Fry's Geeks Are Smarter Than Geek Squad Geeks

They say things come in threes, and I hope I'm done with my computer glitches for a good while cause I've had three in one week. (My home PC is also almost exactly three years old, which unfortunately is the average life expectancy for computers.) First, my monitor died, then my computer fan went into permanent overdrive, and then when I tried cleaning out my computer with that canned air, it wouldn't come back on because my power supply was fried. So I just unplugged everything and took the PC up to Best Buy. The guys at Geek Squad at Best Buy were good about confirming my dead power supply and replacing it for me. They confirmed the diagnosis right away by just plugging in a spare power supply right there on the counter, and said they could put a new one in for me in about a half hour. So that was all good, and the computer was ready as promised when I returned from Starbuck's. However, when I got it home, it came up and ran fine, except that the fan was still in overdrive. After Googling around for info, I found a handy freeware utility called SpeedFan that lets you monitor and control your fans and your PC temperature. It was then I discovered that while the ambient temp in my case was okay, but CPU was running at 70C when idle, and up to 85C when taxed. That is way too hot, so I immediately shut down the computer and headed right back to the Geek Squad. The guy opened it up, saw that all the fans were running okay, and said that if it wasn't giving any evidence of slowing down and it wasn't seizing up, I should just run it, and not worry about the loud fan, and it should be fine. (Apparently, the newer Pentium chips are designed to slow themselves down when they get too hot.) At that point, I was wondering whether my CPU was truly as hot as the motherboard sensor was reporting, or whether the fan was just needlessly cranked because the sensor had gone awry. I tried searching in the HP support website (I have an HP Pavilion PC), but did not find any useful info there about thermal issues (beyond advice to clean out your dust bunnies, which I'd already done). I did, however, find very good information on the Intel site (my PC has "Intel inside"), which suggested that one possible problem was the thermal conductor material that transfers heat from the CPU to the heat sink can go bad. That seemed plausible, so I shut the PC down again and planned to take it in to Fry's (which is near my office) first thing in the morning. So when I took it in to Fry's, just by the questions the guy at the service counter was asking me, I could already tell that here were more knowledgeable geeks than the guys at Geek Squad. He suggested tying some cables back that may have been impeding the airflow, as well as reseating the CPU fan when they reapplied the thermal conductor. He started taking it apart while I was there at the counter, and discovered that two of the four screws that held the CPU fan in place had stripped, and that the fan, though apparently working fine, had lost solid contact between the CPU and the heat sink, and *that* was the real source of trouble. He helped me pick out a new fan, and had it fixed up in about a half hour. And it was only $15 for the fan, $4 for the thermal goo, and $30 for the service. Money well spent to save my CPU, which really was overheating after all. So, lessons learned:

• if your fan goes into overdrive, there's a reason
• Intel's support site is much more useful than HP's
• Fry's geeks are smarter than Geek Squad geeks

BOOKS: Shakespeare: The World As Stage

Of course I'm biased, since I'm a great fan of the Bard, but I found Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare fascinating. Bryson applies his investigative journalistic instincts to the conundrum of how little we actually know about the most influential writer in the English language. Along the way of plumbing the precious few scraps of real information about the man, Bryson illuminates much about the place and time that Shakespeare lived -- the layout of the growing city of London, the business of the theater, the popularity of poetry, the mechanics of printing, the politics of the court -- all of it related in a style as dryly amusing as it is informative. Underlying all of this is the fascinating detective work of the historian, trying to reconstruct accurate knowledge of Shakespeare's life from the few fragmentary artifacts, and assessing how to fill in the cracks based on our best knowledge of historical context. Much of this interested me especially as a genealogist, where I am often doing similar work, trying to understand a historical life from a few artifacts -- a church record of birth and marriage, a deed, a court record here and a tax record there -- and then trying to get a deeper understanding of the milieu. Bryson does a great job of explaining how little we know, what we can reasonably extrapolate from it, and in many amusing passages, the history of Shakespeare scholarship, and why we think we know what we think we know about him. He sets the tone for the book by beginning with an account of why we think we all know what Shakespeare looks like, and why the well-known image is of surprisingly tenuous reliability. He ends the book with an amusing survey of the unfounded but surprisingly persistent idea that Shakespeare didn't actually write the works attributed to him. I left not only with an enhanced appreciation for this great writer, but also an enhanced appreciation for the historian's job. A most enjoyable and worthwhile history lesson.

Small City

I continue to be surprised at how often we unexpectedly run into people we know at various places around the city. Los Angeles is a city of some 4 million people (and 10 million in the county), and our "domain of presence" within it, while nowhere near the entirety, seems reasonably large. We enjoy a broad and varied set of venues for dining, shopping, entertainment, and socializing. And yet we bump into people, at venues, or even on the street. (How "un-LA" is that?) This morning, on two different occasions, I bumped into friends during a half-hour visit to the Hollywood farmer's market. And last night at the Hollywood Bowl (a venue that seats upwards of 17,000), a friend of ours had a seat directly behind us. What are the odds?

I know that the odds of things are often different than the unschooled intuition would expect (for example, the likelihood of finding a common birthday among a group of ten surprises most people), but I wonder how our experience of "connectedness" compares with the average. Is it like this for most people and in most big cities? Or is there something about Los Angeles (or about George and me) that is distinctive? I know that with cars, the perception of size on the inside doesn't always correspond with actual size on the outside, and you can find cars that feel large inside while being actually small. I wonder if there is an analog for cities, if Los Angeles somehow feels smaller on the "inside" than it actually is on the outside? In any case, I love living here.

FILM: Mamma Mia!

Even several days after seeing Mamma Mia, the infectious Abba tunes are still playing in my head. That's not a complaint. It makes me smile, and sometimes I have to repress the urge to jump up on the table and start dancing. The film was great fun. Of course, you need to like Abba (there's probably more music than dialog), and the film, like the play, is an excuse for one production number after another. You also need to like musicals, and be able to accept the fact that characters burst into song at every opportunity, and that a charming chorus of Greek villagers pop out of the windows and blue doors of their white-washed houses to fill out appropriately over-the-top song-and-dance numbers. There's also the initial strangeness of hearing actors sing whom we haven't known as singers before (remember Moulin Rouge?), but you get over it. Of course nobody is surprised that a respectable singing voice is yet another talent of the uber-talented Meryl Streep. Seeing/hearing Pierce Brosnan sing, on the other hand, does induce a double-take or more. But it's all in good fun, and the film is a rollicking good time. It was well-cast all around. Amanda Seyfried was a terrific fresh face and talent as Meryl Streep's daughter Sophie, who's getting married and wants her father to walk her down the aisle, if only she could figure out who he is. Dominic Cooper did a great job as her fiancé, and they generated some heat in their number together on the beach. Meryl Streep was excellent as expected, singing, dancing, physical comedy, she brings it all. Brosnan, along with Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård, did great jobs in their roles as the possible fathers. And both Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, as Meryl Streep's old gal pals, were quite funny, and each had a great number of their own. The story was elliptical at times, and if one overthinks it, one might be disappointed that the comic possibilities inherent in the creative plot weren't fully mined (think what Shakespeare might have done with three putative fathers on a collision course with an ex-lover and a wedding processional). But this isn't Shakespeare, it's a jukebox musical, and the plot does a surprisingly good job of propelling forward the sequence of songs not written to tell this story. Director Phyllida Lloyd (who also piloted the stage production) understands that it's all about the numbers, and she's done a nice job translating a stage production into a cinematic musical spectacle. The visuals and foot-tapping songs will keep you smiling. (Though caution: the gorgeous Greek scenery might have you lunging for Travelocity to figure out how one gets to the islands of Skopelos and Skiathos, where this was filmed.)

For Us, 7th Anniversary is the Paper Anniversary

According to tradition, the seventh anniversary is the copper anniversary, but for George and me, our seventh anniversary was the paper anniversary. We celebrated today by going down to the County Clerk (inside the Beverly Hills Municipal Courthouse) and obtaining a legal marriage license. Our friends Bill and Leo, who have been together twelve years, went with us, and they got a license too. When we got there, we saw a couple of dapper elderly gentlemen at the marriage license window, which made us smile to see. And I have to say, everybody there -- the clerks, the guards, other courthouse visitors -- were full of smiles, congratulations, and well-wishes for us. The forms had been revised so they no longer say "bride" and "groom", instead they now say "party A" and "party B". It took the clerk a moment to find our application, as I didn't remember which of us I had put down for "party A", but we got that sorted. (Just for the record, George is "party A".) After that, it was just verifying all the personal info on the document, providing identification, and writing a check for the fee. Simple as that. Next month, we'll have a very small private courtroom ceremony, and then we'll be legally married.

From the State of California's legal point of view, we'll be getting married for the first time next month. From our point of view, next month we'll be simply renewing our vows for the benefit of the State, who wasn't able to attend our wedding seven years ago. Since then, our relationship has undergone various legal evolutions in status. When we got married in July 2001, we executed mutual healthcare directives and financial powers of attorney, which were later recorded. And we registered as LA County Domestic Partners. Most people aren't aware that both LA County and the State of California maintain domestic partner registries, which are separate and independent statuses, each with their own benefits. When we married in 2001, the state registry was mostly just symbolic, whereas the county registry had a few actual benefits associated with it (e.g., hospital visitation rights). In 2003, the state registry made a major advance from symbolic to substantial, and so on Valentine's Day 2003, we became registered domestic partners with the state. In 2005, the state domestic partner status was made to be substantially equivalent to marriage (including responsibility for one another's debts, required court dissolution, etc), and there was a grace period when those who had registered under the previous definition could "opt out" of the new definition. So we have a number of dates on which our relationship marked an "upgrade" in legal status, and we will have one more next month, but we will always celebrate our anniversary as the day seven years ago today when we stood before God, family and friends, and exchanged mutual vows of lifelong loving commitment.

Are Oil Companies Making Obscene Profits?

Last weekend, I got into a debate with my brother about whether the oil companies' profits were excessive. He argued that Exxon's profits were $40B last year, and that their profits had increased twentyfold in five years, while the price of gas had only doubled. I didn't think that was true, and thought that their profits had only increased in proportion to their revenues, that their margin was fairly constant (and not particularly egregious), and that they were only setting record total profits because their revenues were huge and the price had risen. So I decided to take a look at Exxon's annual reports, and though I'm not sure I fully understand all of the trends, I was pretty close to right, I'd say. As I suspected, Exxon's profits in the last five years have been fairly steady around 10%, as gas prices doubled (from $1.50/gal in 2003 to $3.00 in 2007) and crude oil prices more than doubled (from $28/barrel in 2003 to $64 in 2007). In 2006, Exxon derived about 2/3 of their profits from their "upstream" business (oil production) versus their "downstream" business (refineries and gas stations). Their volume of oil produced has been fairly steady around 2.5 million barrels/day since 1999, though there was a slight (4%) increase between 2005 and 2006. There has been some small growth in margin, which is to say profits growing slightly faster than revenues. I didn't look into why, which would take more time to get to the bottom of. (One thing I did note was that capital expenditures, which includes exploration costs, have not kept pace with revenues. Not sure if that means increased efficiency, or just downscaled investment in the future. Intuitively, I'd expect a time lag of some years between capital investment and its resulting revenue in this industry, and I'd also expect that new barrels of oil are generally more costly to obtain than in the past.) Anyway, here is data that I mined from Exxon annual reports, plus a couple industry sources for background history on crude and pump prices.

Year	Revenue	Profit	Profit margin	Cap Costs	Cap/Rev	Mbarrels/day	$/barrel	$/gallon
1999	$184.8	$ 7.9	4.3%	$13.3	7.2%	2.51	$17
2000	$231.8	$17.7	7.6%	$11.2	4.8%	2.55	$27
2001	$212.8	$15.3	7.2%	$12.3	5.8%	2.54	$23
2002	$204.5	$11.5	5.6%	$14.0	6.8%	2.49	$23	$1.35
2003	$237.0	$21.5	9.1%	$15.5	6.5%	2.51	$28	$1.50
2004	$291.2	$25.3	8.7%	$14.9	5.1%	2.57	$37	$1.90
2005	$359.9	$36.1	10.0%	$17.7	4.9%	2.52	$50	$2.10
2006	$365.5	$39.5	10.8%	$19.8	5.4%	2.68	$58	$2.85
2007	$390.3	$40.6	10.4%	$20.9	5.4%	2.62	$64	$3.00
2008							$93	$4.00

Thus, of the three factors that account for a record profit -- volume, price, and margin -- it is price that accounts for the lion's share. (And if you want to understand why prices are so high, Jim Manzi recently provided an excellent synopsis -- look to supply-and-demand, inflation, already-high efficiency, and uncertainty compounded by speculation.) Bottom line: while 10% is certainly a nice profit to be making these days, it's not extraordinary or usurous in my opinion, and not what I would call a "windfall".

FOOD: Darren's

The occasion of my friend Mark's birthday brought us down to Manhattan Beach to check out a new restaurant called Darren's. (It turns out the restaurant had opened on Dec 18, so is the exact same age as Mark and Heather's new son Alex.) The menu is probably best described as contemporary LA cuisine, meaning market-fresh ingredients combined in creative ways drawing eclectic inspiration from the Pacific rim and the Mediterranean. Although the market-fresh ingredients are not trumpeted (in the way they are on some contemporary menus that elaborate the provenance of each ingredient), their freshness speaks for itself in the seasonal changes on the menu, and in the flavor of the food itself. Contemplating the menu had me torn in several directions. A buffalo goulash with cippolini and pearl onions sounded quite savory, and the duck duo of pan-seared breast and leg confit with a parsnip-celeriac puree (I love those roots!) both sounded good, but I was finally leaning toward the sea scallops with saffron risotto, English peas and apple compote. On the appetizers, a sweet and spicy lobster chowder was quite appealing, but then the Caesar salad, with white anchovies (no apologies!), brioche croutons, and shaved Asiago spoke to my heart as one who takes Caesar salad seriously. But then I decided to split the tie by going for the beet carpaccio with Humboldt Fog goat blue cheese and watercress in a pomegranite vinaigrette. But then, we heard about the specials, and a sudden instinct urged me to trust the chef and run with the specials. So I started with wild boar ravioli, accented with toasted corn kernels and fried sage leaf in a light savory sauce. The boar meat was light and fall-apart succulent from a slow-braise, encased in fresh pasta pillows, and the delectable morsels were passed around the table for all to appreciatively put a fork in (including Brian and Nancy, whose only previous impressions of wild boar were having been accosted by them at a campsite up the coast). George took the beets, and Heather gave me a bite of her lobster bisque which was truly exquisite. The bisque had a coconut milk base and some Thai spices, including a touch of potent pepper, but I think there was also cream in addition to the coconut milk, and the flavors developed in the most remarkable way: a hot flash of pepper quickly dissolving into a bit of vinegar sour, and then other flavors coming clear as the cream calmed the finish with the rich mouth feel of a great bisque. My main was a half-lobster lying on its side draped in wilted arugula and tiny heirloom cherry tomatoes, atop a risotto with bits of rabbit loin. By slicing the lobster in half lengthwise, the succulent tail meat was easily accessible, while maintaining the dramatic presentation of the lobster shell. George tried the bison goulash, which was slow-cooked to ultimate tenderness with great beefy flavor. For dessert we went light, sharing a beautifully presented plate of fresh fruit and berries, including blueberries, raspberries, mango, grapefruit, and more. I did note sounds of delight coming from Heather, who tried the nectarine crumble. It was an excellent meal. The bar and cellar were also fine. We had started the evening sampling creative offerings on the cocktail menu (George had a candied ginger cosmo, while I tried a "gin delicious", with fresh mint and lime, essentially a mojito but with gin instead of rum). They offered two wine lists, a regular wine list and a reserve wine list (essentially the two-digit and the three-digit wine list). While there were some impressive offerings if you really wanted to splurge, there were also a nice range of wines starting from the 30's. We had a Trefethen Chardonnay and a Justin Cab with dinner. Our table on the front porch, open to the street, was lovely for a summer evening.

FILM: Chris & Don. A Love Story

This afternoon, George and I enjoyed the film "Chris and Don. A Love Story". The film is the touching and intimate biography of Christopher Isherwood, a British writer most famous for his "Berlin Stories" which formed the basis of the musical play and film "Cabaret", and Don Bachardy, an American portrait artist. Their relationship lasted from when they met on a Santa Monica beach in 1952 until Isherwood died in 1986. Their relationship was glamorous, extraordinary, and profound. Glamorous in that Isherwood moved in literary and Hollywood circles, with friends from W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Paul Bowles to Igor Stravinsky, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams. Extraordinary, in that they were thirty years apart in age, and lived an open and unflinching life together through decades when open gay couples were unheard of. And profound, in that the two nurtured one another creatively as artists and emotionally as lovers, from the start, when Chris helped Don discover his self-confidence as a portrait artist, to the end, when Don cared for Chris as he died of prostate cancer. The film is touchingly intimate, much of it told by the present-day Bachardy, with shots of him and the home they lived in together, and parts narrated by him, creating the effect of being invited into his home, being shown around, and hearing him share memories as they are inspired by objects and mementos in his home. It is an interview without any interviewer, creating a very intimate space into which we the viewers insert ourselves, and Bachardy is talking directly to us. This effect is enhanced by contrast with all the other people interviewed for the film, both academic biographers and personal friends of Chris and Don, all of whom are presented in a more detached documentary style, with name captions (though still without the interposition of an onscreen interviewer). This present-day interview footage is skillfully woven together with archival photographs, home movies and other period film footage, readings from Isherwood's diaries, shots of Bachardy's portraits, and some fanciful animation extending a horse-and-cat conceit that Chris and Don used in pet names for each other. The usual drama of "coming out" doesn't figure at all in this film, as these two men seem just to have been out from the start in a very matter-of-fact way. The tensions of their relationship were much more around their large age and experience difference, and how they worked through that. The early establishment of personal meaning behind the animation sequences, together with the personal "tour" of their house, come back in the end to make a tender and touching coda to the film. The blend of media, along with a lovely musical score that enhanced the film without calling attention to itself, successfully combined to convey the depth and complexity of their relationship. Like a great portrait, this film isn't completely photo-realistic, but rather, with subjective brush strokes captures the essence of these men -- of this couple -- in a way that is vivid, true, and deeply personal.

FILM: 54

This month is Outfest, the Los Angeles gay and lesbian film festival, and we caught one of the screenings on Friday night. It was a "secret screening" which turned out to be a special director's cut of the 1998 film "54", about the wild heyday of the New York disco Studio 54. Unlike many director's cuts, where there are just a few extra minutes of footage here and there (the seriously overblown re-release of Close Encounters comes to mind), this director's cut had nearly 45 minutes of previously-unseen footage, and by the accounts of those who had seen the original release (we hadn't), it was a substantially different film. (Apparently, Ryan Philippe's character Shane was much more straight-laced in the released version. In the director's cut, he gets quite immersed in the sex and drugs scene.) The real Studio 54 was before my time, but now I feel as though I got a taste of it from this film. The glamour, the decadence, the music, the lights, the drugs, and the sex. Mike Meyers gives a great performance as Steve Rubell, the club owner, choosing his crowd, both rewarding and exploiting his employees, and passing a ton of cash through the operation in garbage bags out the back door to evade the IRS, and high as a kite through it all. Ryan Philippe is good as the young Jersey boy who gets chosen to be a bartender, rises high on his good looks, and loses most of his innocence before the party comes crashing to a harsh end between a drug overdose and an IRS bust. The party was sure fabulous before the drugs wore off, and seeing this film was the second-best thing to having been there (and certainly a healthier way to experience it). This was definitely a rough cut, but thanks to director Mark Christopher for sharing his original vision with us.

BOOKS: Infidel

The last few weeks, I have been enjoying my commute in the company of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as I've listened to her fascinating book Infidel. I love books that transport me to a foreign place or time, and immerse me in a culture that I didn't know about before. And I love books that provoke thought about important ideas. Infidel does both of things exceedingly well. It is the autobiographical account of an independent-minded woman who was raised in a traditional Somali Muslim family and grew up to be a Member of Dutch Parliament advocating for women's rights. The first half of the book is a vivid account of her childhood in Somalia, and later in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya as her family escaped the turbulence of their war-torn homeland. Her description of life in places like Mogadishu, Mecca, and Nairobi is rich in detail about their houses and neighborhoods, their food, their culture and traditions. Her portraits of her parents, her siblings, her grandmother, and other family members are richly complex, infused with the emotional perspective of her childhood at the same time balanced by an unflinching retrospective assessment of their good qualities and their weaknesses. The genealogist in me was fascinated learning about the Somali tribal culture that puts such a premium on one's ancestry that children at an early age can recite their ancestry for nine generations, and when two Somalis meet, they can readily ascertain their kinship even to tenth cousins. And her description of the variations of Muslim practice between countries, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, was illuminating and especially relevant today. She does a remarkable job of making comprehensible such alien traditions as polygamy, arranged marriages, and female genital mutilation. What is especially remarkable is how, even though she would later come to condemn some parts of the traditions she was raised with as being completely barbaric, she describes them in the context of her early life subjectively and dispassionately, neither concealing the barbarity nor revealing anger, judgment, and condemnation. The account is all the more powerful for that, allowing the reader to understand how such barbarity could be accepted and tolerated because of how it is embedded in traditional ways of life and in how sons and daughters are raised. And it allows us to understand this amazing woman on all the parts of her journey, from childhood, to adolescence when she was drawn to fundamentalism, to adulthood when she escaped to discover liberal ideas. The latter half of the book describes her life in the Netherlands, where she becomes not only a parliamentarian but a political lightning rod after making a controversial film with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh which lead to his murder and death threats for her. The book then becomes more about politics, ideology, and her intellectual autobiography, though embedded in personal experiences of immigration, learning Dutch culture, and ultimately life as a figure in hiding from death threats. She raises significant questions about whether a liberal society can survive being tolerant of a growing immigrant community within its midst that remains insular and perpetuates an illiberal way of life. (These questions have reverberations here in America, not only regarding Islamism, but in issues like the recent Texas FLDS raids, and in the fault lines of conflict between religious liberty and civil rights protections -- issues I hope to explore in future blog posts.) And she makes a compelling argument that Islam needs to undergo its own Reformation if it is to be reconciled to modernity. Her ideas and the amazing life experience that formed them make for vital and fascinating reading.

End the HIV Travel Ban

I just sent a letter to my Senators, and I hope you will consider doing the same. My letter urges them to support the PEPFAR bill, which makes an international investment in fighting HIV, and also to support the Kerry-Smith amendment to the bill, which would lift the HIV travel ban. The United States is one of the few countries in the world that prohibits HIV-positive people from immigrating or even visiting here. Other countries with the same policy include the likes of Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, and a handful of Arabian peninsula principalities. Even China and Iran are more enlightened in this regard. Nearly all of the important medical and scientific research conferences dealing with HIV are held outside of the United States, because of this ridiculous policy that would prevent relevant participants from even making a business trip to the US. This is a total embarrassment. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) made the bipartisan case in a recent editorial in the Washington Times. You can find contact info for your senators here, and it just takes a couple of minutes to send them an email. This legislation is pending in the Senate now.

FILM: Get Smart

On Saturday night, continuing a string of "summer lite" films, we saw Get Smart, and quite enjoyed it. Although I don't recall any ROFLMAO moments, I was grinning often, and pleasantly surprised at how the laughs and the goofiness were nicely woven into a quite decent spy thriller action story. Rather than take it in a completely silly Naked Gun direction, the writers created a nice cocktail of Pink Panther mixed with James Bond, and a dash of Dr. Strangelove. Steve Carrell was an excellent Maxwell Smart, here portrayed as a detail-oriented analyst who wants to move up to being a field agent. And the humorous sparks between him and Anne Hathaway's Agent 99 are every bit as good as our fond memories of Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. Alan Arkin is a great "Chief", having to deal with the diminished prestige and lower budget of his organization since the end of the Cold War, and his scene in the war room confronting the Vice President (a thinly-veiled Dick Cheney character) is hilarious (the dash of Dr. Strangelove -- "gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is a war room!"). Really good performances all around from the rest of the cast, including wrestler-actor Dwayne Johnson as Control's top agent, David Koechner as Larrabee, and many others. Many of the gags and lines from the classic TV series are worked in to the script, but they're not overworked, this would still be a very fun film even if you'd never seen the TV show. And the film even enjoys some self-conscious poking fun at the TV show -- early on we see the relics of the supposedly-defunct secret organization Control have been put on display in the Smithsonian, including the shoephone and the red Sunbeam convertible. Good summer fun.

He's Hussein, She's Hussein, and I'm Hussein Too

The NY Times had an article on the spreading phenomenon of people adopting Hussein as their middle name. The practice began with a call to action entitled "We Are All Hussein" from blogger Jeff Strabone in February, who was fed up with the right wing noise machine's puerile repetition of Barack Hussein Obama's middle name, with the insinuations that he is some crypto-Muslim and not a true American. In rejection of this baseless and offensive innuendo campaign, Strabone changed his own middle name to Hussein for the duration of the campaign, and encouraged others to do the same. Now it seems that Jeff Hussein Strabone is being joined in husseinhood by fair-minded Americans of many ethnicities, such as Jaime Hussein Alvarez, Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin, and Ashley Hussein Holmes. This spontaneous solidarity is a wonderful response. Commenters called to mind the scene in the 1960 film Spartacus, where a bunch of slaves all claimed "I am Spartacus" to protect their friend, or the film "In and Out", where an outed teachers students and supporters all claimed to be gay too. The NY Times mentioned an incident in Billings, Montana where many citizens put menorahs in their windows to protest a spate of ugly anti-Jewish incidents. Me, I thought of the story of the King of Denmark being the first to put on a yellow star when the Nazis came for the Jews (which I just now learned is a legend). In any case, count me in. I'll be Tom Hussein Chatt. (Or Thomas Rodrick Hussein Chatt in full. I'm not going to diss my Dad.)

And, and by the way, if anyone wants to know what a real American patriot looks like, they should check out this video of Barack Hussein Obama's speech given in Independence, Missouri, a few days ago in anticipation of Independence Day.

Barack Obama: Speech on Patriotism.
June 30, 2008. Independence, MO. (Full text here.)

OPERA: La Rondine

Some have called La Rondine a "poor man's La Traviata", but we found Los Angeles Opera's production of the underappreciated Puccini work to be one of exquisite beauty. I hadn't had a chance to read much about the opera before the performance, but still found the accessible story was romantic, delightful, wickedly funny at times, and ultimately poignant. And as with all good operas, beautiful music and strong performances lifted the story up to a higher dimension of emotion. Patricia Racette gave the lead role Magda a strong, clear, bright soprano that soared on spread wings at times and softened to delicate fragility at others. Marcus Haddock's golden-toned tenor delivered all the impetuousness and passion of youthful love, as Ruggero. The two of them were good actors as well as singers, and seeing them together only enhanced the thrill of hearing them. The rest of the cast were strong as well, with Amanda Squitieri giving a fiery, free-willed mezzo maid, Greg Fedderly as the romantic but worldly poet Prunier, and bass David Pittsinger as a stiff, old, but ultimately moved Rambaldo, all giving notable performances. The sets of this production were inspired as well, from the grandly decorated living room and dining room of Magda's house for Act I, to the night club that was the place for dancing and romancing in Belle Epoque Paris in Act II, to the romantic Italian villa overlooking the ocean in Act III. (The lovely vine-covered villa porch and the realistic rocky beach and ocean inspired spontaneous applause when the curtain rose for Act III.) Of course all of this beauty rests on the foundation of Puccini's gorgeous score, as lush and passionate as any of his works. Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson made the music shimmer and soar. Reading about the production later, I learned of how Marta Domingo not only skilfully directed this production, but contributed to the musicology of the work, staging an alternate ending (apparently Puccini had continued to revise the opera after its debut), and adding some "lost" parts (duets between Magda and Rambaldo, and a gorgeous aria for Ruggero in Act I) that give more meaning to the story. So far as I could tell from descriptions of how other productions had been, Domingo's choices were all authentic and welcome. Like its namesake "the swallow", I would return to see this beautiful opera again.

Remembering a 1993 Gay Wedding

In response to my friend Jeff Hersh's request, I have unearthed the comments I made at his wedding in 1993. Some things have changed a great deal (it's no problem today to register two grooms at Williams-Sonoma, for instance), but many fundamentals haven't changed.

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, I not only attended my first gay wedding, but I was asked to speak as part of the ceremony. The ceremony was well-attended by family on both sides, including cousins, nieces, nephews, and an 84-year old great-grandmother, about 120 people in all. The ceremony included speeches by both grooms, and by the judge who presided. It concluded with the grooms' signing of a calligraphed parchment which was a legal contract including exchange of durable powers of attorney, then duly notarized by a lesbian friend and notary public, and then signed by all guests in attendance as legal witnesses. And both grooms stomped on wine glasses simultaneously as the crowd cheered "Mazel Tov!".

In my introduction speech, I attempted to explain the full meaning of this event to this largely straight and Jewish gathering...

---

June 19, 1993
Croton-on-Hudson

Most of us here, myself included, have never seen the wedding of two men before. In fact, neither have Doug and Jeff. They're making it up as they go along. In some ways, this is a traditional wedding like any other---two people who are exchanging vows of lifelong love and commitment. Obviously, in other ways, it is non-traditional. I'd like to try to explain some of the special significance that this wedding holds.

There is a movement in modern Judaism called the Reconstructionist movement. The Reconstructionists are like Reform Jews in that they do not accept tradition without questioning: they do not want rote ritual devoid of modern personal meaning. For them, "because the book says so" or "because my grandparents did it that way" are not sufficient reasons for religious practice. Yet many Reconstructionists end up looking like Conservative Jews, continuing a great many of the traditional practices by coming up with modern symbolic interpretations for the old ways. A Reconstructionist is someone who takes all of the items of their faith, and considers each one, whether it is truly meaningful or whether it should be abandoned---just as someone packing to move to a new home goes through each of their possessions and decides whether to keep it or whether to leave it behind.

To be gay is to be Reconstructionist about one's whole life. All of us---gay or straight, Jewish or not Jewish---receive from our culture ideas about how we will live our lives. We come to know the expectations of our society, as we see the examples of how our family and friends live, and as we learn the hopes and dreams they have for themselves and for us. And from this rich pool of ideas, we come to shape our own vision of how we will live our lives.

But some of us have a crisis point in our lives that calls everything into question. For the first 20 years of my life, I had always pictured myself growing up to lead a life not unlike my parents: being a career engineer like my father, falling in love with a woman, getting married, having children. Then I discovered that I was gay. Every hope, every dream, every idea I had ever had about how my life would unfold seemed shattered beyond repair. And there was nothing to replace it. Family, friends, society offered no examples, no visions of what a good life for a gay man might be like. Slowly, after months and years of coming out to friends and family, of discovering a whole gay community, and of discovering that some of my own friends were also gay (including the boy who grew up next door), I have rebuilt a positive vision of what my life could and should be like.

Thus, coming out as a gay man or woman means being a Reconstructionist in a radical way. It is more than moving to a new home and sifting through your old possessions. It is like having your home burn down to the ground. While losing your home and all your worldly possessions is obviously traumatic, it is also a unique opportunity to measure which things in your life are truly essential. When a new home is built out of the ashes, every piece is carefully considered and nothing is taken for granted. While the new home is necessarily different from the old one, old ideas which are still good are reconstructed in the new. Thus, Doug and Jeff, in constructing their vision of living as gay men, have chosen to incorporate the tradition of marriage and a wedding.

Unlike many couples, Doug and Jeff do not marry today because it was expected of them or encouraged. It was not. They will not live their lives as a married couple because it will be easy, a well-worn path of least resistance. It will not be easy. Some of you, like my mother, may have encountered some trouble trying to find their wedding gift registry at Williams-Sonoma. It seems their computers and their personnel get a bit flustered when there are two grooms and no bride. This is just a small taste of the hundreds of denials and discountenances that Doug and Jeff will face. They have given their decision to wed a great deal of reflection and consideration, and they are here today, not because it is easy or expected or encouraged, but only for the best of reasons. Despite the difficulties they may face, they freely and knowingly choose to celebrate their love and their lifelong commitment to each other in loving partnership. As friends and family, we are an important part of this ceremony. Since the state will not recognize this marriage, and society will not encourage it, we must vow to give them our encouragement, our love, and our support in their commitment.

Jewish tradition teaches us that we have a special purpose in this world called tikun olam, the completion of creation. The rabbis say that when G*d created the world, He intentionally created it unfinished, so that we would have this purpose in our lives: to complete the job of creation. The world is like a huge, brilliant, beautiful jigsaw puzzle that G*d created, but left for us to assemble. Only at the end of time will the puzzle be completed and the whole picture revealed, but through our lives, each of us will contribute a part, will put a piece in place, and another part of the picture will become clear. Doug and Jeff's marriage is a fulfillment of the Jewish mission of tikun olam. The satisfaction they have found in their union is the satisfaction of two puzzle pieces being put together. Just as two pieces assembled show more of the picture than either piece by itself, the union of these two men will contribute more to the world than could two individuals separately. And as the picture revealed by two assembled pieces increases the momentum to put more pieces together, Jeff and Doug's example will provide a light to others and contribute a new positive gay vision to our culture. Today in their marriage, we witness and we celebrate the further creation of the world.

Celebrating a Marriage and Marriages in General

Despite unseasonably sweltering heat, West Hollywood Park was humming yesterday with the celebration of marriages on the first weekend that same-sex marriages are legal here in California. A great number of gay couples who have waited years for that opportunity were joyously seizing it. The City of West Hollywood anticipated the high demand, and set up a city park to handle the ceremonies. They had a registration tent, where several people who had been deputized by the County Clerk processed the marriage license paperwork, and then a half-dozen white canopies set up under the trees for ceremonies to take place.

It was in that setting that we were delighted and honored to witness the wedding of our friends Tom and Art, who have been together for 16 years. In some sense, they have been married for many years, and I witnessed their marriage in San Francisco in 2004 (those marriages were officially annulled by the court). And in that sense, today's ceremony was really a "renewal of vows" or a "state recognition ceremony". (Tom and Art viewed it as their second, and hopefully last, civil ceremony, and intend to have a church wedding with the big reception after November.) But despite those technicalities, and the inevitable sense of making a political statement, once it got down to it, it was clear to all of us there, including the participants, that this was a wedding, with all the same solemnity and all the joy of weddings everywhere. We all got choked up at the vows, and caught up in watching two people reaffirm their commitment to each other, and to an ideal celebrated by us all -- to love, honor, and cherish, for better or for worse, so long as they both shall live. There's something about the public declaration of a high noble purpose that strengthens and ennobles the declarers, and better enables them to reach their lofty aim. I think that's part of what makes weddings so emotional, that they are positively transformative.

That ideal, of a lifetime together through better and worse, is one of the highest and most celebrated in our culture. And there's nothing gay or straight about it. It is a human ideal, a calling of the values we were raised with, gay and straight alike. One thing that has struck me about the gay weddings I have seen is how not different they are from straight weddings. The content of the ceremony -- the promises and vows exchanged, the prayers, the blessing of the rings -- is identical. The form is entirely familiar. The joy, the solemnity, and the emotion are the same. The only notable differences are the additional emotion of long-awaited justice (in every ceremony last week, there was a big whoop when they got to the "by the power vested in me by the State of California" part), and in the duration of the relationships of most of the couples getting married. With most straight weddings, the vows are entered into with hope at the outset of their lifetime together. With most gay weddings (at this point in time, though it will change in the future), the vows entered into have substantial years of proof behind them backing up the hope for the future. Couples like Tom and Art (together 16 years), or our friends Steve and Scott (together 14 years) who married earlier in the week, or the many other couples we've seen in the papers who have shared decades (like the women in San Francisco who'd been together 55 years!), those couples know a thing or two about what it takes to stay together for better or for worse. And many of those in our community know too well about "in sickness and in health". Often at the beginning of a wedding ceremony, the celebrant will say something about how marriage is a solemn estate, not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly. We know. Some of us have been practicing marriage for quite some time. And we do not enter into it lightly.

June! Peaches!

June means many wonderful things at the local farmers' market, but in our own backyard June means peaches. We have a wonderful Tropic Snow peach tree that has been a reliable and early producer every year since we planted it. I like to say that it blooms out on Martin Luther King Day, and we have peaches for Memorial Day, which we really did one year, though it's usually a week or two after for the fruit. The fruit is a white freestone peach, sweet and very juicy. The tree has always been a prodigious producer, though in the early years, our peaches were closer to golfballs in size. We tried thinning them early, but it didn't seem to help. This is the first year the peaches have grown to a really good size.

When the peaches are in, they're in, so for a couple of weeks, it's lots of fresh peaches, peach cobblers, peach compote, and still giving away plenty to friends and family. And of course Sundays in June mean peach waffles. My husband always makes us a wonderful hearty breakfast on Sundays, but the June Sunday breakfasts are special treats.

STAGE: Macbeth3

LA Women's Shakespeare Company and The Dogsbody have produced an extraordinary production of Macbeth. First, the play has been pared down to its essentials, being performed by only three actors and coming at only an hour or so. But even though the production is "bounded by a nutshell" in time and space (the Ruby Theatre is about a 50-seater), director Lisa Wolpe "counts herself king of infinite space" by doing a very psychological version of the play, very subjective, set inside the increasingly undone mind of Macbeth. With a quick shift of voice, posture, and lighting, the same actors transform in an instant from Macbeth and Banquo to witches and back, effectively covering multiple characters with the spare cast, or perhaps suggesting that the witches were voices and visions inside Macbeth's head. In the banquet scene, the director has cleverly inverted the traditional staging to great effect. We expect to see discomfited dinner guests on stage watching Macbeth become frightened by thin air. In this version, the bloody Banquo is physically present on stage, while there are no guests, leaving Lady Macbeth to turn apologetically to the audience, as if we were the guests. It was an excellent way to play it from inside Macbeth's head. The three actors all performed admirably in gender-swapped roles, with Kate Roxburgh doing a powerful Macbeth, Gavin McClure as Lady Macbeth and Satan, and Lisa Wolpe doing a compelling MacDuff, Banquo (alive and ghostly), Duncan and various other parts. Wolpe gave an especially memorable turn as a demonic porter (the audience applauded at the end of the bit, as at the end of a great jazz solo riff). The production was also impressive, as much was made of a small spare set, with good lighting and sound. A cauldron in midstage provided a threatrical entrance and exit for Satan, witches, and even the porter, as well as a final exit for Lady Macbeth, whom we see plunging into hell. And great sounds, like the screech of an owl and a raven, really turned the screw. The knocking on the castle door just after the murder was never so thunderous or ominous as it was in this very intense psychological production. This was the last weekend for the show in LA, but they're taking it to London in July, and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in September.

Justice Without Delay

In an atypically expedited action today, the California Supreme Court dismissed all motions holding up the implementation of their historical decision recognizing the fundamental right of gays to have our marriages to be accorded equal dignity by the state. They dismissed a motion to rehear the case (by the same 4-3 vote that decided it), and they unanimously declined to stay their decision pending the outcome of an initiative constitutional amendment scheduled for the November ballot. This means that licenses should start issuing as early as June 17.

Those who decried the Court "disregarding the will of the people" (a fundamental misunderstanding of how our constitutional form of government is supposed to work, which I have discussed before) are now indignant about the "arrogance" of the Court in not being able to wait until November to see the outcome of the election. These same people complain about the arrogant Court supposedly usurping the prerogative of the legislative branch, as well as the people, and "making policy decisions, not legal ones". I find that ironic. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as it stands today, which is exactly what their constitutional role is. Theirs is not to speculate about how the Constitution might be amended pending the outcome of future elections. That would be a political decision, not a legal one.

I found the same irony in reading the dissenting opinions, in the notion of present political powerlessness as a criterion for identifying a "suspect class". The dissenters urged that the Court should take notice of the legislative progress in advancing gay rights, and hold this against finding sexual orientation to be a suspect class. They also seemed to suggest that the Court should not step in to a matter where there had been active legislative advances. But such judgments, about progress and political power, are political judgments, not legal ones. The legal judgment should consider the law in question against the Constitution, pure and simple. Either the law is constitutional or it isn't. That decision should be timeless, and without regard to current political circumstances. Yet these same people (including the dissenting Justices) who cry that the Court overstepped its role and made a political decision, are wanting the Court take notice of political considerations. Whether gays are "powerless" or "powerful", whether the legislature is making sufficient "progress", those are not legal considerations. The Court, in reaching its decision, properly looked only to the constitutional law.

Even more strange, if the dissenters' suggestions to consider progress and power are taken seriously, the logical conclusion is that the Court should have recognized the infringement of fundamental rights when the question was first brought in the 1970s, when gays were powerless and there was no progress. Apparently, had the dissenting Justices been on the Court thirty-five years ago, they would have ruled in favor of gay marriage then, when the injustice was even more stark. But if it was unconstitutional then, it is unconstitutional now. Assuming you're not "overstepping". Tell me again who's making political decisions?

In any event, it's nice to know that all seven Justices are in agreement that justice delayed is justice denied.

Making No Decisions Tonight

On the night of his clinching the nomination, I hope Obama does not make any hasty decisions about his running mate. It would be a mistake to cave in to Clinton's emotional blackmail to put her on the ticket. When the noise and hurt feelings calm down, Clinton supporters are not going to turn to McCain. Clinton does little to add to Obama's ticket, and brings a boatload of negatives for the general. (Not to mention what would happen after the election. Having the Clintons in Observatory Circle would be a three-ring circus.) If Obama is smart (and he is), he too, to quote Clinton, "will be making no decisions tonight", nor should he for quite some time. For one thing, an ongoing "veepstakes" will give the media something to buzz about, and the announcement of a selection will be an "event". Better to milk that for a while. Then down the road apace, from a dispassionate perspective, it will be more clear to everyone (except for the last few foaming-at-the-mouth Clintonistas hoarsely calling for a Denver floor fight) that there are much better choices. Think that America's daughters need a woman to look up to? Kathleen Sebelius would be a fine choice. Want some kick-ass southern military cred? Jim Webb would be great. Senior foreign policy experience? Joe Biden. Or experience plus a commitment to post-partisan politics? Go for Chuck Hagel. Those are the sort of choices that would positively bolster the ticket. Meanwhile, if Clinton truly wants to do the best thing for her party, she should campaign enthusiastically for Obama, and quietly lobby for a cabinet position if she wants. She could make a good Secretary of Health and Human Services. Or stay in the Senate, where she could do a lot for the causes she's been talking about, like healthcare and education. (Heck, she might even finally back up her empty talk about repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".)

I Don't Always Agree With Andrew

While I think Andrew Sullivan is brilliant, and his is the first blog I read every day, I don't always agree with him. After reading his praise of Starbucks' new petite vanilla scones (which he put as superior even to the toffee almond bar), I thought I'd give them a try. I like scones, and the idea of a petite pastry was appealing, since the delight of the blueberry oat bar, the maple oat nut scone, or the toffee almond bar are calorie splurges I reserve for a rare occasion. But these? How can they even call these scones? (You'd think Andrew, a born Brit, would know better.) Scones are firm and flaky. These are soft cakey things with a bit of icing on them. If I'd wanted a madeleine, I'd have bought a madeleine (which have been on offer for a long time). Sorry, Andrew, but this so-called scone doesn't touch the toffee almond bar.

FILM: Sex and the City

We saw Sex and the City last night with a bunch of friends (at the Americana, natch) and it was a hoot. We loved it. In fact, a couple of our friends had seen it on Friday night and were happy to see it again with us the very next night. I think we'd see it again. It was nothing profound, mind you, and much of the plot was fairly predictable. (In the film, Carrie Bradshaw is working on her latest book, this one about Love and what it's like having found it. I don't have high expectations that she'd have much to add to the classical canon that is alluded to in the film.) None the less, it is delightful to see the girls go through all their amorous antics, and to see how their lives have unfolded three years after the TV series left us off. (I should note that it's not crucial to have seen the TV show. George and I had only seen it a few times, never having had HBO, and we still loved the movie.) It had some great laughs, and it had a few touching moments, and everything in between was as fun as a New York cocktail party. The actresses were all in top form, and the characters were as fresh, funny, and sassy as we fondly remembered them, not to mention over-the-top coutoured and accessorized.

Eleven Hours At A Mall

It used to be that the notion of spending an entire day at a mall was totally preposterous to me. That was before I encountered the work of Rick Caruso, a visionary Los Angeles developer. A few years back he created The Grove in the Fairfax area, adjacent to the old Farmer's Market. No ordinary shopping center, The Grove incorporated quality shops, a good cinema, some really good eating options, and built them all around a beautifully designed outdoor space that is a pleasure just to be in. The shops are arranged along a pedestrian cobblestone street, with beautifully designed buildings along either side, with a side "street", a large sculpture in the center, and opening up to a grand fountain and landscaped area at one end. A trolley runs along the street, which combined with the fantasy-European feel of the buildings, gives the place a Disneyland-like charm (without the Disneyland admission price). Great care (and expense) was taken in the design, with quality materials like stone and tile in the buildings and street, and attractive landscaping including a number of mature trees. A couple of nice restaurants, one Italian and one French bistro/steakhouse, flank the entry with balcony dining and tables that spill into the outdoors at the ground level, adding to the European city feel. It's really a lovely place to shop and dine and spend a day, and it's no surprise that we often see stars here.

Now, just a few weeks ago, Caruso's newest development, The Americana at Brand, opened in nearby Glendale. This one has embraced the fashion of retail/residential development, with condos and apartments above the shops. The Americana is organized around a "village green" center, with a couple of lagoons, large grassy areas, a signature statue, and even a small playground. The lagoons include fountains that "dance" to music (like the famous ones at the Bellagio in Las Vegas), and which are quite beautiful. In the center of one lagoon is a large gilded statue reminiscent of Rockefeller Center. The gilded bronze of a muscular young man leaping upward in art deco splendor is a recreation of "The Spirit of American Youth", a statue at the Omaha Beach Memorial in France by Donald Harcourt DeLue, an early 20th century master of the heroic sculpture movement. Caruso actually tracked down an apprentice of DeLue's, to recreate the statue using some of the original casts. This is just an example of the quality and attention to detail that Caruso puts in to his developments. A brick street runs through the development, the architecture is classic American in style, and the overall feel is part Norman Rockwell, part Walt Disney. There are other great details, like a large classic-style clock on a pole, gas lamps, and large street lamps with craftsman-style stained glass and hanging flower balls.

On my first visit to the Americana, we met some friends for lunch at the Granville Café, a nice restaurant serving American fare with market fresh ingredients. We then spent several hours exploring all the shops, an interesting collection of boutiques and new brands. We discovered fun shops like Custo, a colorful designer from Barcelona; Ruehl, a version of Abercrombie & Fitch for people more our age (ahem); and Martin+Osa, an upscale version of American Eagle. (Since the Americana is adjacent to the existing Glendale Galleria, they intentionally avoided having the same shops. The Galleria was opposed to the new development, fearing competition, but I think they may find that it's a compliment that brings in more people to Glendale.) We took a break at one point, and went up to the deck of the three-story Barnes and Noble, where their café overlooks the village green. After a few hours of window shopping, we refreshed ourselves with gelato at the charming Caffe Primo, and then caught a movie at the new Pacific Theatres. After the film, we watched the dancing fountains which are particularly spectacular at dusk and later, when the water is uplit. We then did some shopping in earnest (the afternoon was to survey everything, the evening was for making some purchases) until the shops closed at 9pm. The wait at the Cheesecake Factory was still crazy, so for dinner we just grabbed some chicken-apple sausages from Jody Maroni's, and enjoyed the park-like feel of the village green and watched the fountains some more. The place was filled with people just enjoying the scene, and it felt festive, like the 4th of July or something. Finally after being in The Americana for nearly eleven hours, we headed home, having thoroughly enjoyed the day. And in less than two weeks, we've been back three more times, for more movies, shopping, and checking out all the restaurants (including Katsuya and Frida's). Well done, Mr. Caruso!

FILM: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

We enjoyed the much-anticipated Indiana Jones film quite a lot, although it may have helped that we'd heard lukewarm reviews, and thus arrived expecting the plot to be a hash, and with a heaping willing suspension of disbelief. Of course we also came with a heap of good will from the previous films, and looking forward to seeing a beloved character again. Sure, Harrison Ford is a lot older, but he's not too old to bring Indy back to life. An older Indy, of course, and with a bit of self-deprecation at his age, but still plenty capable of dashing through a great adventure. The suspension of disbelief was essential, not only for watching Indy dodge an incredible number of bullets and poison blowdarts (that was "old hat" for him), but for a ride down the Amazon in an amphibious vehicle that verged on jumping the shark. The 1950s period texture was nicely done, with Indy now post-WWII, and instead of Nazis to battle, he's now got the Russians (as well as the McCarthyites). Cate Blanchett did a nice turn as a charicature James Bond-inspired Russian villain, and Shia LeBoeuf gave a strong debut performance that gives hope for the future of the franchise. The whole movie felt just like a Disney ride, with imaginative scenery, familiar characters, some playful drops and sudden turns, secure in the knowledge that you were following a track that would end up safely, and all good fun along the way.

Rosemary Chevre Gelato

I have rhapsodized before about the wonderful market-fresh flavors at Pazzo Gelato in Silver Lake. This evening, Pazzo had rosemary chevre gelato. The rosemary chevre was divine. The lightly sour-salty goat cheese was marvelously blended with aromatic rosemary resins. The cheese flavor was up front, and the aromatic herb was on the finish like a good retsina. I paired it with a deliciously molassesy moscovado rum raisin, its dark sweetness a perfect balance to the savory herbed chevre.

Judicial Activism? Or Just Doing Their Job?

Some people cry "judicial activism" whenever they don't like the outcome of a Supreme Court decision, especially when the decision overturns longstanding laws. Some of these people have simply forgotten their high school civics classes. For them, let me offer a brief refresher on some key points.

The Bill of Rights exists to protect the rights of unpopular minorities from being trampled by majorities. Although we live in a democracy, the majority does NOT always rule. That would be a "mob-ocracy", something our founding fathers wisely feared, and which is why they created a system of government with many checks and balances, including a Bill of Rights. One of the crucial jobs of the courts, especially Supreme Courts, is to interpret the Constitution, and to overrule laws that would violate constitutional rights. Thus, when a challenged law violates constitutional rights, it does NOT matter that the law was duly enacted by the Legislature, or by an initiative statute by vote of the people. In such cases, it is the proper job of the court to find the law unconstitutional, and to strike it down. This is not "legislating from the bench", it is interpreting the constitution. It is not a violation of the separation of powers, it is the completely proper functioning of an independent judiciary within a properly functioning separation-of-powers system. This has been understood to be the case in our nation since Marbury v. Madison was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1803, and is a most cherished and fundamental precedent.

When a law violates constitutional rights, it does not matter that the law has broad popular support, or that the law has substantial weight of history and tradition behind it. There are numerous instances in our history where it fell to the courts to rectify the longstanding codification of infringed liberties and unequal protection. It is precisely when a disparaged minority is aggrieved by tradition and popular opinion that it falls to the courts to protect them. It would be nonsensical and self-defeating for the courts, in such cases, to give any weight to tradition or to popular opinion. The only thing on the court's mind is and ought to be the constitution and the laws they are to interpret. Tradition and popular opinion have no place in the process. If it were otherwise, we would still have segregated schools, all-male juries, and bans on mixed-race marriages.

Admittedly, tradition and popular opinion are powerful forces, and it can be difficult to keep them in historical perspective. It is easy to forget that older decisions now widely accepted were once highly controversial. Now in 2008, most Americans are rightly embarrassed about our history of segregated schools half a century ago, and most Americans would be rightly shocked and appalled at the notion that police might burst into someone's bedroom and arrest them for having a mixed-race marriage, or for using contraception. But in 1951, when Oliver Brown challenged the segregated school system in Kansas, his cause was by no means a popular one. In an early morning in 1958, when Richard and Mildred Loving were awakened to police flashlights shining in their faces, and demands of "Mr. Loving, who is this black woman in your bed?", longstanding tradition was not on their side. In 1961, when Estelle Griswold was arrested for opening a birth control clinic in Connecticut, tradition and popular opinion weighed heavily against her. And certainly back in 1948, when Andrea Perez (a Mexican-American) and Sylvester Davis (a black man) were denied a marriage license in Los Angeles, few people saw the injustice. Half a century later, the injustice of these situations is widely recognized, and we can be thankful that judges at the time had the wisdom and the courage to take the side of the constitution even against tradition and popular opinion. Even so, one can recognize the justice of long-past controversies, while failing to recognize similar calls to justice in present-day controversies. As Chief Justice George quoted the U.S. Supreme Court, "times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress."

It seems to me that those who cry "judicial activism" must either competely reject a long and proud tradition of judicial review, or explain why it was appropriate to disregard tradition and popular opinion in Perez v. Sharp, Brown v. Board of Education, Loving v. Virginia, Griswold v. Connecticut, and other celebrated cases, while deferring to tradition and popular opinion in whatever unpopular constitutional case is at hand.

In Re Marriage Cases - The Opinion

I was back east on business when I got word of the landmark opinion of the California Supreme Court on "In Re Marriage Cases", and I eagerly read through the whole 121-page opinion as quickly as I could. While I was overjoyed to hear of the just outcome, I was even more delighted to read the solid reasoning behind it. One thing that struck me throughout was the Court's refusal to indulge in hairsplitting, semantics and sophistry from either side. In each aspect of the decision, it squarely addressed the real issues. This common-sense court calls a spade a spade.

While all parties in these cases agreed that there was a fundamental right to marry, they differed as to whether that right substantively meant marrying the person of your choice, or marrying the opposite-gender person of your choice. The exclusionists argued that a gay man and a straight man both have an equal right to marry a woman, so what are we complaining about? Nonsense, said the Court. Our right to marry the person of our choice is a fundamental aspect of our individual identity and personal autonomy, and saying a gay man has the right to marry a woman is no right at all. The Court repeatedly harkened back to Perez v. Sharp, the landmark 1948 California Supreme Court decision that overturned laws against interracial marriage. They noted that similar arguments were applied then: a person had the right to marry the person of their choice, any white man could choose his own white wife, and any non-white man could choose his own non-white wife. The logic was wrong then, and it's wrong now. Formulating a substantive right so narrowly that it inherently excludes a class of citizens is just discrimination in a semantic disguise, and the Court rightly rejected it.

The Court also dismissed the notion that sexual orientation discrimination was a form of gender discrimination. This argument is often made by gay marriage proponents, because gender discrimination is an established "suspect class" (meaning that courts guard against that kind of discrimination more stringently) while sexual orientation is not. Thus, in order to claim the more protected status, arguments are framed in terms of gender discrimination. A gay man could marry a woman, but not a man, the only difference being the gender of the spouse, so there's gender discrimination going on, or so the argument goes. Not so fast, said the Court. We all understand what gender discrimination is, it's when laws disfavor women and favor men, and that's not what's going on here. What's going on here is discrimination based on sexual orientation, not gender. The Court called a spade a spade. Fortunately, the Court went on to establish sexual orientation as a "suspect class" in its own right (a new precedent), worthy of the same protections as gender, race, and religion. In other words, the Court said that while there isn't any gender discrimination going on here, there is sexual orientation discrimination going on, and that's just as unconstitutional.

While the appellate court had reached the same conclusions about gender versus sexual orientation discrimination, they balked at recognizing sexual orientation as a suspect class, because of the requirement that it be based on an "immutable" trait. The "immutability" of sexual orientation is a matter of some factual dispute, and the appellate judges felt the trial record lacked appropriate fact-finding to reach a legal decision on that. The Supreme Court, applying some common sense, reasoned that they did not need to find scientific certainty of biological immutability for their legal purposes. They noted that religion is among the recognized "suspect classes", and nobody would claim that you're born a particular religion and can't choose to change. Rather, because a person’s religion is so integral an aspect of one’s identity, it is not appropriate to require a person to repudiate or change his or her religion in order to avoid discriminatory treatment. Sexual orientation, the Court recognized, is "immutable" in the same way that religion is.

On a technical side argument, the Court eschewed the hairsplitting that gay marriage proponents had been spinning in regard to "Prop 22", the 2000 ballot initiative that said "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." This initiative statute was passed at a time when Californians were afraid they might be forced to recognize out-of-state gay marriages (Hawaii was the big threat at the time), and the language was placed in the legal code at a point that was describing recognition of marriages from outside jurisdictions. Gay marriage proponents, splitting hairs, claimed that the placement of the language meant that it only applied to California's recognition of gay marriages from outside states, and thus it did not preclude the California legislature from legalizing gay marriage within the state. Twice, the California legislature has passed such a bill, and twice Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed it, saying that it violates the will of the people as expressed in Prop 22. (His position was that either the people had to overturn their own initiative, or the Court had to rule it unconstitutional, but either way, it was not up to the Legislature.) The Supreme Court opinion fully validated the Governor's position. Even though they ultimately rejected "Prop 22" as unconstitutional, they took the time to note that Prop 22 would have been interpreted to govern all marriages in California, and not just out-of-state ones. The clear implication being that had the Governor signed the Legislature's gay marriage bills, the Court would have shot them down as being in conflict with Prop 22 (which being a voter initiative, would take precedence over legislative action). No hairsplitting for this Court.

Finally, the Court gave a robust and common-sense rejoinder to the question of what's in a name. The Court noted the overall context of the question at hand, in that California has created a legal category called "domestic partnership", which is open to same-sex couples, and which gives domestic partners all of the same rights and responsibilities as spouses. So, the Attorney General asked, if the state provides all of the same rights and responsibilities to same-sex domestic partners as it provides to opposite-sex married couples, and the only difference is the name ("domestic partnership" vs "marriage"), isn't that equal protection of the law? No, said the Court, as we have learned from history, "separate but equal" is not equal. By reserving to one class of persons and denying to another the name with strong traditional and symbolic significance, the Court said that the state was denying equal "dignity, respect, and stature", which are themselves a substantive part of the right to marry. Not only is this a strong symbolic disability, the Court found, but because of the historic disparagement of gay people, the creation of a parallel but separate status is likely to convey a "second class" status, and signal a difference in dignity and respect. Moreover, because the newly minted "domestic partner" status will not have the same recognition and familiarity of marriage, domestic partners are likely to encounter difficulties and complications in the practical exercise of even those rights which are legally conveyed. Demonstrating a substantive understanding of the realities of the situation, the Court recognized that this "mere" difference of nomenclature has far more impact than "just a name".

Thus it was that a Chief Justice with a reputation as a "careful jurist" and a "moderate Republican" was joined by three other judges (two of them Republican) in writing this:

we conclude that, under this state’s Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage. As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society. [In Re Marriage Cases, Cal. Sup. Ct. S147999, pp. 6-7]

FILM: Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Not having read the Narnia books, we can't say whether Prince Caspian is faithful to them, but we certainly felt it was a faithful follow-up to the first Narnia film. If you enjoyed the first one, you should enjoy the second one. And if you thought the first one didn't have enough swashbuckling and sword-fighting, then you'll like the second one even better. If you love Aslan, well, we don't see much of him until he turns up for the "deus ex leo" ending, but he's as impressive in his CGI glory as before. The four young actors have all grown a bit, which suits the story perfectly. Although older, the characters are still kids, and make youthful mistakes, as does the new character, Prince Caspian (played by Ben Barnes, who is easy enough on the eyes to make me forgive his belabored pseudo-slavic accent). All in all, the film is entertaining, and good wholesome fantasy fare.

FILM: Iron Man

Though Marvel comics isn't our favorite genre (I enjoy it much more than George), we both thought Iron Man was superb. Robert Downey Jr. delivered the perfect Tony Stark, a sassy full-of-himself genius military technology industrialist with a true heart and pure patriotism, while Jeff Bridges was a spot-on ruthless big "good old boy", and Gwyneth Paltrow was wonderful as Stark's cool, efficient Moneypenny-like personal assistant. While we're definitely in a Marvel comic universe (Marvel's "heroes" often being a bit more nuanced and not just one-dimensional), director Jon Favreau does a great job coloring this well-paced action flick with balanced touches of self-conscious humor and real humanity in the characters. A scene when Paltrow's character jokes with Tony Stark about him being a secret superhero and her being the one he trusts with his secret does both at the same time -- playing with comicbook conventions while exposing the unresolved feelings between the two. The story is deftly set in a very contemporary anti-terrorism context, and the superhero action sequences are very cool. My personal favorite superhero moment comes relatively early in the movie, when "Iron Man" confronts a group of terrorists holding some innocent villagers hostage. The way he dispatches them is a spontaneous applause moment, and had me thinking "Wow, Northrop Grumman ought to be building some of that!"

Marriage Quality Review Board, Anyone?

I recently got back in touch with David Benkof, an old colleague from the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Education. He used to write a gay history column that was syndicated in many publications, and I used to be on his editorial board, proof-reading and commenting on articles prior to publication. In recent years, he has committed himself to Orthodox Judaism, and while still identifying himself as bisexual, he is guided by Jewish law, and is writing columns advocating much more traditionalist positions. I've agreed to be on his informal editorial review cycle once again, which should be interesting. Even though I'll likely disagree with his positions more often, he's a bright guy with a unique perspective, and I hope we'll both learn from each other. I'll probably take the opportunity to respond to some of his pieces (post publication, of course) on my blog. Here's the first.

David likes to seek unexpected common ground between divergent viewpoints, and over at marriagedebate.com, he comes up with a challenge for same-sex marriage advocates. If we're serious about respecting and preserving the traditional values underlying marriage, David asks, can we all agree not to legitimize "Daddy-boy" relationships by including them in any future revision of the definition of marriage? He's referring not to any actual incestuous relationships, but to relationships between consenting adult males where there is a large age difference, where the partners may refer to each other as "Daddy" and "my boy", and where a little whiff of taboo might give them a kinky erotic charge. By playing up the resemblance to incest, David hopes that it will be a slam-dunk for all of us decent folks to agree to exclude those kinky Daddy-boy couples from the definition of marriage.

Alas, it is David who is unwittingly proposing a significant and dangerous alteration to the definition of marriage. Historically, the official (i.e., legal) definition of marriage has always been a matter of a few clearly adjudicable requirements: opposite gender, minimum age, no common grandparents, and not already married to someone else. Any consenting couple who met those qualifications could get a marriage license. Whether the groom was a known wife-beater, whether the bride was on her tenth marriage, whether the couple were separated by several decades and a vast income disparity, the state did not inquire. Traditionally, the state has humbly held that the marrying parties themselves were in a better position than the state to judge the appropriateness of the union. But now David proposes to change that, suggesting that perhaps the state does know better after all. In order to preserve the dignity of the hallowed institution, so that no inappropriate role models would gain the imprimatur of state-sanctioned marriage, it now seems necessary for the state to poke its nose under the connubial covers.

I don't know how exactly David imagines implementing his proposal. Would there be a state marriage quality board comprised of moral authorities who would interview marriage license applicants (along with their references, neighbors and co-workers) to pass judgment on each marriage? If so, would there be periodic reviews of existing marriages to make sure that the moral quality hadn't declined? Will this be narrowly tailored to only exclude those who actually get kicks out of pretending to violate a taboo, or would merely using the term "Daddy" be a prima facie violation? Should we impose a maximum age difference on all marriages just to be safe? Instead of a review board, perhaps there would simply be an affidavit as part of the marriage license application, asking the spouses to disavow any kinky business. If so, how would that be enforced? Could any citizen bring charges against a neighbor whose marriage was creating a moral hazard? Would they be criminal or civil?

Remind me again - how is this proposal conservative or traditional?

FILM: Son of Rambow

Making a quiet opening this weekend in the shadow of Iron Man and Made of Honor, was the charming small British film Son of Rambow, an exploration of boyhood and imagination whose authenticity harkens Stand By Me from over twenty years ago. The film soars on the brilliant performances of the two middle-school-aged actors (Bill Milner and Will Poulter) who bring to life the two characters who dominate the film, Will Proudfoot, a small quiet boy with a vivid imagination and talent for drawing whose family belongs to an Amish-like sect called "the brethren", and Lee Carter, a tough troublemaker with a passion for film-making who is very loosely supervised by an older brother and constantly traveling parents. These unlikely collaborators meet in the school hallway because one is constantly being put out of the classroom for bad behavior and the other is constantly being put out of the classroom whenever the teacher shows a film or documentary TV show because he's not allowed to watch TV. Once they meet and find a common outlet for their combined talents in the making of an action-adventure film, their own lives become an adventure. The film mostly shows us these two boys making their film, in a way that's infused with subjectivity, with the boundaries between reality and imagination, as well as film versus film-within-film, being occasionally blurred. Sometimes we're in Will's mind, with animated action seeping into the real world, and other times we're in Lee's head, seeing his world through his camera lens. Even the "real world" is a boys' world, with abandoned industrial sites looking like a playground and every tree, field, and stream being a site for adventure. The dialog and the visual subjectivity are so completely natural and unself-conscious that one might forget that there was a writer and director at work here, so transparent is the hand of writer-director Garth Jennings. Before I realized it, this unique story had not only charmed me, but showed me something of boyhood character, friendship, and imagination.