John McCain Shows His True Colors On Gay Issues

McCain trys to appear moderate on important social issues, but his track record shows that he’s practically a clone of our current president.

Back To School

My partner, Alan, will be returning to college tomorrow to finish his bachelor’s degree. This is the first time he’s been financially able to return to classes since 2005, and to say that he is excited would be an understatement.

I took off from work yesterday to accompany him to registration - a process that was quite foreign to me since I have only attended a couple of night classes at a local community college. The experience at this large state university was much different and I enjoyed it immensely, but what made me even more happy was the opportunity to share a new beginning with the one I love.

The weather was simply gorgeous as we navigated the campus in search of professors and paperwork. Blues skies, sunshine, beautiful landscaping. There were many incoming freshmen being led about on tours and I couldn’t help but feel my age when studying their youthful faces. It was interesting to hear all the different accents and languages being spoken, and to see traditional dress from various parts of the world.

Alan must have been a standout student during his time there three years ago. I was quite proud to hear every professor that he approached call him by his first name or exclaim how good it was to see him coming back. It was obvious that he had great respect for their teaching abilities, and they were quite impressed with his desire and ability to learn.

He kept telling me how much he appreciated me joining him for the day, but the pleasure was all mine. As we sat under the umbrella of a huge magnolia tree and watched the splinters of sunlight dancing around us, he remarked, “This is life. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

It certainly doesn’t.

A Powerful Message

While watching reruns of Sex and the City last night, I happened to catch the new television spot for LetCaliforniaRing, a campaign to change hearts and minds about gay marriage. I was so moved by it that I recorded it to the DVR.

A Review of Verizon’s LG Chocolate 3 VX8560

After two months and four different cell phones, I have finally found one that makes me happy. It is the new LG Chocolate 3 - a bluetooth music phone.

While I like phones that provide some level of entertainment, this is first and foremost an excellent phone. The call quality is great, the speakers and volume controls are nice and loud, and battery life is exceptional.

Design

The form factor has changed from the second generation Chocolate (VX8550), transforming from a slider into a clamshell. I’ve been rather partial to slider phones, but the transition to my first flip-phone has been quite painless. I love the large screen on the outside that displays important phone information and is customizable with full-color backgrounds. I chose the black version of the phone and although it is so shiny that it attracts fingerprints, I like the way the outside screen practically disappears when inactive. I also was glad to see that the back of the phone is made of a soft touch material that feels great in the hand and should resist scratches.

The inside screen is beautiful, bright, and easy to read. The menus have been greatly improved over the last Chocolate, and I found the directional pad much easier to use than the navigation wheel on the previous generation. Those who are partial to the older Chocolate’s navigation wheel will be pleased to find a similar wheel placed prominently under the outside screen which allows the user to scroll through options while the phone is closed.

The keypad on this phone is one of the most spacious that I have seen. It should be extremely easy for anyone with large fingers to use the phone for dialing or texting.

Features

This phone has been designed to render your digital music player completely unnecessary. Not only does it have a whopping 1GB of memory built right in, it also supports adding microSD cards up to 8GB. Popular music formats are supported, including mp3, wma, and unprotected AAC and AAC+. The music player works flawlessly and can even be used while texting or browsing the web. Sound quality is excellent and many will appreciate the inclusion of a standard size headphone jack.

The phone includes a 2.0 megapixel camera and camcorder that supports photos up to 1600×1200 and videos up to 320×240. A basic photo editor is included for zooming, rotating, and cropping pictures.

This device seems less restricted by Verizon’s firmware than previous phones, as I was able to send an mp3 directly to the phone from an AT&T device - something that was impossible on the VX8550. A USB cable that doubles as a charger is included with the phone and allows syncing of music or access to the microSD card from your computer. While Verizon still restricts using stored mp3s as ringtones, I have been able to easily drag-and-drop files directly into my ringtones folder using BitPim.

The coolest feature on the phone has got to be the FM transmitter. You can tune to any unused FM station on your car stereo, set the phone to the same station, and listen to the music that you’ve stored on the phone through your car stereo speakers.

Final Thoughts

I adore this phone. It’s a delicious-looking number that does exactly what it’s supposed to. Even though the last several weeks of trying to find a suitable phone and wireless provider have been rather stressful, I am glad that I stumbled across this little gem.

Additional Photos

John Edwards Appears Hypocritical On Gay Marriage Issue

I remember having the warm fuzzies over John Edwards’ stance on gay rights. I remember him explaining that while his wife and daughter supported gay marriage, he was raised to believe that marriage was between a man and a woman. Even when he admitted that he struggled with the notion, it was easy to see that he would probably never oppose gay marriage or civil unions.

Now, after Edwards has confessed to disrespecting his own marriage vows, his views seem rather hypocritical. Here’s what Paul Jenkins from The Huffington Post had to say:

Asked about his position on same-sex marriage a year ago, John Edwards said that he “personally [does] not” support gay marriage, citing his religious beliefs as basis for his opposition. Even without the hindsight we have recently acquired about Edwards’ own marriage, this was the response of a bigot.

We now know that as with most bigots, Edwards is a hypocrite. As he was spewing inane statements about being “on a journey” on the issue of gay marriage, he surely had to remember the journey that lead him just months earlier to break his civil obligations and spiritual vows in his union with his wife Elizabeth.

Read the full article here.