The Dish

A reader writes:

I’m deaf, and I’m so used to being cut out of the whole Youtube phenomenon.  For Obama speeches, I’ve got this whole thing down where I open two windows, one with the speech and one with the transcript, and go back and forth between them (I’m a good lipreader so it works pretty well).  Then I found out that Obama’s campaign has a whole section of captioned videos on his website — only candidate to do so!  (I was already a major fan but that helped.)

Still, it’s a section rather than everything, and I’m used to just watching videos you post to get a flavor — facial expressions, that sort of thing.

So I was thrilled when I noticed that the video you posted a bit ago, Ellen talking to McCain about gay marriage, had a "cc" symbol in the upper right corner.  I jumped through some hoops, downloaded some stuff, et voila — captions!

I’ll tell Redlasso directly about my happiness too but wanted to let you know, in case it’s an element you hadn’t thought of and you were weighing which of two versions of the same video to post.

Could someone please tell Ted Kennedy that the Senate is no family’s preserve?

Thanks to all of you who came to the Immigration Equality Awards and fundraiser in Chelsea last night. It became a standing room only event, and raised around $200,000. Listening to my fellow honoree, Stacey-Ann Chin, was a particular pleasure. Funny and acerbic and self-aware, she nonetheless managed to convey what it is for some people around the world to live as gay or bi or transgender. In Jamaica, her homeland, to be gay is to live with a risk of constant physical danger, along with psychological and spiritual etiolation. Immigration Equality has rescued dozens of gay asylum-seekers, fleeing regimes murderously intent on abusing them and their loved ones. It has also done a huge amount to raise awareness of the US’s still-standing ban on any and all HIV-positive tourists, visitors and immigrants. I was really honored to be there. And you can still donate here.

Timed for a Friday release before a Holiday weekend. If there’s some troubling data in there, I don’t think this is a story that will be over by next Tuesday. Age should not be an issue, in my view. But health is a legitimate question in a presidential candidate. I hope the Senator is in fine form. He certainly keeps a schedule that would defeat most forty year-olds.

Dale Carpenter looks at the deeper and longer-lasting legacy of the California court decision.

NRO echoes NYRB. And, of course, it can be a religion. But I don’t see why it has to. Finding pragmatic solutions to pressing problems is not a religious crusade. But if the problems can be overcome by human adaptation but remain fatal for other species, is there not another dimension here? Here’s the latest on what is happening to our planet:

The Living Planet Index monitors more than 1,400 species. From 1970 to 2005 the report shows an overall fall in population trends of 27%.

The declines are due to human activity such as habitat destruction, pollution, overexploitation such as fishing, the spread of invasive species and climate change.

Obviously, these changes have happened for ever – but there is little doubt we are accelerating them. And this does reach deeper, moral questions. Do we humans have a moral obligation to the planet we live on, to the species with whom we share this world? I’d say a firm yes. I don’t believe that our world is merely to be used with no respect for its conservation. Does this spring from a religious viewpoint? In my case, yes. But it isn’t necessary to view this moral obligation from a religious viewpoint in order to see it as a powerful principle to defend. (And if you haven’t read Matt Scully’s book, Dominion, do yourself a favor.)

                        

Josh Marshall and Jonathan Alter unload on the unhinged Clintons.

The Dish list of our favorite blogs keeps expanding. Check them all out in the lower right-hand column called "Blog Love". If you’re new to the blogosphere, it’s a pretty good list of many of the best out there. Surf on.

It really does get personal when you’re told to sit in a special segregated section of the marriage bus:

To me what it feels like just, you know, I will speak for myself…it feels when someone says you can have a contract and you’ll still have insurance and you’ll get all that. It sounds to me like saying well you can sit there (points in one direction), you just can’t sit there (points in another direction). That’s what it sounds like to me. It doesn’t feel inclusive. It feels isolated. It feels like we aren’t owed the same things and the same wording.

MCCAIN: Well, I’ve heard you articulate that position in a very eloquent fashion. We just have a disagreement and I, along with many, many others wish you every happiness.

ELLEN: Thank you. So you’ll walk me down the aisle? Is that what you said?

MCCAIN: Touché

If everyone can muster the courage and integrity of Ellen DeGeneres, we will win the vote in California. And we will deserve to. This really is a challenge to the gay community and our families and friends: this is the fight of our generation. What have you done to make it happen?