More cute dogs

Speaking of cute dogs, one of my favorite sites is The Daily Oliver. Canadian Dean Allen, who lives in rural southern France, posts a photo every day of his Weimaraners Oliver and Hugo (he named the site when he only had Oliver). A visit to the site always brightens my day.

Gratuitous cute dog photo

Our Golden Retriever Xena has enough retriever instincts that she carries objects–balls, small stuffed animals–around in her mouth frequently, but not enough to reliably play fetch. When I manage to get ahold of her flat ball and throw it off the deck into the yard, she runs after it and picks it up, but she doesn’t want to give it back. If I come near her when she has the ball, she runs the other way, because she doesn’t want me to take it from her. Oh well; she’s cute.
Xena with her flat ball

Speechless…

The United Church of Christ, a mainstream Christian denomination with 1.6 million members in the United States, has launched a new ad campaign to emphasize its inclusive nature. But the CBS and NBC televisions networks are declining to air the UCC’s television ad (see also CNN)because they say the ad is ‘too controversial.’
CBS’ written response to the the UCC said in part:

Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations,” reads an explanation from CBS, “and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks.

As far as I can tell (I haven’t yet seen the ad, only read descriptions of it), the UCC’s television ad doesn’t say anything about gay and lesbian couples, only that everyone, including gays and lesbians, are welcome in their church. Yet, CBS and NBC view the ad in the context of the current civil debate over gay marriage. This is not a good sign of the direction our society is going in.