Bolstering the Banner

Let us chuckle over the outcry at Boston Mayor Tom Menino's offer to lend (not give) the town's black-owned newspaper money to keep it temporarily in business. In an environment of slavishly boosterism by nearly all other weeklies and the dailies, a range of folk have free-press indignation.

Over at one of my favorite spots, Universal Hub, the headline on this runs, "BRA loan to Bay State Banner: Hush money?" It links to the Globe piece on the proposed loan. Also, most of the comments are what a terrible idea this is. Likewise, Massachusetts Liberal blogs about what to him is a conflict of interest.

Prima facie, there is a whiff of impropriety. There's nothing generating any smell though. Consider:

• The loan would be to give Banner Publisher Melvin Miller time to arrange long-range financing or sell it.
• The money is in a fund administered through the Boston Redevelopment Administration, but is certainly not his, nor the city's, nor the BRA's.
• The cash would come from the Boston Local Development Corporation. This has lent similarly to many small businesses, mostly woman or minority owned. Some get more than the proposed $200,000 for the Banner.

Absent the media factor, the Banner is the sort of local business that this fund has helped for years. Throw in the newspaper angle though and folk around here are understandably exercised.

Much, too much I think, has been made of Miller's April 16th editorial slamming Da Mare. It was harsh, unusually so for a paper whose opinion pieces tend more toward warnings to its readers to get their act together to dine at the capitalist table.

Miller was (livid is not a good word) fulminating over Menino's drive to remove the Emma Lewis Partners LLC as developers of a BRA parcel near police HQ. She was justifiably revered in the local black community, so her name on the project was a memorial as well as realty deal.

The editorial concluded, "After the Elma Lewis decision, no self-respecting African American can vote for Menino if he chooses to run again. It is time for Menino to step down so that he will be remembered for his many achievements. " Also, the rest of the piece was as nasty — he'll appoint black women but not black men, and he ignores African-American activists and pols.

Boston political legend is that Menino is far too prickly to take such criticism. That seemed to have been his record. Yet, I was repeatedly surprised four years ago when Councilor Maura Hennigan ran a down-and-dirty campaign against him that he kept his Droopy dog demeanor. Moreover, at Left Ahead! he joined us for a podcast and seemed likewise unflappable. I think he's aged well.

I see no indication that he is angry at Miller and the Banner, nor that he wants to buy their loyalty, even from such a remove. What is strange is all the suggestions of impropriety here.

The Banner is an important voice. It's disappointing but not surprising that the Miller family was one of many publishing groups unable to anticipate and adjust to the changes in technology and economy that has driven so many out of business.

However, this is different and personal. I'll note here for those who are not regular readers that I used to be editor-in-chief of the black weekly for Columbia, South Carolina, the state capital. There as here, the local daily and weeklies did not cover the black community well or at all beyond crime stories. There is a real, continuing need for the Banner here.

Also, the Banner's editorials are not the biggest factor in this from any angle. The reporting and analysis of the local and government news are.

In fact, Miller's pieces are often pretty old-fashioned and socially conservative. They tend to favor the personal responsibility and bootstraps lingo popular with the NAACP a couple of decades ago. While Miller has recently criticized that organization for not keeping up with the times, that's amusing coming from him.

You can check the Banner archives for their editorials and matching (terribly drawn) cartoons. I grabbed a couple to illustrate:

• January 8th, A major strategy for the future is to mobilize the black community around the importance of education so intently that more students will become academically qualified for the more sophisticated jobs. It must also be a national policy to bring much of the manufacturing capacity back to America.
• March 5th, Despite the surviving vestiges of bigotry, Obama’s election as the nation’s 44th president offers an extraordinary lesson. Talent, hard work, discipline and a well-conceived plan can overcome racial discrimination. It is now more advisable to be the best at what you do than to worry about the racial hostility of others.
• July 9th, The real message for African Americans from the New Haven firefighters case (Ricci v. DeStefano, et. al.) is that it is time to become more aggressively competitive. Be aware that an action favoring blacks is perforce an inconvenience to others. If remedial action is generally considered to be unfair to whites, then it will harm public support for affirmative action.

Literary aside: Miller self-publishes How to Get Rich When You Ain't Got Nothing.

I think Miller is more conservative than Menino and much more so than I. He had one that seriously lambasted the Mayor, really not much for a weekly. I can't see that motivating any reprisals or purchases of favor.

I say this proposed loan is at least two arms' lengths away from dirty. It's a loan, not a gift and would come with only financial strings. The aims are to keep local jobs as well as the voice for a local community. If it's useful for those purposes, it looks clean enough.

Saturday Update: Miller said, "Only a fool wouldn't take it," reports today's Globe. He also said he hadn't met with the administration to get the loan offer and that it wouldn't compromise the paper.

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Tags: massmarrier, Boston, Bay State Banner, Menino, BRA, loan

Maine-ly Store Bought

Perhaps the effort to overturn legal same-sex marriage in Maine is really a hidden jobs stimulus. Unfortunately, much of the money raised by the anti-equality side comes from and is paid to out-of-staters.

The anti-gay types have often claimed, falsely or truly, that Equality Maine gets its money from dreadful and distance places like Massachusetts. Apparently, getting their money from New Jersey and such is OK. Huh?

The bluebird-bearing Turn Maine Blue blog has been doing a nice job reporting developments here. For example:

• James Dobson's Focus on the Family (in Colorado) just gave $31,000 plus to Stand for Marriage.
• At least $190,000 went to National Petition management to collect the 55,000 necessary signatures to put the issue on the ballot this year. "People's" veto, indeed.

The Portland Press-Herald continues its coverage as well. Today's piece tracks and specifies the money raised so far on both sides. By the bye, it stands at $343,000-plus reported by the anti-equality side and only $138,640 for the pro-equality folk. The veto side includes $160,000 from the National Organization for Marriage (basically a wash for the bought signatures), $100,000 from the Portland R.C. diocese, plus $50,000 from the Knights of Columbus.

The article gets a guess from the two sides that this campaign will waste cost $4 million to $6 million. I suspect Mainers could use that amount much better than trying to hurt or defend one minority group.

Maine Freedom to Marry takes contributions here.

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Tags: massmarrier, same sex marriage, Maine, People' Veto, TurnMaineBlue, Focus on the Family, Equality Maine

Bill Clinton Now Pro-SSM

Former President William Jefferson Clinton spoke out publicly for same-sex marriage a few days ago. I have long villainized him for the Defense of Marriage Act. I'm willing to stop, so long as he urges the current President to lead dumping DOMA.

Tip of the toupee: To Pam's House Blend. I hadn't read my copy of The Nation.

In The Nation, Michael Tracey reports that Clinton's remarks came on July 8th, after he spoke to the Campus Progress National Conference in D.C. Word is:

Asked if he personally supported same-sex marriage, Clinton replied, "Yeah." "I personally support people doing what they want to do," Clinton said. "I think it's wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that [same-sex marriage]."

That doesn't repeal any or all of DOMA by itself. However, it goes a long way intellectually and emotionally toward pressuring Barack Obama. When the current President knows how much this former one has evolved, perhaps he can screw up the courage to fulfill that campaign promise to overturn DOMA. He might even 'fess up that he too wants marriage equality.

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Tags: massmarrier, Bill Clinton, same sex marriage, DOMA, discrimination, DOMA,

MBTA Starved For Good Sense

Sure, let's do it again. There is a cure for the T's money problems. It is a huge and painful cure, but it's been plain to all for many years.

I've called for it repeatedly. Yet, General Manager Dan Grabauskas doesn't have the smarts or courage or both to demand it. The legislature pretends to know nothing about it and who knows why our Gov. Deval Patrick won't be straight about it.

For those on Beacon Hill who see the obvious, it appears they live in a fantasy. They want the problem to fix itself. The only way that can happen would be a sudden and thorough reversal of our economic woes of the past decade. If our economy were to blossom to its best self and remain growing, only then would the sales tax revenue fulfill its part of the bargain the legislature struck.

Fat chance.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the lawmakers made what is absolutely one of the worst decisions ever. As complicated and distasteful as it would be to deal it, the General Court must.

The idea of public transit that pays its own way was at the heart of the original legislation. When the sort-sighted legislature set up the deal dependent on sale-tax revenue, it may have had the best of intentions. Yet, like so much in the past decade, the realities have changed and the rules must change to reflect that.

We can remind both Gov. Patrick and both houses that we have multiple crises here. We have aims and mandates that include:

• Reducing petroleum use
• Fewer polluting vehicles onour streets
• Less traffic noise and congestion
• Frequent, clean, safe and efficient mass transit
• T service from where people live to where they work
• Mass transit that is too convenient and economical not to take instead of cars

We subsidize motor vehicle use heavily. Some such gifts are obvious — road construction and maintenance, and highway patrols, for a few. Others are more subtle — tax-free land use for vehicles and the mechanical and human costs of collisions, for example. Still others have become real more recently — consider pollution and its effects on human health and wasted energy (and human time).

Some anti-mass transit folk love to select subsets of data to suggest that car and truck subsidies are more efficient than paying for intracity and intercity transit. Even doing their worst, they can't obscure that the goals of replacing car travel with T and bike and foot traffic are well worth the costs in total. Like other civilized nations and cities, we have to get with the program on this.

We can't get there if we cripple the T and make riding it expensive and unpleasant. We need to pony up, great recession or not.

The big, messy fact is that the legislature blew the T debt. It has to fix the T debt. It corrects legislative errors all the time. This boner is just far worse than average. Hiding from it won't solve anything.

Amusingly, today's Boston Globe lead editorial is yet another gormless commentary around this problem. It does note, "Nearly a third of the T’s operating budget goes to paying debt - a proportion that gives the agency little maneuvering room in bad times." Yet, it doesn't even propose or apparently address the only underlying issue — that the stupidly constructed debt is exactly the problem.

The legislature created the problem. The legislature must fix it. Surely there is at least one leader on Beacon Hill who can drive this, one who has the wit and guts .

For my part, I have been drawing attention to this at Marry in Massachusetts frequently, Blue Mass Group on occasion, and public transit hearings. I'm not the only one. I pound on forward-funding.

My mid-term vision would be a free-for-all-riders T here to reach our transit and health goals quickly. That even brought qualified support from former Gov. Michael Dukakis. He figured a buck a ride is more workable, but he and I concur on the basic need and process.

The main facts are that our car commute and visit system is terribly broken, as well as that the General Court made a huge blunder with forward funding tied to sales-tax growth. The law part they need to fix right away. The rest will come when the T — under new, clearly seeing management — is reliable, convenient and inexpensive enough to be the default 24-hour-a-day mode of getting into, out of and around.

Gov. Patrick, transit-minded Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and the legislature, get with the program. Get honest. Get responsible.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, fare hike, Deval Patrick, forward funding

Local Law Strokes Fairey's Wrist

The free spirited draftsman disguised and self-packaged as an artist, Shepard Fairey walks among us again. Lackaday, he can no longer carry wheat paste in Boston...for two years at least.

After another overblown display by the local constabulary and prosecutors, we were back to where we (and I specifically) predicted in March. He pleaded guilty to a couple of graffiti-related charges, the others disappeared, and he paid a $2,000 fine.

That's what should have been done at the time and he was willing. Instead, true property destruction continued unabated by others, to say nothing of violence. It was a classic Boston moment, reminiscent of the Mooninites. It's good theater; I just wish it wasn't the kind of comedy that keeps the rest of the country chuckling at us.

Over at the Herald, the usual suspects did not waste any time calling for his long-term jailing. So far, there haven't been any calls for castration or corporal punishment, but it's early yet.

As the other daily puts it, the punishment for the California resident is:

..a plea deal that will prohibit him from carrying stickers, posters, wheat paste, brushes, and other tools of the graffiti trade while in Suffolk County for the next two years. Under the arrangement, Fairey pleaded guilty to three vandalism charges and must pay a $2,000 fine to one of his adversaries, Graffiti NABBers for the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.

In a statement, Fairey apologized to the citizens of Boston for "posting my art in unauthorized spaces without the consent of the owner."

In other words, the rich commercial artist who might have no plans or reason to be here for the next decade is out $2,000. We have every cause to believe that the hoo-ha our civic protectors caused has generated many times that in poster, print and clothing sales. It's the local prosecutors who should have cut a plea bargain — for a percentage of sales.

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Tags: massmarrier, Boston, police, Shepard Fairey, graffiti, overkill

DOMA Suit Surprisingly Solid

Our AG Martha Coakley brings tomorrow into the present. In Gone with the Wind's fictional world, the original fiddle-dee-dee gal was Scarlet O'Hara, epitomized in her "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

Until today, I have never been a fan of Massachusetts attorneys general. Don't get me started on their lack of courage or decisiveness. However, Coakley's suit in federal court seeking relief from the effects of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a masterwork.

References: The suit (PDF file) is here. A transcript (RTF file) of Coakley's announcement is here. Page citations in comments refer to the suit.

The overview is that for Massachusetts, Coakley charges that:

• Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional because it defines marriage federally and interferes with states' established rights to do so.
• Article One, Section 8, Clauses 1 (the spending clause) forces Massachusetts to violate either DOMA's effects or its own equal-treatment laws.
• DOMA sets up two distinct, unequal classes of married couple and is thus unconstitutional.

What the suit does not do is mess with DOMA Seciton 2, which lets states continue to discriminate against marriages in other states that would not be legally solemnized there. In fact, the suit pushes the comity and full-faith-and-credit clause to its most basic states' right grounding. The suit forces nothing on anyone and in effect demands the same from the feds.

For those of us on the marriage equality side, there are numerous legal giggles hidden in the complaint. The underlying theme is the same as anyone would find in the misnamed pro-family groups' messages. That is, those who would forbid and hinder same-sex marriage are demonstrably anti-family, anti marriage and anti-children. They discourage legally solemnized commitments and rob couples and their kids of the protections and benefits other assume and get.

Thus it is with the main points of the suit. The only purposes are to hinder, harm and hamper homosexuals. On a governmental level this takes the form of mandating state laws and procedures. For families, DOMA serves only to punish and deprive them.

Using his predictable script yesterday, Mass. Family Institute President Kris Mineau claimed DOMA had been court vetted already and found constitutional. He called yesterday's filing "frivolous" and said, "We believe the suit will have no credibility in the federal courts."

Perhaps he should read it and reconsider. The feds sent an early message that there's some beef here. The immediate response from the Department of Justice through a two-sentence statement by Spokesman Chris Miller was that the President "supports legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act because it prevents LGBT couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. We will review this case."

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Cascading Harm

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Moreover, the Globe cites Northwestern's law professor Andrew Koppelman as saying DOMA has not been tested constitutionally before. However, he think's GLAD's version of challenging Section 3 has an even better chance of proving unacceptable discrimination. That suit entered the system four months ago.

• The suit makes three charges (p. 2) — In enacting DOMA, Congress overstepped its authority, undermined states’ efforts to recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people.
• It notes that marriage is not one of the powers the Constitution reserves for the federal government. Rather, since the origins of the nation, states have had the authority to define and regulate marriage. (p.8 and elsewhere)
• Its main call for injunctive relief is for the return of the right to "define marriage within [Massachusetts'] own boundaries. (p. 3)
• It claims that "DOMA prospectively invalidated marriages between same-sex couples for purposes of all federal laws, whether enacted before or after DOMA," (p. 8) thus unconstitutionally usurping state powers.
• It points to the disconnect of one part of DOMA (Section 2) supporting states rights by freeing states from having to recognize SSMs solemnized elsewhere while interfering with Massachusetts' own definition and regulation of marriage. (p 9)
• It specifies a wide variety of benefits and protections that DOMA effectively precludes legally marriage SS couples from receiving. (pp. 11-21). In addition to the widely published tax, Social Security, pension and insurance topics, it also covers burial in veterans cemeteries within the Commonwealth.

Unlike Mineau's self-comforting fantasy, the realities of both suits are very specific and real. In fact, yesterday's version cites real damages to both SS families and the Commonwealth. Those are the charges that courts, particularly federal ones, do not dismiss out of hand.

Whether GLAD's or Massachusetts' suit comes up first and resolves the issues for the other will take some months. Meanwhile tomorrow has become today on DOMA.

Locally, there is speculation that Coakley filed this now with an eye toward Ted Kennedy's Senate seat when it becomes vacant. She is ambitious and plenty smart, so that's a reasonable ball for her to put in play. Nationally too, this emphasizes the calls from here and many places for President Obama to drive the overturning of DOMA, which he says he wants. When the damages are listed so clearly in these two suits, doing that may be a little easier.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same-sex marriage, marriage equality, DOMA, Coakley, Obama

MA Cries DOMA Foul

Maybe I'll rethink the sponginess of our AG Martha Coakley. She filed a federal suit today against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It apparently claims the feds overreached

When it becomes public, I'll analyze the suit and post a link to it. Likewise, I'm sure my favorite law prof, NYU's Arthur Leonard will do the best job discussing it and he'll get links here too. So far, Coakley's office has not issued a release and only scheduled a 2 p.m. press conference.

The short in today's Globe, cite's the claim:

In enacting DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act], Congress overstepped its authority, undermined states' efforts to recognize recognize marriages between same-sex couples, and codified an animus towards gay and lesbian people

Also, DOMA "... interferes with the Commonwealth's authority to define and regulate marriage."

From here, I've long held that DOMA violates the spirit of comity under the guise of states rights. While prima facie, it looks like a hard sell to claim that the terrible inequity of denying federal benefits and protections falls under state law, but I have yet to read the suit.

More to follow.

P.M. Update: After some wonderful (and relatively inexpensive) IPAs at Cambridge Common, I returned to find the suit and a transcript of the press conference. The initial reading of the 32-page complaint shows it to be well constructed. I see a reasonable chance of success in winning relief for Massachusetts same-sex marrieds, with the implication that other states that permit SSM can ride this. Analysis will appear tomorrow (Thursday, 7/9/9).

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, marriage equality, DOMA, Coakley

Sanford Crazy and Liking It

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford was and is predictably mad. I posted on the undercurrents as a non-political blog over at my Harrumph! Then I realized it probably belonged here too. Done.

Silly and sad sandlapper Gov. Mark Sanford did not surprise a third to half of us, that would be the sometimes limerents. We understand deeply from experience that he was driven in a way the other half cannot comprehend..

He could have held back. He could have behaved. He could have walked away from his initial consuming passion for his Argentine lover. Doing those would have been damned, damned, damned hard.

Moreover, with a political personality and an ego the seems the size of a Western state, perhaps Montana, he didn’t even bother controlling his limerence.

Just in case you have somehow missed the seminal treatise Love and Limerence by Dorothy Tennov, pick it up and marvel. Your library’s had it for 20 years and it’s still in print even after the author’s death a couple of years ago. Derided by some shrinks when it first appeared, it and its themes have found broad acceptance.

Most clearly, Sanford wasn’t overtaken by lust or boredom with his wife. He didn’t admire the Maria from way down South and find that affection slowly advance in form. He didn’t make a calculated decision to add a new bed partner.

Limerence is the abrupt and passionate falling in love, as opposed to all those calculated maneuvers. Once smitten, Sanford could not control the compelling feelings. Of course, he still might have kept himself from acting on them as he did, and repeatedly.

As Tennov noted in work, limerence is scary and befuddling to non-limerents. For those who only know the love that develops logically from attraction to affection to deepening into love, the falling-in-love thing is somehow wrong and disruptive. They hear someone describe the great passions and compulsions of limerence and say something like, “That’s madness. It’s being out of control!”

The limerents though are apt to view their counterparts as fairly dull and lacking. They are apt to think, “How sad not to experience the depth and range of true love and passion!”

Tennov’s most famous book has useful lessons for both types. Non-limerents certainly would benefit from knowing what the falling-in-love types feel. They may well have been limerent objects themselves and reading about the driven admirers would clarify those relationships for them and teach them how to deal with someone mooning after them (cut ‘em off and make it plain you won’t respond). Likewise, limerents may not be aware of how common their feelings are, what the prognosis for the limerent state is and what they might do with unrequited passion to make it bearable.

I personally understand Sanford’s compulsions, but I can’t forgive his destructive acting out. As a relatively wealthy man with freedom to travel and make his schedule, he abused his privileges as well as both women involved. Instead, he could have wallowed in the intoxication and sweetness of self-pity over the impossible love. His ego and self-indulgent nature apparently would not allow such denial.

He faced and almost certainly still faces an almost overwhelming drive to be with Maria. He showed that in the addled and muddled confessions he made afterward. A trait of actualized limerence is the public acceptance of and bragging about the love. It’s that strong.

Sudden, great passions are the stuff of theater and literature. They dominate song lyrics as well. Limerence serves as negative examples and cautionary tales for love gone wrong, for madness of the unrequited, for the power of emotional need over steady thoughts. The great fulfillment when huge passions are accepted and returned make much less entertaining screenplays…and news stories.

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Tags: massmarrier, South Carolina, Sanford, limerence, Tennov

Chuck the Deluded

Alas, just because I've devoted many electrons to City Councilor Chuck Turner I guess I need to keep it current. I'll minimize that.

For those who thought he was loony, have no doubts now. If you have the stomach for it, read they whole Dorchester Reporter article on his latest here.

The short of it is that Turner has said and written that he is the victim of a conspiracy at the highest levels of the U.S. Executive Branch. As he not so subtly put it:

It's really about the deal that Sullivan made with Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft. What do I mean by that? I personnally believe that former Attorney General Ashcroft said to Sullivan that if he could take down Senator Wilkerson and myself, he would put up the money to open the firm of Ashcroft and Sullivan in Boston where they could try to secure business for Halliburton to serve as a base while Sullivan prepares for his run for Governor. Ashcroft seems to have made similar deals with three other US Attorneys in other parts of the country. In other words the quid pro quo for taking us down was the money to open the office.

So, he'd have it that the then President, Vice President, Attorney General and local U.S. Attorney diverted their attention from terrorists, wars and such to take him down. Draw your own conclusions.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Chuck Turner, corruption, Michael Sullivan

California Gasping for Air

California is not a shopoholic homemaker who bought too many shoes and lunches. The state is broke for fundamental reasons that are clear warnings to others.

To torture and alter the analogy, California did not suddenly sink into the Pacific. It worked real hard to go underwater.

Over at Salon, Gary Kamiya points his finger of blame largely at Republican and libertarian no-tax sorts. He writes that the stand-off between anti-government types and leftists remains in inaction because of legislative rules requiring a two-thirds vote on big issues.

While that is important, I return to examine the cumulative effect of decades of plentiful, destructive ballot initiatives. This is my recurrent theme of the flamethrower of populism.

The most simple-minded of us are wont to chant, "Let the people vote." Even the sanest of us feel the pull of trying to govern a state of nearly 38 million like a town meeting. That fails when we substitute policy plebiscites for representative democracy.

That's exactly what tipped California into the drink.

Some such votes, like overturning same-sex marriage this fall have smaller and less obvious economic impacts. Many others, like mandating continued government services while rolling down and capping property taxes, are killers. Voters don't want to pay taxes, but they want the services taxes used to buy. Something has to give. In this case, it is the entire state government. Salon has a couple of such examples, but there are many and have been new ones annually.

The Reaganomics fantasies of getting along just fine without government...and the taxes to fund it...play at their worst this week in Sacramento. Other states have adjusted more quickly to the realities of financing the minimum services their voters demand, but they have not been under the strictures and initiative requirements as California.

Here in Massachusetts, we have let the majority of our legislature and our governors between Michael Dukakis and Deval Patrick swear they will not raise taxes, any taxes. Instead, they deferred infrastructure maintenance and investment in technologies and education. We're in the brine, but not underwater, here as a result. Also, our much stricter initiative process virtually eliminates unfunded mandates.

Somehow, California is certain to resurface. Just as surely, the bad kinds of anti-tax/anti-government sorts will continue their ceaseless ballot initiatives. Now though, they will find much less support. People who have held state IOUs instead of payments and those looking at poorer education, fewer police and firefighters and the countless small effects of bankruptcy are not as likely to live the fantasy again so soon.

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Tags: massmarrier, ballot initiatives, California, bankrupt

Fast Firefox Plug

Just a non-political word to the wise, the new Firefox 3.5 browser released yesterday is worth the download. As Mozilla claims, it's clearly more than twice as fast as the old version. IE is slower as well as less safe.

By the bye, I keep IE on my boxes. Some sites require it for full functionality. However, I don't frequent old-school, browser limited sites.

Today's FT also got with the program. Its writers like Chrome as well as FF. They draw attention to leapfrogging IE's features with nifty touches like being able to play audio and video without add-ins or plug-ins. Slate's main geek, Farhad Manjoo, discusses the underlying technologies for FF's big jump.

By the bye, on a personal note, the 3.0 version of FF I had used did seem bloated. It also did not always exit gracefully, instead hanging in memory and requiring a process quit manually. The new one does not have that issue on my equipment.