So little time, so many items of interest can only mean...RETURN OF THE DOT COLUMN!!

• Today marks the one-year anniversary of me leaving California, and the minus-six week anniversary of me leaving Pennsylvania. I hereby declare that whenever I am being overly melodramatic about this period of my life, I shall refer to this year and six weeks as the "Beallsvonian Captivity".
  
• I watched about a round and a quarter of the NBA draft last night before falling asleep. (No causation should be implied there, 'Burghers.) The highlight of the telecast was definitely the Knick fans chanting "over-rated" at every player drafted until their pick, and then again when the Knick fans went ballistic at the top of the second round over the Polish dude none of them had heard of a week ago. The other highlight was my brother and I making a "foreign invasion" joke pick after pick during the top 15 when college player after college player was taken.
  
• Speaking of draft highlights, there are two great ones for me in this article about Cleveland taking Lebron James. One is the pullout quote; for some reason "Mr. Boozer" just strikes me as hilarious. The second is the bit about Darius Miles--my question being, who the hell let Darius into the draft room?!
  
• Is any song of the Rock Era more dated than Kung Fu Fighting?
  
• The big news of the day is yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning state bans on gay sex. There are basically three decision in the case: a majority opinion by five justices, a concurring opinion by Sandra Day O'Connor, and the dissenting opinion. They can all be found here (Via GreenGourd).
  I have enough thoughts about this to write a whole long entry, but I'll stick to a few here. One is that, combined with the pro-AA decision of a few days ago, I am starting to feel a little less glum about the culture war. While the Religious Wrong and others of their ilk seem to be ascendant electorially, I take heart that socially we may be progressing in ways of which I approve; I don't mean to relish the death of others, but the deaths of segregationists Lester Maddox and Strom Thurmond seem at least symbolic in this regard.
  Secondly, I was encouraged by the reference to serious historical scholarship in the majority decision. It is widely accepted in gender history that the "homosexual" is an invention of the late 19th century, and that the idea of two distinct sexual identities is at best a little over a century old. By looking this evidence, the majority realized that the idea of specifically punishing homosexual sex (as opposed to all non-procreative sex) is a very modern idea and not an age-old phenomenon. When historians actually succeed at getting across the news that the seemingly timeless is actually very historically specific--and especially when people actually take that to heart and affect positive change as a results--it makes all historians and lapsed historians happy.
  Finally, in reading the opinions, it struck me that no one is actually wrong here. The majority opinion uses the evidence of history to draw a logical conclusion. The concurring opinion comes to the same decision on apprently more narrow grounds, but which (as the dissenting opinion rightly argues) have the potential for far greater consequences--both by suggesting that "homosexual" is an identity with similar protections as a racial or gender identity, but also but suggesting that the sex of one's partner (in addition to oneself) cannot be the subject of discrimination. The dissenting opinion is also right, though, in stating that in the strictest terms, it can be reasonably argued that the majority made an overly activist decision in pure legal terms. It all comes down not to which side is right, but to what you value more. I was also heartened by something else in the dissent: one sound bite I heard had said that the dissent claimed the majority had acceded to the "homosexual agenda". This is actually in there, but the dissent goes on to say that of course it is perfectly reasonable and even expected for homosexuals (like any social group) to pursue their agenda--why would they do otherwise?
  The dissent is also right in suggesting that, taken to its logical extremes, this decision will overturn a wide variety of morality laws and will pave the way for gay marriage. This is true--but it doesn't follow that this decision will be taken to its logical extremes. I would like to hope it will go much further, but when you start talking about incest, child porn, etc., the consequences of not legislating morality become more problematic.
  
• Speaking of which, in a theoretical Craig Barker-style tournament of the best songs about people who, in the words of one of the contestants, "always get it up for the touch of the younger kind," my quarterfinalists would be:
  
  1. Into The Night by Benny Mardones ("She's just 16 years old, leave her alone they said...")
     
  2. My Sharona by The Knack (see above)
     
  3. She's Sexy + 17 by The Stray Cats (self-explanatory)
     
  4. You're Sixteen by Ringo Starr (again, self-explanatory)
     
  5. Sweet Little Sixteen by Chuck Berry (self-explanatory, and especially creepy given Chuck's, um, proclivities)
     
  6. Does Your Mother Know? by ABBA ("Now you're so cute, I like your style and I know what you mean when you give me a flash of that smile (smile), but girl you're only a child"; also notable as the rare ABBA song where the men sing lead)
     
  7. Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap ("My love for you is way out of line")
     
  8. I Love Rock 'n' Roll by Joan Jett ("I knew he must've been about 17... and I could tell it wouldn't be long until he was with me.")
  
  
• If Dave Letterman had been hosting the NBA draft, the running joke last night would've definitely been, "Darko, Zarko; Zarko, Darko."
  
• What I remember most of all about June 27, 2002, is driving through Needles, California, in a U-Haul whose air conditioning wasn't fixed until the next day. With my window open and 110-degree air pouring in, I remember finding the town's name particularly apt, as it felt as if a hundred small needles of pure heat were smacking my face every second. This was, oddly, not as unpleasant as it sounds.
  
• The most disappointing song for those "touch of the younger kind" folks (whose collective label I don't want affecting my banner ads), based purely on the title, would have to be Janis Ian's At Seventeen.
  
• DEK and I will be going to our second Myrtle Beach Stingrays game of the year tomorrow night. More to the point, we will watch Wheeling's beloved Ohio Valley Greyhounds on their penultimate step toward an undefeated regular season in the NIFL, which is most emphatically not at nifl.com. The mind boggles.

Until next time...