by Last Night in Little Rock

The California legislature today adopted a same sex marriage bill, making California the first state to adopt legislation authorizing gay marriage.

The legislation could be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has expressed an acceptance of gay marriages but said it's an issue that should be decided by voters or the courts.

"He will uphold whatever the court decides," spokeswoman Margita Thompson said Tuesday after the state Assembly approved the same-sex marriage measure, 41-35. The Senate had approved it last week.

Update (TL): Gov. Arnold now says he will veto the bill.

by TChris

Mara Leveritt titled her proposed book “Losing New Orleans.” She hit on the idea after Hurricane Ivan made a fortuitous change of course, bypassing New Orleans. She started thinking about the people who would be stranded if a hurricane hit the city: the residents of nursing homes, the disabled and hospitalized, the poor. She wondered what would happen to gas prices if pipelines ruptured. She pondered the ability of the levees to keep the water out, and worried that they might trap water inside a flooded city. The ramifications of a full-force hurricane, striking at the heart of New Orleans, seemed to make a grimly fascinating story.

As she researched her book proposal, she discovered that she wasn’t alone in considering the potential catastrophe.

All this was well understood by any officials who had bothered to look. In early 2001, FEMA had issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely U.S. disasters, and that included a terrorist attack on New York City.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Yesterday we reported "word on the street" that a coroner was going on "Larry King Live" to talk about the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency's refusal to allow coroners to handle the remains of the dead in New Orleans.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette confirms today that he will be on.

Chai Vang, the Hmong immigrant from Minnesota who killed six hunters in Minnesota Wisconsin last year, is about to go on trial. Jury selection begins Thursday. The Chicago Tribune has a very detailed two part series on the case, beginning today.

Why would an ambitious immigrant, a healer, suddenly turn into a methodical killer? Did the alienation Vang experienced in America play a role in the shootings? Was the clash of cultures a factor?

Vang's lawyers initially said they may raise a cultural defense. That appears not to be the case now. It will be a self-defense case, hinging on who shot first:

Race is one issue that will not go away when examining the New Orleans devastation. Writer Leonce Gaiter, who authored the book Bourbon Street, addresses it today in Katrina's Deck is Full of Race Cards.

The first days were the most telling. Nobody mentioned it. Tens of thousands of people trapped in increasingly filthy conditions—free-flowing feces, dead bodies lying about, grounds soaked in urine—yet nobody mentioned that they were all black. It was obvious to anyone with eyes. The images made you squirm and cringe—hordes of black faces pleading for help—life, food, water—in a major American city. Yet nobody mentioned it. What were they afraid of? Were they scared that the right-wingers would accuse them of playing the race card? Accuse them of suggesting that America had not achieved the colorblind state of utopian bliss that they insist it has; that white people and the American society over which they hold sway are not as perfectly just as they claim?

Finally, a good idea from the government. It will begin handing out debit cards today worth $2,000 to Katrina survivors, beginning with those at the Astrodome and other rescue centers.

The Washington Post has an article today in which lawyers theorize about statutes Fitzgerald might use against Rove and company in the Valerie Plame leak.

While I agree that the federal statute prohibiting leaking a covert operative's identity may be a stretch in this case, I think the new statute bandied about in the article, embezzlement of public property, is an even greater stretch.

Fitzgerald seems to have plenty of choices with perjury, making a false statement to a federal official, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He may even have conspiracy to out a covert operative.

I doubt Fitzgerald is out searching for statutes to charge Administration officials using some novel theory. If he has the goods on the traditional ones, he'll indict. If he doesn't, he won't.

I've written before about my concern about former Judge and legal analyst Leslie Crocker Snyder's support for the death penalty. Crocker Snyder is running for Manhattan D.A. against long-time holder of the office Robert Morganthau.

Ellis Henican has a very disturbing article about Crocker Synder today.

Leslie Crocker Snyder, the swaggering ex-judge who wants Morgenthau's job, has been a booster of capital punishment, although she rarely mentions the issue these days. Over the years, she hasn't just supported the death penalty. She's promoted it, relished in it. At times, she's seemed to enjoy the idea of putting criminals to death. What other conclusion can we take from page 262 of her high-octane autobiography?

Convicted killer Terrell Martin was such a bad guy, she writes, "I would have been willing to give him the lethal injection myself."

She's no better with drug offenders:

Crooks and Liars has the video.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times yesterday had a poignant story of the suicide of NOLA PD PIO Sgt. Paul Accardo. The fact there were two suicides was previously reported here.

Accardo was a lovable perfectionist who was a fixture on the nightly TV news, making sense of the senseless crimes he reported on for the Department.

Colleagues believe he was overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, unable to do anything to help anybody. Whatever he did do would not be enough by his own standards. The Times article is like a punch in the gut:

by Last Night in Little Rock

Evacuees are landing at Ft. Chafee, AR by the hundreds as already noted here. Yesterday I was on I-40 for 2-1/2 hours each way to and from Ft. Smith, and the buses were still coming and going, with markings from many states. A lawyer friend in Ft. Smith reported a dozen buses heading south back to New Orleans on US-71 (via Shreveport) yesterday.

The local newspaper for Ft. Chafee is the Southwest Times Record of Ft. Smith. Today's edition discusses:

• local school officials preparing to absorb the children into their systems.

• More "evacuees" being sent from Chafeee elsewhere

• A survivor complaining his is not a criminal and shouldn't be treated like one.

The statewide paper is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a separate Northwest Arkansas Edition. Its coverage today:

• State officials still are trying to get a handle on the numbers of evacuees so they can be given medical care, housing, and jobs.

• Ft. Chafee is now a processing point for evacuees, and 2,000 have been processed through the hospital alone, with 300 having been transferred to area hospitals. Many are being sent elsewhere.

• The Northwest Arkansas Regional Campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has undertaken training National Guardsmen as medics.

Bob Denver died Friday.

Most of the blog eulogies for Bob Denver talk about Gilligan's Island. Thanks to Avedon Carol of Sideshow for pointing out that for some of us, his role as Maynard G. Krebs on Dobie Gillis is his defining moment.

Bob Denver was born in my hometown, New Rochelle, NY. I was only in elementary school, but I never missed the Dobie Gillis show, although it was more because of Tuesday Weld. Where has she been lately? Who'll Stop the Rain, Play It As It Lays, Pretty Poison and Looking for Mr. Goodbar are some of my all-time favorite movies.

R.I.P. Mr. Denver.