“Rhode Island’s governor on Monday declared that the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones when it comes to health insurance and a slew of other benefits.” [WaPo, via TPM]

Thomas Friedman reads somebody else’s book about creeping commercialism in everyday life — “I had no idea”, he repeats each time he learns something like ShopRite “sponsoring” a public-school gym — and comes to this stunning conclusion:

Throughout our society, we are losing the places and institutions that used to bring people together from different walks of life. Sandel calls this the “skyboxification of American life,” and it is troubling. Unless the rich and poor encounter one another in everyday life, it is hard to think of ourselves as engaged in a common project.

This is where Thomas Friedman lives. We had no idea.

This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone [NYT]

Title: “Screwed! How Foreign Countries Are Ripping America Off and Plundering Our Economy — and How Our Leaders Help Them Do It”

Authors: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Rank: 38

Blurb: “In this eye-opening new book, Morris contends that Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state in George W Bush’s second cabinet, is the only Republican on the national scene with the credentials, credibility, and popularity to lead the Republican Party in 2008. And he outlines how the Democratic Party, fresh from its narrow yet crushing defeat in 2004, is likely to return to its one source of political power in the last several decades — the Clinton family.”

Read more »

We’re not a big fan of flash mobs — sure, we can be suckered in by a Sound of Music dance-off, but you have to top what we’ve already seen to get our attention. Something like, oh, we dunno, cramming an orchestra into a subway car.

[via Know Your Meme]

Bill Cosby famously had a routine wherein he wondered why his Shelby had a fire extinguisher in the passenger compartment. He clearly did not understand race cars. But what car is more pure, more beautiful. than this:

RIP Carroll Shelby.

“Our Lady of Sorrows, a school run by a breakaway Catholic sect, has forfeited the league’s high school baseball championship rather than put their team up against a squad that includes a girl.” [ThinkProgress]

Hilarity ensues as Eminem learns that his rap-battle opponent attended Mitt Romney’s private school.

And here we were worrying that Mitt was too old to connect with the kids.

[via Mother Jones]