We Are GAMEY

Supercool photo taken by Thing 1.

Supercool photo taken by Thing 1.

The Red Bike Gang rides again.  You will recall from a previously posted post you probably haven’t read that the males in our family all own red motorcycles and have a nasty habit of annually riding them about the countryside within a 4-day travel radius of the greater Southwestern Michigan area.  This year is no exception as the five of us spent last weekend astride our semi-hoglike two-wheeled vehicles hell-bent for scenic overlooks and home-style diner food.  This is our story.

As the title indicates, during this trip we were GAMEY: Great Apostle Motorcycle Expedition Yahoos.  Our stated goal was the Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin, where there are 22 islands named for the twelve apostles of Jesus to evidently include some of his lesser-known followers like Stockton and Basswood and Raspberry. Continue reading →

Time to Get Syria-us

Pilfered from thewashingtonpost.com

Pilfered from thewashingtonpost.com

This week I am going to do my readers a disservice and dabble in the very world of international intrigue that everyone is talking about these days except the media, who in their defense, is pretty focused on bringing us anything and everything about Miley Cyrus right now.  The Washington Post has put out a couple of articles about Egypt and Syria entitled “9 Questions About [one of the afore mentioned countries] You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask” which have been popular and informative and are to be commended for their intricate simplicity.  And so I thought to myself, “Who am I to not steal such a good idea?  After all, I am as uniquely qualified to dabble in international affairs as anyone, as I have been receiving International Male catalogs for years now.”

The result is the following: a conTIMplating version of

9 Questions About Syria You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask Because You Haven’t Read The Washington Post Article Continue reading →

Hoosier Daddy

Last week was a rite of passage for me.  No, it was not breeching, smarty pants.  Nor was it completing my Rumspringa, something you are sure to Google and to which there is no end in sight.  What I did last week was take part in the compulsory and sometimes traumatic Western middle-age ceremony known as “Dropping Off Your Firstborn at College.”

Wow, does the time go fast.  It seems like just yesterday I was cleaning up the pasty Vaseline and baby powder concoction Thing 1 spread liberally about herself and her childhood bedroom.  Now here I am launching her three states away with the freedom and independence to do the same in an Indiana dorm full of strangers. Continue reading →

Going Postal on the Male Man

Perhaps you have heard that California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed AB1266 into law, giving the state’s K through 12 students the right “to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities”–yes, facilities–based on their ‘sexual self-perception’ and regardless of their birth gender.  Not wanting to be left out of the future litigation storm, Massachusetts issued a similar directive.

Gov. Brown sees this as a landmark decision for transgender Americans and all lawyers in general, as it will help reduce bullying since an eighth-grade boy who chooses to use an elementary-school’s female restroom will be treated as completely normal.  You remember Mr. Brown.  Besides being the star of a Dr. Seuss story who able to moo and quack like a duck, Continue reading →

Do You Hear the Singing Swiss?

swiss flagLike it or not, the Swiss are in the news again.  And I know what you are thinking: Winter Olympics already?  It may come as a shock to many of my American readers, but I have it on good authority that some nations exist and do stuff even when the Olympics are not going on.  The Swiss are a perfect example.

Last week Switzerland announced a contest through which they will choose a new national anthem to replace their current “Swiss Psalm,” which in turn replaced the English tune, “God Save the Queen” in 1961 because they eventually realized that 1) they were not English; and b) they didn’t even have a queen. Continue reading →