p e n g u i n d e v i l

While in Maine I saw this creepy TV ad. It seemed to be about teens waiting before sex. Now while this is a fine notion, waiting until they are mature/informed enough to make good decisions regarding: choice of parters, birth control, std’s, etc… This ad ended up following none of those angles. Its angle was only that they should “wait until marriage”.

Well, now that is a bit different. While that theory does follow the “good old American dream” stereotype, in this day and age, when some people have no interest in marriage or children and some people have children and life long committed relationships without marriage and some folks cannot legally get married? It seems a bit dated.

But not just dated… Please let me know if this is incorrect but the only actual reason that I am aware of for people to wait until “marriage” for sex is one of religious belief. A notion of sin? Now while that alone doesn’t make this ad bad, as religious entities are well and free to make advertisements expressing their views… This ad was paid for by the US Government!

To have the government espouse religious views is not only offensive to those of us who follow no religious creeds, but it seems to cross the line of what is generally considered to be the appropriate separation of church and state. As in, it seems to be the federal government suggesting that people should follow the beliefs held by some particular religions. And while we know that the current Government believes this way (mandating religion) as one of their “many signs of illegitimacy”, broadcasting this stuff so blatantly on television ads is certainly gall of a higher degree.

So we’re back from Maine. We never actually made it to the coast, in fact the getting and coming wasn’t too great. But the day that we spent there was quite nice. And on the trip there we passed through a beautiful, foggy area that I must hike around in sometime, and I train that I must take. It was called Crawford Notch.

But anyway, Portland. I feel like we would rather have spent the last few years living there than in Big Portland. It was just a cool place. The old town seemed quite old. The sidewalks were bricks that must have dated from somewhere in the 19th centry, lots of nice old buildings and, though it only shows a population of 63,000, it felt a lot more citylike than that. In a lot of ways, it felt more citylike (at least “east coast city”) than Big Portland, which is many, many times its size.

But to counter my impressions of my last visit, the Old Town/Shopping district didn’t seem irritating like I had though it did, places have Veggie options on the menus, there are a good number of places to grab a beer and even micro-breweries! There were some good stores too. We found “Books Etc.” a “new book” store downtown that, while small, had a good selection and “Yes Books”, a used book store that, while disorganized (one of those “books stacked on the floor” kind of places), seemed a fun place to browse and they had a nice history section. It once again led me to wonder if the “Powells phenomenon” has really drained Portland of good, old books. Also, and I thought quite exciting, we stumbled on a little basement music store, “Bull Moose Music”, that I wandered around in and found not only a nice selection of new and used horror and Sci-fi DVD’s, but they actually had a “new and used” extreme metal section! While I didn’t find anything I needed, I imagine that it’s probably the only section like that in New England outside of Boston, so it’s good to know that it was there.

We discussed the notion of moving there, rather than Vermont… As it would be easier in a lot of ways, but I think we are still leaning towards the small town kind of community as where we want to settle.