No Go Gitmo
Just out: "Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials," by the Washington Post's William Branigin:

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

The vote was 5-3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. recusing himself. Pretty easy bet who the three dissenters were, don't you think?

[Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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Sorry, no photo this week. I wanted to get some shots of Mildred last night, but the batteries in my camera need replacing. Instead, an update on the case against Oxford, Pa., dog breeder Michael Wolf, who last week pleaded guilty to 60 counts of animal cruelty.

According to media reports, the dogs Wolf was forced to surrender are gradually becoming available for adoption from the Chester County SPCA, beginning today with 65 cavalier King Charles spaniels and 25 papillons.

The English bulldogs will be made available at a later, as yet unspecified date.

And, no, much as I would like to, I won't be applying, but I hope plenty of quality people do.

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Harper Lee Writes on Reading [*]
Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird and almost nothing else, has published again, according to a brief notice in today's New York Times. That's good news, though Lee's latest work is characterized by the Times as "a letter" for O magazine, so I'm not sure it counts.

Backlash?
Rebecca Dana's piece in the latest edition of the New York Observer, "The Cooper Enigma: Anderson's A Star, But Numbers Stink," is surprisingly snide.

She overly parses the ratings numbers ("Mr. Cooper’s total audience climbed . . . to 636,000 [then] slipped to 632,000," which marks an imperceptible difference of 0.6 percent!), disparages his appearance ("Mr. Cooper himself, for all his vaunted good looks, is aesthetically ill-suited to television. The silver hair and piercing blue eyes make him all light and no contrast, a human green screen."), and serves up a host of snarky asides ("Mr. Cooper . . . is a harder worker than Stavros Niarchos or the Hilton sisters -- but Mike Wallace and Morley Safer didn’t model Ralph Lauren when they were kids, either." Either?)

Are we seeing the start of the backlash?

[* Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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The U.S. Senate today, under the guidance and direction -- the control -- of the Republican Party, put aside all the important business of the day to pander to, I don't know, the dopiest common denominator.

The vote on the amendment to protect the U.S. flag against desecration, an outrage I have yet to see first-hand in my entire life, failed by one vote of the required two-thirds majority, going down by a tally of 66 to 34.

Hey, at least everybody showed up for this one! I'm not sure even the Patriot Act inspired such enthusiasm.

So how did Pennsylvania's Dyspeptic Duo, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, vote during the roll call?

You had to ask?

Dee, a/k/a Arlen, and Dum, a/k/a Rick, both voted in favor of the "constitutional" amendment.

Now back to the real war.

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Martin Peretz, the self-described "titular editor-in-chief" of the New Republic, on Friday posted an item at the magazine's blog, The Plank.

I quote here from the second paragraph:

An old professor of mine once warned me against writers who use capital letters for emphasis. Good advice she gave me. Capital letters suggest some imbalance in the mind of their employer.

And now from the third:

THE NEW REPUBLIC is very much against the Bush tax programs, against Bush Social Security "reform," against cutting the inheritance tax, for radical health care changes, passionate about Gore-type environmentalism, for a woman's entitlement to an abortion, for gay marriage, for an increase in the minimum wage, for pursuing aggressively alternatives to our present reliance on oil and our present tax preferences for gas-guzzling automobiles.

Mentally imbalanced capitalization in original.

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Catching On
David Carr writes in today's New York Times, in "At CNN, News That Plays to the Ratings": "What sells on cable is "edge," not the events of the day. CNN, a longtime chronic presence on signal events, has now joined the pack in smudging the line between news and opinion, celebrity and anchors, journalism and ratings."

"Joined the pack"? As in, just now?

Quoteworthy
This would have been the quote of the week, last week, had I noticed it then. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld:

I don't remember approving it. But I certainly don't remember not approving it, if you will.

I saw the quote in "Rumsfeld Must Go," at Katrina vanden Heuvel's blog, but the original source is "Tanker Inquiry Finds Rumsfeld's Attention Was Elsewhere," by R. Jeffrey Smith in the June 20 edition of the Washington Post.

[Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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About two years ago a blogging friend, a Philadelphian, suggested my blogroll was too big, too generous, and urged me to pull it back, to pare it down.

I never did, but I since have become more selective, more discriminating, with respect to the sites I add to the already ample list in the sidebar at right.

And so by directing your attention to the trio that comprises the latest additions thereto, I hope you will trust that I have not made rashly the decision to add these blogs to that esteemed list. And so please, at your earliest convenience and very often thereafter, please take the time to visit:

Edicts of Nancy
Philadelphia Perspective
Philebrity
Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog

And after having said all that, I hope you will allow me to add a plug here for a longstanding Philadelphia blog that has been on my blogroll since the day I found it, that produced by Lori, whose always outstanding writing has been particularly captivating of late: Avocado8.

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Worry not if you neither subscribe to "Times Select" not purchased a copy of today's New York Times, because you missed nothing by not reading columnist Thomas L. Friedman's latest, "The World is Hot," a few hundred dashed-off words that offered nothing new and little of substance (though not without his requisite nod to "exotic" geography, in this case, highest Peru), and so you will allow me to stoop to some grammatical nit-picking.

Friedman writes:

For many Americans, combating climate change is at best a cause for green do-gooders and at worse something to be debated.

Note that Friedman wrote, and Times editors allowed, "best . . . and . . . worse."

No. That's wrong.

It's either "at best a cause . . . and at worst something," or it's "at better a cause . . . and at worse something."

In reality, the world is not flat, nor may one confuse the superlative with the comparative.

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Out of Step [*]
Just one day after Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) voted against an increase in the federal minimum wage, the Pennsylvania State Senate approved by a wide margin a measure to raise the floor here to $7.15 an hour next year. Maybe he'd feel more at home in Virginia after all.

Weapons of Crass Desperation
Meet Sen. Santorum, the newly minted expert on Iraq's non-existent chemicals weapons program. It's fitting that this discredited and desperate lawmaker would ride solo on a hobby-horse of his own imagination.

Suskind Strikes Again
Ron Suskind, author of the outstanding examination of the inner workings (so to speak) of the Bush administraion, The Price of Loyalty, is out with a new book, The One Percent Doctrine, which has been garnering excellent reviews, including from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com ("License to Lie") and Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times ("Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars").

Buying Salvation
Can you imagine my shock upon learning our Lord & Savior had been sold to the highest bidder? Oh, wait, no, that was our Lord & Taylor. Um, go back to what you were doing.

[Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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The news coming out of the Brooklyn Museum, at least over the past, I don't know, 20 years or so, has never been good, but the latest is just ridiculous.

For a museum with "a huge and world-renowned collection, including one of the country's best holdings in Egyptian art" that is located in a city with countless residents who have more money than they know what to do with, it's sad to see such an institution constantly stooping to new lows, a tawdry depth laid out in detail in today's New York Times in "Loss of Curators' Power Seen in Brooklyn Museum Plan," by Randy Kennedy.

The crux of the matter:

Beginning next month, the museum will do away with traditional departments like Egyptian art, African art[,] and European painting and instead create two "teams," one for collections and one for exhibitions. Arnold L. Lehman, the museum's director, said in an interview that the changes were intended to make the museum's relatively small curatorial staff more efficient and to encourage curators to exchange ideas more freely.

Oh, dear. But there's more:

[S]ome curators are . . . worried that the changes will result in more shows like "Star Wars," a 2002 exhibition of costumes and drawings from the movies, or "Hip-Hop Nation" in 2000, both of which drew sizable crowds but were derided by critics as little more than groupings of memorabilia.

It's been a long time since the Brooklyn Museum put art and edification before "the gate," and it's obvious there's no turning back now, it's only become patently obvious:

[S]ome critics have complained that the museum is taking the theme of accessibility so far that it is undermining its strengths as a place respected for its scholarship.

Is there a consultant in the building?, because it certainly sounds as if there is, complete with that industry's penchant for inappropriately deployed words:

[T]he [final] draft [of the reorganization plan] also suggests that ideas for future exhibitions might not come from curators but from staff members like museum educators or exhibition designers -- "rather than the other way around, as is traditionally the case." […]

For the plan to succeed, the exhibitions and collections teams must work together creatively -- a goal the plan refers to as "porosity."

Mr. Lehman is sticking with what he knows best: catering to the lowest common denominator. The Times offers this quote from the showman, I mean, director: "I actually see this as a very straightforward administrative redesign of the museum. I don't see this as a huge change, to be honest with you."

Over to you, Hilton.

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Evelyn Dubrow, Washington, D.C.: lobbyist for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, political activist, and Democrat, 1911-2006.

Pull quote: "I've always told people, you need better feet than brains to lobby."

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Odd Ones Out [*]
After consideration of the Kerry-Feingold amendment mentioned below, the Senate voted 60 to 39 against a proposal by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that would have required a withdrawal of American forces to begin by year-end without establishing a timetable for a complete withdrawal. All Republican senators voted against the Levin amendment, as did six Democrats: Mark Dayton (Minn.), Mary L. Landrieu (La.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), E. Benjamin Nelson (Neb.), Mark L. Pryor (Ark.), and, of course, Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.). (Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV [D-W.Va.] did not vote.)

Honor Roll [*]
Earlier today the U.S. Senate took up for consideration and then defeated a proposal offered by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) to redeploy American combat troops out of Iraq by July 1, 2007. Eleven other senators backed the Kerry-Feingold amendment: Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Four Hours' Work Might Get You a Bus Pass [*]
The U.S. Senate yesterday turned down an opportunity to raise the federal minimum wage, currently (and seemingly forever) at $5.15 an hour, largely on a party-line vote, though eight Republicans jumped over to the side of reason and reality. Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) was not one them.

Only on Page 6 [*]
The New York Post's Page Six has the scoop, or a scoop, on Dan Rather: "Deposed CBS anchor Dan Rather seemed to be enjoying his newfound freedom at Destino on Tuesday night, just hours after announcing he was finally leaving the network. . . . Rather was described by our spy as 'in great spirits.' He clinked champagne flutes with his wife, Jean, and accepted congratulations from fellow diners Rocco DiSpirito and Alyssa Milano, who told Rather to order the meatballs." [Hyperlinks added.]

Santorum Still the Likely Loser
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is still far behind his opponent Bob Casey Jr., according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll: 52 percent to 34 percent, with the senator's approval rating at a new low of 38 percent. Fitting then, that his reelection campaign will begin running TV ads throughout Pennsylvania beginning tomorrow.

Hat Tip for Tipper
Catherine Lucey of the Philadelphia Daily News chats with Tipper Gore about her latest photographic work in "Catching up with the Gores."

What's an Average Joe to Do?
It's not easy being the White House's favorite Democrat in the U.S. Senate, as David Lightman of the Hartford Courant explains in "Party Puts Lieberman In a Bind," though I would argue the bind is of Joe Lieberman's own making.

[* Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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Remember that adorable little hedgehog who lost his nose?

Well, now he's also lost an eye.

Mildred must be stopped.

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Barbara Epstein, New York, N.Y.: co-founder and co-editor of the New York Review of Books, 1928-2006.

[Post-publication addendum (June 22): See also "Remembering Barbara Epstein," by Sheelah Kolhatkar and Lizzy Ratner in this week's New York Observer.]

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Ten rules for riding rail-based public transit in Philadelphia:

1. Ignore any and all signs advising riders not to eat, drink, smoke, or play radios loudly. Those messages are directed at someone else, not you.

2. Do not sit on a seat, even if the car is completely empty. Instead, stand in the doorway and create as much blockage as possible. Traveling with a friend? Ask him to stand directly across from you in the same doorway; that way nobody can get off the train without your consent.

3. When the train stops at a station, lean out of the doorway and scan the platform repeatedly, right and left, left and right, until you are warned, "Doors are closing." Abide in the knowledge this announcement pertains not to you (See rule no. 1, above.), and continue surveying the platform, even if doing so results in a delay in the train's departure from said station.

4. Litter as you wish, particularly if you're weighed down by a couple of bottles and cans. And that hamburger you tired of halfway through? It will do just fine on the floor as well.

5. Cell phone use is not only expected, it is encouraged. High-volume vulgarities directed at your "no good" children (Your words, not mine.) are always appreciated by your fellow riders.

6. Sleep at will and at your leisure. Passing out is okay, too.

7. No token? No problem! You've got arms and legs: Jump that turnstile! You think that guy in the booth is going to get up for you?

8. If you're on budget, plan carefully. Unless you buy your weekly pass by the Sunday before the Monday when the card goes live, what's the point?

9. Stop at Market East, Suburban, or 30th Street Station as soon as possible and gather up as many bus-route schedules as you can. What, you thought we had a real subway system here?

10. Don't even think about staying out late on a Saturday night.

[Note: Cross-posted at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]

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Joe Klein still likes a president who can "strut," as evidenced by these excerpts from his latest piece for Time, "Why Bush Is (Still) Winning the War at Home":

George W. Bush's body language -- let's call it the full jaunty -- was reminiscent of his last, infamous cockpit trip, onto the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003 to announce the "end" of major combat operations in Iraq, beneath a mission accomplished sign. His public language is more cautious than it used to be, but he seemed downright frothy in a private session with the congressional leadership after his press conference.

He called the new Iraqi Defense Minister an "interesting cat" and Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the deceased al-Qaeda leader, "a dangerous dude." Bush had reason, finally, to strut.

Notable, I think, that President Bush can unselfconsciously use a slang term last popular when he entered college, providing evidence that Yale doesn't expand the vocabularies of all of its students.

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Big Brother, Big Sister
They're not only watching, they're apparently taking names and notes, and they're afraid to admit it. And so, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, Greenpeace, Veterans for Peace, United for Peace and Justice, and two dozen other groups have filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania seeking an order for the Pentagon to release records related to the secret surveillance of American antiwar groups and activists. (See "Suit Seeks Data on Spying of War Protesters," by Michael Hinkelman in the Philadelphia Daily News, and the ACLU's news release announcing the suit.)

Same Smears, Different Election
Joe Conason, writing at Salon.com today ("Fear and Smear"), observes that Republicans, led by White House political advisor Karl Rove and House Majority Leader John Boehner, are up to their usual dishonest and smearing tricks. It's the same strategy that, as Conason notes, with the help of the mainstream media, Republicans deployed successfully in the last two elections. Only this time, we can at least hope voters are a bit more clued in.

Mind-Saving Screensaver
Try this fun screensaver/simple diversion making the rounds on the internets. (Or maybe it's quite old and just now getting to me.) If W. gets stuck, just nudge him with your cursor.

[Note: Additional items may be posted to "Political Notes" after initial publication but only on the day of publication, excluding post-publication addenda. Such items, when posted, are designated by an asterisk.]

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The U.S. Senate today defeated a proposal to withdraw most American troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

The vote was 93-6.

On the honor roll this semester: Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass).

It's a start, but it would be nice to see the entire institution's grade point average trend higher in the future. Let's leave no senator behind.

[Note: Vote tally corrected from 96-3 to 93-6 after initial posting.]

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I almost missed learning that the Republican Party's war on public broadcasting continues. A good thing I picked up a "hard copy" of the New York Times today where this was buried on page E2, above a rather difficult crossword puzzle (even for a Thursday):

The House Appropriations Committee voted to reduce funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and refused to allocate any money to it for 2009, Reuters reported. The committee is giving $400 million to the corporation for fiscal 2007, but also voted on Tuesday to eliminate spending for its conversion to digital television and for Ready to Learn grants, which contribute to some children's shows. The corporation said the public broadcasting budget had been reduced by 17.4 percent by the committee vote. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is at the center of debates about perceived liberal bias and conservative efforts to influence its activities. The question of financing will go next to the House floor and then to the Senate, which is traditionally more hospitable.

It says something, when your salvation depends upon the current membership of the U.S. Senate.

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Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall, to her immense credit, responded to my June 9 post, "Getting It Wrong at the Inquirer, Again":

Had I known I would be "put on blast" in your blog . . . I would have responded sooner. I'll chalk that up to a lesson learned about the blogosphere. [Hyperlink added.]

Perhaps I shouldn't have left the sentence hanging. I guess it would be easy to infer that I was connecting the gay priest problem to pedophilia, but that was not what I was doing at all.

The column was about denial on the part of the church in acknowledging homosexuals. The conservative doctrine of the Catholic church has made it very difficult for gay priests to be affirmed in the priesthood. Because of the exclusivity of its all-male power structure, a priest who is openly gay would create problems, whether he was celibate or not.

So, rather than deal with the issue, the church has chosen to ignore it. That was the problem to which I referred.

Again, I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner. At least I'll be reading your blog now. And I do appreciate the feedback.

I thank Ms. John-Hall for her response and based upon the clarification she presents here, I think it's clear we are in full accord on the subject at hand.

I further commend to Rittenhouse readers her column in today's Inquirer, "Geno's Can't Unmake the American Gumbo," though I believe she's being, if anything, far too kind, and kinder than I would be, to Joe Vento.

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Joe Conason, writing in the latest issue of the New York Observer -- "A Shameful Silence On Coulter’s Spewing" -- points out that Ann Coulter isn't the only one behaving shamefully lately.

So too are Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Joseph L. Lieberman (D-Conn.), about whom he writes, "Shame on the silent Senators. And please, let’s hear no more from either of them for a while about tolerance, respect and decency."

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Because if it's your 9th birthday and it's Flag Day, why not fly the colors with a handsome red, white, and blue scarf (a gift from D.R.) around your neck?

Happy birthday, Mildred!

[Post-publication addendum: Thanks from Mildred to Helga and Evelyn for their birthday gifts.]

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Karen Spears Zacharias has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times, "A Time and a Place," in which she argues that funerals for members of the armed forces killed in Iraq, and the hospitals where the injured are being treated, are not appropriate venues for protesting the war in the country. It seems like a no-brainer to me, and, frankly, I was surprised to learn such demonstrations were occurring at all, even if infrequently. Let's be respectful and take it somewhere else.

[Post-publication addendum (June 19): I knew something about this whole thing didn't sound right. The Times on Saturday published the following correction:

[An Op-Ed article on Monday, about demonstrations at military funerals, hospitals and memorial services, incorrectly described the protesters at the military funerals discussed in the article. In some cases, the protesters were members of an anti-gay group, not people opposed to the Iraq war; in others, the families of the dead service members were unable to determine the affiliation of the protesters.

[Hat tip to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, which not only drew my attention to the correction but launched an activist alert in response to the op-ed after its publication.]

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Sure, every other blogger, especially those who don't rely upon Blogger's software to perfect, hone, or just practice their craft, beat me to this one, but let me chime in with this: I don't know what kind of genius Jon Stewart is, but the genius he displayed during his complete and utter demolishment of right winger William Bennett on the subject of gay marriage was my kind of genius.

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I held this post back for a while, in part because I wanted to give Annette John-Hall of the Philadelphia Inquirer an opportunity to respond to my inquiry about her May 31 piece, "An Unrighteous Attitude Toward Gays."

Ms. John-Hall, however, declined to respond to my June 6 e-mail, and so, here we are.

What bothered me about her otherwise interesting and insightful article was this remark:

For years, the Roman Catholic Church denied its gay-priest problem.

What the hell is she talking about? Or, what the hell does she think she's talking about?

I didn't realize the Roman Catholic Church had a "gay-priest problem," let alone one that needed to be "denied."

Inexplicably, John-Hall neither explained nor defended the phrase, preferring rather to leave it hanging there stupidly, apparently assuming every reader will understand her implication, baseless as it is.

I can only assume Ms. John-Hall, who, by the way, isn't known around these parts for her knowledge of, let alone intellectual sophistication regarding, matters relating to religion, generally, let alone Catholicism, specifically, was alluding, ineptly, to the crisis sparked by pedophilia and decided, offhandedly, casually, and ignorantly, to conflate that pathology with homosexuality.

That's her "gay-priest problem," not ours.

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Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is hoping to make immigration law a major issue in his upcoming campaign against Democrat Bob Casey Jr., as explained in "Suddenly, Senate Race is All About Immigration," by Tom Infield in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. (That headline, by the way, seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.)

More interesting, though, is Infield's sidebar accompanying the story, "Santorum Web Site Sends Mixed Signal," where he read:

English-language visitors to www.ricksantorum.com encountered a home page filled with concern about the "amnesty-ridden proposal" the U.S. Senate adopted to deal with illegal immigration.

But a section of the site for Spanish readers made no mention of amnesty in its discourse on immigration. Nor did it refer to "rewarding criminal behavior" of illegal immigrants, as the English version did. […]

Virginia Davis, the Republican senator's spokeswoman, said Santorum was not deliberately crafting different messages for different people. She said the English version had been updated since passage of the Senate bill May 25 and that the Spanish had not.

"Probably next week we'll have the identical version in Spanish," she said.

I hope some who can read Spanish will monitor the site to see whether Davis is telling the truth.

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If you read even a handful of blogs on a regular basis, you no doubt noticed Blogger presented users with serious impediments to posting yesterday afternoon and evening.

As a result, we missed getting to Thursday Bulldog Blogging here. The feature will return next week.

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For a story that's going to last, at most, one day, Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-Pa.) little whine about not getting even one phone call from Vice President Dick Cheney is getting an extraordinary amount of media attention.

Pouts Sen. Specter in a note passed to the vice president: "I was surprised, to say the least, that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the Committee without calling me first, or at least calling me at some point."

What? No exclamation points? No frowny faces above the i's?

Count on Sen. Specter to have forgotten about the whole thing by dinner time.

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Granted, the source -- the New York Times -- provides only a fragment of the sentence, but it's still priceless. In a story about Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), "Senate Contender in Florida Presses On," by Mark Leibovich, we read:

[Joe] Scarborough, the host of "Scarborough Country" on MSNBC, said Ms. Harris "seems to be detached from reality these days."

Because she was, what, so utterly enmeshed in reality during the Florida scandals of November 2000?

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I was going to entitle this post "Getting it Wrong at the Inquirer, Again," a perennial favorite headline around here, to note the paper's poor judgment in placing the story, "Ala. Ready to Send a Message on Marriage," by Kaitlin Gurney, in the upper-right position on page one of today's late edition for reasons known but to, I don't know, God and maybe Amanda Bennett.

I mean, really, what's new and interesting about the citizens of yet another quasi-theocratic state like Alabama preparing to vote to deny full civil rights to a minority population, in this case, the marriage contract to gays and lesbians?

And then I stumbled upon this paragraph quoting state senator Hinton Mitchem, a sponsor of the proposed "constitutional" amendment:

The tractor company owner said he decided to sponsor the legislation after watching CNN footage of civil-disobedience marriages in San Francisco, where he was disgusted to see "two attractive men, locked in a passionate embrace, on national television."

Emphasis added.

Attractive? Where the hell did that come from?

And passionate?

Sounds like the feller was almost overcome from the moment.

Anyway, he sure is purdy, isn't he?

[Post-publication addendum: Bonus stupid quote, taken from the same article: "One church pastor, the Rev. Ed Litton of the First Baptist Church of Northern Mobile, said he considered the close timing of Alabama's vote and the Senate debate a 'coincidence that may have divine origins.'"

[Another handsome prayer warrior, no? And he's a blogger!]

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"Martha Stewart Puts Farmhouse on Market," reports the New York Times today.

The property includes a three-bedroom house, built in 1805, as well as "two greenhouses, a carriage house for guests, a 'party barn' with a sleeping loft and a Japanese soaking tub, and a heated outdoor swimming pool."

Susan Warburg of William Raveis Real Estate, Fairfield, Conn., has the $8,995,000 listing, which you can see here.

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Paying Tribute
It was practically a star-studded event, the memorial service for economist John Kenneth Galbraith, held in Cambridge, Mass., yesterday. According to "Friends, Fans Celebrate Galbraith's Life," by Bryan Marquard and Connie Paige in the Boston Globe, mourners included Derek Bok, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, William F. Buckley, George McGovern, and Michael Dukakis.

Labor Market
Amid an allegedly bustling economy, there are plenty of lost jobs: 4,000 or more at Sun Microsystems Inc.; 1,100 at Schering-Plough Corp.; and 2,700 at H.J. Heinz Co.

Gun Nut
For still more evidence John R. Lott Jr., a.k.a. Mary Rosh, lost it a long time ago, see "Gun-research 'Freak'-out," by U.C. Irvine history professor Jon Weiner in the Los Angeles Times (May 31).

A Friend Writes
Scott Swenson writes "Who Can Claim Life as a Culture?" at RH Reality Check.

Clever Man
Roger Ailes, the blogger not the slobber, writes a very clever headline.

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An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about global warming featuring former Vice President Al Gore, opens in Philadelphia tomorrow, June 2, at the Ritz 5 and the Ritz East (and on the same day in New Jersey at the Ritz in Voorhees and the Garden in Princeton). You can find a theater near you by clicking here (PDF).

Next month, on July 11, The Nation's Victor S. Navasky will be speaking at the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1900 Vine St., as part of the national tour promoting A Matter of Opinion, a terrific book that Barbara Ehrenreich rightly described as "the autobiography of a great magazine, by the person who has best embodied it over the years." I read A Matter of Opinion when it was published last year and gave it four stars (Very Highly Recommended). It's now out in paperback.

(Navasky's tour, which begins June 22 and runs through October, includes Seattle; Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; Berkeley, Calif.; San Francisco; St. Louis; Ann Arbor, Mich.; New York; Atlanta; and Austin, Texas.)

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This adorable little hedgehog once had a nose.

He hasn't any longer, and we all know who's to blame.

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