Mon, 23 Jan 2006
Goodbye GS
I got laid off last Wednesday, bringing nearly six years of employ at GS to a sad close. It was a great place to work for the most part, and I'll miss a whole host of people. Such is life.
Time for a change.
I caved, and got a LiveJournal
You can find it here, but it's got rude words in, so be careful. At some point it may be integrated with this one (and made to look a lot nicer), but since it's mostly about gaming, not for a while.
Thu, 21 Jul 2005
In the end, we all wear red shirts.
She didnae make it, tha engine blew, she coulnda take much more o'that, captain! Alas, James Doohan, who famously played Scotty on the original Star Trek, is dead. By all accounts, as well as a beloved figure in the Trekverse, he was a delightful gentleman. RIP, James.
Tue, 03 Aug 2004
Wed, 19 Nov 2003
Go Mass. SJC!
So this (pdf)
is cool. The Massachussetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday on a
suit brought by 7 lesbian and gay couples who applied for marriage
licenses and were denied them, as a matter of policy, by the Mass.
Department of Health. The policy refused to grant the couples licenses
because in each case both were of the same sex. The SJC ruled (4-3) that
this violated the Massachussetts Constitution, and gave them legislature
180 days to figure out a way to give the 7 couples (and all the rest of
us) a way to enjoy a civil marriage. If the legislature
misses the deadline, the DoH must issue the licenses anyway.
There's no doubt that this is very cool.
Inevitably there will be a backlash. I'll be writing again, soon, about
what 'we' need to do. 'We' being everyone who gives a damn
about this issue, which should be anyone who gives a damn about America
and its Constitution. This is going to be a big one.
Fri, 17 Oct 2003
National Promotion of Inequality Week
This is a memorable week. Saturday 11th was National Coming Out day.
It's a bit late for me, unless I go out and find people I don't know to
come out to, but it's a decent enough effort at encouragement. Sunday
12th marked the 5th anniveresary of Matthew Shepard's death.
And this week is National Protection of Marriage Week, as endorsed by
President Bush.
Please go visit the HRC's Million for
Marriage site, and add your names to the petition. Sign up and be
counted. It's phenomenally easy to do, costs you nothing, and
does make a difference. When you've done that, tell some
friends. You know the ones - the club bunnies and meth heads, the
Home Depot dykes and Harley Davidson homos, and don't forget the
straight people. Tell them all. Because it matters now.
Right now, when the U.S. President is endorsing a campaign of fanatical
extremist religious hatred that is aiming to amend the U.S. constitution
to make me, my lover, my gay and lesbian friends, and millions of others
forever second class human beings in America.
I want to live in America; I want to make it my home forever. This
puzzles a lot of people both here and back in the U.K.: "What's so
different?" they ask. Well, it starts with the
Declaration
of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness." It continues with the First Amendment's
Establishment
Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances." Finally, it's embodied in what I can best summarise as
a 'vibe'. Perhaps it's just a metropolitan coastal vibe, or a young
vibe, but I feel more comfortable being whoever the hell I am in America
than I ever was in England. I feel less judged just for living.
I think that vibe is under grave threat, from its own President and
hundreds of thousands like him - but not as many as they would have you
and I believe. They're the small-minded 'christians' who have chosen to
focus on the arcane and barbaric strictures of the Old Testament, rather
than the Christian message of tolerance and love of the New. An English
vicar explains the religious perspectives better in this
sermon.
I started writing this yesterday, and now I'm fed up with it. It seems
so obvious to me that love and compassion were part and parcel of the
vision forged into America's foundation as the country was wrested from
its colonial masters. It seems fundamental to me that the message of
Christ - the supreme manifest authority of Christianity - was
of love and compassion. It is miserably depressing how short the
strident voices on both sides of this argument are on love and
compassion.
Fri, 22 Aug 2003
Huckleberry hat-trick from Jem and Tel
Yay! My friends Jem and Tel just had their third sprog, the fabulously
named Huckleberry Shuttleworth, born at 18:09BST,
August 21st, weighing in at an atypically svelte 8lb 7oz. Here's a photo
from Tel's phone:
Thu, 21 Aug 2003
echospam!
If you're receiving spam from 'AJ@AJNewman.net', please accept my sympathies, and know that I share your pain. I have not been infected by Sobig-F, but am most definitely affected, as the pernicious beast is using my address as an originator. Sorry.
