One of the images I have in my head of New York City from when I was a kid was that of the homeless person. You’d see them all over the place, either sitting on the street or shuffling aimlessly down the block.

It occurs to me that the last two times I went into NYC for Fashion Week, I can’t recall seeing a single homeless person. I mean, I’m sure they still exist, but did they move somewhere? I saw plenty of people collecting money for the homeless, but no homeless collecting money for themselves.

I’m posting this for no other reason than the fact that it was cute and made me smile.

LOOK AT THE KITTY!

Bush endorses constitutional ban on gay marriage

This whole thing really annoys me. It’s not that I feel all that strongly one way or the other on the subject of gay marriage, but that’s sort of the point. What difference does it make? If you feel that this is going to break down the moral fabric of our country, perhaps you should take a look at the REST of the moral fabric of our country. It’s already broken, and if you feel that way, then this doesn’t make it any worse. This is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and that seems counter to what this country is founded on. Didn’t we have an entire war because of discrimination issues?

Yes, I am drawing parallels to the Civil War, but bear with me for a second. The Civil War began, largely, because of issues of slavery. Southern states were upset that the Union wanted to tell them what to do with regards to slavery. They wanted freedom to make their own choices, and felt that the federal government should allow the state governments to make their own decisions. Now we have a situation where a group of people are being discriminated against, and the federal government wants to make legislation with regards to those people, but many people feel that the states should have the freedom to choose how to deal with the situation themselves. I’m not saying we’re going to go go war over this, but it’s not hard to see a parallel.

Anyway, I also have to take issue with Bush calling marriage “the most fundamental institution of civilization” because, well, that’s just stupid. Nice buzz words, Mr. President, but do you really believe that? The MOST FUNDAMENTAL institution of civilization? I mean, sure, there have been unions of men and women for a while, but isn’t it really more of a religious institution, anyway?

Then there was this part of the article:

The amendment that Musgrave and other lawmakers are backing in the House says: �Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.�

But it also contains language saying that the states should be left free to �define other arrangements,� and Bush’s comment that he could support the bill appears to indicate that he would not favor a federal ban on civil union or domestic partnership laws.

So, now I’m confused. If I read this correctly, they’re basically saying that states can, in fact, confer all the same rights that “traditional” married couples have on same sex copules, they just can’t call it marriage in the traditional sense. If that’s the case, then why bother to make the legislation at all? Why are we writing such an ambiguous statement into our nation’s constitution? Shouldn’t Constitutional amendments be about things that are truly important? This just doesn’t seem like an issue that’s even remotely worthy of an amendment. It annoys me that this should be such an important issue and that things that are clearly far more important are overlooked.

I don’t know much about John Kerry or John Edwards, but I simply can’t even make excuses for Bush, anymore.

4 a.m. is a very interesting time of the day. It’s a real transition point. At 4 a.m., you never really know if a person is coming or going. For some, it’s the end of the day. For others, it’s just the beginning. Personally, I usually prefer to be going to sleep at 4 a.m, but sometimes I find myself having to wake up then. What interests me, though, is the intersection of the two. It’s great to me to walk into a place that’s open 24 hours, like Wawa, and see these two sets of people in the same place, interacting with eachother.

Since she doesn’t have her own weblog, I thought I would post this for Michelle so that you could all be jealous….

This is cool. So, I got a TiVo, right? I set up a Season Pass to record all new episodes of Gilmore Girls, cause I love that show. Gilmore Girls stars Lauren Graham (who, apparently, did a voice for an episode of Family Guy) in the role of Lorelai Gilmore. The other night, a rerun of Late Night with Conan O’Brien featured an interview with Lauren Graham. TiVo, being the beautiful machine that it is and seeing that I like Gilmore Girls and also seeing that I was not recording or watching anything else at the time, took it upon itself to record this episode of Conan so that I could see this interview.

This, my friends, is why TiVo rocks.

In the tradition of M-D, himself, I present to you…

CAPTION THIS!