Three Things

When you do a daily radio show, you wake up every morning hoping someone somewhere has done something stupid. I hosted morning radio shows in DC in the 80s and 90s, which meant I smiled every day I opened the Washington Post to see plenty of stupidity in headlines about one local scandal after another: from Oliver North and his assistant Fawn Hall to the regular antics of then-mayor Marion Barry. They all became fodder for our comedy and commentary mill -- especially Barry's arrest in a hotel room, caught smoking crack with Rasheeda Moore, followed by his explanation: "Bitch set me up!" But, bizarrely, he got the last laugh. After being driven from office, he was re-elected mayor a few years later and then spent several more on the DC City Council. His death this weekend reminded me of those crazy years, and that you can never count some people out.

I've been watching "Homeland" since episode one, making it through the weak second season and into this stronger third season. But I can't help but wonder if anything will ever go right for Carrie Mathieson et al. Week after week, they either blunder into another corner, or lose another battle at some level against the terrorists. By my score, there hasn't been a single victory this season, making them analogous with the Oakland Raiders -- except they actually won a game last week. When will Carrie?

When I heard that a 26-year-old woman, Afton Burton, is going to marry 80-year-old convicted murderer Charles Manson, I wondered what all those homophobes who argue against gay marriage thought. They didn't seem to have a problem with the legality of Britney Spears' 55-hour Vegas marriage to Jason Alexander a few years ago, and haven't raised their voices about a convicted murderer's right to marry another crazy young woman -- but when a gay couple that's been together for two decades wants to make it official, that's what hurts the sanctity of marriage?