Monday, June 29, 2015

More Supreme Court decisions

In other news, I'm so glad that the Supreme Court blocked the Texas law that would have closed most of the abortion clinics in the state. I don't know if they'll take the case, but it gives time to appeal the lower court's decision. If they do take the case, the law could remain blocked until they decide.

I'm trying to hope for the best, and I also want marriage equality to be settled in Texas. I can't believe that the Texas Attorney General is pushing this religious liberty angle and planning for lawsuits. He's defying the Supreme Court's ruling and advising others to do so. It seems that other states are resisting too, and it's so depressing.

Kennewick Man

I recently saw a PBS science documentary called "First Peoples" on TV, and the each episode concentrates on a different continent. Rather than start with Africa, the first episode was about the Americas, debating who discovered this place first, and how they traveled here. I remember as a child in school being taught the story of people crossing the land bridge over the Bering Strait and walking south following herds of migrating animals.

However this episode started with the story of Eva of Naharon, a 13,600 year-old skeleton found in underwater caves in the Yucatan. She's a young woman and hunter-gatherer who was buried in the cave by her people. We learn about the discovery of her bones and see reenactments of what her life might have been like. But there's a mystery about how she could be living in the Yucatan, when previous archaeological evidence was that people didn't arrive in the Americas until 13,000 years ago. They then recount the old land-bridge theory, and discuss the Clovis people (named after their "clovis points" technology of making spearheads). To further confuse the mystery, we learn of another skeleton, the Kennewick Man found in Washington state, whose remains have been fought over for nearly 20 years. It was very engrossing, and actually quite topical, for DNA test results have just been published this month.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Love Wins

Hooray for marriage equality! I'm glad that the Supreme Court ruled favorably for Obamacare yesterday too. (I'll definitely need a subsidy since I'm losing my health coverage from the job I lost.)

Of course, our horrible governor and attorney general are remaining defiant, talking about religious freedom (even though the legislature already passed the bill saying religious officials do not have to perform same-sex weddings). County clerks, however, are surely not religious officials, so they shouldn't be defying the Supreme Court. I'm glad that several Texas counties have already started issuing marriage licenses. Congrats to everybody who got married today!

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Sherlock's Dad

Well, I wasn't looking for this news, but I couldn't help but learn that John Noble is cast as Holmes's father in season 4 of Elementary. I already quit the show months ago. This is too little too late in my opinion (and I'm so fucking sick of every episode being about murder, instead of the variety of crimes and non-crimes from the original canon).

I mean, if I believed that the writers would actually do something useful with Holmes's dad, such as him pointing out what a hypocritical dick Sherlock is for continuing to live at the brownstone and live off his trust fund while bemoaning his obscenely wealthy father, that would be a good sign. Somehow, I doubt that the show writers have that much self-awareness about Holmes, given the smug, self-righteous tone he's had for 3 seasons already. It was like they hated the idea that Holmes should ever deign to take a private client or a non-murder case, either for the money itself or for the thrill of the puzzle. Plus I suppose there will be no mention of what's happened to Mycroft, and whether Holmes senior knows anything about what happened to him, MI5, or even Kitty Winter. By the way, was there ever any explanation about Holmes's mother? Is she dead or what?

Most of all, I don't want to see Moriarty come back, which I'm sure they'll do at some point because they seem to like psychopaths too. Good luck to John Noble, anyway.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Season 5

Yay! Arrested Development will be back in 2016! I'm very happy to get more Bluths. The cliffhangers will be resolved, and hopefully Gob and Tony Wonder will be back in love. I wonder if they'll bring back Franklin and the banana stand too.

Well, I better finish my Far From Over fic as fast as I can.