Today, in my local newspaper there was response to my recent letter to the editor on the subject of same sex marriages. Lo and behold, it was written by somebody who goes to the same church as I! Here is the text of Dawn's letter as published:

Do not call it marriage

This is in response to the June 14 letter written by Cory Albrecht: Welcome Gay Marriages.

I don't hate gay people; I know some and they are people just like the rest of us. They deserve happiness just like we do and if they find it in this lifestyle, then that's their choice.

But I can make choices, too. My choices are to not choose that as my lifestyle and please do not call it a marriage. What the judges say and what the marriage licence says is up to them. But what I believe in and how I live my life according to the morals I was taught is up to me.

I don't care how society changes. I don't have to change and neither do the gay people. But please don't expect me and many others to live and believe as they do. I accept this. The same-sex marriage issue is getting far too much publicity and who is benefiting from it?

I accept any race, colour and person for who they are. But when Albrecht asks what is the difference between an interracial marriage and a same-sex marriage, there are lots. But the main one is that interracial marriages are between a male and a female. Same-sex marriages are not. Please call it a union, not a marriage.

Dawn Rees, Kitchener

Dawn talks about homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice", but I don't see it that way. I know that as a heterosexual man I did not chose to be attracted most to certain types of women — it is simply whom I am naturally, normally attracted to. From that I can easily generalize to a gay person not having chosen to be homosexual. After all, who would willingly chose to have so much prejudice and bigotry heaped upon them?

Yesterday my local newspaper, The Record, printed another of my letters to the editor. This one wasn't in response to somebody else's letter, but my comments on the recent court ruling on same sex marriages. The letter as printed follows:

Welcome gay marriages

With the debate on homosexual marriage about to ratchet up a notch, I would like to offer an analogy.

If we were to look at common opinions on interracial marriages a few generations ago, what would we see? Most people would have disapproved of a white person marrying a black person, with some people engaging in slander and violence. Many white parents would have been shocked at their daughter for wanting to engage in miscegenation and some priests and ministers refused to perform the ceremonies. Nor was the use of scientific arguments against interracial marriage limited to Germany in the 1930s. While race was not as big an issue here in Canada as in the United States, these attitudes still existed.

If somebody were to speak out against interracial marriage today, we would call them bigoted. "Love is colour-blind," we would say.

So what is the difference between interracial marriage and same sex marriage? None that I can see, and if I ever know a homosexual couple who get married I will be just as delighted for them as I would be for any other couple. Shouldn't we all?

Me, I just can't understand why somebody would want to prevent twp people who love each other from getting married. I don't see how same sex marriage harms anybody, not even those nitwits who think that gay people are out to "convert" (pfft!) them or their children.

Sometimes, when my intolerance for intolerance (yes, ironic, I know) overwhelms my compassion I wish that every person who is against same sex marriage would have a close friend or family member come out of the closet. Perhaps then the anti-gay people, as they see directly the effects of intolerance, would realize that homosexual people are just that – people. Hopefully they would develop some true compassion. The thing is, even though I am pro-gay rights and do not feel that it is sinful at all (I apply the same standards re sexual fidelity, etc.. to straights & gays), I would never wish it up on a person to have to endure the intolerance and abuse that openly homosexual people suffer.Thus my wish will be for naught.

Well, I have got to remember not to take too long a break in the middle of biking. :-)

During my usual Iron Horse Trail bike ride today I saw some poppies growing in the bush alongside the trail. At least I thought they were poppies but I wasn't sure. They were growing in the bush that surrounds the trail at some spots, far enough in that I was sure they weren't in one of the many yards that back on to the trail.

I stopped and picked a flower and on the way home I stopped at the school where my Mother works, since she's a gardener-type person and would be able to confirm that it was a poppy. But unfortunately I stopped too long at the school, and if you start up again when your body thinks it is winding down from excersising, it can be even harder to go. Bleh.

Got some more plants (again) today. Some Hungarian wax hot peppers and a nice tall foxglove to put beside the butterfly bush to help attract even more butterflys. But what I'm really hoping (almost against hope) is that some hummingbirds will show up. When I was children's camp counsellor for my summer job as a teenager, I remember seeing the hummingbirds feed on the flowers of the the taller plants. But I have never seen them here in the city. :-(

Well, today (Saturday) I got some more plants for my container gardening.

In the vegetable category I got jalapeño peppers, hot cherry peppers and one purple bell (sweet) pepper. Hopefully the hot cherry peppers wont look too much like the cherry tomatoes I got a few weeks earlier! :-) Last summer the peppers I grew almost produced more than I could use, and I just noticed on the tag that the hot cherry peppers are "heavy producers"!

In the herbs and spices category I got Virginia mint, German chamomile, bloody sorrel, ginger, licorice, bergamot and orange mint (a peppermint cultivar). These will go along with the peppermint, catnip, and fennel I got a few weeks ago. Bergamot and bee balm are both Monarda spp., but last summer when I tried adding a few bee balm leaves to my home-grown teas for an Earl Grey-like taste it wasn't overly yummy. The Virginia mint is described as being "well behaved", so I guess that means it won't take over like spearmint or peppermint. Perhaps I will be able to put it in a flowerbed for next year.

To go int the new flower bed around the bird feeder pole I got some marjoram, creeping oregano and some french thyme. Depending on how well they grow (getting trampled on by the mourning doves and other birds chasing fallen birdseed) I might harvest these for spices later on.

And the bee balm which got planted from its pot to a flower bed last fall is doing wonderfully, but the butterfly bush which also got planted out did not survive the winter. :-( But I got another one a few weeks ago, and hopefully it will survive the winter better if it is in the flowerbed all summer.

I recently found a a piece of parasite software on my system, thanks to the terrible security of Windows. :-P Fortunately I am a fairly savvy conputer user, knowing a fair bit about the internals of Windows so I could remove this annoying piece of *#!!* software — though it was damn tricky finding every place it hid itself and its data. I'm still not sure I zapped all of it. :-P

Parasite software is usually spyware. It scans your harddrive for personal information (address, credit card numbers, etc...) and keeps records of every site you visit, sending that data somewhere, usually to some company who will sell that info to third parties. Parasite software doesn't show up in the Add/Remove programmes control panel which means to uninstall it you have to know what files it secretly installed in the first place, and even if you can hunt down and find all those well hidden files, if you don't get every last one they can redownload and reinstall themselves the next time you go online. This is scary stuff - programmes that can't be deleted that spy on everything you're doing on your computer and send the info God knows where!

So I did a little bit of research in to parasite-ware and spyware and I found two webpages which are very useful. The first one (http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/) has a little script on it to detect whether your computer has any of about ~100 different pieces of spyware as well as instructions on how to get rid of any that are found. The second (http://www.unwantedlinks.com/spyware-info.htm) has a good explanation (even for non-geeks) of what parasite spyware does and a link to a list of about 800 programmes that secretly install this crap.

I recommend that everybody who uses Windows on their computer visit that page (with Internet Explorer, not Netscape, Opera or a different browser) because these parasitical spyware programmes are NOT not detected by anti-virus software! The annoying parasites are usually secretly bundled in with free softare people download from the next (Grokster, BonziBuddy, Kazaa, LimeWire, AudioGalaxy, CuteFTP are some examples of the more popular ones), but some webpages secretly install parasite software when you surf to them.

Also, a very popular program called Gator, which is advertised a personal utility program that helps you manage personal information (name, birthday, address), bank account information, credit card numbers, passwords and so forth. It's major feature is to automatically fill out forms on web pages with that personal info — which sounds cool ("hey, less typing!"), untill you realize that Gator also sends that info of yours back to it's creators for them to sell to third parties! Not only that, but Gator is also "theftware", which means that when you are surfing, Gator scans all the web pages you visit for ads and switches them for ads of Gator's clients. On the surface this doens't sound too bad - and ad is an ad, right? Wrong! Most of those webpages have those adds to generate revenue so the people can keep their pages online. But since Gator is secretly replacing those ads with ones from Gator clients, the people don't get the revenue they deserve. Gator is extremely unethical.

Since my Mother swears by what banana skins have done for her ferns, I've deced to try them for my container gardening this year. Bananas have high levels of phosporus and potassium and along with nitrogen are the three elements most rapidly removed from soil.

If I remember my biology from high school and my zoology & botany from university, phosphorus is essential for both photosynthesis in plants and cellular respiration in animals. Unfortunately I can't remember what the potassium is needed for.

In years past I've always used Miracle Gro (that blue, crystalline fertlizer) on my plants and they have done nicely. So this summer I shall see if the banana skins make my container gardened plants any healthier. I have the biggest hopes for the tomatoes and peppers. Come winter when I bring my orange tree inside I'm going to give it banana skins, too, and maybe it will stay healthier all winter.

While I've never had bad luck with the tomatoes and peppers, they've always been under–performers for me, especially the tomatoes. My herbs have always done well with mild neglect, getting nice and bushy, so I guess a combination of that and not being as experienced a gardener as my Mother has not let my tomatoes and peppers grow to their potential.

Last Saturday at the farmers' market, in addition to some catnip and lemon balm, I picked up two little cherry tomato plants with flower buds already on them. (Not having a driver's licence sucks, so I don't usually get plants until June when I go along with my Mother the teacher on her garden shopping trips when school has ended.) I gave the plants some banana skins today and I am hoping that some early cherry tomatoes from healthy, banana–fed plants will encourage me to be more attentive to the plants that need more than the mild neglect I give my herbs. :-)