The temperature in Phoenix is finally above 100.  It’ll hang there until September, at the earliest.  Walking outside is like dredging through molasses.  The heat slows everything down.  Occasionally, a jackrabbit makes a mad, almost suicidal dash across the pavement. … Read full post »

   

I’m staunchly pro-choice, but I don’t actually have a dog in the fight.  My rights aren’t impacted either way, especially since there’s no valid male “abortion” (failing to pay child support, notwithstanding).  I continue to figh… Read full post »

The equal rights rhetoric on most progressive web sites usually is limited to the problems white women face, with the occasional smattering of race-related dialogue and GLBTQI issues.  (I've written about this before.)  Mama Salon isn’t immune to that sort of narrow journalistic focus… Read full post »

Occasionally in our wanderings we stumble upon food that becomes archetypes akin to what existed in Plato's world of ideas.  Every time we eat that food, it's compared to the archetype and found wanting.  No pizza ever matches the one I had from Giordano's in Downtown Chicago. 
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Thursday, some time around mid morning, or maybe it was just after noon; I don’t really remember and time in this case is irrelevant.  All I know is that I found myself parked at the Café du Monde, somewhere towards the back and corner.  I really wante… Read full post »

   


This is for when I came to the Susquehanna River and the dawn had laid sheaths of fog alongside its banks.  The forest rolled south towards the water and dallied in the fresh light.  I pulled to the side of the road and dismounted, just to see the early sun… Read full post »

   
  That's me on the right, shortly before heading out to the battlefield.

I like to hit people with sticks.  But, we won't be talking about my sex life.


There was a time in my undergraduate studies when I decided to reject everything considered masculine. … Read full post »

I often get so caught up in my thoughts and problems that I forget there's a little person who watches most every move I make; when he's not busy destroying (or contemplating destroying) everything that gets in his way.  My gut tells me most parents are like this, except for the… Read full post »

Hellspawn is at a time in his life when he wants to meet new, and interesting things, and destroy them.  While before we allowed him to explore his environment to the most of his physical capacities, Hellspawn's becoming strong enough that he can inflict serious harm on the items he wishes… Read full post »

    House is staring into your soul

House is falling down my must-see-non-cable -TV list, much in part because of the brilliant inner (or outer) geek fantasies of Chuck, but also because the writing for House fell into routine.  Last night's show, though, reminded me why I/…

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    Kudos, Saturn Smith!




Two weeks ago, the OS cover had a nice post on how to fully utilize the Twitter experience.  While Twitter does have its detractors, I naturally gravitate towards it because Hellspawn doesn't quite appreciate my continuous desire to share information… Read full post »

One evening when I was a child, back when everything seemed to be paneled in faux-wood (station wagons, caption decoder boxes, cereal, Michael Jackson, et cetera), my parents sat me in front of a crime drama because they heard one of the guest characters was deaf.  I don’t know if the… Read full post »

Invariably most people succumb to some form of hearing loss before giving leave to Earth, but generally their experiences with the concept of deafness is limited to a few visits to the local audiology office and a beige contraption that makes ugly love to the concha.  Deafness, as enumerated by… Read full post »

Like lampreys, the Deaf attach themselves to free floating communications technology.  Most were not designed with us in mind, but we seize on them anyway and integrate them into our lifestyles and culture.  Who could be surprised at our behavior?  Humans need communication.  We c
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I missed Bishop Robinson's invocation last Saturday and was pleased to find some of it transcribed, and a link to the rest of the transcription, over on Joan Walsh's Mama Salon blog.

Unfortunately, the following caused me to bite my tongue.  Et tu, Bishop Robinson?

 

Bless this nation with… Read full post »

Hellspawn loves pushing things.  He learned to walk, last year, on a little push tray thing and this slowly developed into a peculiar obsession with our vacuum cleaner.  It hides in the closet and he knows its there.  We sometimes find him gripping the child-locked closet handles longi… Read full post »

The other day I received an email from Eli Pariser of MoveOn, asking me to donate some money for victims of the Madoff money furnace.  Among the many suckered were progressive charities dear to certain people in the MoveOn movement.  MoveOn, as many of us know, is a phenomenal money vacuum… Read full post »

As a young progressive who just happens to be deaf, I’m forced to get my bleeding heart jollies from places often considered secondary sources by most of my ideological kin.  I’ve never listened to NPR, or other radio liberal talk shows and stations.  Youtube remains a mystery t… Read full post »

 

 

 

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Hi I want to take this opportunity to vblog for you all.  The first thing I want to do is apologize for my hair.  It’s obviously a mess.  I’m a stay at home dad so I don’t really take care of my looks… Read full post »

I’ve been sitting on this post for some time, mostly because I’ve rewritten it so many times in my head.  Writing’s such a biologically unnatural way of communicating, and because understanding, especially through hermeneutic cycles, is so subjective that each word must first b… Read full post »

 

 

 

Brooke Shields is taboo in my family.  We don’t watch her movies.  We don’t think about her jeans commercials.  We especially do not care about her wealthy husband, or her perfect family.

Truth be told, I actually kind of like Ms. Shields. … Read full post »

 

 

You were the first baby I ever held.  When the nurse tried to give you to me, I quietly confessed that I’ve never cradled a baby before.  She had to show me how to support your head.  The next night, while your mother slept, I learned how… Read full post »

Shortly before the birth of my son, my wife and I embarked on a quest to acquire a variety of baby cry signalers and receivers.  

The design of baby cry signalers and receivers is quite simple.  The signaler acquires a sound of sufficient volume and lets the receiver know.  The receiver… Read full post »

Some time ago, while I was researching journal articles for my masters thesis, I came across an article* which described the role of microagressions in the unconscious classification and oppression of various minority and sub-cultural groups. 

Microaggression are casual and often unintended act… Read full post »