Vote for People to be Happy
Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin ("The Most Effective Campaign") pointed out a nice, personal story from the Fresno Bee about a woman in California named Renee DeMusiak. Now, Ms. DeMusiak was what one might call a marriage traditionalist until rather recently when she changed her mind, largely because of her feelings about her boss, Michael, who, by the way, will soon marry his long-time partner John.
Yes, there is a lesson in there about visibility and living out and honesty and all sorts of stuff, but I was most interested in this remark from Ms. DeMusiak after she explained how she's changed her mind, how she hasn't found the right man for herself yet, how happy all the gay couples seem who come into the shop, and how
I know religion is really going to come down on this one, but I just don’t think I can be opposed [to marriage equality] any more. I vote for people to be happy.
What a remarkably refreshing and novel thing to say: "I vote for people to be happy."
It makes you wonder, doesn't it, about all those very self-righteous anti-gay people who want you to vote for their anti-gay marriage amendment to protect something or other that they're not very clear about themselves. Ask yourself: will voting for these self-righteous anti-gay people make them happy? I don't really see it myself, but as I've observed before, they're really only happy when they're miserable.
On the whole, then, voting in favor of marriage equality for same-sex couples can only increase the number of happy people since those sad-sacks are pretty much going to be miserable whatever we do.
"I vote for people to be happy." Who would not vote for people to be happy, really? It's so human, so American, so constitutional!
I think it should be the motto and the campaign: Support Marriage Equality. Vote for People to be Happy!
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week XXXVIII: Every Beard Type
This lovely beard, called an "anchor" style, belongs to Jon Dyer, of dyers.org. I have recently become familiar with the many beards of Mr. Dyer thanks to a pointer from my friend Tim Wilson.
Jon Dyer is clearly a man after my own heart when it comes to an appreciation of beards, with the exception that he can seemingly grow one in any style he pleases.* Witness his epic "The Quest for Every Beard Type", in which he illustrates–with photographs of his own beard on his own face–as many identifiable beard types as he's collected since 1998 or thereabouts.
His story goes like this. Every winter he grows a beard; every spring he shaves it off. For several years, as he's removed his beard, he tries to shape it into as many of the beard types as he can, providing photographic documentation.
I like projects long-term like this, for some reason. At flickr there is one pool/group that fascinates me called "365 Days". Here's the description: "The Challenge: Take one self portrait each day for a year." There are nearly 500,000 photographs in the pool. I love the results. I've always loved portraits, and self-portraits are a particular fascination. There's also something about the challenge of doing one every day for a year: after the first dozen or two the obvious has been exhausted and then the creativity begins. Someday, perhaps, when I feel more attentive, I will do it.
Anyway, I don't really understand shaving off his beard once a year, but since he always grows a beard once a year I don't have any real complaints. One should visit his resourceful beard page for links to the illustrated "Expanded Beard Type Chart" (link above, too), and the FAQ, in which he exposes the weak excuses for what they are of those who refuse to grow their own beards. I don't know that I'd say the illustrated chart shows every beard type but it's a good collection.
His beard page is great fun, entertaining and informative, and sure to help those who just can't figure out how to trim their facial hair. Of course, as we've discussed here before, there may be some controversy over the style labeled "Van Dyke" that some only slightly more anal-retentive than myself believe should be noticeably pointier (i.e., in imitation of van Dyke's beard) to be properly called a "Van Dyke". I, on the other hand, take a slightly less belligerent approach and think that calling it a "Van Dyke" is far, far better than egregiously calling it a "goatee" as so many do these days. I would be ecstatic, of course, if my own suggestion of calling it a "schnauzer" were more widely adopted.
It's been a surprisingly beardy week for friends sending me beard news, not that I'm complaining, of course. I have Mel (The Indextrious Reader) to thank for pointing out to me that Fortune magazine has been running its own contest to identify what they claim is the "best beard" in Silicon Valley. Here is the summary of results and I can't say the results are at all disappointing–Stewart Butterfield looks mighty cute in his beard–although I wouldn't object if an honorable mention went to Zach Nelson for the lovely frosted effect on his schnauzer.
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*I am somewhat more folically constrained, but I have, nevertheless, had a beard for some 25 years, give or take.
The Mystery of the Magenta Icing
Sometimes one provides one's own amusement without even realizing it; perhaps life is more Oscar Wilde-ish than we realize.† Especially with a memory-sieve like my brain, there's always my blog for little surprises and occasional delights.
Yes, it was another google: "how to make magenta frosting". An odd request, certainly, but not beyond making sense of as some are. The mystery taunted me: had I ever actually written about how to make magenta frosting? I'd have thought I'd remember such a thing but no recollection came to mind; however, the google was quite specific that "Spam & Corn Chowder", in this very blog, mentioned magenta icing.
Mystery solved! It was not I but the ever-faaabulous Chris who brought mention of magenta icing in his comment to that article in which he revealed the secret to making "Bishop's Cake", replete with magenta icing!
Naturally I am not going to reveal the secret right here. Wouldn't it be far more fun to try to guess the answer before clicking the link?
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† Of course it's this Wilde that I'm thinking of:
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Perhaps a suitably updated version would be something like this:
Fortunately my blog is online, so I always have something fabulous to read.
In: All, Curious Stuff, Food Stuff
On Reading Despicable Species
Last week I finished reading Janet Lembke's, Despicable Species : On Cowbirds, Kudzu, Hornworms, and Other Scourges (New York : The Lyons Press, 1999. xi + 216 pages, illustrations by Joe Nutt). You might like to read my book note about it.
I like the author's portrait inside the back cover: the gracefully maturing lady with her white hair in a bun and the tiny grin of mischief on her face. She's one of Miss Marple's friends who invites the lady detective to tea and talks about bugs. How charming! Or–wait!–maybe she's the murderess and there's arsenic in the brew.
Ms. Lembke writes with a certain genteel prose but there's nothing soft about her subjects and her writing is fully informed by science despite her blurb's insistence that she is, basically, a literary type. However, I don't see why Shakespeare and taxonomic nomenclature shouldn't get along as she so aptly demonstrates. These essays about those plants and animals most hated by her friends were charming but robust, personal but informative. Be delighted and learn: what a concept!
Here I wanted to share this little poem that Lembke quoted in the essay "Legs: Centipedes".
The centipede was happy quite
Until a toad in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
That worked her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in a ditch,
Considering how to run.— Mrs. Edward Caster, 1871
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Valuing Marriage Like Freedom
Marriage won't be worth less because more can take part in it.
— Anniken Huitfeldt, Norwegian Family Issues minister, upon introducing a parliamentary measure that would make marriage laws gender neutral in Norway, recently passed by a vote of 84 votes to 41
[quoted in "Marriage Equality for Norway", Joe.My.God, 11 June 2008.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Best Seller: Worst Writing
As you know, aside from all the science books I write about here, I also read crime fiction, about which I write much less frequently. Last night I finished the collection of short stories called A New Omnibus of Crime, edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert, contributing editors Sue Grafton and Jeffrey Deaver (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005, 434 pages). It's a pretty solid collection representing quit a few big names in the genre. However, it seemed a little low-key compare to the Best American Mystery Stories series, edited by Otto Penzler.
But talking about the book, which I think is a good read, is not my point of the moment. Rather, I want to make fun of one of the authors represented: Jeffrrey Deaver. His story "Copycat" appears as the last offering in the book.
Indulging in a bit of synecdoche I sometimes let Jeffrey Deaver serve as an example of the things I generally don't like in the best-seller writing of best-selling thriller writers. I hope Mr. Deaver doesn't take it personally, but that seems unlikely since he is, and has been for some time, a best-selling author without my help.
Usually, with the best-sellers, it's a matter of the writing. Plots are often thrilling and fast-paced despite being frequently a bit outlandish. However, with some, the plots can be so excitingly propelled that I can overlook occasional inelegancies in the writing.
One the other hand, there's Mr. Deaver, whose plot points often beg my credulity* and don't get it. In realistic fiction I really expect the world that the characters inhabit to follow the same physical laws as the world of the reader. It also helps if the characters occasionally exhibit some credible motivation for their actions, but this does demand that there be some credible characterization to work with and that is not so common in Mr. Deaver's writing. Alas, the poor characterization is not salvaged by the scintillating and natural-sounding dialog of the characters, of which there is none to be read.
Then there's the writing. One of the quickest indicators of irritating best-seller writing that I know of is the one-sentence paragraph as punch line, something to add a little dash of spice to the previous, tasteless paragraph of prose. I can usually look through the first 10 or 15 pages of a novel and spot a potential irritant with great accuracy using this one-sentence-paragraph indicator.
But wait! There's more. It was only upon reading this story "Copycat", which did display many of the plot and characterization deficiencies already noted, that I was reminded of a couple of further best-selling irritants.
First off, the verbless fragment [this is the entire sentence, which is to say all of the words that came between its beginning and the full stop]:
Twenty minutes from town, driving at twice the posted limit. [p. 413]
Necessarily, I suppose, the verbless fragment also travels without its subject, making it exceedingly difficult for the reader to figure out what the sentence is about or trying to express. Were the main characters twenty minutes from down and driving at the indicated speed? Where they there and merely wondering how long it would take to reach town? Was the author merely trying out an interesting to say how far it was to town should the characters decide to drive there? Was someone standing by the side of the road singing this song?
Do you imagine that perhaps it just takes too long for someone facing the urgencies of finishing his next best-selling manuscript to type sentences complete with verbs? Maybe it's not the typing but the time consumed in thinking of some suitable verb that cannot be afforded?
I get the feeling that writing like this is supposed to express gritty realism and fast-paced action, but it sure slows me down.
Next, consider this amazing bit of stage direction:
Thanking him, Carter's wife folded the paper up and set it aside with the stiff gesture of someone who has no interest in memorabilia about a difficult episode in one's life. [p. 415]
Woo hoo! Do you suppose this is a best-seller example of "show, don't tell"? I try to imagine how the actor would respond who found this in the stage direction of a playscript. How to distinguish this particular stiff gesture from, say, the stiff gesture of someone with a modest interest in memorabilia about a difficult episode in one's life. Or, from the stiff gesture of someone who has no interest in memorabilia about the good episodes in one's life? Does this stiff gesture actually work for all memorabilia or merely for printed ephemera about a difficult episode in one's life? What about gestures that are not quite stiff but more on the firm side, or ever so slightly dismissive? What if the actor accidentally cast it aside, or threw it aside, or merely dropped it–would the whole sense of the drama be derailed?
I find it curious that I didn't notice any such distractions in the first 400 pages of the book.
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*In the one novel of his that I can remember bothering to finish, I was continually amazed at how he expected cell phones to work even underground in a remote area certain to be a hundred miles from the nearest cell tower.
In: All, Books, Crime Fiction, Writing
New Castle, Delaware
This past February (which is to say, in 2008) we took a small excursion to visit our friends Tom & James, who live in Bear, Delaware. While we were there we had a small outing to New Castle, Delaware, where I took pictures.
New Castle has a colonial origin, founded in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant. This historic section of town was replete with colonial houses and views onto the Delaware River. Here's a map if you want to follow along.
We parked our car on Delaware Street, between 2nd Street and The Strand. The area is small, eminently walkable, and it was a very pretty day despite it's being February.
We sauntered a bit on Delaware Street before we decided that we'd take a stroll down The Strand to see a whole bunch of colonial houses. We only went along about two, maybe three short blocks, but there were lots of houses with personality, a little garden, hidden views, and several interesting doorways.
After that we went further down Delaware Street and on out to the Wharf, which justs out into the Delaware River. There were lots of picturesque views: a pedestrian walkway that looked so evocative in silhouette, some grasses in mud that I just couldn't take my eyes off of, patterns in the brickwork, and dramatic views of the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
The Delaware Memorial Bridge is a double-span suspension bridge that connects Delaware and New Jersey. It has some record as the longest or highest this or that, but now I can't find the reference. The first span was built in 1951, the second only in 1968. It made for a nice view upriver.
There also was a nice chance to take a few pictures of Tom & James, and then Tom wielded the camera and took a few pictures of me & Isaac.
It made for a pleasant afternoon, a bit of history, and some nice photographs.
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Barry Byrne & Turners Cross, Ireland
You may recall that I wrote recently about our new photo album with photographs of St. Benedict's Abbey Church in Atchison, Kansas. It was a gorgeous building and fun to take pictures of, it was so photogenic.
You may recall further that when I tried to find more information about the building and its designer, very few webpages answered the call. The best was TurnersCross.com, whose main reason for being is to inform and delight with photographs and prose about the Church of Christ the King, the parish church for Turners Cross, Cork, Ireland. The architect of that building, as for St. Benedict's church, was Barry Byrne (1883-1967), who worked in Chicago. It is possible to find a bit more information about Mr. Byrne on the web, once you know that he was the architect of the abbey church at St. Benedict's.
Anyway, TurnersCross was my best source for satisfying my curiosity about Byrne and also provided a wonderful chance to see more of his work in a photo gallery called "Architecture of Barry Byrne", the best source you'll find of photographs documenting his work. His designs are inspiring. He gets classified by some as a "Prairie Architect", he studied once with Frank Lloyd Wright it seems. The Art Deco influences are clear and he developed those stylistic influences in ways that I find very handsome.
I was grateful to TurnersCross.com for the photographs and helpful information, and I was emboldened to write to the given contact address and offer my photographs of St. Benedict's Abbey Church to add to their gallery, since they had rather few pictures of that church.
I am pleased as punch to report that the webmaster of the site, who seems quite passionate about Byrne's work and was a very friendly correspondent, has added a number of my photographs to the gallery for "St. Benedicts Abbey, Atchison, Kansas (1951-1957)". They look quite splendid there.
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook, The Art of Conversation
Spam Art
We all hate spam. Especially, by now, those silly appeals from Mr. What's-His-Name who wishes to join with us in confidence so that he can transfer some gazillion unclaimed dollars from his native country into a US bank, thus making us rich for doing nothing much whatsoever.
Don't you sometimes wish you could take that useless piece of spam and…and…make something beautiful from it!
This is precisely what Marian Bantjes has done with a drawing she made. As she says about the work, called "Spam One":
This drawing was made for the centerfold of the Vancouver Review, and is created verbatim from a spam email (you know the kind).
It's lovely to behold, and it seems so right.
I might point out that I saw this drawing because of a new-to-me blog carnival called "Cabinet of Curiosities".
Spelling with Flickr
Isn't this fun!
There is, it seems a one-letter group at Flickr. It is, therefore, possible to spell things with letter-photos from that group. It can even be automated, which is exactly what Erik Kastner (blog) did with his "Spell with Flickr" online generator. Just type in a word and there it is! Don't like a letter, click for another one.
It's a fun way to waste some time.
Living in History
I am not totally immune to the excitement of living in history, even if it is political–at least at the moment. Yes, it was quite extraordinary that the main contenders for the Democratic nomination for president were a black man and a white woman. Exciting even.
I have to admit, though, that I didn't find myself thinking much about the black man versus white woman aspect. Maybe I'm so polarized that they looked to me like the straight person versus the straight person, although I'd prefer to think it's because it didn't really matter that much to me, that I don't care so much about whether the candidate is female or not-white. It seems, however, that a lot more people are a lot more bothered than I'd realized.
As you know I get most of my political news second- or third- or more-hand, and it suits me better; it serves pretty well to filter the loud, hysterical, but mostly ephemeral controversies that are quickly manufactured and then disappear almost as quickly. I was, nevertheless, a bit disturbed by some of what I was reading today about people, good, American, liberal people, who just could not bring themselves to vote for Obama because "it just wouldn't feel right".*
It seemed that if the interlocutor discussing the situation with such commenters scratched the surface a little deeper, it finally became clear that said speaker found "it just wouldn't feel right" because s/he simply could not come to grips with the idea of a black man as president.
Naive I am I suppose, but I think I was shocked to realize that. What's more, there seemed to be lurking fears that we, the country, dare not elect a black man because, you know, there might be pay-back. That's right, Obama is apparently seen as the thin end of the negro fifth-column wedge that has been biding its time until it could take over the US government and finally do something to punish white America for slavery and oppression and all the other guilt-trips that keep white-supremacists awake at night. This attitude apparently lies behind the more prosaic "it just wouldn't feel right" for those to whom the idea of somehow having a black "boss" is anathema.
What's interesting is not the racism–that's just ugly and unacceptable–but the veiled phrases and code-words used to convey the thoughts, sometimes veiled enough to keep the obvious meaning from feeding back into the brain of the speaker. I suppose this is what, in this cycle, all the talk about "electability" has been about: those for whom voting for a woman "just would feel right" versus those for whom voting for a black man "just wouldn't feel right".
Is it progress that all (or most) of the racism and misogyny become couched in euphemism? In some ways I suppose so, but as an aging gay man I don't have much patience with it, having heard enough people who would, say, never vote for a homosexual because "it just wouldn't feel right". I do take some comfort from public-opinion surveys that tell me I would be far, far less electable as an atheist than I would be as a homosexual.
Perhaps this is what was at the root of all those "analyses" that tried to say Obama was only winning because he was a black man. NB: black man, not black man. As they saw it, it was either black man versus white woman, or black man versus white woman. What a quandary! What stupid analyses!
So many excuses, so little bandwidth. Perhaps I should just go with the solid astrological analysis:
Astrologically speaking, HRC's [i.e., Clinton's] Mars Saturn Pluto is directly overhead in her solar chart, and that means she can never escape from dominant, controlling narcissistic men. Try though she will, she still ends up to be a Scorpio bottom to a Leo top. As for BHO [i.e, Obama], he won't turn out at all to be the solo heroic fireman posing for the photo op in front of a burning building holding a little baby he just saved single-handed. Not with Chiron and Neptune on his South Node in the solar seventh house.
[Michael Lutin, "Hillary and Barack: Wake Up and Start Dreaming", Huffington Post, 5 June 2008.]
Should I find this more reassuring? Racism or science illiteracy–I think I'll take neither.
As for the presidential candidate, one moderate liberal versus another moderate liberal–I think I'll take the moderate liberal.
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*Let's make a quick note of a funny, almost eggcorn-like mutation that I read in this context, where someone, a Hillary fanatic, referred to those on the opposing side as "Obama-files". It could become a thrilling TV series, I suppose. Of course he meant "Obama-phile", but that's a lot less fun than "Obama-file". Unfortunate, it now tags him as yet another liberal illiterate.
In: All, Current Events, Reflections
'Traditional Marriage' Threatened? Nonsense!
In their hysteria to deny all things gay, opponents of marriage equality for same-sex couples make ever more outlandish claims about how we, the gays and lesbians–who in some arguments number so ridiculously few that it's not worth granting the two or three of us equality–are so menacing and all-powerful that we will crush Western civilization and finally manage to wipe all opposing religions off the face of the earth. Away with you! We are the homos! Resistance is futile!
I like to believe–it may even be true–that each addition to the ridiculous list of "reasons" why same-sex couples should be denied any legal legitimacy in their unions, shouted through bullhorns wielded by apoplectic homophobes whose faces have gone from red to purple with their "concern", convinces yet another right-thinking person that those "protectors of [so-called] traditional marriage" are, indeed, off their God-fearing rocker and that the nice boys next door should get married because you know the reception would be just fabulous. Remember Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald.
Anyway, this excerpt from an opinion piece sounds to me exactly like such a right-thinking person who, before now, hadn't thought all that much about marriage equality for same-sex couples but is now exasperated beyond measure by the irritating, reactionary hysteria. And so he writes with some heat about getting over it and getting on with life and the business of being America.
And the arguments against gay marriage are eroding. While critics say it destroys the institution of marriage, there's no evidence of that. Massachusetts sanctioned gay marriages four years ago, and there have been no reported incidents of straight couples splitting because of it; indeed, the initial furor has died down as people realize this doesn't threaten anyone.
Far more insidious is the 50 percent divorce rate in the U.S. and that a third of all children are born to a single mother; that's three times the rate of four decades ago.
Moreover, the notion that gay marriage steps on the prerogatives of religion is nonsense. No court ruling or proposed statute would require any church, synagogue or temple to perform, or even recognize, such unions.
The charge that it creates a separate right for gays and lesbians is no more convincing than a similar claim in 1948, when a previous California high court knocked down a ban on interracial marriage; 19 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.
[excerpt from Albert R. Hunt, "Gay-Marriage Opponents Divorced From Reality", bloomberg.com, 2 June 2008.]
Send Your Name to the Moon!
NASA is preparing its Lunar-Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. The orbiter is being built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, which interests us because it's not far from here and we have friends who work there. The orbiter is apparently nearing complete and is to be launched no earlier than 24 November 2008. (That sort of launch-date specification may sound odd, but to anyone who's worked on a NASA project it should sound rather sensible.)
The broad goal of the mission is to "prepare for and support future human exploration of the Moon." They're interested in things like locating good landing spots, characterizing the radiation environment (radiation is an obsession with manned-mission planners), charting the terrain of the moon, study the mineralogy, and such things. The website is filled with informative details if you want to know more.
The thing that attracted my attention is the "Send Your Name to the Moon!" gimmick. Fill out the form before 27 June 2008 with your name and they promise to put your name in the spacecraft.*
There is instant gratification too: fill out the form and press the confirmation button and you get an immediate PDF of a "Certificate of Participation". My certificate number is 1179285; Isaac's number is 1179388.
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*One imagines that they will probably "write" the names onto a [radiation hardened!] ROM chip in some form or another, but still, it's the thought that counts, right? Besides, the goal is to generate some enthusiasm, interest, and awareness, so lighten up!
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Beware Rip Currents
Celebrations come and go and I miss remarkably many of them, but I'm not going to let this one slip by.
I just got notice from NOAA* today that 1 through 7 June is "Rip Current Awareness Week". I was a bit startled to learn this, but I don't want to make fun of it either, at least not too much. Rip currents are invisible, scary, and potentially lethal. So, if you're going to be visiting the beach, have a quick look at this page of NOAA tips and information about rip-current safety first.
NOAA tells us: "Rip currents are a deadly threat — accounting for more than 80 percent of lifeguard beach rescues." Thus, rip currents are a far greater threat to life than sharks.†
"Break the Grip of the Rip!"
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*NOAA = "[US] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration". Note that the O-word is "oceanic" and not any number of other possibilities that people often substitute.
†That will serve as our bit of numeracy awareness for the day.
Atchison in Autumn
Last November, which is to say in 2007, we visited my father at his home in Kansas City,* While we were there we took a day trip to Atchison, Kansas, a smallish town in the northeast corner of Kansas on the Missouri river. The Missouri river is what divides Kansas and Missouri there and it's the reason why that little corner of Kansas is so squiggly.
It was a good day for taking pictures, so I did. Here is my Atchison photo album. You might want to follow along.
It was a lovely, sunny day. It was lunchtime when we arrived and there was a Dairy Queen right there, ready to serve us a Brazier burger, something I hadn't had in years. Yumm.
We drove up the hill to the ridge where all the upper-class houses were built. At one end we stopped to see one of Atchison's big points of attraction: the birthplace of Amelia Earhart, probably Atchison's most famous native. The house was an attractive white colonial, nicely kept. A distinctive feature was a sculpture of a greyhound along the front walk. From the front of the house one had a nice view of the bridge that crossed the Missouri River from Atchison.
Not far away from the Earhart House was the campus of Benedictine College, which was next to the grounds of St. Benedict's Abbey; the monks of the abbey operate the college.
I hadn't known that St. Benedict's Abbey was home to an architectural masterpiece, its Abbey Church. The church was finished in 1957 for the abbey's centenary. The design was by Chicago architect Barry Byrne (1883-1967).† It was a magnificent building and a delight to tour. No one was about so we had the entire church to ourselves to look at and contemplate and take pictures of. The light that afternoon flattered the building nicely and we spent a very peaceful time admiring its many beauties, as you will see.
When we left we decided to cross the bridge and drive back to Kansas City along the Missouri side of the river. Along the way I took a number of photos of the countryside, including one very menacing shot I was quite please with featuring a factory silhouette with a very toxic-looking sun in the frame. I was also enchanted by rows of bare trees on ridges–repeatedly–and the usual farm building, plus the occasional water tower.
Our route took us through the little town of Weston, Missouri. Along the main street were some charming old buildings, tobacco barns, and a well-kept old train station.
After we were back on the country highway, and just before the warm afternoon light gave out, we topped a ridge and found the perfect tableau of spreading tree, red farm out-building, and wooded ridge in the background. I like taking pictures of barns in late-afternoon sunlight. It's the final photograph in the album.
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*That's Kansas City, Kansas, please. Admittedly it's far smaller than the across-the-river Kansas City, Missouri, but at least it's named for the state in which it finds itself.
† Finding information online about Barry Byrne was a challenge, but here's a site with an excellent biography, more about St. Benedict's Abbey Church, plus other work by Byrne, including his Church of Christ the King in Turners Cross, Ireland, the main thrust of the website.
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Tea at the Creation Museum
Someone kindly pointed out to me that Faggoty-Ass Faggot recently took a field-trip to the so-called "Creation Museum", not far from Cincinnati. As a result he presents a photographic tour, with commentary. There are fabulous shots of such silly things as the dinosaur with the saddle on, a poster explaining how evolution happened after the Flood, and a diorama of Noah's Ark. Also, not to be missed: the very cute Adam, every repressed homosexuals dream. And don't miss the recreated mini-drama in which the daughter explains to the Mom that thinking there were dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden is "stupid" because "Dinosaurs didn't live at the same time as humans."
We are grateful to F-A F for going in so the rest of us don't have to.
In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Beard of the Week XXXVII: Evo-Devo Again
The beard at right belongs to author Wallace Arthur, Professor of Zoology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. I recently read his excellent book Creatures of Accident : The Rise of the Animal Kingdom (New York, Hill and Wang, 2006. x + 255 pages). Naturally, there's a book note, with a couple of entertaining excerpts. The book, by the way, has its own website.
This is the second book* I've read about evo-devo: "evolutionary developmental biology", sort of embryology informed by genetics and microbiology. Cool stuff, cutting edge, and learning some about it clarifies an unusual amount of evolutionary concepts for me. One key idea is that evolution doesn't operate on adult animals, it operates on developing embryos. That small shift in perspective sheds a lot of light.
Author Arthur takes a delightfully cozy and intimate tone in his book, which I thought was almost like an expanded personal essay at times, and very enjoyable for it. Arthur managed to avoid a number of possibly intimidating details in pursuit of focusing on some central concepts over which he lingered a bit to avoid leaving any readers behind. I thought he did a great job and I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I also didn't mind having a peek at the author's photo inside the back cover occasionally, either.
Arthur set out to write without revealing his biases towards big questions about creation and whether a who or what was responsible for it, and he managed quite well until he got to his chapter called "Big Questions", when he finally revealed himself. The preceding parts of the book had been so gentle that I was a bit surprised by his vehemence, although I wouldn't argue with it in the least.
To research this chapter ["Big Questions"], I did something I had never done before: I visited some Web sites representing creationism in its many guises. This exercise was a revelation indeed, but probably not of the sort that the Webmasters had intended. What I found most striking was the appalling lack of integrity of those concerned. The deliberate misuse of quotations and details from the work of scientists suggested that all honor and honesty had been cast to the four winds. I realized that I was in a different social context from the one I have known and loved for my whole scientific career, where an honest search for the truth is at the heart of things. Instead, I was in a milieu where the dominant ethos was to force acceptance of a particular worldview by any means whatever. No holds barred. not the Spanish Inquisition perhaps, but the intention seemed the same; to stifle freedom of thought. And it mattered not whether I was in the grips of young-earth creationists or intelligent-design proponents. The latter were more slippery and difficult to pin down, but always in the end I found evidence of dishonesty. [p. 226]
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* The first, which I got very excited about, was Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful. You may recall that Sean Carroll's beard was previously a beard of the week. There must be something in the water these biologists are drinking–or is it more obviously something in the genes?
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books
Unmistakable Cracking Sounds
As the California Supreme Court decision outlawing this state's ban on same-sex marriage settles in, we are being treated to the unmistakable cracking sounds of long-held, icy bigotries giving way to a wellspring of justice.
[editorial, "Gay marriage gaining ground", Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2008.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald
I feel a connection of some kind with the current Governor of New York, David A. Paterson. Recently I was in New York for about five days, easily tripling the fraction of my life that I've ever spent there. While I was there the Spitzer Sex Scandal broke, Spitzer resigned, and then Lieutenant-Governor Paterson was elevated. Bill and I watched it all on the TV with bad (cable!) reception in the breakfast room of our B&B.
Governor Paterson is in the news, and being talked about, because of his recent directive to state agencies to revise their regulations to recognize legal, same-sex marriages made elsewhere in the US. Some conservative groups are apparently manufacturing reasons to be outraged.
The New York Times says* that "In doing so, he is stepping to the forefront of an issue that has often tripped up his party nationally, and he is going further than either of the two Democratic presidential candidates have been willing to do." A bit of reporting the obvious, surely, but evidently far from self-evident. To my mind, of course, being bold and doing what's right is what will–unexpectedly, it seems–lead to success for Democratic candidates.
There are plenty of other people upset with the Governor because he sees the black struggle for civil rights and the GLBT struggle for civil rights simply as groups of people looking for respect and equality. Tsk.
In the interview, Mr. Paterson said he believes deeply that gay men and lesbians today face the same kind of civil rights battle that black Americans faced. He acknowledged that this position put him at odds with some black leaders, who bristle at such comparisons.
“In many respects, people in our society, we only recognize our own struggles,” Mr. Paterson said. “I’ve wanted to be someone in the African-American community who recognizes the new civil rights struggle that is being undertaken by gay and lesbian and transgendered people.”
It is a truism in the LGBT community that visibility, living out, is the single most important thing individuals can do to help achieve equality. Whether that's what brought Governor Paterson to his early enlightenment we don't know, but it sure doesn't seem to have hurt:
When David A. Paterson was growing up and his parents would go out of town, he and his little brother would stay in Harlem with family friends they called Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald.
Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald, he said, were a gay couple, though in the 1960s few people described them that way. They helped young David with his spelling, and read to him and played cards with him.
“Apparently, my parents never thought we were in any danger,” the governor recalled on Thursday in an interview. “I was raised in a culture that understood the different ways that people conduct their lives. And I feel very proud of it.”
We note that it's all said without scare-quotes around the word 'uncle'.
We hear how the Governor talks about "the civil rights struggle", an idea that embraces all citizens.
Mr. Paterson said he does not see his support for gay marriage as an issue of political fortitude, but rather something more human and almost reflexive.
“All the time when I’d hear Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald and my parents talk, they were talking about the civil rights struggle,” Mr. Paterson said. “In those days, I knew I wanted to grow up and feel that I could change something.”
For that we can all thank Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald.
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*Jeremy W. Peters and Danny Hakim, ("How Governor Set His Stance on Gay Rights", New York Times, 30 May 2008.
In: All, Faaabulosity, Reflections
The Inevitability of Marriage Equality
Normally I try to practice what I preach, at least when it comes to giving attention to right-wing media personalities. Instead of jumping up and down and pointing excitedly at each instance of their reactionary excess, I prefer to turn the other way. My theory is that they will wilt without the nourishment of the attention they thrive on. Of course, it could just be avoidance on my part. Either way, though, I'm generally more content.
But–hey!–everyone around me seemed to be talking about this episode (e.g., see it at The Brad Blog, "VIDEO: Even O'Reilly Appears to Finally be Surrendering to Marriage Equality…") from whatever program that features Bill O'Reilly. Here he's talking with some opponent of marriage equality about the situation in California following that state's Supreme Court recent ruling on the subject.
It was kind of interesting. O'Reilly says something like "I think if you're going to win this thing in California [referring to a proposed referendum on a California Constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage], you're going to have to come up with a reason that goes beyond the religious." His interlocutor tried for several minutes, and the best reason on offer what that "it would change the definition of 'marriage'." Even O'Reilly thought that not reason enough.
What struck me most about the clip was the sense of inevitability in O'Reilly's attitude. It was all said as though there's no stopping it, that perhaps it wasn't such a big deal to begin with.
And you know what? It's not a big deal, except to those few of us to whom it is a big deal. I know: it's largely (but far from solely) symbolic for gays and lesbians to have marriage equality, and its symbolic for our foes. However, I can't help feeling that it's only become important to our opponents because it's important to us. I don't think they can really, really care that much that Isaac and I would like to get married and share property rights and hospital-visitation rights as the guaranteed product of our relationship.
I suspect that most people in the US now believe that marriage equality for same-sex couples in this county is inevitable even if they won't admit it to themselves. For the past few years I've listened to opponents try to score point after point, each shot missing the target. When backed up against the blank wall of no more arguments, a surprising number of them have whined "but it's too fast!" Odd, that. "Too fast" accepts the inevitable but hopes to forestall the inevitable for some reason.
"It would change the definition."
I keep thinking of the US Constitution. It promised a vote for every citizen. When it was ratified, "citizen" meant landholders, predominantly white men. As time has passed–and with a sense of belated inevitability–we have redefined "citizen" to include all sorts of people not originally included in the definition. This has been seen as a good thing, albeit at times long after the fact for some.* (Yes, I realize the ambiguity in the preceding sentence, but it works for me.)
You know I'm not a Christian, and I hate to do their PR work for them, but just imagine if a number of marriage-equality opponents got together and announced one day that, in view of Jesus' injunction to "love thy neighbor as thyself", and realizing that their neighbors are gay and lesbian, they now embrace full marriage equality for every loving couple because–there's no good reason not to! Such approbation they would earn it would advance their political agenda to an alarming degree. But then, I think the barrier to embracing the inevitable rather than grudgingly accepting it may be too high for those who could most benefit. So they press on, opposing, with all their might, equality for their gay and lesbian neighbors because–"it would change the definition".
I think it's time for me to remind everyone, once again, that my blog's motto,
Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire
(It is no disgrace to pass on to better things.)
was originally an argument–made in the fourth century by the Christian St. Ambrose–in favor of accepting Christianity.
Sure, allowing marriage equality for every loving couple will change the definition of "marriage", a little bit. It will take some getting used to, but not that much. To my mind it will improve the definition of "marriage" and, in my opinion and that of St. Ambrose, nullus pudor est ad meliora transire.
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* The irreverent memory comes from an episode of "Fawlty Towers". Basil and Sybil have just shared a moment fighting a common enemy, an intransigent guest. Basil sighs and says, "You remember, Sybil: we use to laugh quite a lot." She answers, a bit briskly, "Yes, but never at the same time, Basil."