And now, an update from New Hampshire
WOLFEBORO, N.H. - So where's Carla? I came up here assuming that if I couldn't see the Eddie Haskell of American politics - vice presidential wannabe Mitt Romney, who vacations nearby - I would at least catch a glimpse of Carla Bruni, the World's Most Beautiful and Accomplished Woman, Ever. Just last year, her husband, piratical French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was plying the waves of Lake Winnipesaukee in his powerboat, fending off the international paparazzi, after they snapped those flattering, bare-chested photos, of course.
But that was pre-Carla. After a coup de foudre (thunder-struck) courtship and a whirlwind marriage, the happy couple has opted to spend this summer's vacation on the French Riviera. In between interviews with Barbara Walters and launching fabulously successful new CDs, the couple is dividing their time between Bruni's family villa and the breathtaking Fort Bregancon, which belongs to the French Republic.
Nicolas, Carla: Don't forsake us! Didn't you know that the local bookstore has just opened up a new beanery, called Crepes Ooh La La! Not authentique enough for you? Helas!
New subject: Where Men Are Men
Who knew? New Hampshire claims to be the only state that has a Commission on the Status of Men. Lots of states have commissions fretting about women, says Dr. Joseph Mastromarino, but only the Granite State has the CSM. You can read its mission statement on the Web at www.nh.gov/csm. The commission is an outgrowth of the "men's rights" movement, which has lobbied for more equitable treatment of fathers in family court, among many other issues.
I never thought of New Hampshire as a place where men needed any kind of special protection. I was here in June for Laconia Bike Week, when super-manly motorcycle enthusiasts swarmed the highways, their pudgy legs wrapped around their ferocious, smoke-belching "hogs," a female appendage inevitably attached to the rear of their Harley. Tough guys don't drive Priuses, Alex!
The New Hampshire legislature also seems unconvinced that their men merit any special treatment. After creating the Commission on the Status of Men in 2002, they have never funded it, nor enacted any of its suggested legislation. I read the CSM's most recent report, which seemed to be filled with unconvincing statistics. I told chairman Mastromarino that CSM's assertion that "men, whose average life expectancy was formerly on a par with that of women, are now dying on average 10 years sooner" sounded fishy to me.
He said it was true, but earlier this year the National Center for Health Statistics reported that "life expectancy for women was 80.7 years, and for men, 75.4 years," according to The Washington Post. "The disparity between the sexes - 5.3 years - has been declining since it peaked at about eight years in 1979." How very inconvenient, factually speaking.
Mastromarino then launched into a beef about breast cancer getting more funding than prostate cancer, to which I replied: Yeah, because there's more of it. (The American Cancer Society will gladly confirm this for you.) Likewise, I found their data "proving" that New Hampshire public schools underserved boys, relative to girls, not exactly deal-sealing. "You can always take statistics and skew them any way you want," Mastromarino told me. Finally, a statement on which we agree.
New subject: "Clark Rockefeller," breakaway Episcopalian!
Reporting by my friend John Gregg in the Lebanon (N.H.)-based Valley News reveals that, in addition to his other oddities, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter/Christopher Chichester/Clark Rockefeller bankrolled a new, conservative Episcopal parish in his former hometown of Cornish, N.H.
According to the Valley News, Rockefeller gained control of the historic, dormant Trinity Church in return for a $110,000 donation to the town. At his request, Trinity, which had been mainstream Episcopalian, joined the Anglican Church of America, a conservative offshoot of "God's Frozen People." The Anglicans don't like the "new," 1979 Book of Common Prayer, they don't like the lady preachers, and they don't like the idea of gay men preaching from the pulpit, to say nothing of gay marriage.
In 2004, Rockefeller told the newspaper that the 1979 prayer book reminded him of "bell bottoms and lava lamps . . . I just got disaffected with the Episcopal Church after the '79 book came out." The current rector, Dr. Brian Marsh, told me that his congregation plans to stay in the building, currently administered by Rockefeller's ex-wife, for the foreseeable future.
It is a tribute to the great state of New Hampshire that both avowedly gay Bishop Gene Robinson and this little church full of Anglo-Catholic throwbacks can co-exist in relative harmony within its border--
Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
Procurement Consultant
Gsm: +250-08470205
Home: +250-55104140
P.O. Box 3867
Kigali-Rwanda
East Africa
Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
Skype ID : Kayisa66
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment