Lefter than Thou in JP

A festering issue in this year's Boston City Councilor races is differentiating the me-too candidates. Almost to a one, those who made the final are leftist Democrats. Like the Tide/Cheer/supermarket brand question, which detergent will clean your city best?

Exception: He's not on the ballot and sure as Satan won't win a slot, but there is a standout candidate. The Neanderthal vote would definitely go to Joe Ureneck. Do check his eponymous site. He has all the essays to show why he is unlike those pansy liberals — anti-gay, anti-sex-marriage, xenophobic, sexist, you name it and Joe has it covered.

Back to the bag of marbles. Patricia White is the most brazen in claiming first liberalism and then progressivism. She suffocated last time for lack of votes. Instead of coming to Jesus, she came to the left. Such sudden conversion is not credible, merely expedient. However, her claim of progressive politics, more so than anyone, she'll say, highlights the conundrum we face on Tuesday.

The issue of What's a progressive got nice explication in this week's Jamaica Plain Gazette. Unfortunately, they only put teasers online and you would have to head to a local liquor store or other outlet to pick one up if you aren't from JP.

Reporter John Ruch noted that suddenly the meme of the campaign is progressive. At public fora and in their speeches and literature, all candidates are, they say. He contacted five at-large and two district candidates to discover what they meant by that.

Excerpts include:

• Felix Arroyo — "Lip service is not a progressive person. You have to be an activist. You're not a progressive if you don't seek equity for everyone in the society you're fighting for."
• Michael Flaherty — His flak, Steve Crawford, cited three defining issues: 1) support for same-sex marriage; 2) opposition to the death penalty; and 3) support for the Community Preservation Act.
• Matt O'Malley — "The heart of the progressive movement...being a loud, strong voice for everybody. " Examples include support for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and "fundamental equal opportunity."
• Patricia White — Had claimed to be progressive, but did not respond to interview requests.
• Sam Yoon — Had his list of essential current issues, rent regulation, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and opposition to the biolab. The underlying issue is a big one, lingering inequality. "A progressive is someone who, at night, that gnaws on them."

Similarly, the two district Councilor candidates:

• John Tobin — Used word play, shortening his position to progress. "It's about getting things done, not just talking about it."
• Gibrán Rivera — Standing "solidly on the side of equity and justice"...putting the working class at the center of decision making" and prioritizing care for the vulnerable.

At-large candidates not claiming progressive are John Connolly, Ed Flynn and Steve Murphy.

Come Tuesday, if you want to pick four at-large, Arroyo, Yoon, Flaherty and O'Malley are good bets. We have no idea about White; she's a chameleon.

Mass Hysterical on Video

Turn up your speakers and don't be drinking any milk. The Daily Show nailed one of our anti-gay, anti-same-sex-marriage spokesmodels.

You can jump right into the video here. If you need a warning, catch the excellent recap and partial transcript at the ever-alert MassResistanceWatch blog. The Malcontent has another link to the video.

It is to laugh. Brian Camenker must limit his TV to the History Channel. He apparently had no idea that Ed Helms of The Daily Show is in the business of ridiculing the puffy, hateful and irrational. He is now.

More Beeb Palpitations

Back into introspection, but not mine. Raja, a contributor to The Lebanese bloggers, also had his endocrine system spurred by being asked to speak on the BBC World Have Your Say by phone.

Comments on my cameo are here. My interface by email and phone was largely Rabiya Parekh, right, who claims to have a serious scarf jones.

Raja was one of three Middle-Eastern bloggers, each of whom could ask the Syrian Ambassador to the London one (count it, one) question. That segment is here. It loads a BBC stream interface; no extra plugins needed.

Raja's emotions came from dealing with the ambassador. As he put it:

I was (and still am) a nervous wreck! However, somehow I managed to ask the ambassador some pointed questions. I'm sure my voice was cracking... at some points, I'm also sure I was incoherent... and looking back, I now wish I had said some things that I did not mention.

My heart rate is like 160 beats a minute!

It is a lot easier to plunge the keys than get personal by phone.

SSM Salem Setback

The fat lady has hardly begun her scales. Today in Oregon, a county circuit-court judge upheld a voter initiative ban on same-sex marriages. The gay-rights groups who challenged it into court will surely go to the appeal court, and then regardless of the outcome, someone will certainly push it to the state supreme court.

As Scarlett O'Hara said, "Oh fiddle dee, I'll think about it tomorrow!"

Well, after many yesterdays, Judge Joseph Guimond ruled on a relatively fine point of challenge. He said that while the single-sentence ban did touch and revise many areas of the state constitution and laws, it did not violate the rules on such initiatives. Oregon law says that multiple amendments cannot be submitted to voters as a single one.

This Measure 36, reads:

The Constitution of the State of Oregon is amended as follows:

It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage.

The state's analysis before last year's vote is here. It makes it plain that the intend is not only to forbid performance of same-sex marriages in Oregon, but also to ensure that no same-sex marriage performed elsewhere (Think, what New England State might that reference?) would be recognized in the Beaver State.

That seems like a plain enough violation of the stricture on ballot initiatives only covering one change to the constitution. However, the august Joseph Guimond agreed with those arguing that this was just clarifying marriage law, regardless of its impact on multiple areas of the constitution.

In addition to the separate-vote challenge, two other issues were part of the consideration:

• That Measure 36 actually revised the constitution by inserting marriage defintions that never appeared; revision in contrast to amendment is reserved for the state legislature.
• That Measure as a policy statement is really not an amendemnet at all; thus there was no right to vote on it.

Basic Rights Oregon led the challenge and has announced that it will appeal. It also has background on the initiative and case, as well as a link to the PDF of the decision. (And now you have that too; isn't the Internet grand?)

You can take a read for yourself in the five-pager, but at first glance, it appears as though the judge picked nits about to try to justify the position that this was not a multiple-amendment nested into a single one. He somehow finds that Measure 36 is "an exception to the proposition that 'it is difficult to make related changes to unrelated constitutional provisions.'"

Read 'em and weep. To be continued...

The Very Slow Iron Hand of Sweden

Eleven, count 'em, eleven years...all your fingers and one toe...Sweden has offered legal civil unions for homosexuals. Apparently, it figured in that time, its registrars (like justices of the peace) would get used to the idea.

As of this coming spring, the local registrars will have to perform such ceremonies or quit. The European Sun has the full story here.

It may be a harbinger of what's to come in Canada and Connecticut. In both places, an alter kaker in the role can perform marriages or civil unions or not. Of course, clerics do not have to perform such ceremonies anywhere. (It is amusing to see the scare notes put out by fundies claiming ministers and priests will have to bless queers having sex. Not bloody likely.)

In Sweden, the relatively conservative Lutheran Church recently started a blessing ceremony for same-sex partnerships. Its Swedish Church Assembly approved tha 160 to 81. Of course, from here that certianly looks like a savvy decision to keep the gay members involved and indebted to the church. No word how many Swedish Luterans are gay, but 7 of 9 Swedes belong to the church.

Mayoral Contender?

I guess we all know Terry Malloy, played in On the Waterfront by Marlon Brando. The pug who took dives for short money and then was reduced to shoving boxes on the docks.

Is that Maura Hennigan, the mayoral challenger without a vision, without a plan, without a program, without a prayer? Well, today's Globe and Herald both think so.

They have some similar and some disparate argument for Da Mare. They agree that she didn't show any stuff, no good reasons to believe she would be better or even as good as Menino.

That is a pity in a city that prides itself on its politics and politicians. It is not too early for those with good ideas and a real vision to begin planning for the next mayoral election. The folks here are hungry for a real fight.

To recall the great Terry lines:

I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Solemnization, Maybe a Trend

I guess that some announced trends have a slimmer basis than comparing five years. So, let's pretend that my $15 bought insight into the available information on one-day designations of solemnization.

I may well be the only one in Massachusetts, or the nation or world for that matter, who cares at all about this. For example, Governor's office can't figure out how to count the requests for designations. The Secretary of State's office has never tracked the numbers.

The pleasant Supervisor of Commissions for the commonwealth said they are only required to keep such records for one year. This is odd, as according to the Massachusetts record retention rules, such records are in the G4 class. Everyone else handling those has to keep them for six years. I bet the commonwealth does too, but in fairness, it has likely never gotten a request.

So, as I am so fond of asking my kids, what can we learn from this? In this case, from this tiny set of numbers, what's the word?

Disclaimer: The figure for this year is extrapolated. Through October 26th, the commonwealth recorded 1,424. At that rate, the yearly total will be 1,738.

The felt sense at the Secretary's office before the count was about 1,000 a year issued. In fact, this is close enough for 2001 through 2003. It averaged 1,021. For all five years, the average is 1,298.

We can assume that the Governor's office tosses a few, but that the ratio of requests to certificates approaches 1:1.

We cannot know the previous totals. Nor can we know why there was a big sag in 2003. Then, the big upturns come in the past two years, with this 2005 headed for nearly twice 2003's total.

The state is not gaining population, there are no big population groups suddenly reaching marital age. Thus, the causal finger points to the only substantial change — same-sex marriage. Evoking Occam's razor, we can assume that this accounted for the surges.

A possible, but unlikely, corollary is that straight couples we so offended by same-sex marriage that they rushed to wed, and in so doing, opted not for a religious or standard civil ceremony, but to have a friend or family member do the deed.

Far more consistent with the known facts is that a substantial number of those 6,000-plus gay couples went the route of asking a friend to solemnize their marriage. That was certainly the case with my second solemnization. That makes sense, is rather wholesome, and makes me glad to be a small part of this trend.

Where Have You Gone, Ozzie Nelson?

The short life of the idealized nuclear family has not prevented it from entering the popular culture with vigor and tenaciousness. We early Baby Boomers saw it frequently at home and every evening on TV.

Steve Douglas with his My Three Sons was certainly an anomaly — a single parent. Yet there was no wanton sexuality or denial of the sanctity of marriage for this widower. With one self-righteous voice, the nation chanted, "Marriage and children with one dad and one mom is good."

With the shrillness of today's anti-gay anti-same-sex-marriage harpies, we can lose sight of the trends in marriage. Long, long before Vermont legalized civil unions or Massachusetts gay marriage, increasingly fewer Americans were marrying. Many live together and never wed. Others marry late and may or may not have children. The effects of adding homosexual unions to the mix is a distraction but not a defining factor.

The Cox News Service's Katherine Heine has a nice think piece on marriage. Among her background is:

Conservative social scientists reference grim statistics to project the moral decay of the American way of life. They call for stricter divorce laws and constitutional amendments limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

Others argue the relational freedom that sprang from the sexual revolution and women's movements of the 1960s and '70s transformed an institution traditionally driven by economics and obligation into one defined by fulfillment and friendship.

Baylor Sociology and Social Work Professor Preston Dyer says that marriage was once "much more institution based. People were committed to the ideal that marriage was good for society...Today that commitment is about the relationship and it is much easier to break a relationship with a person than one with an institution. The marriages that will last in the future are those based on realistic expectation and being best friends, sexy best friends, but still friends."

Trends include:

• 11 million U.S. households of unmarried partners (up 10 times from 40 years ago)
• a 60% divorce rate
• 40% of unmarried-partner households include kids
• the Census Bureau reports marriages at an all-time low
• average marriage age has climbed for men (22 to 31 years) and women (20 to 28) in the past 50 years
• marriage is "no longer a rite of passage"

Yet with little sense of irony, many fundies are eager to blame same-sex marriage as driving the decline, despite the long term trends that far predate it.

Dyer said that most of his colleagues do not see homosexual marriage or unions as harming marriage. "(B)ut there is a very conservative group within the marriage movement that thinks it will ruin marriage...If marriage is such a wonderful state, then why would we want to deny it to homosexuals? I will quote a friend of mine, 'Homosexuals can't do anything to marriage that heterosexuals haven't already done.' "

In the Bare Majority

Pick a poll, any poll. This is the season.

While we are two years away from yet another effort to rescind same-sex marriage here, the polling on the maybe vote continues. The latest was from the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune.

This one is good, but not great, news for pro-SSM folk. The Bay State Poll, billed as the first statewide one on the proposed amendment to ban SSM, found 53% opposed (in favor of keeping SSM) and 37% who would vote for the amendment.

The poll was by the Merrimack College Center for Public Opinion Research. Conducted between October 16th and 23rd, it has a margin of error of 4.5%.

The overview includes:

Residents who favor the amendment are most likely to be: male, older
than 55, Catholic, Republican, a state resident for fewer than five
years, a member of a family earning less than $35,000 annually, and
someone who earned a high school diploma but did not attend college.
By contrast, those who oppose the amendment are more likely to be:
female, between 18 and 34 years old, atheist or agnostic, Democrat, a
state resident for longer than 15 years, a member of a family with an
income between $70,000 and $100,000, and someone with an advanced
degree.

From this perspective, that is not a good enough margin. On the other hand, the longer people see that SSM harms no one and helps many, the less likely they are to favor stripping rights from any group.

The anti folk have been reduced to saying that "Just wait. Something bad will happen." It is not credible.

Boston Candidates, Check

In next Tuesday's Boston election, we are strongly for at-large councilor candidates:

• Sam Yoon
• Fleix Arroyo

Neither of the former mayors' kids, Flynn or White, is worth a vote.

And writing of mayors, we favor Menino, but for quirky reasoning. Hennigan has shown no stuff — no plan, no vision, no reason to take a chance on her. Yet, she wants 30% of the vote or more, so that she can obstruct Menino and have a better chance in four years. We say, rubbish. Trounce her, so that a stronger candidate must emerge for the next mayoral election.

Maine Mostly OK

A week and change before the anti-gay showdown in Maine, it still looks like our potato buddies have gotten their commonsense and compassion together. After rejecting gay-rights legislation several times in the recent past, they look (56% to 42%) likely to uphold the legislated legal protections on November 8th.

Turnout is still key, of course. If every homophobe old enough to vote shows and all the Unitarians and their ilk sit with their New York Timeses and lattes, the vote could flip. However, the spiteful and dishonest campaign against basic sexual-orientation in housing, lending, employment and public accommodation seems to have overplayed. Most Mainers seem to know hate and spite when they see it now.

In that survey of 607 likely voters from 1,800 adults, SurveyUSA reports that only 2% were undecided. Among their findings were:

• Men — slightly anti-rights (51%); Women — very pro rights (64%)
• Older meant more pro rights (18-34 were 53% for; 35-45 were 47%; 50-64 were 62%; 65 and up were 63%)
• Republicans were Stone Age (68% against rights); Democrat were very pro (78%); Independents were solidly pro (61%)
• More education mean more pro rights (no college, 44%; some college, 51%; degree, 59%; grad degree, 70%)
• Urban/suburban/rural had little difference, pro by 59%/59%/53%

Other predictable self-reporting was the more liberal the voters, the more pro and the more frequently they attended churches the more anti.

You can find a visual of the total on Believe in Maine, replete with Old Glory colors, here.

So, in the main in Maine, if there were surprises, they were in the increased pro votes as people aged. Although, you have to wonder what the later Baby Boomers are thinking in leaning slightly anti. Also, the stereotype would be that the rural, basically upstaters would be much more conservative. The numbers don't show that.

It looks like the Dark Side will lose this one at the ballot after losing it in the legislature. They can't move to Canada with its charter of rights nor to Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal. Maybe they can get up a wagon train for some Plains state.

Bike Ped 3: To School

Can you and should you get Boston kids to ride their bikes to school? According to Donna Smallwood, MassRIDES' special projects coordinator, that's an enthusiastic yes, with many caveats.

At the Moving Together conference his month, she thumped for the Safe Routes to Schools (SRS) program. The aim is to the kids' butts in the saddle instead of the van. They get healthier, schools don't need lots for kids' cars, and parents don't use gas and clog the streets with their vehicles. Life is good.

Downsides include that many adult cyclists and parents are aware that the streets to school are dangerous. Part of this is that so many parents drive their kids to school — the vicious cycle for cycles. In suburban and exurban areas, schools have been increasingly regional too. So they are too far from home for practical commuting by bike.

Where practical, some parents have walking school buses, basically a cordon of kids and parents together walking to school. This works best where there are true neighborhood schools within two mile of home.

An extra wrinkle in Boston is the exam-school system, equivalent to the regional schools. For us, Latin is nearly five miles away with some dangerous streets, and Latin Academy is three and one-half over very dangerous roads (Blue Hill Avenue and Washington Street.

In addition, the current version of the SRS has grants for elementary and middle-schools. So this does nothing for the kids most capable of claiming lanes nor does it help in limiting students' driving to school

Hey, it's a start though.

And Bike Paths

Boston's silly and inadequate bike paths are filled with frost heaves, don't go to important destinations and are often riddled with glass shards. Today's Globe carries an alternate vision by a Colombian. When Enrique Peñalosa spoke to 100 Orchard Gardens School kids, he didn't brag about being former mayor of Bogotá or candidate for his country's presidency. He talked politics and MIT and crossed the river to talk bikes in Roxbury.

He called the lack of bike paths and routes in Boston and other supposedly sophisticated cities "human rights abuse." Basically, if ordinary folk can't get to work and elsewhere without being able to afford to own, operate and park cars, they are marginalized.

He wowed the kids with pix and words of bicycle garages and bridges he built. Also, Bogotá bans cars from downtown twice weekly. On his initiative, the city has over 100 miles of new bike paths.

After his talk and plea for biking to school, Lisa Evans, the teacher who invited him, saw several of her students biking in, on a rainy Monday. She said, "I was so proud. This was the ultimate goal. I didn't realize it would happen so quickly."

Now, what do you suppose it will take to get Tommy Menino righteous on this?

Also see Bike Ped 1 and Bike Ped 2 for related coverage and rants.

Cycling Posts

10/25/5 Bike Ped 1: Fog Lines
10/26/5 Bike Ped 2: Fat Chance
10/30/5 Bike Ped 3: To School
3/7/6 Boston's Bad Biking
4/12/6 Forest Hills' Gaping Hole
4/13/6 The Un-Lieberman Visits JP
4/18/6 That Big Hole at Forest Hills
4/24/6 Charlie in Limbo

No Blah in Blogs

The word is that Massachusetts and its local political parties have little respect for or interest in blogs. While individual candidates treat bloggers like reporters, the party structures are peopled with neo-Luddites.

Sweetly, they may have to join this century with pressure from top and bottom. From the bottom, we see 1) blogs scooping traditional media, 2) some of the big blogs getting millions of hits a month -- more eyes to prize and surprise, and 3) print, online and broadcast media quoting bloggers, cross-linking with them, and citing them as sources. From the top, national parties and politicians have been savvy in their communication with and use of bloggers.

Now the Christian Science Monitor has put the Beltway spin on the state of this free-lance knighthood. It says everyone (except for the burned Trent Lott) is "wooing blogs." Even Dan Rather, also with his bad blog burn history, notes that blogs "aren't just reacting to the news: they're making it," the Monitor reports. This was very evident recently in IP traffic that helped scuttle Harriet Miers' Supreme Court bid.

Now politician want to engage or otherwise use them. For example, House Republicans selected a dozen of their staff's favorite political bloggers for the first Capitol Hill Blog Row last week. It was sodas, snacks, high-speed wireless, and GOP machers for half a day.

Among the aftereffects was:

As a follow-up, Speaker Hastert is launching his own blog. "Blogging is the new talk radio," says Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean. "People listen to talk radio because the mainstream media is too liberal for them. It makes sense for the Speaker to get the Republican message out to them."

The heavy-hitting blogs catalyze much of this interest. The Daily Kos is the prime example, with 3.4 million visitors in January growing to 4.8 million in July.

Both Democrats and Republicans feed stories (often ones the mainstream media don't know what to do with) and otherwise engage bloggers. Likewise, the candidates as well party officials get tips from their staffs, many of whom are avid blog readers.

Beam Him Out, Scotty

Same-sex marriage helped bring Sulu out of the closet.

At 68, George Takeai, a.k.a. Star Trek's Helmsman Hikaru Sulu, has come out. He told the Frontiers magazine, "The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay.The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young."

Note: This link should be good for until mid-November.

He has been with his partner Brad Altman for 18 years.

Takei has been a civil-rights activist in California for many years. As a young child (4 to 8), he was one of thousands of Americans of Japanese descent kept in concentration camps (or in the santitized lingo of the time internment centers) and stripped of their possessions during World War II. There he says, "I used to begin school every morning pledging allegiance to the flag, and I could see the barbed-wire fence out there, and the guard towers, saying, 'With liberty and justice for all,' without being aware of the irony of those words. But when we came out of camp, that’s when I first realized that being in camp, that being Japanese-American, was something shameful."

Thus, he grew up somewhat ashamed of both his ethnicity and later his sexuality. Yet after he met his partner at an LA gay running club, he slowly shifted from shame. He saw himself as normal. As he put it, "This is who I am. And by gum, I’m not going to let it be a constraint! In the same way that I’m not going to let the fact that I am a Japanese-American, who was unjustly incarcerated and grew up with that, be a constraint."

He concluded hopefully with:

I do think society will eventually change. I mean, it’s changed incredibly from the time I was a teenager to today, both in terms of Asian-Americans in the theater and television and films, but also for gays and our self-image, and the ability to move in our society. We still have the archreactionary conservatives. It’s that mentality, the Bible-thumpers, “We have the whole truth, and by gum we’re going to impose it on everybody.” It’s that same mentality that had segregation in the south: Blacks and whites can never mix. And the segregationists had the truth. The Bible-thumping religiosos are not the holders of the truth, and yet they are the ones who want to impose their truth—and I respect their truth, if they find it for their strength and their guidance through life—but for them to impose that on the rest of society, the rest of America, I think is just as corrupt as the segregationists trying to impose racial segregation in the South.

By gum, indeed.

Foot Crushing Crosiers

According to the word (or is that Word?) from the Vatican, bishops worldwide are free to humiliate their politician communicants —— perhaps condemning their souls while they are at it —— for voting the wrong way. Do it if you want, say the bishops from the Roman Catholic synod last week.

The American issue, as it is known by the mitered ones, has a clear resolution. If one of your guys or gals votes in the legislature against your understanding of church doctrine, you can deny communion. There was no comment about whether the bishops should take their ball and go home.

To phrase it as the synod vote did, offending politicians are those who show "no coherence when they support laws that run counter to the human good, to justice and to natural law."

As bizarre and regressive as that might seem, at least one pro-gay Catholic activist calls it "a step in the right direction" for the church. This takes the matter from being a Papal directive to letting reasonable bishops think for themselves, according to Francis DeBernardo, executive director, New Ways Ministry. On the other hand, he added, "I do think the danger of this is it becomes a political decision for the bishops and not a theological decision.

Debbie Weill, executive director, Dignity USA, was not quite a generous. She noted, "The church is really using the sacrament in a way that (it) was never intended to be used. The sacrament is an expression of God's love and a person's faith."

Yet Another Closet

Boy, that's a toughy. You come out to family, friends and maybe coworkers. Then you testify to the University of Southern Maine's Center for the Prevention of Hate and Violence, revealing the vicious anti-gay discrimination in the how-life-should-be state.

Now the leading liberal columnist in the state says, "Come on out!" In a piece Gay rights law needs a few heroes, the Portland Press-Herald's Bill Nemitz calls for the anonymous gays to stick their necks out again and farther. His logic is good; the emotion is hard and jagged.

The pseudo-minister Mike Heath (he calls his Christian Civic League Website and lobbying efforts his ministry) has publicly and inanely cited the discrimination study as a sham. He has said the 48 who testified are fictitious and that their firings, getting tossed from housing and other blatant hate acts never happened.

Nemitz writes:

They should come forward. They should drop their anonymity like a piece of excess baggage, stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the microphones and explain, once and for all, what it's like to live in a state where your sexual orientation can indeed get you fired or evicted or . . . worse.

And in doing so, these 48 brave souls just might knock the evangelical wind out of (Heath).

Well, knock the wind out of him and there'll be nothing left. Hmmm.

Yet, that is a lot to ask from those who have already been heroic. While some would deny the record and try to further humiliate the victims, we have to ask how much more must the 48 pay. Nemitz has his answer. Come out of yet another closet.

They would be even greater heroes were they to do it. We who are so much more fortunate in not having suffered as they already have will understand if they do not.

I Was a One-Minute Slut for the BBC

The omphaloskepsis inherent in blogging has struck here. Do not proceed if you are annoyed by self-absorption.

Over at Left in Lowell, the frenetically enthusiastic Lynne has been understandably pleased at her local celebrity. She is queen of her niche. She represents the good pinkos on radio, standing up to the ravers and naysayers of regression and otherwise waving the flag for the rest of us.

This blog, on the other hand, has had only a few moments in the spotlight when CNN sited and quoted us (honest to God, holding a laptop up with Marry in Massachusetts on screen and reading the post — a very kindergarten routine). No local media come begging for our opinions.

Yet even in the face of press neglect, we have never stopped navel gazing nor expecting the media fairies to appear at the bedstead. Like the other egotists in the blogosphere, we are always ready for the recognition sure to come in acknowledgement of our wit and wisdom, albeit self-published. In that framework, we can be neither shy nor humble.

Real celebrities make themselves newsworthy or gossip-worthy by revealing or inventing peccadilloes, fetishes and foibles. Yet here, we can offer not a criminal past nor marital infidelity nor even remarkable neuroses.

So, it was real delight when the Beeb emailed, then called. The charming, yea even mellifluous, Rabiya Parekh sent a note a few days ago. She was speaking for some fortunate beadle there in the BBC World section who spends his days (on salary!) cruising the blogs for goodies fit to air. It must be like cable TV, with so many radio and TV times to fill with something, anything with a theme

As it turns out, an off-subject post on blogging, not on marriage in our quirky and sometimes benighted commonwealth, caught his eye. For a new BBC radio feature, they were doing a segment on blogging. They Googled reaction to the Wired announcement that companies were blocking blog browsing during work. Mine was one, and I was likely the first to respond to an email request for a contact so they could call from Bush House, London.

The call from Rabiya to set up a phone input (and likely to make sure I did not have any serious speech impediment) was pleasant but humbling. She wanted my comment following a very serious discussion from Syrian and other Middle-East bloggers who were fined, jailed and beaten for expressing their criticisms of repressive regimes.

They would tape it all and broadcast it later in the week as part of a new series, World Have Your Say. Yes, Miss, whatever you want. Sit? Beg? Roll over?

I had a couple of hours before the show called for taping. She and I had spoken about the relative impunity of expression in America, even under Homeland Security and the Republican juggernaut. Here, I can get sued or have my sites shut down if I'm too extreme, but there is no prison cell waiting, much less 100 strokes with a cane.

Yet, I was the slut of the hour and fully prepared. I had notes on repressive trends here, on how the mass media shuck and jive, then run the same damned stories with slight variations. I had analogies and metaphors of the Wild West with us shooting with our sites instead of pistols. Blah, blah.

So, 13 minutes before I was on, Bush House was on the phone, plumping my ego...and making sure I was there and sober. In the headset, I overheard the awful, grave recounting of oppressive censorship and penalties for those who dared to do what we do with such abandon. I was quite ashamed of my privilege.

Those in the Arab world told their high drama and I was ready, right after the break.

Then it was time for what turned out to be Donkey Man. It was much like the Monty Python interview that parodies the Beeb so well, telling a child offhandedly to go out a find a cure for some terrible disease. Jolly good.

Questions to me were short, very narrow, very controlled and very LITE. I was an American blogger from Massachusetts, identified by name only and damn it, not by URL.

Some company was selling software to let companies block employees' looking at blogs. What did I think? After a minute or so of braying about managers being silly in blocking blogging just because they could, I was gone. I noted that employees should not be expected to work 8 or 10 hours straight, and if they were not taking time off cruising a blog or two, they would be in the kitchenette tossing back the caffeine and tossing out the prattle.

That was it. Thank you and good-bye. The Donkey Man was off and away.

That is not a tale to tell the grandchildren, if I ever have any. So, keep it to yourself.

The Sunday the Music Died

Glory to God...often through music as worship. Yet, at St. Gabriel's in Brighton, the lobbyists disguised as Roman Catholic priests will have to do a quick scramble to replace their cantor and organist, both victims of Sean O'Malley's politics.

Despite the Herald's love of scoop and concentration on its Catholic readership, the Boston Globe struck first on this one. Its coverage of the dustup in the nave is here.

The short of it is that under orders from the bishops, most compliant priests in Massachusetts have been shilling for the political and politically charged petition to put a vote on the 2008 ballot to rescind same-sex marriage. They announce and plead from the pulpit and have petitions available in the sanctuary to increase the peer pressure to sign.

When they performed this act Sunday, October 8th, the organist, Patrick Kilduff, had had enough. Despite his 28-year tenure, he chose to leave his instrument rather than play the closing hymn. The cantor, Colleen Bryant, had an American moment, choosing liberty and free thought over obeisance. She spoke to the congregation, saying that they did not have to sign the petition.

In the spirit Christian love and forgiveness...no, wrong script. The pastor, Rev. Justinian Manning, canned the cantor and the organist quit in higher dudgeon.

Recalling it to the Globe, Kilduff said he told the priests, "I'm done. I can't believe what you guys have done."

No one I know has ever claimed that the RC church is a democracy, but it's anti-democratic tack here seems to surprise parishioners and employees alike. The open politicization of the pulpit has been too much for some. As Kilduff puts it, "Deal with (political statements) at the rectory, at the school, not during church, not during a holy service."

Manning won't talk, but Sean O'Malley's talker, spokesman Terrence Donilon, will. "Any place and time we could reasonably expect a priest to promote those issues that are central to the mission of the church" is fine with the archbishop.

Kilduff had warned Bryant that he would protest the politics. She was inspired by his walk-off to speak out. Before singing two versions of "Now Thank We All Our God" a capella, she recalls saying, "that by no means should anyone feel obligated to sign this petition, especially those of us who, like myself, may believe or may think that politics do not belong in this house of worship."

She exhibits the class that O'Malley and Manning lack.

Bike Ped 2: Fat Chance

Media faddism, or this this case fatty faddism, was obvious at the Moving Together Conference last week in downtown Boston. In each set of four concurrent sessions, at least one of the three presentations drew (if you pardon) heavily on the current obesity mantra.

This meme is fascinating. Except in its extremes — eating disorders and iatrogenics from crazed doctors — it is not all that harmful. However, as the newest and most resilient bugbear, it has saturated the American psyche and is taken as much as absolute truth as Reagonomics.

If you would like a more reasoned view, start with one of Paul Campos' books. Click here. He looks at real indicators of health, not just scams like BMI.

Regardless, it was amusing to hear one speaker after another hang her (almost always her) presentation on an obesity hook. Shaming kids and scaring parents is the ploy du jour.

Fat hooks included presentations entitled:

• Building Healthier Communities: The Health Impacts of Transportation and the Built Environment
• Encouraging Active Kids through School Walking/Bicycling with MassRIDES
• Springfield Walks: A Collaborative Community Effort to Promote Physical Activity and Health
• CYCLE Kids: Addressing Obesity and Overweight in Children Through Community Youth Cycling and Learning Experiences

You can get overviews of each, and the other workshops, with their speaker IDs here.

The obesity thingummy did not destroy the presentations, but it was a distraction. If the reaction to newspaper and magaazine coverage is indicative, any effort to focus on more substantial issues would be met with faddish horror — "Oh, Lord. This is such an epidemic! Think of the children!"

The substantial issues include helping ensure cardio-vascular fitness, regardless of somatotype. Truth is, the skinniest people die the earliest and chunky folk can be as fit or fitter than scrawny ones. The aim should be fitness through activity and not moralizing.

Also see Bike Ped 1 and Bike Pet 3 for related coverage and rants.