Say, do you want to destroy traditional marriage? Sure, you say, but I can’t gay-marry, I’m already married to someone of a different gender, or hope to be some day. What can I do? I say you can do plenty! Here are some helpful strategies you can try in your own home, inferred from the talking points on an anti-same-sex-marriage pressure group’s web site. (I’m not going to link to them, but dollars to doughnuts you’ll be hearing their thoughts sometime soon. Gross.)

1. Don’t have kids.
Even delaying having children may be sufficient to destroy traditional marriage, since this is apparently the only reason you’d want to spend any length of time or emotional commitment on interacting with another adult.

2. If you already have kids, have a hobby or other adult interest in common with your spouse that doesn’t involve the children.
Try to spend a little bit of each week making it clear that you have a non-reproductive reason to live. Maybe go see an R rated film and then drink an alcoholic beverage while discussing topics that bore children.

3. Be a person of color who doesn’t hate.
For some reason, depriving someone of civil rights is totally OK if you heard one time that a black person had the same impulse. Now not being a complete dick is another delightfully easy way to destroy marriage!

4. Be a single dad.
Make it abundantly clear that you don’t need to have a religious contract with a god and a woman to take care of your own flesh and blood. Give your kid a bath, feed them breakfast, or just hang out together.

5. Be a dad.
You may not even need to be single to destroy marriage while driving the carpool van! Simply parenting of your own free will without any apparent pressure or threats proves that it’s possible!

6. Be a single mom.
Did you know that denying marriage to same-sex couples was so “women don’t get stuck with the enormous disadvantages of parenting alone”? If the reverse is true, your mere existence will make same-sex marriage happen!

7. Use gay love in your different-gender relationships.
The love between two people of the same gender is radically different from the love between two people of varied genders. Try using gay love for a day, a week, or even longer! Spice up your weekend! Alternate and see if your partner can tell which kind of love you are feeling for them at that moment!

8. Use gay-parent love on your kids.
Try feeling the kind of love a gay woman or man feels toward their child on your own offspring. Like Folger’s crystals, see if they notice! Go to a parent-teacher meeting or to the park while feeling the way a gay dad feels about his kids!

9. Bedroom fun.
Do something with your partner that doesn’t lead to procreation, if you catch my drift and I think you do. Anything other than Tab A into Slot B! This makes sure that no babies are born, ever, to anyone.

10. Alone time.
Bedroom fun on your own may lead to the end of all civilization, traditional marriage included! Disrupts space-time so that some people were never born in the first place.

11. Swap mom and dad roles.
It will either be a refreshing change of pace or exactly the damn same.

12. Both parents act like a mom or both act like a dad.
This will also probably be undetectable to the kids, but will destroy most traditional marriages within a 3 mile radius.

13. Make your roles in your marriage or partnership interchangeable.
Is there someone in your relationship who is always in charge, always has the last word and rules with an iron fist? I bet there isn’t! If you relate to your partner with love and respect and act as though you are both capable adults, you’ve been doing this one all along!

14. Spade-calling
A helpful tip from the introduction to the anti-gay talking points is the admission that using the phrase Ban Same Sex Marriage while they are trying to ban same sex marriage “causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls.” So perhaps we can work that phrase into discussions of these legislatively-mediated slo-mo hate crimes as often as possible. Fun!

Joseph Backholm, filing a referendum against same-sex marriage said today “There are lots of meaningful relationships that are not called marriage. Marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman and the children they raise.”

Does the inclusion of children mean that Backholm also wishes to make a legal distinction between children born in a marriage and those that are not? Or is under the impression that this is already the case?

Some intriguing definitions from the Samsbad Bengali-English Dictionary, marooned among words in an alphabet I cannot read, with no page numbers because I can’t read those either:

• a sound as of munching; confused noise as of hot discussion or incessant prattling.
• possessing catlike brownish eyes
• the sound of biting off or cutting off (esp. suddenly) a portion of a hard thing at one stroke; a snapping sound; an imaginary sound made by an ant when it pricks.
• the part of the loin-cloth which the wearer tucks behind him between his legs.
• a necklace of the twigs of holy basil worn by Vaishnabas.
• to set a thief to catch a thief
• a beggar’s bowl or drinking bowl made of cocoanut shell
• the sound of clapping thunder or the fracture of a bone.
• a letter (of the alphabet) written badly
• to cast one’s horoscope from hypotheses or insufficient or uncertain data.

I may have to find my own copy to use as a sort of divining tool.

Again, a few dopey comments from me on Alan Taylor’s In Focus feature on Animals in the News:

2: He’s definitely feelin’ it.
3: How often do you get to yell “Jesus Christ, it’s a leopard!” yet your joy is dampened by the fact that the top of your head has come off :(
7: Winner of the “how to make bulls even more dangerous” contest and perhaps the opposite of Taureau Piscine?
8: No, they’re not for protection from the lasers, they always wear cool sunglasses there.
9: No joke here, I’m just legitimately surprised that there is dogsled racing anywhere apart from Alaska and the Yukon.
12: Let’s hope this is in a neighborhood where the kids know all about hunting, shall we?
14: Wondered for a moment if that horse would get handed down to a smaller kid after he’s been outgrown.
15: Ozark Hellbenders!!!
17: Buried lead: the cat’s reading Seth Godin’s Tribes.
18: New series starring Ricky Gervais.
23: Monkey dry cleaning is very small and monkeys never read the warning on the bags.
24: Is this cosplay or is this a real thing that people will then cosplay later? So pink.
25: OK, Bill, hold very very still. *brandishes brick*
27: As astonished as a panda can look.
28: This joke has already been done better by Jerry Seinfeld.
30: Oh, his leetle feeeeengers!
31: I sort of hoped this was one of those jail-themed fundraisers they do, but smaller.
36: Do all beavers have those freaky orange nutria teeth?
40: Not actually reminiscing about his sad past, Hadley is thinking about snacks.
41: Fenton! Fenton!!
42: Inspiring caption, but I urge you to seek your metaphorical eagles even before you’re 82. Goodnight folks! Tip your waitstaff!

When I was a child, I listened to music as a child. I went to a Sharon, Lois and Bram concert (mom bought me a tiny Mon Cheri chocolate box, which I remember more vividly than the music). I had a record of the songs and poems of Dennis Lee (and stared at the album cover for hours and still remember the cadence of most of the poems.) But as my brother and I grew into the older elementary grades, we shared two cassettes that we listened to over and over: Weird Al’s self-titled first album and The Chipmunk’s Chipmunk Punk. The appeal was kid-friendly versions of (relatively, the albums were not new at the time) current pop songs.

As I entered junior high, I continued to listed to Weird Al, especially enjoying the comedic lyrics to his pop song parodies (I remember trying to think of other possible lyrics to Eat It with a friend). I also remember being shocked at the swearing in “Nature Trail to Hell”, though I think it was not too long before I was blase about the word Hell (my brother was not shocked at all and enjoyed my discomfort when the song came on).

Going on to college, I met fans of the Dr. Demento show. I had never actually heard the radio program, but I did have a couple of his Rhino compilation records (best of the 50s and best of the 60s, which I wish would be re-released, if only for “Pico and Sepulveda”) and knew of his pivotal role in the genesis of Weird Al’s first hit, “My Bologna.” I heard a wider range of comedy and parody pop (and comedy and parody music hall/classical, thanks to pals who made tapes of Flanders and Swann, PDQ Bach, Tom Lehrer, and Instant Sunshine– won’t someone release an Instant Sunshine box set?). I continued buying and listening to Weird Al, now seeing more of his craftsmanship in composing and arranging his songs. They were miles more carefully crafted than the wacky morning DJ hits that sometimes filled out a comedy music playlist.

As my non-parody music exposure also grew, I began to understand Al’s style parody songs– not parodies of a single song, but parodies of the songs of a particular artist or an entire musical genre that required a deeper level of musical literacy to appreciate and highlighted Al’s very experienced ear to pick out the most recognizable musical habits of so many musicians. I also started to enjoy that so many of the songs were about television and food, oft-neglected topics in mainstream pop but ones that a broad audience could connect to. We have not all stayed in Hotel California (much less stabbed beasts with steely knives) but most of us have eaten lasagne.

Al’s music videos display the same fluency in the language of pop culture as his music, plus visual literacy in music video history and art. Al commissioned work from great artists in animation and effects, acting as their friendly introduction to fans.

A moment now for television and film. I ardently loved the video The Compleat Al (another much-wished-for re-release) decades before I recognized the tributes to a shelf’s worth of influential music documentaries. Al hosted many hours of MTV, most of which I missed due to my family’s (probably wise) decision to not have cable while the kids were at home. As much as I did see, I’m sure I missed the references to OTHER MTV shows which I also missed. I only saw Al’s children’s show on DVD, not being the right demographic to catch it when it originally aired. I am glad I got to see it with his commentary: he explains the network and legislative requirements to provide moral lessons and clean-living tips that ended up shoehorned into Al’s vision for an anarchic kiddie show operating in its own world, complete with loving tributes to kid classics.

Just like people re-purchasing Pink Floyd, Al deserves to have his full catalog in print. As I grow older, I appreciate the musicianship of a dedicated artist. I appreciate his conscious choice to have his work be accessible to children. I am now enjoying the work of several generations of comedians, musicians, writers, and friends who have been lifelong fans. Al’s later albums often feature contributions from parodied musicians who are honored to take part. Did you see his episode of Behind the Music? There are dozens of artists who understood (and were deeply proud of) their own success after Al’s musical attentions. I feel that while the top pop songs of past decades may not age well, their parodies do (and are perhaps less embarrassing to own as an adult?).

I have never been to one of his concerts, but to a man every person who goes to one comments on how amazing the show is and how much goes into the performance. Everyone leaves happy.

While I try to remember that I don’t really NEED the artists I admire to have an admirable personality or personal life, I am quite pleased that Al seems to be a genuinely good person. While I never got my membership packet when I sent away in the mid-80s to be a Close Personal Friend of Al in his fan club, I do still consider him to be a Close Personal Friend I have never met.

My favorite animal chronicler, Sy Montgomery, has written a great article on the octopus and the bewildering nature of octopus intelligence.

Read the article and imagine yourself in the distant future, aboard a galactic ship crewed by beings from across the universe. You’ve got a new roomie, one from your home planet. Oh, boy! Another human, after years of being the only one onboard! Nope. It’s an octopus. She eyes you from the comfort of a brown beer bottle as you nervously search for a copy of the Octopus Enrichment Handbook in the All-Earthican Digital Library.

After the excitement over the Fukushima nuclear plant, people in Japan are (understandably) a little jumpy about radiation. This seems to have led to the discovery of a bunch of antique radiation sources. A recent radiological survey of the Puget Sound area was done to establish what the normal baseline radiation level is (because the similar surveys in Fukushima had not had a pre-reactor-problem level to compare to). They were expecting to find a lot of non-disaster related radiation, and I wonder if they found any old bottles of radium, too?