Parkside Q

Just Beyond The Rainbow

Those two lovebirds above are Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who have dedicated their lives to the advocacy of gay women's rights. Yesterday, their lifelong mission, as well as their love for each other, was finally chronicled in the most significant and valid of ceremonial events: they exchanged "I do's".

They were the first gay couple to recite their vows with the full legal recognition of the state of California. While they'd already been married when San Francisco legalized marriage for all its residents, the rest of Cali just caught up to the Golden Gate on Monday, June 16th.

The happy couple's state-sanctioned wedding was a landmark event, for several reasons. Number one, it made the government, and its constituents, recognize what Lyon and Martin had known for the past five decades (that's over twice my age!): love is beautiful wherever it exists on the sexuality diaspora. Number two, it's a step in re-affirming the civil rights of all Americans.

Side note: "gay marriage" is a stupid term. It's the same thing as straight marriage, except both partners have the same kind of gonads. Conversely, "straight marriage" is also a stupid term. They're unnecessarily redundant quantifiers for the same concept: the union of two people that love each other enough to sign binding pre-nuptial agreements.

But I digress. While I may have no problem with two guys or two girls getting married and filing joint tax returns and boring stuff like that, there are those that still have a problem with it. Something about "sanctity" or somesuch nonsense like that. One of those naysayers happens to be some dude named John McCain.

The Fat Lady's About To Rock The Mic

Hot on the heels of Senator John Edwards' endorsement of Senator Barack Obama's historic run for the Democratic party's presidential candidacy, his challenger, Senator Hillary Clinton, also sent some love Obama's way. According to CNN, Clinton gave Obama an indirect nod of approval, stating that she thinks it would be a "terrible mistake" for her supporters to vote for John McCain (the Republican presidential candidate) over Obama.

She also indicated that she is willing to "work [her] heart out for whoever [the Democrat] nominee is." However, she stopped short of conceding the race to Obama by saying, "Obviously, I'm still hoping to be that nominee...."

While I'm happy to see Hillary inching toward a concession of her campaign, I'm still concerned about why she isn't moving to end her run faster than she is now. The writing's on the wall: the same CNN article shows Obama still leading Hillary in the primary vote count, and her expected win in West Virginia last Tuesday did nothing to stop the Obama gravy train.

Government Handouts Are Bad, Unless You're A Collapsing Hedge Fund

There's an article in the New York Times today (via Consumerist) which details a disturbing development on Wall Street. The investment fund, Bear Stearns, had what is known as a "run on the bank". In layman's terms, BS said they weren't collapsing under the weight of their putrid subprime mortgage business - and the error of investing too heavily in them. Their investors begged to differ, and many of them asked to pull their money out of BS. The action of BS's investors would have lead to its demise, until the Fed, backed by JP Morgan, gave some short-term float cash to BS.

Now, take a sec to think about this. The Fed's action in this case amounts to nothing more than a government handout. In a truely free market, BS would have been left lying face-down in the gutter to bleed out and die, with its rotting corpse swept away to some unknown sewage treatment facility the next time there was a torrential downpour. This is not what happened. In fact, it looks like BS got the money from JP Morgan, but the Fed gave JPM the money to give to BS, since BS can't borrow the money from the Fed's themselves.

And The Academy Award For "Worst Front Page Oscars-Related Headline" Goes To...

For those of you from New York (and even those of us, like me, that aren't), you have some sort of familiarity with The New York Post. More than likely, you have a love-hate relationship with it. I love it for its light, distractive nature which perfectly complements hectic subway commutes, but hate it for being so trashy sometimes. Which brings me to today's headline.

Unless you're living under the Williamsburg Bridge (in which case, how would you be reading this?), you probably know that the Academy Awards was on last night. I won't get into who won or whatever (too many other blogs have done the heavy lifting for me on this one), but I want to point out how The Post decided to introduce this year's winners, and why I fucking hate it.