Author: Mark Alexander

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Wayback Machine

A Curious Phenomenon

March 2nd, 2007

I have been blogging for close to two years now. What I’ve noticed during that time is while I’ve made new friends through the endeavor, several of my long-time fellow travelers in life’s journey have drifted away. One of whom in particular—a guy I’ve known nearly a quarter century—has all but vanished, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because of something I’ve written along the way. Blogging’s semi-anonymity has allowed me to voice thoughts that even my closest confidants may not have known I was mulling.

This raises a fundamental question. Isn’t it better to have people love you for who you really are, other than for who they think you are?

While not nearly as political as I am, I know my buddy has no love for George Bush, so I doubt that’s the source of his withdrawl. The only other thing that may have caused this apparent chilling of our friendship are the writings about my increasing agnosticism. He’s not a religious guy, but a very spiritually oriented one; something that initially drew us together and that we’d shared these many years. I still respect his New Age beliefs, but at this point in my life I’m just finding it impossible to ascribe to a philosophy that’s become as rigid and entrenched as any other faith-based doctrine and offers no more proof of its validity than the fairy tales of traditional organized religion.

Before I started blogging, we’d chat or email each other several times a week, and I always felt welcome visiting. But over the last year or so (along with my posts examining my crumbling faith in New Age thought), all my emails seem to vanish into a black hole, never to be answered. (His excuse is that he gets so much spam he doesn’t even bother opening his email, despite my attempts to show him how to filter it out at his ISP before it ever reaches Outlook). So I’ve just given up emailing him altogether. At some point you just reach the point where you think, “Why bother?”

I no longer feel like I can just call and come down for the weekend like I’d been doing for years. It seems he always has houseguests, or previous plans, or the planets aren’t in proper alignment. The last time I was in the neighborhood, the ex and I just dropped in on him (we did call first), and neither of us exactly got the warm fuzzies while we were there. And don’t get me started on him coming here. It’s been over a year and a half since he’s been up to Phoenix. His excuse is that his back bothers him. It’s not like going to San Francisco, for Chrissake.

So I’m kind of at a loss. I have a feeling he’s dealing with some demons of his own, but he hasn’t shared any of it with me, and when I’ve asked if everything was okay he said it was. I’m not losing sleep over it, but it concerns me that a friendship I thought I would take to the grave with me may be coming to an end after having survived and flourished nearly twenty-five years.

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Recipe

For those not wishing to contract salmonella.


Eggless Cookie Dough

(to eat, not to bake)

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix together in a bowl, grab a spoon, and put on a movie.

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What Would Happen if All the Ice on Earth Melted?


National Geographic has created interactive maps of what would happen if all the ice melted on earth. The United States would be particularly hard hit as would sections of Euorpe and Southeast Asia. Africa and Australia would feel it the least.

The entire northeastern seaboard would disappear, along with all of Florida and the entire Gulf Coast. San Francisco’s hills would become a cluster of islands and the Central Valley an enormous bay (as it likely was in the distant past). The Gulf of California would extend northward past the latitude of the now-ennundated San Diego.

National Geographic reports:

The maps here show the world as it is now ,with only one difference: All the ice on land has melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas.

There are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth, and some scientists say it would take more than 5,000 years to melt it all. If we continue adding carbon to the atmosphere, we’ll very likely create an ice-free planet, with an average temperature of perhaps 80 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the current 58.

Click on any of the maps to see the full size version.

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Someone Call the Whaaaaaambulance!

From Joe.My.God.:

During his daily show on Christian radio, today hate group leader Tony Perkins asked his listeners to join NOM’s hilariously failed boycott of General Mills.  Because Betty Crocker is a homo-loving purveyor of anti-Christian cake mix.

At Betty Crocker, the only thing they’re mixing up is their priorities. Hi, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. If you ask conservatives, Betty Crocker’s latest promotion is a recipe for disaster. This summer, the famous dessert line decided to jump on the same-sex “marriage” bandwagon-and bring cakes to celebrate. In Minnesota, where parent company General Mills is headquartered, Betty Crocker decided to donate wedding cakes to the first homosexual couples who exchanged vows on the first day that counterfeit marriage was legal. “Betty celebrates all families,” said manager Laura Forero. “We don’t want to be old fashioned,” the company explained. Unfortunately for General Mills, the majority of Americans think natural marriage is anything but old fashioned. And they’ve made it tough on companies like Target, Starbucks, and JC Penney who disagree. Know where your money is going. When you’re at the store, think outside the Betty Crocker box! For a full list of products that are undermining marriage, check out DumpGeneralMills.com.

REMINDER: When anti-gay Christianist hate groups call for nationwide boycotts of LGBT-friendly companies, that is a righteous use of the free market in order to preserve morality, marriage, family, and The American Way. But when GAY groups use or threaten the use of a boycott, THAT is homofascist intimidation, intolerance, bullying, and a “mafia-style” attempt to deny the freedom of speech. (Hello, Oregon!) Just so we’re clear.

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Speaking of Summing Up My Thoughts Exactly…

Some of you may have noticed I didn’t write a word about the twelfth anniversary of 9/11. That’s because my thoughts on the matter are—for lack of a better term—politically incorrect. While I’m not worried about losing readers, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to put anything out there and figured that the old axiom, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” was probably the best course of action.

But then I ran across the following from Talking Points Memo, and it summed up my feelings exactly.

You mention that some people seem to feel that the right “owns” 9/11, and that may contribute to their bristling at the annual commemorations. I think that’s close, but not quite it, at least not from my perspective. My memory is of a tremendous feeling of unity after 9/11—I was living in MA at the time, and I had (and have) lots of family in NYC. In the wake of 9/11, and for the first and only time in my life I bought an American flag for my car, and I flew it in a spirit of defiance of terrorism and pride in my country. And I felt a bond with everyone else who had a flag on their car—there was a communal feeling that we all seemed to share.

That all changed as the response from Bush and Co. began to take shape. Instead of beginning a national conversation, they urged everyone to go shopping. And they began pushing for war. Worse, the “with us or against us” dynamic emerged, splitting the sense of unity I think most of us felt. I remember quite clearly that the flags on the cars in my community began to feel less like a recognition of a traumatic experience we had all shared and more like jingoistic support for Bush’s militarism. I removed my flag, as did many others, and the flags that remained were inevitably displayed by people who also were strong supporters of Bush.And to this day, I remain conflicted about how to feel about 9/11. After the attacks there was a moment when we might have been able to move forward in some productive directions, to tackle some really difficult issues, with a unified sense of purpose. This moment was replaced with political division and hostility toward dissent. So it’s not that I feel that the right owns 9/11. I feel that the right corrupted a precious opportunity for real progress. And we’re still paying the price, not only for the lost opportunity, but also for the effects of the dreadful actions that 9/11 gave rise to.

It’s hard to commemorate 9/11 without being overwhelmed by disappointment and frustration about the awful stuff that followed.

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Going to the Chapel

As Ben and I prepare to celebrate our Fifth Anniversary this weekend, we have made a momentous decision. In light of the Feds revising the tax law to allow same sex couples who wed in states where SSM is legal to claim married filing status even if they now reside in states that do not recognize their marriage…we have decided to tie the knot.

We’re not making a big deal out of it—at least not right now. We’re just driving down to Santa Fe next week (ironically to attend the wedding of one of Ben’s cousins) and will be standing before a Justice of the Peace on Friday.

We both know that certificate won’t mean a thing upon crossing back into Colorado, but we’re both confident that it will only be a matter of time until full equality comes to the state. In the meantime we may register as domestic partners here.

We’ll be having some sort of probably-doctor-who-themed ceremony sometime next year in Phoenix so all our friends can attend.

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I’m Not in the Market for a New Phone…

…but like all good fanboys, I followed along with the live blogs of Apple’s iPhone keynote this morning. I’m starting to fear that the era of “surprise and delight” along with the hallmark “one more thing” at the end of these presentations died with Jobs.

Apple’s control of their secrets is laughable and everything is leaked so far in advance these days, there are no surprises any more. Two models of iPhone, one with colorful polycarbonate cases? Check. Fingerprint scanner on the 5s? Check. Better, faster, system-on-a-chip? Check. Default wallpaper matches color of phone? Check.

As I watched the product videos on the Apple website afterward, it seemed that not even Jony Ivy, Apple’s chief product designer, was swallowing the bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love the stuff Apple puts out and will continue to purchase it as needs arise, but they seem to be mired in their own past success and believing so much of their own hype that they’re afraid to truly think outside of the box any longer. This is sad.

Nothing I saw today made me want to run out and spend money. Nothing. I think that’s a first for me and Apple.