San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano had sponsored a bill which passed unanimously granting the Port of San Francisco financial power to redevelop a former shipyard for a new neighborhood known as Pier 70.
Ammiano also had made something of a scene at a Democratic Party fundraiser early this month in San Francisco at which Schwarzenegger, a Republican, had been invited by former San Francisco mayor and Assembly speaker Willie Brown, a Democrat. This surprised many, in light of the heated budget wars between the governor and legislature.
Ammiano could be heard invoking the cry of Republican South Carolina's Rep. Joe Wilson at President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress - "You lie" - as others heckled Schwarzenegger's brief speech. After the governor left, Ammiano took the stage with a rambling criticism of Schwarzenegger for a variety of offenses — among them the governor's vetoes of bills that would have legalized gay marriage.
When the governor's office delivered a veto-message for Ammiano's own port bill a few days later, on Oct. 12, there appeared to be an unmistakable hidden message within: Reading the first letter of each line of the letter's two main paragraphs:
"My goodness. What a coincidence," a shocked, shocked Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear is quoted by the Associated Press as saying. "I suppose when you do so many vetoes, something like this is bound to happen."
With some back-of-the-envelope calculations of probability, I'm sure we could set about refuting McLear's disingenuous response that the acrostic is merely a "coincidence." Scholars of Shakespeare have argued whether the following acrostic in A Midsummer's Night Dream, in which the character Titania spells out her own name, could have appeared by chance:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no,
I am a spirit of no common rate,
The summer till doth tend upon my state;
ANd I do love thee. Therefore go with me.
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep…
But I think in this case it's pretty clear that we're dealing with intentionally mischievous acrostic-making in the Governor's office. It reads very smoothly, so kudos to the writer of the veto message. Could it have been Ahnold himself? Doubtful, although he might have told someone in his office to construct the acrostic. (I wonder if whoever did it also leaked the story to reveal his or her handiwork.)
FormerVice-President Dick Cheney accuses President Obama of dithering on executing a plan for the Afghan War. Typically overstated, the former VP criticizes the President for taking too much time to formulate a cohesive plan for prosecuting the war. Lives are being lost, he says, as President Obama consults with his advisors on strategy for Afghanistan.
Dick Cheney has no shame. None. It is precisely because Dick Cheney and his administration failed to take enough time to formulate plans for initiating the Afghan and Iraqi wars that Barack Obama is even facing this decision. Thousands of Americans and allied soldiers died while Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld took years to fix their half-assed strategy. That is an historical fact. If they had thought these wars through to their full-assed endgames, President Obama wouldn’t be struggling with Afghan war strategy eight years later.
When we send our troops to war let’s make sure we have a plan. Give President Obama the requisite time to do it the right way this time, not the Cheney way.
PUEBLO - A 60-year-old woman who is running for homecoming queen at Colorado State University-Pueblo was accused of shooting three people, killing one woman, at a Denver women's shelter in 1989.
Juanita Whitaker was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
At the time, the Rocky Mountain News reported that Whitaker blamed the rampage on a computer chip her ex-husband planted in her brain.
When asked about it, Whitaker says she's made mistakes in her past and this is her second chance.
Whitaker says she's changed her life and has joined nonprofit groups that help the disabled and mentally ill.
CSU-Pueblo says Whitaker meets all the requirements to run for homecoming queen, including good grades and there is no reason to disqualify.
She is running against two other students; one is a gay man.
The homecoming election was held on campus on Thursday. Results will be announced Saturday.
Blue Shield California twice refused to pay $2,700 emergency-room claims by Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez, concluding that it was not a "reasonable" decision for her to go to the ER that morning that she awoke to a shirt saturated with blood from what turned out the be a breast tumor. Only after a KPIX-TV reporter intervened in September did Blue Shield pay the claim. [KPIX-TV, 9-25-09]
National Women's LawCenter found that the laws of eight states permit insurance companies to deny health coverage to a battered spouse (as a "pre-existing condition," since batterers tend to be recidivists), according to a September report by Kaiser Health News. [MSNBC, 10-7-09]
A status crime is a crime of being rather than a crime of doing. Examples of status crimes include addiction, homelessness, prostitution, or even belonging to a certain minority group. Included in “minority group” are gays. Laws making a person’s status criminal have been repealed and rejected nearly uniformly around the world. The simple rationale is that you can’t make a person’s very being a criminal act. Such a person could, theoretically, be jailed for life merely for existing. Even at their worst, those saturated in ignorance, intolerance, phobia and bigotry never made being gay a crime. Sodomy – yes, but the status of being gay – no. In recent, relatively enlightened decades most sodomy laws have been repealed. In today’s society, gay marriage and civil unions are nearly humdrum.
Nevertheless, US law prohibits any soldier who “demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts” from serving in the military. (10 U.S.C. §654) This section of the US Code prohibits gay soldiers from disclosing or talking about their sexual preference, i.e., don’t tell. It also prohibits superior officers from initiating an investigation into a soldier’s sexual orientation in the absence of the disallowed behavior (the homosexual acts thing), although mere suspicion of being gay can be sufficient to investigate, i.e., don’t ask.
The penalty for violating section 654, i.e., being gay, is discharge from the armed forces. An unsuccessful challenge to the disposition of an investigation results in the soldier being dishonorably discharged from the armed forces.
We have a successful volunteer army. Under DADT a gay soldier may remain at his chosen job only if he denies his being. Those who choose not to live that way are fired. Losing one’s job for reasons of economic, financial conditions is experienced by far too many due to fallout from the struggling economy. A gay soldier loses his job for being gay, not for any other reason. That is not fallout; that is a penalty for status. That gay soldier is being deprived of his livelihood as a penalty for being gay.
Gays serving openly in the military is a non-issue in most Western armed forces. Really. Polling in the US shows that both private citizens and servicemen are in favor of gays serving openly in the military. (The web is replete with supportive data.) Standing in the way of the uptight, puritanical US of A joining more socially sophisticated societies are sexually hung-up generals and legislators whose panties are too tight to let go of age-old bigotry, fear and ignorance. They would rather sacrifice American lives in battle than, let’s say, utilize highly skilled Arabic translators (who happen to be gay) to obtain accurate intelligence. Please see the hundreds of online articles about First Lieutenant Daniel Choi, who came out on the “Rachel Maddow Show”.
A 2007 study by the University of California recommended that the US follow Israel’s example on gays in the military. What would that be? In a nutshell by David Saranga former IDF officer and Israel’s consul for media and public affairs in New York:
"It's a non-issue... You can be a very good officer, a creative one, a brave one and be gay at the same time."
Meleanie Hain, 31, and her husband, Scott Hain, 33, had been having marital problems for the past week, a neighbor told The Patriot-News. Scott Hain had left the family home on Tuesday, but returned Wednesday.
Their three children were in the house, but were not injured. They are staying with relatives. Autopsies are scheduled for today.
Meleanie Hain made national headlines after she brought a loaded pistol, holstered on her hip, to her daughter's soccer game on Sept. 11, 2008, according to The Patriot-News report.
A county sheriff revoked her gun-carrying permit, but a judge later reinstated it, although he questioned her judgment in bringing it and scaring others at the game.
Hain sued Sheriff Michael DeLeo in federal court, claiming her babysitting service suffered, her children were harassed and neighbors ostracized her. The BradyCenter to Prevent Gun Violence offered to defend DeLeo for free, saying the case was a matter of common sense.
A hearing on the $1 million lawsuit was postponed in May after an attorney in the case was involved in a traffic crash.
If your grade-school education was anything like mine, lessons on parallelograms, subject-verb agreement and neutrons were met with a chorus of whiny students asking, "When will we ever need to know this?"
I admit, many years later I still haven't tapped into my algebraic knowledge of a parabola, but other subjects have played important roles. Writing lessons, for example, have played a large role in my life, and not just because of my line of work.
Between e-mails, texts and Tweets, our society spends a lot of time communicating via the written word. We spend more time writing in our professional and personal lives than we probably imagined we would back in school. What you may not realize is that these written exchanges can boost your career or hinder it, depending on how you treat them.
Write your way to a job
Todd Henning recently began an internship with a public relations firm, and he's quickly discovering that his writing abilities are helping his fledgling career. In the few months he's been interning, he's seen his list of responsibilities grow.
"Right after I was hired, they told me it was largely due to the writing samples that I had given them during the interview process, and they had stopped considering others because of their writing samples," Henning says.
Of course, if you're applying for a position where writing samples are part of the application process, you're probably not surprised that composition skills pay off. But Rebecca West, interior designer for Rivalee Design, recently landed a position because of her writing skills. Not what you'd expect for someone whose job relies on a creative eye rather than a way with a pen.
West met with a potential client to discuss a bathroom remodel, and she didn't think the meeting was a success. She didn't think she connected to one homeowner and the other homeowner was unable to attend.
"I always send a follow-up thank you after my first consultation, but this time I took it a step further and composed a full letter describing to the client how I thought I could best help in their project, and offering to meet with them once more," West says. "I didn't really expect anything to come of it, but several days later they called and asked to set up another time to meet. During my second visit the second homeowner mentioned my letter, thanked me for it, and said it brought 'tears to his eyes' -- and no, he wasn't being facetious."
After the second meeting, all three parties decided the homeowners didn't need a designer to execute their remodeling plans, but that didn't bother West.
"From them I had two business referrals, and I was able to refer them to a contractor of mine who in turn got the remodeling work," West says.
Employers care
Lilia Fallgatter, an author and e-learning consultant, has enough experience as a hiring manager in higher education to know that writing skills affect every career.
"How you write speaks volumes about you," Fallgatter stresses. "Incorrect grammar, spelling and usage make a bad impression and can affect your credibility on the job. With the advent of text messaging, instant messaging and social networking sites such as Twitter, more people are abandoning the rules of writing. The use of abbreviations, failing to use capitalization and punctuation is extremely informal and does not translate well to the professional setting."
Fallgatter is quick to point out that, all things being equal, in a showdown between two job applicants, she'll choose the better writer.
A reputation as a good writer has paid off for Mel White, vice president of marketing and business development at Classic Exhibits, a firm that specializes in providing equipment to trade show vendors and exhibitors. He says effective communication skills have enhanced his professional image in ways he didn't expect.
"I'm no genius, no superstar -- but strong writing skills have always made me a valuable asset," he says. In business school, he frequently earned higher marks than his classmates because of his writing abilities, a trend that carried over to his business life. "Regardless of my position, I've become the default writer and editor everywhere I've worked. Writing skills matter. For some odd reason, people think you are smarter and more competent."
This phenomenon has held true for other professionals, including Dustin Weeks, author of "Lessons From a Recovering Worker Bee."
"While working abroad I was responsible for making sure that all written communications for our American English-speaking clients were grammatically correct," Weeks explains. As a result, he became the resident expert on English and North American business strategies. "I was often asked strategic questions about how something should be presented to our North American clients because I had command of the English language and was from North America."
How to make writing work for you
All this said, strong writing skills can lose you a job if you're not careful. If your command of English makes you the go-to editor for the office, you still need to temper your criticisms a bit. If your eagerness to mark up a paper with red ink outweighs your desire to help your colleagues and boss, you'll appear arrogant.
With that in mind, here are some tips to help make the most of your written communications at work:
Proofread, proofread, proofread
Typos, slang and bad grammar send a negative signal whether you're a job seeker, new employee or a supervisor. Look over your own writing and if it's an important document, ask someone else to review it, too.
Even e-mails deserve attention
All business communications should be treated with some level of professionalism. Although not every e-mail is a letter to the CEO, don't forget that these messages can be forwarded to anyone. Plus, in a culture where e-mails are more prevalent than face-to-face conversations, your writing is the face of your professional image.
Pick your battles
If you're a great writer, don't become the office grammarian who constantly corrects the usage of "who/whom." Congratulations on your knowledge of "The Elements of Style," but being known as a know-it-all can overshadow your knowledge.
Context matters
Part of being a good writer is knowing how to communicate effectively to your audience. A white paper should be more formal than a personal message to a colleague you know well. If you treat every correspondence with too much formality, that will be more noticeable than the content. So sometimes "Hi" is a better way to open a message than "Salutations."
Anthony Balderrama is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com and its job blog, The Work Buzz. He researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.
