Hank Kalet

Dispatches from The Cranbury Press this week focuses on the new politically tinged songs of summer.

John Nichols touches on some similar ground in his Nation blog.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

The president and his conservative base are hoping to write discrimination into the constitution. The New York Times reports today that the president will support a constitutional amendment that “would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages.” I’ve written about this before, so I won’t belabor it.

Here are the links to my columns on the issue:

• The problem is bias, not gay marriage
• Marriage ban at odds with Bill of Rights
• Time to redefine the family

And I’ll quote with something from the Times:

“This is fundamentally both a civil rights and religious freedom issue and the president’s position of supporting amending the constitution is just dead wrong,” said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “This is simply to give ammunition to the so-called religious right just to show that the president is still with them.”

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

A reader from Monroe sends along his blog. It is the musings of an octanegarian, as he says, a bit of nostalgia from an old newspaper man. How could I resist passing it along?

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

The news from Iraq just keeps getting worse. Even as the United States promises to cooperate with Iraqi probe of Haditha killings, new questions are being raised about a March attack on civilians.

We really should take Ruth Coniff’s advice on this.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

I’ve been astroturfed real bad this week. Over the last two days, I have received probably 250 e-mails concerning New York state insurance legislation that would affect the coverage of austistic patients. While I may be sympathetic, I have to point out a couple of things:

1. My papers do not cover New York state.

2. I don’t respond to form letters — this goes for letters with which I may agree and those to which I’m opposed.

3. Volume is meaningless. Just because I receive a large number of form letters on a given topic does not mean I will be more likely to do something about it. On the contrary, the more form letters I get, the more likely I am to ignore them.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press