Interesting Stuff

The news everyone seems to be talking about is that former US President Gerald Ford has died, presumably of something related to old age. Although I had always had the impression that he was a bumbling fool and everyone disliked him for pardoning Nixon (which apparently lead to his defeat in the next Presidential election), lots of people seem to be coming out of the woodwork and saying how great Ford was at bringing the nation together and healing them after the Watergate, Vietnam, and civil rights problems the country was experiencing.

In what I consider more interesting news, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that the state Senate must vote on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The legislature moved to recess without voting on it, which is against the state laws. However, the court aknowledges that they cannot force the lawmakers to vote on the issue (and the lawmakers have done this before). Assuming the amendment gets at least 25% of the Senate’s votes, it would go to a public election. This makes a lot of sense for constitutional amendments; it seems like they should be ratified by the people. However, it seems like a really bad idea to let the often ignorant, stupid, and bigoted masses decide on civil rights issues (can you imagine what would have happened if segregation had been put to a popular vote in 1954, instead of just letting Brown v. Board of Education stand?). We’ll see what happens, and although it would be nice if lawmakers followed the law, I really hope that gay marriages aren’t banned.

Finally, it looks like President Bush is considering changes in his Iraq policy, though I personally doubt he will set any sort of timetable. From what I’ve seen on CNN (Anderson Cooper is so awesome!), we need more troops over there to keep everything from collapsing into civil war (you know, more than it already has), but we don’t appear to have many more troops to send over. The whole thing is a disaster, but at least Bush is starting to consider new options instead of just burying his head in the sand. Time will tell how this turns out.

I’m back in MN for a week, and although it’s great to see friends from high school again (and hopefully play some more bridge with Jim), my mom is already driving me nuts. I think I just need to spend as much time as possible outside of the house, and I’ll be ok. If you’re in town, give me a call; my number is on Facebook (yes, psifer, it really is)!

Some of you know how two weeks ago, I was all \ford{What I need is a strong drink and a peer group.} Well, that’s exactly what I got last night! Jeffrey, Emily, Amanda, Lauren, Diana and I went over to Lily’s pad to have a “we’re all 21″/”end of the summer” party. We started off the night with Smirnoffs, and watched some Monty Python, including several sketches with some biting social commentary, which was pretty great. After mixing a few things involving Kahlua, Bailey’s, banana schnapps, and some other stuff, Amanda and I beat Lily and Jeffrey in a game of team chess, which was kinda weird. I had no idea that Amanda was such a good chess player. It’s kind of sad thinking this is the end of the summer – Jeffrey left for Iowa State today,Emily went back to Madison (though she will supposedly return for the State Fair and RenFest), Diana leaves next week… and I’ll be back in Claremont in a week and a half. After a really shitty start (thanks again to everyone who wrote and cheered me up), the summer has turned out OK. Nonetheless, I can’t wait to get back to Mudd and see everyone!

Oh. Also, Jeffrey and I went to St. Olaf on Tuesday to see Michael. We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and then saw The Wedding Crashers, which was pretty good. Michael seems to be doing well, though he hates his job.