The Women's National Bank, which opened in Washington D.C. in 1977 (the name was changed later to Adams National Bank), was the first federally chartered bank owned by women, and was especially targeted at serving women and minority-owned businesses. My wife and I were charter depositors shortly after the bank opened. We've since moved away from the area, but it looks like the bank is still in business and doing good work. http://www.adamsbank.com/index.html

There may be similar institutions elsewhere in the country.

Wow. This brings back memories. I graduated from Asbury Park High School in 1971, one year behind Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa, who lived in Deal. Wasn't much into the music scene myself and had no awareness of the Upstage; lived a few blocks from the Stone Pony. Remember the riots happening the summer before my senior year. Living in the "nice" part of Asbury Park, between Deal and Sunset Lakes, I recall the police, and National Guard parking their vehicles on the streets near where I lived. When school started that Fall we had no idea what to expect. There was no attempt to have classes at first; no impulse to sweep it all under the carpet. Everyone was allowed to attend an informal meeting in the auditorium, and in those days, long before we had a counselling industry, we somehow managed to talk things through enough to go on with school in short order. That school year, as I remember it, was uneventful for the most part. Not much got rebuilt in the areas affected by the riots. But the boardwalk didn't fall apart all at once, nor did the city and its summer trade. It's a ghost of itself now though, to be sure. I was hoping to see mention of my old friend, Billy Rush, who was in Patti's class and played guitar with Southside Johnny, a few years later, after he dropped out of college. I don't think he ever went to the Upstage but I can't think why not: Maybe he did and never remarked on it. Maybe I was in there once myself and can't remember it.

I offer one small clarification to Glenn Greenwald's article about the New Jersey gay marriage decision. He stated with respect to the state of the law in Massachusetts that "In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriages, but a long-standing Massachusetts law prevents out-of-state gay couples from marrying there."

The statute in question may be long-standing, but it was long unenforced until the state government, at the direction of Governor Mitt Romney (who, perhaps concidentally, has been courting social conservatives in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination) began refusing licenses to out-of-state couples some time after the court decision (and after some out-of-state couples had already been married).

The application of the law has been challenged in court, and the state's highest court has ruled that it applies only when the resident state's law explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage. Last month a Massachusetts trial court ruled that a Rhode Island couple may marry, because the state has no explicit prohibition. Plaintiffs from New York, Connecticut and several other states have been denied.

Maybe there was a some balance there. It seems to me the crack about Obama was more of a joke about Bush, both his difficulty with words and his prediliction to use the apparatus of government to go after political opponents.