A Word in Edgewise

They’re Broadcasting Through My Tinfoil Hat

Are other people’s computers beaming in the same news stories that I’m receiving? Lately, my usually docile laptop has been channeling Tim Burton mingled with the spirits of Federico Fellini and Ernie Kovacs. I pass this sample along for a reality check.

Texas Hold ’em—Till Death Do You Part

It seems that the Lone Star State—Grand Guignol theater with a drawl—not only won’t let same-sex couples marry within its borders, but also won’t let same-sex couples legally married in other states or countries get divorced within its borders, either.

Does this mean that, like California, with its 18,000 legally married same-sex couples forming a peculiar archipelago of legally sanctioned islets in a heterosexual ocean, Texas will accumulate married gay couples who, when they reach critical mass of seeking divorce—as do more than half the legally fettered heterosexuals—cannot claim the same relief?

Are they considered married till that point? Does Texas figure it can’t dissolve something that isn’t real in its blinkered eyes? Or does Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott simply enjoy punishing queers? He currently is working to invalidate divorces already granted by other judges in Austin and Dallas.

Research seems to bear out Option Two: The state feels it can’t grant a divorce for an illegitimate marriage. But the couples didn’t marry illegitimately in Texas—they legitimately are married elsewhere. To complicate things, Abbott has decided that these same gay marriages can be voided legally in Texas.

Perhaps if the Attorney General pushes the envelope a bit more vigorously, he can find a way for gay marriages also to be…um…validated, creating new “V & V” legislation for creation and dissolution of Texas same-sex nuptials. But hasn’t the “separate but equal” thing been done before?

“This Is Alabama; We Speak English”

No, I’m not going to touch that one with any length pole.

Has Alabama’s Republican Governor, Tim James, really adopted that line as a campaign slogan to argue that the state driver’s license exam be given in English? Only in English? “This is Alabama; we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it.”

I only can point out that “Alabama” derives from the indigenous population’s Muskoegan language, not from English, which the original natives well might have added to the 13—Chinese and Farsi among them—which the Governor wishes to drop.

Australian Restaurant Fined After Employees Refused To Admit a Blind Man, Thinking His “Guide” Dog Was a “Gay” Dog

At this point, I logged off, and opened a Jules Verne novel.