Chris Hansen’s blog

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

I am not particularly clued into gymnastics. The men are normally good looking and very muscular and slight. I’m peripherally aware of the kinds of gymnastics that are practiced in the West: rings, trapezes, and the like. I was not aware that in India, poles are used just as the “horse” (I forget its proper name) is used here. You will be astounded that from a running start these men (and a teenage boy) catch and cling to the pole with their feet only. Watch the video. If you like bears, there is an Indian otter/bear who is quite handsome. If you like smooth men, the first one will be your choice.

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Let’s be clear at the start: I patronise Starbucks. I like the fact that wherever I go, whether it’s Shanghai or Marblehead or central London, I get a predictable cup of coffee using a vocabulary that I understand and that the people who are serving me understand. I do not make any representation that a Starbucks coffee is gourmet coffee, that it is exceptionally good, or that there are no coffee shops and local caf

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Upside? You say?

Well, before the standing for an appeal is decided on Wednesday, there is one good thing that came out of the entire business. The Mormons, the Roman Catholics, and homophobes of all types and sizes raised scads of money to get Proposition 8 passed.

If the appeal goes no further, or is finally lost, all that money went for naught. I would submit that the money raised should have gone for the relief of poverty, the provision of food for hungry people, or shelter for those who have no place to live, or clothing for those who now stand up in their own rags. I am not a proof texter, but Matthew 25:31-46 comes to mind.

There have been many electrons spent on the subject of the likely outcome of any appeal, and the general consensus seems to be that as the defendants (the State of California, the Governor and the Attorney-General thereof) are not appealing, and previous decisions have said that people expressing an interest or being intervenors in the case do not have standing to appeal, the appeal will most probably be denied. The irony here is that the “strict constructionists” on the Supreme Court have consistently held that intervenors do not have standing to bring or appeal a case, they themselves would have trouble allowing an appeal by anyone other than those who were defendants. “Hoist by their own petard” now, aren’t they?

This has resulted in some who are in favour of upholding Proposition 8 to conclude that if the appeal is unsuccessful, a precedent wider than the state of California would be set. Of course, this would mean other states, or all states, would have to allow same-sex marriage. In their eyes, this would be less desirable than having one state (California) allow it.

Great legal minds have opined that, given the great set of statements of fact that Judge Walker has assembled, it would be difficult for the appellate courts or the Supreme Court to overturn those statements of fact. And appellate courts do not normally overturn statements of fact; they concentrate on identifying procedural errors in the original trial.

All in all, I’m cautiously optimistic that on Wednesday evening, California will be able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, yet again.

The antis will now concentrate on repealing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. They would be happy on two counts: not only could they forbid same-sex marriages again, but the ius soli—the principle that all children born on US soil are automatically US citizens—could then be invalidated. Hooray for racism and homophobia! I do not think they will be able to do it, but believe me, that’s the only way they would be able to do anything about it.

Thus, in time, the legal problems that stem from marriages being valid in one state and not in another will come to the fore. Already some couples legally married in Massachusetts who find its rules on divorce (you must be resident in the state for a year to get a divorce) restrictive since they live in other states, have filed for divorce in their own home states, which do not recognise same-sex marriage. There is one case in Texas that is wending its way through the courts. This messy situation will continue on until some court rules that the part of the Constitution that mandates that each State must treat all the acts of another State as licit means that all states will at least have to treat those same-sex married couples who got married in a state where it is legal as a married couple. Thus will the barriers finally come down, as any gay couple within reach of California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, or Vermont could then marry in one of those states and return to their home state as a married couple. In ten or twenty years, more states will decide that it is less profitable to prohibit the solemnisation of same-sex marriage than to allow it, as they will be losing out on marriage license fees and the like but having to hear same-sex divorce and child custody cases and pay their own legal costs. When in some Southern states interracial marriage was illegal, those interracial marriages performed in states where it was legal were recognised by the Southern states. They only prohibited such marriages from taking place in their state.

As we say here in England, and thus the Pyramids.

The bad things that came out of Proposition 8 (beside the homophobia and the money poured into the state by conservative religious groups) include the fact that the lesbian and gay community, yet again, ate itself alive after Proposition 8 was approved. Recriminations, accusations of poor public relations and advertising, and just plain disappointed bad feelings boomeranged around the state and nationally. None of that was necessary, really. A couple of determined couples filing suit against Prop 8 seems to have carried more weight than all the advertising and public relations put forward against Prop 8.

I hope to wake up Thursday morning here in London to see pictures of jubilant same-sex couples waving their California marriage licenses while coming down City Hall steps all over the state. In time, as it has in those states which now permit it, people all over the United States, whether they are conservative or liberal, Tea Party or Coffee Party, religious, agnostic, or atheist, will to a greater or lesser extent accept that same-sex married couples are legally married as far as the civil authorities are concerned. In this way societies are changed.

Just in: The 9th Circuit has stayed the judgment until it has ruled on the appeal. So no gay marriages on Wednesday. Briefs are due in by November 1st, which I gather is relatively aggressive for a Circuit Court. I do hope that it doesn’t take too long to decide—I want to see more California same-sex marriages by early next year.

Have you ever had one of those friends or acquaintances who can smile, laugh, and uplift you no matter what is happening? Don’t you sometimes (most of the time?) find them insufferable? Well, don’t despair—relief is on the way, courtesy of The Onion…

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Under normal circumstances, Stabbie would withdraw into his shell after a jeremiad such as yesterday’s and not come out for a month or two. These are not normal circumstances. London Stabbie feels that he is justified in writing only one day after his epic posting in order to ensure that just deserts are meted out quickly.

As he mentioned yesterday, London Stabbie has a gammy foot. Part of his therapy is to receive intravenous antibiotics every day. Yesterday the District Nurse, who is called a “Visiting Nurse” in the United States, called on London Stabbie to administer his antibiotics and to renew the dressing on his foot. The nurse who showed up was quite jolly, and very nice, and between Stabbie and the nurse the antibiotics were administered and the dressing renewed. During the visit, Stabbie mentioned that he had an appointment at the Diabetic Foot Clinic today (ie, Tuesday 10th August). He asked her to pass the message along to the managing nurse who scheduled visits, and she said she would. Remember this last sentence while Stabbie continues with his story.

So, this morning LS toddled along to the hospital well ahead of the appointment time (11:30), and sat in the waiting area with about 15 other people. If it’s Tuesday in the Diabetic Foot Clinic it must be Vascular Day! So at around 12:30pm Stabbie’s name was called and he was put in a side office on a chair to await the podiatrist and then the Vascular Surgeon. A delightful Jamaican woman was put in the next chair and we had a lovely conversation, and her good news was quite good: the wound where her right little toe had been has healed, and she can be discharged from constant antibiotics and dressings. Let no one say that London Stabbie has nothing good to say about anyone! They had a right old good time chatting away while the podiatrists were inundated in the next room and Stabbie would be honoured to share a room in the clinic with her at any time.

At around 12:50 pm the podiatrist arrived, removed the previous dressings, and covered them with gauze saying, “the surgeons are in the next room; they’ll be right here.” Like h*ll, they would! The Jamaican lady and Stabbie continued chatting for another 40 minutes, until the surgeon arrived, pronounced her in good shape, only needing her two stitches removed, and looked at Stabbie’s ulcer, which had been produced through therapy to heal another ulcer. The surgeon has put Stabbie on the list for a surgical debridement which will be day surgery. He spent two minutes with LS (two hours + after LS had arrived) and swept out with his retinue.

Now, you may recall the LS needs to have intravenous antibiotics (Teicoplanin) every day, and he had called off the District Nurse. So the lovely nurse at the Foot Clinic supplies that service when he visits for his foot. Aside from the fact that she forgot that LS was in the other examination room, she did a perfect job of removing the dressing over LS’s PICC line, only taking a few hairs with it down to the roots, and replacing it with a new dressing. When the line jammed a bit, she unclogged it with great aplomb. Stabbie likes her very much and tries to make her laugh very hard every time he visits—and he succeeded in that effort today, in spades. She took the prescription for LS’s next stash of antibiotics at 2:25 pm, and London Stabbie was ready to pick it up at around 3:20 pm.

When LS got to the pharmacy, there was a surfeit of children in there. So LS’s first targets for today are the parents of those children, who allowed their little darlings to shout and scream in a way eerily similar to steam whistles, run around the rather small pharmacy waiting area, and generally raise havoc. The little darlings were too young to know how to behave, so the task of teaching them how falls to their parents. Mum and Dad have signally failed at that, so when the children have grown and are out of Mum and Dad’s hands, someone is going to be visiting the happy parents to ensure that they realise the error of their ways.

London Stabbie then went up to the window. The pharmacy bears an eerie resemblance to a doughnut shop, with a “Now serving” number sign above the counter. This sign was showing “091”, but the number on London Stabbie’s ticket was 518. This was quite illogical, so LS went to the desk at 3:25 pm and enquired. The person behind the counter went to check, and said, “It’ll be about five minutes. We’ll call you when it’s ready.”

At 4:45 pm, LS had been sitting for an hour and 10 minutes, with no “518” clarion call from the counter. One of the two nurses from the clinic came in for something else, and Stabbie called out to her and asked whether she’d find out what had happened and when his medicine would be ready.

Of course, all of London Stabbie’s Dear Readers are way ahead of me. The package for “518” had been sitting there, un-called-out, for quite a while. But LS, being a patient, kind, real Londoner who enquires once and then follows the instructions given did not go to the counter a second time. So the counter clerk is the next person who will feel the blade of Stabbie’s wrath. It is possible that, instead of naked steel, Stabbie will prefer to give her a taste of her own medicine, and frost a cake with the loveliest chocolate Ex-Lax imaginable. This is especially apt given that the clerk insisted that she had called it out. Stabbie informed her that his hearing was quite good and that he had not budged from the waiting room the entire time. She shrugged and said, “The ‘Now Serving’ display does not go up to ‘518’.” as if that would excuse her from Stabbie’s wrath. In fact, the person who decided that numbers that are too big to display on the board should be given out to people picking up medications probably deserves more opprobrium than the clerk, who was merely stupid. So after the clerk has her slice of cake, Stabbie thinks that the rest of the cake goes to Number Planning Person, then all the toilets in the building will be locked and marked “Closed for Cleaning; open at 26:00 hours”.

You may think that this is enough malice behindthought for London Stabbie for one day, but no! There’s more. He was lucky to get on the bus and find that all the Priority Seats were filled, but discover that a young woman only had to be asked once before she slid out of her seat to allow London Stabbie, in his cast, to sit down.

When London Stabbie reached Chez Stabbie, he opened the door and found a note. The District Nurse had called and not found him in, and he should call 020 xxxx xxxx in order to reschedule the appointment for his antibiotic. If you have been keeping score, LS asked the nurse who came on Monday to inform the head nurse that no nurse would be required on Tuesday as LS would be attending the hospital. It seems that yesterday’s nurse had failed to pass along the message. Two phone messages were on LS’s phone asking him, in politest terms, where the hell he was so that he could get his antibiotic. So London Stabbie has the greatest respect for the nursing profession, but yesterday’s nurse ranks along with the nurse who tried to take his blood pressure from his forearm and the one who years ago didn’t know how to take blood pressure and took a reading well above anything LS had ever had. She didn’t pass along the message so that a trip and two phone calls were wasted.

London Stabbie would not want to deprive the nursing profession of any nurse except for a medical cause. Two of his great-aunts were nurses and he admired their profession and talents. But he feels that there is a shortage of communication in the NHS that could, in certain circumstances, lead to serious illness or an unscheduled visit to the Choir Celestial to audition for tenor. So the nurse who did not pass along the message, or the nurse who took no notice of the one who did pass along the message, gets a “Get Away from London Stabbie” card this time. The card carries a warning, though: “This is a one-use card: it cannot be sterilised and used for any other patient foul-up situation than the one to which it is now applied. This means you!” Beware, and communicate effectively!

As London Stabbie missed his lunch through all the waiting, he has informed his partner that the two of them are dining out tonight. This may put Stabbie on his partner’s hit list but no matter!

London Stabbie realises that the humour may wear thin, but believe me, his vast sense of humour and great tolerance and even acceptance of the lack of intelligence and common sense among his fellow Londoners are the only things between him and mass mayhem in the Capital, after which the collective IQ has a chance of rising to new heights and everyone will wait for the green man at the Zebra (pronounced ZEBB-rah) crossing rather than jaywalk and get picked off by a lorry.

And now, the usual Disclaimers!

London Stabbie welcomes submissions for consideration for inclusion on Stabbie’s little list. Direct messages to the owner of this blog, who has kindly agreed to forward them to Stabbie, will be promptly dealt with.

Disclaimers: This blog is a satire, and no animals or thoughtless nincompoops were harmed during its writing, nor will any harm come to them in the future, except through the shame and embarrassment of discovering their own asshattery. Your mileage may vary. Reading of London Stabbie, we hope, will induce laughter but is not intended to incapacitate you. Check with your doctor to see if London Stabbie is right for you. Do not read London Stabbie while driving or using heavy machinery. If you recognise yourself in this column we recommend that you go to confession in your nearest Roman Catholic church and do your penance. Sister Mary Ignatius knows where you live.

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

I haven’t posted from the Marblehead Police log for a while as the Marblehead Reporter has fragmented the entries: there used to be one entry a week, but they now post them a few days after the date in the report. It became too troublesome to follow it, so I stopped.

However the Reporter’s Facebook entry pointed out today’s entry, and I think it’s worthy of inclusion in its entirety. I don’t know whether it was a full moon yesterday, but, boy, it must have seemed like it in Marblehead.

Marblehead Reporter
Posted Aug 09, 2010 @ 01:55 PM
Marblehead

The famous London black cab driver is an icon of London. Black cabs are ubiquitous (except when you want one), and are often referred to as “London Cabbies”.

Well, in homage to , who has the New York franchise, I bring you London Stabbie, the person who is always on the lookout for fuckwits in London who do not deserve to contribute further to the gene pool because of obvious stupidity or sheer inattention to their fellow Londoners.

There is a gentleman who works for the local supermarket (whose name shall remain nameless but it begins with “T” and ends with “esco”). He is quite overweight, but that’s not what bothers Stabbie. What really effing bothers Stabbie is that he sneezes with great force and loudness, but without benefit of covering his mouth. His target is the groceries that Stabbie and dozens of others unsuspectingly buy. London Stabbie has been startled out of his wits in aisle 4 when this staff member sneezes in aisle 1, right next to the produce. Stabbie believes that the last two infections he got can be traced to the lettuces on which this guy sneezed. Gentleman Sneezer, London Stabbie will be after you first. Stabbie promises not to get any blood on the broccoli, however.

Second was the gentleman in the till queue 2 people ahead of Stabbie today. He had coupons, which is of course OK. However, one of the coupons did not register at the till. No matter how many times the cashier swiped it across the scanner, it refused to register. The cashier told the man to go to Customer Service (Stabbie might be after them next, who knows, but in this case they would have been lifesavers) but, no! Gentleman, you stood there and argued with the cashier that he ought to give you your lousy 30 pence whether or not the coupon scanned. At that point, your transaction was completed and you paid the cashier. Then, you looked at your receipt and discovered that the poor cashier, whom you had previously hectored to within an inch of his life, had neglected to add your two green points for using your own bags. With the queue at the till steadily growing, you began to argue with the cashier that he should add the points right away. (Note for the non-Brit: these green points totalled exactly