Also, Ann, we've taken back "chicks" around here. We love it. We're about to do the [9th Annual JFP Chick Ball][1] -- this year to fight sex trafficking. ;-)

[1]: http://www.jfpchickball.com

It's hard to be worse than filing them on Election Day unless you don't file at all, or try not to, which we've seen as well.

Your comment was at least interesting until you mentioned "The Fountainhead," darryl. Seriously?

I just talked to our staff photographer. He's changing it right now. It is inappropriate, and we apologize. Thanks for pointing it out, justjess.

I'm not sure, either, justjess. I'm checking.

Ann, our editorial board makes endorsement decisions: that's our publisher, me and three other editorial folks. And if you knew my life/business partner, Todd, as well as I do, you'd understand that we have nothing like that situation you describe here.

Todd and I both believe in balanced approaches, and we're also not socialists, to be frank. (We call ourselves "small-business free enterprisers" or "libertarians until it gets stupid or mean"--which is often does very quickly.)

One of the biggest problems we had with Lumumba, ideological uncertainly aside, was the fact that he didn't turn his campaign finance reports in until weeks late. One arrived at the city clerk's office on Election Day. This does not send a good message -- either about organization or taking public transparency seriously. I'm all for creative ideas to help make the playing ground more level in our city and to lift people out of poverty and to protect their rights, but ignoring laws set up to ensure public transparency is not the way to get my endorsement.

I said in my editor's note this week that I was concerned about how Lumumba would translate his activism of the past into governance of a capital city, which really nails why I wasn't comfortable endorsing him. I just don't know how he's going to be as mayor. I hope he's a good mayor, but he was a huge question mark for me.

Thanks, Ann. ;-)

All, a friend asked me to use "sexual orientation" rather than "sexual preference" because she said the latter is derogatory. I've tweaked my column above per her wishes. However, I do want to make an important point. This is political labeling due to the attacks on homosexuality by political groups who say that it is a "choice," not "biology," and thus should be regulated by the government.

Here is my point: It should not matter whether a human being chooses to love a person of your own gender or that it is your "orientation" to do so. As an American, it should be your right to choose to love or marry a person of your own gender. The government does not belong in those decisions regardless of the *why* or *how*. When I say "preference," it is actually intentional in that sense and certainly not derogatory, although I clearly understand the debate and the reasoning behind not using it. I just consider it very sad and unfortunate that American citizens even have to engage in such an anti-freedom semantics debate.

Wyatt, my intern workshop just brought up this thread as a point of discussion this morning. They found it a helpful critical-thinking tool, so I thank you.

As for "mean-spirited," that may be in the eye of the beholder. I have a folder of columns that both you and your columnists did, talking about both me and the JFP by name in very belittling, shaming ways, even using "liberal" as an epithet. You know the old saying, "If you can't take it, don't dish it out." I can take it. You?

I don't know for sure, Linda. I know that when I asked Jonathan Lee why he didn't run for council first to get municipal experience, he told me that no city council member had ever been elected mayor. If that was true, it no longer is, obviously.