My life (and I do have one).

Sunday night I went to a Hanukkah get-together with Keshet, the gay-Jewish group in Portland. I was one of the original members (those who signed the clipboard some six years ago when "Trembling Before G-d" opened in Portland, but I hadn't been to the group's social gatherings in a few months, so it was good to schmooze, renew acquaintances, and meet new people.

BTW, Keshet will be hosting Rabbi Steven Greenberg (the only "out" gay Orthodox rabbi) when he comes to Portland in January.

Monday morning I made it my business to get back on my running program and went out at 8am in twenty-seven-degrees-Fahrenheit weather. kitiara, I'm right there with you!

Michael just got back from the Middle East (again). Hoping I can catch him for a beer before I head down to San Francisco next month for a visit with TNG.

Just down the street from where I live, the First Presbyterian Church has recently built a lovely park. The area used to be the Danmore, a venerable red brick building largely dedicated to housing for people in recovery. The recovery facility relocated and the Danmore was torn down last year, and a lot of us on Morrison Street were sorry to see it go, but the new garden is wonderful to look at. And the church's stained-glass window - long obscured by the Danmore - is now illuminated at night.

Poland Says No to King Jesus

Tammy Bruce is disappointed that a measure to name Jesus the King of Poland won't pass. I would say, "But what about the Polish Jews?", but I guess there aren't enough of those left to cause a problem, are there?

Tammy Bruce:

Jesus Named Honorary King ... In Poland. If certain lawmakers get their way. At least Jesus is welcomed somewhere. But you'll never guess who opposes the honor--the Catholic Church in Poland. Go figure.

ABC News:

WARSAW, Poland Dec 20, 2006 (AP)— Lawmakers have drawn up a resolution naming Jesus Christ as the honorary king of Poland, but have failed to win support from the country's powerful Roman Catholic church.

Lawmakers for the ruling Law and Justice party and League of Polish Families as well as the opposition Peasants Party back the resolution, said Szymon Ruman, spokesman for parliamentary speaker Marek Jurek.

Wikipedia - League of Polish Families:

The LPR is strongly against homosexuality, in both its rhetoric and policy objectives. Its youth organization, the All-Polish Youth, has on numerous occasions counter-protested against demonstrations organized by members of homosexual advocacy groups.

As mayor of Warsaw, PiS (The ruling Polish political party) leader Lech Kaczyński refused authorisation for the Equality Parade for gay rights on June 11, 2005 in Warsaw. The Parade took place despite the ban, and eggs, stones and bottles were thrown at the marchers by young people (nearly all men) from the All-Polish Youth (Młodzież Wszechpolska) youth organisation (a youth group associated with the League of Polish Families), with at least two people injured and hospitalized. The organization claims its members merely tried to prevent an illegal march, and that the violence should be condemned.

Now as far as the issue itself - whether Jesus of Nazareth should be named King of Poland - you might argue that the pedigree of the League of Polish Families is neither here nor there. Well, let's go back to Tammy's post.

At least Jesus is welcomed somewhere.

To the best of my knowledge, Jesus has never been officially named an honorary King - or even President - in the United States. So does that mean that he is "unwelcome" here? Or does it mean that we have a nation and a government that recognize separation of church and state?

Much to Tammy's dismay, it seems the Catholic Church itself is not enthusiastic about the idea: 'On Wednesday several bishops criticized it, and said parliament should stay out of religious affairs.' Well, what a novel concept.

Here's the bigger point that I want to get to. A lot of former liberals have become turned-off by the extreme anti-religious zealotry of organizations like the ACLU; they feel that a climate of "political correctness" has unfairly targeted traditional religion - particularly Christianity. They may believe that high-profile liberal activists exaggerate the threat of fundamentalist Christian extremism while ignoring the very real threat of Islamist extremism.

And to a large extent they are right. But this is not sufficient reason (in fact, there is no sufficient reason) to go to the opposite, and equally wrong, extreme by advocating a Christian theocracy. To the great credit of the Catholic Church, it would appear from the bishops' remarks that the Church understands this.

[Cross-posted at Dreams Into Lightning.]

Komodo Dragons Join the Ranks of the Whiptail

... and other wonders of science.

Thanks to heyfoureyes for this one:

Virgin births by Komodo dragons.  'A clutch of four Komodo dragons that hatched at London Zoo this year were all the result of virgin births, according to research that could help scientific efforts to protect the world’s largest lizards.  Genetic tests conducted at the University of Liverpool have proved that all four born to a female called Sungai were conceived by parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction that is known to take place in lizards but never documented in this species before.'

PhysOrg has more:  'In an evolutionary twist, Flora the Komodo dragon has managed to become pregnant all on her own without any male help. She is carrying seven baby Komodo dragons.  Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis. But Flora's virginal conception, and that of another Komodo dragon earlier this year at the London Zoo, are the first time it has been documented in a Komodo dragon. The reptiles, renowned for their intelligence, are native to Indonesia. They are the world's largest lizards and have no natural predators - making them on par with sharks and lions at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom. The cases of Flora and the London lizard, Sungai, are described in a paper published Thursday in Nature.'

Big bacteria.  'The oldest-known animal eggs and embryos, whose first pictures made the cover of Nature in 1998, were so small they looked like bugs – which, it now appears, they may have been.  This week, a study in the same prestigious journal presents evidence for reinterpreting the 600 million-year-old fossils from the Precambrian era as giant bacteria.'

New light on black holes.  'Nature has again thrown astronomers for a loop. Just when they thought they understood how gamma-ray bursts formed, they have uncovered what appears to be evidence for a new kind of cosmic explosion. These seem to arise when a newly born black hole swallows most of the matter from its doomed parent star.  Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most powerful explosions in the Universe, signal the formation of a new black hole and come in two flavours, long and short ones. In recent years, international efforts have shown that long gamma-ray bursts are linked with the explosive deaths of massive stars (hypernovae; see e.g. ESO PR 16/03). ... The newly found gamma-ray bursts, however, do not fit the picture. They instead seem to share the properties of both the long and short classes.  "Some unknown process must be at play, about which we have presently no clue," said Massimo Della Valle of the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri in Firenze, Italy, lead author of one of the reports published in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "Either it is a new kind of merger which is able to produce long bursts, or a new kind of stellar explosion in which matter can't escape the black hole."'

Birthday! Birthday!! Birthday!!!

Happy birthday, enigmania!