dinner

brown rice

curried lentils

talipia

( it's all about the health )

justice by a thousand cuts

Three GOP appointed Federal Judges of the First Circuit Appeals Court found it unconstitutional to deny federal marriage benefits to same sex couples today. The ruling applies to Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act. The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns. The court didn't rule on the law's other provision, which said states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in other states.
" Many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest. "
So, one step closer to the big kahuna.....

Today at Wegmans

Favas and Fiddleheads

"Land of Dreams" Commercial

This is the very first little tv spot from the US International Tourism Board , get the folks from around the world to come over here and drop some cash. I think it is lovely.... the RIGHT WING via Tony " I heart the kkk " Perkins is outraged!  Outraged I tell you..... see if you can figure out why....( hat tip JMG )

( and read some of the you tube comments )

Todays Earworm

dinner

America

daily Koda

After two days of hard core AFRICA heat and some Georgia in August humidity, we had some major thunderstorms this morning, dropping the heat from 92º to 67º in an hour....

 Getting Koda and I back on the trail again!

A much needed dip!

hot, Africa hot....

FEELS LIKE 107 !!!

THIS IS CANADA!

Memorial Day 2012 Mendon , New York

Your little taste of SMALL town America

A Celebration of Special -ness!

This is our street, and just them all sort of lining up, the main parade is the next street down. They march up to the little cemetery, lay wreaths, play taps, 21 gun salute, etc.... Andy and Aunt Bee were watching from there.....

meanwhile back in North Carolina

The protest of the pro Nazi Baptist Preacher went off with out a hitch on Sunday. Not allowed to protest in front of the asswipes " church " the feisty folks took up in front of the town hall of justice....
Taking a little from all I read, pro and against, I would say about 1500 people showed up. The nazi lovers have done quite and would not talk to the press at all, but like 20 or so mentally ill people showed up at the protest, as they always to to SCREAM what they think is the word of God, and as ALWAYS the press gave the same amount of time to the nutjobs.... fair and balanced and all.

I HATE these screaming matches.. HATE them. One of the reasons I stopped going to any Pride Celebrations. There will always be NEW GAYS, who don't understand that if you just ignore these sick people that they will indeed just go away. No the freshly pierced types always want to get up in some street preachers face....you can not win against crazy folk....

Glad it was all peaceful.....

today is the first day of the rest of your campaign

I guess tomorrow officially kicks off
the 2012 Presidential race.

THIS was a big old surprise to me this week - and , really, is not AT ALL where any media is taking us - right or left.

poll of polls, take them all together and you get this

WOW

Ok, first, you start off all this with polls don't really mean anything at all this far out, grain of salt, yadda yadda . Except they do, as a snap shot. It is important to note that this is the first national poll of polls , post the Presidents new stand on SSM, and if anything , it seems to have helped.

Iowa, Wisc. and Penn, DARK BLUE , this early ? that will not change. King maker OHIO leaning blue.... very hard to flip ( see : auto bailout ) ONLY FIVE swing states, none of which matter! 

This is a Romney nightmare......

Ain't no party like a ROCHESTER IRIS SOCIETY party, 'cause a Rochester Iris Society party has.....

We were a little bit afraid early in the season that the second annual come look at Neil's Isis-palooza would be a bust this year due to the crazy Spring weather and the heartbreak of last years worm infestation. BUT, the little floral troopers came through just fine in the end. Not as super spectacular as last year, but very pretty

About thirty folks showed up.... for the FIRST time at any party we ever had folks were not at the door 2 minutes before the invitation said be there. At long last people are leaning that I am Southern and 4 o'clock means 4:30ish....
                                

THE FOOD 

Last week, with help, I fed 100 folks a good Indian dinner. I had trouble pulling off a simple cook out for thirty this go round! #3 always check your gas!  Yes, I ran out of grill gas half way through the cooking! Luckily Dahn had parked on the street and Neil could get her car out to go to the MMM and get a new one in a flash. No one really seemed to even notice! Except the new container was MUCH more pumped up or something and the fire ran really hot, more than a few burnt hot dogs. There were some starters there in the tool shed, hummus , made with mostly the liquid from the canned beans and not so much olive oil - making it very light, veggies, crackers and eggs....

 And, not enough WHITE HOTS.... ( it's a Rochester thing.....)

Carrot Salad

Pasta Salad

Cole Slaw

Fiesta Salad

People brought some little sweet treats, the brownies are Orange flavored, and were just lovely and the cake is rhubarb - which I had never had and it was VERY good. For once I made close to exactly the right amount of food! 

DESSERT :

 JUMBO FROZEN KEY LIME PIE

This is a fantastic concept for a warm weather large party dessert, that failed a little here.

It is your basic klp , I use Ina Garten's, with some modifications, but I needed it for a crowd. I think in my head i was going to cut this like cake or brownies and serve.. not so much

 The real problem here was the crust. I tripled the recipe for the custard part, and 2.5ed the crust ( Graham crackers, butter and sugar - easy peasy ) BUT! I should have just left it single. Post baking and freezing over night ( you HAVE To freeze a long time ) the crust tastes wonderful - almost like brittle, but was impossible to cut...

 Folks ate this up, really the flavor is great, it was just MESSY - and did not last long in the heat....

all in all despite the minor mishaps, everyone seemed to have a very nice time.

Come see the Iris bloom.....

Big day here in Mendon... and I will tell you all about it when things are a little less fuzzy........

Please Sir, May I have some more.....

Nine year old Martha Payne of Argyll, Scotland is the media darling of the micro second. WHAT I HAD FOR LUNCH AT SCHOOL TODAY! Now, where could she have thought of this ???

NEVER SECONDS 

(go, if only for the daily hair in food count )

Anyway it is tearing up the interwebs, like you can watch her counter just explode. NOT that I am bitter or anything. Do gooder and cute hair cute Jamie Oliver is trumpeting her from all the rooftops... wanting the little British kiddies to eat more healthy and all....

Anger does not suit me well... never has. When I was MUCH younger, very young, I had a raging, Hulk like temper... really. Long since gone... out with anger in with love....

Peter Worley, The Providence Road Baptist Church 

and 

Springtime for Hitler

That said when this "man"  spoke  his pro Nazi propaganda against my people this week, I got mad. Posting on here and on facebook while angry is always a mistake - even if a few people who would not have seen it , did. My initial condemnation was not even for the stupid stone age preacher man - but at the, as always, flaccid  religious left.
But the thing is, the surface facts of this story bury the lead.
On first viewing this video, for some reason, I am not even sure why, In my brain it was in some big " FIRST BAPTIST -ish church in Charlotte. No, its some Podunk church in Maiden , North Carolina, which is sort of near Hickory , looks like the hard core Piedmont of NC.

Far be it from me to come to the defense of a small town Southern Church , that has on their sign " Home of that old time religion ". This is America, you are free to believe anything you want. You are free to be a pro Nazi as you want to be....

This guy has been spewing this stuff for a while , evidently. And as I have said many many times : " do they not know we can see them?!? " . Someone found the 1978 version of this sermon where he wanted to hang the queers instead of putting them in concentration camps. Even I believe went as far as to say , " hang them from trees". 

DIFFERENT MINDSETS / UNIVERSE

See - he and his flock don't get or don't care about this imagery . ( ok.... personal debate here - go all base and put up the iconic - even more time spent in my head over using that word , this blog does not just flow out - photo of White Southerns , dressed in Sunday best, going out to see the niggers being hung from trees, pack a little cold chicken, a blanket.. take the kids and Grandma...) Decorum wins and you are going to have to google your own lynching and Birkenwald - but make no mistake, this is the imagery and language that this man and his church are celebrating. On tape, saying it in 1978 and in 2012, kill the queers.

But now, here is the thing, and here is the true headline of this story. In 2012 we ( collective we... as broad as you want it to be, civilized America - and from what I am reading, the world, FOUGHT BACK. ) iStonewall . It is now, maybe for the first time for this guy, NOT OK, to stand as a man-of-god and say " put gays in concentration camps"
This church is the one that put the video out there.. thinking nothing would come of it, or maybe that . They are just going by the true word of God. Preaching what the Bible says... His parishioners take it that one step farther.. or at least back to his '78 stance

MORE FROM CNN ( I cant post the video ) CHRISTIANS.. that will not say concentration camps are wrong....

Global condemnation of this small pitiful man and his church was swift and total, something you know he never thought about. Full media firestorm.. every network, major newspapers on and on. A big media circus protest at the church this Sunday. A little bit shocking, to the good people of Western North Carolina. " You caint kill queers ?"

So, the headline is not, there are stupid people in the world, but that the majority of the world disavowed him... and he was shown to be the exact opposite of what he claims, so very loudly , to be. There was a story , somewhere this past Sunday, I meant to save it and didn't, about the speed of the lgbt movement. Seems like we are moving in bursts.. and right now, we are on the first big hill of some giant roller coaster..... I really can not see this toothpaste ever going back into the tube.....

President Obama and the Fight for LGBT Rights

coming home

dinner

Roast Chicken

Swiss Chard

Brown Rice and Gravy

Squash Casserole

stop me if you have heard this one before......

 "Gimme' that OLD TIME religion "

This is Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden N.C. thinks should be done with all queers, gays and lesbians.

WATCH HERE.

The Christian left will come out and preach of love, and tell stories and be as affective as a screen door on a submarine.

TWO WEDDINGS

Quinn - Catullo

The front runner to be the next Mayor of New York City the current Speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn married her long time partner Kim Catullo.

"The wedding took place in the early evening at the Highline Stages, an event space in the meatpacking district, before an audience of nearly 300 guests, including friends and family as well as dozens of prominent officials. Among those in attendance were Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; New York’s two senators, Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer; New York City’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly; the first deputy mayor, Patricia Harris; and several members of New York’s congressional delegation, including Charles B. Rangel, Joseph Crowley, Carolyn B. Maloney, Jerrold Nadler and Nydia M. Velázquez. There were also several members of the New York State Legislature and a dozen members of the City Council. Ms. Quinn and Ms. Catullo, both 45, walked down the aisle on the arms of their fathers. Ms. Quinn was wearing a sleeveless gown by Carolina Herrera with a beaded waistband, Ms. Catullo a made-to-measure cream-colored Ralph Lauren suit. Ms. Quinn’s bright red hair was pulled back with a hair comb that she had made from two enamel brooches that had belonged to her mother, pansies with a little diamond in the center of each. Audra McDonald, the Tony Award-winning actress and star of the Broadway musical “Porgy & Bess,” sang George and Ira Gershwin’s song “He Loves and She Loves,” with a slight tweak to the lyrics. The couple played a video they had made about their relationship, in which they talked about having bonded, soon after meeting a decade ago, over having both lost their mothers to cancer as teenagers. In her vows, Ms. Quinn said that she could not imagine life without Ms. Catullo." 
 THE REST from the NYT

Zuckerberg - Chan

The day after Mr. Facebook went public, a surprise wedding was held for him and his long time , nine year partner , Harvard and University of California San Francisco Medical School, Dr. Priscilla Chan. 

Let's wish these two kids good luck as they start out on the bumpy road of life.

What do we want, and when do we want it....

The NAACP officially came out in support of marriage equality on Friday.

The oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the country comes out.
 The tide has turned.


Huffpo story

A surprise from Neil

The Northern Most Outpost of the Bulldawg Nation!

Right there in the Hosta garden!

Per Request

Everything blooming in the yard - while its master gardener is away.....

This could have been the most perfect day ever, weather-wise!

low low humidity, not a cloud in the bluer than blue sky

 Swimming hole one

 The bright green of late Spring

 Swimming hole two

 life is good

 Koda watches the Mendon Horsey set have a dressage meet

 Koda watches the youth of Mendon play baseball

This young lady owned the pitchers, we watched for a perfect

 three up, three down....