Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Maine enters the marriage-equality fray: Wither New Jersey?

Maine’s Legislature has opened a very public debate over marriage-equality this morning with public hearings kicking off on separate bills, one legalizing gay marriage and the other expanding domestic partnership rights.

AUGUSTA, Maine – Same-sex marriage supporters far outnumbered opponents as legislative hearing got under way about 9:30 a.m. today at the Augusta Civic Center. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people filled the floor and most of the side seats in the auditorium.

Members of the Judiciary Committee are hearing testimony on two bills – LD 1020 that would allow same-sex couples to marry and LD 1118 that would extend to people registered on the Domestic Partner Registry the same rights and benefits as those who are married but would stop short of creating civil unions.

Supporters of same-sex marriage, decked out in red, cheered and rose to their feet as Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, introduced LD 1020. Damon announced in January that he would sponsor a bill to repeal a law that defines marriage and between a man and a woman and allow any person in Maine to marry.

“It’s fair. It’s right. It’s time,” he said of same-sex marriage.

Damon, obviously, was speaking of the Maine marriage bill, but his admonition to his colleagues can also be read as a more general exhortation, as in: “Hey, New Jersey. Pass marriage-equality: It’s fair. It’s right. It’s time.”

Runner’s diary Wednesday

It was a solid, if labored morning at the gym today — a three mile run (27 minutes on the nose) on the treadmill and some lifting. I remain behind where I should be — both in my physical and my motivation. But I just have to press forward, I guess.

iPod: Glenn Greenwald interview on the Jane Harmon controversy; acoustic set from Chrissie Hynde; and an interview with the biographer of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali.

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Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Early to rise — too early

Like clockwork. It was 5:50 this morning, same as every morning — which makes for a long day during which I sometimes feel like I'm dozing at my desk.

It doesn't seem to matter when we go to bed, either. Hit the sack at 10:30 and wake before 6. Go to bed late — as I did last night after dozing on the couch once the school election results were posted — and 5:50 comes with the doggie alarm.

What's worse is that I couldn't fall asleep last night, tossing and turning while I watched a bio-pic on LBJ. So, I'm looking at about four hours of sleep and a busy day ahead. Ugh.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless LGVX9900 device.

DISPATCHES: Follow the money

Dispatches is up — on federal clean elections legislation based on an interview with area resident David Donnelly, national campaign director for the Public Campaign Action Fund.

Can you spare a dime — at exorbitant rates?

From Blue Jersey: Senator Menendez has asked the Department of the Treasury to “restrict credit card companies that receive taxpayer dollars from imposing unilateral interest rate increases and other consumer-unfriendly practices.”

Read the letter here.

Credit cards have always been the last refuge for banks and other lenders, the mechanism they can use to generate revenue when other streams have dried up. Revolving balances — the money you keep on your card — is a huge moneymaker, as FRONTLINE showed a few years ago, thanks to the elimination of “a critical restriction: the limit on the interest rate a lender can charge a borrower.”

Deregulation, coupled with a revolution in technology that enables the almost real-time tracking of personal financial information and the emergence of nationwide banking, has facilitated the widening availability of credit cards across the economic spectrum. But for some, the cost of credit is often far greater than it appears.

According to Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the credit card companies are misleading consumers and making up their own rules. “These guys have figured out the best way to compete is to put a smiley face in your commercials, a low introductory rate, and hire a team of MBAs to lay traps in the fine print,” Warren tells FRONTLINE.

The fine print includes rate hikes that can be applied not only to future balances, but to existing balances, shifting due dates and unilaterally set late fees. The result is a tremendous hardship on people who have come to rely on their plastic.

Add to this the restrictions placed on bankruptcy under Clinton and you can see just how venal the system we have is.

So, kudos to Sen. Menendez, but let’s not view this as anything more than a minor correction — maybe a first step toward leveling the playing fields.