Dems Prove Incompetence Rivals Malice

It's broken and no one in Washington will try to fix it. The great bipartisan slaying of liberty by Congress last weekend should have widened George the Lesser's smirk and made Dick Cheney lick his forehead in rapture.

Neither party nor house paid attention in civics class and the vast majority of the largely baby boomer legislators have disgraced their WWII-era parents. They have kicked aside the love of liberty that their parents fought for and taught. They have completed their sell-out of the separation of powers for an abrogation to the executive branch.

They tamped the dirt firmly on living Americans Sunday by giving the startlingly (to the rest of us) anti-freedom President even more power than he demanded. When they should have screamed that he could not ever have the right to spy freely and without accountability on us, in or out of the physical borders, they instead gave him free rein to warrantless wiretapping other other surveillance, data storage of private communication, and spying on citizens without any cause or reporting.

Just the facts, Ma'am: The overview is at the WaPo, and analysis at Slate.

In addition, this appears to have the shameful side-effect of preemptively preventing legal action against previous criminal surveillance acts by the Bush government. In effect, Congress pardons the Bushies retroactively without them even asking for it.

Your very own White House site has an unbelievable and dishonest justification, linked off the front page. To read it all, go to the security section. In part this reads:

What Is Not Acceptable

• Some have proposed that the Government must obtain pre-approval from a court before it conducts critical surveillance of targets located overseas. This is unacceptable. The Government must be able to act immediately, particularly in the case of national security emergencies, to protect the Nation.
• Some have suggested that FISA must be reformed, but only to permit collection against certain overseas threats like al Qaeda terrorists. This is unacceptable. There are many threats that confront our Nation, including military, weapons proliferation, and economic, and we must be able to conduct foreign intelligence effectively on all of them.
• Some have suggested that we must wait to modernize FISA. This is unacceptable. Congress must act now to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to uncover plots in time to protect our homeland.
• Some have suggested that a court order should be necessary before our intelligence professionals are able to gather any information about a foreign target who happens to contact someone in the United States frequently. This is unacceptable.

You have to have your dunce cap on, and pulled down over your eyes and ears, to buy any of that. What is unacceptable is what both houses of and parties in Congress did here.

We are only a little over a year from electing a Democrat as President. With a little good fortune, we should have 60 Democrats in the Senate, so that we can pass some solid legislation without the GOP tricks and throttle on democracy.

Now though, if you look at that the alleged Democrats will do, do you have hope that they can pass a single piece of progressive legislation or protect American freedoms?

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Tags: massmarrier, George W. Bush, Cheney, wiretapping, Congress, DINOs

Toughest Birds in Town

Wolfpack...now there's an image. Boston Latin School didn't call its athletic teams the sucklings, even if that might be truer to its roots.

In my high school, our bruiser footballers hit and grunted and sweat as cardinals. Grain cracking, worm swallowing birds?

There's more of this rant at my non-political site, Harrumph!

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Tags: massmarrier, Harrumph, mascots, cardinals

Longfellow Bridge and Funky Eddy

Long before anyone uttered or conceived of funky, Edmund March Wheelwright must have been one funky and fun dude. He comes to mind now because one of his many, many masterpieces is the 101-year-old Longfellow Bridge.

In light of the buckle-and-break I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, folks here look with trepidation at the fords that may fail.

There are numerous current and historical pix of the Longfellow at Structurae. The one at right is cropped from one of those.

Bridges are to last 50 to 100 years. Some hand-formed bridges last centuries (remember that Socrates was a proud stonecutter). The Longfellow is dong pretty well for an oldster.

Who the devil designed the very funky salt-and-pepper (named for its towers that resemble condiment dispensers)? Well, kiddies that would be the city of Boston architect for five very productive years, 1891 through 1895, E.M. Wheelwright.

My degrees of separation today is too easy...one. A dear friend is his great nephew. My chum, Farley Wheelwright, is 90 and was only six when E.M. died in 1912.

There are numerous books on the architect, but the highlights are on a bullet-point riddled Wikipedia page. Among his designs include:

• Boston Public Library
• Harvard Lampoon Building
• Horticultural Hall
• Larz Anderson Auto Museum
• Longfellow Bridge
• Massachusetts Historical Society Headquarters
• Jordan Hall
• Anderson Memorial Bridge

He was also consulting architect for the Museum of Fine Arts, Hartford's Bulkeley Bridge, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. You've been there, seen and used his work.

Short of the Lampoon Building (above left), which is intentionally perverse and irregular in design, everything is attractive and easy to use. Amusingly enough, except for the museums, you can see a lot of round funk in his designs. The bridges were sturdy, yes, but he clearly had fun with them. Compare the stone-jar look of both the Lampoon and Longfellow. For a guy born the decade before the Civil War, he was out there.

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Tags: massmarrier, Minneapolis, bridge, Longfellow, Edmund Wheelwright, Boston, architect, Harvard Lampoon

Gay Bishop Blesses Incrementalism

"He's my favorite because he beats his kids with his hand instead of a stick," is not what Bishop Gene Robinson said of Presidential would-be Barack Obama. On marriage equality, he might as well have.

When I first saw that the New Hampshire-based Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, endorsed Obama, I was a bit stunned. Obama is in the cowardly coven of Dem hopefuls who mumble about being for equality everywhere, but stumble on gay rights and marriage equality.

(Apropos of little: Mumble and Stumble, that's both a good name for a rock band and a nice tee-shirt for the current crop of Dem hopefuls.)

I had avoided researching how Robinson could reconcile 1) endorsing any candidate and 2) endorsing one who mixes his personal religion and rituals with civil contacts and civil rights. Fortunately, others have done the work.

Submitted for your consideration:

• Why at all? The AP brief yesterday had the gist with "The bishop said his endorsement was as an individual, not as bishop. He said it would be inappropriate to speak about the campaign from the pulpit or at any church function, so he won't do it. But he said as a private citizen, he will be at campaign events to help in any way he can." Of course, that's bovine feces. Saying that already belies his distance, but in a gentle, Episcopal sort of way.
• Why an anti-SSM candidate? Today's Campaign Notebook in the Boston Globe had the inspiration for my lead. They quote him as, "At this moment we have no viable candidate who is where we would like them to be on these issues." So Robinson seems to consider Obama the least stained of the sordid bunch on this.

For actual insight, it's best to head to The Advocate, which featured a short, but powerful Q&A with Robinson. To the points in question, consider:

Critics point out that he doesn't have an extensive voting record on LGBT issues as compared to some of the other candidates, so he's a bit of an unknown—even though he supports most of our issues, except for marriage equality. Does that concern you at all?

All of the Democratic candidates are very good on these issues, and none of them is as good as they ought to be, and he falls into that category. He and I have talked about this personally and I have told him that I will be pushing him on gay marriage while at the same time being grateful of his support for civil unions. His particular journey, both personal and political, I don't think has given him a lot of opportunities to have a track record, but what I can tell you is that the warmth, generosity, and enthusiasm with which he has welcomed me and the way he talks about LGBT issues makes me very comfortable with him.

My own questions would include, to Robinson, couldn't you counsel him strongly to stop muddling civil rights and religious rites, and convince him to stand up for equality? To us all, do we trust good-hearted if a bit soft-headed types such as Robinson to sway any winning candidate after the election?

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Tags: massmarrier, same sex marriage, civil unions, Obama, Gene Robinson, endorsement, The Advocate, Campaign Notebook

Get Those Kids Off My Bridges!

I confess (since some folk have already read it) that I posted a LITE comment on the Minnesota bridge collapse. Humor in tragedy is one of my hallmarks.

However, this being a hot and humid day, I did the very unusual for me, watched the news. It clarified that folk don't have their heads on straight on U.S. and Massachusetts infrastructure. There are issues of progressive politics for taxes and governmental responsibility.

First the news...

• Of course, provincialism dominated local news and even blogs. Lawsy, how are our bridges? To heck with that, how safe are the three bridges I drive over regularly? Oh, Gov. Deval Patrick says only 12% of our bridges fail and the nationwide average is 14%. We're fine. Turn off panic.
• The NTSB guy says he'll use computer modeling software and lots of interviews, even asking the Coast Guard whether any boats slammed that Minneapolis one. We'll get to the bottom of this and folk can check similar bridges so this never again happens anywhere.

Let's get real, boys and girls. Here we have the same confluence of factors that has congregated for several decades. We have ignored those big old sturdy-looking things like highways and bridges. I mean, what's the odds of disaster? Plus, if you fix them, that means expenses and maybe higher taxes. Didn't the governor and legislators promise to keep taxes low?

Since Mike Dukakis rode his tank out of town, a plague of Republican executives and DINO lawmakers have irresponsibly deferred the bills for maintaining our infrastructure. Bill Weld pretended that anything bad was the legislature's fault. Then Romney talked and did nothing.

When Patrick took over, his candid staff estimated that the procrastination now amounts to $14 billion to $20 billion dollars. That's a clever way to keep taxes low — pretend that there's no need to do silly things like keep bridges and highways repaired and safe.

Even in a state with a moderate to low tax rate, the voters scream to further lower their taxes and in many places defeat overrides for education, infrastructure and other essentials. Well, those bills will come due. We can pay them at their lower rates when the problems are obvious or delay and delay as we have and pay a much higher rate later.

You want safe bridges, don't be an ass. Pay for them. Do it now before it becomes hugely expensive or people die. It's good politics. It's also common sense.

Our part-time and now ex-governor Willard Romney promised coming in to "fix it first" on infrastructure. He served on Presidential bodies studying transportation. He even made yesterday's bridge collapse a campaign issue, despite his abject failure to maintain our state's roads and bridges, choosing low taxes over the public good.

People without kids, who don't want to pay for public education, as people who don't own cars, who don't want to pay for roads most use, need to move to their own private islands. There they can have an á la carte government, pay as you go. Here, we have commonwealth. Let's get this act together.

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Tags: massmarrier, Minneapolis, bridge, Deval Patrick, Mitt Romney, infrastructure, taxes, social responsibility

Saved from the Drink by a Drink

It's not degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, but then again as lame as Ripley's Believe It or Not! has gotten, it might fit there. Yesterday, a chum was not on that I-35 bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis when it buckled and collapsed...only because he and some co-workers decided to have a beer together.

Those of us known, on those rare occasions, to appreciate the evidence of zymurgy do not necessarily need a new reason to drink a beer. Yet, here is one for those who need a reason or an excuse.

Brad would have been on that bridge at that time. Perhaps he lives today because he acceded to the social invitation of his officemates and sat with a beer instead of being on I-35 crossing, or almost crossing, the Mississippi River.

Call it coincidence. Call it kismet. Call it a celestial jest. Nonetheless, there was a drink he could appreciate at the time and much more later.

Slight of blog: Those looking for the downtown Boston Beer Works-related wee tale of young women forced to wander Canal Street in show-through tights shilling for Balance Bare samples, click Harrumph!

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Tags: massmarrier, Minneapolis, bridge, I-35, beer, good luck

Bush Arrogance Collision Imminent

Our impetuous and immature President Bush is determined to slide face first into the mire of historical ignominy. He apparently does not have the wit — and lacks the candid advisers — to keep him from the avoidable crash. According to the AP, he's going to prevent two more of his aides from testifying before Congress about the fired federal prosecutors.

This is far worse but in the same mold as Bill Clinton and his adulterous fellatio. Had our randy and also immature Clinton said that he had let a groupie intern service him orally, that would have been that. Similarly, if Shrub admitted that he and his folk actively planned to subvert the justice system by firing U.S. attorneys who didn't whore to GOP political goals, that too would have been that. He has the authority to hire and fire those overstuffed lawyers at will.

Instead, he fostered lying, perjury, deceit and now both conspiracy and contempt of Congress. What a childish dummy!

Under the guise of a Cheney/Bush plot to expand the power of the Executive Branch, his most recent position make perfect, yet moronic, sense. Yet, he has gone too far and can't stop, can't control himself.

Ideally, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be the first to be impeached. Then the two aides in contempt of Congress will start in jail and end up with prison time and fines. It will be great if the conspiracy drops Dick Cheney next and Bush at the end. President Pelosi, with no arrogant, puerile boy to pardon anyone, has a very nice ring.

Follow-up on Offenses: I grew up watching The Untouchables (you may remember honesty and duty in government). This era's Washington show should be The Impeachables. Check today's recap of actionable offenses by Gonzales, Cheney, Rove and Bush in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal.

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Tags: massmarrier, George W. Bush, Cheney, impeachment, Congress, obstruction of justice

Best Free Show: The Music

If you're looking for opera or chamber music, head to the Berkshires. Yet, don't let folk music limit your thoughts to the hippies of my era. Indeed the Lowell Folk Festival has World Music from many locales — Brazil, Nepal and hither and yon.

We have very different musical loves in our family and the folk there covers it and more. Blues suits me. My uxorial unit loves bluegrass. We split up at one point so I could do some Afro-Cuban, while she did non-Samba music from the Brazilian interior.

If you've never been to this festival, click over to the list of this year's performers. There's a great chance that you missed them, but that next year's versions will be as diverse and as good, and that you'll find someone you are delighted to hear. [Note that almost emtroes all include links to short clips.]

Our consensus favorite this year was Diunna Greenleaf and Blue Mercy. She's in the picture left. She's big of bosom, butt and lungs. She admits to huge appetites and you believe every word of her Texas blues.

I can ramble and rant about everyone we heard. That should include the mention of gypsy guitar group (with jazz violin and accordion) Dorado Schmitt & the Django Reinhardt Festival All Star Band. He is a guitar master and French violinist Pierre Blanchard deserves his own mention for his powerful, animated play. (That's Schmitt seated and Blanchard crouched.)

For whatever reasons, many locals don't seem to attend. That's easy to tell because of the obvious racial composition at the venues.

Lowell is a very white town, if not by New Hampshire standards, certainly by Boston ones. The last census reports about 69% non-Latino white, nearly 17% Asian, 14% Latino and only 4% African-American.

At most venues, there are obviously far fewer than one of 6 Asians and fewer than one of 7 Latinos. I did not notice a single Black man or woman not connected with a band.

I should ask the organizers what's up with that.

Amusingly, many of the Boston-area types seem to be drawn from the UU/Yuppie/WASP/Volvo-driving subcultures (include me). One of the sponsors and the live broadcaster is WGBH in Beantown. That's fine for us, but this is too great a weekend not to draw more diverse audiences. [end rant]

Those who come enjoy and behave themselves. Even at crowded performances, there's no tension. There are a few festival jerks, like the loud family who arrived for Diunna, and the boys chattered while the dad came and went saying at high volume that he loved this kind of music, which he did not listen to at all. Huh?

There were seven simultaneous venues Saturday (including the street-performance zone). First timers here can quickly get the flavors of each.

Oddly enough, many of what I consider the best acts go on the Boarding House Park stage. This is what GBH simulcasts. This lawn area ends up fairly full, but I've never arrived and not been able to spread a sheet for us. Sometimes you can come late and still get right up near the stage. Yet while this probably has the greatest population density, it is also where the greatest percentage of the audience dances. Some, like the quasi-spasmodic guy at left who is always there, solo, but many couples or other combinations swing dance, samba or otherwise in the narrow walkways. No one hassles them (Boston venues could learn from that).

At the JFK Plaza next to the government buildings, there's a lot more space and a lot less dancing. Go figure. Gonzalo Grau y La Clave Secreta aptly bills themselves as hot Latin dance. Yet Gonzalo felt he had to go out into the audience several times to literally take people by the wrist and bring them up to move. They did and seemed to love it...once he prompted them.

Interestingly, they seem to consider the plaza a closed area. So, it is the only one that allows beer sales and consumption directly next to the music. People don't come to get drunk on Bud, Bud Light or even Long Hammer IPA, but you'd think it might lead to more dancing.

The plaza also seems to be the most diverse in audience, certainly with the highest concentrations of Latinos and Asians at the festival. Even here, there is no skew to Latin music. The festival does not have a lot of traditional or even new Asian performers, for what it's worth.

In case you haven't gotten the message, I love this festival. Also, as Lowell seems to have intended, it brings me back for other things. If there's one day a year you get to town, make it the Saturday of the festival, and plan your performers before you go.

After we were listened out, I wanted to head home to do my fabulous dinner-from-what's-in-the-fridge act, but two of our party would have died from starvation in the 40 minutes home. So on the way to the garage, we noticed a bar/restaurants that seemed to have a few seats and went in expecting the minimal.

In fact, at 79 Central, the food at Sangria's (inactive website) was an okay yawn. It bills itself as Mexican, as in woman's service magazine tells the homemaker how to make non-offensive food for gringos. They had a small range of draft ales. All of that was low-priced ($4 drafts, $6 sandwiches and $9 dinner plates).

We squeezed onto a tiny table and found ourselves listening to a blues band, three guitars and a harp (amplified mouth harp) with a lead identified in our hour and two sets only as Big Daddy. There are tons of Big Daddy folk and I am not sure who he was, but he was worthy of a nickname and even a cover charge, of which there was none.

We had dinner and drinks with live stage-side music from a solid blues band at Sangria's. The next time we head to Lowell, I hope they have their site working and announce who's up. I'll go.

We declared the day a success.

Part one is here. I'll cross-post there at Harrumph! as befits the embedded rants.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Lowell, folk festival, music

Best Free Show in the State

Again, the Lowell Folk Festival does it right. It's free and there's more good, damned good and great music than you can get to for one, two or three days.

It's at the end of July, every year in downtown Lowell. There's some impressive history, tours by canal boat and such to please labor buffs. Lowell also has a summer music series in one of the main folk-festival venues, Boarding House Park. That has loads of individual blues, rock and pop groups for modest ticket prices of around $25.

However, the folk festival offers more, better and different benefits, such as:

• One evening and two full days into night of music.
• Dozens of diverse groups in a wide variety of styles.
• The sweet anguish of finding that you simply cannot get to and hear everyone you want to; invariably there will be conflicting performances on one of the many stages.
• The even sweeter joy of finding a new favorite every year, as though browsing Amazon or other site gave you 45 minutes to an hour of live music instead of a 32-second recorded clip.
• A chance to meet a performer, have her sign her CD and tell her how much she rocked.
• A wide variety of ethnic foods at nearby stands and numerous instant patios for a quick beer between sets.

I got over fearing I shouldn't talk about this. It's well attended and like a favorite restaurant, do you tempt others? The fact is, many people in all directions don't go to Lowell, even for the best all-around music event of the year. Too damned bad for them, and for you if you're like that.

We've been going for most of the past two decades. We have an adult son who slept in a Snugli to drum beats and even through wailing blues. Two others have come willingly most times, although the 13-year-old wasn't too pleased to miss video-game/Internet time Saturday.

In fact, he was pretty smug on the way up. We had an uncharacteristically late start. Some years, we can do it right by starting around 9:30 a.m. at Faneuil Hall for a musical parade with one of the performing groups, a train ride from North Station (package tickets for families and individuals from the MBTA) and a parade to open the festival for the day in Lowell.

Well, I had picked my groups from the sked and performer lists. The youngest was whiny, until we got on 93. Then he smirked as we got splatters and above 128, a cloud burst from solid black skies. Drivers slowed to 30 or pulled off the road. Nasty to us, a catalyst for, "I guess we'll have to turn around" from him.

Yet, it was meant to be. It reminded me of a birthday for my whiny second cousin Danny. I think it was his eighth and he had asked to have it at the Dairy Queen a few miles east of Romney, West Virginia. That town is in apple country of the eastern panhandle, surrounded by mountains. It's lush land and rains a lot there.

It rained and on the way out, Danny cried and complained. It rained harder. His solicitous mom reminded him that there were covered pavilions there and we could have burgers, cake and ice cream in the dry. Crying and complaining continued. Then about 100 yards away, we drove through the rain. He had his DQ picnic and most of us wondered and reveled in continuing to watch the rain that poured straight down like a cartoon a few hundred feet west in a steady curtain for an hour.

So it was in Lowell, right before the exits off 495, we got to dry road. It was the wet curse of the interstates. Our youngest admitted defeat.

Because we came by car, we did the right auto thing, drove right to one of the two big garages in town. They are very close to the venues and the festival deal isn't bad — $10 flat fee for the day. You should be ashamed if you don't donate a few bucks to the volunteers with their buckets, but amortized, this is the cheapest music festival you'll attend.

Next up, the festival music, plus a pleasant surprise on the way out of town. Cross-posted at Harrumph!

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Tags: massmarrier, Lowell, Massachusetts, folk festival, music

10,000 Weeping and Whooping

It's a pity I don't believe in a hell. Surely, I could be condemned there after a post on Harrumph! about the three-day Women of Faith Conference here this weekend.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, harrumpher, Women of Faith, fundamentalism, Amazing Freedom, Boston

Wampanoags, Wampum and Wishing

While we were off to the Lowell Folk Festival (more later), Middleborough's many were begging for casino rights. Town meeting went two-to-one to bring this new level of gambling to their town and Massachusetts.

If you haven't been following this, click over to Ryan's Take for an excellent recent series on this process. In particular catch Oh, What a Surprise... and Casino Stink... I share his skepticism that this will be a longer-term positive for either that locale or the whole state. As Ryan notes, this is binary and not a vote on a single casino, rather on having tribal casinos in Massachusetts.

This is step two of five. First was negotiations by town officials and the Wampanoag nation. Now came the vote. Next up is seeking Gov. Deval Patrick's approval, followed by legislative votes here, and then assessment by the U.S. Dept. of the Interior (Bureau of Indian Affairs).

The Boston Globe reports today:

Middleborough, a town of about 22,000, is in dire financial straits. The town collects only $3.5 million in commercial and industrial annual taxes and is currently facing a $700,000 budget deficit. A Proposition 2 1/2 tax override for additional school funding was defeated in June.

That certainly is motivation. However, if this gets approved and Middleborough decides later that they would have been wise to pay for their own expenses with their own taxes, tough.

Follow-up contradiction: I did not see the Herald this morning. Massachusetts Liberal did, and reports that a second, non-binding town-meeting vote was that they did not favor casino gambling in Middleborough. Huh? As the Herald reported:

In a possible reflection of such concerns, Middleboro voters sent a distinctly ambivalent message yesterday: Despite their approval of the Wampanoag proposal, they voted down a nonbinding measure which asked whether the town approved of bringing casino gambling to Middleboro. It was overwhelmingly defeated by a hand vote.
“When they got to vote their conscience, they did that,” said activist Young. “I want people to know about the voices that were never heard. They were the concerns of (neighboring towns) Lakeville and Plympton. They get all the problems without any of the mitigation.”

Related Podcast: Ryan and I jumped up and down on casinos at this week's Left Ahead! podcast. Click the peas to download the 7.5MB file or load your MP3 software and listen.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, gambling, casinos, Wampanoag, Middleborough

Two Huge Questions for Candidates

Isn't there a single Dem candidate for President with 1) courage, 2) progressive vision, and 3) financial support? After the CNN/YouTube debate-like-object, folks turned away chatting a little about who'd talk to dictators. Yet, the clearest differentiation was what they did and didn't say about same-sex marriage.

The two huge question are still largely unanswered:

1. How can you claim to be for equal rights and still waffle over SSM or support civil unions?
2. How quickly will you see that DOMA falls and married people have equal federal rights?

The managing editor of the Washington Blade, Kevin Naff, asks the federal question clearly. An excellent recap of the candidates' equivocation appears in a Huffington Post post by Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry.

Only Dennis Kucinich had clear answers to marriage-equality questions. A variety of his other position are troublesome, but his plain, reasonable and humane approach here must be ice water down the backs of the cowardly competition. It's a good thing for them that he's perceived otherwise as a bit mad.

The theme from the other candidates is that they begrudgingly or willingly favor civil unions, but that marriage equality is outré. Yet, to a one, they claim to favor equal rights and claim to be gay friendly. Could it just be that they see the polls that most American would go with civil unions but a majority (51% to 58% depending on which) still oppose SSM?

Perhaps most irritating is John Edwards' befuddled hypocrisy here. This blogger thinks his wife need to turn him around on this. Wolfson used Johnny's YouTube non-answers to illustrate the problem.

Rev. Reggie Longcrier asked plainly, "Most Americans agree it was wrong and unconstitutional to use religion to justify slavery, segregation, and denying women the right to vote. So why is it still acceptable to use religion to deny gay Americans their full and equal rights?" Edwards failed, badly, and answered like the other top-tier candidates.

He rambled on about his personal conflicts and journey on this. He agreed that no President should use his personal religious beliefs in policy or law.

His response had Wolfson asking:

However, none of what Senator Edwards said answered the basic, and correct, question posed by Rev. Longcrier. Since the Senator rightly agreed that using "religion to deny gay Americans their full and equal rights" is wrong, and also believes, he says, in the provision of all legal rights and responsibilities, then why doesn't he support the freedom to marry under the law?

Next up, Barack Obama was all the more gutless and clueless. He muddled religious rituals with civil marriage. Yet Bill Richardson was to Wolfson's mind the weakest, saying that he'd work for what was achievable.

Nothing on the table is impossible. Achievable occurs when the leaders want something to happen.

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Tags: massmarrier, amendment, John Edwards, same sex marriage, Kucinich, civil unions, YouTube, Bill Richardson, Obama, Washington Blade, Wolfson, Huntington Post

Sloppy Sodomy Syllogism on the Slippery Slope

A wave of the wig to Bay Windows for drawing attention to Mass Family Institutes's buggery alert! MFI must be bored or depressed and need a distraction from their fantasy of replacing the entire legislature.

I am not aware of a Tortured Logic Award, but this would surely qualify. To the MFI folk, the most recent effort to clean up our laws in Chapter 272. Crimes Against Chastity, Morality, Decency and Good Order not only portends a slippery-slope to hell, but in doing so directly links homosexuality, bestiality and legislation.

In case you didn't notice, about a month ago, a Sherborn teen was caught on surveillance video having intercourse with a sheep. We naive and godless sorts might think he had personal issues and needed treatment. Well, MFI would like to educate us.

In their email alert item headlined A slippery slope: Local teen charged with bestiality, they let us know:

This incident highlights the path that the state and the nation are heading down with the legalization of same-sex “marriage” and the decriminalization of sodomy. It becomes very hard to define unacceptable sexual perversions once the government endorses some as acceptable.

So, unless I'm too dumb to get this, the implication is that the commonwealth wants to give its blessing to raping farm animals by tinkering with archaic chastity laws and by legalizing same-sex marriage.

Let no one ask, Jesus Christ, what are these MFI folk thinking? Under the omnibus bills that tinker with bestiality, they would also strike the risible blasphemy statute, which currently reads:

Section 36. Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.

The evil types who would shovel the archaic detritus from Chapter 272 include lead Cynthia Creem in the Senate and Byron Rushing in the House. We covered the embarrassing statutes in January. The most recent nearly identical repeal versions are here and here.

A key question comes as to whether we leave unenforced and perhaps unenforceable laws on the books to satisfy the bluenoses or whether we can get real. I personally don't approve of adultery, for example. I have managed to do without it for 31 years, longer than that if you include my scruples when single. However, I can't see the justification for our law (Section 14) that provides "imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in jail for not more than two years or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars." When I last checked, we are one of five states with any legal penalty for adultery.

For the picayune, the House version would strike Section 34, Crime Against Nature (Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than twenty years.) The Senate version change does not take away the 20-year penalty. It limits it to animals and does give an option of a fine of up to $5,000, which can be in lieu of or in addition to the the current bestiality sentence.

It's that liberality that seems to rile MFI. After they obsess about sex with animals, they demand to know what's wrong with sending someone to prison for 20 years for copulating with a sheep. Clearly treating their mental illness is not adequate. It would be far better to spend millions incarcerating them for two decades.

Who knows what the next leap of logic will be from these bozos?

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, MFI, BayWindows, bestiality, same sex marriage, Creem, Rushing

Dems See the Sword in the Stone

The American public appears to have thrown themselves at the feet of the Democrats. At the same time, the Dems are acting like daft adolescents unaware of their opportunities.

There's been a lot of proof of such trends. A major document in the area was the March 22nd Pew Research Center Report Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007, subtitled Political Landscape More Favorable to Democrats.

My pinko pessimistic self fears that there are so many DINOs in Congress that they cannot convert this into progressive change. On the other hand, just by standing still, they have come out on the good side of public opinion.

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Disclaimer: I don't put a whole lot of credence in most studies and surveys. Certainly those in medical journals and by political or other interest groups contradict each other and often phrase questions to get particular results. In contrast, the Pew Research Center has a very different reputation. For example, they have good sample sizes of representative groups, they repeat many of these studies for decades for comparisons, and they make all their questions and findings part of their reports.

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Pew has gone to the public on core political questions for over 20 years. The trends seem to speak to the Dems' inertia and lack of vision as much as to the GOP's immorality, greed and shameless pandering to moneyed interests. Those are my conclusions. Pew is much more circumspect.

I advise reading the report. The summary is here. The whole report with questions and results is here.

Key Trends

The summary lays out the gist, including:

Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew's longitudinal measures of the public's basic political, social and economic values. The proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong personal religious commitment also has declined modestly.

If you have noticed and been puzzled by other recent polls showing a low approval for Congress, including Dems, you can see what's happening with this. More and more American voters, particularly self-identified independents are leaning toward Democratic positions and identifying with the party. Yet, this is not the result of Dems' brains, vision or guts.

Instead, by my interpretation of the data, the GOP has fallen below the Democrats, who are standing still. The Republicans in both Executive and Legislative branches have acted so immorally, lied so often, been so corrupt that they have simply passed the stupefied Dems on the way down. Embarrassingly enough, voter approval of Dems has hardly wavered, hovering at 50% or a little above for the past decade and one half. Meanwhile, the GOP has seen its ratings go from 67% in in 1994 to 41% this year. See ya!

GOP Going Down

It's no surprise that the arrogance and incompetence of the Republican government has produced:

• Only one in three voters "satisfied with the way things are going in the country, a 25-point decrease in the past seven years."
• "Nearly three-quarters (73%) agree with this statement: 'Today it’s really true that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.' The percentage concurring with this statement has risen eight points since 2002 and represents the highest number in agreement since the early 1990s (80% in 1991)."
• 69% of Americans, including 58% of Republicans agree that "it is the government's responsibility 'to take care of people who can't take care of themselves" — a steadily rising percentage.
• Even with the unceasing drumbeat of terrorism, the percentage of Americans who believe that "The best way to ensure peace is through military strength" has fallen steadily to under half.
• Similarly after the thousands of dead U.S. soldiers, the percentage who agree that "We should get even with any country that tried to take advantage of the U.S." has fallen from a high of 61% to 40% with 54% disagreeing.
• Americans don't want us to torture anyone.
• The younger voters are the less problem they have or even think about homosexuality or same-sex marriage.
• A huge percentage (83%) of Americans are cool with interracial dating, even pre-Boomers (65%).

There are many other supporting trends. In short, this is a Democratic nation, ripe for real Democrats to step up and step in. The key questions is whether the nominal Dems in Congress really Democrats, much less progressives? Can they provide plans and programs to address the public's dissatisfaction and be, well, Democrats?

It's too easy to goof on the Republican voters. It's almost as though party affiliation is an intelligence test, one Republicans repeatedly fail. For one example, "Three-quarters of Republicans with household incomes of $50,000 or less say they are pretty well satisfied with the way things are going for them financially, compared with just 40% of Democrats and a similar share of independents (39%). Even among Republicans who say they often do not have enough money to make ends meet, nearly six-in-ten (58%) express
satisfaction in the way things are going for them financially. By contrast, just 30% of Democrats and 32% of independents who have trouble making ends meet say they are satisfied with their personal financial situation."

There are numerous other such findings in this study. I would like to think that the GOP doesn't necessarily attract most of the simple-minded Americans. There are Republican economists and others who do not appear to be dumb or delusional. Yet in numerous domestic and international issues, personal and broad, Republican respondents tow their President's like (like only 40% are concerned about government collecting their personal information).

Resilient American Dream

Amusingly enough, there seems to be one emotional blind spot widely shared. Remember that American dream — work hard and you have as good a chance as the well-born and well-connected to succeed? Well, all of us seem to hold that. The very rare come-from-nowhere winner is all that seems required here. Those who would agree that "Success in life is pretty much determined by forced outside of our control" are below half — 39% of independents, 35% of Democrats and 22% Republicans.

History and economics largely gainsay that view. As Leonard Cohen wrote:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich T
hat's how it goes
Everybody knows

No one can really explain how we believe that the rich are taking from the poor and simultaneously that we all have equal shots.

There is a cluster of other ironies thrown into the mix. For example, 45% overall want smaller government, including 68% of Republicans. Meanwhile, when we have GOP Executives and Legislative branches, we get much bigger government and much higher resulting deficits. Oops.

The picture overall from this report covering trends for two decades is intense. Any Dem politician who considers this at all accurate should be eager to act on its findings.

However, given the Bill-Clinton-style moderate-to-conservative Democrats we have been sending to Washington, and listening to the mush coming from nearly all their current Presidential aspirants, I have to wonder whether they can do it.

Can the Democrats articulate a vision to match the needs and desires of Americans, needs and desires that are largely progressive and egalitarian? It has been a long, long time, perhaps since post-WWI that this big a chance has presented itself.

If we had a Congress full of progressive leftists, this would not be an issue at all. With the current crop though, I am not sure 1) that they have the courage and vision to advance the necessary ends, and 2) whether American voters will or should believe DINOs trying to differentiate themselves from the failed Republicans.

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Tags: massmarrier, same sex marriage, Pew Research, Democrats, Republicans

Lots of Music....Free...Lowell

Don't be a maroon, as Bugs might say. This weekend is the 21st annual Lowell Folk Festival. Be there.

Roll it around in your brain pan -- 21 years. If you have never gone to this three-day free festival, 21 times shame on you. It's fabulous. We don't miss it.

We never return without at least one new favorite and some CDs. This is where we first heard Bobby Parker live and Shemekia Copeland. I tend toward blues. My uxorial unit plays and love acoustic -- like bluegrass. There's Cajun, gospel and world music.

Did I mention it was free? You can and should make a small donation to the wandering do-gooders for a sticker that shows you support this, and surely you'll chip in.

Anyway, this year's schedule is here. The sketches of the groups and artists, most with sample clips are here.

Friday evening through Sunday evening has multiple simultaneous performances within walking distance downtown.

Handicapping Saturday, I went heavy on my daytime favorite styles (links open short clips):

• Noon — James Hand
• 1 — No Speed Limit
• 2 — Dorado Schmitt
• 3 — Gonzalo Grau y La Clave Secreta
• 4 — Lost Bayou Ramblers
• 5 — Diunna Greenleaf & Blue Mercy

There's lots of good eating and drinking, both at stands and the restaurants and pubs. The music goes to 11 p.m. or so.

You may hate and avoid music we like, but there's stuff there you will like.

Cleverly, these Lowellites know that this is likely to bring you back at other times. Yet, if you only go there once a year. This is it. Be there.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, folk festival, music, Lowell

Listen Up, Deval: 2

We won. Now we have earned the hard, harder and hardest legislative climbs.

Even under assaults from the deceitful nasties on the anti-gay/anti-same-sex-marriage side, the good guys played nice...all the way through the June ConCon victory. While a few folk like KnowThyNeighbor were candid about evil doings, the pro-equality side showed amazing restraint.

Even advocates like MassEquality and interested observers like BayWindows bought into the first-things-first argument. The meme was that legislators and voters would be befuddled and maybe negative if the effort to defeat the amendment to halt SSM here included calls to fix underlying existing bad and malicious legislation.

Being an impatient and sometimes self-righteous sort (I loved the Lou Grant show), I called for such fundamental reforms during and after the 2006 general election.

Let's get back to business. Enough basking in the June victory. We have three legislative mountains to climb. We have a governor, lieutenant governor, house speaker and senate president who have records of supporting equal rights. They had to fight their reactive battle. Now it's time to pay some progressive dues.

Our mountains come in three sizes and difficulty factors. Let's see some action on:

• The foothill. We have two disgraceful laws on the books that should be easy pickings with a legislature that went over 75% to defeat that amendment. Particularly Chapter 207, Sections 11 and 12 are those shameful 1913 laws that forbid out-of-state couples from marrying here if their home states wouldn't recognize the law. These statues are irrational, tainted with racism and now hatred of homosexuals. They are an affront to our proclaimed love of liberty and equality here. They also insult all logic by pretending that every married same-sex couple here will remain Massachusetts residents forever. This climb should be quick and easy. This should be a one-day debate and a single vote in each house. There's no excuse not to knock this out now.
  

• The moderate grade. A steeper climb, but still an obvious goal is aligning the rest of Chapter 207 with the reality of SSM. At the end of an anti-SSM senate president's term and into a gormless and gutless one's, we had the Goodridge decision saying forbidding equal marriage violated our laws and constitution. The SJC ordered the legislature to fix that. Since, the anti-marriage-equality folk are wont to point out that the legislature hasn't changed the stray laws and regulations that use man/woman wording exclusively. The high court made it plain what's legal and what would permit challenges. This hill is tougher and gives the theocratic and anti-gay types the chance to rail about legislating what they say is immorality instead of freedom. The result should be clear victories in tweaking the laws, but the debate would be longer and less pleasant.
  

• The big push. Off in the distance is Mount Initiative. We dearly pride ourselves on being in the half of the nation that has citizen ballot initiatives to change laws and put constitutional amendments on the ballot. That will not and should not change, but their forms and looseness have been so abused that we have to admit that mean-spirited and hateful groups have forced limits on all of us. We need only to look to California to see the future of initiatives that cripple a state financially and in freedoms. Actually small refinements, such as prohibiting amendments that would strip existing rights from any minority, would likely solve the current issues. Although we already have a limit that forbids trying to overturn a court decision, our last governor and attorney general somehow weasel-worded out of that stricture last time. May we have learned our lesson. This is the toughest climb with the greatest chances to stumble. Expect accusations of autocracy, of stealing the right of the people for redress. Instead, the reality is that those who force these repairs would take rights from others, would unconstitutionally insert their private religion into law, and would try to turn the progressive right to overturn bad legislation into a tool for discrimination. This climb is the hard one, but the one that will provide the long-term benefit of showing the rest of the nation that we won't be held back or taken captive by those who would abuse the process for nefarious ends. This debate could be many months and dozens of hearings before long debates. It will be worth it to get it right.

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Tags: massmarrier, ballot initiatives, same-sex marriage, 1913 Laws, Deval Patrick

Impotent Threats on SSM

That sound from deep in the well is the Massachusetts Family Institutes's battle cry. The dwindling party of anti-gay, anti-same-sex-marriage forces who lost their last stand at the Constitutional Convention in June still can make muffled shrieks.

[Note: I touched up Kris' MFI pic by increasing the contrast. He looked inhumanly spectral and pale there. By the way, that's he on the right.]

MFI is spinning its withdrawal from the petition business. According to several sources, including WBUR, the nasties admit they can't get it together for a 2010 ballot drive. With the voters and legislature having moved on and back into the real world, and with every poll showing increasing majority acceptance of same-sex marriage, MFI is toast. It will be fascinating to see if they can milk more money from their previous supporters.

According to today's Boston Globe, FMI President Kris Mineau continues to push the fantasy that they will oust the pro-equality legislators and create a group that will pass their regressive, repressive platform. Apparently that would ideally be the 75% plus of the combined two houses on Beacon Hill.

However, he may have noticed that the last time they targeted pro-marriage-equality legislators, every one of MFI's candidates lost and every gay-friendly one won. Meanwhile, the legislator and voters have turned to education, health, highways and other pressing issues. Finally, the host of pro-equality allies did not disappear when the good guys one.

The resolve is there to prevent this kind of hate campaign here again, as is the gratitude to the legislators. "Over 200,000 members of MassEquality will be there to strongly support every legislator who voted in support of equality," said their campaign director Marc Solomon. "We've been there every step of the way."

The MFI man said, "We acknowledge that our support in the current Legislature is weak, but our support among the people is tremendous...This campaign is far from over, believe me. Some of these legislators will go away, but we will not."

It would not be a fair wager on who's going away here. In fact, we're standing by our prediction that Mineau will move on before too long, likely muttering and whining all the way.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, amendment, Mineau, MassEquality, same sex marriage, ConCon

NM Joins RI in MA SSM

Huh? Block that acronym!

Put this in the 90% probability category. I say that GLAD says that Massachusetts Department of Public Health says that New Mexico is like Rhode Island for same-sex marriage licenses here. Huh?

According to GLADs blog, the legal strictures in both states permit their same-sex couples to wed in Massachusetts. Our inane and discriminatory 1913 laws forbid out-of-state couples from marrying here if that union would be illegal at home. We have called for the overturn of those laws and wonder why our gay-friendly governor, lieutenant governor, house speaker and senate president don't knock this flimsy structure down.

Regardless, apparently the Land of Enchantment also lacks laws forbidding SSM. So, whether it's an emotional satisfaction or preparation for legal action, here's the place for the Santa Feans and others to get it on.

For the other 10% of assurance, GLAD's note appeared in my box after closing hours at the government here. Neither the GLAD site nor either of the Massachusetts government ones (or the two big NM dailies) had the news report or any link to "a corrective notice to all Massachusetts city and town clerks authorizing them to allow same-sex couples from New Mexico to apply for marriage licenses."

GLAD's oversight is understandable. They aren't too technologically savvy and they also used this as a way to plug their own online pubs about same-sex marriage. We type A folk would like to verify this, but it seems reasonable.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, same sex marriage, New Mexico, GLAD

Wingers Playing Nasty

Tough games -- think rugby and lacrosse -- lack dainty politeness. The rough play of the wingers in recent months and years suggests that they would rather win than concur or cooperate.

We've heard their incivility in discourse, both in legislatures and on the street. More recently we see a one-two of escalation to the physical with an unwillingness to make responsibility, much less apologize. This blog covered and linked to a couple of these cases, such as here.

A consistent theme in such assaults (once they stop pretending that it never happened) is that the victims made them do it, as in deserved violence because they held an opposing view. That put me in Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine, to my water polo days.

On swimming teams in high school and college, we'd play and as a breaststroker with powerful legs, I'd usually be the deep-end goalie. Water polo seems to have rules well suited to an Ann Coulter or Larry Cirignano. When you get the ball, the other team can pretty much do what they want to get it, like force you under the water and hold you there. There's even a devilish twist in that it is a foul to put the ball under the surface at any time; even if you are tackled from behind and the tackler pushes your arm, if the ball goes under, the foul is on you.

Such as it was last week as a likely preview of what will happen in the Cirignano case if he does not cop a plea. His lawyer said that the victim had no business being there, with the implication that she got what was coming when she got shoved to the ground from behind.

To his credit, Worcester District Court Judge John Riccardione said free speech and the right to assemble trumped that inane claim. He rejected the motion to dismiss the civil-rights portion of the charges against Cirignano, which tried to say it was the same case as when Wacko Hurley and chums won the right to exclude gay groups from the South Boston St. Patrick's Day parade.

As the judge wrote in his opinion:

In holding her sign at the rally here, the complainant was simply expressing a view contrary to that being generally supported. This is speech which is clearly and unassailably protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and by the Massachusetts Bill of Rights,. To conclude otherwise would allow the group that arrives at the city licensing office first to censor the free expression of speech in a particular area of the city at any given time. This is an unsupportable proposition under constitutional law.

The rights of others and the commonweal seem far too difficult concepts for the current crop of righty activists. Yet, we can hope that Judge Ricciardone's views let us all and each have a say without being intimidated by bullies and thugs.

This particular case is not due to set a date for a trial until an August 20th hearing. In addition, this is only at the district court level. Yet, Ricciardone seems to have a keen respect both for law and for our shared liberties.

In an ideal world, Cirignano would have seen the inside of a jail quickly as some punk who starts a bar brawl is likely to. That's been his level. In addition, he likely would have had to apologize and admit his errors. That often works for little kids as well as bullies.

We can follow this and see whether slippery Larry can ooze his way out of this. Stopping such abuse of others is long overdue here. This is one trend that must come to an abrupt halt.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same-sex marriage, Worcester, Cirignano

Elizabeth Edwards Still Talking

Busy people. Busy day. (That was an early reader when my kids were of that age.) I've been gone and am catching up.

Meanwhile, Salon has a worthwhile interview with Elizabeth Edwards. Unlike her husband and all the other Democratic candidates for President except the wild one, she remains candid and clear speaking.

Consider her remarks related to same-sex marriage:

You're here in San Francisco again for another gay rights event. Why do you support gay marriage? Why not civil unions?

I remember hearing [former GOP Sen. Rick] Santorum ranting about how homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. I could be wrong, but I think heterosexual marriage is threatened more by heterosexuals. I don't know why gay marriage challenges my marriage in any way.

But your husband feels differently; he's a civil unions guy.

Well, I think it's a struggle for him, having grown up in a Southern Baptist church where it was pounded into him. I was raised a Methodist in military churches. Poverty was talked about; I don't remember homosexuality ever being mentioned. And I don't think that Christians who aren't engaged in a political campaign ever talk about it. They talk about poverty and other issues talked about in the Bible. But in churches, in political season, there's plenty of ginning up this issue.

John Boy should listen to the missus.

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Tags: massmarrier, amendment, Elizabeth Edwards, same sex marriage,