Fain would I wed
Some amusing arguments against gay marriage…
If you have a cognitively-challenged underclass, as every large nation has, you need some anchoring institutions for them to aspire to; and those institutions should have some continuity and stability. Heterosexual marriage is a key such institution. In a society in which nobody had an IQ below 120, homosexual marriage might be plausible. In the actual societies we have, other considerations kick in.
It is difficult to decide where to begin in pulling this apart.
To accept the basic oh-so-flawless premises here, though, wouldn’t it be simpler to explain the simple idea of marriage (1) to the “cognitively-challenged” (ah, the conservative exploits political correctness to avoid letting his audience know he means them!) - rather than the idea of sex-restricted marriage (2)? Count the words in my explanations of them:
- two people who love each other getting together in a legal union
- two people who love each other getting together in a legal union. If you love someone of the “opposite” gender to you then this applies. If you love someone of a similar gender to you then you’re excluded. If you’re transgendered, consider yourself ignored.
Surely the first one, where gender is irrelevant, is a lot simpler to explain to the “cognitively-challenged”?
The actual argument here appears to boil down to this, though:
- If everyone was smart, people could marry whoever they want.
- Not everyone is smart.
- People should only be able to marry one another if my friends and I want them to.
Don’t we elect smart people to ensure that democracy does not mean idiocracy? It is frightening to imagine this lack of logic passing for argument.
Moving on:
Human nature exists, and has fixed characteristics.
Source? Just gonna go ahead and give this sentence the “anti-diversity” seal of approval.
We are not infinitely malleable.
*cough* How did we evolve?
Human society and human institutions need to ”fit” human nature, or at least not go too brazenly against the grain of it.
If there is a human nature (some kind of average of the way that people do things across the board), then human institutions are an extension of it, an aspect of the cultural components to our evolution. That something is “natural” - say, rape, murder: presumably components of human nature as they pop up again and again - must mean that our institutions need to “fit” that something. This is precisely why no nation on earth has ever criminalised murder.
Homophobia seems to be a rooted condition in us.
Yes. Not innately, though. But because when we grow up we see heterosexuals prized over homosexuals - in the same way that we see colonists prized over indigenous peoples, Europeans prized over Africans, the rich prized over the poor, men prized over women, the abled prized over the disabled - we develop an instituationalised homophobia. Again, natural != moral, Thomas Aquinas.
It has been present always and everywhere, if only minimally (and unfairly — there has always been a double standard here) in disdain for “the man who plays the part of a woman.”
Okay, so it’s unfair. Thank you. Notice misogyny here, not to mention the ignorance of lesbianism. Oh, and the prizing of homosexuality in, say, settings in Ancient Greece, the pre-Colombian Americas, the Pacific Islands, Japan pre-Europeanisation …
There has never, anywhere, at any level of civilization, been a society that approved egalitarian (i.e. same age, same status) homosexual bonding.
WHERE HAS THERE BEEN A SOCIETY THAT APPROVED EGALITARIAN HETEROSEXUAL BONDING? Marriage in the Western tradition is a contractual thing, an extension of property rights. Nothing egalitarian about that.
This tells us something about human nature — something it might be wisest (and would certainly be conservative-est) to leave alone.
Great. Be a conservative. Ignore the facts and ignore the chance to improve your world. Why even get out of bed?
They are pressing forward, here, there and everywhere, in all the zones that girdle the globe. Everywhere these awakening workers, these class-conscious proletarians, these hardy sons and daughters of honest toil are proclaiming the glad tidings of the coming emancipation, everywhere their hearts are attuned to the most sacred cause that ever challenged men and women to action in all the history of the world. Everywhere they are moving toward democracy and the dawn; marching toward the sunrise, their faces all aglow with the light of the coming day. These are the Socialists, the most zealous and enthusiastic crusaders the world has ever known. They are making history that will light up the horizon of coming generations, for their mission is the emancipation of the human race. They have been reviled; they have been ridiculed, persecuted, imprisoned and have suffered death, but they have been sufficient to themselves and their cause, and their final triumph is but a question of time.
What … happened … ?
This seems to still be happening, right? “Here, there and everywhere” … but without such fervour. Maybe there’s an eclipse or something, something to keep their faces from being “all aglow with the light of the coming day”. Maybe the moon of diversionary capitalism, graced with advertising, marketing and mass media, is blocking that light - or at least refracting it and making it harder for each “zealous and enthusiastic crusader” to see their ranks swelling.
But swell their ranks do, as each mind, each body, each family and each nation feels the wounds made against them by the continual abrasions of capitalism. The torments continue, but they only make the alarm clock ring more loudly to wake up the sleeping workers.
Kruschev is remembered for screaming “we will bury you” - but more to the point is that when capitalism builds itself on capital created by workers and then weakens and erodes the workers, its foundations, it will bury itself.
Meanwhile, tempus fugit …
I hope Susan Boyle is OK because she is a really, really nice person and I think she will do well.
Such a relief the British PM can use logic.
- Susan Boyle is a really, really nice person.
- I think Susan Boyle will do well.
- Therefore, I hope Susan Boyle is OK.
Why doesn’t he just hope she’s OK because she’s a person? Or, more pertinently, because he’s a person? Is how well he thinks she’ll do relevant to any of this?
Sorry about the questions, but this comment seemed needlessly infantile. What I would’ve said if I were possessing Gordon Brown:
Susan Boyle gives me wood. She’s the reason I have to wash the sheets after every dream I have. I hope she’s OK.
I feel as though I no longer have any idea of what OK is used to mean.
Nella cucina!
Finally I’m back in my kitchen. I’ve decided to put recipes on here every now and then of things I fiddle around with to perfection. Note that I REALLY like garlic so you may find some of them a little noxious if you’re unused to lots of the stuff.
My new favourite way to cook broccoli per se
- Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius.
- Cut florets off the stalk of a broccoli head - quite chunky.
- Lay out on an oven tray/baking dish one layer thick.
- Toss over 5ish cloves of garlic, sliced and a fair bit of good quality olive oil, smoked Maldon sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper.
- Pop in the oven for 20 mins or so until some of the florets are starting to get a wee bit brown.
- Toss broccoli with the grated zest of a lemon and its juice, a fair helping of parmesan and a bit more olive oil.
Makes a good meal on its own if you’re like me - to bulk it up, add some fresh baby spinach or garbanzo (ceci) beans (chickpeas). Très bon when you’re in a bind or have eaten lots in a day but haven’t got much iron/calcium/greenery.
As a sidebar (without a sidebar formatting-wise, you’ll be glad to note), broccoli is a far better source of calcium than is milk. In the words of a friend of mine,
You ask kids in New Zealand where you get calcium and they say “milk”.
You ask kids in Sweden where you get calcium and they say “broccoli”!
Mind you, he is a little obsessed with Scandinavia. Like I always say, it’s great they do so well for their poor - but it’s a fair pity their economies and their social democracies can only function thanks to their monopoly on the third world. Iceland excluded, for various reasons.
But, gracias a EDTA inter alia, it’s pretty hard to get any calcium from dairy products - indeed some (currently uncited) evidence suggests that dairy products encourage calcium to leach from one’s bones. Broccoli’s a far better source of calcium - so I wonder why in NZ everybody thinks milk’s the one … Oh, yeah, the insanely evil dairy industry upon which our economy’s based may have something to do with it.
So eat your broccoli! This way’s even more delicious than having it steamed with mirin, mushrooms, coriander and soba.
The man’s paternity is being violated
Armando Martinez, president of the College of Catholic Lawyers (Mexico), on a new law passed by the federal district government of Mexico City making abortion legal during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion is generally illegal elsewhere in Mexico with exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is a result of rape. Apparently the law’s “discriminatory” because the foetus’ father “has no say”.
No, Armando, he doesn’t have a say. But then he’s only contributed a few minutes of physical exertion to the foetus - not 9 months of a crazy body, a hell of a lot of physical and mental pain and upwards of 20 years of obligation to a child.
Corporationstate
via ►:
Microsoft bloqueó el acceso de todos los usuarios de los países embargados por Estados Unidos que quieran utilizar su servicio de mensajería instantánea[,] lo que significa que Cuba, Siria, Irán, Sudán y Corea del Norte no podrán utilizarlo.
Odd evidence suggests that Microsoft cares more about propping up US imperialism than about its own revenue. Or its advertisers do. Or maybe the US government’s just worked out a tasty deal. At any rate, los cybernautos reciben este error:
810003c1: We were unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service.
Microsoft has discontinued providing Instant Messenger services in certain countries subject to United States sanctions. Details of these sanctions are available from the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control.
A little bizarre, but such is la red. ► notes that
[e]sto es un claro ejemplo de que en la red no existe la libertad que muchos dicen y que esta libertad puede tranquilamente verse reducida gracias a empresas de gran poder como en este caso es Microsoft.
And it’s true - the commodification of information means that the corporation is king even in the world of ideas.
Knowledge is power.
Further, in the words of one such cybernaut:
Arriba el protocolo Jabber!!!
Ya debería ser algo por defecto, esperemos que de el salto que merece en cantidad de usuarios.
Peace
So, this happened:
Victoria University in Wellington has temporarily banned three students for burning a New Zealand flag on campus.
The students burnt the flag outside a campus bar on May 6 as part of an Anzac Day anti-war protest.
The university has disenrolled flag burners Joel Cosgrove and Alistair Reith, and Ian Anderson, who filmed the protest, until the end of the first trimester on June 7 on the grounds they breached health and safety standards.
It also issued a written warning to Marika Pratley, who was there at the time, and banned all four from the Mount Street bar.
“These students have shown a disregard for the safety of others and of university property,” dean of humanities and social sciences Professor Deborah Willis said.
[…]
The students said the 20-second flag burning happened outside in the rain and was not a danger to anyone.
Damn university. How does an inanimate object “issue[] a written warning” or “ban[]” people?
I did this:
Dear Dr Willis,
I am writing in response to the recent action on the part of Victoria University of disenrolling Joel Cosgrove, Alistair Reith and Ian Anderson.
While I understand you feeling the need to perform some response to these students’ actions, I feel that the university’s actions are disproportionate to what Cosgrove, Reith and Anderson did and urge you to reconsider your position. The burning of the New Zealand flag, admittedly a fairly provocative gesture, was performed to draw attention to the students’ message of the barbarism and futility of war - and the idea that celebrating war “heroes” fuels damaging patriotism and nationalism. This message is surely not at odds with the university - and even if it were the message is one sent by three people (affiliated with the university solely by the money they pay it) and not intended to be viewed as one sent by the university. As such, it is fair for the university to distance itself from the students’ actions; but given that these actions were not reported in a particularly public arena, this seems unnecessary.
As far as condemning the actions on the grounds of health and safety, I struggle to see how the flag burning was dangerous. The flag constituted a fairly small amount of fuel which was burned with several people around who were well-prepared to deal with the fire if it somehow grew out of hand. Grew out of hand, that is, despite the fire being lit in the rain, outside and on a soaking wet balcony. It would take an extremely proficient arsonist to effect any significant fire under those circumstances. Further, given that there were no others near the burning flag, it seems incredibly difficult to imagine the fire hurting anybody.
I fail to imagine how disenrolling these students can help the university or send any positive message on behalf of VUW. I urge you to reverse this action, given the scale of their “crime” and the lack of grounds on which the punishment was based.
Yours faithfully,
Asher Norris
Concerned VUW student.
Good luck to you three - it’s a pity you won’t be allowed to drink at Mt St though.
You are who you give birth to.
via five thirtyeight:
Warner (1991) and Warner and Steel (1999) study American and Canadian mothers and fathers. The authors’ key finding is that support for policies designed to address gender equity is greater among parents with daughters. This result emerges particularly strongly for fathers.
I’m a little suspicious about the research methods, but this is rather interesting. The findings don’t really seem surprising, as people I meet who “don’t know any gay people” in general are a lot more ignorant of what it is to be gay and as such tend to express more homophobia. Similarly, the people in my theatre class who haven’t met any transpeople don’t have any problem voicing massively-transphobic opinions - “You can’t really change your sex if it’s what you were born as” etc..
Raising someone, though, is a far more intense relationship than “knowing” or “having met” someone - so the differences in tolerance, acceptance and understanding are correspondingly more extreme in the case of parents.
The actual paper is here.
… I wonder whose minds (and politics) I’ve broadened in my time.
Women’s rights round-up; or, ad feminam
First - firsts, three:
- Dalia Grybauskaitė is elected as President of Lithuania. The Thatcher of the East. The Shipley of the North. The (Indira) Gandhi of the West. Anyway, now the Lithuanians get to say “women hold the most powerful economic/political positions in our country. Feminism is no longer needed.”
- Kuwait sees its parliamentiary elections usher in four (4 [iv]) women MPs. A first, a second, a third and a fourth for Kuwaiti women’s rights. Still, the PM’s the emir’s nephew and the parliament is essentially a religious institution. BUT…
The master’s tools will never tear down the master’s house.
¡Viva la revolución! - Ruth Padel is “elected” (read: drawn out in an Oxbridgian raffle, kind of how they decide on the next Pope) to the post of the Oxford Professor of Poetry, the first woman to have this done to her. She’s crazy looking which is kinda refreshing:
Mind you, she is English. As you probably guessed, my cynicism extends hither also; she probably only got the post because of the sexual harrassment charges levied against her competition. Whether true or not, they’re conceivable. That said, I wouldn’t mind Byron, cad that he was, having a post like this. Hmm. To Virginia then:
“Without those forerunners, Jane Austen and the Brontes and George Eliot could no more have written than Shakespeare could have written without Marlowe, or Marlowe without Chaucer, or Chaucer without those forgotten poets who paved the ways and tamed the natural savagery of the tongue. For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.”
Ruth, don’t forget your mothers. You’ll never be told not to forget Shakespeare, Milton, Sophocles, Wordsworth, Shelley, Pope … But you may just need to be told not to forget Eliot, Sand, and Jane, Charlotte and Emily.
- Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Meanwhile, in Iowa, a prison inmate gives birth in her cell. Alone.
“Around 7 a.m., a guard came in and asked me if I wanted breakfast. I was crying and holding my stomach and said that I needed a nurse, but he only said, ‘Do you want breakfast or not?’
“And that’s when it hit me — I’m going to have this baby on my own.”
The beat goes on …
How to win a civil war -
- Kill the other chaps’ figurehead.
- Call the other chaps terrorists.
- Use the word “liberation”.
- Pretty much ignore human rights.
Go you, Sri Lanka.
In other news, the revolution will never die … “The more there are riots, the more repressive action will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.” Ta, MLK.
Page 1 of 2
