Speaker For The Diodes

Apr. 3rd, 2014

04:50 pm - Two Gigs In Greenbelt

I'm still trying to get the hang of this "tell people about gigs before the last minute" thing. Here's what's coming up next for The Homespun Ceilidh Band.

We're playing our annual spring concert at the Greenbelt Arts Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Saturday, 26 April at 8:00 PM. ( reservations) Adults $17 / Children $12 / Seniors, Students, and Military $14. I'm pretty sure there'll be no snowstorm the night before to scare people away from this one. ;-)

The following month we'll be back in Greenbelt again, on the plaza above the arts center, for the Green Man Festival -- the festival is both days of that weekend; we're performing on Sunday, 11 May (Mothers Day) at 4 PM. (That's close to the end of the day, so get there a lot earlier than that, and check out the rest of the festival!)


In not-band-related news, Mom will be coming home from rehab on the 16th. I'm trying to get in-home care lined up by then.

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05:24 am - QotD

From The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan:

She squeezed his hand. "Don't lose hope, Frank. Rainbows always stand for hope."

She made her way toward the back of the store, leaving Frank alone.

"Hope," Frank grumbled. "I'd rather have a few good weasels."


Happy Cheese Weasel Day!

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Apr. 2nd, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

It seems that attitudes toward criminals have changed substantially since I was a child. It may be that I am wrong, because I was largely sheltered from contact with those sorts of people until I met Laura, but it seems that, when I was young, one was a criminal, or one was an honest citizen, and the demarcation was well drawn. Today, most people break laws and don't think much of it, perhaps because of the odd things that have come to be illegal. But the result is that the line between law-abiding citizen and hardened criminal is much softer than it was.

[...] When I was much younger and much more naïve, I thought that the line between legal and illegal stayed close to the line between right and wrong. Well, either I was living an illusory life then, or everything has changed now, so that when the two lines intersect it seems only momentary, transitory, coincidental.

Or, more likely, it is because when I do what I must to survive, I am, technically, committing crimes; yet how can what I do be wrong, when it is only what I must do? Still, perhaps this is a justification that has been used by scoundrels ever since the class has existed; I do not know.

-- John Agyar, narrator and protagonist of Agyar by Steven Brust (1993, Tor / Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., New York, NY; ISBN 0-312-85178-2)

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Apr. 1st, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From Waiting for the Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin (1988, Doubleday, New York):

That plus the old Plattsville brainwash bullshit, Charity remembered honestly. Save yourself for marriage and marry as soon as you can, before you know anything at all, let alone how to love. By the time you do, it's worn out as the car and the furniture. "Jeezooee, I was dumb, Woody. Anything worth doing takes practice, doesn't it? Like playing the trumpet."

Sure. If you've never been bad, how do you know when you're good?"

"Or being a doctor even roller skating. But they expect us to be good at love right off."

That one true love stuff never did much but sell houses and diapers and keep dummies like me off welfare as unwed mothers. There's no more one true love than one true song to sing or dress to wear. Totally ridiculous, but so was I for buying it.

[italics in original]


[Reminder: Thursday is Cheese Weasel Day!]

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Mar. 31st, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"'This is the same old story,' [James Whitehead] says. 'The kind of transition that trans people are talking about is very similar to the journey of faith through darkness and desert that people have been making for thousands of years.' He has found, in his teaching and writing, that when he describes trans experience to Catholics in terms of a spiritual journey, a light goes on, and they get it." -- from "A nun's secret ministry brings hope to the transgender community" by Nathan Schneider, 2014-03-02, Al Jazeera America

[Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility ( Facebook, Wikipedia).]

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Mar. 30th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-03-11:

"My life was saved by Rock'n Roll. Because it was this kind of music that, for the very first time in my life, gave me a feeling of identity, the feeling that I had a right to enjoy, to imagine, and to do something. Had it not been for Rock'n Roll, I might be a lawyer now." -- Wim Wenders, director.

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)

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Mar. 29th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

People be calling cars and ships and America 'she' but when a trans women asks for female pronouns people be like no" -- Ribbi, February 2014

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Mar. 28th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"The child I babysit sometimes is 5 years old. Last time I went to take care of him I noticed he has this awesome painting of the moon in his bedroom. He told me his mothers friend painted it. After he told me the artists name he then explained to me 'She used to be a boy but she didn't feel good so now she just takes medicine and it helps her to be a girl. She feels better'

"It's literally that easy to explain it to kids."

-- [attributed to tumblr user gay-mo about a year ago, but I couldn't find it, nor anything else from that long ago, in her tumblr]

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Mar. 27th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"The arts in every field -- music, drama, sculpture, painting -- we can learn to appreciate and enjoy. We need not be artists, but we should be able to appreciate the work of artists." -- Eleanor Roosevelt (b. 1884-10-11, d. 1962-11-07), My Day (newspaper column) 1958-11-5

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Mar. 26th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"'X is much more serious, so why protest about Y?' is like saying 'I clean my teeth, so why should I change my underpants?'" -- Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn), 2014-03-22

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Mar. 25th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." -- Edward Gibbon (thanks to [info] blueeowyn)

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Mar. 24th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building." -- Harry Houdini (b. 1874-03-24, d. 1926-10-31) [via Wikiquote]


[A calendar note: 31 March (a week from today) is the Transgender Day of Visibility.]

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Mar. 23rd, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-03-09:

"Without slides, the participants go further off-script, with more interaction and curiosity." -- Andrew Askew, assistant professor of physics at Florida State University, on the banning of PowerPoint presentations at a regular physics forum.

[ <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/march-2014/physics-by-hand</a> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/march-2014/physics-by-hand</a>] </p></blockquote>(submitted to the mailing list by Terry Labach)</p>

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Mar. 22nd, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, 1989:

As always at crisis times in his life, Rimmer asked himself the question: 'what would Napoleon do?'

Something French, he thought. Probably munch on a croissant, and decide to invade Russia. Not really relevant, he decided, in this particular scenario.

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Mar. 21st, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"I battle depression, anxiety, Avoidant Personality Disorder & 2 Impulse Control Disorders. I'm the neapolitan ice cream of crazy ... but you guys make me feel normal. Which I guess I am, in a way. Seems that all the best people are fucked up somehow. #depressionlies" -- Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, in two tweets 2014-03-13

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Mar. 20th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in everyone, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed." -- Henrik Ibsen (thanks to [info] blueeowyn)

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Mar. 19th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Some people make the argument that sexual orientation is a choice and therefore, we can discriminate based on the fact that the LGBT community has made these choices. If I concede the underlying question and agree that sexual orientation is a choice, then it leads me to my second question -- 'How is this not like religion?' Religion is a protected class in our society. No business owner is allowed to refuse to serve Catholics, or Baptists, or Adventists. But religion is a choice. The supposed difference is that we believe that religion is such an important decision, so wrapped up in our conception of who we are as human beings that we need to protect the choice of religion from discrimination. Why can the same not be said for the LGBT community? I think sexual orientation can certainly be described as a choice made that is so germane to someone's identity that it deserves protection from discrimination. In fact, I think a strong argument can be made that sexuality may be more ingrained than choice of faith. After all, I remember when I chose to be Adventist. I have no idea when I chose to be straight." -- Jason Hines, 2014-02-27

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Mar. 18th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly know in what area it would become useful; and there were no general indications that it ever would be so. By and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment when it is useful; and that this lapse of time can be anything from 30 to 100 years, in some cases even more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do things which are useful." -- John von Neumann (b. 1903-12-28, d. 1957-02-08), "The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society" (1954)

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Mar. 17th, 2014

02:32 pm - HCB in Vienna tonight / Mom's health / #Qfaith chat

We've gotten word from Jammin' Java that the roads in Vienna, VA or pretty much clear, and tonight's gig is definitely on. @JamminJavaMei tweeted a couple of links mentioning us. I gave a young man from down the street money I couldn't really afford to shovel the driveway because I really couldn't afford the spoons to do it myself this afternoon either, with a gig to play tonight. All I have to do is brush the snow off the van and stick instruments in it.


Did I mention here that Mom fell again, a mere 26 hours after she got home from the PT rehab that she went to after her previous fall? I know I talked about it on FB and Twitter. She came home with another UTI, became symptomatic several hours after she got home, and was too weak to get into the van to go to her doctor the next afternoon, landing in the driveway. Well the hospital has a pattern -- keep her for three days so that she qualifies for having Medicare pay for an inpatient PT rehab stay, and send her off to a rehab facility for a few weeks -- but treating each UTI and each fall as an isolated incident just means the standard script becomes a senseless cycle: hosptial, rehab, hosptial, rehab, rins, repeat. Every tech and every nurse I've spoken to at the hosptial has agreed that this is bad, and that she needs to see a urologist. (At the appointment she was going to when she fell, the #1 thing on my agenda was to ask her doctor for a referral to a urologist. I've been trying to make that happen for 2-3 months now.) This afternoon when I was speaking to her current nurse on the phone (who has a voice delightfully similar to John Waters), he asked the doctor there about this and the doctor also agreed ... but she said that it couldn't happen in the hospital for some reason, and had to be an outpatient thing. Okay, if she can stay un-UTI-weakened long enough for us to get her to a urologist ... So the current plan is to schedule an appointment with a urologist near the rehab facility she's being transferred to this afternoon, and have me or one of my siblings (probably me since I'm closest and have time available during weekdays) take her out of the rehab facility to go to that appointment.

'Cause the current pattern is nuts.

In the meantime, let's see whether this rehab facility can do any better at feeding a diabetic a somewhat-reasonable-for-diabetics diet. The last place mostly fed her high-carb stuff, and then gave her insulin every day. (If nothing else, it'll be easier for me and Mom's local friends to visit, having her on this side of the bay. The downside is that even so I'm not going to be able to get out to see her as often as my sister can when she's at the rehab place in Centreville.)


As I mentioned underneath today's quote of the day, I made a Storify out of the most recent (last night) queerness-and-faith chat on Twitter. The back story is that we've been doing these weekly chats regarding the intersection of being religious and being GLTBQ, under the hashtag #qfaith (for queerness+faith). The big chats are Sunday evenings starting at 6 PM Eastern (but people occasionally mark tweets of interest to the group with that hashtag during the week as well).

Yesterday's chat (topic: "Labels -- What do you use? How do they identify you?") was a livelier chat than usual -- and with more non-Christians present and speaking up, which I hope is a trend, since from the outset our intent for #qfaith has been to be a meeting of minds among religious LTBGQ folks of all sorts.

I did a Storify of last week's chat (on fasting) as well.

If this looks like your cup of tea, well as I said we do it every Sunday at 6PM Eastern Time. To read along, just search for "#qfaith" on Twitter and refresh every so often to catch the newest tweets. If you want to join in, you'll need a Twitter account -- just remember to include the #qfaith hashtag in the tweets you want to be part of the conversation.

(And if any of you know how to get Storify to sort a conversation in threaded order, showing what tweets are replies to what, please go ahead and redo this better! Better yet, show me how to do that.)

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05:24 am - QotD

"Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards." -- Galileo Galilei (b. 1564-02-15, d. 1642-01-08)

(I wish I'd thought to schedule this quotation for before last night's

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<!-- lj-cut text="Galileo Galilei, on names and things" --> <p><i>"Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards."</i> -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei">Galileo Galilei</a> <small>(b. 1564-02-15, d. 1642-01-08)</small></p> <p>(I wish I'd thought to schedule this quotation for <em>before</em> last night's <a href="<a href="http://sfy.co/ieDV">#qfaith chat on labels</a>. (Link goes to a Storify archive of the conversation in forward chronological order. If you'd rather read in Twitter's native order -- mostly reverse-chronological but with the option of clicking on a tweet to see some of the replies and antecedents in forward order, just <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23qfaith&src=typd&f=realtime"> search Twitter for the #qfaith hashtag</a>, but do it soon, before much else gets posted with that hashtag.))</p>

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Mar. 16th, 2014

10:04 am - QotD

"Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness." -- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

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05:24 am - QotD

"We can connect to G-d through fasting, but can reach much higher levels though physical enjoyment!" -- Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff, February 2012

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Mar. 15th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

On being reminded that Monday is the 17th: "St. Patrick's Day is the day after Purim? The whole province is going to be drunk!" -- [info] realinterrobang, phone conversation 2014-03-13 (I hope I've remembered her phrasing correctly, but I'm not certain that I have.)

A joyous holiday to my friends celebrating Purim starting tonight!

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Mar. 10th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Pointing out privilege is not oppression. It's making oppression visible so that it can be dismantled." -- @charolem, 2014-03-04

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Mar. 9th, 2014

10:17 am - QotD

"[Penance] does not mean sacrifice and self denial in the first place, but a 'change of heart,' a victory over sin and a triving for holiness. The sacrifices of fasting and self-denial are only means and signs of this spiritual penance. If people understand this well, they will not put the main effort in Lent on technical feats of abstaining from pleasures (which sometimes make them proud or vain), but in sincere contrition, prayer and humble fight against their faults." -- Fr. Francis X. Weiser S.J.

Today is: Gregorian: 2014 March 05 (Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in Western Christianity)
Julian: 2014 February 20 (third day of Great Lent in Orthodox Christianity)
Hebrew: 5774 Veadar 03 (or 5774 Adar II 03)
Islamic: 1435 Jumada I-Ula 03
Persian: 1392 Esfand 14
Mayan: 0.0.0.13.9.1.3.9
Indian: 1935 Phalguna 14
(Western Easter and Orthodox Easter fall on the same day this year -- 2014-04-20 in the Gregorian calendar)

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05:24 am - QotD

"Feed the babies
Who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin' in the street
Oh, oh, there's a solution
[...]
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future"

-- Steve Miller and Steve McCarty, "Fly Like an Eagle", 1976 (from the album Fly Like an Eagle, The Steve Miller Band)

[Folks in places that start Daylight Spending Time[1] terribly early[2], such as most of the US: I hope y'all remembered to adjust your clocks this morning.]

[1] Well, in what way is time "saved"? And some of the arguments in favour of using it deal with merchants' hopes consumers will take more time to shop, so ...

[2] As I've stated before, I'm in the "I don't care how many hours away from Universal Time we are, but pick one offset and stick with it year-round" camp. So starting early is just one more detail piled on top.

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Mar. 4th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From "A nun's secret ministry brings hope to the transgender community" by Nathan Schneider, 2014-03-02, Al Jazeera America:

Hints and echoes of what we now speak of as gender transition lie scattered throughout Christian tradition. An Ethiopian eunuch is the first person baptized in the Book of Acts, and the third-century theologian Origen castrated himself after reading Jesus' remark about those "who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Stories of ancient ascetics recall women "surpassing" their gender through spiritual advancement, or by simply disguising themselves as men. In the Middle Ages, St. Joan of Arc was executed for refusing to stop cross-dressing; legends circulated of a female pope, also named Joan, who was also killed for gender-bending. Medieval mystics sometimes referred to Jesus as a mother and saw visions of milk dripping from his breast. The Catholic Church as a whole, led by a hierarchy of costumed men, is traditionally referred to as She and as the Bride of Christ.

The resonance goes beyond appearances. "Catholic tradition is all about the dignity of the human person," says Edward Poliandro, an advocate for LGBT Catholics and their families in New York City. "Transgender people have a particular prophetic mission just to live and to challenge society simply by saying, 'I'm a person.'"

Though I'm not a Catholic, I got a lot out of this article. I encourage y'all to read it. A little under six thousand words (5737 words according to the Unix 'wc' utility, five chapters, 20 pages with all the big chapter-break photos), and well told.


[To my friends who celebrate Shrove Tuesday with flapjacks, enjoy your pancakes!]

[For my fellow Americans (and America's fans): today in 1789 the Constitution of the United States went into effect with the first meeting of Congress under it.]

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Mar. 2nd, 2014

09:15 am - QotD

"Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It's more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack." -- Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, b. 1904-03-02, d. 1991-09-24)

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Feb. 28th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon." -- Winston Churchill

Today is National Update Your Damn Profile Day. How long has it been since you last edited your profile on various services you log into?

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Feb. 27th, 2014

05:32 am - QotD

"It's strange then that so few right-wing blowhards become school teachers, given their endless bitching about how overpaid and easy that career is." -- Mike_G, Raw Story, comments [thanks to [info] realinterrobang for quoting this earlier]

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05:24 am - QotD

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Feb. 26th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Bias against transgender people takes an enormous toll on their health through direct harm, lack of appropriate care and a hostile environment, and through transgender people's avoidance of the medical system as a result of discrimination and lack of respect. The medical establishment has a duty, and an ability, to protect transgender patients from such harms." -- Daphna Stroumsa, M.D., MPH, writing for the American Journal of Public Health, quoted at medicalxpress.com 2014-02-18

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Feb. 25th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Unfortunately, a lot of people, including many stupid and ignorant and ill-intentioned people, think that 'free speech' means that once they say something, they are entitled to nothing but adulation, and when someone calls them on the ignorant and hurtful nature of what they said, they feel that their rights have been trampled on." -- [info] executrix, 2008-05-29

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Feb. 24th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"How is it that some celebrities, whom the average person would believe to have all the popularity a human being could want, still admit to feeling lonely? It is quite naive to assume that popularity is the remedy for loneliness. Loneliness does not necessarily equal physical solitude, it is the inability to be oneself and rightfully represented as oneself." -- Criss Jami

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Feb. 23rd, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-02-15:

"If reading books was money
 If spinning records was investing
 If drinking was consulting
 Baby, we'd be rich"

  -- Old Man Luedecke, from his song Baby, We'd Be Rich.
[ http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/Old-Man-Luedecke]

(submitted to the mailing list by Terry Labach)

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Feb. 22nd, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Whenever I start feeling spontaneous, my bank account quietly reminds me to calm the fuck down." -- Finn Kankainen (@aFinnishLine), 2013-08-16 [thanks to [info] realinterrobang for quoting this earlier]

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Feb. 21st, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Just realizing that if I took 'dress for the job you want' too literally, I'd be wearing a Star Trek science officer uniform everyday." -- Nicole Gugliucci (@NoisyAstronomer), 2014-02-19

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Feb. 20th, 2014

12:32 pm - Homespun Ceilidh Band @ Jammin' Java on St. Patrick's Day

The Homespun Ceilidh Band will be performing at http://www.jamminjava.com">Jammin' Java</a> in Vienna, VA, the evening of St. Patrick's Day: 2014-03-17 starting at 19:30 (7:30 PM). Admission is $10 in advance or $13 at the door ($15 for VIP seating). Come on out, get some dinner (or just drinks), and see us play!

I enjoyed playing there last year and am looking forward to being at Jammin' Java again on the 17th. Especially looking forward to seeing Virginia friends and fans (and maybe a cousin or two?).

If you want to help us spread the word, here are some links )

(Our third CD, of American Civil War music, and the rerelease of our first CD, should be coming Real Soon Now. When I know when, I'll post that info. It's been Real Soon Now for a while.)

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05:24 am - QotD

"Generally, outside mental illness, a good guide is that if you see people obsessed with something and your first glance makes you think 'that's all there is', the next thought should be, 'Well, I guess I'm missing a lot.'" -- bswinburn on MetaFilter, 2014-02-10 [thanks to [info] - personal silmaril for pointing this quotation out]

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Feb. 19th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Your sacred sex fantasies might be influenced by a religious upbringing, the Bible, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching or other spiritual teachings that elevate the sex act to something heavenly, such that you might imagine your sexual union as a cosmic merger of two souls becoming one. Religious people don't tend to characterize their ideas about spiritual union as fantasies, but if the holy robe fits, wear it." -- Dr. Susan Block, "The 6 Most Common Secret Sexual Fantasies -- And What They Mean", 2013-10-04 [thanks to [info] realinterrobang for quoting part of this earlier]

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Feb. 18th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"You have the right to remain awesome. Anything you say or do may make me love you more." -- @Baratunde, 2013-02-14

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Feb. 17th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Personally I have no problem with media outlets, businesses and individuals making jokes at the expense of homophobes, or hanging out the queer pride flag. It's a statement of support that's fun and costs nothing. But the fact that it costs nothing is precisely the problem. As soon as there's a price tag attached, the foot-shuffling begins. The rainbow flag is supposed to symbolise safety. Hung over a bar, it's supposed to mean that this is a place of refuge. For western nations to brand themselves in this way while subjecting LGBT people to humiliation and imprisonment at their borders is simply disingenuous." -- Laurie Penny, "Less homophobic than Russia? It's not something to give yourself a medal for", 2014-02-13

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Feb. 16th, 2014

02:04 pm - Queerness-and-Faith chat on Twitter

A while back ( September) I met a cool poet on Twitter after I tweeted a link to one of his Youtube videos, a poem casting the story of Joseph in a transgender light. He suggested we should host a Twitter conversation about being people of faith and also being LGTBQ people, and we came up with the hashtag #qfaith for the purpose. After a few more such chats at irregular intervals, with a few other people taking turns co-facilitating, we all decided to make it a regular weekly thing.

So for anyone who is religious and TLBGQ, and is looking for spaces/discussions that invite both of those aspects at once, we're holding #qfaith chats on Twitter every Sunday night at 6 PM Eastern Time ... or 3 PM Pacific Time, 11 PM GMT, and if any of my relatives in Cyprus are interested, 1 AM Eastern Europe Time. (The offsets will change, of course, as each area goes into and out of daylight saving time / summer time. It'll be 6 PM Eastern Time whether that's EST or EDT.)

Tonight's topic is, "How do you define love?" (@charolem and I will be facilitating.)

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05:24 am - QotD

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2012-01-14:

"No good American ever seriously questions an English judgment on an aesthetic question." -- H.L. Mencken

(submitted to the mailing list by Terry Labach)

Happy birthday to my cousin Stella!

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Feb. 15th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"It seems to me that it was well said by Madama Serenissima, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scripture cannot err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But I should have in your place added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways; and one error in particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always stopped short at the literal signification of the words." -- Galileo Galilei (b. 1564-02-15, d. 1642-01-08)

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Feb. 14th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love." -- Leo Buscaglia (b. 1924-03-31, d. 1998-06-12)

[Happy St. Valentine's Day to everyone who celebrates it.]

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Feb. 13th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Many people have sighed for the 'good old days' and regretted the 'passing of the horse,' but today, when only those who like horses own them, it is a far better time for horses." -- C.W. Anderson

[Happy birthday to [info] realinterrobang!]

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Feb. 12th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Classism is too much for me sometimes. My god. Classism in this country is so intense, it's not even related to money anymore, much less race. It's related to what damned food you eat and how many syllables are in your speech.

"Humans are just monkeys. God, we're so doomed."

-- [info] spider88, 2008-08-28

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Feb. 11th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

[...] The Times, therefore, seems to have gone out of its way to publish a commentary that the paper's own reporting shows is absolutely false on all counts.

"This is irresponsible media at its worst. For some reason, mainstream media organizations continue to believe they need to give air time to members of the anti-choice movement even when its assertions are demonstrably false, though it is unclear why. What is clear is that to do so is irresponsible when the information published is full of gross distortions and outright lies, and when public health is at great risk."

-- Jodi Jacobson, 2014-02-10

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Feb. 10th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"It really seems like, in the treatment of Dr. V. in this story, it becomes very clear that the violence trans women face isn't seen as something the author was expected to educate himself on. Like, [Parker Marie Molloy] and I tweeted back and forth on this on, 'is this a question of hate, or of ignorance, or a combination', and It strikes me that the author is expected to learn about golf clubs, but yet the 'trans panic' defense or high rates of suicide in the trans community is not seen as something that the journalist is responsible for knowing about."</i> -- Molly Knefel, 2014-01-21 ( direct link to MP3)</p>

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