Douglas Whaley

  On Tuesday last Columbus, Ohio, my hometown, had a high of 16 º whereas---get ready for it---the Fort Lauderdale area, where I’m snowbirding for the first three months of 2013, had a high of 76 º .   I’ve been sending these “FS” (Florida Smirk) notices regularly to my friends in the Buckeye State, knowing it will make me ever so popular back home.   Today the temperature was 77---and . . . ah, what was it where you are?   This is my first adventure ever snowbirding, and it’s been wonderful so far.   Here is a précis: 1.   The Trip Down .   I watched the weather carefully before I left, wanting most of all to have a good first day (since the other two days of travel would be further south and the weather less of a factor).   As it happened all three days were perfect, so I lucked out, spending the first night in Knoxville TN, the second in Savannah GA, and arrived in the late afternoon on Tuesday, January 1 (the day my lease began).   I’m renting an apartment that’s ha

On this blog I’ve sometimes speculated about what the United States Supreme Court will do with the growing issue of gay marriage (see “Jumping the Broom: How "Married" are Married Gay Couples?” in Related Posts below, for example), but that ticking bomb is about to explode.   Before the end of June, 2013, the Court will decide two major cases involving the issue.   What is amazing concerns which cases the justices decided to hear.   The Court held a hearing to determine whether to grant “cert” (shorthand for “certiorari,” a Latin word meaning “send up the record,” i.e., “grant the appeal”) on five cases that were presented to it by the lower federal courts.   Four of these cases challenged the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal statute forbidding the federal government to recognize any marriage not between a man and a woman, and the fifth was the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a federal trial court’s ruling

  Barney As I’ve explained in prior posts my cat Barney was abused by his prior owners starting from his kittenhood, and this abuse is evident today (he’s five years old, almost six) in many ways.   He won’t let a hand come towards his head from the front because he was apparently frequently slapped or beaten from this direction.   Most cats love to rub up against humans, but Barney, while very affectionate, never does this because he was likely kicked if he tried it.   In bed at night my other cat, Mama, is a heat whore like most cats, and picks the warmest part of my body to cuddle up against, but Barney sleeps in a corner of the bed, never touching me, afraid that the big mammal will punish him if he slips up and does so.    I’m a teacher and I love Barney so I’ve worked patiently in the nearly three years we’ve been together to convince him that no matter what the other big mammals did to him in the past, I won’t treat him badly.   Now, if I go slowly, he will allow my h