Year: 2008
Oldest Newlyweds Plan No Children Together. Should They Be Allowed to Marry?
John Dawkins and Penny CooperPensito Review wishes this couple in England all the best.
…with a combined tally of 179 years, John Dawkins and Penny Cooper have become the oldest newly married couple in the country.
Mr. Dawkins, 89, from Exmouth, Devon, said yesterday: “It is a wonderful thing to love – it gives me a great amount of pleasure to be with her. Without a shadow of a doubt, I would have been a very grumpy old man if I had not met Penny.”
P.R. editors have withstood weeks of reading comments from Mormons (ever since we started posting on the Proposition 8 election victory in California, which outlaws gay marriage) who claim procreation, not love, is the rightful purpose of marriage.
The groom: “It is a wonderful thing to love”
We wonder how long it will be before Mormons and other religious nationalists decide to outlaw marriage between older people, or when one of the partners is sterile, or in the case of second marriages where the parents feel there are already enough children to be raised, or when the partners agree the world is overpopulated, or…who knows?
We’ll just stick to our view, which seems so much simpler. If two grown-ups decide to marry and they aren’t already, then they can.
Especially if they love each other.
Quote du Jour
He says we only have one president at a time. I’m afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He’s got to remedy that situation.
— Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), quoted by the Associated Press, urging President-elect Obama to intervene in the automobile manufacturers bailout proposal
Poll: Insiders Grade Obama Cabinet Picks
In its weekly PollTrack survey of Washington insiders, National Journal revealed some interesting opinions in both political parties:
Q: How would you grade each of the following Obama Cabinet nominations?
Democrats (72 votes)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (secretary of State) A-
Robert Gates (Defense secretary) B+
Timothy Geithner (Treasury secretary) B+
Eric Holder (attorney general) B+Hillary Rodham Clinton
A. “Her detractors will be pleasantly surprised at how well she works in his and our behalf: A shrewd, global-view appointment.”
A. “Better to have your chief rival on your team, supporting your policies.”
B. “She’ll do a fine job, but it could act as a distraction, and I’m not convinced that Clinton will do a better job than some others, such as [Bill] Richardson.”Robert Gates
A. “He is seen as a nonpartisan figure, and is a mature figure with a philosophy consistent with Obama’s plans for the next few years.”
B. “As long as he executes the wishes of the commander-in-chief.”
D. “If you want a Republican, name a Republican, just not this one. This guy is part of the team that America so overwhelmingly rejected on November 4.”Timothy Geithner
A. “Broad bipartisan support, very bright, but with real-world experience — comes from the Bob Rubin school of economics, which is a plus.”
B. “Time will tell whether the Geithner-Paulson approach has been the correct one, but the economic crisis needed someone that insiders respect and support, and the Geithner pick has sent the right signals to the Hill, Wall Street, and the boardrooms.”
C. “Why pick a guy who was knee-deep in the banker bailout debacle?”Eric Holder
A. “Knows the territory and won’t need on-the-job training.”
B. “Solid, honest, and knows how Washington works; an AG who will honor the Constitution.”
C. “Is this really the best we have out there? The pardon may have been overblown, but is this really change? ‘Yes, we can,’ but ‘No, we didn’t’ on some of these early picks.”
Q: How would you grade each of the following Obama Cabinet nominations?Republicans (78 votes)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (secretary of State) B
Robert Gates (Defense secretary) A-
Timothy Geithner (Treasury secretary) B+
Eric Holder (attorney general) C+
Brian Williams on the Advantages of Modern Technology
This video of Brian Williams addressing the Ad Council needed no introduction but this is the only version readily available. Turn the sound down during the short intro, which misses the point Williams is making, and watch his speech. It’s good.
The Better World Campaign has narrowed a field of 5,000 ideas that President Obama should address “On Day One” down to a manageable 81. Follow Prop 8 – The Musical
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
I’ve been meaning to post this since my sister, who was the witness and “person of honor” at my wedding in October, sent it to me on Wednesday. (Thanks, E!)
Here’s a list of the star-studded cast:
Republican Florida Representative Hangs Up on Obama
According to the Associated Press, as reported in today’s Miami Herald, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) hung up the phone on President-elect Barack Obama yesterday:
When a man sounding remarkably like President-elect Barack Obama called a Florida congresswoman Wednesday, she assumed it was a crank call.
So Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reports, this was no prank.
“I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,” Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. “They got Fidel Castro to go along. They’ve gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, ‘Oh, no, I won’t be punked.'”
The call came about 1 p.m. Obama congratulated her on her re-election, saying he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper.
The conversation lasted about a minute when she cut Obama off, telling him she wasn’t falling for the hoax and that he was a better impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live, she said.
Then Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, called the congresswoman to tell her it wasn’t a joke. But she hung up on him, too. It took a call from Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to persuade Ros-Lehtinen that Obama really did want to talk to her.
When the two finally talked, Ros-Lehtinen said she and Obama had a good conversation and she congratulated him for his victory despite how hard she campaigned for his opponent, Sen. John McCain.
He didn’t even blame her for mistaking him for a radio-station prank, she said.
“He laughed a lot, saying in Chicago they do it all the time,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “He said, ‘I don’t blame you for being skeptical.'”
Repeated calls by The Associated Press to two office numbers for the congresswoman rang unanswered after hours Wednesday. An e-mail message to an Obama spokeswoman after hours wasn’t immediately returned.
Too bad it really was Obama — if anybody deserves to be punked, it’s Ros-Lehtinen.
Bush and Rove Launch ‘Legacy’ Campaign to Rewrite History
On Tuesday, Stephen Hayes, a conservative columnist and analyst for CNN, revealed that George Bush and Karl Rove have launched a new propaganda campaign with the monumental goal of rewriting the history of the past eight years. The newspeak title of the enterprise is the “Bush legacy project.”
The campaign rolled out this week, first in an “exit interview” Bush gave Charlie Gibson of ABC News and then in an Oxford-style debate in Manhattan in which Rove argued against the proposition that “Bush 43 Is the Worst President of the Last 50 Years.” In the separate venues, both men attempted to reposition Bush’s role in the invasion of Iraq from resolute war president, as he depicted himself at the time, to a reluctant warrior who was misled by bad intelligence into making what many analysts rate as the worst military decision in U.S. history.
Bush was up first, on Monday night, with the interview with ABC’s Gibson, but notice how Bush whiffs on the revisionist script when he is supposed to second-guess the decision to invade:
The Wedding Crashers: Gay Protest Planned for Florida Gov. Crist’s Nuptials
Bride-to-Be Carole Rome and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist
Florida newspapers are breathlessly covering the minutiae of the Dec. 12 “marriage” of Gov. Charlie Crist and socialite-divorcee-Halloween costume designer Carole Rome. It’s the second time around for both of them, she having been married to Bluestar Jets CEO Todd Rome, and Charlie spending seven months during 1979 in some type of legal entanglement. Crist is widely rumored to be gay.
Which brings us to the matter at hand. Until a few days ago, all that press coverage concerned who was (hardly anybody) and was not (most members of the legislature) invited to the 200-person ceremony, what the invitations looked like (cream and pale pink with a note reminding guests that by Florida law, no gifts can be accepted), where the wedding will be held (First United Methodist Church of St. Petersburg) and the reception (Renaissance Vinoy Resort), and what the bride and her two young daughters will wear (bride: silk, ruched bodice gown by a Spanish designer and three-inch heels; flower girls: cream-colored, floor-length dresses).
But here’s an element the happy couple can’t select: the ensembles for the protestors outside. Impact Florida is organizing a celebration of Crist’s so-called marriage, followed by a candlelight vigil for the thousands of gay people who don’t have the same opportunity to wed in Florida as do the governor and his fiancee.
We will be joining together in Pink Tee Shirts and bluejeans to congratulate Governor Crist on his wedding. The wedding is set to take place at the First Methodist Church in Downtown St. Pete.
After the positive Congratulatory observance. There will be a candlelight Vigil close to the Venoy in Downtown St. Pete to mourn the loss of Gays right to get married.
We ask people from all over Florida to join in at these events and that it is kept peaceful and respectful event.
Crist seemed to find the anti gay marriage amendment distasteful and claimed he had bigger fish to fry during the campaign, such as auditioning for the role of Sarah Palin before John McCain picked a running mate. That didn’t keep the governor from doing the mandatory Republican thing of supporting it.
“I’ll support it, I’ll vote for it, move on,” the governor said of the Amendment 2 gay-marriage ban in an interview during a trip to tour flood-damaged areas in Central Florida. “It’s not top-tier for me, put it that way.”
I wouldn’t think so. But Crist should get used to the idea that his personal life, which makes no sense no matter how hard he tries to live as a straight man, is relevant here. Impact Florida certainly thinks so.
“Our goal is to celebrate the governor’s and every Floridian’s fundamental right to marry,” said [spokeswoman Lorna] Bracewell, a singer and songwriter from St. Petersburg. “Our theme is going to be, Congratulations Governor – When I Can Get Married?”
