EL PASO -- Two gay men kissed at a Chico's Tacos restaurant, prompting guards to eject them and a police officer to endorse their ouster.

Civil-rights lawyers say the security staff was out of line. Police, though, contend that a business such as a restaurant can refuse service to anybody, any time.

My last column on Shakespeare in the Park bemoaned the loss of the art of courtship by words. Then I learned in a unexpected but welcome counterpoint that Erin McKean's new website, Wordnik, had debuted.

I met Erin at a design conference some years back. She is a dynamo of both word and person, and this site sounds just like what the word doctor may have ordered. Why only a few days ago, someone was calling me "girlfriend" and I wondered what has happened to that word....so many different meanings now contained therein. So I asked Erin to reconnect with me to talk about words and love and friendship.

Erin McKean: One of the things we like best about Wordnik is that folks can add tags to any word -- here are all the ones that have been tagged "love."

There are some great words on this list:

Mulierose
Cicisbeo
Amatorio

But it's probably better to talk about words that are about nuances of feeling: crushes and passions are different, right?

Culture Zohn: Yes. One has always been told that a crush is more of a temporary, perhaps physical thing whereas a passion is somehow more all-consuming. The French have an even better way of putting it, coup de foudre, which to me has always combined the two: an instantaneous, but fiery capture of the heart.

But Erin, what struck me in Twelfth Night was that words, spoken words, as opposed to songs, are losing ground when it comes to the art of love. What has happened since Shakespeare's time to inhibit people from thinking that an artful phrase can move the heart? Has email helped or hurt the turn of a fiery phrase?

EM:I did a whole book of these love idioms a while back (That's Amore ). It was really fun -- my favorite was Bulgarian, I can't remember the actual Bulgarian, but it was "the blind Sunday hit me" (i.e., I fell in love at first sight). I have no idea what Sunday has to do with it!

I think its [email] hurt it, because what if you write something and god forbid it gets forwarded? I know I've written stuff in email I wouldn't like to see on somebody's blog, and it wasn't even mushy (I've been married since before email)! ... there's this electronic trail, now, that you just don't get with paper and ink. A love letter is to be savored, a love email ... is to be forwarded to all your friends, and probably laughed at.

I think we should start a Valentine's Tweet on Valentine's Day next year, though. Best sentiment in 140 characters, minus the hashtag.

CZ: Absent actual love letters which don't seem to be in the cards, and not being a Twitterer myself as it leaves even less time for reflection, for savoring, what are our choices? I remembered that last year somebody was doing six-word sentences which, like haikus, at least caused a momentary lull in the barrage of noise. Words can be tools for seduction but they can also be weapons. It seems to me the internet has brought reading back, albeit in a different format. How do we encourage vocabulary as a contemporary art form?

EM: Oh I think that the internet is definitely encouraging linguistic creativity! Especially with new formations (weaksauce, awesomepants) and new tropes. It's not elegant, but it is creative!

Check out Wordnik daily. It's not painful like studying those endless lists for the SATs. You'd be surprised how much your words can move hearts and minds.

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This is why I posed for the NOH8 Campaign, a silent photographic protest.

As a publicist, it is second nature to opt out of photos. I have a wonderful collection of pictures of famous clients or amazing events with only my black clad arm or leg in frame.

However, when I first saw the NOH8 Campaign photos, they really spoke to me. These two young men, Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley had started something powerful following the passage and subsequent affirmation by the California Supreme Court. The gay political establishment had focus-grouped a campaign without a message, except, its OK to not like the gays.

Their efforts obviously fell far short, but then, so did the gay community who was apathetic at best. Prop 22 was a distant memory and perhaps the Hope of the Obama campaign had a blinding halo effect. There was no ground game. There was no outreach to constituent communities. There was, simply, no face to discriminate against.

The NOH8 Campaign puts faces to the discrimination. It puts stories behind the slogans. Gay, straight, bi, trans-gendered, black, white, brown (and every other shade) friends and families have joined celebrities like Ashlee Simpsons and Pete Wentz, Fran Drescher, Meghan McCain, director Bryan Singer, Steve-O and many others in this silent protest.

Every picture truly tells a story.

I posed for Dilson and Jason. Dilson, legally married in California to his amazing husband Walter, who among the 1100 + right and privileges denied to him by DOMA is not entitled to the same protections and privileges of any other immigrant. His 10-day old son, Jason, could lose his father any day, with no warning and no recourse.

I posed for Alfred, just out of college, who made me appreciate The Wizard of Oz, having found his strength, his heart and his voice in coming out in the last year. He not only did it himself, he is quick to speak up to anyone who would ever seek to treat him as anything less than a full citizen.

I posed for Rob, who came out in the past years, though later in his 30's, doesn't want anything to limit his options or potential. Rather than make up for lost time, Rob lives just as he always has, proving that being identified as gay does not change who he is.

I posed because Americans are the heirs to a philosophical fortune and I don't wish to squander it like the idiot off spring of the great robber barons. I posed because around the world people are dying just for the right to be in love.

I posed because my rights, our rights, are important. I never thought I would have the option of fighting for those rights. I Posed for Lt Dan Choi and the 13,000 members of the Armed Forces dismissed under the shameful Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. I posed for the hundreds of young people who call the Trevor Project each year when they have nowhere else to turn.

Mostly, I posed for David. I have to prove to him that when I get misty-eyed describing the founding principles of this nation, the truths that we hold self-evident; when I have faith in the rule of law, at the staggering progress made and inspired here and abroad by these imperfect men who knew the pyramid remained un-finished; when I see Plessy v Ferguson become Brown v Board of Education or see the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments become the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, I know that those principles are earned and remain my work long after Election Day.

What these young men have created is the kind of grassroots action that can change a mind, that can change a vote, that can change the world.

To view the campaign, celebrity photos and to find our how you can participate, log on to www.noh8campaign.com.

The 911 call from the night of the murder-suicide deaths of former NFL Titans player Steve McNair and his girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi has been released.

Listen to the call:

White squatters are refusing to be relocated from a caravan park by the Mogale City council. Monako Dibetle reports.

What caused the once-profitable SABC to become a financial basket case?

What a beautiful and moving memorial service; fit for a King! Kudos to Councilwoman Perry, Ken Sunshine, the Los Angeles Police, the Jackson family, and Tim [Leiweke, AEG] for a powerful, heartfelt, and well organized memorial service for Michael Jackson!

Logistics were difficult as with any of Michael's productions, but as Michael always succeeded in a number one show, so did all of those that remembered him and produced a show he would have been so proud to see!

For one afternoon a world came together to remember Michael; celebrities and the public alike, for two hours "We Were the World" and everyone checked their egos at the door ("Quincy Jones") and now the show must go on...

Thanks for all the music, memories, and efforts to embrace humanity, Michael. You were and will always be without any doubt a hero among us!

God bless!
Michelle Bart, Helping Heroes

photo by Vh1

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I am walking away from my 15 and 10 y/o daughters this morning laughing to myself, thinking how in so many 'things parenting'; what ends up happening is rarely what you plan.

Off I went this morning musing on the blog I was going to write today: "Raising kids in NYC" I am thinking. The sun was bright, I had carved out the morning to seize this wonderful opportunity offered to my 15 y/o who had signed up for the Public Theatre's Jr. program, where they offer weekly acting workshops to 6th graders on up. For free. Yippee! Not only that, we got two tickets for Twelfth Night at the Delacorte, without standing on line starting at 3 a.m.

Filled with positive thoughts of how lucky we are to be raising our kids in Manhattan, with these amazing cultural opportunities to be had, we go over to the Delacorte for a Summer Shake-up event they hold to introduce these students, friends and family, to Shakespeare. Some lucky kids are even going to have a chance to stand on the stage where Anne Hathaway stands every night, delivering her lines. Wow! We are so lucky, this is so cool, I am thinking.

I try not to look at my teenager, knowing that she is having a "Please Mom, don't totally embarrass me" moment. After all, we are in public, with a bunch or other teens, all strangers, and on top of that, her friend has not shown up. Not a good situation to be in, even if you do have your cute 10 year old sister as a prop.

I look over the program they have for this morning's activities, and while I am thinking how wonderfully 'educational' and terrific it truly is, I am also knowing in my bones, that this may not fly with my oldest daughter who has a low threshold for 'earnest'. This was the 3 year old at a Barney concert, (yeah, I tried it, seemed like the right thing to do), who gave me a look that said: "As if!" Hated it. Never have met another 3 year old with such utter disdain for Barney.

Sure enough, she turns to me after reading through the program, surveys the scene, and her 'earnest-meter' reads a high of 10. She is out of there.

This is not worth fighting for. I have learned to pick my battles. (Took me a while, okay, I can be a slow learner, but stubborn kids will teach you this over and over till you finally get it!) So while New York offers all these amazing cultural opportunities, I have to battle my feeling of responsibility to offer my kids as much exposure as I can, and that it is my job, come hell or highwater, to shove it down their throats!

We leave the theatre, and I am figuring I get a free morning to get to do my work. They can do whatever they like. After 15 ft. they are off and running: "Please can we go to the Diana Ross playground?!"

"Yes you can. Oops, I forgot my Metrocard. You can also walk the few miles home. Bye bye! Have fun!"

I still win sometimes. They get their exercise. A fabulous perk of living in a town where you can walk everywhere, and you don't need your parent to drive you.

We do love this town.

Happy parenting in NYC!

NEW YORK — Death won't still the voice of Billy Mays or his mighty powers of persuasion. Viewers will continue to find the boisterous, bearded TV pitchman hawking household products for the indefinite future. And at least one of his commercials is being introduced posthumously.

"Just stretch, wrap and it fuses fast," says Mays, demonstrating a product called Mighty Tape on a kitchen drain pipe in the new commercial. Moments later, he's seen, still wearing his signature sport shirt and khaki slacks but accessorized with scuba gear, as he repairs a hole in another diver's air hose underwater using Mighty Tape.

The commercial will begin airing July 20. Mays' advertising for other products in the Mighty brand line returned to the air earlier this week. The commercials were pulled after Mays' death June 28 of an apparent heart attack.

"Our feeling is, everyone wants to have Billy go on," said Bill McAlister, president of Media Enterprises, a sales and marketing company based in Trevose, Penn. "This is what he would have wanted."

Besides Media Enterprises, the 50-year-old Mays had worked with several other companies as the yell-and-sell spokesman for products with rousing names like OxiClean, Awesome Auger, WashMatik and Orange Glo.

It's not yet certain which among Mays' product pitches will continue to be broadcast, and for how long, said his attorney, Roger Pliakas.

"We're waiting to hear what the companies want to do," said Pliakis, who declined to specify the firms with which Mays was associated when he died.

"It's not a legal conversation but an informal conversation" with each company, Pliakas said. "We don't know all the specifics. We're just hoping it's all done in a tasteful manner."

On Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT, Discovery Channel will air a one-hour documentary, "Pitchman: A Tribute to Billy Mays." Mays had been featured in a 12-part series on the network called "Pitchmen."

Noah endured 40 days and 40 nights on his ark, the Hebrews traveled for 40 days and nights before the parting of the Red Sea and now, after 40 days and nights, General Motors has emerged from bankruptcy as of 6:30 this morning.

The new GM is leaner: it's exiting bankruptcy with $48 billion in debt, a massive reduction from the $176 billion it was carrying when it started the process; it will have four brands (Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC) versus the eight it had before; the number of manufacturing facilities will now be 34 from 47; and the number of employees eventually will be reduced by nearly a third from the end of 2008.

In a press conference this morning, CEO Frederick "Fritz" Henderson said that the new GM would focus on three things: customers, cars and culture. That's a nice slogan, but now the hard work begins. GM must now create and produce cars that consumers want to buy. Maybe they're on the way--GM sold 9,300 Chevrolet Camaros in June.

Henderson said that the goal "is to make each and every General Motors car, truck and crossover the best-in-class." I would settle for the company producing vehicles at a profit, which would be a welcome new development for a company that lost $80 billion over the last four years.

It's been a long road (pardon the pun) for GM and much has gone wrong over the years. But on the dawn of GM's new era, I want to believe that the company can succeed. Sure, that might be wishful thinking, but considering that US taxpayers now own 60.8% of GM, we should all root for its success.

Image by Flickr User Stomashek, cc 2.0

For more on GM, continue on moneywatch.com

VATICAN CITY — President Barack Obama is meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Shaking hands with the pope, Obama said it was "a great honor" to meet him.

They then sat at the pontiff's desk and exchanged pleasantries before reporters and photographers were ushered out of the ornate room.

Obama met first with Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

VATICAN CITY (AP) _ President Barack Obama has arrived at the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

Obama's motorcade arrived at the Holy See on Friday, greeted by Swiss Guards in their colorful uniforms. Several hundred people lined the broad avenue leading to St. Peter's Square.

Obama waved at the crowds as he headed toward the papal palace.

He first met with Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state.

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Green is gold. Why didn't homebuilders get this idea? They could be building new homes again, employing millions, making inner cities and suburbs habitable and bring down the cost of housing for everyone.

Homebuilding needs to join the 21st century and apply the best, efficient technologies to lower costs and reduce energy and resource consumption. But the vast majority of homes have been built using the very best 19th-century, stick-built/balloon frame methods. That's got to change if we want to revive the bedrock of the American Dream.

As it stands now, while you may have the most up-to-date flat-panel TVs, computers, cellphones and audio equipment inside your home, the basic way that most homes are built hasn't changed much in more than 170 years.

That's right. As microprocessors double in speed every 18 months, cellphones are becoming just as powerful as laptop computers and you can connect to nearly anyone on the planet through the internet, the box you live in is antiquated beyond belief and costs you more every year to heat, cool and maintain.

To change this deplorable situation -- and revive real estate, building and banking -- it will require a change in attitude. Think of your personal living space as ecodynamic. It could adjust to the exterior environment cybernetically, tell you when the cheapest electricity is available and program the entire house to use less energy.

Is this something out of the new Star Trek movie? Hardly. Ecodynamic homes are not only being built, they are being assembled. That's an important distinction.

Rather than building everything on site with framing and two-by-fours, modular units are pre-made to exacting specifications in factories, then loaded on flat-bed trucks and assembled on site. This not only cuts the construction time and cost from one-third to one-half, it eliminates tons of waste that end up in landfills. The end-result is energy-efficient, low-maintenance and will produce energy and conserve water.

An ecodynamic home is always working for you to reduce costs. It saves water in cisterns, prevents heat from leaking out in the winter and keeps a breeze flowing in summer. You use less energy because the house's computer is constantly monitoring conditions and directing resources to where they are needed. Don't need to heat or cool a spare bedroom? The system will know and cut your bills.

Sounds good so far, but aren't these homes really ugly trailers? Throw that image out of your mind. They are loaded and secured onto permanent foundations and can be stunning.

Take a look at architect Michelle Kaufmann's "Smart + Wired Home," a house so innovative it's now on display at Chicago's Museum and Science and Industry. It's an elegant example of a modular, green home that was factory built and constantly monitoring itself with its own eco-computer system. A flat-panel display in the living room can display a graphic that shows the cost of energy that moment, how much of it the house is consuming and the amount of electrons being produced on rooftop solar panels. If it makes more energy than you consume, you sell it back to the power company.

The Smart + Wired Home costs nine times less to heat and three times less to cool than a standard home of the same size. The gorgeous, spacious interior is full of low-voltage lighting, fixtures made of recycled materials and lets in generous amounts of light.

But this is not just a home for museums as Kaufmann hopes to mass produce these homes. If she succeeds (I'm rooting for her), she could become the Henry Ford of homebuilders. Make houses on assembly lines and their costs will come down as economies of scale will be realized. And because they are modular designs, you can easily change the layout or add on extra modules if you need to expand at a cost much lower than stick-built contracting.

What will it take to make green modular homebuilding a major industry? Policymakers will need to implement tax incentives over the next two decades, reward new home-energy technologies with grants and shift tax dollars away from wasteful road building projects into places like the inner city where decent, affordable housing is in short supply.

Some of this is already being seeded through the Obama stimulus plan and budget, although a comprehensive, long-range plan is needed. The upcoming energy/climate change bill would be an ideal place for these ideas. If we get really good at ecodynamic design and manufacturing, we'll be able to export these products to places where durable, inexpensive and green housing is desperately needed: China, India, Africa.

Back in the U.S., homes needn't be so capital intensive and push people into foreclosure and bankruptcy. They can be clean, green and affordable. They can pay us back when they produce energy. To accomplish that, we will need to re-envision the American Dream. Home is where the heart is. Now the political will needs to follow if we're to make homeownership widespread and sustainable.

©2009 John F. Wasik, author of Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream

Author Bio
John F. Wasik, author of Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream, is a personal finance columnist for Bloomberg News and the author of several books. His most recent book, The Merchant of Power, was praised by Studs Terkel and well reviewed by the New York Times. Wasik has won more than fifteen awards for consumer journalism including the 2008 Lisagor and several from the National Press Club. He has appeared on such national media as NBC, NPR, and PBS. He lives in Chicago.
For more information please visit www.johnwasik.com

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NEW YORK — American International Group Inc. is consulting with the federal government about its plans to pay millions of dollars in retention incentives and bonuses, a person familiar with the situation said.

AIG is working with the Obama administration's compensation czar, Kenneth R. Feinberg, to ensure the government and the insurer are on the same page before it pays out remaining bonuses due to employees tied to 2008 contracts, according to the person, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.

New York-based AIG faced intense public and Congressional criticism in March when it paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in retention bonuses to employees months after receiving a bailout from the government.

Some of the bonuses AIG is planning to pay out were promised to employees in 2008, before the government stepped in to ensure AIG would not collapse. Additional retention payments were awarded in an effort to keep executives from leaving the company after the government's initial bailout.

In September, the government provided AIG with an $85 billion rescue package amid the mushrooming credit crisis. In return, the government took about an 80 percent stake in the New York-based insurance giant. Since then, the government has provided additional rounds of support. AIG's available loan package now totals $182.5 billion, though it has not tapped all of the funds.

The latest round of bonus payments will include about $235 million for employees at AIG's financial products unit, according to a Wall Street Journal report. AIG's near collapse was not due to its traditional insurance operations, but instead risky derivatives contracts written by the financial products division. AIG is in the processing of winding down that unit.

AIG is also scheduled to pay out another portion of a much smaller set of bonuses to 40 high-ranking AIG executives. The 40 executives were awarded about a combined $9 million in bonuses for 2008. The insurer paid out half of the bonuses in March and is supposed to pay out the remainder in two installments, the first of which is scheduled for next week.

AIG is among the companies whose pay practices the government now oversees. But while AIG is discussing the outstanding bonuses with Feinberg, he cannot ultimately veto the upcoming payments.

Feinberg does have the power to reject pay plans he deems excessive at companies that benefited from large infusions from the government's $700 billion bank bailout fund. However, those powers only begin with pay packages for 2009 and can't be retroactively applied to 2008 compensation.

Feinberg also now has authority to review compensation for the top 100 salaried employees at those firms.

Hundreds of financial firms received money as part of the government's $700 billion program. Many of the largest banks have been repaying those funds quickly, in part, to enable avoiding scrutiny and restrictions on how they pay top executives.

AIG has been selling assets to raise cash in an effort to repay the government loans. It is also planning to spin off three of its major insurance subsidiaries into separate companies to raise capital necessary to pay back the government.

They used to be invisible, the four or five convicted sex offenders camping out on the Julia Tuttle Causeway connecting Miami to Miami Beach. But for three years now -- pushed by local laws that bar them from living within 2,500 feet of where children gather -- more and more criminals have moved in.

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WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of a House Intelligence panel says it's imperative that lawmakers launch an immediate investigation on the CIA's admission that it misled Congress multiple times over the last eight years.

Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Shuh-COW'-ski) of Illinois said the CIA systematic lied to Congress, and called that inexcusable in a letter obtained by The Associated Press Friday.

Democrats revealed late Tuesday that CIA Director Leon Panetta informed Congress in late June that the spy agency had been withholding important information about a secret program begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (Syl-VES'-ter RAY'-ess) said Tuesday night he is considering an investigation. Panetta has launched an internal probe at the CIA to determine why Congress was not told about the program. Exactly what the classified program entailed is still unclear. Reyes is a Texas Democrat.