I got a credit card offer in the mail today from Citi.  I’d been pre-approved to apply, it told me, or I could just go to their website and I’d be approved in fewer than five minutes.  (I wonder if the new Consumer Protection Act requires all the same information be displayed on the websites).

The application that was enclosed looked like a check, and it had two blank areas to list information and a place to sign my name, and that was it.  Easy-peasy. 

I already have all the credit cards I need (two), but I unfolded the Citi Disclosures form that they are now required to print in a font size a human being can read, instead of in the pt1 font they used to use.  The disclosure was interesting. 

Interest Rates (yes, this caught my interest all right):

Introductory, until 10/1/2011—-0%

After that, 9.99% which might fluctuate with the Prime Rate. 

APR on balance transfers, which are encouraged in the advertizing material:  25.24%

Penalty APR, and when it applies.  Penalty:  Up to 29.99% based on “your creditworthiness.”  It may be applied if I make a late payment, or pay with a check that bounces.  How long will I have up to 29.99% as my APR?  Well, that’s interesting.  It could possibly be lowered on existing purchases ( in other words, the balance up until the payment I missed,) if I make timely minimum payments for six consecutive months; however, on any transactions going forward, the “penalty” APR may apply indefinitely.  In other words, meet your new APR; 29.99%

There is also a late fee in addition to the “penalty APR” and a minimum interest charge regardless of what percentage of the balance it is.  The min interest is 50 cents.  If I make a mistake on my payment and leave a balance of one dollar for a month, they will charge me 50 cents in interest. 

I don’t think any of this is new.  I think the fact that I can easily read it is new, and I can see why the banks and credit companies weren’t happy with the law that got passed.  They have to actually admit how they make their money.  That’s got to be embarrassing. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I know banks and credit cards companies are in business to make money.  It’s amazing to discover, retroactively, just what they were trying to hide from us for all these years. 

Needless to say, I did not enclose my “easy application” in the postage paid envelope.  Instead I included a polite note asking if they were the same Citicorp that nearly bankrupted us, since that was the only Citi with which I was familiar, and suggesting that applying for a credit card with them would not be a desirable thing to do. I sent the note back to them, on their 44 cents.

Judge Vaughan Walker ruled that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.  Prop 8 changed language in the California constitution to define marriage as comprising “one man and one woman.” 

I’m sure in Salt Lake City, and the Vatican City in Rome, there are some unhappy people tonight.

Some more bad news for the supporters of Prop 8:  the 138 page decision is thorough, meticulous and thoughtfully rendered.  Walker knew this would be appealed and made some decisions early on (such as the decision to have a trial) that would make it harder later for people to find the basis for an appeal.

Here is part of the Washington Post’s article:

“A federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional right to equal protection, the first step in a legal struggle that is widely expected to end at the Supreme Court.

Judge Vaughn R. Walker wrote that Proposition 8, which voters approved as an amendment to the state constitution in 2008, “fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”

“Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples,” wrote Vaughan, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.

The amendment outlawed same-sex marriage five months after the state Supreme Court legalized it. Walker was asked to decide whether limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection.

The ban’s supporters said they would immediately appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Walker stayed his ruling to give them time to argue that it should remain stayed while the case is on appeal.

“What’s at stake here is bigger than California,” Andrew Pugno, an attorney representing Proposition 8 supporters, said in a statement.”

Yes, indeed, Mr. Pugno.  What’s at stake is equality, pure and simple.

So here’s an Internet-spawned political flap, or mini-flap, I want to weigh in on.  Someone found a yearbook picture of Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC journalist and commentator, and put it on the Internet. I don’t know why the person felt this was important, but they did and now it’s all over the place.  Rachel Maddow looks different in her yearbook picture that she does now, more than a decade later, on TV.  It’s shocking, I know.  I’ll give you a second to collect yourself before I go on. 

So last week or so, two right-wing drive-time talk radio hosts had Republican Louisiana Senator David Vitter call into their show.  David Vitter is one of several Republican politicians with a sex scandal in his past. While he was campaigning on a so-called Family Values platform he was a client of the DC Madam.  And there, I’ve been mean to David Vitter. 

The talk-show hosts said something like, “Rachel Maddow’s yearbook picture is on the Internet.  And she looks like a woman!”  Tee hee.  Snicker.  Snort. 

This is wildly funny, you see, because Rachel Maddow is a lesbian. 

And then Vitter says something like, “It must be an old picture.” 

Snicker-snicker-snort!  Dude!  Witty much? 

So of course a day later Vitter sends an apology to Rachel Maddow. 

The left wing blogsphere sees the story as a morsel of red meat, so it’s been in lots of places. What’s been interesting to me are the comments. 

These are partisan supporters of Maddow.  And almost all of them comment on her appearance.  There are comments like, “She does not look like a man!”  “She’s very willowy and sophisticated!”  “I like her with brown hair!”  There’s the occasional, “I hate her glasses;” “If I were a lesbian I’d have a crush on her!”  Several commenters wrote about how she reminds them of the gym teacher they had their first crush on (too much information, people). 

Are they missing the point?  Am I? 

Hair color technology, and hair cutting technique for that matter, have changed since, I don’t know, the 1800s.  It isn’t news to me that someone who had shoulder-length blond hair in high school might have short dark hair now.  

What I find interesting here is that a trio of right-wing numbskulls thinks implying that Maddow looks masculine is a) funny and b) somehow degrading or hurtful to Maddow.  Frankly, to their crowd, it probably is.  This is because they live by a different set of values than Maddow does (which is exactly why Rachel Maddow probably wasn’t hugging her pillow and wailing, “They—they think I look like a man!”  after this story broke). 

Maddow is open about her orientation and her life.  She talks about Susan, her partner.  When a story involves a gay angle, Maddow is careful to acknowledge that she may have an unconscious bias, or be conflicted about it.  This gives her audience enough information to decide whether they can trust her conclusions or not. 

Maddow actually has, on a couple of occasions, commented that she thinks she looks like a man. 

Some of the right wing live by different code.  That code seems to be that you have one set of statements and behaviors for public life, and another for what you do in private.  This is a risky and stressful way to live; David Vitter and his now-public sexual fantasies are an example of why.

 The name for this kind of lifestyle is hypocrisy.  These people aren’t astute enough to realize that not everyone lives by their two-sets-of-rules; just-don’t-let-the-neighbors-see code.  This is why when they try to hurt someone they see as an adversary by implying that she (gasp!) likes girls when she, in fact, does like girls, it falls flat. 

At least it does with those of us in the center and left. 

The more interesting question for me is this:  Is that the best you can come up with?  Several right-wingers have talked about Maddow’s “mean” interviews.  Dick Armey pretends he doesn’t know what her degree is in.  Sarah Palin commented on how Rachel Maddow’s neck tendons stand out when she’s upset.  (Maddow’s comment, “I don’t think they do, but I know I get red and blotchy.”)  The problem they have with Maddow is that this is the closest thing to dirt they can find. 

Maddow may be the smartest commentator on TV.  If she’s not the smartest (that might be Steven Colbert, who is a comedian) she’s in the top three.  She is certainly the most thoughtful commentator and journalist working right now.  Her goal is impeccability and total accountability and she will acknowledge errors publicly on her show when they happen.  Her interviews are models for how to respectfully and thoughtfully deal with someone who disagrees with your opinions.  Unlike anyone else except Jon Stewart and Seven Colbert, she routinely invites people who hold differing opinions onto her show and lets them talk.  

It’s a sign of her growing influence that people like Palin and Vitter feel that they have to attack her; just as it’s a sign of how threatened Glenn Beck feels by MSNBC when he has to write NO RATING on his fingernails and flash them during a monologue about the rival network. (Apparently Beck is not only spelling-challenged, he’s math-challenged as well; he could not figure out how to paint NO RATINGS onto ten fingers.) 

Rachel, I don’t care that you wore a strand of pearls and had long hair in your yearbook picture.  I don’t care if you shave your head or dye your hair purple.  I don’t care if you wear dungarees, bike leathers, tattoos or a bed-sheet to work.  I tune in to hear what you have to say, to look at your charts, to listen to your interviews.  You are a beacon of journalistic integrity in the dim, murky landscape of cable opinion shows.  I don’t care how you look.  Keep up the good work.

In 2008, the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Catholic Church and an American Baptist Church (I don’t know which one) descended on California and spent millions of dollars to withhold the right of marriage (and I meant “right,” not “rite;” it isn’t a typo) from adults who love one another, if they happen to be of the same sex. 

They were successful.  Many older voters, some of them ethnic minorities, went out to the polls for the first time in years, and resoundingly voted in Barack Obama.  At the same time, they voted to support discrimination, because their pastors convinced them that somehow marriage was “threatened” if gays could do it too. 

No, I don’t get it either. 

The California supreme court upheld Prop 8, and it is now in the U.S. district court.  The federal judge heard closing arguments yesterday. 

Last night the Sig-O and I went out for Chinese food and we were talking about the case.  He said, “Who cares what the judge decides?  He should just flip a coin.” 

I was outraged.  “What?  How can you say that?” 

“Because–” he swirled his crisp spring roll through the sweet and sour sauce, “–no matter what he decides, it’s going to the Supreme Court.  His decision doesn’t matter either way.” 

Flip a coin. 

He’s right, of course.  

I wonder how U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker feels about that.

I haven’t picked on Sarah Palin–or even mentioned Sarah Palin–since March, but this is too good!  Click here to watch her on the O’Reilly show, and read AK Muckraker’s (aka Jeane Devon’s) commentary.  Caution:  Do not read if you have recently had a hernia operation because you might hurt yourself laughing.

Click Here.

From the Daily Beast:

President Obama announced on Wednesday that BP has agreed to create a $20 billion escrow fund, calling the move “an important step toward making the people of the Gulf Coast whole again.” The fund will be administered independently by Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the 9/11 victim compensation fund. “This is about accountability,” Obama said. He also announced that BP will establish a $100 million fund to compensate oil-rig workers who have lost their jobs because of the six-month moratorium on offshore drilling.

So I made a few changes to my post and sent it to the BP GOM suggestion website. 

I couldn’t get an adequate screen capture, so here is a cut and paste of their partial response:

Thank you for your interest in submitting your Alternative Response Technology or Idea as part of the Deepwater Horizon Response.

It also says that my idea will be parsed into the database (oh,is that what we’re calling it these days?) and that I will receive feedback on my suggestion–but given the volume, I should be patient.  I think I won’t be holding my breath.

Next stop; the EPA website, then whitehouse.gov.  Because what’s the fun of the internet, if you can’t be a crank?

Here’s a little something BP could do right now, a tiny gesture to make us feel better about the devastation they are wreaking in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Without squabbling, without quibbling, without calling in the lawyers, they could show up in the affected states and start paying every grown man and woman who is currently without work because of the spewing oil to help with cleanup.  BP could set up training stations, rescue areas for the oil-injured animals, and bring in environmental experts to train.  They could provide decent safety clothing and equipment for all; they could provide health insurance (it can be a plain vanilla plan) and they could pay at least $20/hr—which in this day and age isn’t so much. 

They could do that.  They could start doing that right now, if they wanted. 

This wouldn’t get them off the hook, but it might buy them a smidgen of goodwill.

How do we get them to do it?

Libertarians state that they are about personal, civil liberties (at least for some).  Their philosophy is that government should play a small, limited role in society and should not intrude on most day-to-day social and commercial interactions.  Human responsibility and the “free market” will adjust behaviors accordingly.  That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. 

Some so-called libertarians, who claim to believe in personal responsibility and personal rights, do not support personal rights for women of reproductive age—or for anybody who wants to be married to someone of the same sex.  It’s not clear to me whether these people are really the religious right in some weird disguise, or just normal—that is to say inconsistent—human beings. 

Let’s talk, though, about the big government thing.  Whenever the government passes a law that provides for the common welfare (health insurance reform; financial reform), or addresses equal civil rights for someone, some libertarians cry about a “huge government over-reach.”  Their ideal is a government that does. . .  well, what, exactly?  Close to nothing. 

Fortunately, for discussion purposes, we don’t have to ask people to imagine what a country with a small government looks like, because we have a real live one we can look at.  Libertarians, meet Somalia. 

Somalia’s government is geographically small as well as administratively small.  The government controls a “few square blocks” of the capital of Mogadishu.  Outside of that, there is no government. 

Richard Engel, an NBC reporter who goes to lots of dangerous places: Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on, recently got back from Somalia and is headed there again.  He was on the Rachel Maddow show recently, and talked about what it was like.  Before I discuss what he had to say, though, I do want us to engage in an imaginative exercise after all.  Picture the city in which you live; or the nearest city of more than 100,000 people.  Imagine the city hall and three blocks in each direction.  Those are probably municipal and/or state buildings, some restaurants and diners, banks and ATM machines, bail bonds places, and probably about seven Starbuck’s stores.  Now imagine that beyond the boundary of those three blocks, in any direction, is complete lawlessness. It doesn’t just mean potholes in the streets.  No traffic lights, no police, no postal service, no libraries, no maintained parks, no water maintenance, no sewer maintenance, no trash removal, no fire fighters, no EMTs. 

That’s Somalia.  If you get in a car accident in Somalia, no one will come and help you unless you (somehow) have a working cell phone and can call someone.  Let’s hope that the local warlords don’t get to you first.  Engel said, “In Afghanistan, there is the military.”  In Somalia, don’t even expect the military to come help you because there isn’t any. 

But you could pay someone to help you, right?  A helpful villager?  Well, forget about using your travelers’ checks or your platinum card, or your folding money.  There is no financial infrastructure. 

What if you got sick because you drank some bad water or ate some spoiled food?  Is there a clinic you could go to?  Wait a minute, you’re thinking; nobody gets sick from water these days.  Think again.  There is no governmental arm of environmental health or public health in Somalia; nobody checks to see if water is clean or whether untreated sewage is running straight into the aquifer—or soaking into the ground right next to the standpipe you are waiting in line to drink from. 

This is not to say that no one’s in charge in Somalia.  Plenty of people are; local warlords.  They provide security for their villagers at a huge cost and serious curtailment of those villagers’ individual freedoms.  They raid each others’ territories—a free market reduced to its most basic level.  Engel pointed out that Somalia is the new Club Med for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  “It’s like they can have their own country,” he said.  Then he corrected himself.  “They do have their own country.  Somalia.” 

Libertarians will say that this is how we all lived hundreds of years ago.  They’re right.  It was.  The problem is that they’re saying that as if it were a good thing.  People who look back to the feudal times tend to picture themselves as the warlord, not the thrall who had no freedom or individuality at all.  For me, I imagine being a woman in those times, and I don’t get a hit of golden nostalgia.  Go back to those days of “individual freedoms” and “free market forces?”  No thank you. 

Is government bureaucracy too big?  Sure, and too cumbersome and sometimes just plain silly.  But governance is a good thing—and an important thing.  Ask the descendants of Rosa Parks.  Ask any woman who now makes as much as her male colleague for doing the same work.  Ask anyone from the 1960s who is not on a walker or a cane, or in a wheelchair, now because they were given a vaccine for polio.  Ask anyone who had EMTs rescue them from their crashed vehicle or their burning house. Ask anyone who can come in from a hot sweaty run in their local park and chug a glass of water at their sink before cooling down with a pleasant shower. 

And if you really want small government?  Somalia welcomes you.

” Bottled water often comes from the same source as tap water, where that is available (often at a hundredth of the price), although it at least should be clean.  It is often undistinguishable from tap water.  In rich countries, it may have come from exotic sources like Fiji or Lapland, packed in glass or plastic destined to become rubbish, devouring energy on its travels and thus making it one of the least green and least defensible rip-offs on the market.”

The Economist, May 22, 2010