Love is all you need

Congratulations to the California Supreme Court for doing the right thing. The fight is not over, of course, with further legal action and ballot initiatives just around the corner. But for today, it's a great day to be a Californian.

As for the headline above, it makes for a nice symmetry with this one.

Smart car, smart move, smart guy (?)

A diverse trio of items caught my eye in the last 24 hours.

First there's the crash-test report on the tiny Smart Car, which turns out to be one of the safest subcompacts on the road. It still looks a little iffy for long rides on the interstate, but for city driving -- not to mention parking -- this high-mileage, low-emission gadget on wheels is the wave of the future. Just ask all the Europeans who've been using them for years in Rome, Paris and Frankfurt.

Next up, the man who saved the Giants is about to step down. Peter Magowan has done a lot of irritating and flat-out stupid things in the last decade -- anyone want a slightly used $18 million a year pitcher? -- but in 1993, he and his partners pulled off what felt like a miracle, buying a franchise that was set to move to Florida and keeping baseball in San Francisco. Thanks for that.

And finally, R. Kelly once said "I Believe I Can Fly" -- but this guy actually can. No, really, 186 MPH with a rocket strapped to his back. Completely nuts. (Side note: is it just me, or did anyone else start humming the Jetsons theme song while watching this?)

The Elitist Menace and other campaign fictions

I have avoided the entire subject of the presidential election for weeks now due to campaign fatigue on my part. What? The numbers haven't changed? Obama still has an insurmountable delegate lead? McCain is still a smug warmonger? Clinton is still clawing after the nomination like a wolverine on crack?

Ah, but then someone comes along and puts it all in perspective. Thank you, Tom Tomorrow. You're my hero....

All you need is love

I don't always read the obituaries, but every so often something catches my eye. This morning it was an obituary for a true American hero, the fittingly-named Mildred Loving, who played a part in righting a wrong so fundamental that your average teenager today can hardly believe it was ever part of American life. As the Associated Press obituary tells it,

"Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died...

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero - just a bride. "It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work." ...

"The law that threatened the Lovings with a year in jail was a vestige of a hateful, discriminatory past that could not stand in the face of the Lovings' quiet dignity," said Steven Shapiro, national legal director for the ACLU.

"We loved each other and got married," she told The Washington Evening Star in 1965, when the case was pending. "We are not marrying the state. The law should allow a person to marry anyone he wants."

Yes it should. Who will be this generation's Mildred and Richard Loving? I hope we find out one day soon.

Just because

That is all.

Iron Geek, er, Man

I am such a geek sometimes.

Not exactly a newsflash, that, but I’ve definitely been feeling my geek oats this week in anticipation of catching the new Iron Man movie. Yeah, that’s right, I’m all aflutter over a comic book movie about a guy who puts on red and gold armor to fight bad guys using “repulsor rays” and such.

There are reasons for this.

One is Robert Downey Jr., one of the great actors of his generation (my generation), who came perilously close to flushing his career – not to mention his life – down the toilet back in the 90s with a series of drug- and alcohol-fueled run-ins with the law. A decade later, Downey returns to the big screen as what appears on paper to be the perfect choice to play a desperately flawed hero -- an arrogant, hard-drinking uber-capitalist whose comeuppance forces him to question everything about his life, and convinces him to try to make something positive of it while he still can.

Another, I must admit, is the pure giddy fun of seeing another of my childhood heroes hit the big screen. Yes, I did collect comics all through my grade school, teen and even college years, and no, they didn’t rot my brain, thank you very much. They may have implanted some very archetypal ideas about good and evil, wrong and right, romance and loyalty and such – but what exactly is wrong with that, anyway?

A third is the fact that, while he’s never been my favorite, the Iron Man of the Marvel comic books has for most of his modern tenure been a wonderfully dysfunctional hero, a cocky s.o.b. with major alcohol and intimacy issues, not to mention shrapnel lodged near his heart that could kill him at any moment. All indications are that the movie is faithful to that vision, combining 21st century whiz-bang special effects with an equally three-dimensional lead character whose deep flaws give his heroism dimension and emotional impact.

Or maybe it was just that they closed the trailer with THE perfect song, Black Sabbath’s 1971 industrial music prototype “Iron Man.” Yeah, that was probably it...

The True Meaning of Sportsmanship

A friend forwarded this amazing story this morning. Kudos to the players involved, and a big raspberry to the guy who e-mailed one of the players criticizing women's lack of competitive spirit. Whoever you are, you're exactly the kind of parent I used to despise seeing around the Little League diamond. People who think sports are about nothing more than beating the opponent by any means necessary have no business being involved with them.

Miley Cyrus: role model

Boy, are you people cranky. To wit:

• The new CNN poll issued today is a historic one -- George Bush is now officially the most unpopular president in U.S. history, with 71 percent of Americans polled disapproving of how he is handling his job as president.

• Miley Cyrus -- she of the mega-popular Hannah Montana show in the Disney Channel -- has been put through the media wringer by tut-tutting puritanical pundits and parents outraged about a new photo in Vanity Fair which portrays the 15-year-old entertainer exposing... um... well, nothing. Your average teenager swimming down at the local community pool displays more flesh than young Ms. Cyrus does in the photo in question -- they just cover up with swatches of cotton and spandex instead of a rumpled bedsheet.
  

Now, George Bush has certainly done plenty to deserve your approbation -- don't know if you heard, but the White House has FINALLY come around to agreeing that maybe that "Mission Accomplished" banner wasn't the greatest idea -- but piling on Miley for taking an innocent and rather artistic photo? It's classic postmodern build-'em-up, tear-'em-down behavior. We try to make our stars into way more (squeaky-clean role models) than what they are (entertainers with lives beyond the stage and screen), and then act outraged when our idols behave like three-dimensional human beings. More to the point, shouldn't these kids' role models be someone closer to home, like, say... their parents?

Walk This Way

I like to walk – and my iPod has convinced me to like it even more.

Today I pushed the chair away from the desk at 5:00 sharp and headed out with portable music library in hand. Sometimes I have a musical plan in mind for my walks; sometimes not. My first thought today was to start with a song that had been going through my head as I put on my walking shoes – “Walking After Midnight.” I knew I didn’t have the Patsy Cline original, but I thought I might have loaded the Garth Brooks cover version on there.

But, no. Still, having looked for the song via the iPod’s “Songs” listing, I found myself staring at a list of songs that all started with the word “walk.”

Hmm.

And so, here’s the listening program from today’s walk. Another reason why I love my iPod...

“Walk Away” – Joe Walsh
“Walk Back In” – Keb’ Mo’
“Walk Like A Man” – Bruce Springsteen
“Walk Of Life” – Dire Straights
“Walk On” – John Hiatt
“Walk On” – U2
“Walk Softly…” – Ronnie Montrose
“Walk Tall” – John Mellencamp
“Walk This Way” – Aerosmith