Author: hankkalet

I ran six miles today — on the treadmill, but six nonetheless — and am starting to feel good about my running again. I did 15 miles last week in four days of running, 16 in five runs the week before, with the goal being 25 miles in a week, five days on the road, with the long-term goal being next year’s Long Beach Island run.

So far this week, I’m at 14 miles — four miles each on Tuesday and Wednesday, six today. I’m shooting for three tomorrow and then three on Sunday during the second Viking 5K.

The race last year was quite successful (I unfortunately missed it), with the money going to help athletes through the Viking Athletic Club.

I make no promises — I’ve learned that doing so is just bad politics, so to speak, but say hi if you see me.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The president says the buck stops with him, that he is accountable for all that goes wrog.

So why is he so allergic to any agency, panel or individual whose job it is to keep an eye on what he and his administration are doing? Is he worried that we’ll find out more stories like this?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I have had a little time to think about what the state Supreme Court did yesterday, and my enthusiasm for the ruling was probably a bit premature. It was not a loss by any stretch, but yesterday’s decision in Lewis v. Harris was not exactly a win.

As I said, a day of reflection and some strong arguments from an array of gay-marriage supporters indicate that, while gays and lesbians will have the same rights and benefits the rest of us enjoy, they still must endure a separate, inferior status under the law.

In the end, a bad decision that might have some good results, but not enough to make up for the continued second-class status that same-sex couples will endure and the ugly public fight that is likely to occur over the next six months.

Bob Braun’s angry, pointed column in The Star-Ledger is a a must-read on the subject:

The New Jersey Supreme Court choked.

Choked on a word. Just one word.

Marriage.

A court once gutsy enough to find a fundamental right in high school spending — and shut down the state’s schools to vindicate it. That once sought to transform housing patterns throughout New Jersey. A leader in product liability law and laws against discrimination and freedom of the press.

Even a leader now — really — in granting rights to gays and lesbians (because it does that, sort of, mostly, in this decision). Like a gagging Ralph Kramden physically unable to apologize to his wife Alice, the court simply could not bring itself to say that one word.

Marriage.

Braun called the decision, which was full of linguistic gymnastics that allowed the court to endorse gay marriage without endorsing gay marriage, “Purple prose, but lousy law.”

Because that, of course, is precisely what the tribunal should not have done — ducked an important decision that was the court’s to make and, instead, put us all in those “swift and treacherous currents of social policy.”

So now on to the Legislature — the “same crowd that couldn’t keep state parks open during the hottest days of the summer,” Braun says– where the political process should turn the latest drive for civil rights into an ugly, hateful battle for political space.

The court, it appears, punted when it shcould have gone for the goal-line.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The X-patriated Texan, in a post to Blue Jersey, likens today’s same-sex marriage ruling to Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave us the long-defunct seperate-but-equal doctrine, correctly comparing the language used by the state court to that used by the feds.

And while I agree that the state court fudged, it did affirm the notion of equality in a way that Plessy did not and in doing so should provide real protections for gay and lesbian couples and also build a foundation on which we can get true equality — marriage for all couples who seek it.

Here are some comments from a Dayton woman, one of the suit’s plaintiffs, that will be included in tomorrow’s story in the South Brunswick Post:

“I feel it is a really big step in a positive direction,” Suyin Lael said. “They unanimously agreed that we were entitled to the same rights as other couples, which is a great step. What I feel at this point, having said that, it seems almost a forgone conclusion that the Legislature will rule in favor of marriage.”

I hope she is right.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I wish I could disagree with this post from The Opinion Mill, but I can’t. The reality — as witnessed here in New Jersey, a certified blue state, where we may lose a Senate seat we have held since 1982.

The sitting senator, former U.S. Rep. Bob Mendendez has been dogged in recent weeks by the specter of an alleged federal probe — an allegation that the challenger, Tom Kean Jr., son of the popular former governor and a state senator from Westfield, has made the raison d’etre of his campaign. While the alleged probe is probably just a load of hoakam, it has had legs — because of the desultory reputation of Hudson County politicians, because of the incumbent’s low name-recognition and because Sen. Menendez has a reputation for hardball politics.

I’m not saying that he will lose — the Kean camp has run a remarkably inept campaign and the challenger has sullied the reputation he owned (perhaps undeservedly) as a nice guy by crawling into the mud and playing by Rove’s Rules.

My sense is that Sen. Menendez will win, possibly by 6 or 8 percentage points, but I have the same feeling I had when the Mets failed to score after that Endy Chavez catch in game seven of the National League Championship Series — and we all know how that ended.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick