{"id":13744,"date":"2014-09-24T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T07:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13744"},"modified":"2014-09-24T00:00:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T07:00:42","slug":"open-thread9242014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/open-thread9242014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;9\/24\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 156.&#160; It\u2019s another busy day, because I\u2019m packing for tomorrow\u2019s trip to Salem for prison volunteer work.&#160; I\u2019ll be leaving shortly before noon and returning early Friday afternoon.&#160; I expect to post at least a brief Personal Update each day, while I\u2019m gone.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:03 (average 4:44).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-09-24-CE2504A965A9\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Report<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here\u2019s the latest from our own fantasy football league, <a href=\"http:\/\/lbf.league.fantasy.nfl.com\" target=\"_blank\">Lefty Blog Friends<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Scores:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"3Scores\" style=\"float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto\" alt=\"3Scores\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/3Scores.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Standings:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"3Standings\" style=\"float: none; margin-left: auto; display: block; margin-right: auto\" alt=\"3Standings\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/3Standings.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m in trouble.&#160; I play the other undefeated team on Peyton&#8217;s bye week. \ud83d\ude41<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/a-homeless-man-put-on-a-fancy-suit-and-the-way-people-treated-him-was-kinda-disturbing\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>A homeless man named Sandy and some vloggers on YouTube decided they wanted to explore the idea of transforming a &quot;homeless man&quot; into a suit-sporting &quot;businessman.&quot; Same man, different duds, and a completely different way of how people treated him. It&#8217;s a true lesson in &quot;clothes do make the man.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w1rwRT229Uo?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">It tells us a lot about our cultural attitude, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/09\/21\/1331341\/-TX-woman-denied-driver-license-because-of-her-same-sex-marriage\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Connie Wilson, who just moved from California to the Houston area with her wife Aimee and their three children, received a hell of a welcome from the Department of Public Safety (DPS). The couple has been together nine years, and they finally tied the knot last year in California, after which Connie took Aimee&#8217;s last name. Connie was able to get all of her records updated with her new name, from her California driver license to her Social Security card to all of her financial and medical records. And then, upon moving to the Houston area, she visited the DPS office in Katy to obtain a Texas driver license. No big deal&#8211;when I moved to Texas, aside from waiting in a horrendous line at DPS, getting my driver license was painless. But I also didn&#8217;t have my name changed to that of my same-sex spouse. Wilson&#8217;s experience with DPS in Texas, where gays are barred from marriage by both statute and constitutional amendment (just to be safe, you know), has been quite different:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>With her California driver\u2019s license nearing expiration, Wilson took her documents to a DPS office in Katy last week to obtain a Texas driver\u2019s license. When a DPS employee noticed that Wilson\u2019s name didn\u2019t match her birth certificate, she produced the couple\u2019s California marriage license identifying her spouse as Aimee Wilson. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer only words to me were, \u2018Is this same-[sex]?&#8217;\u201d Connie Wilson recalled. \u201cI remember hesitating for probably 10 seconds. I didn\u2019t know how to answer. I didn\u2019t want to lie, but I knew I was in trouble because I wasn\u2019t going to be able to get a license.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe immediately told me, \u2018You can\u2019t use this to get your license. This doesn\u2019t validate your last name. Do you have anything else?\u2019\u201d Wilson said. \u201cShe <strong>told me I would never get a license with my current name, that the name doesn\u2019t belong to me.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is why we need a Federal law that requires states to recognize marriages from other states without prejudice. And, if this treads too heavily on Bubba Bagger&#8217;s states\u2019 <em>rahts<\/em>, let states do as they please, but make it a requirement for them to get federal highway funds.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/sex-amp-relationships\/top-10-craziest-sex-laws\" target=\"_blank\">AlterNet<\/a>: <\/font>While most would argue that this is place where the people get&#160; screwed many different ways [<em>Faux Noise delinked<\/em>], in&#160; Washington, D.C., engaging in any sexual position other than missionary is illegal. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Dang!&#160; No wonder Congressional Republicans always want to get out of town.&#160; DC hookers must be more boring that the ones from home.&#160; This is just one of the ten craziest sex laws in the US.&#160; Click through for the other nine.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0924Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0924Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/0924Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 156.&#160; It\u2019s another busy day, because I\u2019m packing for tomorrow\u2019s trip to Salem for prison volunteer work.&#160; I\u2019ll be leaving shortly before noon and returning early Friday afternoon.&#160; I expect to post at least a brief Personal Update each day, while I\u2019m gone. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:03 <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/open-thread9242014\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}