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The Gays Get Married

I'm all for the gays getting good press, but c'mon guys at the Times: we're not all rich, preppie white guys. From the cover photo to the inside photos, the article makes it seem as if all gays have perfect white teeth and beautiful apartments with expensive furnishings. Could the reporter (or his photographer) have stepped out of his social circle and found more typical 20-somethings to profile?

EMI: Call off the Lawyers!

I've been using MP3tune.com's music storage service for almost a year and am perturbed to learn that music giant EMI has sued this small company charging "willful infringement of copyright." You can read about it here and download the complaint here. According to EMI, customers shouldn't be allowed to store a copy their own, purchased digital music for their own personal use. What's next - suing the makers of blank CD-ROM and DVD disks or external hard drives? What can you do to help? Jeez - the product is called "Music Locker," as in secure and protected! It is not a P2P system, nor does it make it possible to share music torrent-like with strangers. EMI should spend its efforts to find better A&R people. Here's a suggestion: Clive Davis is available....

Gonna Fly Now!

Laughed outloud at this mash-up of the Democratic primary to date:

Genius Parody

Give some talented college students a digital camera and look what they can produce: There Will Be Bud. The production values and acting - note the dead on vocal impressions - are awesome. Has PT Anderson seen it yet?

At least she's consistent....

Here's Hillary explaining why she will insist that the Michigan and Florida delegates should be seated at the DNC convention in August:

I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that.

Doesn't that sound a lot like the way she defends her vote for the Iraq War?:

I was told directly by the White House in response to my question, 'If you are given this authority, will you put the inspectors in and permit them to finish their job,' I was told that's exactly what we intended to do.

So, a vote to authorize the use of force isn't a vote for war and agreeing to abide by party rules isn't an agreement not to challenge them.

And doesn't this all sound like this classic line?:

It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.

She's so predicatable.....

Unable to talk herself out of the mess she talked herself into, Hillary Clinton enlists a wealthy, black supporter to do her dirty work:

And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved.

Notice the reference to Obama's acknowledged drug use as a young man. Which of course Johnson quickly denied is what he meant:

My comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect.

They have no shame.

Mute no more?

Celebrating her primary victory in New Hampshire tonight, Hillary Clinton asserted, with a straight face, ''Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice.'' This from the woman who has been "making change for 35 years"? How did she make all that change if she didn't have self-knowledge and the ability to channel it into action? Perhaps she means that until now she has been completely poll-driven, scripted, and insincere. But wait - we already knew that!

HRC retools strategy? Not so much.

This from Politico.com:

Clinton and her aides downplayed the significance of her Iowa loss, and she said the New Hampshire primary Hampshire primary is a more meaningful contest.

'This is a new day, this is a new state, this is a primary election,' she said, turning to sharp criticisms of the Iowa process. 'You're not disenfranchised if you work at night. You're not disenfranchised if you're not in the state.'

If she's being truthful (which is always in doubt), then shouldn't she have know about the way the Iowa caucus process "disenfranchises" groups of voters from the start? Why did she participate at all? Why didn't she lead a protest to bring some change to the system - isn't that what she claims she's so good at? Don't the Democrats believe that "every vote counts, and every vote should be counted"?

Obama - He is the One!

Oh, joy and rapture - Barack Obama won Iowa big! Now it's on the New Hampshire and then all the way to Denver!

Update: Isn’t blood-lust a bad thing?

Another blogger picks up on Huckabee's complaint that Romney didn't execute anyone during his time as governor.

He's pro-life, except for....

the convicted who receive the death penalty, apparently. That seems to be the implication of Mike Huckabee's attack ad against Mitt Romney that, among other "facts," points out that Romney presided over zero executions as Massachusetts governor. Nevermind that Massachusetts does not have the death penalty. So when Huckabbee lumps  "no executions" with "left office with a deficit" and "supported gun control," his criticism begs a question about how he reconciles his own record of 16 executions his espoused belief in the sanctity of life - which he recited on this past Sunday's Meet the Press:

It's not a faith belief.  It's deeper than that. It's a human belief.  It goes to the heart of who we are as a civilization. If I believe that your intrinsic worth is not changed by your ancestry, your last name, by your IQ, by your abilities or disabilities, if I value your life and respect it with dignity and worth because it is human, then that's what draws me to the inescapable conclusion that I should be for the sanctity of every and each human life. 

I don't know why Tim Russert didn't challenge him about this apparent contradiction. Maybe another journalist will follow-up, but I'm not holding my breath.

Good Habits

As I did last year, in 2008 I'm going to try to blog at least once a day. I got out of the habit last winter just as I began the final push to finish my dissertation. I've heard that it takes 21 days to develop a sustainable habit. So, one day down - twenty to go!

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.