One of the best speeches I've ever seen on gay marriage, from New York State Senator Diane Savino, on the occasion of their vote on a bill to legalize it.

(This has been linked all over the web, so I apologize if it's a repeat for some of you. But it's so powerful and worth watching, that I hope you don't mind seeing it again.)



Sadly, the bill failed, and it wasn't even close. Time to step up the court cases.

Why do I love Barbara Boxer?* Because she does things like back petitions to overturn the Stupak Amendment.

Earlier this month, the House passed the Stupak Amendment to their health care reform bill, which would be one of the biggest setbacks to women's health in recent decades — unless we stand together and stop it.

That's why we're launching this petition, because women must not be denied access to safe and legal medical procedures.

Join us by signing the petition and help build pressure to remove the discriminatory, extreme, anti-choice Stupak Amendment from the final health care reform bill!

Link to the petition here, which you can bet I'm going to sign right now.

Rumor has it that Stupak has no chance of surviving the Senate, which is encouraging. As is this report on the 10 votes (not 20 or 40, as Rep. Stupak keeps claiming) that would likely need to be found if the amendment isn't in the final bill. Assuming one-man wrecking machine Joe Lieberman doesn't bring the whole thing crashing down regardless. But no matter what comes next, I'm still glad that Senator Boxer is willing to actively stand up for women's rights.

*I do have another senator. We won't talk about her right now.

The outcome of the election in Maine is proof positive that we should not be making decisions regarding people's civil rights at the ballot box.

Take it away, Melissa McEwan:

Historically, we have depended on the courts to make decisions about the application of constitutional guarantees in spite of popular opinion, and they have repeatedly secured protections for marginalised groups decades before Congress and state legislatures, which more closely track public opinion, would have done. John Rogers once noted that "when the supreme court struck down the bans against interracial marriage in 1968 through Virginia v Loving, 72% of Americans were against interracial marriage. As a matter of fact, approval of interracial marriage in the US didn't cross the positive threshold until – sweet God – 1991".

That's exactly 30 years after our current president was born to an interracial couple.[1]

Waiting for the whole of society to be on board with granting equal rights to everyone is simply not in our collective best interest.

[1] And now, almost 20 years later, we have a justice of the peace who resigned rather than perform interracial marriages. Which just goes to show that prejudice against interracial couples is hardly dead. It isn't even hiding very well.

Attitudes do change. I have even seen them changing over my adulthood, to the point where a Washington state initiative legalizing strong civil unions is barely a blip on the national news radar. Remember when Vermont created civil unions and threw the entire nation into a tizzy? That was in 2000. Not even 10 years ago. So the tide will turn, eventually. We're seeing them in motion now. But (to switch metaphors) would the door even have started to open if judges -- first in Vermont, then in Massachusetts -- hadn't forced it a few cracks? Would Jim Crow laws ever have been defeated by popular vote? Guaranteeing our rights is what the court system is for. We should let it do its job.

Bay Bridge closed "indefinitely" for emergency repair.

I can't imagine that it'll be more than a couple of days, realistically. But it sure sounds dramatic, doesn't it? (Of course, no matter how long it is, it's really going to suck for people who use that bridge to commute. And if it's more than a couple of days, my weekend plans could get... interesting.)

I could also go off on my rant about how we'd have a shiny new bridge by now if it weren't for Willie Brown and our need to grandstand against Pete Wilson, but I'll spare you all that one.

If you read only one article about the Roman Polanski debacle, make it this one. Even if you're sick to death of hearing about Roman Polanski.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/

Every time I think Kate Harding cannot possibly be more awesome, she finds a way to prove me wrong.

This is absolutely horrifying.

All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries Closed Effective Close of Business October 2, 2009

All Free Library of Philadelphia Customers,

We deeply regret to inform you that without the necessary budgetary legislation by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, the City of Philadelphia will not have the funds to operate our neighborhood branch libraries, regional libraries, or the Parkway Central Library after October 2, 2009.

It's not just the library, either. Effects of the Plan C Budget, which I've also seen called the "Doomsday Budget", include shutting down the parks and recreation department, gutting fire and police, and reducing garbage pick-up to twice a month.

If it were any other city, I'd still be horrified, but this is Philly. I never lived in the city proper, but I called its suburbs home for four years and still feel quite an attachment to the place. I went there on a regular basis. I still have many friends and acquaintances there. So it's more of a kick in the gut than it might be otherwise.

And then there's the fear that San Francisco might be next. If Philadelphia can fall, if the city of Seattle can be forced to close its libraries for a week, is anyone safe?

Is this really what we want the future of our country to be?

A sad day. Even though we knew it was coming. He will be sorely missed.

So okay, can we please stop screwing around and get this health care reform thing done already? For Teddy? Please?

This is not a good time to be reading library news blogs. Closures, layoffs, unpaid furloughs. Yet another reason to add to the list of why I'm glad I didn't go into the public library sector.

Why, when people need the services a library can provide more than ever, are they the target of the most ferocious budget cuts? I will never understand.

Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.

From this really lovely smackdown of a loony town hall protestor by Congressman Barney Frank, in which he also invokes Godwin's Law (although not by name). About time.

Every time I watch or listen to vlogger Jay Smooth, I fall in love with him a little more. I mostly know him from his commentaries on race and culture, but today I stumbled across this video about creativity, blockage, and procrastination:

I'm sure there are people who wake up every day confident that everyone wants to look at their face and listen to them talk, but I'm not one of those people. When I'm in the groove, and getting work done, and feeling like I'm making the connection with you guys out there... it feels natural to keep showing up and maintaining that connection. But if I go too long without putting work in, and it feels like that connection is broken, there's a little voice inside my head that starts playing tricks on me, and starts trying to convince me that the connection was never really there.

And I think this is true for most creative people, that we each have a little hater that lives inside our heads, and tries to set up traps for us.

Wow, does this resonate. We all have that, right? The voice in your brain that whispers to you, that says "You're not good enough; no one cares about your work; why are you even bothering?" on a near-endless loop. And I agree that it's especially a problem when I haven't been writing, or posting -- it breeds more insecurity, which gives the little hater more to feed on, and so I feel even more insecure, and the cycle continues. So the question is, how to shut the little hater down, or to keep her from piping up in the first place? I have no answer today. But I think it's an excellent question.

Check out the follow-up video, too.

Also, thanks so much to everyone for your kind words yesterday and earlier today. I appreciate them all so much. *hugs all around*

Edit: This brief and clear analysis of the court case is very important, and you should all read it.

The CA Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, but the existing marriages will be allowed to stand.

This is pretty much what everyone was expecting and planning for, so I'm not crushed, but I am definitely disappointed.

On the other hand, since Proposition 8 was legal, that means it can be repealed by a simple proposition as well, right? So onward to 2010 (or 2012, depending on what they decide to do). And more lawsuits, I'm sure. More once substantial reactions start coming down.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." (wiki cite)

Amazon 'fesses up, sort of: it was "an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" that started at Amazon.fr, then propagated throughout the system. No official explanation from Amazon yet, but the link above features statements from a former employee who seems pretty in the know. Edited, 8pm: Now with actual corroboration by a current employee, although still no name.

I do hope Amazon learns its customer service lessons from this fiasco better than *certain other* companies I might mention.

Go Iowa!!

If you'd told me that my childhood home state would get same-sex right mere months after my wacko progressive adopted home state got it so very wrong, I would never, ever, have believed you. Of course, Iowa has much tougher rules for amending the state constitution than California. Sigh.

Anyway, enough sadness. This is a happy thing. Hooray!

"You have a bouncing baby budget." And it only took four months of labor!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/19/MNCM160B0E.DTL

Thank god. I don't even care if it sucks (which D-Day says it does), we needed this. Now to go back and fix the process so that this never. happens. again.

Hacked road construction signs warn of attacking zombies.

As the article points out, there are all sorts of reasons this shouldn't be funny. But it made me laugh anyway.

We haven't had a good political rant in awhile...

Check out this Eric Boehlert column on Obama, the press, and "bipartisanship" (quotation marks his):

Virtually all the news accounts are stressing the same story: If there's little or no bipartisan support for Obama's stimulus package, then it's Obama fault, and his fault alone. (No surprise, the media narrative echoes the latest GOP talking point, as dutifully pushed by RNC writers like Peggy Noonan.)

A bit ironic, isn't it? While addressing the issue of bipartisanship (i.e. "involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties") the press holds only one party accountable: the Democrats. Apparently, that's how the press now views the issue of bipartisanship -- it's something Democrats must bring to fruition.

In fact, the press has set up Republicans with perhaps the easiest short-term political victory on record. All the GOP has to do is oppose Obama on the stimulus package, and the Beltway media will proclaim Obama the loser. (Heck, they already have.) Does it get any easier than that? Republicans literally do nothing and then get crowned the winner.

One of the reasons I voted for Obama was his apparently sincere belief in bipartisanship. Most of the time, I don't think anything meaningful gets done in government without some level of compromise, and sometimes the system demands it. But there is such a thing as going too far, and I think we've reached that point, and then some. When Obama and the Congressional Democratic leadership go out of their way to court Republican votes, and are rewarded for their efforts by not receiving a single one, bipartisanship has failed, and it's not the fault of the people who reached out.

All that would be bad enough without the media painting Obama and the Democrats as the obstructionists. That's just the icing on the ever-more-rancid cake. The article has many examples and is highly recommended. Eric Boehlert is rapidly becoming my hero.

It is my sad duty to report that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, thereby predicting six more weeks of winter.

Admittedly, we could use a little more winter here in San Francisco -- we're seriously off the pace for rainfall, and if we don't get a lot more, and especially more snow in the Sierras, we could be in for a nasty summer. But I have a feeling most of you out there are more than ready for winter to be over.

Also, pity the poor meteorologists, upstaged annually by "furry forecasters".

Stupid recession, messing with everything I love. First it was books. Now, it's chocolate:

The Hershey Co. said Tuesday it plans to close Scharffen Berger's West Berkeley manufacturing plant as well as the San Francisco factory that makes Joseph Schmidt chocolates and consolidate production at other facilities.

They say they won't stop making it, and they're still committed to high quality, and blah blah blah, but I don't buy it. And I loved the little Scharffen Berger factory. The tour was fascinating, one of my must-visit recommendations for people coming to the Bay Area. I wonder if they'll close the little store in the Ferry Building, and if the chocolate will still be any good.

Of course, we all knew that Hershey's would be the downfall of Scharffen Berger and Schmidt eventually. But it seems particularly bastardly for them to take advantage of the recession as cover. Boo.

1. "How Google is Making Us Smarter", from Discover magazine. The title is a direct reference to that article from the Atlantic regarding Google et. al., which I talked about awhile back, but still haven't read. The idea is that our brains don't end where our skulls begin: our environment is actually an extension of our brain, and the way we use the Internet is a natural consequence of that. Not groundbreaking, maybe, but the article quotes some interesting studies, several of which I hadn't heard of before. Sometimes we joke that we're "outsourcing" parts of our brain: directions to Google Maps, phone numbers to our cell phones (I used to have *tons* of phone numbers memorized; now I just speed dial everyone), and so forth; but maybe that's actually true, and perfectly natural.

2. Wikipedia considering restricting instant edits: At long last, Wikipedia is starting to think about dipping its toe in the waters of moderation.

The idea in a nutshell is that only registered, reliable users would have the right to have their material immediately appear to the general public visiting Wikipedia. Other contributors would be able to edit articles, but their changes will be held back until one of these reliable users has signed off, or “flagged” the revisions.

Naturally, this proposal has met with enormous controversy in the world of Wiki. Over-reaction? (The final straw was the recent, and erroneous, report that both Teddy Kennedy and Robert Byrd had died on Inauguration Day, which was live on both pages for over five minutes.) A necessary change to preserve the integrity of Wikipedia as a source of information? Myself, I'm not really sure.