Erica Blasberg's death a suicide...

...or so the county coroner has ruled. You can listen on that page to Dr. Thomas Hess's 911 call. He was later arrested for removing items from the scene, which included Erica's suicide note. Now why would a doctor do that? In addition to all the drugs in her system, she was found with a bag over her head, a detail not released in initial press reports.

(This is a follow-up to a previous post. Thanks to friend Ann Crews for the heads-up.)

Portrait of a Girl

Magnificent Muslim Woman

Raheel Raza. When they're free, their full beauty emerges.

Sunday comment on the "marriage" debate...

By Lydia, here:

I consider that when everyone has to say that two men whose claim to the term rests on the act of homosexual sodomy are "married," the sky has fallen. When people seriously suggest that something else has to happen before we have reached a "sky is falling" scenario, this tells me that our world has gone insane...

The Muslim girls were all right...

before they ended up dead. Maybe now they're saints in heaven (it is possible), martyrs to a cause: the freedom to live and love as we see fit. Even if we see wrongly, the punishment of death seems disproportionate. In 2008, these two girls, Amina and Sarah Said, received such punishment, allegedly at their father's hand:












If you have TV access, Fox News airs a program tonight at 10 P.M. Eastern called "Honor Killing in America," which features the case of Amina and Sarah. I cannot, of course, vouch in advance for the show's quality, but it might be worth a look.

Prop 8 Goes Down

From Maggie Gallagher's SF Chronicle article:

If this ruling is upheld, millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents' views and values.

Those in power will call it tolerance, they will call it pluralism, but in truth same-sex marriage is a government takeover of an institution the government did not make, cannot in justice redefine, and ought to respect and protect as essential to the common good.

Her blog is here.