I had the honor of hearing him speak once at a conference in DC a few years back and I’m sad that I won’t have that opportunity again. Suddenly the world seems a little too quiet.

“If I take the Catholic out of me, which is hard to do, then absolutely they should have these rights”, Grisanti said.

Now if only California and the other 43 states would join the 21st century.

For those opposed to gay marriage, I have only 2 questions:

1. What, exactly, is it you’re afraid of?
2. Taking religion out of the equation, why should gay marriage be illegal?

New York, I’ll say it again — I am proud of you!  Well done!

What does bother me is that he actually managed to convince some people that his delusions were true.  Sadly, there are always people willing to believe this stuff.  These people gave him money.  These people sold their possessions.  I feel badly for them.   For Harold Camping, however, I feel nothing but contempt.

So what were you doing when the Rapture was suppose to happen?  I was in a car on my way to a friends graduation party; something worthy of celebration, I think.

While I’m not sure celebration is really in order; that just somehow seems a bit wrong to me; I do feel a strong sense of relief.  Though, I’m sure there are others that will carry on his legacy, for the moment I am content to breath that sigh of relief.

Same-sex marriage will not threaten anyone’s marriage. It will not threaten families. What it will do is allow people – regardless of gender – to build families; to have all the rights and privileges that being married allows (medical rights, estate rights, etc) — to have the same rights as the rest of us have. Someone please explain to me how that threatens my marriage to my husband.

What I see every time a state comes to its senses and makes marriage available to all consenting adults is an outpouring of love and happiness from those that can can now celebrate their unions. It’s beautiful. And it’s worth celebrating.

I don’t know whether to be horrified that 76 men voted to fire Hartwig or hopeful that 74 voted to not fire him.

But hey – of course they didn’t leave women out entirely:

Women who wanted to ask questions were told to write them on a piece of paper and have a man read them aloud. But some, including Hartwig’s own daughter, said their questions were never read.

Not that it did any good.

“I actually passed three or four questions to a church council member and none of them were read,” said Emily Rae Hartwig. “I guess the way I felt about it, and the way many others felt, was that they were afraid of us (women). A lot of my dad’s supporters are women.”

What I don’t get is why there are even women that are members of that church.  How low does your self esteem have to be to think it’s ok to be thought of as inferior and having no rights?  Seriously.

Here’s Pat Robertson, of the 700 Club talking about the earthquake in Haiti:

The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever,” Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ “

Seriously?  He believes that?  Aside from the complete and utter heartlessness of his “explanation”, it doesn’t really sound like his god is all that loving or big on forgiveness.  Mr Robertson seems to be light on the compassion as well.  Not that this really surprises me, mind you,  since he and Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on”the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists…” rather than squarely where the blame really was, which was religion and politics.

Anyway, my clocks are all reset (most do so automagicly, thank goodness) and I am contemplating what to do for my extra hour of awakeness today. Hmmm….

Maybe I’ll continue reading Why Does E=mc2? (And Why Should We Care?). I started reading it recently, but haven’t had much time to dedicate to it.  I love it so far, though, and look forward to reading more of it.

Maybe I’ll take an extra Spanish lesson — we’re going on vacation to Cancun in a few weeks and I’ve been brushing up on my tourist Spanish.

I could learn a new tune on my shiny new penny whistle.

Or, perhaps, I could take a walk and enjoy some of the last non-cold weather we’re likely to see here for awhile.

So many options.  So, what do you plan to do with your extra hour today?

I took my first breath 10 months after Apollo 11 touched down on the moon, so I obviously do not remember that momentous event. Still, when I learned about it in school my imagination soared. We had already been to the moon — where would we go next? Well, sadly, humans haven’t ventured that far again – yet anyway – but with machines we’ve built, we’ve reached so much further and learned so much more and there is no end in sight.

Thank you Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr., and everyone who made Apollo 11 possible and inspiring generations of children. Whether you believe it or not, you are heroes.