some colcannon (as I learned it, which is non-canonic, for any of the four versions of canonic I've seen).

It's potatoes, mashed with sour cream, and then made into a concrete with raw white cabbage and scallions (the whites sliced crosswise, and the greens along their length. It makes a splendid breakfast when a bit of milk/cream is added and the paste browned in a buttered skillet.

I've not yet decided on soda farl, or using the small dutch oven to make soda cake. In either case it's bread, made with soft wheat, buttermilk, and baking soda. I like caraway seeds, but Maia thinks them anathema (which is one reason to make farl, because I can made some with seeds, and some without).

Braised celery, and some sort of salad.

For desert, well I think of something, perhaps some apple fritters.

I'll use the cooking water, for the brisket, to make lentil soup.