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The true leader of the Republican party…well said, sir:
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Q. What’s the difference between a member of the KKK and gay marriage opponents?
A. One burns crosses while the other misuses them to prop up his/her hatred.
Make no mistake – yesterday was an absolutely huge day in Massachusetts, and the future may prove it to be the start of something huge nationwide. By a vote of 151 to 45, the Massachusetts legislature killed a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution that would, in effect, ban gay marriage. For those of you not familiar with Massachusetts, it became the first state to legalize gay marriage when the state Supreme Court declared that banning gay marriage would be in violation of the state constitution. In the time since, those who would seek to deny civil rights have aggressively (and according to some reports – illegally) gone on the warpath. In Massachusetts, if enough people sign off on their desire to vote on an issue, session(s) of the Constitutional Convention is used to determine whether or not the issue should be added to the general election ballot. 1/4 of the the legislature must approve of putting the amendment on the ballot on two separate occasions. Previously, the legislature had approved the amendment appearing on ballots, but yesterday, they made a firm stand against the specter of politics driven by misguided hate and misinterpreted Bible passages. As a result, gay marriage is pretty much guaranteed to be legal in Massachusetts until 2012 at the earliest. Of course, you could have read that in any respectable news source. Instead of merely summarizing facts, I plan on offering cogent and honest analysis of the issues. There are several points to be covered here:
I. Concisely, the actual effects of yesterday’s political decision are that people who are truly in love can get married in this state, regardless of their sexual preference. Anyone who is married will receive full legal recognition and the benefits associated with such legislation. Love wins.
II. We must speak of Kris Mineau and some of his followers:
They have made several arguments against both the concept of gay marriage and the way in which the politicking regarding yesterday’s vote was conducted. All the arguments are about as solid as a Nerf ball. In no particular order:
A. Gay marriage somehow harms all other marriages.
For this one, I’m going to let the readers do the talking. Simply add a comment to this entry that reflects how your marriage fell apart once the gays began marrying. Be sure to demonstrate the connection between the ability of gays to marry to your own failed relationships. I’ll make a deal with my entire readership: if one person writes in with a convincing, compelling story of how gay marriage has destroyed their own marriage, then I will not only switch my beliefs on this issue, I will become a Yankees fan. (Yes, I am so certain that no one will pass the challenge that I am offering my soul as the reward.)
B. Gays getting married doesn’t gibe with my religious beliefs.
Too bad, buttercup. The United States was intentionally founded with a separation of church and state so that religious doctrine didn’t determine political policy. I wonder why that might be? Oh, riiiiiight, because the Pilgrims were fleeing a country where religion had become overly intertwined with politics and the results were disastrous. Many falsely claim that the Founding Fathers were religious zealots and wanted the U.S. to be a Christian nation. This quote might defeat that argument:
“As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”
So who said it? Some liberal looking to write revisionist history? Someone who didn’t trust religion? Well…1 out of 2, as it turns out. Joel Barlow made that claim as part of the Treaty of Tripoli, a document he wrote. The Treaty of Tripoli was unanimously approved by the Senate. In1797. You’ll never guess who was serving in the Senate at that time – many of the Founding Fathers. D’oh! Guess history doesn’t support the idea that religion should be interwined with politics. If you are that against the idea of gay marriage, just spend your entire life in a Catholic or Mormon church, and you won’t have to see any.
C. Not allowing the people to vote was a perversion of American democracy.
Actually, that argument demonstrates a woeful understanding of United States civics. In a true, or direct democracy, everyone is allowed to vote on the important issues. This system works well in small town meetings and in family decisions about where to go for dinner. Unfortunately, such freedoms are rather impossible to guarantee in a nation of almost 300 million. Recognizing that, those who created America (back to them, again) made America not a democracy, but a democratic republic. As such, everyone over the age of 18 is allowed to participate in the political process; either by running for political office or by voting for those who do run for office. (It is true that it is nearly impossible to run for higher office in this country unless you are straight, white, Christian, and filthy rich, but that is a complex issue and will be discussed in another post). Once an election has concluded, those who have assumed office are then given the task of representing their constituents beliefs. In this case, about 170,000 people (assuming that many of the charges of misconduct by those collecting signatures are shown to be false) showed that they wished to vote on the proposed amendment by signing a petition. After doing a little math with the numbers provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the estimated voting-age population of Massachusetts in 2006 was 4,969,513. Doing a little more math:
Wow, 3 percent. I’m sure about 3 percent of Americans believe that we would be better off eating a diet consisting solely of puppies, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea, or that the government should enact legislation regarding such beliefs. For those conservative readers of mine who are whining about how a true democracy would have prevented this catastrophe, a couple of things:
1. Actually, it seems likely that in this most liberal of states, gay marriage would be upheld by the citizenry, even though repugnant Republicans from all around the country would open their checkbooks to lobby against it.
2. Consider how well you’ve made out from a system that deemphasizes direct democracy. I could go on forever, but 3 things immediately stand out:
a. Al Gore, who received more votes, would have won the 2000 election.
b. The Iraq War would have ended months ago.
c. The Patriot Act would not have passed.
I am not an inherent supporter of democratic republics, but it is the model of government in the U.S. Until that changes, we must all learn to live with it. If you want to change it, go out there and get some signatures calling for Constitutional amendments – I hear that tactic works real well. Before you do, you might want to examine how ridiculous the logic you and those who think similarly to you employ really is – take it away, Stephen:
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P.S. Congratulations to all of those couples, both gay and straight, whose marriages are now legal, or whose marriages carry added significance, now that the right to wed has been made universal by the Massachusetts legislature. I know that if I am ever fortunate enough to marry the woman I love, the marriage will mean more because I know that I am not entering into an exclusionary contract. Lastly, to the Massachusetts legislature, thank you, and
A couple of goodies from the Internet. First off, I have always been intrigued by Finland. Beautiful location, fascinating history, and happy people, according to at least one study. Now, they, or at least those running Helsinki, seem to be a step ahead of everyone else in the world with the way they distribute information about their public transport. First, they attached GPS devices to each bus that runs a city route. They then uploaded the information transmitted by the GPS device (namely, location) to a company that mashes up the bus location and progress with a Google Maps depiction of the city. The result is a fascinating cross between everyday life as art and functionality. I don’t even live in Helsinki, so I won’t be catching any of those buses anytime soon, but simply watching them zigzag around the city is endlessly fascinating. Give it a try.
On a somewhat different note:
For a long time, Matt Damon has been mildly under the radar, considering he owns an Academy Awards (and deserves at least one more) and has made consistently entertaining and well-done films, from Good Will Hunting to the Bourne Identity to The Departed. Of course, it also goes without saying that his short and shocking appearance in EuroTrip may be one of the best cameos of all time. With all that being said, he is not as flashy or as fast to embrace the Hollywood lifestyle as some of his colleagues, and I get the feeling the accompanying lack of attention is fine with him. However, that may begin to change if he continues to make such memorable appearances on late-night talk shows. Damon, of course, is a born and raised Bostonian, and, accordingly, a life-long fan of the greatest baseball team on Earth. As the Late Show with David Letterman happens to be taped in New York City, Damon had a little fun with the hot start for the Red Sox at the expense of New Yorkers wallowing in the Yankees’ dismal play:
Absolutely awesome. Keep up the good work, Matt – I’m off to the see the Red Sox game…
As much as I love the summer, I will admit that it has been a bit slow-paced since I left the bustling metropolis that is Amherst. Home has been rewarding and fun, and home-cooking has been delicious. However, for this odd week and a half period of limbo before I begin work in San Francisco, none of these adjectives really apply between approximately 9:34 AM (an arbitrary time for waking up) and whenever the dinner bell happens to ring.
As such, today was my first foray into summer life since last August. I woke up to my sister asking me for a ride to the hospital, which was a rather unpleasant way to begin the day. She assuaged my concern by informing that she wasn’t sick and that she hadn’t lost an arm in a freak unicycle accident; she merely needed to get a series of shots before she left for France.
We drove over through the beginning of what seemed to be a Boston-area typhoon, and after a bit of a wait, she got her shots and then we got out of there. As we walked out, she told me that her one errand was really more like three errands, and before I knew it, we had visited our Grandmother to drop off some Tupperware (seriously), and then visit Target to pick up a few last-minute supplies for her excursion.
We returned home and she got to packing while I got to reading. My book of choice these days is, oddly enough, about France in a roundabout way:
The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski
The book tells the story of Bernard Loiseau, a man who rose from a childhood spent peeling potatoes in numerous kitchens to become perhaps the most famous chef in the world, cooking in the famous La Cote d’Or. Loiseau did so by relying more upon the strength of his personality and will more than on any marvelous talent for cooking. Tragically, as the reader learns in the first chapter, Loiseau took his own life after reaching the pinnacle of his profession. Using the world of French cuisine as a backdrop, Chelminksi traces Louiseau’s ascension to culinary royalty, and also attempts to speculate about the reasons behind about his eventual downfall. I know it sounds very macabre, but in fact, the tone of the book is breezy; I have smiled far more often than I have frowned while reading through the book. I would highly recommend the book to anybody looking for an interesting look into not only cooking, but into a uniquely alternately charmed and tragic life.
After spending a few hours reading, I bore down and did a little bit of that most dreaded of domestic duties: unpacking. Taking an entire apartment and attempting to fit it into a single bedroom is a task equal to Hercules’ cleaning the Augean stables in one day.
Unfortunately, there are no rivers nearby, so this task is going to take considerably more than twenty-four hours. Having rationalized that this was a long-term effort, and having put in an honest effort for several hours, I decided to turn my attention towards something more important, such as catching up on Scrubs via two reruns on Comedy Central. (Incidentally, I take the title of this post from a line from that show, not from some secret urge to make things even with long-time nemesis.) It’s now roughly an hour after my mini-marathon, and I honestly can not think of any regrets for the day. It would have been nice if Mother Nature had been a little more cooperative so that I could have spent more time outside, but I hope she’ll make it up to me tomorrow with sunny skies and a steady breeze. In the meantime, I’m off to catch up with some friends and watch the Sox game – have a good night, readers, and I’ll catch you all tomorrow…
Futbol, or football, or soccer, has long gotten the short stick in the United States. It blows my mind that people still don’t see the beauty, intensity, and ridiculous skill that go into executing a proper give and go, bending a free kick into the back of the net, or making a fingertip save on a rocket from 20 yards out. In my eternal quest to bring the sport to people’s attention, I rely on old friend Youtube for not one, not two, but three soccer videos. I know people have different preferences, so I decided to really dig deep and find three fairly different videos. Without further ado, I present:
1. A lengthy montage of the best goals from the 2006 World Cup (careful, kiddies, there is some R-rated language on the accompanying track thanks to Ice Cube):
2. Another hip-hop themed video, even if it has no vocals; this one is intended as a comparison of and tribute to perhaps the two best players of the last decade: Ronaldhino and Zinedine Zidane (yes, the guy who head-butted that Italian fellow in the World Cup finals). As the video proves, he is more than simply a guy with a hard head; he has soft feet:
3. Lastly, for those of you with a shorter attention span, and/or a dislike of hip-hop, I present what I think was the best goal of the year: Robin Van Persie of Arsenal (my favorite club team) accomplishing something that roughly 3 other people on Earth might be able to match:
If those videos haven’t persuaded you, I feel mildly despondent. However, I will not give up being the American ambassador to the world of futbol. In the meantime, have a good afternoon, readers, and try to stay dry.
So I kicked off my weekend (and coincidentally, my return to Eastern Massachusetts), with a stop at the Tweeter Center to see Fall Out Boy. There were some traffic nightmares getting there, but once I arrived, it was all good. I met up with some very special friends, and we started staking out a spot in the parking lot where we could, you know, park. While driving through the parking lot, we noticed that other than the parents who were accompanying some of the kids, we were pretty much the oldest kids there – everyone else was in middle school or high school. That sobering reminder was mitigated somewhat when we saw a number of prepubescent emo kids being arrested for underage possession – who says being over 21 is a bad thing?? After parking, we engaged in typical concert activities, such as playing Canasta. Unfortunately, the card game was ruined by a sudden downpour (I thought April was for showers and May was for flowers? Silly confused Mother Nature – it must be the fault of El Nino!), and so we were forced to batten down the hatches and proceed into the concert.
We missed most of the opening acts, so we only had about an hour to wait around before the boys from Fall Out came on-stage. It would be cliche to say they were worth the wait, so instead, I will just say they were quite enjoyable. I failed to get a complete set list, or to record the show, two failures that instantly have lost me a few readers who may have been under the misapprehension that this was a hardcore music blog. To make it up to the rest of you, I did a little Internet trolling and found a bite-sized preview of my experience:
I was pleased to notice that Fall Out Boy honored some of their long time fans by playing more than just their most recent album. Although it is by no means comprehensive, a partial list of the tunes they played includes:
All in all, it was a fantastic show, even if we felt like senior citizens trapped in a rain shower – a memorable night all around, and I’m glad I got down there. Hopefully it will be the first of many concerts this summer…
The perfect pictorical metaphor for the way the the AL East race is going:
The Red Sox running full steam ahead…
while the Yankees, including Robinson Cano, have certainly been playing like they had the breath knocked out of them for most of the season thus far. For those of you expecting a photo of Doug Mint-kay-vich lying unconscious on the Fenway infield, I expect you might be a Yankees fan? Sox fans are a little classier than that. Anyhow, solid win for the Sox (again), even if it was a bit of an unorthodox game what with the rain delay, the accident at 1st base, and all the other chaos. The latest news seems to be that Doug Mientkiewicz (sure, I could have abbreviated it “Doug M.” but then you’d probably assume I was talking about the current Sox catcher) will go on the 15-day Disabled List, but his noggin seems to be relatively fine. I certainly hope that prognosis holds up – get well soon, Doug, so you can continue to watch your old team put the screws to your current squad. Have a good, albeit rainy, Sunday afternoon, peoples.
Alex Rodriguez. Let’s discuss. On the one hand, he is a fantastic ballplayer. Dude is almost certain to break the all-time home-run mark, no matter how high Barry “The Cream and Clear” Bonds sets the record. That is something every baseball fan can appreciate, especially considering he has never been suspected of steroid use, which is more than his teammate Juicin’ Giambi and many others can not say. On the other hand, he is, quite frankly, a petulant whiny little bitch.
Consider his slap happy play against Bronson Arroyo and the Red Sox, pictured above. Or the dalliances with ugly prostitutes of which his wife can read about in the morning paper. Or his latest transgression: trying to distract players on the opposite team as they attempt to catch a pop-up. The latest A-Rod act, quite frankly, is bush league. The last time it was socially acceptable to yell at the other team during play was in 4th grade when the game took place during recess and the winners got to trade their celery sticks for Dunkaroos the next day.
The last person older than the age of 11 to use such a distraction tactic? This guy:
In case you don’t get the reference, that is Judge Elihu Smails, the supreme jackass from the seminal 1980′s film; Caddyshack. A classic film, and a classic suckbag. He uses every distraction tactic in the book. In fact, perhaps the only man in history to be as nefariously evil as Smails on the golf course is this man:
Again, for those that are not up to speed…that is Auric Goldfinger, one of the all-time great James Bond villains. 007 killed him for cheating on the golf course. (Actually, he killed him because he was attempting to irradiate the United States gold supply at Fort Knox, but that is mainly irrelevant – the primary point is that dirty players ultimately get owned in the end).
The secondary point is that A-Rod is starting to resemble a cross between Smails and Goldfinger, and I don’t mean because all three are both rich beyond comprehension. If A-Rod doesn’t start acting like a 4th grader at recess, it is safe to say that he will go down in history as the greatest crybaby/slugger to ever player Major League Baseball.
Just be thankful I chose a sketch rather than an actual photograph of someone throwing up.
I actually am feeling a little under the weather – a sore throat and an ear ache. However, the title of my post was more of a example of figurative language than a literal description of my well-being. Why, you ask? The disappointing news coming out about the health care industry.
For the first two decades or so of my life, I have been exceedingly fortunate to have two parents that work hard every day. As part of their compensation, they are given health insurance for themselves and their dependents, which, of course, includes me. I have regularly been to dentists, eye doctors, and all the rest, and as far as I know, am in excellent health, thanks in part to these frequent visits. However, as I now approach independence, it is quite possible that I will be without health insurance for a while, especially as I live in Europe.
I am well aware that exactly none of my readers will have any pity for me for living without health insurance while residing in the City of a Hundred Spires. However, I have also noticed many stories about companies cutting health care for their employees because billionaire owners want to get richer at the expense of their employees. As such, I am worried that I will not be able to obtain health care for myself or for those I love at a reasonable cost, even while living in the United States. These fears seem to be confirmed by an article that suggests the U.S. lags far behind other countries in terms of taking care of it’s citizen’s health, even though we spend twice as much as any other country. The reason why?
May I humbly suggest the corporate vultures who reside in their aeries atop drug companies and health insurance companies are to blame? Before you get all angry because your husband or wife or second cousin once removed works for Pfizer, check this out. If that doesn’t do it for you, then read this article and reflect upon your emotions. Feeling a little less justified in your anger, I hope? Chasing the almighty dollar is no excuse for allowing thousands to die because they cannot afford your product. How rich does someone really need to be? Quite frankly, those who stand atop the health insurance and medicinal industry disgust me, and I sincerely hope something changes before millions more die because of greed. Is the expectation of a relatively healthy and fulfilling life something we can no longer count on here in the United States? If so, then this failure must be added to many others that cumulatively are sinking the U.S.S. United States.
Anyone who interacts with me regularly knows that I do not understand the appeal of World of Warcraft or other such games. I’m glad they bring joy to many thousands (millions?) of people, they just are not for me. As such, I occasionally make fun of the game, and quite enjoyed the South Park episode that made fun of WoW:
Nonetheless, I thought this was a wonderful story, and I’m feeling like spreading a little joy of my own today. Enjoy the read, and enjoy the afternoon.
