drawing lines

Walking around and trying to figure out where former streets went while walking to lunch in the U. District the other day. The one that used to go under the bridge that once carried a railroad but now carries the Burke-Gilman trail clearly used to connect to the straight-line north-south section of what's now Stevens Way; it could have been 16th, once upon a time, and I wonder if it used to be a street in Brooklyn before the University moved in. There are still houses almost on it but not, facing 15th, all now University property.

Also, there's a tiny stub of road that connects 15th to an alleyway behind what might have been a barely-postwar four-plex or maybe a tiny apartment building, now also owned by the University, used for something, but it's not clear what. It may once have been NE 38th Street, as it's in the right position for such a thing. But neither cow nor I actually knew.

Monday's miles: 12.8
Tuesday's miles: 12.6
Wednesday's miles: 11.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1228.9
Miles out of Rivendell: 763.9
Miles out of Lothlórien: 308.9
Miles to Rauros Falls: 100.1 crap! just missed! I feel I should go walk to the postbox and back a couple of times.

Gosh, I had a lot of pink flowers this spring, didn't I?


Wrapped a Little Tight

Only two and a half weeks left of class this quarter. Less, if you only count lecture classes. Yeek!

Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Separate but equal isn't equal; Great Britain refuses to recognise Canadian marriage; Focus on the Family calls it a "victory for marriage," of course;

Focus on the Family duly reports on the Kansas Board of Education elections that resulted in Creationists being tossed out the door;

Focus on the Family article on revving up to help keep the House and Senate in Republican control; includes all sorts of guides and such on how to support Republican candidates;

FotF edits and prints Maggie Gallagher's earlier column saying gay marriage will destroy religious freedom;

Faith and Freedom Network sets out its agenda for the 2006 election: replacing the four Supreme Court justices who voted for marriage rights in Washington State;

Fundamentalist groups are miffed that Tennessee judicial candidates aren't returning their "questionnaires" about their eventual likely judicial rulings;

FotF ACTION ITEM to demand religious components of the old (and unofficial) flag folding ceremony be put back in and made official;

Local unions opposing Wisconsin anti-marriage, anti-civil-unions state initiative; Focus on the Family is pissed off, of course;

Fundamentalists opposing new FDA nominee;

Faith and Freedom Network promises to fight any attempt in the legislature to give any recognition at all to GBLT marriages, civil unions, and so on;

Family Research Council supports Congressional attempts to remove church-state cases from court jurisdiction; it's the kind of thing that makes a farce of the Constitution, but what do they care;

FRC letter opposing Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach nomination to the FDA because he won't go along with "abortion causes breast cancer" quackery and because he won't yank RU-486 off the market;

FRC plugs the so-called "values voters" fundamentalist theoconservative confab coming up this September;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM to tell Federal Representatives and Senators that you will not vote for anyone who is not opposed to all forms of GBLT unions;

AFA plugs HR 522, which would ban abortion throughout the United States, with no exceptions; the AFA supports it, of course; it has 100 cosponsors in the House, and the AFA lauds praises on its Republican author;

AFA promotes fundraising effort by Creationist "museum" in northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati;

AFA supports Republican Perry McGuire (candidate for Atty. General in Georgia) and his condemnation of ruling upholding the previously-decided equal-access rules for school clubs; he wants all GBLT clubs banned, compares them to a "pedophile club," claims they promote "illegal activity";

AFA promotes its anti-Ford Motor boycott, declares Ford has "sided with sexual radicals who hate Christianity";

AFA condemns Centres for Disease Control conference where "abstinence-only" education was not taking seriously and generally rips on the CDC and the conference;

AFA stands by Mel Gibson through his anti-Semitic diatribe, saying not to count him out;

AFA cranky at GBLT-rights march in Israel; also promotes Florida anti-marriage effort; in fact, there's a lot of stuff in this particular newsbrief collection, you should just go ahead and click through to it via the URL, there's too much to excerpt properly;

USA Today reports on the surprise move to make Plan B (emergency contraception) available to adults OTC;

Concerned Women for America "warns about new leftist alliance against the family";

CWA: "Guttmacher Wants Public Funding For Contraceptives": there's also an audio-media version of this on their site; I don't have time to transcribe that one, so I'm going with the print article version, but I would assume they are different;

Atlanta Journal-Constitution published Wendy Wright (CWA) op-ed opposing Plan B;

Traditional Values Coalition: "Billionaire Atheist and Homosexual Activist Building a Shadow Government";

Senator Brownback introduces bill making it harder to sue over church/state cases;

TVC attacks discussion to let Plan B go over the counter, falsely describing it as an "abortion pill" and saying it causes abortion;

Canada Family Action Coalition ACTION ITEM to protest BC public schools decision to include the roles of GBLT people in history in history classes; it also includes an ACTION ITEM to pull children from public schools if they don't get their way;

Link to Extra Edition, a CFAC newsletter outlining their opposition to GBLT people being mentioned in schools;

And finally, today's Cultural Warfare Update Comics Page.

( Articles and excerpts below )