Harry's remark

The little dust-up over Prince Harry's racist remark seems way overblown to me. If he meant it in a derogatory way then obviously it's unacceptable, but his explanation--that he meant it in a friendly way to a member of his army platoon--is totally believable. People would be shocked at the things men call each other when they're horsing around, or when they're in a group together (like a sports team or, yes, army platoon). They call each other things that would be normally offensive to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but in context actually show affection.

If Harry had no malice when he said it, and the other guy wasn't offended, then all this feigned outrage is ridiculous. Any utterance of a particular word is not automatically offensive--there is such a thing as context, even for words that are often used with a racist or nasty intent. All of these people being outraged and offended on this guy's behalf are full of it.

An old house

Here's a real estate listing for a house in our town. The interesting part? It was built in 1693.

316 years before today. Over 160 years before the Civil War. Almost 100 years before the Declaration of Independence and writing of the Constitution. I love that our neighborhood has neat houses like this. It was built by one of the founders of the town and looks like it's still in good shape.

Return of the hawk

I'm kind of obsessed with this hawk we have living near the house, especially since it's been hanging around the trees near us for the last few weeks. The first pic below is cropped, the second is a wider angle so you can see how big this guy is (look in the upper center part of the photo).

2009

Happy new year! Did everyone have a good holiday? We went to my parents' and brother's house for Christmas eve, then flew to Buffalo to be with Michele's family until the 29th. Hung out at a friend's house on new year's eve. Michele posted some pictures from Christmas eve and Christmas, check them out.