Brave New World

Today I had a delightful lunch with HistoriAnn, who is currently visiting Midwestern Funky Town. It made me remember the things that I like about blogging. Oh, sure, there are the fake personas and convicted criminals inhabiting blogland that scare me silly. But the blogosphere also provides really good opportunities to meet cool people. With only one or two exceptions, I have never been disappointed by meeting a blogger in real life.

Alas, though, my little bloggy has been far on the back burner to the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. It dawned on me the other day that I have been working on NERPoD in one form or another since my first year in graduate school in 1996. That is a long time. Let me put that in perspective for you:

When I started NERPoD, Bill Clinton had just been elected to his second term.

When I started NERPoD, nobody had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky or would have considered “Blue Dress” a punchline for a joke.

When I started NERPoD, the Nintendo 64 was cutting-edge entertainment technology.



When I started NERPoD, there was no such television show as CSI.

When I started NERPoD, there was only one television show with “Law & Order” in the title.

When I started NERPoD, George W. Bush was governor of Texas, a state that I swore to avoid for that and many other reasons.

When I started NERPoD, Motorola had just introduced the first ever “clamshell” cellular phone.

When I started NERPoD, TWA airlines was still flying planes.



When I started NERPoD, McDonnell Douglas was still manufacturing planes.

When I started NERPoD, it was possible for people with a lot more money than me to take a concord plane.

When I started NERPoD, Barack Obama had never held an elected office.

When I started NERPoD, Woolworth’s stores still existed.

When I started NERPoD, George Lucas was known for his legacy of Star Wars rather than being known for trashing his legacy of Star Wars.



When I started NERPoD, Princess Di was still alive.

When I started NERPoD, all the Heaven’s Gate cult followers were also still alive.

When I started NERPoD, they were still filming Titanic.

When I started NERPoD, the Macarena was all the rage.



When I started NERPoD, state “sodomy laws” were still considered Constitutional. Fourteen states, including Texas, still had them on the books until 2003.

When I started NERPoD, I had a completely full head of dark, luxurious hair that I never imagined would recede (I partially blame NERPoD).

When I started NERPoD, Exxon and Mobile were two different companies.

When I started NERPoD, gasoline cost $1.27/gallon.



When I started NERPoD, the Department of Justice still filed antitrust lawsuits.

When I started NERPoD, you could still smoke in California bars and restaurants.

When I started NERPoD, singer George Michael had never been arrested.

When I started NERPoD, Charlton Heston had never been president of the NRA.

When I started NERPoD, there was no such thing as “Google.”

When I started NERPoD, it was not possible to clone mammals.

When I started NERPoD, Netscape was the internet browser that everybody used.

When I started NERPoD, I drove a Daihatsu – the best-built car that I will probably ever own. I miss that car.



When I started NERPoD, Tony Blair had never been Prime Minister of Britain.

When I started NERPoD, Jean Chrétien was the Prime Minister of Canada (Bonus points to non-Canadians who can name the current (evil) Prime Minister of Canada without an internet search).

When I started NERPoD, Rachel Ray had not yet launched her master plan to become our new imperial overlord.

When I started NERPoD, the only “reality” television show on the air was MTV’s The Real World.

When I started NERPoD, there was no such thing as a “euro.”

When I started NERPoD, I still used “Pine” to check my e-mail.

When I started NERPoD, my waist was three inches smaller.

When I started NERPoD, there was no such word as “blog.”

Brother, Can You Spare Some Love?

For those interested in stalking GayProf, you will have that opportunity this weekend in Philadelphia. I am emerging from my Midwestern seclusion to present a paper at an academic conference.

Presenting at conferences usually stresses me out. This is especially the case given that I am trying out material from my next project (No, the Never Ending Project of Doom has not ended. I just thought that working on two projects at the same time would be crazy foolhardy sick okay). All the same, I wanted feedback on the direction that I am heading. At least, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So that you can share in my travels, here are some things that you might or might not know about Philadelphia:

* Philadelphia is currently the sixth largest city in the nation.

* Philadelphia police dropped a bomb from a helicopter on a house containing a radical organization in 1985. It killed eleven people, five of whom were children. The fire spread throughout the neighborhood.

* I often think of Philadelphia as the Boston that went wrong in the second part of the twentieth century.

* Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States until 1830.

* Despite its name, Philadelphia-brand cream cheese was first produced in 1880 in New York. As a marketing gimmick, the producer called it “Philadelphia Cream Cheese” because he thought that the city of Philadelphia would add a touch of class to his product.



* Philadelphia had the first public library in [what would become] the United States which opened in 1731.

* The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and agreed to creating a nation independent of Britain. Their meeting rooms are now known as Independence Hall.

* Today, Independence Hall has no public restrooms once you have cleared security. This is something that I learned the hard way the last time that I was in Philadelphia.

* The American Philosophical Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1743 by Ben Franklin. It would compete with Boston’s American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded by John Adams in 1780.

* Philadelphia has one of six facilities operated by the U.S. Treasury. The mint in Philadelphia produces coins of all denominations for circulation in the U.S.

* Betsy Ross lived in Philadelphia where she allegedly stitched the first flag. Others attribute the design of the U.S. flag to Francis Hopkinson, a delegate from New Jersey.

* The nation’s first carpet factory opened in Philadelphia in 1791.

* Philadelphia saw the first comic book produced in the United States, the John-Donkey, in 1848.

* Delegates drafted the Constitution of the United States, the document that currently dictates the structure of the government, in Philadelphia in 1787. Contrary to many people’s presumptions, Thomas Jefferson did not attend this event as he was residing in France at the time. He did write home, though, to criticize it.

* The film The Philadelphia Story ended Katharine Hepburn's reputation as "box office poison" when it became a major hit in 1940.



* Jazz legend Ethel Waters got her start singing blues in Philadelphia.

* Slightly more women (53% of the population) live in Philadelphia today than men.

* Over 43 percent of the city’s population identify themselves as African American. Only 8.5 percent identify themselves as Latino.

* Philadelphia was the site of a major celebration in 1876, marking the centennial of the nation. The efforts by people in 1976 to mark the bicentennial were quite pathetic in comparison.



* Served as the temporary capitol of the United States in the 1790s until Washington, D.C. was built.

* Philadelphia Freedom was the number one song in the U.S. in 1975. It was a tribute to tennis player Billie Jean King, who played on the team the Philadelphia Freedoms. Just two years earlier, King defeated Bobby Riggs in a “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match.

* Billie Jean King was born in Long Beach, California.

* The Society of Friends seems like one of the more reasonable of organized Christian groups in existence today.

* Current chart-topper P!nk started singing in clubs in Philadelphia when she was 14.



* Last year, 406 people were murdered in Philadelphia Over 10,500 people were victims of aggravated assault.

* It has been almost two years since GayProf last visited Philadelphia. The citizens of the city have cried out to heaven and wondered why I have forsaken them. Now their wait has ended.

Making the Nine

Time is slipping past me rather rapidly. Breaking my series of “nines” in the month of September, however, seemed like a bad omen. So, I’ll just jot down a few things. Besides, the blogosphere is so empty without me.

This past weekend I had a small cocktail gathering. Two major things occurred to me. First, I ran out of cocktail glasses about midway through the evening. Even though I have eight, my first thought was, “I must buy more.” This, I believe, is a symptom of my dish mania. What am I hoping to do? Accumulate enough stemware to open a bar? How much larger am I imagining future cocktail parties will get? If not all of my guests end up with the perfect glass, it’s no big deal. Right? Of course!

Well, that is what I said until one of the other cocktail glasses broke. Then I took it as a sign from God that I must purchase more. I am very religious like that. God is always giving me messages that I should shop more. Who am I do to argue with the will of God?

The other thing that happened was that I had been battling a swarm of never-dying bees that have built a nest in between the siding on my little cottage. I have called out a professional exterminator twice to kill the little bastards. Yet, they just won’t die. Now they are burrowing into the inside. On Saturday, I killed twenty of them who made their way indoors. As I frantically participated in a bee mass-execution in the hours before the party started, I had very grave visions that they would swarm over my guests. That probably wouldn't win me any awards as host.

Part of the problem is that the exterminator seems a little conservative in her application of poisons. She has expressed concern for spraying the whole house because of Cat. While I appreciate that, I actually think that the bees are the greater danger. I mean, the chances of Cat dragging his tongue along the baseboards are fairly slim. Meanwhile, the chances of him deciding that the bees are a new plaything are very high. Coming home and potentially finding a bee-stung kitty makes me quite anxious.

To deal with the problem on Saturday, I purchased some spray that I used myself along the windows and baseboards. This only reminded me that I am fairly sensitive about killing things. Trust me, I want the bees gone. Still, I feel bad about killing insects. I mean, they are important to the environment. They pollinate the plants and stuff. Bee vomit is delicious. Who am I to disrupt the cycle of life? What if one of the little bee larvae that I sprayed now would have grown up one day to cure bee cancer?

Waking up in the morning and finding the floor strewn with dead and dying bees seemed grim. Actually, it was just dying bees that bothered me. Maybe I just want them dead, but not suffering. I half expected to see a tiny bee Scarlett roaming around the dying bees looking for a bee doctor.

This made me want to learn more about bees. Well, by “learn more,” I don't mean that I wanted to do actual research or anything that required, you know, work. So, I turned to my old friend, Professor Internet.

Here are some things that I learned about bees:

Bees are decedents of wasps.

Bees are also related to ants.

It is likely that the “bees” in my house are really wasps (which makes me oddly feel better about killing them. After all, we all know that wasps are the mafia thugs of the insect world. They wouldn't hesitate to kill us.).

There are 130 different kinds of bees, wasps, and hornets in the continental U.S.

The honey bee is the state insect of Utah.

Apparently the Utah legislature has a lot of time on its hands if it’s naming state insects.

Dodge produced the famed muscle car the “Super Bee” between 1968 and 1971.



The popular (and now shockingly overpriced) motor scooter's name "Vespa" means "Wasp" in both Latin and Italian.

Saint Bee, according to the Catholic Church, lived between 615 and 693 CE. She founded several churches and built a convent in Belgium.

Spelling bees are not widely practiced outside of the U.S.

Bee is a brand of playing cards in the U.S.

The majority of bee species produce almost no honey.

California has three “bee-titled” newspapers: The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, and The Modesto Bee.

Samantha Bee, a regular correspondent for The Daily Show, was born in Toronto Ontario, Canada. She was the first non-U.S. citizen to be a regular on-air correspondent for the show.

A “bee” was a term used widely in the eighteenth and nineteenth century to describe activities that required community involvement (e.g. Quilting Bee, Husking Bee, Orgy Bee. Okay, maybe I made up that last one. They just called them orgies.)

Bees are strictly vegetarian. Wasps, on the other hand, digest meat to feed their larvae.

Bea Arthur was born in May, 1922. She is a Taurus.



Reading about wasps and bees creeps me out. I am also now totally convinced that both I and my cat will soon perish and then be served to wasp larvae as hamburger.