Friday, March 12, 2004

12:35 PM |

Thursday, March 11, 2004

ANOTHER CAMPAIGN FIRST: Bush's first round of ads became immediately famous for using images of Ground Zero and a flag-draped body being carried away from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

His newest spot, "100 Days," might soon become famous for another campaign first. It is the first ad to use the image of a dark-skinned man who is obviously meant to be a terrorist.

The ominous slow-motion footage comes about halfway through the 30-second ad. A female voiceover darkly warns about John Kerry's agenda, charging, "On the war on terror: weaken the Patriot Act used to arrest terrorists and protect America." On the left of the screen flash the words "John Kerry's Plan." On the bottom a red box warns, "Weaken Fight Against Terrorists." If you look closely, on the right side of the screen you can see an airplane taking off.

6:36 PM |

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

The son of California's most prominent opponent of gay marriage exchanged vows with his longtime boyfriend Tuesday, joining the thousands of same-sex couples who have flocked to City Hall to participate in a rite his father is trying to block in court.

David J. Knight, 42, the son of state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight, married his partner of 10 years, Joseph J. Lazzaro, 39, during a brief ceremony presided over by a volunteer marriage commissioner. The couple, who live in Baltimore, were accompanied by a friend, but no family members.

9:44 PM |

4:06 PM |

Monday, March 08, 2004

As the Supreme Court was weighing a landmark gay rights case last year, Justice Antonin Scalia gave a keynote dinner speech in Philadelphia for an advocacy group waging a legal battle against gay rights.

Scalia addressed the $150-a-plate dinner hosted by the Urban Family Council two months after hearing oral arguments in a challenge to a Texas law that made gay sex a crime. A month after the dinner, he sharply dissented from the high court's decision overturning the Texas law.

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The Urban Family Council, which hosted the dinner, was not a party to the Texas case. But it is backing a separate lawsuit that seeks to overturn a Philadelphia city ordinance allowing gay couples who work for the city to register as "life partners" to qualify for pension and health benefits, which is an increasingly common practice.

William Devlin, who founded the council, is lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, which is pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Both sides say the case of Devlin vs. City of Philadelphia has a good chance of reaching Scalia's court.

Devlin said he phoned the justice at home last year to invite him to speak at the group's dinner, which was being held to raise money to support the lawsuit and other council activities. The dinner also honored the retiring Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, who has said homosexuality is "an aberration, a moral evil" -- and is an outspoken opponent of the life-partners ordinance.

9:28 PM |

On the dust jacket of his book, Richard Perle appends a Washington Post depiction of himself as the "intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement in foreign policy."

The guru's reputation, however, does not survive a reading. Indeed, on putting down Perle's new book the thought recurs: the neoconservative moment may be over. For they are not only losing their hold on power, they are losing their grip on reality.

11:43 AM |

In a 60-page report issued Sunday, the group, Human Rights Watch, also called on the United States military to release the results of investigations into the deaths of three Afghans in American custody in 2002 and 2003. Initial military medical investigators declared two of the deaths homicides.

The report also said it had received "numerous reports" of American forces relying on faulty intelligence or using "excessive or indiscriminate force" that resulted in avoidable civilian deaths and the detention of innocent people. It contended that the United States was employing interrogation techniques, like shackling prisoners, stripping them naked or depriving them of sleep, that the State Department had condemned as torture in countries like Libya, North Korea and Iran.

Waiflike, draped in a pale blue veil, Madina, 20, sits on her hospital bed, bandages covering the terrible, raw burns on her neck and chest. Her hands tremble. She picks nervously at the soles of her feet and confesses that three months earlier she set herself on fire with kerosene.

Beside her, on the next bed, her mother-in-law, Bibi Khanum, and her brother-in-law, Abdul Muhammad, 18, confirm her account but deny her reason, which Madina would explain only outside on a terrace, away from her husband's family. "All the time they beat me," she said. "They broke my arm. But what should I do? This was my home."

Accounts like Madina's are repeated across Afghanistan, doctors and human rights workers say. They are discovering more and more young women who have set themselves on fire, desperate to escape the cruelties of family life and harsh tribal traditions that show no sign of changing despite the end of Taliban rule and the dawn of democracy.

9:46 AM |