Random thoughts on a Saturday

Well, I am busy ignoring applications to our program, doctoral exams, two different pieces that are past due, and too many other things to mention... so I figured I would blog a little.

1. Great news on a new project! I am going to be taking the lead on a national study, something that will help extend the vitae and give me some big study experience. I am thrilled to expand my purview beyond local issues to something bigger.
2. I read the coverage and listened to Obama's official declaration for the Presidential race in 2008. The police estimated between 15,000 and 17,000 people in attendance! The man is amazing and inspiring. I don't know what will happen with his candidacy, and whether he can best the Clinton machine, but it will be great to watch.
3. The world seems to be so freaked out by queers:

The legislature in Alaska would rather spend 1.2 million for a special election to deny benefits to the 77 partners of same-sex state employees than pay the benefits.

A lot of the professional basketball players had to tell reporters that they would be okay with newly out, former player Amaechi as long as he didn't come on to them. Of course, they added, it would be strained to be in the same locker room as him. (Yet more proof that women just have more confidence in our sexuality; women have to
deal with come on's all the time, and we don't melt when people look at us.)

Legislators in Utah can't sleep until they find a way to keep LGBT kids in their state from meeting and getting some support from their peers.

4. And yet, most soldiers in the military are okay with gay men and lesbians, and a New York Congressman is chiding Condi Rice that the State Department should hire all of the queer linguists that the military threw out.

5. I don't know what Leonard Pitts is thinking... He is usually one of my favorite columnists, but Friday he wrote some claptrap, agreeing with Dobson, about how Mary Cheney's baby with her partner Heather might be used to argue that fathers don't matter. He quotes Dobson's bogus "scientific" studies of the need for fathers in children's lives. No one should give Dobson more press, especially Pitts. One might argue that it is the set-up for the tear down, but let me be the first to say, it does not work. I may have to dash off a short, aggravated note.

Okay, enough for now. Hope the weekend treats you well. I need some dinner!