8 Lips Flapping on ENDA

Never shy, nor cautious. we kicked the ENDA can up and down the hall yesterday during our weekly Left Ahead! podcast. The big bonus was that the guest was civil-rights activist Laurel, who comments regularly at all three of our blogs as well as that other local one, what's its header -- ah, yes, Blue Mass Group.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is an important bill certain to pass the U.S. House by a substantial margin. It aims to add long overdue job protections for GLBT workers and managers. Rather, depending on what form it's in at any moment, that might just be GLB workers and managers.

Consider:

• Everyone's most and least favorite current POTUS surely would veto any gay-friendly bill.
• There is no corresponding ENDA in the U.S. Senate.
• Lead sponsor U.S. Rep. Barney Frank is clearly conflicted about the bill and eager to decouple the transgender (that troublesome T) from the bill.

Perhaps this could be one example of the dying old-style politics. Like throwing the servants, then the kids off the troika when the pack of wolves closes in, lawmakers love saying half a loaf is better than none and you must be pragmatic and take what you can get from Congress. Compromise and claim victory!

In addition, the Senate rules that require a supermajority of 60 to prevent filibusters have hobbled nearly all progressive platforms in Congress. The horse-trading and rush to dilute good legislation are truly the old way of doing business and many in Congress claim that can't and won't change. Yet, we don't have to foresee very far to note:

1. In a decade the majority of voters will be the youngest baby boomers and the children of baby boomers. They did not grow up with the old prejudices — race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, immigrants — as the norm for their parents and grandparents. Poll after poll and results where they vote show that they favor equality and live-and-let-live politics. They're a lot harder to manipulate with emotional lies.
2. A weary, declining nation looks at the devastation of right-wing fantasies of the past seven years. We all know of people who have died in unnecessary wars. We are more fearful for our safety than even in the Cold War. A budget surplus became a multi-trillion-dollar deficit, and our dollar and larger economy are crushing our future hopes.

The political, military and economic blunders and inane policies are obvious failures to an increasing majority of us. Next year, we are almost certain to constitute a Congress and Executive Branch charged with righting our foundering nation.

What a monumental task that will be!

The confluence of a new generation of voters and the awareness of the older ones that so much of our fantasies are just that may reduce the pragmatism of failure that lawmakers say is necessary. We have had such periods before, such as the Progressive Era around WWI. Numerous laws and amendments that made life better for all Americans held sway over the timid and self-interested Reps and Senators. It looks like we're due for another such time.

The ENDA battle is an example. On the compromise side, you can listen to Barney Frank stake out his argument here and a cogent defense of that side was the lead editorial of last week's Bay Windows editorial. Those are powerful sets of reasons. Yet as Laurel noted yesterday, without an ENDA in the Senate and with the POTUS' veto looming, why not pass the right bill, the one including transgender rights, so that when a more honorable Congress assembles, they start with the proper expectations?

Many sources in the MSM as well as blogs have opinions and details on the irksome T on the end of GBLT. The best perspective I round was Monica Roberts at TransGriot. In her Transgender Community Hates HRC post, she provides the background of how many homosexuals, particularly men are uncomfortable with transgender folk and how some actively distance themselves, as Barney Frank has.

The trans community is small and has more problems coming out and being accepted — on the job or anywhere. Of course, that's solid justification for providing an ENDA that includes them.

Roberts makes a solid argument against splitting ENDA into a "'possible" GLB version, promising to add the T version in some unspecified future. She wrote:

So far the only states in which the gay and lesbian community has ‘come back’ for transgender people are Rhode Island (2001), California (2003), New Jersey (2006) and Vermont (2007). In New York they are still having a difficult time passing GENDA after transgender people were cut out of SONDA (N.Y.’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act) by gay rights advocating the same ‘we’ll come back for you’ incremental rights spin.

So, you can understand when Barney or the Human Rights Campaign says, "Trust us. We'll protect you...later," that transgender people are skeptical.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Congress, ENDA, GLBT, transgender, Barney Frank, Monica Roberts, Bay Windows

Plug Nasties Hitting Pro-Equality Rep

After a quick apology for being overbooked and not posting much here, I suggest that with bloggers like Frederick Clarkson, you are in good hands. Over at Talk To Action, he has a great post on how national money is trying to unseat one of our lawmaker heroes who helped defeat the anti-marriage equality amendment in June.

You may remember that Rep. Angelo Puppolo (12th Hampden, including Springfield) was one of those who wrestled with his conscience, and fairness and equality won. Suddenly, a new anti-gay group, the National Organization for Marriage put up a nasty billboard in Springfield on the Interstate lumping Puppolo with Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold.

Read Frederick's analysis and the background on who's involved in this. We can expect more as national groups target the only state with full marriage equality. When you are filled with bigotry, losing doesn't mean you rethink your position.

What you can do now to help Puppolo and other compassionate and civil-rights minded lawmakers working for us is in the post.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, amendment, same sex marriage, Puppolo, legislature, MassEquality

Judge Tells Craig No Dice

Just-barely-still Senator Larry Craig (Republican, of course – Idaho) should have remembered that many in the middle of this country don't particularly like liars and word tricksters. Hennepin County (Minneapolis) District Judge Charles Porter apparently had little sympathy for loose-lipped Larry. He rejected his appeal to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport men's room sex sting.

Of course, Craig didn't immediately quit the Senate, any more than he kept his pledge to resign if he couldn't withdraw the plea by the end of last month. The actual plea bargain was not for having or even soliciting public sex. Among the other original chargers was invading privacy by repeatedly staring at a man in a toilet stall through the dividers and door. Instead he paid $575 for disorderly conduct.

On the surface, that's a misdemeanor and does not require resignation from Congress. However, Santa Craig keeps giving to the Democrats with his words and actions. He constantly reminds the public of the preponderance of sexual shenanigans and illegal or immoral actions by members of his party. They make the Democrats look like abstinent aesthetes.

Judge Porter noted that Craig considered the plea bargain for six weeks before sending in the check and agreeing to it. He stated, "The defendant argues he pled in haste to prevent the allegation in this case from being publicized, thus doing damage to his political reputation. This pressure was entirely perceived by the defendant and was not a result of any action by the police, the prosecutor, or the court."

Porter concluded that there was no new evidence or any reason at all to permit the withdrawal of the plea. For the Democrats, that's kind of a pity. It seemed that Craig would be stupid enough to fight the original sheet of sex charges, keeping all the sleaze on view. I guess it's December 26th and there's won't be any more presents from this Santa.

Republicans in party HQ and Congress seem eager for Craig to move his dishonorable butt back to Boise. His governor, Butch Otter, has a short list of similarly reactionary replacement candidates. This surely was Larry's last lick. Even someone in the super-privileged role of U.S. Senator must be able to read the writing on this (bathroom) wall.

Wet the Pants Funny Follow-up: The WaPo reports this afternoon that Craig will continue to play Dem operative and fling his poo. As the Capital Briefing blog puts it, he changed his mind yet again after Judge Porter's ruling and will stay in the Senate, even though stripped of his Committee leader roles and with GOP Congressional leaders calling for a full, very public ethics hearing.

Larry says:

I am extremely disappointed with the ruling issued today. I am innocent of the charges against me. I continue to work with my legal team to explore my additional legal options.

I will continue to serve Idaho in the United States Senate, and there are several reasons for that. As I continued to work for Idaho over the past three weeks here in the Senate, I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively.

Over the course of my three terms in the Senate and five terms in the House, I have accumulated seniority and important committee assignments that are valuable to Idaho, not the least of which are my seats on the Appropriations Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. A replacement would be highly unlikely to obtain these posts.

In addition, I will continue my effort to clear my name in the Senate Ethics Committee - something that is not possible if I am not serving in the Senate.

When my term has expired, I will retire and not seek reelection. I hope this provides the certainty Idaho needs and deserves.

What does he know that makes him hate the GOP so much?

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Tags: massmarrier, honesty, Larry Craig, Idaho, Congress

Burke Bites Again

In a Nemesis Award series, the fourth Chihuahua of Retribution goes again to a Christian fundamentalist who has decided that he'll judge and act as his God's agent of punishment. This is fairly similar to the previous awardee. I am a bit surprised that Roman Catholics are outpacing Protestants here.

It's been three years, but St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke manufactured another chance to snap and flap his cassock. Three years ago, he did his publicity hound thing with John Kerry, then running for POTUS. He proclaimed that if Kerry tried to take communion while in the neighborhood, he was flat out of luck. It seems although Burke wasn't the Pope, wasn't even Kerry's prelate, he would find a way to pretend to punish our Senator for voting for abortion rights and favoring stem-cell research.

Well, St. Louis isn't the center of much of anything, except bland lager. It's taken awhile for Burke to reprise the role he seems to relish. He certainly has failed his humility test, but I rather doubt any of his chums will call him on that.

This time, the bad guy is Republican POTUS-would-be Rudy Giuliani. Burke told the wires, ""If any politician approached me and he'd been admonished not to present himself, I'd not give (communion). To me, you have to be certain a person realizes he is persisting in a serious public sin."

It is fascinating that Burke would insinuate himself in matters that belong between Kerry, his God, his priest and his conscience.

A long-term UU minister (age 90) is coming to dinner tomorrow. I'll have to kick this around with him. Previously, he and I concurred that it must be a fine feeling to have all these options non-creedal clerics don't. Denying church rites, excommunicating, and threatening with eternal damnation and perpetual anguish are great theater and potentially useful tools.

Burke epitomizes the religious sorts who want to intrude into politics, but screech like a cat underfoot if government encroaches on any aspect of their business. I think of the U.S. and British insistence that publicly funded adoption agencies have to obey everyone's rules and consider homosexual prospective parents. Their response has been to fold shop, leaving the kids in orphanages or foster homes before such placements, while claiming their religious rights were trampled. Likewise, when they set up and run non-religious money-making programs and have to pay taxes on those, somehow this is a government interference.

Our Chihuahua today is yet another self-righteous sort who would intrude in politics and hold that as his duty. Harrumph.

As usual, Mayor 9/11 is cool about this, saying, "Archbishops have a right to their opinion." The highly insulated and apparently quite egotistical Burke though would surely consider his pronouncement well above a mere opinion.

Rudy also noted that he studied religion for four years, wanting to be a priest. He added:

So it's a very, very important part of my life. But I think in a democracy and in a government like ours, my religion is my way of looking at God, and other people have other ways of doing it, and some people don't believe in God. I think that's unfortunate. I think their life would be a lot fuller if they did, but they have that right.

Also, on the Christian Broadcasting Network, he pulled out the classic, "I'm guided very, very often about, 'Don't judge others, lest you be judged.'"

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Tags: massmarrier, Giuliani, Archbishop Burke, Catholic Charities, abortion, adoption, John Kerry

Legislative Reality Check

Nice is free, but sometimes you gotta come down. Thus it is with the Massachusetts House.

They can't get to progressive reform. They can't even get to long-delayed infrastructure. Our kids face mediocre schools and our bridges shudder when we drive on them.

This is the time to tell your own lawmakers in both houses to cut the crap and do what must be done. (Perhaps they need some Powdermilk Biscuits.) They, particularly in the House, where funding bills, originate have:

• Admitted we have been sitting on problems, ignoring them, for almost two decades.
• Quashed every funding proposal Gov. Deval Patrick has advanced.
• Restored nearly all private earmarks (pork) that he vetoed from the budget.
• Refuse to advance their own ideas.

It doesn't work, isn't logical, and must stop.

Now, Patrick has finally proposed casino gambling as a revenue source. Here and on LeftAhead!, I have given my objections to that. Yet, the legislature has cornered the state and is holding us ransom. Patrick at least has the savvy to portray gambling as just one industry he would foster for jobs as well as tax revenue. However, not only is that an unsure source, there's no turning back if we permit casinos, the revenue may be taking money from one pocket to put into another, we would surely have to commit a lot of money and time to roads and other concessions first, and it would be a long time before we'd see real cash flow from this.

Far, far better would we for us to tell House Speaker Sal DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray, and Gov. Patrick that we demand feasible revenue sources that will start quickly. I'll be posting on some of the alternatives.

Consider for example, the benign Municipal Partnership Act, which would have given cities and towns a lot of flexibility to raise revenue and provide tax relief to seniors. It was killed unborn by the House.

Likewise, meals taxes determined by local towns were rejected out of hand by the legislative leaders. It works in cities and towns across the country and would be very fruitful in tourist areas like the Berkshires, Cape Cod, Cape Ann, and Boston.

The fanged, flying elephant though is business taxes. DiMasi seems paralyzed over even the concept of making businesses pay similar taxes to those they get in other states. They won't leave here for a small burden that is the cost of doing business everywhere else. They might not give Sal the biggest paying job after he leaves office, but there are a few million people here to consider.

Then there's the myth of Taxachusetts. That has a nice literary ring to it, but is very inaccurate. In effective tax rates (including things like property taxes), we are in the lower half of the nation. We really can't whine about needing to fix the highways and pay for good schools if we don't pay fair taxes. Didn't everyone's parents teach you get what you pay for? A blind, irrational fear of taxes can crush the commonwealth.

I welcome comments on the sensible and possible revenue sources. DiMasi, Murray and Patrick may not welcome them, but they need to hear them. Leave comments or go directly to them:

Governor Deval Patrick
Massachusetts State House
Room 360
Boston, MA 02133

Phone: 617.725.4005
online comments: http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3utilities&sid=Agov3&U=Agov3_contact_us

Speaker of the House Salvatore F. DiMasi
State House
Room 356
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Phone: 617-722-2500
email: Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us

Senate President Therese Murray
State House
Room 330 Building Three, Room 319
Boston, MA 02133

Phone: (617) 722-1500
email: Therese.Murray@state.ma.us

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, Sal DiMasi, Therese Murray, taxes

Stealing from MSM

Omphaloskepsis Warning: Blogger on blogging.

As a paragon for the ambitious blogger, The Huffington Post has stolen from the rich and given to the rich. An analysis in today's Financial Times has almost everything right. Its thrust is that THP has taken what it needed from mainstream media while keeping the counterculture features of the best blogs. It has something for everyone and has bested MSM at their own game.

The numbers hint. Consider staffing up to 43 full-timers, with nine ad reps. (I always loved the newspaper and magazine term for their job, space sales — ooo, selling space.) They work in a newspaper-style bullpen with rows of PCs.

That's fat and thin at the same time. The bigger staff now supports real news on the front. The combo blog/news monster ranks five in Technorati popularity. Yet, they are doing it with a tiny fraction of a newspaper's staff.

The best quote of the analysis was THP Technology Director Jonah Perretti's. He calls this "the mullet strategy," "a reference to the infamous hairstyle that features a trim front and a scraggly back: 'It’s business up front, party in the back.'"

How they can pull it off (other than being funded by extremely plugged in, very entrepreneurial and sloppy rich patrons) is telling. As the piece puts it:

While they may not have the resources or brand recognition of established newspapers, Ms Huffington and her co-founder, Kenneth Lerer, believe they have advantages. One is that they do not have to maintain an army of reporters to gather news. Another is that they are not weighed down by a legacy business. That means that they have lower costs and can afford to take risks without unnerving long-time readers.

"That’s why these big media companies were never successful at launching cable channels in the 1980s," says Mr Lerer, a former Time Warner executive. "They had to buy them, and the same thing is happening now with the internet."

Having come out of newspapers and magazines, I can add that MSM greed is seldom matched with the risk-taking attitude necessary to pull off transitions. They are notorious for being cash rich and penurious. They almost all underpay staff. Their physical costs, even of those who own presses, are much smaller than nearly any other manufacturing operations. They also have great, quick cash flow, the envy of companies who have to warehouse and ship goods, which may end up being returned. MSM will get paid for their ads, without regard to fashion and other uncontrollable variables.

MSM is often inert, slow to change, and not innovative. As a group, they are like any company or person with inherited wealth. They are terrified of screwing up their sure thing.

Arianna Huffington clearly is not. Her mullet is showing and looking good.

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Tags: massmarrier, blogs, Huffington Post, Financial Times, newspapers, MSM, Jonah Perretti

Alas, No Human Pincushions

I'm trying to keep political posting down, and avoid the absurd, like Larry Craig.

For something completely different, over at Harrumph! you'll find:

• Racing pigs, bleating sheep, and side show recollections.
• A ghost building in Somerville.
• A rant on flight attendants.
• More on local beekeepers.

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Tags: massmarrier, Harrumph!

Can't Happen in Massachusetts!

"Vote for me. I'm inexperienced and that means I'm clean!"

That's the gist of the two leaders in the special election to replace U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan in the Fifth Congressional District. On a tale of the tape, Democrat Niki Tsongas and Republican Ogonowski are disturbingly similar, expect on a couple of policy positions. Either could take this race in one of the commonwealth's most conservative areas.

This race illustrates the risk of political clichés. Consider that other one, that people and businesses are overtaxed here in contrast to other states and nations. Taxachusetts has a literary ring, but is not accurate. Likewise and to this race, the tired theme that this is a state of liberals based on party registration and our national elections shows a real lack of observation and understanding.

On paper in the most literal sense, this is a Democratic state and the majority of Democrats report they are liberal or progressive. For example, after the 2006 election, we had only 13% (about one in eight) of the General Court seats help by Republicans. That fairly well reflects voter registration of 14% for the GOP.

Liberals?

Yet, don't get me started with DINOs (Democrats in name only) and unenrolled voters. They can range like nomadic goats all over the political desert and are the reason we are so slow to enact progressive legislation here.

The few big Massachusetts cities are in fact pretty solidly left wing in voting. Yet even in Boston, it's easy to pick neighborhoods where the majority of the registered voters are Democrats, yet the votes are socially and fiscally conservative. This is more the case in the Fifth.

That SW to NE diagonal from next to Worcester to Haverhill includes quite a few wealthy suburbs and towns, Lowell and other industrial and blue-collar areas, and enough rural communities to edge toward red. We see that now as recent polls have had Ogowonski within 10% of Tsongas.

While this quickie summer race was supposed to be a promenade for Ms. Niki, she's having to shed her pumps to wade in the mud. She could lose this one.

We think of this same seat in 1990 when the incumbent, Democrat Chester G. Atkins, scraped by over Republican challenger John MacGovern. The other votes could have gone either way, with totals being 110,232/101,017/9,891. This less-than-4% margin prompted the Democrats to put Marty Meehan up two years later. He started with a 52.2% to 37.5% victory over Republican Paul Cronin and got stronger from there, and ran unopposed three times.

Insider Smears

The current fight is not one where we need the Mr. Smith character to bring integrity to the office. Meehan was fine and in many areas better than fine. This is not a case where people should be saying the resigned candidate was an example of too many white lawyer guys — fresh blood, a new perspective, and an outsider, please.

Yet, ironically because of their backgrounds, both leading candidates are trying variations on such themes. On the face of it, neither has the experience for jump-on-the-treadmill performance. Both have high name recognition in our little world because of deceased relatives as the number one asset.

Niki wears her last name or that of her late husband, the well respected U.S. Rep. then Sen. Paul Tsongas. Yet, she kept a double-arm distance from his work when he was in office. Instead of legislative savvy, she was been on hospital boards and a middle-of-the-pack community-college dean.

Jim is very similar. He dresses in the name and heroic patina of his brother John, a pilot of AA 11, hijacked and flown into a World Trade Tower on 9/11/1. He has a background as a farmer and 28 years in the USAF and Guard, retiring as chicken colonel. His actually has somewhat more of a managerial and political résumé, given the nature of the military.

On the Democratic side, primary voters went with Tsongas over several highly qualified state legislators. They seemed to favor the emotional links and name recognition.

In the first debate of the candidates, last night, fairness muddled things a bit as the two were joined by surely also-ran to be candidates Kevin Thompson (Constitution Party), Patrick Murphy (independent) and Kurt Hayes (independent). Yet at every chance, Niki and Jim went over variations on nearly identical attacks.

Each claimed that it was the other one who was the insider. Niki pointed to Jim being a pro-Iraq War Bush lapdog (my term). Jim said that Niki was supported by D.C. insiders and that was proof she was same old-same old.

I question Jim's wisdom on this. Stressing how much beloved elected officials favor your opponent may not be the best strategy. Moreover, Niki is playing to a strong base of voters tired of burying local soldiers in a largely unpopular war.

Issue Differences

Jim has a better wedge with immigration. The district does not have a big immigrant voter populations except in a few places like Lowell. This relatively conservative district also seems to have lost the sense that its ancestors were immigrants, mostly before there was any regulation on entry. Jim is strongly agin' 'em and uses loaded terms like Congress trying to "sneak benefits" to immigrants. Niki wants a way for undocumented aliens to earn citizenship.

That other big issue, the war, is even clearer. Jim is a stay-the-course guy, until Iraq is "safe and secure." Niki wants a specific timetable to get troops out within six months, shifting the situation to other Iraqis and other nations.

What's fascinating is that this confluence of factors for the pair probably won't lead to the first Republican to hold this seat since 1975, but it could.

Fortunately for Niki, Jim is no mellifluous orator. She's not the silver tongue herself, but she more than holds her own against his few rigid themes. Unlike the primary, the issues are stark. During the summer, no one issue stripped the veneer off Tsongas. Health care and her affiliation with big medical interests was there, but voters were not stirred. State Rep. Jamie Eldridge was clearly the most liberal and progressive of the Democrats, but again, this relatively conservative district was apparently the wrong audience for that theater.

This one could very well be like Meehan's first win. Niki might get the seat by 15% or 10% or 5%. Once in, the spot should be hers as long as she can stomach it.

Follow-up: Over at RichardHowe.com, Tony notes that the Fifth has moved in a major poll from solidly Democratic to leans that way.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Congress, Eldridge, 5th CD, Tsongas, Ogonowski

Five Steps Forward, One Back

A cold, bitter reality splash came at this week's local annual meeting. Bay Windows was there when a GLAD attorney provided examples of how the anti-gay/anti-same-sex-marriage folk in Lexington had achieved one of their objectives, while losing the battle.

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders' Nima Eshghi noted a profound chilling effect in some schools, where administrators and boards are frightened. She cited examples, including Watertown. There, lesbian moms asked that school return the early reader And Tango Makes Three.

This case was not the same as in Lexington, where diversity-friendly books were part of the curriculum. Rather, the schools had pulled the cutesy book on its own after some anti-gay parents complained, apparently to avoid lawsuits by wingers. When the moms said they wanted their daughter to have the choice, they were denied.

This can't surprise anyone. Neither volunteer school board members nor paid administrators and staff are known for courage. In the main, they are bureaucrats, in this case about the business of educating kids with all that entails. We may have had false confidence catalyzed by Lexington Superintendent Paul Ash. He showed very unusual courage and insight in standing firm against the Mad Dad forces, including the outside legal dogs.

As the BW article puts it:

"What these parents groups, who are really fueled by a larger right wing establishment, are trying to do is take very, very narrow opt-out and parent notification rules that exist at the middle school and high school level purely for sex education, and only to be used in certain narrow circumstances, and they are trying to take that, bring it down into the kindergarten, first and second grade level where kids are not talking about sex. They are talking about who’s in a family. … They’re not objecting to studying families. They’re objecting only to certain families. They want their children opted out of learning about certain families," said Eshghi.

She also cited a kind of weariness factor that religious fundamentalist can rely on. In this case, if the teachers and administrators are scared, they may start filtering books and other educational material for GLBT references and pull them prophylactically. Not everyone can be ethical and heroic, at least day to day.

On its part, GLAD is filing an amicus brief in the appeal that the Mad Dad crew is making of its loss in U.S. District Court. Eshghi said the intent is that schools "can have some language coming from our briefs that we hope will make it into this case so they can offensively say, you know what, it’s not just that we’re permitted to teach this material; it’s that we are mandated to teach this material. This is our mission, and this mission is actually rooted in larger constitutional principles about what the role of public schools is."

Hey, if a piece of paper can provide backbone, let it be so.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Lexington, public schools, parental notification, Watertown, GLAD, Bay Windows

Larrry Craig Will Sit and Wait

This time though, he has no more say-so.

The U.S. Senator, Republican-Idaho, will have to wait at least a week to hear whether he will be allowed to humiliate and disgrace himself further through the legal system. The Hennepin County (Minneapolis) District Court Judge Charles Porter heard orals today from Craig's lawyers but won't rule immediately.

If you pardon the expression, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a blow by blow of the hearing. Craig's attorney claimed that no crime had occurred, so the plea should go. Among his skeptical comments, Porter said, "Seeking to have a guilty plea overturned is nearly impossible and it should be." Its looking bad for the bozo from Boise.

In case you were in a coma, you should know that in June the august Senator was caught in a men's room sex sting in the Minneapolis airport. They could have charged him with peeking in the stalls, soliciting public sex and such. However, he agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor of disorderly conduct. He thought about it for nearly two months before signing the plea and sending in his $575 fine. He subsequently has denied: 1) being gay (and by implication bi), 2) signaling in common ways for sex in the public stalls, and 3) doing anything at all wrong.

He's the leper in the hot tub back at the Senate, but he can't seem to stop pretending on this. He might have been able to beat the sting charges. As it is now, if the judge rules that he can withdraw his guilty plea, all bets are off. It's no longer disorderly conduct. He'd face the original public-sex solicitation and invasion of privacy charges.

There's a ton of background in this blog throughout September. I'm sick of it and suspect everyone except Larry is.

The amusing aspect and why it's still news is that while he was denying everything, he also said that if he could withdraw his plea by the end of the month, he would not resign from office. The former isn't about to happen. Whether he makes it easy on the Idaho governor to name his replacement by quitting right now remains to be heard.

Next Day Follow-up: Idaho Gov. Clement Leroy "Butch" Otter assumes that Craig will resign as his self-scheduled promise would indicate on Monday, according to the Statesman. The governor has a short list of the replacement candidates and is just waiting to roll. However, over at Ridenbaugh Press, speculation is that Craig will flop around like an injured bird on the highway. "Every additional day Craig stays in office, and continues voting and otherwise working, is a slight improvement on the odds that Craig decides he won’t resign after all."

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Tags: massmarrier, honesty, closeted, gay rights, Larry Craig, Idaho, Congress

Air Nannies

My annoyance over in-traffic strollers has long morphed into amusement.

My supposition, which some shrink friends say seems plausible, is that someone who saunters across an intersection or between two is acting out his or her powerlessness. They like to make the drivers and passengers wait for them because they feel like they aren't in charge of their work and daily lives. Here is a chance to be in control over others.

They savor every instant.

So it appears to be with too many flight attendants. The flood of news stories in recent years shows many acting out, perhaps for similar reasons as those amblers. Particularly since 9/11, what we and they themselves used to call flying waitresses have a new lawman persona. They kind of, sort of, a little bit are helping protect the airborne public from terrorists and other bad guys.

While that is a good aim, it also gives the outliers in the group the excuse to play sham sheriff. Recently, it's become absurd, as in the several cases of Southwest attendants enforcing unwritten dress codes on women with short skirts or what they arbitrarily decide is too obvious cleavage.

Other less frivolous cases involve passengers pulled off planes and interrogated for seeming to attendants — sometimes egged on by other passengers — to be somehow threatening. Search in Dogpile, Yahoo or Google for terms like flight attendant and arrest to find such cases of (horrors) Arabs speaking Arabic, for example.

I suppose we can't expect attendants to show better judgment than the general flying public, or can we? One would think that if the airlines and government want to use attendants as a fourth or fifth line of defense, they would train them. Also, they'd need guidelines to keep them from overreaction or arbitrary judgments.

With all of nervous about safety, particularly in the air, we don't need to change the term flight attendants gone wild to man false arrest and harassment of passengers. "She meant well" or "He was just trying to keep the passengers safe" doesn't cut it in these extreme cases. Attendants who clearly violate passengers' rights need retraining or to face civil action or to explain themselves to the district attorney or at the least a dope slap.

This nation has plenty of petty bureaucrats and self-appointed controllers of others' lives. In places like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, they may just lengthen your wait while they play big shot. When they can trigger flight delays (and missed connections) for hundreds of passengers, and make poor saps they pick on go through elaborate, time-consuming, humiliating and stressful detention and questioning, they go too far.

When a flight attendant loses it and causes a serious and unnecessary problem, we can't hide them behind the only-following-orders shield. When they put on their shiny name tag, they shouldn't be allowed to check their brains at the cabin door. The worst of the outliers are happy to hold passengers accountable for imagined transgressions. They need to know if they leave common sense behind, they'll be accountable for their very real ones.

Cross-post note: This may actually fit better on Harrumph! I'll post it there too.

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Tags: massmarrier, flight attendants, terrorism

Taser this...plus c'est la même chose

In my self-absorbed old guy mind, I have enjoyed the minimalist obscene college newspaper editorial dust up.

Nearly 40 years ago, I was involved in a too similar incident...of my own making. It was very much the same and very different from the Colorado State University Collegian one. For a bonus, it orbited around the same word.

In this century, Editor in Chief J. David McSwane stands before the Board of Student Communications in two days to defend his publication of the four word editorial. That wee prod related to the Florida college student electrically stunned for ranting at a John Kerry speech. In its entirety, the Collegian editorial reads "Taser this … F---BUSH" and was in very large type.

Puerile, yes, and it was also age appropriate, emotionally appropriate, politically defensible, and wholly in a solid context of academic freedom.

There's been the predictable hooha about this, including angry alter kaker alums and a short-term loss of $30,000 in ad revenue. This too happened in my case in that last century.

WABAC Machine

Journey back with me to the thrilling days of yesteryear, the late 1960s. I also don't care if you were not born yet. You weren't alive when Socrates rambled on in the agora or the American Revolution raged. History accepts no excuses.

My incident was the same in that:

• The same single obscenity infuriated the university hierarchy and many students who brought their parents' brains in their baggage.
• There were lost advertising and outraged alumni.
• The editors begged, cajoled and threatened to keep their spots.

The background of mine was that:

• I was in Cambridge, Mass., studying underground newspapers on a Ford Foundation grant.
• I was enrolled in the University of South Carolina's news-editorial journalism program and wrote for the newspaper, the Gamecock.
• While down in Columbia for several days to confer with my adviser, I agreed to spend a night with the campus cops for an expected boring feature story -- none of the on-campus writers had any interest in tailing a 55-year-old ex-Army guy for the night.
• The circumstances made for a good feature and solid generalizations about campus policing.
• The Gamecock editors failed the courage test and I was forever labeled as fuck-article guy.

There was a misty rain that evening when I got into the small white police car as the second occupant, riding shotgun. In retrospect, the guy was cool enough to not flip over my long hair and earring. He still had his military crew cut.

This USC is only a few blocks from the capitol building. Columbia was a planned city, designed in the late 18th Century. That's only significant because it has broad, rectangular main streets, great for rampaging youth. The old campus of South Carolina College (from 1801) is a picturesque horseshoe of classrooms and the first separate college library in the nation. Gen. W.T. Sherman spared the horseshoe when he burned the city at the end of the civil war. It was where the trouble brewed.

Cruising with the Cop

The short version of the evening was that the cop I was with let a panty raid get out of hand. He pulled up beside a big group of tipsy boys and asked what was up. He let them go ahead and gather others on a parade to the women's dorms. We then ended up across campus after a radio call when the raiders got to Capstone, a high-rise women's dorm.

Seeming to realize that things were out of hand, in no small part because of his passive initial contacts with the raiders, my guy got out of the car by the big group. He told them to go back to their dorms. Some guy from the crowd called out, "Fuck you!" and my cop responded three ways. He spun to face the crowd, he pulled his side arm, and he yelled, "I"ll fuck you if I get my hands on you!"

On the plus side, he didn't point his weapon, much less fire. However, he had clearly lost it.

As additional campus cops showed, the silly drunks began drifting away and everyone went home a little damp and vaguely energized.

Power of a Word

My resulting article recorded the facts and drew several conclusions. First, assuming ex-military and even military-police guys could just plug into the USC police force was naive. Second, a large campus requires specific training and active management of emerging situations. Third, crowds should never result in drawn guns by hot-headed officers.

The article included the two obscenities as well as the analysis.

Back at the ranch, I turned in my article and notified the triumvirate of the embedded words. Then I flew back to Logan for life, love and scholarship. At USC, the editors decided to spell out the loaded word. However, the middle-aged women at the printing company called the newspaper adviser, who called the university president saying what was about to appear.

The prez (honestly, named Tom Jones) called the editors and said if they went ahead with my article, they were in big trouble. For reasons understandable only to undergraduate journalism majors who had studied Zenger, they ran a hole where the article should appear as the front-page lead with only the 128-pt word CENSORED.

Of course, they weren't censored, just threatened. They didn't have the 'nads to take their lumps. If it had been my call, I would have run the article. They later published the offending piece with asterisks in the middle of the word in both instances.

The aftermath included what the Collegian is experiencing. To compound the adviser and advertising ramifications, at USC, everyone in power either graduated from the school or its law school. They read the three-times-a-week publication as though they had never left. State and U.S. lawmakers, CEOs, advertisers and plain old rich folk all read the Gamecock. The outrage was palpable and silly.

In the end, it was positive nationwide. Other colleges picked up the angle of underqualified and undertrained campus cops and many, including USC improved both aspects. That's what journalism should be about, eh?

So here we are back to this century. The same old word is now about free-speech without the trappings of investigative journalism. That's fine.

Yet in another way, it's sort of sad that we have not matured much since. You already know my prejudice, coming out of J school.

I'm pleased that McSwane is willing to stand up for such an inane and unnecessary posture. Distilling the popular and political cultures in four words speaks well of his staff's cleverness and insensibilities.

In case you have never been on the staff of a major college paper, be aware that such editorial decisions are not some caprice of a rogue editor. They almost always are kicked up and down the hall like a discussion at some UU church. The majority of the staff surely was on board with this and felt strongly about the four-word statement. As crackpot as he may be, the Florida student was denied his rant by force.

They can take their punishment. The paper can temporarily lose its $30K (that will come back -- campus-paper advertisers need the college rag exposure). Alumni can play the get-these-students-off-my-lawn game and let it vent.

The more things change...

By the bye, a chum who also knew President Jones saw him two years later crossing the horseshoe. The article in question was not my only anti-establishment article or column during my four years. Tom asked whether I was coming back and hearing that I had finished, Jones just replied with a big grin, "Good!"

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Tags: massmarrier, Colorado State, Collegian, University of South Carolina, Gamecock, censorship, obscenity

Cracking Craig's Cache

Let's climb down off the Larry Craig Joke Train. An Idaho combo-blogger is running an excellent journalistic series of the not-so-much-longer-Senator. Starting 9/22, Randy Stapilus started a four-part set going back to his political beginnings. It's running in the Ridenbaugh Press.

Props: He's owner of the publishing company.

For one example, in Craig in review: Roots of panic, Stapilus foretells Craig's current troubles with an analysis of an earlier, unnecessary version:

In 1982, scandal erupted in the U.S House on reports that several male pages, high school students, had been sexually propositioned by congressmen. Craig wasn’t, and never has been, among the congressmen accused; but unlike other members of Congress, he reacted publicly by declaring that he wasn’t guilty. That raised immediate eyebrows. As a matter of politics, it was a foolish move: Even if he had nothing to do with the page scandal, it suggested that Craig might be hiding something. Craig himself acknowledged later that he’s made a mistake. Why had he, alone among the 435 members of the U.S. House, made that mistake? He had panicked. Crisis had arisen and, in the pressure of the moment, he had lost the ability to deal with it rationally.

The latest installment, Craig in review: Rights and wrongs, centers on a detailed analysis of how the local media, newspapers and bloggers, covered Craig, or avoided doing so before and after the toilet mess.

I'm looking for the next two posts on this. It's all great stuff, and has lessons politicians, MSM and bloggers alike can use.

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Tags: massmarrier, Ridenbaugh, Stapilus, Larry Craig, Idaho, Congress

Death by Cop on 93

The Boston rags have not gotten with the program yet. The Patriot Ledger, however, is on the latest developments in the peculiar case of Michelle Vibert.

She is the 29-year-old mother who died 13 months ago at 2 a.m. when an off-duty Boston cop drove his SUV into her stalled car on Route 93 near the Dorchester gas tank. Not only did state cops not give him a sobriety test, they did only the most cursory site investigation, far less than is typical. There have been no charges against Thomas Griffin.

There was some public outcry after the wreck, including a couple of mentions in this blog here and here. Afterward, the state cops either did their job or got out the whitewash, depending on how you consider the circumstances. The report of the Suffolk County DA's office laughably claims "An intensive five-month investigation into a fatal crash on Route 93 South last August has led authorities to determine that criminal charges are not warranted in the case..."

At the time of the wreck, there was no field sobriety test nor a blood test and the state cops got a two sentence statement from city officer Thomas Griffin. Apparently that intensive investigation involved finally doing detailed interviews with Griffin and his two passengers and looking at the state police reconstruction report of the site examination, which was done in 40 minutes, starting almost eight hours after the fatal crash. You likely are aware that typical accident reconstructions take many hours and close off highways...when a cop is not the driver.

The Patriot Ledger addresses a consultant's report by Stephen R. Benanti, whom they ID as "a retired State Police accident reconstruction specialist." A major conclusion is "It appears the report was written in a manner as to protect Mr. Griffin and blame Michelle Vibert." Her father, Joseph S. Mogan, paid for the report and has asked commonwealth AG Martha Coakley to investigate.

The state police aren't commenting and the Suffolk DA's office claims it did its job and was unbiased. Nothing suspicious about cops investigating cops and clearing them. Move along. Move along.

A special feature in a November Patriot Ledger has the known details of the wreck, including a diagram. Among the salient points are:

• Her Camry stalled and she pulled it next to the guard rail.
• There was no full breakdown lane, but her car was four and one-half feet off the right lane (plenty of space for a driver there to pass safely.
• Her blinkers were on, as she telephoned for help.
• The road was dry and the skies clear.
• Griffin and two women left the Purple Shamrock on Union Street, but he claims not to have had any alcohol, none, nada.
• Right before he drove his Ford Explorer into the subcompact, he switched from the middle lane to the right lane.
• He smashed into the rear of the Camry and spun it 180 degrees, as well as tipping the SUV on its side.

Without even being conspiracy minded, you would suppose that the cops would say, "Oh you left a bar at 2 in the morning, but were not drinking. We need to do a blood test so you can prove you were sober when it comes up." Instead, they concluded that their visual scan of his indicated no tests were necessary. Nothing to see here.

One of the two women with Griffin mentioned the bar. The other did not. No one said anything about whether Griffin was drinking or doing any other drug elsewhere before. We're never likely to know.

It would be hard to invent a clearer set of circumstances to scream, "Cover-up!" This has all the appearances of one of the two worst types of police corruption. One is taking money to do something illegal, and the other is failing to do your sworn and paid duty in order to help a friend or someone like you.

This needs to continue. The AG needs to look at both the Suffolk DA work and certainly what the state cops did and did not do. At this date, there's a good chance Griffin will continue to get a free pass on vehicular homicide. However, there's the little matter of the investigating agencies in what clearly seems to be cops letting a cop get away with a serious crime, a fatal one.

Those involved have not done nearly enough to convince people this is not a cover-up. In fact, they seem to have gone out of their way to raise questions and doubts.

This goes to the vitality of the AG's office as well. Martha needs to do her job here. This appears to go to high levels of both the state police and a county DA.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, state police, Patriot Ledger, Vibert

J-Hooks Are No Accident

After being J-hooked (see pic at left), I have biked to the offender's window and asked what the devil he was thinking. Usually they speed away to my trailing curses, but twice I caught up to the offender. Both times, the driver has looked dumbly with an open mouth. Once he said nothing and the other time he said he thought he had lots of time to make the turn.

Biking downtown and around, I am finding this more common than twits opening their doors into traffic without looking. That does happen and I literally always watch windows of parked cars before I get close (I hate heavily tinted windows). Even claim-a-lane guys like me have to learn lots of techniques for cycling amidst inattentive and even hostile Boston-area motorized-weapon drivers.

J-hooking is a serious problem. It is plainly illegal and should, but rarely does, bring tickets or serious punishment, even when drivers maim or kill cyclists. Yes, it is reckless driving (and here the more serious driving to endanger when it involves injury), but we are left wondering what the drivers are thinking, if anything. We would very much like to get judges, prosecutors and cops on board to stop this madness.

Crossposting: This also appears at Harrumph!

You can meet and listen to some of the good guys next month at Moving Together 2007, the ped/bike/car conference. It's for serious transportation geeks and includes policy and practice at the state and local level to encourage and maintain safety for walking and cycling. Plus, there are also very pleasant surprises from the new cycling advocate mayor in city hall.

With upwards of 800 American cyclists killed and over 40,000 injured annually by drivers, you'd think — inaccurately — that cops and judges would bring the hammer down on J-hookers and such. Instead we face such ingrained problems as:

• Judges and prosecutors seem to suffer from the there-but-for-fortune-go-I syndrome.
• Police don't bother enforcing traffic laws or aiding in prosecution of motorists who injure or kill cyclists

  In a personal example, an unregistered, uninsured driver turned left suddenly across three lanes and broadsided me on a bike. The Hyde Park cop investigating gave her a pass and did not notify me of her court appearance as required and agreed to. She was an unwed mother working at a downtown department store. Apparently because she was irresponsible in bed, she was also allowed to be irresponsible behind the wheel. She paid something like a hundred dollar fine. The other cop who handles such wrecks sort of apologized and said that was SOP there and throughout Boston.
  

• Most drivers look in front of their hoods instead of at the whole front and peripheral scene. That leads to tailgating, running into or in front of foot, bike and car traffic coming from the side. This may be the toughest because it requires a different way of thinking and a lot of brain power to process the flood of visual and aural data. Most of us just aren't that bright and we can't add more RAM to humans.

Of course in sheer numbers motor vehicle operators are more dangerous to their peers and themselves. They kill each other by the tens of thousands annually. So you'd think that cops, DAs and judges would try to shift attitudes by prosecuting and punishing the reckless and inattentive to change the culture. Enforcement does not prevent crimes of impulse or passion like most murders, but sure punishment for drivers likely would.

Instead, what we generally find is the attitude that it is too much trouble. Likewise the whole culture, particularly the mass media, terms inattentive and reckless driving that kills a cyclist as an accident rather than the irresponsible crime it is.

One example of how this works was clear from a 2003 study of the issues by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. They followed up on such crashes and reported:

(D)rivers are seldom charged in fatalities involving pedestrians and cyclists. Three out of four at-fault drivers were never even cited for hitting and killing pedestrians. The two-year study revealed that 22% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved hit and run drivers, yet, none of the run-away motorists were found or charged.

According to Russ Westbrook, past president and co-founder of Walk San Jose, "The high percentage of hit-and-run crimes are just one symptom of an auto-centric culture we have created through five decades of cars-first public policy. These policies have relegated pedestrians to second-class citizenry, and turned our neighborhood streets into get-away freeways for traffic outlaws. Every year hundreds of pedestrians are left bleeding in the streets while the perpetrators just go home and wash their cars and pick up the kids."

That rhetoric is not melodramatic either. Many of us recall Douglas K. Richardson, whose killer walked. In 2002, the Beth Israel physician was biking the eight miles from Newton when he suffered an ignominious death by BFI garbage truck. The driver raced by and J-hooked him, and crushed Richardson. The Brookline DA actively prosecuted but the case went no place in court.

In contrast, this week's death of a 13-year-old girl cyclist in Walpole has brought charges. From the reports, this looks like another J-hooking. The NStar truck driver wasn't wearing his corrective lenses as required. We know that seventh grader Justine Trainor was riding legally on the right side and place when he drove by her, turned and rode over her, dragging her and her bike.

My cynicism suggests that he may do a short prison sentence, pay a fine and lose his commercial license because of the circumstances. The victim was a young girl, not a 30-year-old tattooed messenger. This was suburban. They don't cotton much to murdering their kids.

One such prosecution is the right thing to do. Particularly because the penalties remain light, less than other types of homicide and less than pot sales, consistency is key here. Drivers need to be aware that killing cyclists will surely mean loss of license, high fines, a huge jump in insurance premiums, and maybe jail time. Nothing else would make for the necessary alertness and attentiveness.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, cycling

Menino, Heaven on Wheels

The lamest and most specious cliché about humans has to be that they don't change. Our mayor is most recent, most excellent proof to the contrary.

His personal road to Damascus seems to have benn more localized — on Hyde Park Avenue in old Beantown. As detailed in today's Globe, he is no longer a vélocipèdiphobic (surely not a real word; substitute old guy who hates bicycles, cycling and cyclists).

I shall happily continue to eat as much crow as he can feed me on this issue. I certainly ragged on him enough during his anti-cycling years.

Now, I hope that he shows at Moving Together 2007. I have attended these annual ped/bike/car conferences for years, and until this year, some sessions and comments had always been about what a bad cycling city Boston is and how the government seemed bike hostile. Let the praise begin with me.

He has announced the city will shut up people like me by providing virtually everything we've been screaming and whining for all these years. Specifically:

• New bike racks everywhere, starting with 250.
• Rehiring a bicycle overlord (the new czar, as they like to call it, is to be Olympic and pro cyclist Nicole Freedman, who has been working on the Hub on Wheels event).
• Online bike-route maps.
• Bike lanes on currently dangerous-to-bikes avenues, including Mass Ave and Commonwealth.
  

Deliciously, Da Mare has changed his bike bent, but not his competitiveness. It appears that he wants Boston to outdo cities like Cambridge and New York. Get 'em, Tommy!

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, cycling

Arthur Leonard on Maryland Ruling

Well, Arthur S. Leonard did come through for us all with his fast, yet thorough analysis of the Maryland Court of Appeals decision upholding DOMA wording in state law.

The court could have gone in favor of marriage equality with a vote switch on the 4 to 3 decision. The dissents and partial dissents show the subtle shifts. Yet, this is mainstream judicial thinking reflected on other states recently. In contrast to the winger stereotype of activist courts and judges eager to make law, this decision showed the deeply ingrained fear of appearing to make law in doing their jobs of interpreting it.

Leonard recaps the gist of the decision before hitting the main points in the various judges' opinions:

In a ruling sharply reminiscent of last year’s decision by the Washington State Supreme Court, which was similarly sharply divided, the Maryland Court of Appeals, that state’s highest court, ruled by a vote of 5-2 on September 18 that the state’s denial of the right to marry to same-sex couples does not violate the Maryland constitution. By an even narrower vote, 4-3, the court also implicitly ruled that same-sex couples are not constitutionally entitled to the rights and benefits associated with marriage through some alternative arrangement, such as a civil union.

The progress to marriage equality is crawling, not bounding.

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Tags: massmarrier, Maryland, Court of Appeals, same sex marriage, General Assembly, Leonard Link

Avast Ye Lubbers and Sea Dogs!

This be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Step lively and load your canon with pirate phrases!

Scurvy curs under the Golden Dome (arrr, gold) and merchant varmints purloin your purse all year...without raising the Jolly Roger in fair warning. Curses be on them!

Put in your largest earring and let there be swagger as you walk the decks at work.

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Tags: massmarrier, Talk Like a Pirate

Maryland — Back to You, Legislature

By one vote (four to three), Maryland's Court of Appeals said no to same-sex marriage. Rather, they denied a suit brought by 19 homosexual plaintiffs in December challenging the state statute defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

Title two of the state law (2-201) on the subject reads simply "Valid Marriages Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this State."

The report in the Baltimore Sun of today's decision includes that the ruling agreed with Assistant Attorney General Robert Zarnoch that any change in the 1973 law had to come from the legislature. This is in keeping with the majority of courts so far where the judges seem terrified of resolving conflicts between equal-rights laws and gender-specific codes.

The case got perking when town clerks around the state refused to issue SS licenses in 2004. Then a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge ruled that doing so violated the state constitution's equal-rights provisions.

The majority opinion author, Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. stopped short of writing that couple had a duty to reproduce. Instead, he couched the decision with:

In declaring that the State's legitimate interests in fostering procreation and encouraging the traditional family structure ... our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex.

Interestingly enough, this is the opposite view of those who say this is not the legislature's business, like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He'd have the courts decide and vetoes marriage-equality laws.

Note: I have not looked into the 244-page decision. There are two detailed dissents, plus one multi-judge concur in part and dissent. With a bit of luck, the Leonard Link will get to this before the rest of us. He has a teaser up now.

The executive director of Equality Maryland, Dan Furmansky, called on the state's General Assembly to act, "to honor Maryland's tradition of tolerance and justice, and to strike down the ban on marriage for same-sex couples."

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Tags: massmarrier, Maryland, Court of Appeals, same sex marriage, General Assembly, Equality Maryland

Clueless Governors North and West

Maybe it's what a friend of my wife's family calls olds-timers disease, when you are forgetful and just don't get it anymore. Governors in Vermont and California seem to have caught it.

We had a pretty good idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger would veto the marriage bill on his desk, yet again. He iterated that in Sacrament yesterday. Seven years ago, a ballot proposition returned that the majority wanted marriage to be between a man and a woman. A lot has changed since, but wimpy Arnie continues to hide behind that, despite the legislature voting for marriage equality twice.

In picking which form of direction from the people he'll follow, he said, "It would be wrong for the people to vote for something and for me to then overturn it. So they can send this bill down as many times as they want, I won't do it." Here's another sad, strange little man stuck in a shameful past pattern.

Yet, here in New England, we have our own version. Our governor is for full equality, but not Jim Douglas just up Route 93. In running for re-election, he too has dug in his heels, saying that civil unions are far enough, pardner.

According to the Brattleboro Reformer, his fund-raising letter slams the push for same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, the state Commission on Family Recognition and Protection is studying SSM, held its first formal meeting last month, and will hold public hearings to find out what the locals think and want. Heavy hitters House Speaker Gaye Symington and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin head the group. The 11-members are supposed to report to the full legislature in April 2008.

Whether it is a power play with the lawmakers, anti-gay feelings surfacing or that old-timer's flaring, Douglas isn't even interested in hearing what the people want. He calls the whole commission "a distraction," and part of "a far-left agenda that is not in line with the real needs of working Vermont families."

The published rejoinder stands tall, with no need to augment it:

But Symington said Monday, "This is part of a pattern of the governor's consistently misrepresenting the work of the Legislature. It's taking an issue about minority civil rights and looking for an opportunity to create divisions and way overstating what Sen. Shumlin and I have done."

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Tags: massmarrier, California, Schwarzenegger, same sex marriage, Mark Leno, Jim Douglas, Vermont, civil unions