It is the Ides of March. You should beware. Here is an explanation of what the Term Ides of March means. (Above–The Death of Caesar. This work was painted in 1798 by Vincenzo Camuccini.) What books can you read to learn about the events surrounding the rise of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic? I can suggest three. A classic is The Roman Revolution by Sir Ronald Syme. This book was published in 1939 and has stood the test of time. A more recent title is Rubicon–The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland. This book was published in ...

A Fun Confetti Dress for Spring Just recently the sun decided to pay us a visit in Seattle – the first such visit in many months. Those of you who blessed to lively in sunnier climates may not fully appreciate the joy and anticipation that a few clear, cloudless days can bring. Spring is just around the corner, and is one of my favorite seasons (along with fall) for crossdressing. The weather is warm enough to wear fun skirts, strappy heels and breezy sundresses. The cloying heat of summer has not yet arrived to bring sweat stains and force frequent ...

This is really neat. It clearly shows what people are worried about and what they are thinking. From 538: Gallup did something pretty cool in connection with their latest health care survey, which was to provide the verbatim responses (.xls) of the rationales given by people who would tell their Congressman to vote for or against the current health care bills, respectively. I ran the responses through Wordle, a word-cloud generating tool, omitting certain words that were parts of speech or were otherwise nongermane. Here are the words that were used most frequently by the 45 percent of the country who ...

So sweet! The very talented - and extra-nice - Remittance Girl just guest-posted my story, "Last Tango in Paris, Texas" from my new Coming Together Presents M.Christian collection. A tantalizing taste follows ... and click here for the rest of the story on Remittance Girl's fantastic blog. You know the El Rio? Down on Cortez? Well, I’m not surprised; I’d be surprised if you did. It’s not exactly what you’d call a memorable ‘establishment’. Nothing, really, but a cinder block bunker in the middle of a red-dust parking lot. Hell, you wouldn’t even know it ...

Yes, for Erica Moen and I, there is truly no denying this fact and I do have to say that with all certainty in the world. Even though I am looking for a man, I would be truly blessed to find a partner who is a transsexual man. And even though it would be so nice to find this transsexual man of my dreams, I do not think that I would find such a man within the Denver-Boulder corridor. But I thought I would like to tell you why it is that transsexual men are just so fucking sexy ...

In this economy, it is quite expensive to develop and refine your practice and it becomes less possible what with the inability to get hired, job loss and things of that nature. And as we all know, there are a lot of classes and retreats that cost way too much for people who aren’t upper-middle class to afford. However, I have written a few things below to help you afford to develop your practice. 1. Go to Naropa The one thing that I have to say about Naropa University is that it offers you so many opportunities to develop your practice. ...

I’d like to start with last Friday in the Bill Moyers Journal. Wendell Potter was his first guest. Mister Potter used to work for the insurance industry and has since had an epiphany. Although Mister Potter points out some flaws in the Bill, he would vote for it. Moyers’ next guest was truly explosive. Doctor Marcia Angell is one of the representatives of physicians for a national healthcare program. She opens up on the current health-care bill in the Senate with both barrels. She is thoughtful, critical and informed. You can find the video — here. You can find ...

Portrait was one of those bands that had one GREAT CD then … not so much. Artist: Portrait Tune: Honey Dip ...

Matt Damon’s latest movie, Green Zone, is an entertaining tale about the beginning of the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the commercials sell this as another Bourne Supremacy movie. It is not. Those of us who’ve kept up with the small minute details of how we got into the war and how the Bush administration sold the war may be disappointed because all of the names are changed. The details are compressed. Nonetheless, I found this extremely enjoyable movie. Matt Damon plays a soldier whose job it is to find weapons of mass destruction. The movie picks up as Damon and his crew ...

I like this rule. From HuffPo: New Rule: Let’s not fire the teachers when students don’t learn – let’s fire the parents. Last week President Obama defended the firing of every single teacher in a struggling high school in a poor Rhode Island neighborhood. And the kids were outraged. They said, “Why blame our teachers?” and “Who’s President Obama?” I think it was Whitney Houston who said, “I believe that children are our future – teach them well and let them lead the way.” And that’s the last sound piece of educational advice this country has gotten – from a ...

St George Cross the real National Flag of England is a post from: Diary of a British Expatriate Blogger in Helsinki,Finland St George Cross the real National Flag of England is a post from: Diary of a British Expatriate Blogger in Helsinki,Finland There have been many repeats of the British film”This is England”” on Finnish television lately.I know as a true Brit myself the importance of our National Flags,however it got me to thinking of The Union Jack [...] ...

I still can't get over the fact that I actually have a collection of science fiction, fantasy and such out there - or that the book is out from the very-great folks at Renaissance ebooks/Futures-Past! Check out this announcement they've sent out about Love Without Gun Control: Futures-Past Publisher Jean Marie Stine announces the publication of M. Christian's e-book collection Love Without Gun Control & Other Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction Stories. The collection features "the cream of Christian's fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories. Only M. Christian ...

The Board of Education in Texas has been a place were conservatives beat their conservative agenda into the heads of our youth. Now, this is taking ideology too far. This is simply wrong. From TP: The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”: – To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex ...

My father was listening to Taj Mahal in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Taj Mahal is still around and playing great music. Artist: Taj Mahal Tune: Queen Bee ...

Listen to Errington Thompson on Blog Talk Radio Today at 5 pm EST. I’ll have Heidi Shierholz from the Economic Policy Institute. I will also have Andy Coates from Physicians for a National Healthcare Program. This is going to be a GREAT show. Now, this is truly Progressive Radio. ...

As everybody knows by now representative Eric Massa resigned on Monday. The reasons for his resignation have changed over the week. Initially, he was resigning because of health reasons. Then the Dems were pushing him out over his healthcare vote (he voted against it). As the week unfolded, more and more allegations of sexual inappropriateness and groping with male staffers have come to light. Republicans saw this as an opening and immediately tried to blame Nancy Pelosi and stated that she knew more than she let on and tried to cover it up. ...

Do you remember Morris Day, the lead singer of one of the ultimate party groups, The Time? From the darkness, Morris Day would shout, “What Time Is It?” The music would start blaring and the party was on. It is time for health-care reform. It is time for us to have a universal program which covers everybody. We are currently spending 16% of our gross domestic product on health care. Personally, I think spending $2.3 trillion on health care is plenty of money. We should not have to spend any more to get everything that we want. We want access ...

He is trying to stop all abortions with his bill, at least abortions that aren’t paid for in cash. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy From C&L: The Rachel Maddow Show did some digging and it appears that Bart Stupak may not actually have all the votes he’s claiming he has to stop the health care bill from being passed in the House. As Rachel also notes, since Stupak’s requests for changes to the bill are either impossible to get passed under reconciliation or just based on lies about what’s even in the ...

Said it before but have to say it again ... and again ... and again: I have some truly amazing friends. My great pal, Ralph Greco, Jr, has just posted a quickie interview with yours truly on the Short And Sweet NYC site. Thanks so much, Ralph!Here's a teaser. You can, of course, read the whole thing here. If you don't know the name M. Christian, then you're really not reading enough, now are you? The San Francisco-based scribe is a writer, anthologist, editor, blog-ist in contemporary genre fiction, with a heavy emphasis on cross-genre dirty stories ...

New Facelook for Diary of a British Expatriate in Finland is a post from: Diary of a British Expatriate Blogger in Helsinki,Finland New Facelook for Diary of a British Expatriate in Finland is a post from: Diary of a British Expatriate Blogger in Helsinki,Finland As some have noticed Diary of a British Expatriate has under gone a change with the theme and header recently being Re-Designed and updated. I hope that those readers who follow and subscribe to nectareal.com [...] ...