Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004
MLL concert, posted at 8:29 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com One current and one former student were quoted in today's newspaper about the walkout yesterday. I feel so proud! Honestly, though, the walkout was a little anti-climactic, though I do think that all the kids who went did so for the right reasons and not just to get out of class.Today is my errand day, my give-them-hell-at-North-Avenue day, my make-sure-my-file-is-in-order day. It's the first personal business day I've taken in three years (we're allowed one per year), and the first time I've ever taken a day off from school when I honestly wasn't either very ill or in surgery. I'm trying to defend myself against the pangs of guilt. So far, it's not too bad. My supervisor, who knows me well, told me to make sure I didn't come in during the morning hours this morning to make sure everything was set up okay. That's how obsessed I am with making sure things go right in my absence.
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I went to go see Mary Lou Lord last night at this place less than a mile from me that I've never heard of called The Mojo. I've been a fan of MLL since around 1996, when I happened upon her excellent eponymous debut. She's had a long, strange career - discovered in a subway, dated Kurt Cobain and Elliot Smith, rehab, a Target commercial - but she carries herself like someone just happy to be alive. I enjoyed her performance immensely. There were three openers, though, including one really bad one, and I left the show a little early. Three and a half hours at a bar alone, even if it's spent listening to music, was too much. I got stood up by a co-worker who said she was coming to the concert with me, and ended up not talking to anyone all night, and feeling pretty lonely. During some of the bad performers, I began to ponder how I end up like this - going to a cool event in a grungy part of the city, yet I'm totally alone. Then, when Mary Lou would play one of her older songs, songs that reminded me of the girl back home, I became nostalgic for when I'll again find a girl who likes the types of music I like (from Mary Lou Lord and Melissa Ferrick to Nelly and the Counting Crows and Jay-Z and Joni Mitchell) and is cute and cool.
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After the tiny bit of goodwill I had for Bush after what I considered a down-to-earth and honest performance on Meet the Press, he ends it with two ridiculous decisions this week. First, he lets his Head of Education call the NEA a "terrorist organization" because it criticized the ridiculous No Child Left Untested Act, without demanding a resignation or anything.
Now he wants to put in a Constitutional Ban for gay marriage. The Republican motto is all about "Let's leave it up to the states! Down with big government! That is, unless the states do something we disagree with, then we don't let them do it!". I just think this amendment would be a sad statement, something we'll have to repeal in 40 years or less, a black mark on our constitution. I hope it dies very quickly.
The Democratics have an interesting position, though. Most are too weak to support gay marriage because of polling, so it will be interesting to see their arguments against it. I mean, they can say that the Constitution isn't meant to discriminate, but many of their views about gay marriage are discriminatory. Edwards and Kerry are.