Photos

There are some beautiful photos up at Edge.org for those who might be interested. Here, here, here and here are some of the better examples.

Defense= I do not discriminate when it comes to acting illegally, therefore it's okay. Huh?

I had read a news story earlier about a NYC official who campaigned with photos of his family. What made this newsworthy, apparently, was the fact that he and his wife are an interracial couple with mixed race children. Now, it would be foolish to pretend that we have moved beyond this being an issue, hence, the news story. But the fact that my generation views this differently than my parents generation, who viewed it differently than my grandparents generation, and lets hope my children will view it with more liberalism than my generation, surely means the society at large is moving slowly away from the previous bigotry. More importantly, the Supreme Court, in 1967, ruled against the state of Virginia, striking down the law against miscegenation as unconstitutional.

So I was a bit surprised to read about this government official, who has denied a marriage license to an interracial couple, specifically stating that his reason for doing so is that they are interracial. The defense offered by this official is that he treats everyone the same, whether black or white. What he fails to understand is his actions are illegal. He cannot plead that he treats everyone illegally, and therefore it's okay. The key point being the illegality of his action, not that he does not discriminate in his stupidity.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

U2 in Tampa

We went to the U2 concert on Friday in Tampa. [Insert superlatives here] awesome. My sister asked me how I thought it compared to the 2005 Vertigo tour, and, I must admit, not quite as good. I think there are several reasons for this, the most obvious being I personally like the album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb better than No Line on the Horizon. The Vertigo tour was also my first U2 concert. There were some personal circumstances around then that intensified the experience as well, but regardless, I still enjoyed this concert. I like the concept of this 360 degree event, and as usual, the band doesn't just get up on stage and go through the motions. They play a wide range of songs from their 30+ year career and they play these songs with heart and energy. If you happen to be a U2 fan, I would enthusiastically recommend attending at least one concert if at all possible.

I'm not one to be amazed when someone tells me they aren't a fan as there is no accounting for personal taste. I'm not a big fan of Jazz. I like the rare song or two, have been to see a few Jazz musicians and enjoyed the shows, but just can't get into listening to it on my own except in rare instances. I acknowledge it has had a great influence, it just doesn't appeal much to me personally.

Anyway, that last bit was kind of apropos nothing. Here's a video of one their old songs they performed.