AK/AH: Summer League

Asskicker of the Week:  The State of New York, which passed a law allowing same-sex marriage, becoming the largest state to do so.  Impressively, they managed it in a Republican-controlled Assembly, 33-29, with 4 Republican votes, including Roy McDonald, who summed up his feelings politely here and much more awesomely as quoted in the New York Daily News, which I really hope is the version committed to future history textbooks:

You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing.  You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing.  I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this.

(I personally like to think he then stood up, walked dramatically across the room, and slid his name over to the "Yea" side of the board, but I don't think they use those anymore.)

So kudos to those guys who switched sides and are taking a big political hit for this, and kudos to those whose support was never in doubt. 

AK/AH: Summer League

Oh and before I forget again, here's another asskicker (it's easier to get an unqualified title in science or something than in politics, I guess, but them's the breaks), with the absolute coolest caption title in the history of journalism:

DR. SARAH PARCHAK

SPACE ARCHAEOLOGIST

It's not like you need any more than that but here's basically what Parchak does: working out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she's pioneered a method of searching out archaeological digs via satellites.  By doing this, she can alert local governments of areas that might need protection from looters based on what looks like undisturbed tombs, and also they've discovered 17 news pyramids in this way.  But let's get back to basics, here: 

SPACE ARCHAEOLOGIST.

Kickass.

AK/AH: Summer League

Photo by Abdalla Hassan for the International Herald Tribute, via New York Times.

As ever, it's difficult to tell what's going on in the Middle East and difficult to tell who's going to come out looking good (if anyone).  But a strong asskicking candidate is Bothaina Kamel, the first woman to run for the presidency of Egypt. Profiled in the New York Times (linked), Kamel is a Muslim woman who was formerly a news reader under the old administration until she began to suspect she was being used as a mouthpiece for propaganda.  So she took leaves of absences rather than read any story she suspected of being false, then took to the streets before and during the Egypt protests this spring.  Since the protests, Kamel has continued to take the fight to the security forces currently running Egypt, withholding judgment until she could investigate, then laying the responsibility at the feet of the military government.  Even providing the military government holds to its current oath that it wants to get out of power as soon as possible, it's not going to be easy to run for president when the security council is running an open file on her.  Since the original protests, Kamel has advocated lowering the age of public service to 20 in recognition of the young people that led the protests, and is pictured above walking with and listening to the concerns of the Coptic Christians protesting the sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians that has cropped up since the end of the major protests in Egypt.  Honestly?  It's impossible to know what's going to come out of this, but just based on this running record, I'm pretty comfortable saying Kamel is kicking some ass.  Peace with justice style.

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