Copyright 2005 - Steal what you wantTue, 17 Jun 2008 10:17:45 GMTTue, 17 Jun 2008 10:17:45 GMTDaily Kos Daily Kos This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.
Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds (Thrown Rice Edition)
On February 12, 2004, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, two activists who had been together for 51 years, married each other after San Franciso declared same-sex marriages legal. The California Supreme Court subsequently nullified their marriage and some 4000 others in a ruling saying the city had no authority to approve the marriages in defiance of state law. Last month, the same court ended the state's ban on gay marriage. So, Monday night, Martin, 87, and Lyon, 83, got married again. Once again, as in 2004, they were the first couple to take advantage of the legal change.
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the ceremony in the reception area of his office, said it was a fitting way to memorialize last month's state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in California, which took effect at 5:01 p.m. ...
The couple made their way out of the office and onto the balcony area where a cake - and large crowd- was waiting. Rose petals fluttered down from the ceiling as the crowd cheered and cameras flashed.
"This is an extraordinary moment in history and extraordinary moment in time" Newsom said to the crowd. "They are extraordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives and spent half a century fighting for justice and equality."
Lyon drew laughter with her comments.
"When we first got together, we were not really thinking about getting married, we were thinking about getting together," she said. "I think it's a wonderful day."
"Ditto," Martin said.
Martin and Lyon have lived in the same house in San Francisco since 1955. That same year, at a time of flourishing McCarthyism, which hunted not only communists, but also gays, the pair helped found, with six other women, the Daughters of Bilitis, the nation's first lesbian rights organization. They risked everything. Martin was elected president and Lyon secretary. "DOB went on to define its purpose as bringing lesbians into the public discourse through education, encouraging responsible research studies, and advocating for changes in the penal code."
The organization held its first national convention in 1960, in downtown San Francisco.
Highlights included discussions on psychosexual behavior, status of gay bars, religious attitudes, legal problems of lesbian couples and entertainment. Phyllis and Del hosted a pre-convention reception at their home. Their address and phone number were printed in the program. From that point on there was no turning back for DOB or the couple who brought it out of the closet.
Unfortunately, in 1969 the National Organization for Women (NOW) President Betty Friedan labeled lesbians "The Lavender Menace." Again entering unfriendly territory, Del and Phyllis were two of the first out lesbians to join NOW, insisting on the couple's membership rate. At the 1971 and 1973 NOW conventions, the oppression of lesbians as a feminist issue was acknowledged in resolutions that Del and Phyllis were instrumental in getting adopted.
In 1972, they were also instrumental in setting up the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. That year their book Lesbian/Woman, depicting lesbian lives in a positive way, was published. The book was chosen in the 1990s by Publishers Weekly as one of the 20 most influential women's books of the '70s and '80s).
In 1976, Martin wrote Battered Wives, a catalyst for establishing a network of battered women's shelters. Lyon became co-director of the National Sex Forum, which initiated the use of explicitly sexual films as a teaching tool, and subsequently became a member of The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, which grants doctoral and other degrees in sexology.
Activists for life. Spouses forever. Congratulations!
+ + +
Tuesday is the 1875th day since Mission Accomplished.
There are 216 days left of the Cheney-Bush regime.
Will drilling in more places improve our fuel supply? tin41 says in The Oil Drilling Debate that there's much more to this matter than the usual talking points. (Louisiana 1976)
The Coming Democratic Earthquake has Phil In Denver looking at the next generation of voters (Generation Y) and their likely impact in shaping America's future political landscape. (dadanation)
The Family: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Dad's Best Jokes is an excellent Father's Day piece by MillieNeon, in which she fondly tells us of her father's wonderful sense of humor. Her anecdotes brilliantly make him come alive. (Louisiana 1976)
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) sent a letter to former White House adviser Karl Rove's attorney Monday making clear the committee expects Rove to testify at a July 10 hearing investigating the federal prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) on bribery charges.
"We want to reemphasize that we expect Mr. Rove to attend the hearing," Conyers wrote, pointing out he had not yet received and formal objection to Rove appearing.
And if he doesn't? Well, we know that story already.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said that the House Judiciary Committee would be willing to arrest Karl Rove if the former White House official doesn't testify about his role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.
Asked by MSNBC host Dan Abrams if the committee would go far as having Rove arrested, Wasserman said it would.
"Well, if that's what it takes," she said. "I mean we really cannot allow the co-equal branch of government, the legislative branch, to be trampled upon by the executive branch. The founding fathers established three branches of government. We are a co-equal branch, and this is an administration that essentially has ignored and disrespected the role of the legislative branch for far too long."
And here's fellow Judiciary Committee Member Robert Wexler making the same threat, also to Dan Abrams, who has been all over this:
So, will Rove testify? Will the committee be able to force it if necessary? And whether they have to force the issue or not, does Rove's agreement to appear necessarily mean he'll agree to provide anything of value, or will he get away with invoking the "I don't recallTM" dodge?
Time will tell.
And it's worth noting, I think, that time matters here. Even if this thing goes all the way, the power of the House to imprison someone under inherent contempt extends only to the point when that Congress adjourns sine die. That'll most likely be in the first days of January 2009. Considering that the House will be in recess for most of August (not to mention the week leading up to July 4th) and the fact that it took the House over six months to work up the gumption to hold Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in statutory contempt for defying their subpoenas, if the threat of inherent contempt is going to actually mean anything, the House is going to have to hurry up and get that done if they find themselves dissatisfied on July 10th.
Kagro X Karl RoveUS AttorneysDon Siegelmansubpoena powerinherent contemptTue, 17 Jun 2008 03:15:08 GMT
I was going to make a big stink about this today, but it looks like the Associated Press is responding quickly to criticism:
Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.
On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.
The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet [...]
All good? Maybe not.
Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.
“Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see,” he said. “It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context.”
The AP is going to lecture bloggers about what the "spirit of the internet" is all about? Laughable. And the AP certainly doesn't have free reign to rewrite copyright law on its own. Fair use provisions exist for a reason
If they don't back off this ridiculous notion, there will be litigation, and Daily Kos will be happy to be at the forefront of any such effort.
Hopefully, sanity (and their legal team) will prevail at the AP before we have to go down that path.
On February 12, 2004, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, two activists who had been together for 51 years, married each other after San Franciso declared same-sex marriages legal. The California Supreme Court subsequently nullified their marriage and some 4000 others in a ruling saying the city had no authority to approve the marriages in defiance of state law. Last month, the same court ended the state's ban on gay marriage. So, Monday night, Martin, 87, and Lyon, 83, got married again. Once again, as in 2004, they were the first couple to take advantage of the legal change.
Martin and Lyon have lived in the same house in San Francisco since 1955. That same year, at a time of flourishing McCarthyism, which hunted not only communists, but also gays, the pair helped found, with six other women, the Daughters of Bilitis, the nation's first lesbian rights organization. They risked everything. Martin 
