Read All About It in the Sunday Papers-August 30 Edition

LEAD STORY: Miami Herald: Florida Case Could Lead to End of Gay Adoption Ban

It’s tough to support a ban when the State admits that the petitioner would make a great parent:

MIAMI — As lawyers for a North Miami man seeking to adopt his two foster kids squared off with the state in an appellate courtroom last week, an irony pervaded the hearing: Martin Gill is a terrific foster dad to the boys and should be allowed to keep them, the state admitted. He just can’t adopt them because he’s gay.

Gill, who was asked to foster the two brothers in 2004 after their mother’s cocaine abuse led to persistent neglect, has presented perhaps the most serious challenge to date to Florida’s 32-year-old law banning adoption by gay people. The case now is before the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami, which heard arguments in the case last week.

It looks like the argument made by the petitioner, that the State, by its actions and inaction, has made a de facto determination that the law is unfair, is resonating with the three-judge panel:

One member of the three-judge panel suggested the state Department of Children & Families might have been defending a state law the agency didn’t really like.

“Aren’t there two messages you are sending?” Judge Vance E. Salter asked a lawyer representing DCF at the oral arguments. “Child welfare officials, all up the chain, all seem to be saying it is in the best interests of the children to be adopted.”

And, Salter added, administrators seem to be saying they “wish the restriction wasn’t there.”

In 2006, Salter said, when the two boys first became eligible for adoption, foster care workers never took steps to remove the boys from Gill or to find another home in which the parents could adopt. “Isn’t that administrative action really committing the state to a position?” Salter asked Timothy D. Osterhaus, a deputy solicitor general.

“I don’t think so,” Osterhaus replied.

Shot back Salter: “In 2006, everything was known . . . and yet the state allows the placement to continue [and] takes the children off the adoption exchange. . . . I don’t see what the state did to go forward with its rights.”

Florida is the only state that bans adoption by gays or lesbians.  Maybe, just maybe, reason will win out over hatred and prejudice, especially since it appears that the State agency that has been dragged into Court really believes that this adoption really would be in the best interests of the children.

LATimes: How This Chrysler Refugee Is Building the Electric Cars of the Present and Future…and How Delaware Could Benefit

 And why he thinks that the big automakers will ultimately be winners with the new technology.

Paging DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara and DEDO head Alan Levin: Delaware’s got both the idle auto plants and the technological drive to pursue something like this:

As chief executive of AC Propulsion Inc., Tom Gage advances the technologies under the hoods of electric transportation. The high-tech batteries and drive systems made by the San Dimas company power a growing number of electric vehicles. Those include a test fleet of BMW’s electric Minis, which are currently whooshing — silently — over roads in California, New York and New Jersey.

And here’s why a partnership with possibly retooled Delaware plants might make sense:

Start-ups like AC Propulsion are leading the development of electric vehicles. Still, Gage isn’t counting out old-line automakers. Blame the eight years spent at Chrysler.

“When you see the precision and scale of a huge auto factory, you realize just how hard and expensive it is to mass-produce cars,” Gage said. He believes that giants like Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. will ultimately buy up promising companies in the car space.

“Making parts for 10,000 or 100,000 cars is too much for us,” Gage said. “Our goal is to be a participant in the early part of the process and then plan a timely exit.”

Is there any reason why Delaware shouldn’t be exploring such partnerships now?

Lest you have any doubts as to who/what really runs things:

Jack Straw decided two years ago that it was in the UK’s “overwhelming interests” not to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, it emerged.

 Leaked letters from the Justice Secretary appeared to show that he backed away from efforts to stipulate that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was exempt from the agreement, citing “wider negotiations” with the Libyans.

Here’s the ‘smoking plane’:

The Sunday Times reported that Mr Straw’s apparent change of stance came at a crucial time in negotiations about an oil exploration contract for BP in Libya. Six weeks after his change of heart, the deal was ratified.

In one of the letters, Mr Straw wrote: “I had previously accepted the importance of the al-Megrahi issue to Scotland and said I would try to get an exclusion for him on the face of the agreement.

“I have not been able to secure an explicit exclusion.

“The wider negotiations are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the (prisoner transfer agreement) should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.”

El Somnambulo is certain that family and friends of their 270 loved ones who perished in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 have no problems with the killer’s freedom being exchanged for the greater good of an oil exploration contract between British Petroleum and Libya.

El Somnambulo has not yet attended an Anger Management class that can address something like this. (Major Tip of the Sombrero to America Blog for alerting ‘bulo to this story.)

The (UK) Guardian: Japan Elections Signal Major Shift

The Japanese electorate have apparently chosen a virtual unknown over the ‘Devil they know’:

An exit poll by the private broadcaster TV Asahi forecast that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) would win 315 seats in the 480-seat lower house, a huge improvement on its current 115 seats.

Victory for the DPJ would see its president, Yukio Hatoyama, installed as leader of the first government not led by the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) for 15 years and only the second for more than half a century.

Here’s what it could, emphasis, could mean to Japan’s relationship with the US:

While Hatoyama represents a shot in the dark, he has captured the public imagination with promises of higher welfare spending, the introduction of a minimum wage and child allowance, and a more equal relationship with Japan’s main ally, the US.

“The ruling party has betrayed the people over the past four years, driving the economy to the edge of a cliff, building up more than 6 trillion yen (£39.4bn) in public debt, wasting money, ruining our social security net and widening the gap between the rich and poor,” the DPJ said in a statement today. “We will change Japan.”

Here also is an excellent in-depth analysis from the Asia Times on the history of the Hatoyama family and its impact on the new Prime Minister. Just allow ‘bulo to say that, when it comes to hereditary claims to political office, even the Kennedys ain’t got nuthin’ on Japan. Fascinating reading.

NYTimes: Ellie Greenwich, Great Songwriter from the ’60’s, Passes Away

You may not know her name, but you know her songs, many written with her husband, Jim Barry. Greenwich/Barry were one of the greatest songwriting teams to come out of the fertile Brill Building juggernaut of the late 50’s to mid ’60’s.  Teams like Bennie Goffin/Carole King, Leiber and Stoller, Cynthia Weil/Barry Mann, all of whom deserve further exploration (Looks like ‘bulo’s got his theme for next week’s Music For the Masses.) In fact, Greenwich got her Brill Building gig when legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber mistook her music for that of Carole King:

As the story goes, Ms. Greenwich, who taught high school for less than a month after attending Queens College and Hofstra, made the rounds in the Brill Building, selling a few songs for $25. One day, a friend of a friend got her an appointment to see a big-name songwriter, who turned out to be busy elsewhere. Told to sit in a room in the ninth floor offices of Leiber and Stoller that was equipped with a piano, she played a few of her songs while she waited.

Mr. Leiber, who thought he was hearing Carole King, stuck his head in and said, “Carole?” Ms. Greenwich introduced herself, and he told her to keep playing and to come back as often as she wanted. He also gave her $100 a week, in exchange for having the chance to hear her tunes first. Ms. Greenwich teamed up with another writer, Jeff Barry; they married and lived in Lefrak City in Queens, composing one of their first songs as they rode the E train. They also wrote with Phil Spector and a producer, George Morton.

In addition to writing classics like the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love”, The Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack”, Ike & Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High”, and Tommy James & the Shondells’ “Hanky Panky”(!), Ellie wrote or co-wrote virtually every great Phil Spector production that ever made it to vinyl. Here is a more-or-less complete discography for this great composer/producer.  You can honor her by humming one of her songs today and by remembering who wrote it. Here’s just one:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-y-50RW5Ng&feature=related[/youtube]

Now, please excuse ‘bulo as he’d going to the Chapel of Love. Just as a spectator this time.