Input Junkie

A description of the decision is basically a swat at the Michael Newdow for trying to make the ultimate decision about his daughter's religious upbringing even though he's not the custodial parent.

While I'm also bemused at a society so wealthy that so much can be spent on the relatively minor decision of whether "under God" can be in the Pledge of Allegiance, I'm mostly pleased. I've heard him talk on NPR about how he's entitled to not have his religious views overriden in front of his daughter, and I'm distinctly not impressed. He also says that it's not his place to talk about his daughter's religious views in public--this is reasonable, but not good enough, imho, to make up for his arrogance in trying to make a no-official-religion bubble around her for the sake of his religious views.

As for why I think "under God" is a rather minor matter, I'm extrapolating my childhood reaction to the pledge, a purely emotional thing which roughly translates as "they're trying to bind me into a group I feel no connection to by making me say pointless words. I'm surrounded by idiots and there's no point in talking to them about it." I'm still not sure how much of that was depression and how much was good sense.

I've put off starting a livejournal because I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to begin, but I've decided to just dive in with what will probably turn out to be my usual short comments, observations, and rants about the world rather than expecting myself to make a big splash.

So.....

Some of you may already know me as the button lady (a usual huckster at east coast sf conventions + worldcons) or as a frequent poster in rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom.

I'm here as nancylebov because a clever user name failed to materialize and my actual name is too hard for a lot of people to remember.

I'm not bothering with anonymity because my writing style and life are sufficiently distinctive that there's no point in trying to conceal my identity. (If I couldn't use parenthesis and dashes--lots of them (and sometimes nested)--I'd probably choke).

On the other hand, other people's anonymity doesn't bother me. I'm probably not going to knock myself out trying to figure out who you are. If you want me to know, tell me.

One of my goals in this livejournal is to have a good, lively comment chains. One of my goals in life is to have sane expectations--it took me a bit to realize that I was hoping to have something comparable to Making Light. Well, it could happen, but it is for sure not a minimum standard, nor entirely likely, nor guaranteeable, nor going to happen quickly if it happens at all.

Another goal is to encourage people to go to my website and order buttons, not that this is a hint or anything. The most recent slogans are "Humanitarians do it with people" and "I went to Iraq and all I got was this lousy gas price".