Page What? In riding the subways recently I have noticed an oddity about the New York Post, being read around me. One of that paper's most popular features is a gossip column called "Page Six". Bizarrely, however, it does not generally appear on page 6 but all over the place — page 10 yesterday, page 24 last week. Why on Earth would the Post call something "Page Six" but put it on page 10? The world, he is strange.
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The U.S. military proved that again, in its own way, yesterday:

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position. * * *

"Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 — a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the [American] [P]sychiatric [A]ssociation, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month.

There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.

But maladjusted homos and dykes are still enlisting in a military that hates them. In time of war that could get them killed! Why? I lucked out in the Vietnam era, when the military refused to take me. Why would anybody hide something that could get him out of being sent into a war zone?
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A third item of note: the Reader's Digest magazine, in studying the manners of people in major cities around the world, concluded that New Yorkers are the most polite on the planet. That may strike many people as preposterous, but the methodology is persuasive.

The magazine had its undercover reporters — half men, half women — fan out in 35 cities and assess politeness based on simple things such as whether doors were held open for them, whether sales staff thanked them or if people helped them pick up dropped papers. New York, Zurich and Toronto rated tops in the world.

When I lived in New York, I remarked aloud that New Yorkers couldn't be as rude as some outsiders thought because you just couldn't get along without manners, there being so many people crushed together in various situations. There would be fistfites all the time.
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Still, New Yorkers pale before Newarkers in politeness, but New York was the only city in the U.S. that the Digest studied.
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There are things some people in New York, not necessarily New Yorkers, do that do make life harder than it needs to be, such as blocking subway doors, sitting on stairs, and pushing past you without saying "Excuse me", that need work.
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Happy first day of summer, everyone! I love the summer. You may have the winter. No, please. You take it. I insist.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,508.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:22 PM