Last week I was mad at George Jr. for his bogo-maneuver on family planning funding. This week he pulls another controversial move: the federal government can now financially support faith-oriented social programs. In general, this is probably a good thing, although I disagree with his apparent agenda. It's good that the Open Door Mission can get some extra cash and the Jewish Community Center can do more community-centric stuff. However, his somewhat ambiguous statement that the his administration will consider faith-based services "first" (1) was quite disturbing, aside from the fact this starts getting into a dangerously blurred area of Constitutional interpretation. People came here 200 years ago, in part, to escape persecution from the church. To do a one-eighty and welcome religion back into the government ... well, that might not be such a great idea.

Oh well.

Anyway, on Tuesday I went to Java's (16 Gibb Street) to see their open mic poetry downstairs starting. If Tuesday is any indicator, they get a pretty good crowd. The pool room is filled with about 20 people or so to read and listen. Most of the stuff is either rough around the edges or the author is more of a writer and less of an orator. Every once in a while there's someone who is both. Robin (Robyn? Rahbihn?) said she's working on acting but reading poetry is still tough. She did a clever piece on relationships and then a pretty funny one on the "I Lost 40 Pounds" signs. She said she really couldn't tell if a telephone pole lost 40 pounds but figured she'd just take its word for it. Oh, and just so you're not shocked should you show up, I'd be surprised if the average age is higher than 18 (with a standard deviation of 1.1 by my guess.)

I almost forgot ... a couple weeks ago I replaced my old-lady curtains that came with my house with blinds. The before and after pictures are to the right.

• Head Over Heels - A woman who lives with four supermodels thinks she sees her neighbor kill someone, so she does what she must: she falls in love with him.
• Valentine - Hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned.

• LEVIATHAN Roll - consisting of eel & cucumber rolled inside a GIANT roll, filled with tempura shrimp, Japanese mayo and onion crunchies, topped with sesame seeds and eel sauce.
• LARAMIE PROJECT Roll - consisting of smoked scallops, pesto and onion crunchies.
• KNUCKLE SANDWICH Roll - consisting of salmon, tuna & swordfish rolled in wasabi tobiko.

• Futurama : Amazon Women in the Mood - The guys are sentenced to death on Planet Amazonia by a race of giant women.
• King of the Hill : Yankee Hankee - Hank discovers that his mother gave birth to him at Yankee Stadium while Cotton was on a mission to assassinate Castro.
• Simpsons : The Worst Episode Ever - Bart and Milhouse screen Comic Book Guy's illegal video stash while filling in at his store.
• Malcolm in the Middle : Hal Quits - Hal suffers a midlife crisis on career day at Dewey's school and decides to become a painter.