Post Election--and Post Wedding

The election is over, and our favored candidate, Jan Fleming, came in second to John Patrick Carney--he's a former Ohio State student body president (for two years), who managed to get bus passes on the municipal bus system as a benefit for students, so there's a record there. More about him at www.votecarney.com. We'll be working particularly for Mary Jo Kilroy, who's the candidate for the 15th Congressional District, hoping to unseat Deborah Pryce, who's part of the Republican House leadership.

Mary Jo Kilroy; more at http://kilroyforcongress.com/

Mary Jo's a neighbor on the ravine, and a current Franklin County Commissioner. She'll be a fine representative, as we hope to take the House back from the crew of bribe-taking, cynical cronies now in power there.

The political news, of course, just gets worse and worse--more indictments, more confessions, more proof of the illegality of what the President and adminstration are doing. And as an article in this week's Sunday New York Times, "Contra-Contraception," makes clear, the right wing is trying to return us to the 17th century: wanting to ban all contraception, and maintaining that sexual relations are solely for the purpose of procreation (in marriage, of course); that's a position that hasn't been espoused by governments since the days of the Puritans in England. Contraception, it seems, is responsible for all moral decay of modern life--although that flies in the face of all the studies of the effects of contraception. But, as one Congressman is quoted in the Times article is saying, that's just Science, which is just another opinion. (For the complete Times piece, see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07contraception.html )

And in Republican primary in Ohio, as predicted, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell won handily. Blackwell makes Rick Santorum look like a moderate (asnd on a side note, there's Dan Savage's brilliant use of Santorum's name: www.spreadingsantorum.com/ -- as inspired as his more recent 'impeach the mother fucker already campaign, http://www.itmfma.com ) Blackwell campaigned mightilly on a constitutional amendment he's been pushing for a year that would strictly limit government spending, slash taxes and make it virtually impossible to raise them. But now that almost every major group in Ohio has come out against the amendment, citing the irreparable damage it would do to education, social and government services, state funding for municipalities, and the like, suddenly Blackwell's backpedalling as fast as he can.

But on to more pleasant matters, as promised in the heading: brother Gary's younger daugther, Catherine, got married on Saturday at a resort in the Catskills. All guests were required to come in costume, which made for a really fun event. Here's groom Tim as a spaceman, and bride Cat as a dancing girl.

More photos at http://catandtimgetmarried.blogspot.com. None of me--I was taking the photos, after all. And Ann was in Kentucky for the annual UK College of the Arts Distinguished alumnus award--this year to rising young operatic tenor, Gregory Turay. More about that, and images of the award, later. Touray's career is pretty impressive for someone not yet 35--more about him at www.gregoryturay.com -- and listening to the recording of William Bolcom's A View From the Bridge (Turay sings Rudolfo) --as I have while Ann was designing and producing the certificate -- makes it all pretty understandable.

So: politics, weddings, and nothing yet about the theatre and aging work I'm now embarked on. That'll have to wait for another time also!