Gay marriage

During the hospitalization in September 2004 when we found out that my life partner, Margaret Ardussi, was dying, one of the nurses commented to me on our devotion to one another and then said, “I’ve only seen that level of devotion from gay couples.” Wow. I believe that legalizing gay marriage will strengthen the institution, …

Picture of Dorian Obama

I met Ed Morrissey of Hot Air at Bloggers Row at CPAC for the first time today and I have to say he is a scholar and a gentleman. He asked me how I first started on the path from liberalism to conservatism and I promised him I would write a post on this part …

The enemy at the gate

My father attended the University of California at Berkeley in the 1930’s and early 40’s studying nuclear physics from undergrad through Ph.D. under Robert Oppenheimer and Ernest Lawrence with Nobel laureate Emilio Segre as his doctoral thesis advisor. His family lived near the university so he took the tram for seven cents, or walked a …

Why ridicule is Obama's Kryptonite

I remember when I was in high school (1967 to 1971) my father’s great enthusiasm for the books of Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher and author of The True Believer. Dad’s copy is next to my keyboard now and I see it is dated “April 4, 1970,” so he bought it when he was about …

Ruh-roh! It's bad karma not to link to Little Miss Attila!

I have a routine of blogs I check every day and Little Miss Attila is on it. Why, just last night, when Cuban Diva BFF was depressed after an argument with her mother and called to be cheered up, I immediately enfolded her in the bosom of Little Miss Attila, by which I mean I …

Multiple cultural personality disorder

The so-called “honor murder” of Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, in Orchard Park, New York, by her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44 — he turned himself in to police, so there’s nothing “alleged” about it — motivated me to track down the Washington Post’s coverage of another honor murder in Potomac, Maryland, in 2001. Marianne I. Oweiss, …

Serving the king

The eternal struggle between pragmatism and idealism was highlighted in a beautiful monologue in an episode of The Closer from its second season in December 2006 written by series creator James Duff. It came at the end of a two-part show about a Muslim boy in Los Angeles murdered by a KGB agent who had …