eve isk online

A day before Lt. Dan Choi of Tustin faces a hearing in which he may be thrown out of the military for being openly gay, President Barack Obama addressed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward homosexuals. And while gay activists, including Choi, have been urging Obama to uphold his campaign promise to rescind the policy, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen right away.

“I believe ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ doesn’t contribute to our national security,” Obama said today in this speech in recognition of gay pride month. “In fact, I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.

He said he is working with the Pentagon and Congress to bring an end to the policy and allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military. But he indicated that will take some time.

Click here to read about Choi and his hearing tomorrow.

First introduced to Mac gamers in the fall of 2007, EVE Online is a massive multiplayer online (MMO) game created by Icelandic developer CCP Games. Famous for being inhospitable to new players, EVE Online evolved in 2009 with the release of Apocrypha, a free expansion that seeks to right past wrongs by creating a new player experience and expanding the scope of the game dramatically.

So, where exactly did I go wrong? It was Father’s Day Weekend, and with my two sons, the four children I inherited when I married Natalie and our seven grandchildren, I figured I’d better spend some time on Saturday cleaning out the spare bedroom to make room for the piles of presents I was about to receive.

Trouble was, late Saturday the weekend started to fall apart.

It was Father’s Day eve — OK, so maybe it’s not such a big deal around your house, but it is around ours … or at least it should be, don’t you think?

Yeah, well, Father’s Day eve is obviously a concept completely lost on my two sons, who were off doing their own things on Saturday night (and, yes, parties were involved — parties that didn’t involve me). And it was lost on my wife, too … very lost!

All I was hoping for was a relaxing Saturday evening. It had been a long, tiring last couple of weeks on the job scene, what with me burning the midnight oil while producing our annual graduation special section. And Natalie? Oh, she was wearing herself out, too — wine tasting with friends in Grass Valley, then catching the grandson’s baseball game and the pizza party to follow, and finally sharing dinner and a movie with a friend. Yeah, just grueling!

It was all set up. We’d have a date night on Saturday and go out, just the two of us. A relaxing dinner, a funny movie, a quiet evening, then …

POOF! It all went away in a phone call.

The singsong of her cell phone tone sounded, and the next thing I knew we were not only canceling our date night but we were having a Saturday night sleepover and dinner at home. And, to add insult to injury, I was going to have to cook!

“There’s been a change in plans,” Natalie told me on Saturday.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “What, are the boys going to come over and barbecue dinner for me?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“Oh, then your kids and all the grandkids are coming over to make dinner for us?”

“Close,” she answered. “Two of the grandkids are coming over, and we’re going to baby-sit while their parents go out to dinner and movie.”

“But what about our dinner?” I asked, somewhat pathetically.

“Oh, whatever you want to make will be fine with us,” she said with a certain joy in her voice.

Uh, what’s wrong with this picture?

“I guess you’ve forgotten,” I said. “Remember, it’s Father’s Day eve.”

“Father’s Day eve?” she said. “There’s no such thing as Father’s Day eve. It’s just a regular Saturday night.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” I said.

“Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself,” she scolded. “You know that your boys are taking you to the Giants-A’s game on Tuesday, and you know that my kids will be good to you, too. So get over yourself!”

I suppose she’s right. Father’s Day eve is really no big deal, so I guess baby-sitting a couple of the grandkids won’t be so bad.

“Oh, did I mention that Riley’s going to come over, too?” she said, referring to her sister’s granddaughter.

Great. My dinner and a movie had suddenly turned from a steak and a baked potato and “The Hangover” to burgers and mac and cheese and “Aladdin.”

So much for Father’s Day Weekend.

Reporting from Baghdad - An old man blared on a trumpet, policemen danced in the back of their pickup trucks and a singer from the days of Saddam Hussein trilled in a city park, all to celebrate the new era.

Monday night was a time for Iraqis to bask in their sovereignty as they counted down to today, the formal departure date of U.S. forces from their cities.

In the days ahead, Iraqis may still worry about the possibility of increased sectarian violence, the lackluster economy and a dearth of basic services. But on Monday night, they heeded Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s declaration that June 30 will be remembered as a great day for Iraq, “a day of national sovereignty.”

Fireworks exploded over the city and several thousand people crowded into central Baghdad’s Zawra Park, ignoring a mild dust storm to say goodbye to more than six years of American forces patrolling their major cities.

Newfoundland outfit Children of Eve beat out four other bands last week at the Toothy Moose to nab an opening slot at the July 18 KISS extravaganza.

Developmental women’s wrestler Angela Fong is once again on the road with WWE this weekend. She noted on her Twitter account yesterday (twitter.com/missangelafong) that she was in Des Moines, Iowa, the site of last night’s Raw brand house show. She also said she lost her luggage on her way to Iowa.

– WWE.com has posted a new photo set of Eve Torres.

– Paul Heyman has written a new column for the UK Sun titled, “Punk in Play.” Heyman offered his “most sincere compliments” to WWE on the way they’ve handled CM Punk’s character in recent weeks. Heyman writes: “There are many reasons the proverbial glass ceiling in WWE is being shattered, at least for the moment, by the Straight Edge performer from Chicago, Illinois, but here’s one thing that can be stated as an “absolute”… the CM Punk character is “in play”, and WWE is offering its audience the opportunity to come along for the ride and have an emotional investment in a genuinely interesting character. “ He goes in-depth talking about how the WWE landscape is changing, with top stars such as The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Batista and (soon) Jeff Hardy taking extended time off and the need for younger talent to step up. Heyman has had an eye on Punk for years, pegging him as a breakout star back in 2005 when both of them were working at WWE developmental. It’s a good read & you can check it out at TheSun.co.uk.

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WHEN the new National Portrait Gallery in Canberra opened last year, Kevin Gilbert’s linocut Christmas Eve in the Land of the Dispossessed was hung alongside Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack’s woodcut Desolation: Internment Camp, Orange (featured in this column last week). It was a clever juxtaposition. Both works depict the Australian night sky, with a prominence given to the Southern Cross. Both are works of great beauty, made while their creators were incarcerated, for different reasons: Hirschfeld Mack was interned as an enemy alien during World War II while Gilbert was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1957 for his role in a domestic fight in which his wife died.

Despite the fact that Australia was new to Hirschfeld Mack, whereas it had been home for thousands of years to Gilbert’s people, both these works are images of estrangement. The figures in both works have been dispossessed oftheir homeland, for very different reasons, and with very different results. Both works emerge out of an adversity which they beautifully illuminate.

In Gilbert’s print the land sparkles as much as the sky. The marks on the earth, in the river that runs down the centre of the scene, in the foliage and bark of the tree, and on the bodies of the figures, form constellations that seem to mirror those in the sky. There is a sense of a graphically depicted correspondence between heaven and earth, a patterning in which no part is more important than any other.

The family group that sits by the side of the river and the men with their spears that sit above it are an integral part of the cosmos. It would seem to be an idyllic scene, but the title of the work suggests otherwise. The stars don’t mean what they used to. A relativity of meaning has entered the scene and, along with it, the sense that everything has been broken.

It was during his 14 years in prison that Gilbert became politically and artistically active, writing plays, poems and polemical texts as well as making paintings and prints. Soon after he was released he helped establish the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, and he went on to chair the Treaty ‘88 campaign.

But it was art, in his view, that had the greatest capacity to raise consciousness. He learned how to make linocuts while in Sydney’sLong Bay jail. He enjoyed the new medium, he said, making his own cutters, and using lino prised from the prison floor. Christmas Eve in the Land of the Dispossessed, he wrote, “became very meaningful to me. It’s possibly my most favourite print, the one I identify with the most.”

In a sense, it’s an image of an earthly paradise on the brink of a Fall, ironically associated with Christianity. Yet Gilbert may have been scathing about Christians, but not about the religion they professed to adhere to.

Christmas Eve in the Land of the Dispossessed shows the points of contact between two spiritualities, Aboriginal and Christian, atthe same time as it underlines the historical tragedy of their meeting. This, as Gilbert saw it,was a tragedy that would see indigenous people become refugees, or strangers in their own land (one of the rationales for the Aboriginal Embassy).

The image also stages the meeting of cultures in formal terms. For while the composition of the image borrows elements from the classical landscape of Western tradition (along with elements from ethnographic textbooks), the all-over patterning, the graphic shimmer and the sense of an obscure cosmic unity reassert a culture that will not so easily surrender.

By Michael A. Fletcher
On the eve of Father’s Day, the First Father showed how it’s done, taking his daughters Malia and Sasha for some frozen treats at The Dairy Godmother, a boutique custard parlor in Alexandria.

President Obama and his girls motorcaded over to Alexandria from the White House this afternoon. Malia had a waffle cone of vanilla custard and Sasha had her vanilla custard in a cup. The president enjoyed a cup of vanilla custard with hot fudge and toasted almonds, a pool reporter was told by the shopkeeper. The three were in the shop for about 15 minutes, where they sat at a table to enjoy their snacks.

As they left, the trio received applause from the staff and customers inside and a small crowd outside. Carrying a bag of frozen “puppy pops” for the First Dog, Bo, Obama waved to the crowd before stepping into his SUV for the short jaunt back to the White House.

Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:11 AM MDT

It’s been 80 years since Neal Forsling first brought to life the tales of witches and fairies on Casper Mountain.

The 80th mid-summer’s eve festival at Crimson Dawn will be held Sunday, June 21, on Casper Mountain. Hundreds of visitors are expected to follow storyteller Rebecca Hunt as she once again takes them through the Topaz Gate and into Forsling’s magical stories.

Visitors will meet the seven witches, the three little elves and other mysterious creatures as they also hear about Forsling’s life and experiences on Casper Mountain.

Those who attend should meet at 7 p.m. at the Crimson Dawn museum to follow along and listen to the Casper Mountain folklore.

Bring a flashlight for the walk to and from your car, and bring cookies to share with others after the bonfire at the end of the evening. Cocoa and coffee will be donated by Bob Shepard.

There is no admission fee, and smoking and pets are not allowed.

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