so much to read, so little time

Sick of teenagers loitering about? Some places are trying this, though I'm having trouble imagining that this is constitutional.

In case you missed it, the Supreme Court decided last week in favor of Indiana's rather stringent voter identification legislation. Anyone who believes that requiring ID isn't an undue burden hasn't been forced to take a day off from work in order to wait hours and hours at the local DMV. Along vaguely similar lines, Florida is imposing such heavy fines on small voter registration errors that groups that have traditionally organized extensive voter registration drives are afraid to do so this year.

I've always found it fascinating that while both the Democratic and Republican parties have stakes in preventing voter fraud, the Democrats tend to focus on enabling as many people as possible to vote while the Republicans are more focused on preventing as many people as possible from voting. I'm just saying.

Gail Collins waxed poetic recently about our Democrat contenders and their pastor/husband problems respectively, "We’re down to a race between the candidate who claims he will make the political process better but has yet to demonstrate exactly how that works, and the woman who claims she’s the only one who’s powerful enough to take on the Republican forces of darkness. Don Quixote vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both accompanied by their lieutenants — the men who think it’s all about them."

Being as city-centric as I am, I was amused by this little tidbit about the NYC subway map.

The U.S. territory of Guam held its primary caucuses this past Saturday, with Obama taking it by a hair. When was the last time Guam made it into the news, at least as far as presidential politics are concerned? This drawn-out primary season certainly has its moments.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw this piece about law enforcement officers running a workshop for young black men on how to not get shot during a confrontation with the police.

This, however, definitely made me chuckle. Those poor Greek Lesbos islanders, being mistaken for lesbians all around the world, it just pulls on the heart strings, doesn't it?

The most recent anti-abortion bill in Oklahoma, however, isn't a laughing matter at all. Oklahoma legislators have apparently decided that every single woman seeking an abortion must undergo an ultrasound, whether she wants it or not. Fines will start at $10,000 for doctors failing to follow the new rules. Governor Brad Henry vetoed the bill, but the veto was in turn overturned. So here we have a bunch of politicians deciding that the government has the right to force potentially unwanted medical procedures on people. Haven't we been down this road before?

A much-respected professor here at Columbia, Charles Tilly, passed away last week. I had the good luck of sitting in on a couple of his classes back in my Barnard days and am grateful to have been able to do so.

And last, my brother's soon-to-be new hometown got an amusing write-up in the NY Times today.