Paul Simon:

"A man walks down the street/ he says, 'why am I soft in the middle now?/ why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?'...You can call me Al/ You can call me Al."

"A man walks down the street/ he says, 'why am I soft in the middle now?/

My four year old would blame potato chips for his soft middle! She does for mine!

JBForum is unique for me in this.  There is no where else on the web that I feel as comfortable debating issues as meaty as politics and religion, and knowing that even as I disagree with someone they will still chat with me on other topics and threadlines as well...thisi is the best forums on the web.

Agreed, agreed, agreed!  Thank you, John for that!

I suspect my parents named me "Marc" just to be cruel, as Geoff pointed out...and I *&#!ing hate being called Marcus.

Growing up, I did know a "Joff" and always assumed that was his name.  It wasn't until we were much older that I found out that his birth name was Jonathan, but when he and his older brother were tykes, Ben pronounced it "Joffanan" which became Joff and that's what stuck.

The last time I ran for office*, that was my theme song, Tom!

Holy Shit.  Al Cook is the secret identity of Al Gore! 

My great-grandfather, James Callahan, came to the US in 1912.  I was his first great grandchild.  He could never remember my name.  He knew it was english so he would see me and call me Skeffington or Percy.  I have one uncle who will still call me Skeffington to this day.  This is what my parents wrought. 

They named my brother John. 

John Byrne wrote: Being married is a tough enough row to hoe for most people, as the divorce statistics in this Nation show. Gay marriage will be subject to even more stringent scrutiny. The Idiot Squad is just dreaming of those first Gay divorces, so they can shout See! Toldja!!

The plaintiffs in the case here in Massachusetts which led to legalized same-sex marriage did get separated a couple of years later, and there was a bit of negative press and talk-radio chatter about it.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/07/21/after_2 _years_same_sex_marriage_icons_split_up/

But then, gay marriage has been legal here for quite almost 4 years, and so far the population of Massachusetts has not been wiped from the earth by a plague of locusts or a flaming sword from heaven. Nothing has really changed except that more people who want to make a lifetime commitment to each other are able to do just that. Nutty, huh?

I'm pleased that the same-sex marriage issue has gone from a red-hot political issue in the 2004 campaign to pretty much nothing in 2008.