When second class equals victory

Danny Westneat devoted a column earlier this week to gloating over Washington state’s Referendum 71 vote, and all of its significance:

Gays can’t win at the ballot box.

That has always been the harsh reality. Put the subject of equality for gays and lesbians to a vote of the people — practically any people, in states from deep red to dark blue — and the people have always said: “No. Not here. Not yet.”

Until — it appears — now. Right here.

There’s a week’s worth of ballot-counting remaining in an election everyone is saying is too-close-to-call. But it appears Washington state will be the first in America to approve a gay-equality measure not by court fiat or legislative action, but by the direct will of the people.

It’s never happened before. If the slim lead holds for the gay-partnership law Referendum 71, it would be a landmark. Huge.

Not because the law that was on the ballot Tuesday is the last word in this debate.

But because the vote signals, finally, a tipping point of sorts — a bellwether of public acceptance — that has eluded gays and lesbians forever.

Yes, a town here or a county there has voted on the pro-gay side over the years. Usually to bar overt acts of discrimination against gays (which Seattle voters did way back in 1978).

But no state has ever approved a pro-gay vote. The opposite, in fact — dozens of states have voted overwhelmingly to outlaw gay marriage, domestic partnerships or even the ability to adopt kids. Those votes actively consigned gays and lesbians to second-class-citizen status.

In 1997, even supposedly liberal, libertarian Washington rejected a gay anti-discrimination law by a landslide, 60 percent to 40 percent. That vote set back the drive for gay equality here by nearly a decade.

And on Tuesday, voters in Maine repealed a gay-marriage law that had been passed by that state’s Legislature.

The vote here on Tuesday was far from a landslide. But in it you could see the slow wheel of societal change turning ….

All of that, and more, in this vote, in which supporters have claimed as theirs, and currently stands at 52-48% in favor, leaving opponents to pray against. Westneat’s column is obviously not written for homosexuals, but rather that potentially-sizeable bloc of readers for whom this vote was a significant milestone in their own personal evolution. This is a feelgood moment, of a sort. After all, voters have apparently approved a law that would have already been law had some people not chosen to challenge it at the ballot box. Good to know the people are on board, but the writing was prominently scrawled on the proverbial wall. We’ve already been through a gay marriage fight and people know it’s coming eventually. This was an easy wrangling of the conscience; this was an easy vote.

Let us pause to consider again:

But no state has ever approved a pro-gay vote. The opposite, in fact — dozens of states have voted overwhelmingly to outlaw gay marriage, domestic partnerships or even the ability to adopt kids. Those votes actively consigned gays and lesbians to second-class-citizen status.

And so does this, Mr. Westneat. So does this.

When victory means second class? Putting it gently as such, it means tomorrow there is still work to do.

Could that get any uglier?

Damn ….

An elderly Michigan woman died in October as the result of a severe dental infection after adult dental Medicaid benefits were cut in the state. Blanche D. LaVire, 76, had been diagnosed with abscesses earlier in the year and reportedly suffered from advanced periodontitis.

Because LaVire was mentally challenged, she required special treatment. Her condition was such that her doctors felt it would be unwise to undergo treatment in a dentist’s office. Advised to have the necessary procedure performed in a hospital, LaVire was then scheduled for an oral surgery near the end of June. The procedure was delayed when LaVire contracted pneumonia.

Once she had recovered from the pneumonia, doctors attempted to reschedule LaVire’s procedure, but discovered she was no longer covered by Medicaid. An executive order issued by Michigan’s Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm had taken effect on July 1 that dramatically cut adult dental Medicaid benefits. All oral health services were eliminated by the order, with the exception of emergency services.

Doctors began the filing procedure to prove that LaVire’s case was indeed an emergency, but her infection was growing worse. With LaVire left unable to afford care, dentists with Michigan’s Dental Clinics North volunteered to treat her for free, but Medicaid would not pay the $5,000 hospital fees. LaVire then had no choice but to wait, hoping to be approved for emergency dental coverage. She died, still waiting, on October 7. Gerald Case, health officer with the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, spoke bluntly on the horror of the situation, saying, “Frankly, by the time the documentation was put together, she died.”

I’m just sayin’ ….

Let’s see if anyone notices, you know? I mean, this sounds like political hellfire if spun right. But it’s the Socialists covering this story, so nobody’s going to give a damn, are they?

Scary-scary

No, no, no … I’m not hopping on the gloom bandwagon.

Historically, U.S. Treasury bills are considered to be one of the world’s safest investments. But growing insecurity about the long term health of the U.S. economy and recent weakness in the dollar benefits gold, which is often used as an alternative asset hedge to a depreciating dollar.

What if investors are moving away from the dollar for good? Foreigners own a little more than half of publicly-held U.S. government securities, according to the Treasury Department. So if these foreigners – both central banks and private investors – decided to give their Treasury portfolio a heave-ho, it could leave to a devaluation of the greenback and rising interest rates, and the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses could rise. That would be bad for economic growth.

Rather it’s when you read something that is sort of thoughtful-scary, it’s worth noting. You know, like, if this ever actually came true, this is the day I first heard about it, or something stupid like that.

Anyway, never mind.

Wanker

Let’s call it … um … er … yeah.

Anyway, over at AZCentral, the headline for Bill Miller’s McClatchy article is, “Police: Burglar forces elderly woman to make him sandwich“. And there is something … um … er … yeah. Something about that. I mean, make your own headline. I did.

A 39-year-old man has confessed to breaking into the home of an elderly woman early Monday in Fort Worth, Texas, and forcing her to watch as he performed a sex act on himself, police said.

Mitchel Wayne Stewart also ordered the 77-year-old woman to make him a sandwich before he fled with her cell phone, police said.

Oh. Damn. Proper. That was the word I was looking for. I kept hanging up on dignified, or even nice. (As in, “That’s a nice way of putting it.”) Except, well, obviously … er, um … yeah.

So let me get this straight: You break into a house, get yourself off in front of an old woman, compel her to make you a sandwich, then steal her mobile phone and leave?

Like I said, write your own headline. After all … oh, right.

Generation gap

Oh, come on. The lede is worth a double-take:

A Somali man who claims to be 112 years old has married a 17-year old girl.

“Today God helped me realise my dream,” Ahmed Mohamed Dhore said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

Bride Safiya Abdulle’s family said she was “happy with her new husband”.

‘Nuff said?

News from across the Pond

It makes for a good punch line:

Anyway, isn’t he supposed to be Middle-East peace envoy? Surely he won’t want to give that up just while he’s achieving such staggering success in that post. But this appears to be what happens to him; he wrecks a place, then gets the job of uniting it. Even Bin Laden didn’t have the cheek to say “Aha, there’s a vacancy for President of the New York Tall Buildings Appreciation Society. I think I’ll put in for that.”

—Mark Steel, on Tony Blair

Not to sound stupid, but what is a .timp?

Request for Information
(Updated)

I’m not the most proficient technological person. That is, I can use a computer, and often better than some of my associates who have “certificates” for using Microsoft Office and the like. But no, I’m not by any stretch a network technician, programmer, or anything like that.

So I have a question.

It is unusual behavior for my computer to have its security safeguards penetrated. So unusual, in fact, that the appearance of new files on my desktop after simply visiting a web page is completely foreign to me. Not that I’ve never experienced an unauthorized download, but before I always had to click a link to trigger the download. I’m capable of perusing user communities to find out how big an issue this is with the operating system, and what I need to do about it. That part is all good; with a little more diligence, I will know if this is a security update bug, or whether someone has found a way through the gates. And then I’ll know what I need to do.

The question at hand seems comparatively benign, or even banal. But, you know, I also know how to do simple things like look up a file extension I’m unfamiliar with. And, you know, in some cases I end up feeling stupid because I’m left wondering why I didn’t know, say, what an .ogg file was. Life goes on.

But this time, I’m striking out completely.

AlterNet managed to place a file on my desktop under the name ad.timp. I simply linked in from The Rumpus, following a health care story, and my download window popped up showing a zero kb file by that name. File information says it came from AlterNet, and not The Rumpus.

So I excommunicated the file and then set about what I expected would be a simple but enlightening search to determine what the hell a .timp file is. Unfortunately, I’m coming up with tumbleweeds. Silence. Nothing. I may not be a brilliant (or even halfway-decent) computer scientist, but this is an unusual result even for me.

Anyone? Anyone? I’m curious. If you happen to know, and are willing to share a minute of your time, could you please fill me in on what a .timp file is, what it is for, what it is supposed to do, and so forth? Mostly, I’m curious because in looking up various file extensions, I can also learn how hostile and dangerous a given file can be. And, well, since my computer is displaying new behavior despite the most recent virus and spyware checks coming up blank, I figure it’s a good idea to find out just what AlterNet is sending users without asking or advising them.

I would greatly appreciate whatever insight anyone might be willing to share about this mysterious (to me) file extension.

Join in the dance: Guns! Guns! Guns! Guns! Fire! Fire! Fire!

In the long-running American debate about gun control, it occurred to me long ago to wonder about those folks whose “home protection” failed them in certain ways. After all, anyone can point to a news story about a grandmother shooting a fleeing intruder in the back and crow about home protection with firearms. And who, really, is going to make the obvious point in those cases? And, certainly, there are the criminals who probably shouldn’t be carrying guns in the first place. But you rarely encounter headlines like, “Homeowner misses intruder, shoots up own living room”. I mean, I’m sure it happens from time to time, but it just doesn’t make a juicy headline like an old woman shooting down a bad guy.

On losing a bet: Chuck Todd making a change

Apparently it was a slow news day, or, rather, that the Huffington Post notes that NBC News’ Chuck Todd, having lost a bet with ABC’s Jake Tapper, will shave his infamous goatee.

The NBC News White House Correspondent entered into a bet with ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper: if the Dodgers won the NLCS, Tapper would have to grow a goatee; if the Phillies won, Todd would have to shave his.

The alternative would be to donate $1,000 to the other’s favorite charity, with Tapper supporting Dr. Shershah Syed — who he described as “an ob/gyn devoting himself to saving impoverished women in his native Pakistan” — and Todd supporting Samaritan Inns — which he described as providing “housing and recovery services to homeless and addicted men and women.”

Whatever the aesthetic result—I don’t think I’ve ever seen Todd without that facial monstrosity—shaving his goatee won’t do much for his credibility. Although it might help his charm quotient. After all, we want to see the fresh-faced Chuck, not the Chuck who would helping poor women in Pakistan. You know, if he’s cute under that facekill, credibility won’t matter.

David Rohde: A captive’s story

The New York Times presents the six-part series, “Held By the Taliban”, by David Rohde:

• Part One: “7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity” (Oct. 17, 2009)
• Part Two: “Inside the Islamic Emirate” (Oct. 18, 2009)
• Part Three: “‘You Have Atomic Bombs, but We Have Suicide Bombers’” (Oct. 19, 2009)
• Part Four: “A Drone Strike and Dwindling Hope” (Oct. 20, 2009)
• Part Five: “A Rope and a Prayer” (Oct. 21, 2009)
• Epilogue: “Epilogue (Oct. 22, 2009

David Rohde reports for The New York Times, and won a Pulitzer for his 1996 reporting on the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia for The Christian Science Monitor. In November, 2008, Mr. Rohde and his team were taken hostage by the Taliban-allied Haqqani faction in Afghanistan. Once accused of being a spy for Bosnian Muslims, Mr. Rohde now tells the story of his captivity by Afghani Muslims who, naturally, considered him a spy.

On June 20, 2009, The New York Times published news of Mr. Rohde’s escape along with one of his abducted colleagues, Afghani reporter Tahir Ludin.