Gay OK

Justice was served this week in California, where a federal judge struck down the clearly discriminatory Proposition 8, which had invalidated the state law allowing same-sex marriages. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker got it exactly right when he said that opponents of gay marriage, primarily the loving, caring religious right, were motivated only by their ill will toward gay people. Said Walker in his ruling, “Proposition 8 played on the fear that exposure to homosexuality would turn children into homosexuals and that parents should dread having children who are not heterosexual.” That’s definitely what was on display. Fear, stupidity and hatred. The “holy trinity” of right-wing Christianity. There are reports that Judge Walker is, himself, gay. How did Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush not spot that when they nominated him to the federal bench? Kidding. Anyway, this issue isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Eventually, it will reach the Supreme Court, and how that turns out is anyone’s guess. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Alito, Scalia and Thomas won’t be in favor of gay marriage. But whatever the case, the final outcome is inevitable. There will come a day when gay people in this country can marry just like heterosexuals. And that will be a great day.

On burgers, briefs, buffoons and bones

A few random thoughts:

I saw a story on the Internet this week clearly illustrating that some people have too much time on their hands and also are horribly misguided. A watchdog group called Corporate Accountability International is mounting a campaign to have Ronald McDonald removed as mascot of the fast-food chain bearing the same name, apparently because he is leading kids to potentially unhealthy fast food. Now, certainly, kids think Ronald is a pretty cool guy, and they're big on the Happy Meals, but Ronald isn't going to their houses and giving them rides to the Golden Arches. It's up to parents to decide whether their children get a Happy Meal or a Filet-O-Fish or a Big Mac and fries. We can only assume that Corporate Accountability International will be coming out in favor of the Hamburglar, with hopes that he will snatch cheeseburgers from the hands of children. What they should really do is just shut up.

When it comes to groceries, I'm very picky about what I buy. I'm not saying I only buy healthy foods, but that I make sure the junk that I'm putting into my body is top-quality junk. When it comes to clothes shopping, I'm not nearly so meticulous. Ask anyone who has seen how I dress. My inattention to detail proved to be a problem the other day. I was in the market for some underwear, so I went to the local store with the bull's-eye logo and checked out its offerings. I've always been a briefs guy, and when I spotted a six-pack of nice-looking, well-priced “sport briefs,” I tossed them in the cart. It was only when I got them home and tried on a pair that I noticed ... there's no hole in the front of these briefs. My underwear have always had holes in a useful place, so this has required a bit of an adjustment in my bathroom routine. The whole thing left me wondering, though. Do "sporty" people not go Number One all that often? And when they do go, do they maybe sit? Sorry. That's just how my twisted mind works.

No one does a better job of treating their viewers like drooling imbeciles than local TV newscasters. During prime time, they'll breathlessly run promos for their 11 o’clock news with teasers like this: “Is a serial killer stalking South Hills residents?” Then they'll come on at 11 and tell you that, no, it was a false alarm. I was actually just a raccoon going through people's trash cans. I exaggerate, but you get the drift. This next part is real. The other night, the irritatingly kooky Wendy Bell on WTAE was teasing an upcoming story about the Steelers’ preseason schedule. She said something about the Steelers facing “strange competition” next preseason and telling viewers to stay tuned to find out what “enemies” the black and gold would be facing. This really had me wondering. Would the Steelers perhaps be squaring off against the Colgate University lacrosse team? Canadian female curlers? The Bangladesh national badminton squad? Uh, no. Turns out they'll be playing a couple of teams they don’t normally play in the exhibition season. And what’s with this “enemies” stuff? Those preseason games are glorified practices. There's not enough anger or enmity in those so-called contests to fuel a go-cart. The real rage should come from season-ticket holders who have to pay top dollar for the right to attend those auditions for third-string tight ends.

Finally, let's talk about lunch meat. It never seemed odd to me when stores advertised “ham off the bone.” Real hams have a bone right down the middle, and one could easily imagine somebody carving lunch meat off of them. But last night on TV, I saw a Shop ’n Save ad touting turkey off the bone. Huh? Last time I checked, turkeys had lots of bones, and I couldn't think of one particular turkey bone that a butcher might be carving slices of lunch meat from. What's next? Bologna off the bone? Salami off the bone? Maybe head cheese off the bone? Just wondering.

Snow of the century

The recent snowstorm was, in many ways, a learning experience. We learned, once again, that it's foolish to trust TV weather forecasters, or, as I like to call them, the boys and girls who cry "wolf." Typically, they oversell the storms that are approaching, calling for six or eight inches when we end up with one or two. But in this case, they called for a lot of snow, and we got a LOT more than they predicted. We also learned that Allegheny Power is a pretty darned good utility company. At my house, we lost power about 10 p.m. Friday, and we didn't get it back until we got home from work Monday evening. At the time, when you're freezing your behind off INSIDE the house and have no water because the well pump runs on electricity, it seems like a ridiculously long time to be without power. But when you consider the magnitude of the job – more than 400,000 people without power just in Allegheny’s service area – you realize the great work they did, and you have to applaud the dedication of those who work for the utility company. As of today, Allegheny Power was still trying to restore service to about 30,000 people in Greene and Washington counties. I can feel the pain of those still waiting, because you really don't realize how much you depend on electricity, and how much you take it for granted, until it's not there. You're left huddling under mountains of covers in the dark, and it's not a pleasant experience. I personally learned that complacency is a very bad thing. I could have checked my generator on a warm September day, but I didn't. Heck, the power never goes out for more than a few hours at a time, right? And the generator will fire up without protest despite not running in ages, right? Wrong and wrong. When the generator doesn't work during a long power outage, that's not good. I know that now. Thanks to my Uncle Bill, one of those people who can truthfully be described as being so kind and generous that he would give you the shirt off his back, the generator is back in service. He went way beyond the call of duty. Which is another lesson. We need to be more thankful for family and friends who are there for us in tough times. I couldn't count on both hands the number of people who either lent us a hand or offered to take us into their homes. It was greatly appreciated. I also appreciated the work done by PennDOT and the local road crews. People like to gripe about PennDOT, but my trips to and from Washington were blessedly uneventful, thanks to their untiring efforts. I also gained more appreciation for my wife, who hung in there like a trouper and was everything you could hope for as a partner in a tough situation. Those city girls can be tougher than one might think. And I'm sure about one thing: From now on, when I flip a light switch, adjust the thermostat or turn on the faucet in the kitchen sink, in the back of my mind, I'll be telling myself not to take those things for granted.

Where have you gone, hefty PB cups?

In the 1942 movie “Kings Row,” a newly legless Ronald Reagan famously asks, "Where's the rest of me?" That was sort of the feeling I had today when I bought a two-pack of the Reese's dark chocolate peanut butter cups. The package was so light that I thought they might have to tie the candy bars to the rack so a light breeze doesn't blow them away. Folks of my generation have memories, which we're only too glad to share, about the days when a kid could take a dime into a store and come out with a Hershey bar and a Coke. And in those days, a Reese's peanut butter cup was a good-sized piece of candy. Maybe I'm overdoing it a bit, but it seems like a single Reese's cup from my youth weighed more than the two in the pack I bought today. Food producers are a pretty tricky bunch. We all remember how the coffee cans started shrinking so we paid the same price for less coffee. It's been the same deal with ice cream containers. And I even noticed that a package of hash browns, which used to weigh 2 pounds, now comes in at around 34.5 ounces. On the good side of food news, we are now able to buy "throwback" Pepsi and Mountain Dew, which means they are produced with real sugar rather than the corn syrup that has been used, as far as I can recall, since the 1980s. The difference in taste is remarkable. The bad news is that Pepsi says the "throwback" versions – also known as “Mexican,” because sodas in that country still are produced with real sugar – will be available for a "limited time only." Let's see if I have this right. Pepsi puts out a product that is clearly preferable to the one that had been available, and then plans to take it back off the market. In other words, they're screwing with us. It's like McDonald's and the McRib sandwich. I rarely eat at McDonald's, but I will stop by if I see that the McRib is making one of its occasional "limited-time-only" appearances. And then, just as quickly as the McRib reappears, it is gone again. Why do they do this?

In reality, dogs rule

This will probably come as no surprise, but a new Associated Press-Petside.com poll has found that more Americans like dogs than cats. Plenty of people like both, but the poll found 74 percent of respondents like dogs a lot, but just 41 percent like cats a lot. I've had dogs and cats since I was a young child, and while I've had some very lovable cats, I really don't find them a match for a good dog. The photo above shows my "baby" with his muddy paws on the coffee table that he chewed at every opportunity when he was a pup. I think Joseph Moreus, a California man interviewed for an AP story about the poll, summed it up pretty well when he said, “Cats are all about cats ... Cats don't care if they please you or not.” That's pretty much it. Cats do their own thing. Our current cat, when she's not fending off the retriever, spends most of her day sleeping under a piece of furniture in the living room. She doesn't care whether we humans go upstairs, downstairs or outside the house. Dogs, on the other hand, want to be where you are. They're sad when you go somewhere and happy as all heck when you come home. You want to play, they'll play. You want to hit the couch for a nap, they'll curl up next to you. You want to pee in the yard, they'll join you. OK, maybe that was a bad example, and don't try that family "whiz break" if you live in town. I should mention, for my own personal safety, that my wife does NOT join us for that particular group activity. But back to my central point, which is that it's hard not to love dogs. My dogs are happy when I'm happy, and comforting when I'm not. My life is better because of my dogs. And I think that's the best endorsement I can give.

An old-man rant

If you've heard this before (and if you're a longtime reader of this blog, you have), please bear with me. I'm going to climb back up on my soapbox to bemoan the drop-of-a-hat frequency with which school districts either order school delays or call off classes entirely. As early as Sunday night, school districts in Western Pennsylvania already were posting two-hour delays for Monday’s classes. By Monday morning, a lot of them were changing those delays to cancellations, apparently because of the inch of snow we received. I'm all for keeping our children safe, but has anyone calculated the amount of instruction time lost when all those two-hour delays are added up? At the risk of being labeled an angry old man (I am one), I have a tale to spin for those who grew up any time after the 1980s. Back in the dark ages, 30 or 40 years ago, kids went to school in the winter, waiting outside at bus stops, if necessary, unless there was a "real" snowfall. And by real, I mean something along the lines of five or six inches of snow. We had a lady who drove our school bus along the snowy ridges out back of Taylorstown and Claysville, and I'm guessing it never occurred to her to check the radio or television for a delay or cancellation when a couple of inches of snow fell from the sky. And if someone had suggested that school be delayed because it was COLD IN THE WINTER, they'd have been looked at as if they were nuts. But today, little Suzie and little Bobby can't possibly be expected to stand outside in cold weather, even if they'd just spend the weekend playing outside for even longer periods. When I was a youngster, I never once remember one of my classmates having to go for treatment at the nurse’s office for a case of frostbite after standing at a bus stop. And while I'm ranting about how soft we've become, I'd also like to discuss, and get your thoughts, on the goings-on at Texas Tech, where the coach was run out of town after it was found that he had made a player sit in a dark tool shed a couple of times. The player in question was Adam James, son of college football legend and current TV sports analyst Craig James. The facts in this case are about as solid as butterscotch pudding, but it seems that the younger James indicated to coaches that he thought he had suffered a concussion, so the response of Coach Mike Leach was to have him sequestered in a dark equipment shed. After complaints from James' famous daddy, Leach was gone. Perhaps the coach wasn't overly sensitive in shaming a possibly injured player in front of his teammates, but from most accounts, this wasn't an instance of a tough-as-nails, hard-working player being reprimanded for a singular incident. Sources say Adam James wasn't well-acquainted with the terms "dedication" and "work ethic." In fact, acting offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, in an e-mail to university administrators, called James "unusually lazy and entitled." That's not surprising in this day and age, when outstanding athletes, especially those from prominent families, are coddled from an early age and told they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Texas Tech fans weren't exactly lining up to support James. An Associated Press story about the Red Raiders' Alamo Bowl victory on Saturday night said that James was booed so loudly as he left the field at halftime that it drowned out the marching band that was on the field. And Leach isn't the only coach to lose his job for being less than charming. Kansas recently ran off football coach Mark Mangino, whose crime reportedly was being mean to his players. All of this makes me wish that players like Adam James and the ones who whined about Mangino could spend a couple of weeks with Bear Bryant. They'd last less than five minutes before running home to Mommy.

Season’s greetings

I want to wish a happy and blessed Christmas to all of my Christian friends, and to extend the same wishes to those who may be marking other holidays and observances during this time of the year. Underneath all of our beliefs, or lack thereof, we have the same basic hopes and dreams for those we love and care about, and for our world as a whole. May peace be with you, and may all of us have a wonderful 2010.

Say it ain't so, SpaghettiOs

There are some minor events in one's childhood that stand out while other, more important events are forgotten. It's been more than 40 years, but I can still recall my introduction to one of the greatest foods known to man: SpaghettiOs. And I'm still eating them (meatballs version only; don't even talk to me about sliced franks). But life as I know it is about to change, and not for the better. Campbell's Soup Co., the makers of this delectable treat (Even cats like it!), has announced that it will cut the amount of sodium in SpaghettiOs by as much as 35 percent. Said Sean Connolly, president of Campbell's U.S. soups, sauces and beverages division, "Changing the recipe of SpaghettiOs comes on the heels of reducing sodium in our condensed kids soups to healthy levels. It's also consistent with our commitment to advertise only sound food choices to children." Screw that. What about us big kids? Couldn't they make a "classic" version of SpaghettiOs for those of us who don't give a damn about our sodium intake and make a tasteless kids version? This is just another assault on traditional (bad-for-you) foods that we all knew and loved. Oreos and Twinkies are now just poor imitations or their original selves. I don't know what they did to Dinty Moore beef stew, but it isn't good. And don't try to tell me that McDonald's fries are as good now as they were when Ronald was deep-frying his taters in beef tallow. I'm all for giving our kids healthy food, but the occasional can of SpaghettiOs isn't going to ruin them. Heck, I ate a boatload of SpaghettiOs when I was a kid, and I was skinny as a rail back then. It wasn't until I made beer the base of my own personal food pyramid that I climbed aboard the train to Fatville. So, in the name of all that is decent, good and holy, I beg of you Campbell's, leave my O's alone.

Tell the whole truth

Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said, "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." I always liked that. What I don't subscribe to is the old saying that you don't speak ill of the dead. Perhaps what I really mean is, you shouldn't lie about the dead to make them seem better than they really were. There were two deaths in the past couple of days that I'll use to illustrate that point. Yesterday came the news that KDKA radio talk show host Fred Honsberger had died. To hear everyone talking about him, you would have thought a saint had gone to his reward. As an occasional listener to Fred's show, I thought he was a lie-spewing, truth-twisting, rude and nasty jackass. He was a leader in coarsening and debasing public discourse in our region. Some might say that it was a personna Fred displayed on his program and that he didn't really believe in everything he was saying. Well, in that case, he was a fraud. Take your pick: jackass or fraud. Then, today, we learned of the death of Cincinnati Bengals receiver and former West Virginia Mountaineer Chris Henry, who was fatally injured when he fell from a pickup truck driven by his girlfriend. For those who don't follow football closely, Henry was a sad excuse for a human being when he played at WVU, and he assembled a rap sheet as long as your arm while with the Bengals. But because he hadn't been arrested recently, everyone's talking about him as a "young man who really turned his life around." Really? The guy died while chasing his girlfriend during a domestic dispute. Sounds like a regular Ward Cleaver. I'm sorry that both these men died, especially at their ages, and I feel for their families and friends, but let's not whitewash reality. And let me make it clear that I want the same honest treatment when I die. Feel free to say that I was sometimes (most of the time?) a horse's ass. I believe strongly in telling the truth. ;-)

Best wishes

Wishing a happy Thanksgiving to one and all. I'm thankful for a lot of things this year, including the people I've come to know (and argue with) on this blog. And I actually plan to have some new content soon. Been a busy week. Take care, all. Travel safely and eat hearty.

Time to clean house

There’s a television show on the A&E network called "Hoarders." It delves into the lives of folks who have a compulsion that leads them to save anything and everything. Some of these sad folks specialize. One fellow collected stuff that he bought at hardware stores because he was convinced he would need it someday for household projects, which mostly never got done. There also was a lady who had grown up poor and now hoards food. Unfortunately, her house was full of rotting produce, canned goods that carried expiration dates from years ago and a refrigerator filled with unidentifiable materials in various states of decomposition. I have to plead guilty to a little hoarding of my own. It's not like the affliction of the people on the TV show. While I have no problem with common filth (just ask my wife), I hate clutter (except in my car). My weakness was for old e-mails. My Yahoo! account had something on the order of 5,000 old e-mails in it. Some of it was just neglect in not killing out junk. But some of it resulted from e-mails that I thought might contain a snippet of information, or an e-mail address, that I might need again someday. On Monday, I made the decision to clean it out, once and for all. I thought about a deliberate foray through all those old e-mails, trying to preserve those that really did have some nugget of import, but that would have taken hours and hours. So, finally, I killed them all in one fell swoop, with no regard for their content. And since then, as soon as I open an e-mail and read its contents, I kill it out of the system. Now it's time to grad a trash bag and head for the Lebaron.

Just leave me alone

I'm one of those people who truly enjoys grocery shopping, and I've liked it even more since the store I frequent installed the self-checkout aisles. I have one lingering problem, however. Even though I choose to do it myself, store employees are forever trying to pitch in, whether by scanning my groceries for me while I'm at the other end bagging or, even worse, by trying to bag my groceries for me. One reason why I choose the self-service option is that I'd rather not stand there while a checkout person examines my every item as if they have just been handed the Shroud of Turin. Second, I want to bag my own groceries because, for one thing, I can put items in the bags in a way that will make it easier for me to put them away, and I also am not prone to putting a 15-pound ham on top of a loaf of Wonder bread. The other good thing about the self-checkout lines is that they're used by a relative few shoppers. Members of the over-70 set will stand in regular lines that stretch back into the food shelves before they would think of trying those new-fangled grocery scanners. I'm fine with that. In fact, I think people - sorry, but especially the elderly - should be tested before they are allowed to use the self-checkout lines, just to make sure they can proceed at an acceptable speed and are capable of mastering that "futuristic" technology. In the meantime, I beseech the store employees to actually let me do it myself.

Just shut up

It's probably safe to say that the less we hear from Mackenzie Phillips, the better. I find it hard to believe that very many people are interested in hearing anything she has to say. The "highlight" of her acting career was her role on the sitcom “One Day at a Time” back in the 1970s. Since then, she's been best known as a dope addict. But now, 30 years after the alleged "fact," Phillips is coming out with the allegation that her father, John Phillips of the musical group the Mamas and the Papas, raped her on the eve of her first marriage, and that they then had a decade-long consensual sexual relationship. John Phillips is dead and thus unable to defend himself. You have to wonder why Mackenzie Phillips sees the need to air this supposed filthy family laundry at this late date. Could she possibly be trying to help others who might have had sick relationships with family members? Anything's possible, I suppose. But consider these facts: Phillips issued her claims on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” just at the time when she’s releasing a book called “High on Arrival.” I'm going to go ahead and suspect that her real motivation is to make a buck. And she’s definitely not the only one who is guilty of providing too much information. As a people, we seem to have lost all grasp of the concept that some things are private and best kept to oneself. I avoid shows like “Entertainment Tonight” and “Inside Edition” like the plague because, frankly, I don’t give a damn about the private lives of actors, singers and other celebrities. Why does anyone care what these people, whom they don’t even know, do with their free time? I just don’t get it.

You can take your revitalization and ...

It seems that a good number of Mt. Pleasant Township residents aren't taking too kindly to a proposed "revitalization” of Hickory’s main drag, and who can blame them? Someone got the bright idea to pursue a Main Street project in Hickory, and township supervisors held a meeting to discuss the proposal Wednesday night. About 20 residents turned up to tell supervisors they don't want it. They cite concerns about safety and are worried about the effect on their homes if planned 5-foot-wide sidewalks are installed along a section of Main Street that includes just a few more than two dozen properties. One concern is that the proposed creation of eight on-street parking spaces would cause a visibility hazard along that stretch of Route 50. According to an O-R report, the residents heard from Mark Paluso, executive director of Town Center Associates, who outlined the plan to "establish a vital village center for the community." That plan includes – and I kid you not – the aforementioned 5-foot-wide brick sidewalks, floral gardens, old-fashioned light posts, trees and "a life-sized bronze sculpture of a farmer, honoring the area's agricultural roots." Are you kidding me? Paluso, who by his remarks quoted in the O-R story sounded almost shocked that anyone would oppose his plan, said it would be unwise to do away with the on-street parking spots, unless a clear hazard is proven. "The attempt is to create a mixed-use village center,” he said. "That's where you get life, vibrancy and continuity. You are dramatically hurting your ability to make a village center." Did he ever think that maybe most of the folks who live in that area aren't interested in what he's selling? Hickory is a farm town, and I could be wrong, but I'm going to venture a guess that Paluso is a "city fella." If he's not, he sure has lost touch with his roots. I'm not sure how much money – and you can bet that at some level, it'll be the people's tax dollars – is supposed to be spent on this plan, but do they really think people are suddenly going to be flocking to Hickory, and for what purpose? The proponents of this project should look to Washington, where $15 million was spent on such things as new sidewalks, planters and trash cans. Has anyone seen the fruits of this investment? All I've seen are the same dead downtown and some fancy streetlights that don't work. Mt. Pleasant Township (that's one of its "residents” shown in the above photo; he's "on the fence" about the project) has been around since 1788. It seems to be doing just fine without a "revitalization." Perhaps Town Center Associates should peddle its wares elsewhere. I hear Taylorstown and Sparta don't yet have "vital village centers."

Where are a rope and a stout limb when you need them?

We've all had our "weeks from hell." Let me tell you (bore you) about mine. It all started on Wednesday, July 23, when I had to start preparing for a routine colonoscopy the next day. The process goes like this: About 3 p.m., you take a few Dulcolax tablets. A couple of hours later, you start gulping down glasses of Gatorade that has been mixed with a whole lot of a powdery laxative called Miralax. I was instructed to use 255 grams of Miralax, which is a whole tub of the stuff. I looked at the bottle, and if you're just trying to prod balky bowels, you use 17 grams. Needless to say, once the Miralax kicks in, it's a pretty good idea to be in the vicinity of a toilet. By midnight, I felt as if Mike Tyson had used me for a heavy-bag workout. The next day, I go in the for procedure, and despite the IV drug they gave me, I wasn't quite out of it when the doctor went to work on me with the tube. It felt pretty much like he had stuffed a couple of wolverines up my wazoo. Fortunately, the drugs kicked in shortly thereafter, and the next thing I knew, a nice lady was handing me a Coca-Cola. They also advised that the good doctor had snipped off a couple of polyps while he was "in there," so it wasn't just a casual tour of my lower intestines. After that, I'm figuring that life has to be looking up. Ha ha. It was shortly thereafter that the electrical system in my house began to behave in a strange manner. Out of the blue, half the house would periodically go dark. Just as mysteriously, it would go back on. Sometimes, if the air-conditioner kicked on, that would jump start the part of the house that was dark. I'm still in the process of trying to figure that one out and solve the problem without having to take out a loan. Then, the first of this week, the upstairs toilet and I had an epic two-day battle. I finally won, with the help of an Internet cure found by the missus that included hot water and Palmolive. In the midst of my jousting with the "royal throne," my son calls me at work to advise that something "really bad" has happened to the push mower. He tells me that there's some oil on the deck of the mower. When I get home, I tip it up to see if there's any damage underneath, and when I do that, all kinds of oil and large chunks of metal come out of the side of the engine compartment. Nice. I fully expected a plague of locusts or snakes the last couple of days, but all is quiet. And I got a call yesterday telling me those polyps I had snipped off were benign, so maybe things are looking up. Nevertheless, I'm still on the lookout for lightning bolts, and next week I get to take my car to the shop. Oh boy.

Jon and Kate ... Hey, wait

I don't watch much reality television. For some reason, I'm not attracted to shows such as "Rock of Love," "Bridezillas" and "Big Brother" that seem to feature nothing but scummy, mean-spirited, slimy, venal and repugnant people. But one would almost have to live in a cave to avoid the mass media frenzy over the family featured in a TLC series called "Jon and Kate Plus Eight." The program follows the lives of Jon and Kate Gosselin and their eight children, a set of twins who are nearly 9 and 5-year-old sextuplets. And those lives, of late, seem to be twirling down the toilet. In my limited exposure to the program, it struck me that the mother in the family is what we used to call a "bitch on wheels." The dad appears to be a disinterested schlump. And if you believe the news reports, some from questionable sources, one or both of the parents might be having extramarital affairs, and divorce might be right around the corner. It appears to me that if these two don't actively hate each other, there's an intense and growing dislike. Which brings me to my point: Does anybody involved in this sordid mess really give a damn about those eight kids? I presume that they're all in school now, and I'm guessing that, kids being kids, some other youngster will inevitably ask, "Why does your Daddy have a girlfriend?" or "I saw on TV that your Mommy and Daddy are getting a divorce." The exploitation of these children would be considered deplorable by any caring person, but it's clear, at least at this writing, that the parents are content to allow the apparent collapse of the family to be carried out in front of millions of TV viewers. Could the big money they're raking in be the overriding factor? It's pretty clear that they're now accustomed to living a high life that, without the television program, they would be unlikely to be able to afford. If the producers of the show or the folks at the network that carries it had any morals and integrity, they would pull the plug. But again, money talks - and it's really loud. So, no matter that these children might be scarred for life by what's going on here. There's plenty of cash to be stuffed into the adults' pockets.

View from Brazil

My friend Mark Swift, a music professor at W&J, is currently on sabbatical in Brazil. My wife will be leading a group of young people from First Presbyterian Church in Washington who will join Mark in early July. For a glimpse of life in Brazil and Mark's experiences there, check out his blog.

Say what?

An oil company has an advertisement currently running on radio that praises a driver who switched from an "inferior" oil to the company's synthetic product by telling the driver, "That's using your dipstick." The phrase is repeated several times throughout the ad. They intend it as a compliment. I had a totally different take. Do I just have a filthy mind?

Trickle-down stupidity?

OK, boys and girls, listen carefully. Unwed mother Bristol Palin has some advice for you on how to avoid getting in the "family way." Of course, it's abstinence, which worked so well for her. Bristol gave an interview to ABC's "Good Morning America" in which she said that she wishes she had waited to have sex. I'll bet she does. She also offered this startling bit of information: "I just think that abstinence is the only way you can effectively, 100 percent foolproof way you can prevent pregnancy." Hold the presses. Do you mean that if you don't do the horizontal hokey-pokey, you can't get pregnant? This should solve everything in the area of teen pregnancy, right? Wrong! Even Bristol's baby daddy, who looked like a deer in the headlights when he was paraded around the Republican National Convention and learned that he would be getting married, knows better than that. Levi Johnston, now estranged from Bristol, said abstinence is "not realistic." Smart boy, at least in that regard. "Abstinence is a great idea," Johnston said in an interview with "CBS This Morning. "But I also think you need to enforce, you know, condoms and birth control and other things like that to have safe sex. I don't just think telling young kids, ‘You can’t have sex,’ it's not going to work." Perhaps he didn't say it eloquently, but Johnston is right on the money. We can talk all we want about abstinence being the best bet for our children. It is. There's really no denying that. But the reality, which some find to be an inconvenient truth, is that unmarried young people have been having sex with one another since the dawn of time, and they will continue to do so in large numbers as long as humans walk the Earth. What we have to do, as responsible people, is find the best ways of helping these children protect themselves from pregnancy and disease, and if they foul up, we should make sure that they have access to the morning-after pill. No, it shouldn't be used as a routine birth-control measure, but if a couple of kids screw up, no pun intended, the rest of their lives should not be ruined (and many are undeniably altered for the worse by an unintended pregnancy) when a simple trip to the drugstore could prevent it. Telling kids to just say no to sex is about as effective as telling the ground not to get wet when it rains. If Bristol Palin, a girl from a stable, well-to-do, loving, two-parent family who no doubt had her mother in her ear preaching abstinence for years, goes ahead and has unprotected sex, what are the odds that a girl from a poor, single-parent home with little hope for the future is going to buck the odds and keep her drawers on? We need to help our kids, and ourselves, by offering them more than empty words.

The latest on the same-sex marriage front

This just in from Maine:

AUGUSTA, Maine – Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.
New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn't indicated whether he'll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region's sole holdout.
The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who hadn't previously indicated how he would handle the bill, signed it shortly afterward. In the past, he said he opposed gay marriage but supported civil unions, which provide many benefits of marriage.
Debate was brief. Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, turned the gavel over to an openly gay member, Sen. Lawrence Bliss, D-South Portland, to preside over the final vote.
Republican Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden argued that the bill was being passed “at the expense of the people of faith.”
“You are making a decision that is not well-founded,” warned Plowman.
But Senate Majority Leader Philip Bartlett II said the bill does not compel religious institutions to recognize gay marriage.
“We respect religious liberties. ... This is long overdue,” said Bartlett, D-Gorham.
Maine is now the fourth state in New England, to allow same-sex marriages. Connecticut enacted a bill after being ordered to allow gay marriages by the courts, and Vermont passed a bill over the governor’s veto.
New Hampshire’s House was also expected to vote on a bill Wednesday and send it to Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.
Massachusetts’ high court has ordered the state to recognize gay marriages. In Rhode Island, a bill to legalize same-sex marriage has been introduced but is not expected to pass this year.
Outside New England, Iowa is recognizing gay marriages on court orders. The practice was briefly legal in California before voters banned it.

The interesting quote here, for me, is from Sen. Plowman, who said the bill was being passed "at the expense of the people of faith." However, the new law does not require churches to perform gay marriages or to recognize them, and it doesn't require Sen. Plowman to like it. The two statements most often offered in opposition to gay marriage are: 1. It's wrong (under some religious belief system) or 2. How do I explain to my children why their friend has two mothers? To the first objection, I would say, we should not be basing our laws on any particular religious belief system. Who is to say that one church's beliefs are better than another's? And there are some churches that are very welcoming and accepting of gay people. As to the second objection, try something like this: "Honey, God created many different kinds of people. It's not for us to judge them just because they are different from us." Or maybe, "The main thing is that Bobby's parents love one another." Trying to shield a child from the fact that gay people exist or that they are married is just idiotic, and it's going to prove fruitless, because someday all people, whatever their sexual orientation, will have equal access to marriage rights. And if you're still convinced that being gay is a choice, you're either in deep denial of reality or you need help matching socks. I'm still waiting for a good explanation from a gay-marriage opponent as to how allowing gay folks to marry hurts them or their own marriage. I'm all ears.