I miss 1988. Do you?

A Muslim mayor opens his town for gays and lesbians

Ahmed Marcouch, the Muslim mayor of Slotervaart, Netherlands, has invited homosexuals to have their gay pride march down the main street of his town.

This is not a popular move with many of his constituents, but Mayor Marcouch says:

“It is necessary to confront this issue, to say that homosexuals are normal people like all of us and that we require them to be respected.”

Imagine American muckety-mucks reading children’s books in public

They do it in Europe. Why not here?

And check out the effort German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is giving to “Hans in Luck.” And here’s more on Herr Guttenberg.

Write your own caption, heathens!

And thanks, Jezebel, for the link.

Emma and Charles figured it out

I’m reading “Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith,” by Deborah Heiligman and thus far, it’s a fascinating book.

Charles Darwin and his intended, Emma Wedgwood, bridged a huge gap between them — science and religion. Through his studies, he became convinced that the reality of God was questionable, at best, while she was a believer.

While they courted, she asked that he read John 13, where Jesus said farewell to his disciples. She may have thought that Charles would see Jesus the way she did, and be convinced.

He was not, but one of the world’s most famous non-believer stayed married to a devout believer for 43 years. Among the things Jesus said, he said this:

I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

One dress, 365 days

To raise money for the Akanksha Foundation, Sheena Matheiken is wearing the same dress (like a uniform, but she gets to tart it up if she wants) every day for a year at The Uniform Project.

More here. And thanks, Change.org, for the original link.

Michael Jackson is still dead. Meanwhile, in Iran…

Some important things happened.

When music heals

Or saves a life, even.

Says here a woman sang “Stayin’ Alive” to her collapsed husband and kept him precisely that until medical help arrived.

O.K., yahoos. Let’s see your list of songs she could have sang.

I don’t care if you drink bottled water

But do enjoy the video.

So we’re coming back from the shore last night

And we stumbled across this. Well, I stumbled across it and screamed for my husband to stop the car and he did but not fast enough because I threw open the door and fell out with my camera.

No problem. The camera’s hit the ground harder, and so have I.

These three deer were reposing (no other word for it) in a small field by a beautiful house (in the background). I scampered up to a stone wall — we have a lot of those in New England — and started shooting. The most the deer did was perk up their ears but the presence of a scraped and bleeding photographer didn’t seem to bother them much.

I don’t know. Again, I have no great words of wisdom to attach to this, but it was so pretty I wanted to share.