Page 1 Consider (04/21)

Ted Bundy Redux: Boston police have arrested a beefy, blond, 22-year-old medical student in connection with the hotel-room murder of a young woman who offered "massage" services via Craiglist. Philip Markoff of Quincy, Mass., is a second-year student at the Boston University medical school and is (was?) engaged to be married. He and his fiancee, Megan McAllister, have a Web site detailing plans for an August wedding in Long Branch, N.J. ("114 days, 22 hours, 7 minutes and 49 seconds until our wedding date" it boasted when I checked in last night.) The site said he went to the State University at Albany and had volunteered at a local hospital emergency room, where he met his fiancee. (I can already see the made-for-TV movie starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar now.) (True Crime Report)

Bittersweet: The New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes yesterday. And my brother's old home, the East Valley Tribune, nabbed one too, for their expose on Maricopa County, Ariz.'s criminally insane sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Sadly, one of the two reporters on the project as well as my brother -- who edited the story -- were part of the mass layoffs that occurred in January, when the paper was converted into a four-day-a-week freebie and 40 percent of the staff was let go. (AP)

Sticky & Sweet: Listen up, all you franchisees. If you're going to open up an International House of Pancakes in Vermont, you'd better sell real maple syrup. (NYT)

The Empire Strikes Back: A new poll shows that there is broad support for same-sex marriage in New York state, but not for Gov. David Paterson. (365Gay)

Seeing Eurovision: You think Simon Cowell is tough? Try dealing with Vladimir Putin. (NYT)

How Mad Are You? A reality TV show probably isn't the best place to try to see the behavioral differences between people with mental illnesses and people without. (ScienceTimes)

Almost Doesn't Count: I can't even believe even post-Prop 8 people are still clinging on to the notion that it's OK to be a bigot so long as you're just "being honest about your beliefs." As I'm sure you know, that's what Carrie Prejean, aka Miss California, did when asked by Perez Hilton at the Miss USA Pageant about gay marriage, who promptly fell out of the top spot when she indicated that she was an anti-gay nitwit who preferred "opposite marriage." This comment from the related Huffington Post story said it all: (N)ow she knows how it feels to be an also-ran, a second-class, a runner-up. Her sash as second place means about as much as a civil union. It's a cute consolation prize. (Via Jesse on the Brink)

Homophobes for Hookie: Lisa Neff reminds us that it still is far more common to see a teacher punish a student for chewing gum than for verbally harassing a gay student. (365Gay)

Justice Prevails: An appeals court on Monday freed nine gay men who had been convicted of “unnatural acts” earlier this year, in a case that drew international condemnation from human rights groups and foreign governments. Senegal, predominantly Muslim, criminalizes homosexuality like dozens of other African nations. The men were arrested in December at the home of a prominent gay activist and sentenced to eight years in prison. (NYT)

McWeddings: Gays in Ireland are demanding full marriage rights. (Advocate)