oh, and I also liked the “been there/done that” comment from evangelicals on the infidelity thing. I know he meant forgiveness, but that’s not what it sounded like.

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One of my favorite authors, Anne McCaffrey,died today. I’ve been a fan ever since high school, when the girl who sat behind me in study hall, Amy Gheres, introduced me to her “Dragonrider” series. (Thanks, Amy!) There were only two book in the series then, and I remember waiting with anticipation as new books came out. (there are 14 in the series now). I also greatly enjoyed the “Crystal Singer” trilogy.

McCaffrey’s books tend to feature strong female characters, which was quite a break from the rest of the authors of the genre at the time. While there are certainly strong male characters, in general, it’s the women who are the primary focus of many of the books.

I may have to go back an re-read some of those books now. Anne McCaffrey, along with Frank Herbert and J.R.R. Tolkien, were the primary staples of my library as a young adult.

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Go ahead and give it a read if you’d like. If that doesn’t scare you away from using it, nothing will.

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The key point that’s being made, as I see it, is that the concepts of marriage and civil union, long considered synonymous, should be broken apart into their component elements. The state has an interest in civil union, for purposes of tax law, inheritance, etc. The church hasn’t (or, rather shouldn’t have) any interest in those matters. Marriage, on the other hand, is a sacred union, binding the couple in the eyes of the church, God, and each other. The state has no interest in that aspect of the relationship.

Looked at from that perspective, I can’t see why the state would have any concern about the gender of the parties involved. If the church feels that a given union is not right in the eyes of God, then by all means they should not sanctify it with marriage. I disagree with that stance, but I respect that their views are held with honest conviction.

Be that as it may, that’s completely separate from the interest of the state, at least in this country.

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I came to Congress with a pledge that I will never vote to raise taxes.  I never have and I never will.  Period.

Upon reading that, I was immediately reminded of instances when I have been called on to serve as a juror. One of the instructions that I remember receiving is that, if I cannot imagine an instance where I would be willing to impose the minimum sentence, or if I cannot image an instance where I would be willing to impose the maximum sentence, then I did not have a place on that jury. My civic duty requires that I be willing to consider all legal options.

So, why is it different for a member of Congress? In my opinion, if Congress Member Poe, or any other elected official, is not, under any circumstances, willing to consider all legal options to a given situation, then that Congress member is not doing their job. Note, I do not say that they must ACCEPT that option. Only that they be willing to honestly CONSIDER it.

Mr. Poe — from one humble taxpayer and constituent — please do your job.

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Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, a user doing a perfectly reasonable thing pointed out a big hole. Somebody posted a comment on a page for a specific show. Unfortunately, the way WordPress manages comments, those comments would appear on EVERY show’s page. So now I have to see if I can figure out a way to tie comments to specific shows. Until then, I’ve disabled comments on the show page, as I think it would cause more confusion than it’s worth.

I also want to see if I can tie into the WordPress search system, so that, when somebody does a search, it will check all of the plays in the database, and not just the “normal” posts.

A programmer’s work is never done. *sigh*

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I’ve now got it to the point where it can work with either PostgreSQL (which the original application was coded with) OR the MySQL database that runs the WordPress installation. I happen to prefer PostgreSQL, which is of course why I wrote the original app that way in the first place. However, running against MySQL has the distinct advantage of being much easier for a non-technical person to set up on a new blog.

I now have the ability to switch back and forth between the two database schemas, as well as being able to export the data, and then import it. That way I can move all of the data between the databases.

It’s not ready for prime time yet. I still don’t have any method inside the plugin for managing the data. That comes next. Once that’s done, I’ll have a plugin that I think might be of use to other theaters.

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(HT: Tony Jones)

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I strongly disagree with the stand of the Presbyterian Lay Committee on this issue, and I don’t like them taking out all of these ads. On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of censorship, even if it’s of a position I disagree with.

The Lay Committee has spent a LOT of money running these ads. I understand that they feel they are being called to speak out on an issue they feel is of vital importance. I know Carmen Fowler LaBerge, and, while I don’t agree with some of her theology, I DO know her to be a person of faith who does what she does out of a strong sense of conviction. I just wish that the resources that have gone into this ad campaign would have been used instead to work toward unity, instead of divisiveness.

The ad:

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Well, now that I’m moving away, I figured I’d better make it easier for somebody else to manage the content. So the site is now being managed by WordPress. But that doesn’t help with the productions database. So I’ve started working on my first plugin.

The plugin allows content authors to create pages and/or posts which reference the data in the productions database. There’s even logic to allow for looping, displaying things like cast lists and productions in a season.

Right now the plugin still uses the PostgreSQL database, but I have plans for converting it over to MySQL so that it can be shares with the WP database. I also need to migrate the management portion, so that the contents of the database can be updated from within the WP admin interface.

As soon as the code is in a state that I think somebody other than me could use it, I’ll publish it here. At that point, any theater that uses WordPress would be able to use the plugin to manage their own seasons on their site. It also has an integration with the Tickets to the city ticketing system

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Anyway, the reason for this post …

We’re moving to New Jersey!

Wendy has accepted a call to be the new Regional Presbyter for the Presbyteries of Monmouth and New Brunswick, in central New Jersey. The formal vote making it all “final and official” will be July 20th. We plan on moving out some time around Labor Day weekend.

This will be very exciting. We’re going to be sad to leave all of our Texas friends, but it will be nice to be back in the north east again, which is, after all, “home” for both of us.

Now we just need to sell our house. Anyone interested?

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