Manu!

In light of the news that Spurs guard Manu Ginobili will have ankle surgery, I dug up this golden oldie.

Vermont Part I

I took the family to Vermont for a week at the beginning of August. Vermont is always a source of political entertainment for me, with it's granola left-wing nutjobs. Despite being the land of my youth, I share no common ground ideologically with most of them.

The headline in the Burlington Free Press the weekend we arrived was "Lesbian Bigamy." A spat between a college professor and her former lover had turned sour. Vermont was one of the first states to offer civil unions, but now it's facing all the sticky questions that come with that legal designation. I'm actually in favor of legal equality for gays, I think it's only fair to offer civil unions if the state offers benefits to heterosexual couples. The U.S. offers some legal reciprocity to married heterosexuals, i.e. if you're married in Connecticut it must also be legally recognized in other states. This protection does not yet apply in cases of homosexual unions. In the case at hand the women were married in Canada (which has gay marriage), but after they split one moved to Vermont and entered into a civil union without first seeking a divorce.

The case highlights the willingness of a lesbian to take advantage of the benefits of marriage when it is convenient, but drop the legal designation in a flash when it no longer suits her. At least one lawyer interviewed in the article agreed that it probably was bigamy. Still, authorities were reluctant to prosecute it because the "gay" part of the equation was precedent setting.