I think the heat has suppressed the news. Not much to report this morning. Another grab bag.
* HOW HOT IS IT? I’d like to give a secondary plug to Gene Lyons’ column, already featured at the top of the page, on the drought. He captured exactly the withering feeling it leaves humans as it saps the life out of other living things. Global weather pattern anyone? Something’s happening here. What it is may not be exactly clear, but beware.
* ABOUT THAT MUSTAIN REFERENCE: A good Chicago Tribune feature on the effort by the former Razorback quarterback to make a professional career in baseball.
* THEY SPIT ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS: This is a small issue unless you are a woman, particularly one living in Washington, D.C. All four Arkansas congressmen voted yesterday for a bill to limit abortion rights in Washington, a major city granted only a semblance of democracy by Congress. The bill failed, needing a two-thirds votes, no thanks to anti-choice congressmen Tim Griffin, Rick Crawford, Steve Womack and Mike Ross. Repubs (and Mike Ross) have pushed repeatedly for anti-choice legislation in recent weeks, the country’s other problems apparently having been solved.
The legislation, H.R.3803, is the third stand-alone anti-choice measure that the House has advanced in the last four months. NARAL Pro-Choice America joined Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, and other civil- and reproductive-rights leaders in opposition to this legislation. The bill would ban abortion at 20 weeks in the District of Columbia, with no consideration for a woman’s health or her situation, including cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly. District of Columbia resident Christy Zink, who terminated a pregnancy at 21 weeks after doctors found a cyst on the brain of the fetus and a follow-up MRI revealed severe anomalies of the brain, would have been unable to get the care she needed had this ban been in effect.
* CHICKEN DAY: Chick-fil-A reportedly is staffing up for a record day. It is expecting a horde of customers will answer Mike Huckabee’s call to demonstrate support for discrimination against gay people by eating at a chicken chain whose leader has supported a variety of anti-gay organizations (including one that once helped inspire a drive for capital punishment of gays in Uganda) and has made incendiary remarks about gay marriage. Nobody will be counting how many won’t eat at Chick-fil-A because they prefer commerce without politics. They won’t be included in The Huckster’s body count. The chicken shacks also will profit today from sale of “I Love Chick-fil-A” T-shirts. I suggested to one proud supporter of gay discrimination last night that he might as well buy a Westboro Baptist T-shirt, too, in addition to his marathon daily chicken binge. He took offense. But Fred Phelps’ Westboro website says, “God hates fag marriage.” Apart from the coarse word, there’s no difference in the messaging intended by today’s Chick-fil-A cheerleaders, who seem unaware, or at least unconcerned, about how their fist-pumping might be received by gay family, friends and acquaintances. For them: Micah Qualls plans some non-aggressive counter messaging in Little Rock, with people bearing signs expressing love for all people. What a concept. I hear it can be found in that Book the chicken cheerleaders nominally revere. Warning: The Markham Street chicken store by Park Plaza shouldn’t have been allowed to build on a lot too small for a fast-food drive-through. It’s a traffic hazard on even slow days. Be careful in that vicinity, standing up for discrimination or not.
PS — Whatever the day brings, becoming branded as a discriminatory outfit is bad for business over the long haul. That applies to people who loudly identify with the cause, too, BTW.