Maryland Highest Court Agrees To Decide Marriage Equality

The day after the Washington State Supreme Court punted on the question of whether bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional, the Maryland Court of Appeals agreed to hear oral arguments in December in the case Deane v. Conaway. In addition, New Jersey's highest court has a marriage case Lewis v. Harris currently pending and of course there are numerous ways (judicially, legislatively or popularly) marriage equality can be achieved in California.

REVIEW: Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana"

My friend Rod introduced me to the work of Guy Gavriel Kay, who he called his favourite author. The book he lent (gave?) me was Tigana. I am more of a hard sci-fi fan than a fantasy guy, although like Rod I appreciate both forms of "speculative fiction." However it's my opinion that compelling books are compelling books, regardless of the genre. For example, I rattled off the names of four or five of my favourite speculative fiction authors that Rod had not tried: Peter F. Hamilton (Night's Dawn trilogy), Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy), Dan Simmons (Ilium, Olympos, Hyperion, etc) and John Varley (Red Thunder, Red Lightning). He had already read Christopher Paolini's Eragon and Eldest, the latter which I was currently reading at the time and was very familar with the oeuvre of Raymond Feist. Two of these authors are considered juvenile fiction (Pullman and Paolini) and three are more fantasy than hard-core sci-fi (Pullman, Paolini and Feist). Simmons is pretty hard to classify, actually but I'd say he's closer to sci-fi than fantasy in general but Ilium is replete with Greek gods and goddesses and the Trojam War of Homer's Iliad being re-enacted on Mars. In the future. After there only a million humans left on Earth who have forgotten how to read and are completely dependent upon dangerous looking robotic servants for all their survival needs and whose lives mysteriously end after exactly 100 years.

Anyway, on to Tigana! The novel has a beautifully crafted setting: The Palm, which is a land of multiple provinces in a state of intense political tension finely balanced between two powerful magicians and dictators. The reader's point of view is provided by Devin d'Asoli, a teenaged singer who discovers some shocking information about himself and who finds himself swept up in the most important historical events of his time. The significance of the title of the novel is the name of a country whose name and history has been stripped from the hearts and minds of The Palm. Only people who were born in Tigana can say or hear the word; everyone else has been bewitched by the evil wizard named Brandin. The Palm is also a land rich with religious and cultural traditions which Guy Gavriel Kay weaves into his telling of a compelling, suspenseful story.

GRADE: A

REVIEW: Orange Hill Beach Inn (Nassau, Bahamas)

I stayed at the Orange Hill Beach Inn for one night in June and was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere of the place. The room was very clean, and pretty big, although this made it difficult for the one air conditioner unit to really keep the place very cool. (Check out the picture of my room on the left.) The highlights of the place is the EXCELLENT food. I had dinner and breakfast there. Dinner was very reasonable (about 16-20 dollar entrees) with things like curried beef with cucumber raita, roasted stuffed chicken, etc. Breakfast was a buffet style, but amazingly the scrambled eggs were kept swarm and supple in a steam table.
The management is very easy going and pleasant. When I was leaving the owner of the place gave me a free ride ti the airport because she said she was picking up an arriving friend about 30 minutes later (the airport is between 5-10 minutes away).
The only downside to staying there is that it is somewhat far from the center of "town." It takes about 30 minutes to get to downtown Nassau on the bus, which runs pretty intermittently and on "island time." But downtown Nassau is a cruise-ship plagued tourist-packed nightmare of cheap tchotchkes and overpriced, supercooled boutiques.

GRADE: A-

Reaction To WA State Marriage Ruling: A Dream Deferred

In a decision the New York Times called "angrily divided" and the Los Angeles Times described as a "major setback" the Washington State Supreme Court ultimately ruled 5-4 that their state's Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional and declared that there was no "fundamental right to same-sex marriage." As Professor William Rubinstein of the UCLA Law School's Williams Institute noted, "[T]he court is almost evenly and very bitterly divided." There was a plurality opinion joined by three judges, which the two most conservative judges joined in the judgment but wrote their own concurrent opinion which directly contradicted some of the statements made in the controlling opinion! But 3 votes plus 2 votes is 5 votes and that's how marriage equality opponents reached majority support on the Washington State Supreme Court.

It's really quite nauseating how similar the language of the majority opinion in Anderson is to the now-discredited majority opinion in Bowers vs Hardwick. The Anderson opinion frames the question at hand of whether there is a "fundamental right to same-sex marriage" when really the question is whether everyone has the right to marry the person of their choice, regardless of their sex. This is identical to the rhetorical shift made by Justice Byron White as he sneered there was no "right to homosexual sodomy" when really the question at hand was whether there was a right for an adult to have consensual sex with the person of their choice, regardless of their sex.

Both decisions were very closely decided (Justice Powell later revealed--to a closed gay law clerk!-- that he had initially intended to vote to strike down Georgia's sodomy law but declined to do so because he claimed that since he didn't know anyone gay, it really wasn't a very important case) and had (and will have) dramatic impact on the rights of gays and lesbians. It took seventeen years before the error in judgment was overturned by 2003's Lawrence vs Texas. How long will we have to wait to get past the shadow of Hernandez vs Robles (New York marriage case) and Anderson vs Sims?

REVIEW: Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin"

The book Spin by Robert Charles Wilson has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction novel of the year along with Accelerando by Charles Stross, Old Man's War by John Scalzi, Learning the World by Ken MacLeod and A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin. I picked up Spin a few months ago because of commenters' recommendations at Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly blog.

The book has an intriguing premise: one night when the protagonists, (brother and sister twin siblings and their best friend) are 12 and 13 the stars (and the Moon) disappear from the night sky. It turns out that Earth is surrounded by some kind of shroud, called "The Spin" which is affecting the flow of time drastically inside the Spin. Approximately 300 billion years (the amount of time left before Earth's Sun goes nova) will occur outside the Spin within the next 30-plus years of elapsed time on the planet. This one central idea animates the novel, but at its core is the relationship between the three main characters: Tyler Dupree, Diane Lawton and Jason Lawton. Of course, this turns out to be a (straight) love triangle between the three. In addition, however there are numerous other interesting themes and questions: how does society deal with certain impending doom? If you could extend your lifespan through a very painful process which also has a chance of expanding and drastically modifying your consciousness, would you? What do you think is the likely nature of extraterrestrial intelligences? All these ideas are included and weaved throughout Wilson's Spin to thrilling effect.

GRADE: A-

WA: Bitterly Split Decision AGAINST Marriage Equality

I'm still digesting the over 100 pages of dissenting and concurring opinions, but the result is that a 5-4 majority opinion has ruled that Washington State's discriminatory marriage law IS constitutional.

I'll have more analysis later in the day...

WA: marriage equality ruling expected Wed!

The long awaited state Supreme Court ruling in the Washington state marriage equality case Andersen v. Kings County will likely be announced tomorrow. Parties in the case have been notified by the court to expect a decision in the case to be released tomorrow, Wednesday July 26. Oral arguments in the case were heard on March 8, 2005. Keep your fingers crossed!

LA TIMES (Thoughtlessly) Supports Routine HIV Testing For Everyone

*sigh* The Los Angeles Times continues its unfortunately ill-informed opining on AIDS/HIV policy with an op-ed in the Sunday July 23rd edition entitled "Making HIV Tests Routine." The unsigned editorial claims "[s]creening for the virus in annual physicals may be the best way to fight AIDS." In its entirety the Times piece says:

EVEN WITH ALL THAT IS KNOWN about HIV, there are still 40,000 new infections a year in the United States. One of the main reasons is that a quarter of those infected today don't know it; research shows those people are behind half of all new transmissions. Hoping to change that, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to recommend in the next few weeks that everyone between 13 and 64 should be routinely tested for HIV, just as healthy people get regular checks of their blood pressure and cholesterol.

Though the recommendation is voluntary, doctors usually heed such federal health guidelines when suggesting preventive screenings for their patients, and insurance companies usually pay for the ensuing tests. The goal is to make HIV testing part of the typical annual physical. Since testing is now so easy — it takes as little as 20 minutes — this is doable, cheap and could do more to stem new transmissions than almost any other available option.

[...] (edited for copyright purposes)

Where to begin? First, let's stipulate that I agree that the more people who get tested for HIV is a laudable goal. This is not simply because the number of people who are aware of their HIV status will increase, but also the number of people who will get exposed to HIV prevention counselling and eventually that should reduce that stubborn rate of 40 000 new infections every year.

My main problem with the call for routine and universal HIV testing is that I am skeptical about the planning and preparation that is being done by the appropriate government, health and public policy officials for the multitudes of HIV+ individuals that will be unearthed as a result of this signifucant policy shift. Here are four questions planners should have satisfactory answers to before MadProfessah could endorse routine HIV testing for "everyone between 13 and 64."

1. Who is going to pay for the treatment of all these newly diagnosed HIV+ patients? The latest literature suggests that HIV+ individuals should start highly aggresive anti-retroviral therapy (i.e. HAART, or "the drug cocktail") immediately. The federal and state governments have not made any firm commitment to subsidize the cost of these extremely expensive medications for all people who need them and also have not done a vigorous job of negotiating wholesale price discounts on these life-saving drugs.
2. When are the HIV anti-discrimination and confidentiality protection statutes in California and other states going to be updated to handle the ramifications of a surge in the numbers of the known HIV+ population in the state and nation? The fact that it is illegal under federal law to discriminate on the basis of AIDS (or HIV status) is a judicial interpretation of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), based mainly on a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In Bragdon v. Abbott an HIV+ patient sued and won a discrimination lawsuit filed against a refusal by a dentist to treat her due to her HIV+ status. However, Justice Kennedy's majority opinion's analysis depends on an interpretation that people living with HIV/AIDS must have "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual" in order to be covered under the anti-discrimination protections of the ADA. It's really not clear how applicable Kennedy's analysis is when there are HIV+ athletes participating in gruelling sporting events like Gay Games 2006.
   
   My feelings about the nature of the HIV confidentiality statutes in California are well-known. I am appalled that the state Legislature and Governor went along with "AIDS, Inc." to enact mandatory HIV names reporting without insuring appropriate strengthening of the relevant confidentiality (and anti-discrimination) statutes.
   
   The law needs to be updated in both these areas before I could endorse a call for universal and routine HIV testing.
3. You're HIV+, now what? There should be a well-thought out state-run program of how to deal with these newly diagnosed HIV+ individuals who will be coming from "non-traditional" (read: non gay white male) populations. There are medication issues (getting access to them, maintaining adherence, dealing with side effects), disclosure issues (who should they/do they tell, who gets automatically notified--besides the state of California and the federal government), lifestyle issues (mental health counselling, group identification/self-segregation, etc) among others which I probably can't even conceive of. I've served on the Board of Directors of an AIDS organization for four years and it's my experience which tells me that the existing AIDS service organizations are simply not ready to handle the sheer volume which would result from the universal and routine HIV testing the Times and the CDC is recommending. For example, the CDC recommends that all pregnant women who get regular pre-natal care should get an HIV test early in the pregnancy (this is because new drugs have reduced the rate of mother-child HIV transmission dramatically) but there are no particular plans in place (that I am aware of) to deal with the increase in HIV+ mothers with HIV- newborn children. Now think how the U.S. healthcare system will deal with the numbers of HIV patients which will be discovered if everyone between the age of 13 and 64 gets routinely tested?
4. Why hasn't the Ryan Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act been reauthorized almost 9 months after it expired? As the above questions and commentary has hopefully highlighted, AIDS/HIV policy is a complicated topic. Another example of this is the current status of the Ryan White CARE Act, the single most important piece of federal legislation dealing with HIV/AIDS policy in this country. The law expired on September 30, 2005.The negotiations to reauthorize (not fully fund or increase appropriations commednsurate with demonstrated need) have been internecine. My point here is to highlight the politically fraught nature of the discussion and thus perhaps suggest the editorialists at the Times (and the bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) might be more careful before endorsing potentially life-changing public health policy for millions of Americans, which statistics indicate are likely to disproportionately Black and Brown.

Answer those questions, then get back to me!

The Money Race (Democrats vs Republicans)

The second quarter financial reports of the relevant federal campaign committees have been released.

Committee   Cash on hand
NRSC     $19.9 million
DSCC    $37.7 million
NRCC    $26.4 million
DCCC    $32 million
RNC     $44,681,057
DNC     $10,849,337
REPUBLICANS  $91.1 million
DEMOCRATS   $80.6 million

These are incredible numbers for Democrats. Usually Republicans have at least a 2 to 1
financial advantage going into federal elections. MadProfessah hopes the trend continues until November 2006 and beyond as Democrats take control of at least one chamber of Congress.

REVIEW: Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy

I think a capsule review of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy of books would be the following analogy: His Dark Materials is to the Harry Potter series as the Lord of the Rings is to Star Wars series. In other words, HDM are critically successful, artistic, mature, dark and almost overwhelmingly complex and sophisticated, like LOTR. Star Wars and Harry Potter are fantastically commercially successful but more lightly regarded by critics and sometimes derided as "pulp."

The trilogy consists of the books The Golden Compass (soon to be a major motion picture to be released in 2007!), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The main character is Lyra Belacqua, a 11-year old orpan who lives in Jordan College, in a world similar to ours except that all human beings possess daemons, which are individual attached adjunct personalities in the form of animals. Pre-adult humans have daemons which can take any animal form, adult humans have daemons which have fixed form. In Lyra's world, theology, science and magic are conflated and combined in intriguing and significant ways. The first book basically takes place in Lyra's world, the second in our modern world, and the third book in both worlds, among several others.

I received the books as a gift for my birthday (thank you Amazon.com wishlist!) and even though I was away at a conference the following week I brought them with me and finished the third book just as my plane landed at LAX.

I don't want to discuss too much about the plot, but to suffice it to say that it involves a prophecy involving Lyra benig either the destruction or the saviour of the world(s). The writing is decidedly more sophisticated than J.K. Rowling's although the pacing and plotting is not as proficient as the creator of Hogwarts School of Magic.

GRADE: A (The Golden Compass)
GRADE: A- (The Subtle Knife)
GRADE: B (The Amber Spyglass)

REVIEW: Santa Monica Border Grill

After shopping at the Santa Monica store of west elm, the hip interior furnishing outlet of Williams-Sonoma, the spouse and I decided to check out the Border Grill since it was a mere two doors away on the same side of 4th street (near Broadway). Although I immediately run to change the channel when their radio show comes on KCRW on Saturday mornings (NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..." on KPCC is a weekly guilty pleasure), I had heard that Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are outstanding cooks so I wanted to check whether their spot lived up to the hype. Did it ever!

Although the drinks are almost twice as expensive as they should be ($3.5o for a Jamaica Ginger Tea? Ouch. $8 for a michelada? Yipes. $12 for a marguarita?! Good grief.) the food is incredibly delicious. We split the Border Classics bocadito ($14.50) which consisted of two sweet corn tamales, two plantain empanadas, and two chicken panuchos. The panuchos were the star of this plate, they consist of "black bean stuffed tortillas, roasted chicken, pickled onion, and guacamole." they were beautiful to look at (yellow tortilla, light brown roasted chicken, bright green guacamole and bright red pickled onion) and absolutely mouth-wateringly scrumptious to eat: moist, tender with a bright flash of competing flavors and textures. The plantain empanadas sound better on the menu than the actual result; they are a bit mushy and sweet and little more than a biteful, but also quite rich at the time. The sweet corn tamales are also mushy but quite yummy.

We also split an entree. The cochinita pibil ($12.50): "achiote marinated pork slow roasted in banana leaf with grilled onions, orange, and cinnamon served with white rice, black beans, and roasted plantains." Yes, it tastes as good (or better!) than it sounds. The official description does not do justice to the succulent nature of the pork; it also neglects to mention that there is a dash of guacamole added. Also, the sauce of the pibil is very piquant, although it is almost dominated by lime or lemon. Very tasty. We joined the "clean plate club"!

The portions are not large and the food is not cheap but it is absolutely worth it. The decor is "interesting." It is very colorful, with large drawn figures over bold orange painted walls and striking yellowish cube-shaped lamps hanging from a blue ceiling. The service was efficient, although we had to ask for the price of a non-alcoholic drink. Overall, an excellent dining experience, I look forward to exploring more Border Girls cooking, either at Border Grill again or possibly Ciudad in downtown LA.

REVIEW: A+.

Papi chulo in new Oliver Stone movie

30-year old actor Michael Peña (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) will be appearing in what will probably be his most high-profile film yet, Olive Stone's World Trade Center (to be released August 9), co-starring Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage. I first noticed Peña on NBC's ER but he was one of the best things about last year's Best Picture Oscar winner Crash. I must confess I didn't notice him in 2004 Best Picture Million Dollar Baby but you may remember him from the one-sheet image for the movie as the distraught Latino father of the little girl who gets shot by the crazed Iranian shopkeeper. ¡Que Rico!

Why Marriage Matters

Terrance has highlighted a post at Dailykos called "this is what domestic partnership gets you." which details the situation that resulted when gay (health and marriage) activist Eric Rofes died suddenly while vacationing in Provincetown, MA while his domestic partner of 16 years Crispin Hollings was in California and what Crispin had to go through trying to manage funeral arrangements and comply with his partner's final wishes.

Serena Backs Up Her Trash Talk With Results

On Tuesday in Cincinatti, OH 7-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams easily beat 2004 French Open champion Anastasia Myskina 6-2, 6-2 in her first match on the WTA Tour in over 6 months! This is quite an impressive result after such an extended time off (she hadn't played a match since January). In addition, she served a 127-mph serve during the match, which would have tied her sister Venus Williams 8-year-old tour record if Brenda Shultz-McCarthy hadn't served a 130-mph serve on saturday while losing a qualifying match for the Tier III Western & Southern Financial Open Serena is playing in! 35-year old Shultz-Mcarthy will now re-gain the fastest women's serve record she had lost from an 18-year old Venus in 1998.

I previously noted Serena's trash talk before her return to the tour last week but it looks like she is backing it up. Although she is current ranked 139, she will clearly be back in the Top 10 by the end of the year. The US Open Series just got a lotmore interesting!

July 19: Protest Iran's Anti-Gay Executions Today!!

Here is the call to action which protesters in over 20 25 cities (sadly, Los Angeles is not one of them) are endorsing in today's activities:

1. End all executions in Iran, especially the execution of minors. (Photo above in the poster for San Francisco's protest illustrates, the teens Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, killed in Mashad, Iran on July 19, 2005)
2. Stop the arrest, torture and imprisonment of Iranian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and repeal the Iranian penal code’s criminalization of same-sex relationships.
3. Halt the deportation to Iran of LGBT asylum seekers and other victims of Tehran’s persecution.
4. Support Iranians struggling for democracy, social justice and human rights.
5. Oppose foreign military intervention in Iran; regime change must come from within – by and for the Iranian people themselves.

Russia and France (and Australia?) To End Ban on Gay Blood Donors

One reason I am so interested in considering LGBT rights from an international or worldwide perspective is that the United States continues to fall behind the rest of the world when it comes to rights for queers. Of course readers of this blog will know that four countries currently allow same-sex couples to get married: The Netherlands, Canada, Spain and South Africa.

Now, despite edtorials from Los Angeles Times calling for an end to the practice, the Federal Drug Administration refuses to reconsider easing restrictions on allowing any man who has had sex with a man since 1978 from donating blood (even though all blood donated is tested for HIV-1) comes word from PageOneQ that both Russia and France are ending their bans on gays being blood donors.

UPDATE: Southern Voice has picked up this story and claims that Australia is thinking of lifting its ban on gay blood donors also. Interestingly, SOVO published their article AFTER MadProfessah's original post of July 16th 9:55pm, their article is timedated July 17 5:01 pm.
Probably just another coincidence.

The Alleged Confluence Between Black and Republican Voters (in a Maryland Context)

I have been following the Maryland Senate Race very closely since last year. It is very likely that it will feature two African American men (Democrat former Congressman Kweisi Mfume versus Republican Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele) winning major oarty nominations to become the next U.S. Senator from Maryland. On July 2, the Washington Post ran an article entitled "Maryland Senate Race May Hinge On Ethnicity" which Equality Maryland has reprinted at their website. First Mfume needs to beat Congressman Ben Cardin in a Democratic primary in September. The latest results show that he is currently in the lead:

For the first time in Maryland history, both major parties have the potential to nominate an African American, and the poll suggests that the hopes of all of the major candidates will depend on their ability to cross racial boundaries for support.
As they stand, the racial divisions are stark: In the primary, Mfume, who is black, gets 72 percent of his support from black voters, the poll shows. Cardin, who is white, gets 82 percent of his backing from white voters.

Then there is Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, who has brought national attention to the Senate campaign because he is one of a handful of African American Republicans whom the national party is counting on to establish credibility among black voters.

Both Democrats hold leads over Steele in potential general election matchups, although Mfume's is narrow, the poll shows. And again, skin color appears to exert a significant tug.

For instance, if Cardin wins the Democratic primary, the poll shows that nearly a quarter of all black voters would back Steele. If Mfume wins the primary, black voters would stay with the Democratic Party, but Steele would see a nine-point jump in his support from white voters.

The unstated point here is that Black voters are more likely to allow racial affiliation to trump partisan affiliation since 25% of Black voters say they would vote for the Black Republican candidate, while only 9% of White voters would cross party lines to vote for the same candidate. However, there are numerous other explanations for this. If there are two Black candidates then what incentive is there for White voters to vote for the Democrat over the Republican? The true comparison is to determine what happens if a White Republican were to win the nomination, do the reporters think that candidate's support would not go up by more than 25%?

I would argue that white voters are acting in a more racially aligned way since Cardin is getting 82% of his support from voters of his race while Mfume is getting only 72% of his support from people of his race. It seems clear that the message to Democratic primary voters that in heavily Democratic, 33% Black Maryland they should choose Mfume. The polls results, show that with 32% undecided, Mfume leads Cardin 31 to 25. However, the really interesting results in the poll that caught my eye are buried in the final graf:

There is one issue on which the views of black voters and conservative Republicans coincide: same-sex marriage.

Nearly two-thirds of African Americans in the state oppose both same-sex marriage and civil unions for gay couples, the poll shows. By contrast, 57 percent of white voters favored civil unions. On the question of same-sex marriage, 44 percent of white voters favored it, while 53 percent were opposed.

Bositis said he did not expect Steele to make too much of the issue, though, because by doing so "he would risk associating himself with the same conservatives that he has to distance himself from."

The risk of Steele being tied too closely to Bush is considerable: Seventy-nine percent of black voters in the poll said they would be less likely to support a candidate who had Bush's backing.

Hans Kaiser, a pollster with the national Republican firm Moore Information, said that number is "obviously not a plus" for Steele. But he said Steele has been wise to try to steer the campaign to issues that play better with his potential supporters.

"If the campaign is only about George Bush supporting a candidate, that number would be alarming," Kaiser said. "But there are a whole lot of other things being discussed in the campaign."

These numbers point out how much work the National Black Justice Coalition has cut out for it to impact public opinion in the Black community in favor of marriage equality. In addition, it also completely refutes the ridiculous project Republican National Committee chairman (and ambiguously heterosexual) Ken Mehlman and other operatives have been promoting to "increase Black participation and registration with the Republican Party."

Since I started this post last week there have been some interesting developments. Just today, the New York Times has a "Political Memo" written by Adam Nagourney entitled "G.O.P.'s Bid For Blacks Falters" which covers in more specific detail exactly how plainly Mehlman's strategy of attempting to convince black voters to support the Republican agenda has failed.

On another front, today the White House has announced that after five years of declining invitations from the nation's most revered civil rights organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), President Bush has agreed to address their annual convention this week. Hmmmmm. Coincidence?

I'm baaaack!

We're baaaack!
Dog, spouse and myself made it back from the wilds of Indianola, IA. The temperatures in Des Moines, Chicago and Los Angeles were not above 85 degrees when we went through those cities.

We returned to a plant graveyard, the extreme heat in the South Pasadena/downtown Los Angeles area has been deadly for our green friends.

Catching up with email, will blog more later...

Trapped in the Heartland due to Heatwave

Save me Martha (and the Vandellas)! As temperatures soar into the triple digits here in the "Heartland" I am having difficulty getting back to civilization because I'm travelling with a dog. The airlines won't fly from or through an airport where the temperature is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (or below 40). I am starting in DSM (Des Moines, IA). I couldn't get out today--hopefully I'l be able to get out via ORD (Chicago O'Hare) tomorrow. The only other cities American seems to fly directly to are are MSP (Minneapolis-ST. Paul which has a pet travel embargo from July 15-19) and St. Louis, MO.
Wish me luck!!

Angelides Leads Arnold in Latest Poll

Rasmussen Reports has the latest poll numbers in the 2006 California Governor's race and it is good news for Democrat Phil Angelides (and other supporters of marriage equality in California): he leads 46% to 44% (+/- 4.5 percentage points, 500 respondents, conducted on July 5, 2006) even though Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger has a net positive job approval rating of +2 (51%-49%) with a strong 26% strongly disapproving of the Governor's job performance.