I came across a nifty program for managing to-do lists. There is a bundle of products offered by this company, but my fave is the to do list. It's full-featured, customizable and takes up only a little desktop real estate.

Here's the link:

http://www.veedid.com

Another insult from the Mormons...The kiss-in arrests at the Main Street Plaza in Salt Lake City are the latest insult to gay folks by the LDS Church, but it should be noted that the city of Salt Lake City is at least part of the problem. News accounts have demonstrated that, in spite of a good deal of legal back and forth between the church and the city, the "public" plaza in question was actually sold to the Church some years ago and the legal wrangling and tit-for-tat following that unfortunate decision will not undo the fact that it is no longer a public space. Mormons are eager to present a smiling face to the world, and have stopped calling for the arrest of kissing couples, but the underlying position of the church is not any more friendly toward gay people than it was a month ago. Gay people are still enormously resentful about the great sums of Mormon cash that flowed into the Proposition 8 vote in California last November, and no amount of Mormon smiling will change the fact of their ant-gay position. Church doctrines have worked in the service of prejudice before in America and are not any less foul because they are merely faith-based.

The DOMA mess....Americablog, among other political blogs, has expressed outrage at the brief filed in support ot the Defense of Marriage Act by the US Justice Departmant in Smelt v. USA. The government chose to defend DOMA (against the plaintiff couple's claim that it's an unfair federal law) on the grounds that some unions are already denied recognition across state lines--including the marriage of first cousins or that of an uncle to his niece or marriage to a 16-year old. Gay anger has been the understandable result, citing the insulting analogies mentioned above, and the snotty cites the DOJ supplies alleging that "anyone, including homosexuals, {can} marry the individual of his or her choice" and "...gay and lesbian individuals who unite in matrimony...remain eligible for every benefit they enjoyed beforehand." The two jibes suggest that gay people make a marriage contract with a heterosexual friend to get the perks. Strategies of gay response to the brief have ranged from denying money to the fund-raiser for President Obama's DNC, scheduled for the end of the month, to a more legislative plan--holding local lawmakers' feet to the fire on the issue. Some blog comments cite this second necessity, decrying the lack of leadership on the issue that is apparently in the genes of those who must answer to a constituency that still largely loathes gay people. There are still some questions, strangely unanswered questions, that arise about the voice of the Obama administration and the voice of the DOJ: They leave a whiff in the air of "what we say and what we do and what is the difference between the two?"

Special thanks to Jim Burroway's www.boxturtlebulletin.com for his extensive research and great good sense about this mess.