Friday, April 3, 2009
What a concept: Gays and lesbians have rights?
Yes, evidently, outside of the state of Arizona, some people believe this to be true. Where? America's heartland. The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage today.
"We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."
From the opponents:
"I would say the mood is one of mourning right now in a lot of ways, and yet the first thing we did after internalizing the decision was to walk across the street and begin the process of lobbying our legislators to let the people of Iowa vote," said Bryan English, spokesman for the conservative group the Iowa Family Policy Center.
One pastor's response is that it opens the door to more perversions. "What's next?," he asks.
Well, how about ending the perversion of denying folks equal rights?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
OK, there really isn't a study, and I included some bad poetry in my title, don't let that keep you from experiencing what you know is true: Poetry is cool.
The Tucson Poetry Festival kicked off last night, but the meat of the feast is this weekend, giving you plenty of time to take in some wonderful poets, like Samantha Barrow, Gina Franco, Buddy Wakefield and Andrea Gibson. I happen to be excited at the possibility of listening to Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation (right) and a professor of linguistics at the UA. Another is Brian Turner, a solider-poet who served in Iraq. Zepeda and Wakefield read tonight at the Tucson High School library. Schedule HERE.
From Turner:
HERE, BULLET
If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta's opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.
Scoop up the young'uns this weekend for a presumably abridged version of The Princess Bride designed to fit the tunnels and castles of the Valley of the Moon.
It's free for kids 6 and under and just $3 for young adults from 7 to 13. Big folk pay $5. Proceeds go toward fixing up the Valley of Moon, which is in need of a little magic. Show times and more details here.
What is the Valley of the Moon, you ask?
The Onion reveals what's really bringing Obama down: The end of BSG.
WASHINGTON—According to sources in the White House, President Barack Obama has been uncharacteristically distant and withdrawn ever since last month's two-hour series finale of Battlestar Galactica."The president seems to be someplace else lately," said one high-level official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Yesterday we were all being briefed on the encroachment of Iranian drone planes into Iraq, when he just looked up from the table and blurted out, 'What am I supposed to watch on Fridays at 10 p.m. now? Numb3rs?'"
"I'm a little concerned," first lady Michelle Obama was overheard saying at a fundraising event Tuesday. "When Firefly was canceled, he walked around like a zombie for a week, and Serenity was the only thing that snapped him out of it. Last night he said he felt like he had just discovered David Axelrod was one of the Final Five, whatever that means."
Espresso Pundit wonders if J. Fife Whiteguy III would challenge Gov. Jan Brewer. We can't figure out if it was just a sly April Fool's Day prank.
Fife's budget plan: Put all the state's assets into his wife's name and then have Arizona declare bankruptcy!
One day after GOP congressional leaders unveiled a tax proposal that actually raises taxes on the middle-class while cutting them for the wealthiest Americans, The New York Times delivers some smack to Sen. Jon Kyl for his push to cut inheritance taxes for the ultra-wealthy:
The Senate budget debate began this week against a backdrop of war and recession, rising unemployment and surging foreclosures, runaway health care costs and diminishing insurance coverage — to name just a few of the nation’s big problems. But for Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, and Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, the most pressing issue is clear: America’s wealthiest families need help. Now.The two senators plan to propose an amendment to deeply cut estate taxes for the fraction of the top 1 percent of the population still subject to those levies.
The proverbial millionaires next door — the plumbers, contractors and accountants who amass substantial wealth through hard work and modest living — are not the intended beneficiaries of the proposed cut. The Obama budget already takes care of them, because it retains today’s law, which imposes the estate tax only on couples with property worth more than $7 million, or individuals with property worth more than $3.5 million. That means 99.8 percent of estates will never — ever — pay a penny of estate tax.
And, later:
With all the serious work before Congress, it is a colossal waste of time to have to rebut the false claims and warped premises of ardent estate-tax cutters.
Who is Kyl taking economic advice from these days? Joe the Plumber?
The media biz hackings continue.
Employees of Journal Communications—which includes the Journal Broadcast Group's KGUN Channel 9 and four radio stations in Tucson—got this notice today.
Here's an excerpt:
Today we announce an additional company-wide cost saving effort—An Employee - Wage Reduction Program. Here is how it will work:• Beginning with our first pay period in the second quarter, full-time employees will take a 6% base pay reduction for the balance of 2009.
• These full-time employees will receive 10 personal days off to be used between April 7, 2009 and December 31, 2009. The personal days off will not be paid out upon separation from the company, will not be accrued, and can not be carried over into 2010.
• Our current intention is to restore employee compensation in 2010. Of course the decision depends upon the business conditions at that time.
From time to time, Erik Ryberg's Bike Lawyer blog has a new entry about his assistant, Lauren, who is now riding her bike across the country, heading east from Tucson. Of course, Lauren and her friend maintain a blog about their experience.
What I like most about the blog: the cool pictures they've taken of road kill they come across in their travels (like the picture above).
When we get in our cars and head out for a good road trip, the view of road kill is obviously different. Lauren's pictures have made me realize I've never really appreciated road kill before. Some pictures are of typical guts on the road, but most of them are interesting, beautiful and often tell a sad story about what cars leave behind on the big open road.
The photo above is one of my favorites, although our art director insists the picture was staged. I'd like to think it wasn't.
On Tuesday, San Francisco Chronicle management reported that 120 employees voluntarily agreed to leave as part of an effort to save costs to keep the paper running.
Sound familiar?
The company is expected to announce on Friday how many buyout applications it receives in this ongoing round of cuts and cuts.
Reaction to the possible/eventual shutdown of the major daily has been interesting. The San Francisco Bay Guardian is keeping tabs, and a group of SF citizenry is exploring life after the Chronicle through a digital lense.
And, of course, in the wake of newspapers struggling across the country, there remains plenty of passion and perspective.
