Creepy, yes; but a crime?

Here's a thoughtful analysis that questions the basis on which Larry "I'm not gay" Craig's behavior in that now infamous men's room arrest was deemed criminal.

Dan Savages Keillor

After he reads this, Garrison Keillor won't know what hit him. People who live in glass houses....

Confessions Of A Former Sprint Sales Rep - Consumerist

I've been off-contract with Sprint since November, but I'll definitely keep these tips in mind the next time I'm ready to get a new cellphone.

How Well Can You Type?

Check out this group of Boston guys who combine the gift of rhythm and a love of manual typewriters to create these fun little ditties.

Oscar Predictions 2007

It's just five hours until showtime, so here are my Oscar predictions. I'm not going to do the whole should win/will win game, as the only info I have about "will win" is what I read in other blogs and the mass media. So, here's who I think is most deserving to take home a statue:

Picture: Babel
Actor: [didn't see any of the nominees, but I wouldn't be upset if 8-time nominee Peter O'Toole won]
Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Suppt. Actor: Mark Wahlberg, The Departed
Suppt Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel [sorry, Marty]
Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Adapted Screenplay: The Departed
Original Score: Babel
Original Song: "I Need to Wake Up" Melissa Etheridge

Here's a summary of what others are predicting.

Jet Blue: You Had Me At "We Are Sorry"

I have been a fan of JetBlue for more than two years, and this latest crisis has me wanting to run to its defense. One of my first impressions of the airline was watching CEO David Neeleman handing our headsets as customers boarded in Boston. Ever since I've been impressed by the company's attention to creating a positive customer experience.

As part of a service recovery initiative, Neeleman has announced a "Passenger Bill of Rights" and sent out the following e-mail apology:

Dear JetBlue Customers,
We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.

We are committed to you, our valued customers, and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.

Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.

You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Sincerely,

David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways

Wow! When was the last time a corporate exec issued a Japanese-style mea culpa? For the sake of my favorite airline, I hope these efforts turn an operational disaster into a PR win!

Productivity Tool of the Day

I've just installed Outlook on the Desktop, a freeware application by a young Canadian programmer named Michael Scrivo that, well, lets you use Microsoft Outlook as the background on your desktop. You can set it to the calendar and then switch among the other Outlook tools (Tasks, Notes, etc.) to get a quick overview as needed. Not only will it save some time by providing info at a glance, but it's cool too.

Thank God!

The Religious Right's Era Is Over? I hope he's right.

Kid, you've got moxie!

Rep. Keith Ellison, who made news and some waves as the first Muslim elected to Congress, apparently is a man of action. He called the Capital Hill police to report that the anti-immigration representative from Colorado (with delusions that he could be president) was toking a stogie in his office. Hey, rules are rules. Only one problem: it's not against the rules.

Phrase of the Day

Dan Savage's latest podcast counsels a woman whose boyfriend has a one-track mind (and it's the lower GI, if you know what I mean) and says she has "butt fu*k Stockholm Syndrome." Alert these guys.

The Inspiring Words of Our Next President

Senator Barack Obama gave the keynote at a faith-based conference this morning. Hillary is probably still quaking in her Manolo Blahniks. After making the case for progressives to stop hiding their faith or being critical of others', he turned to the Christianists. Conservative leaders, he said,

need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?

Read the rest here, and see why he's attracted so many supporters.

The Passion of Mary Cheney

Dan Savage savages Mary Cheney's attempt to carve out a private space for herself and her partner as they prepare to become parents. Amen, brother. And check out his podcasts....

What Google AdSense Has Wraught?

In what is either a case of targeted web advertising run amok, a joke in very poor taste, or a simple coincidence, this pairing of "Clay Aiken" with "sexual predator" caught my eye. No thanks to DatelineNBC, I don't think he needs any reminders of how celebrity can make on-line hook-ups problematic. Attention, Clay: Your lawyer's on line 1 and your publicist is on line 2.