OK, I just started using blogger.com (or as I know it historically, blogspot.com, which sounds a FL^3 more sophisticated), and I'm feeling my way around. I feel like I'm cheating when I want to edit a published post even to fix a typo; if I post it, I should be done with it, and shouldn't get to change history. In fact, I just changed this post three times, and if I didn't admit it here, it would go unnoticed.
Anyway, it irks me that I have to figure it out every time, since there's no obvious way to edit. Of course, the tiny little pencil down at the very bottom of the post is what I have to click to edit, how intuitively obvious. Not to me. I guess the easy answer is for me to be completely perfect and never have to edit. Maybe that's why the pencil is so small.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Where's my country, dude?
I like the TV show Better Off Ted. It's one of the funnier things on these days. It makes a variety of cruel and wildly inaccurate jokes about workplaces, harassment policies, scientific research, HIPAA, and human relations. However, it is usually very apparent that these are inaccurate stereotypes for humorous purposes.
I was watching a recent episode online. ABC has done something interesting with optional commentary for the episodes; actors, writers, or other people of interest have written comments that appear alongside the video, which are usually moderately entertaining. For commentary on episode 202, "The Lawyer, The Lemur, and the Little Listener", a pretty entertaining commentary was provided by writer Tim Doyle.
(episode with Tim's commentary)
Near the end of the episode (18:47), the character Linda is facetiously replying to her crazy boss, who is complaining about something, and says mock seriously, "...they make it crazy hard to kill anyone here. I want my country back. Anyway..." A reasonably funny line, hyperbolically making fun of an overused trite line. However... In Tim's commentary at that point, he says, "My favorite joke in the episode (not really a joke, just a reference to "tea party" folks who feel their America slipping away)."
Now, I've never even heard of Tim Doyle before, and far be it from me to determine the entirety of his political views from that comment, and it's hard to read tone into written words. But. If that's what he has in mind, I'm a tad annoyed. "I want my country back" is a sentiment used by an awful lot of different groups. I sure saw plenty of "Dude, where's my country" and "OK, joke's over, bring back the constitution" bumper stickers over the last few years, and I'm pretty sure those people weren't tea partiers. At least Tim didn't put "their America" in quotes as well.
Everyone who's lived long enough feels their America slipping away, there are always changes, and if there's one thing almost all living things have in common, it's that they hate change. Saying that the tea party crowd is the only group with that sentiment isn't accurate; the tea party crowd is merely the latest, and currently loudest. I guess I can't blame Tim Doyle from saying that, it's the best example right now, but it still bugs me the way the label gets slapped.
One more thing while I'm here - calling tax protesters teabaggers. Free speech and all, go ahead. But as the woman whose name I can't remember just demonstrated on CNN, it's tacky and makes you look like a person anonymously screaming on the internet with poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But, it's perfectly your right, when a group of people self identifies themselves with a tag, to call them something insulting instead. Isn't that what liberals believe in? I know feminists, homosexuals, and people of all races and religions accept that as their due for merely existing and trying to be part of something larger.
I was watching a recent episode online. ABC has done something interesting with optional commentary for the episodes; actors, writers, or other people of interest have written comments that appear alongside the video, which are usually moderately entertaining. For commentary on episode 202, "The Lawyer, The Lemur, and the Little Listener", a pretty entertaining commentary was provided by writer Tim Doyle.
(episode with Tim's commentary)
Near the end of the episode (18:47), the character Linda is facetiously replying to her crazy boss, who is complaining about something, and says mock seriously, "...they make it crazy hard to kill anyone here. I want my country back. Anyway..." A reasonably funny line, hyperbolically making fun of an overused trite line. However... In Tim's commentary at that point, he says, "My favorite joke in the episode (not really a joke, just a reference to "tea party" folks who feel their America slipping away)."
Now, I've never even heard of Tim Doyle before, and far be it from me to determine the entirety of his political views from that comment, and it's hard to read tone into written words. But. If that's what he has in mind, I'm a tad annoyed. "I want my country back" is a sentiment used by an awful lot of different groups. I sure saw plenty of "Dude, where's my country" and "OK, joke's over, bring back the constitution" bumper stickers over the last few years, and I'm pretty sure those people weren't tea partiers. At least Tim didn't put "their America" in quotes as well.
Everyone who's lived long enough feels their America slipping away, there are always changes, and if there's one thing almost all living things have in common, it's that they hate change. Saying that the tea party crowd is the only group with that sentiment isn't accurate; the tea party crowd is merely the latest, and currently loudest. I guess I can't blame Tim Doyle from saying that, it's the best example right now, but it still bugs me the way the label gets slapped.
One more thing while I'm here - calling tax protesters teabaggers. Free speech and all, go ahead. But as the woman whose name I can't remember just demonstrated on CNN, it's tacky and makes you look like a person anonymously screaming on the internet with poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But, it's perfectly your right, when a group of people self identifies themselves with a tag, to call them something insulting instead. Isn't that what liberals believe in? I know feminists, homosexuals, and people of all races and religions accept that as their due for merely existing and trying to be part of something larger.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
New Jersey Gay Marriage
I'm a little slow on this one, it happened a week or two ago. The New Jersey legislature voted down a bill that would have provided official recognition to gay marriage. The typical comments were made on blog sites that I cruise, i.e. how does this make my marriage safer, how can the legislators be so out of touch with the populace, Fox News, Republicans, all the usual stuff.
A few thoughts on that, some are mine, some are what I think that other people think, I'm not saying which is which -
How out of touch are the legislators, really? They got elected, presumably fairly, right? If they aren't truly representing, vote for someone else next time. It's on the opposite side of the country, in all the ways you can think of, but the referendum in California on the subject seems to have shown that neither side has the convincing majority that they seem to think they should, if only people had the slightest bit of sense.
Marriage has already become cheap enough, being treated as if it's dispensable. Couples don't get married because they don't care, couples rush into and out of marriage because they don't care, people cheat on their marriage vows because they don't care. "Defense of marriage" is the idea that marriage is one of the most significant committments that people can make, that serious married relationships are good for societal stability, and telling people that their marriage counts the same as one they don't respect hurts an important pillar of civilization.
Now for my skewed view of the history of marriage -
As was pointed out on the judgemental monkey show on Durham, NC public access cable (I don't know the guy's name or what he calls the show), the modern idea of marriage for love is a pretty recent (last 100-200 years) concept. If you had money or royal status, marriages were arranged for political and power reasons, and the kids didn't get a say in it. They did it for the good of the family, the man and woman each understood that the other didn't have a say in it, and they made the best of it. Some worked better than others. But, they produced heirs, they kept the family line going, they kept the money and power in the right place, and that was the point.
If you didn't have money or status, you got married to whoever was handy, and marriages were usually still arranged by the parents, to try and create a stable union that would benefit the family. A man needed a wife to bear children for him, so that as he got old, they could help him in his labors, eventually taking over, and taking care of him in his dotage so he didn't starve to death. A woman needed a man to support her, because there were very limited options for a woman to make a decent living (they could do it, but there weren't many openings), and again, she needs children to take care of her in her old age. Again, the family line continues, the farm stays in the family, no one dies as a beggar in the street.
Marriage was for the good of the family, to generate children and create a stable social structure. Most people lived their whole lives where they were born, staying close to their families, within a larger supporting social structure. The whole "it takes a village" deal. Stability and continuity were critical for life in this essentially "tribal" society.
What to do with people who don't want to get married or have children in a system like this? One common response would be, "suck it up and do it, we all did it, and you don't have any other options". In Europe, the church was useful because it could take excess children as monks, nuns, or priests. Then they didn't have to get married to continue the social structure, as the clergy created its own continuing tribal society by recruitment rather than breeding, generating a young/old mix like a family so again, no old folks are freezing in snowdrifts.
What was the point of marriage in such a preindustrial type society? Social, legal, and religious aspects are all part of it. Rich or poor, marriage was a social contract, that's the point of the ceremony. Make the couple stand up in front of their family and the community and make promises to each other. That's a heavy obligation, everyone witnessed it, and you've got nowhere else to go if you change your mind, so you're stuck with it. Legal was more important if you had stuff or were royalty. Properties were exchanged and merged, kingdoms were allied, and wars averted by judiciously arranged unions. Again, a lot of pressure on the happy couple, and the pressure to produce an heir was enormous, as the future of the political alliance depended on it.
Religious is an extension of both social and legal. The social significance of having to live up to your promises after the entire community heard you make them is enforced by the idea that God heard your promises too, and is watching whether you live up to them. The religious/legal connection is more important, again, when you have stuff. Kings and queens ruled by divine right, and were coronated by the clergy, so again, the religious marriage ceremony is an obligation before God, and a symbol to others that God has blessed this economic and political union.
Humans love ritual and ceremony. Anything that gets done more than twice gets a ritual built around it, we all invent them in our own lives. You're less likely to walk out on your spouse when you've been through a big ceremony, made promises, and been married in (important words) "the eyes of God and men". They're all watching you and holding you to a standard. From the other direction, decent and honest people didn't interfere in the marriages of others out of respect for the obligations that those people have to each other.
I know, I know. People have been screwing around on each other forever, but a lot didn't, and many of those that did at least felt bad about it, and if they got caught, there was severe social stigma. Never discount the power of social stigma in an insular tribal society (Scarlet Letter? The Crucible?)
So, marriage is important to a society working to survive, and to people trying to keep what they've got. Bringing us to children. When a group stops having children, it ends. When all of humanity was composed of small units trying to kill their neighbors, while not being killed by their neighbors, you've got to crank out the babies to have a next generation to keep the fighting going. Kill half the men of a tribe, the women and children will repopulate it the next generation like nothing ever happened (allowing polygamy and barring other catastrophes). Kill half the women, and you're at a severe disadvantage for generations, since females are the limiting reagent in population growth.
Societies in this state can't afford full-time homosexuality. Ancient Greek men enjoyed homosexuality (in reality, not just stereotypes), but still went and knocked up their wives. In Sparta, men in active military service (which was pretty much everyone who was of the proper age) were kept separate from their wives much of the time, but required by law to spend a certain amount of time with them, to produce the next generation's army.
A few non-breeders are acceptable, as long as they don't make up too much of the tribal population, and again, as long as they're men. Plains American Indian warriors who dressed as women, but fought alongside the men; the eunuchs in a variety of cultures, especially China, given great power in the court, on the assumption that without children of their own, they would operate on behalf of the rulers, not to position their own. As long as there were just a few of them, and they pulled their weight, that was fine. Like keeping around old people who can't hack it anymore, physically speaking, or the borderline autistics who can act as repositories of knowledge, and doers of repetitive tasks, but can't function as an integral part of the social structure. Potentially useful to have around, if you can afford them.
What people really seem to be afraid of is the loss of the "traditional family". Like I was talking about earlier, the modern idea of the perfect traditional family is just that, a modern idea. Going back to the agrarian or pre-industrial society, children lived at home until they got married, at which point they might still live at home, or move all the way to next door. The large extended family with close ties was the standard; now, there's all kinds of variations. What people seem to be bemoaning is children being raised by single parents, parents too busy to do the child-raising themselves, children of divorce and remarriage, children in shared custody that have either two parents who don't care, or are both trying too hard.
Children raised until all sorts of circumstances can turn out fine, but the empirical evidence indicates that the best results come from children raised in stable households, who get to play with lots of other kids, and who have good adult role models, both male and female. They need more adult role models than just their parents, they need aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches, and neighbors. Kids need to see adults who ACT LIKE ADULTS so they can learn how to do so when their time comes.
Opposition to gay marriage isn't necessarily out of opposition to homosexuality, it's opposition to the perceived further cheapening of the institution of marriage; to loss of stable family structures; to raising children haphazardly so that they aren't true scions of their culture and family heritage, but rather yet more randomly bouncing members of a dysfunctional society, with no regard for who they are, where they came from, and their obligations to the bigger picture. It's opposition to the discarding of rite and ritual that lend solidity to peoples' actions, makes them part of something larger than themselves, and again, gives them obligations to fulfill. It's opposition to the perceived creation of a nation of extreme individualists.
So, back to the different types of marriage. In the social marriage, for homosexuals to declare their marriage means that they are committing to each other in front of whoever they feel is important in their lives. In the religious marriage, they are declaring their union before God, and the church is declaring their marriage the equal of any other marriage within that religion. In the legal marriage, the government is granting a set of rights, legal obligations, and powers to the individuals, relative to each other, and again, declaring the marriage equivalent to any other marriage recognized by the government. The problem is that "tradional married couples" don't think that those types of marriage should get to count the same as their own, sometimes for some of the reasons I've given above.
Now, if you've put up with all this crap, and still give a flip what I actually think, here it is:
Socially, the most important place to be married is in your own head. Your marriage only means as much as it means to you, and can only be as strong, committed, and loving as you believe it can be. If you are genuinely committed to the other person, no person or institution should stop you from being with them. Beyond your own acceptance, recognition by friends and family is all you really need. And if they don't accept it, screw 'em.
Religiously, it's up to the religion, which means it's up to the people who comprise it. No decision is going to make everybody happy in a religion, that why there's so many of them, they keep splitting and getting reinvented. The rejection of a marriage performed in one faith by another faith is unfortunate, but nothing new. If your religion won't change to fit you, you have a really sucky decision, but it's your decision, and you're the one who's going to have to change something.
Legally, I like state's rights. It's up to the people to decide what flies and what doesn't, and if you don't like it, see the sucky decision under the religious heading. That said, government could cut the Gordian knot by doing away with a lot of things. A legally recognized marriage essentially confers automatic power of attorney, inheritance rights, tax rules, and a few other things on a couple. Most of these things can be done by paperwork, without a marriage. The state governments could just provide simple legal means to give another person those rights, and legal ways to end those rights, i.e. a divorce. (Have you noticed that marriages tend to be religious, but divorces tend to be entirely legal proceedings? If the church is the instrument marrying you, shouldn't it be the instrument divorcing you? Yes, I know that a variety of churches approve annulments and divorces, but this is really something for another time.) The fair tax would probably also be useful in this case, as removing the tax implications of joint filing would eliminate a lot of ground for arguments (just had to get that one in for N.B.)
A few thoughts on that, some are mine, some are what I think that other people think, I'm not saying which is which -
How out of touch are the legislators, really? They got elected, presumably fairly, right? If they aren't truly representing, vote for someone else next time. It's on the opposite side of the country, in all the ways you can think of, but the referendum in California on the subject seems to have shown that neither side has the convincing majority that they seem to think they should, if only people had the slightest bit of sense.
Marriage has already become cheap enough, being treated as if it's dispensable. Couples don't get married because they don't care, couples rush into and out of marriage because they don't care, people cheat on their marriage vows because they don't care. "Defense of marriage" is the idea that marriage is one of the most significant committments that people can make, that serious married relationships are good for societal stability, and telling people that their marriage counts the same as one they don't respect hurts an important pillar of civilization.
Now for my skewed view of the history of marriage -
As was pointed out on the judgemental monkey show on Durham, NC public access cable (I don't know the guy's name or what he calls the show), the modern idea of marriage for love is a pretty recent (last 100-200 years) concept. If you had money or royal status, marriages were arranged for political and power reasons, and the kids didn't get a say in it. They did it for the good of the family, the man and woman each understood that the other didn't have a say in it, and they made the best of it. Some worked better than others. But, they produced heirs, they kept the family line going, they kept the money and power in the right place, and that was the point.
If you didn't have money or status, you got married to whoever was handy, and marriages were usually still arranged by the parents, to try and create a stable union that would benefit the family. A man needed a wife to bear children for him, so that as he got old, they could help him in his labors, eventually taking over, and taking care of him in his dotage so he didn't starve to death. A woman needed a man to support her, because there were very limited options for a woman to make a decent living (they could do it, but there weren't many openings), and again, she needs children to take care of her in her old age. Again, the family line continues, the farm stays in the family, no one dies as a beggar in the street.
Marriage was for the good of the family, to generate children and create a stable social structure. Most people lived their whole lives where they were born, staying close to their families, within a larger supporting social structure. The whole "it takes a village" deal. Stability and continuity were critical for life in this essentially "tribal" society.
What to do with people who don't want to get married or have children in a system like this? One common response would be, "suck it up and do it, we all did it, and you don't have any other options". In Europe, the church was useful because it could take excess children as monks, nuns, or priests. Then they didn't have to get married to continue the social structure, as the clergy created its own continuing tribal society by recruitment rather than breeding, generating a young/old mix like a family so again, no old folks are freezing in snowdrifts.
What was the point of marriage in such a preindustrial type society? Social, legal, and religious aspects are all part of it. Rich or poor, marriage was a social contract, that's the point of the ceremony. Make the couple stand up in front of their family and the community and make promises to each other. That's a heavy obligation, everyone witnessed it, and you've got nowhere else to go if you change your mind, so you're stuck with it. Legal was more important if you had stuff or were royalty. Properties were exchanged and merged, kingdoms were allied, and wars averted by judiciously arranged unions. Again, a lot of pressure on the happy couple, and the pressure to produce an heir was enormous, as the future of the political alliance depended on it.
Religious is an extension of both social and legal. The social significance of having to live up to your promises after the entire community heard you make them is enforced by the idea that God heard your promises too, and is watching whether you live up to them. The religious/legal connection is more important, again, when you have stuff. Kings and queens ruled by divine right, and were coronated by the clergy, so again, the religious marriage ceremony is an obligation before God, and a symbol to others that God has blessed this economic and political union.
Humans love ritual and ceremony. Anything that gets done more than twice gets a ritual built around it, we all invent them in our own lives. You're less likely to walk out on your spouse when you've been through a big ceremony, made promises, and been married in (important words) "the eyes of God and men". They're all watching you and holding you to a standard. From the other direction, decent and honest people didn't interfere in the marriages of others out of respect for the obligations that those people have to each other.
I know, I know. People have been screwing around on each other forever, but a lot didn't, and many of those that did at least felt bad about it, and if they got caught, there was severe social stigma. Never discount the power of social stigma in an insular tribal society (Scarlet Letter? The Crucible?)
So, marriage is important to a society working to survive, and to people trying to keep what they've got. Bringing us to children. When a group stops having children, it ends. When all of humanity was composed of small units trying to kill their neighbors, while not being killed by their neighbors, you've got to crank out the babies to have a next generation to keep the fighting going. Kill half the men of a tribe, the women and children will repopulate it the next generation like nothing ever happened (allowing polygamy and barring other catastrophes). Kill half the women, and you're at a severe disadvantage for generations, since females are the limiting reagent in population growth.
Societies in this state can't afford full-time homosexuality. Ancient Greek men enjoyed homosexuality (in reality, not just stereotypes), but still went and knocked up their wives. In Sparta, men in active military service (which was pretty much everyone who was of the proper age) were kept separate from their wives much of the time, but required by law to spend a certain amount of time with them, to produce the next generation's army.
A few non-breeders are acceptable, as long as they don't make up too much of the tribal population, and again, as long as they're men. Plains American Indian warriors who dressed as women, but fought alongside the men; the eunuchs in a variety of cultures, especially China, given great power in the court, on the assumption that without children of their own, they would operate on behalf of the rulers, not to position their own. As long as there were just a few of them, and they pulled their weight, that was fine. Like keeping around old people who can't hack it anymore, physically speaking, or the borderline autistics who can act as repositories of knowledge, and doers of repetitive tasks, but can't function as an integral part of the social structure. Potentially useful to have around, if you can afford them.
What people really seem to be afraid of is the loss of the "traditional family". Like I was talking about earlier, the modern idea of the perfect traditional family is just that, a modern idea. Going back to the agrarian or pre-industrial society, children lived at home until they got married, at which point they might still live at home, or move all the way to next door. The large extended family with close ties was the standard; now, there's all kinds of variations. What people seem to be bemoaning is children being raised by single parents, parents too busy to do the child-raising themselves, children of divorce and remarriage, children in shared custody that have either two parents who don't care, or are both trying too hard.
Children raised until all sorts of circumstances can turn out fine, but the empirical evidence indicates that the best results come from children raised in stable households, who get to play with lots of other kids, and who have good adult role models, both male and female. They need more adult role models than just their parents, they need aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches, and neighbors. Kids need to see adults who ACT LIKE ADULTS so they can learn how to do so when their time comes.
Opposition to gay marriage isn't necessarily out of opposition to homosexuality, it's opposition to the perceived further cheapening of the institution of marriage; to loss of stable family structures; to raising children haphazardly so that they aren't true scions of their culture and family heritage, but rather yet more randomly bouncing members of a dysfunctional society, with no regard for who they are, where they came from, and their obligations to the bigger picture. It's opposition to the discarding of rite and ritual that lend solidity to peoples' actions, makes them part of something larger than themselves, and again, gives them obligations to fulfill. It's opposition to the perceived creation of a nation of extreme individualists.
So, back to the different types of marriage. In the social marriage, for homosexuals to declare their marriage means that they are committing to each other in front of whoever they feel is important in their lives. In the religious marriage, they are declaring their union before God, and the church is declaring their marriage the equal of any other marriage within that religion. In the legal marriage, the government is granting a set of rights, legal obligations, and powers to the individuals, relative to each other, and again, declaring the marriage equivalent to any other marriage recognized by the government. The problem is that "tradional married couples" don't think that those types of marriage should get to count the same as their own, sometimes for some of the reasons I've given above.
Now, if you've put up with all this crap, and still give a flip what I actually think, here it is:
Socially, the most important place to be married is in your own head. Your marriage only means as much as it means to you, and can only be as strong, committed, and loving as you believe it can be. If you are genuinely committed to the other person, no person or institution should stop you from being with them. Beyond your own acceptance, recognition by friends and family is all you really need. And if they don't accept it, screw 'em.
Religiously, it's up to the religion, which means it's up to the people who comprise it. No decision is going to make everybody happy in a religion, that why there's so many of them, they keep splitting and getting reinvented. The rejection of a marriage performed in one faith by another faith is unfortunate, but nothing new. If your religion won't change to fit you, you have a really sucky decision, but it's your decision, and you're the one who's going to have to change something.
Legally, I like state's rights. It's up to the people to decide what flies and what doesn't, and if you don't like it, see the sucky decision under the religious heading. That said, government could cut the Gordian knot by doing away with a lot of things. A legally recognized marriage essentially confers automatic power of attorney, inheritance rights, tax rules, and a few other things on a couple. Most of these things can be done by paperwork, without a marriage. The state governments could just provide simple legal means to give another person those rights, and legal ways to end those rights, i.e. a divorce. (Have you noticed that marriages tend to be religious, but divorces tend to be entirely legal proceedings? If the church is the instrument marrying you, shouldn't it be the instrument divorcing you? Yes, I know that a variety of churches approve annulments and divorces, but this is really something for another time.) The fair tax would probably also be useful in this case, as removing the tax implications of joint filing would eliminate a lot of ground for arguments (just had to get that one in for N.B.)
Stupid Census Commercial
I heard the same radio commercial about three times in one hour, pushing the 2010 census. It has a homey, folksy guy explaining how in his community they had 100 kids in the school and 5 teachers and everything was fine. BUT, if the community grew, and the number of kids went up too much, there wouldn't be enough teachers, space, books, money, patience, etc. The meat of the argument is then brought out, that without the census, we wouldn't know how much things had grown, and how money needed to be apportioned.
BULLSHIT.
Are you that stupid that you need a federal census to figure out how many people live in your town? I'd think that all the people moving in might have been noticed by somebody. Second, the census occurs every 10 years. If growth started 10 years ago, the census is going to be a little late in catching up to it, and we return to my original thesis, the people who live in your town should have noticed this already. Finally, apportioning money. The people in your town make money and pay taxes (at least some of them do). If your town is growing and attracting new people, it's either because there are lot of jobs there, or it's a refugee camp. If it's economic growth, the money is already there to pay teachers, buy books, and build buildings. That's how schools usually operate, on the local level, with money collected and spent by the local government that can see, first-hand, what's going on.
I said it before, the CONSTITUTIONAL basis for the census is to apportion representatives and direct taxes, and since the 16th amendment eliminated the direct tax issue, there is only one valid reason for the federal government to do a head count, and only a head count. The end.
BULLSHIT.
Are you that stupid that you need a federal census to figure out how many people live in your town? I'd think that all the people moving in might have been noticed by somebody. Second, the census occurs every 10 years. If growth started 10 years ago, the census is going to be a little late in catching up to it, and we return to my original thesis, the people who live in your town should have noticed this already. Finally, apportioning money. The people in your town make money and pay taxes (at least some of them do). If your town is growing and attracting new people, it's either because there are lot of jobs there, or it's a refugee camp. If it's economic growth, the money is already there to pay teachers, buy books, and build buildings. That's how schools usually operate, on the local level, with money collected and spent by the local government that can see, first-hand, what's going on.
I said it before, the CONSTITUTIONAL basis for the census is to apportion representatives and direct taxes, and since the 16th amendment eliminated the direct tax issue, there is only one valid reason for the federal government to do a head count, and only a head count. The end.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
MLK Jr. Menu
So, now there are people upset that the Denver public schools are going to serve fried chicken and collard greens in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
The knee-jerk reaction is that these are sterotyped southern black dishes, and making a caricature of the man. Well, maybe. My question is, did he actually like them? If he did, then it's perfectly reasonable to serve them. A little research on the Google has turned up this information:
From Joy Bennett Kinnon, Ebony, 2003
"I'm fortunate because some of my colleagues actually knew him as a young man and worked closely with him until his death. They tell me that King as a young man loved to have a good time. He loved soul food: red beans and rice, greens and ham hocks and pigs' feet. He also loved to dance."
A few different sources state that either his favorite dessert, or his favorite food of all was pecan pie:
Pecan Pie recipe in his honor
His favorite food was pecan pie
More about food
Shocking, isn't it, that a man who grew up in the south showed preference to traditional (or stereotypical, or caricatured) southern dishes. If the school served baloney sandwiches on Wonder bread with mayonnaise on MLKJ day, I'm sure someone would see that as a deliberate attempt to insult him memory by serving the most caricatured "White" meal they could come up with. If the man liked it, then by all means honor his memory by eating the food of his culture and thinking of him. What happened to embracing diversity?
The only problem I see is that fried chicken is not named as a particular favorite of his, so I would suggest that they serve pigs' feet and greens instead. And don't forget the pecan pie.
The knee-jerk reaction is that these are sterotyped southern black dishes, and making a caricature of the man. Well, maybe. My question is, did he actually like them? If he did, then it's perfectly reasonable to serve them. A little research on the Google has turned up this information:
From Joy Bennett Kinnon, Ebony, 2003
"I'm fortunate because some of my colleagues actually knew him as a young man and worked closely with him until his death. They tell me that King as a young man loved to have a good time. He loved soul food: red beans and rice, greens and ham hocks and pigs' feet. He also loved to dance."
A few different sources state that either his favorite dessert, or his favorite food of all was pecan pie:
Pecan Pie recipe in his honor
His favorite food was pecan pie
More about food
Shocking, isn't it, that a man who grew up in the south showed preference to traditional (or stereotypical, or caricatured) southern dishes. If the school served baloney sandwiches on Wonder bread with mayonnaise on MLKJ day, I'm sure someone would see that as a deliberate attempt to insult him memory by serving the most caricatured "White" meal they could come up with. If the man liked it, then by all means honor his memory by eating the food of his culture and thinking of him. What happened to embracing diversity?
The only problem I see is that fried chicken is not named as a particular favorite of his, so I would suggest that they serve pigs' feet and greens instead. And don't forget the pecan pie.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Census ethnicity box
So, the forms for the 2010 U.S. Census are out, and there has been some upset over the "race" section of the form. The first few choices are "White", "Black, African Am., or Negro", and "American Indian or Alaska Native", and there's a space to put a tribal affiliation. The word Negro is what's causing the problems. The defense is, some people still identify themselves as that, so that option should be there.
My problem is, the whole "race" section is flawed. White or Black/Afr Am/Negros get only those options. American Indians get to give a tribe. Below that, are checkboxes for: Asian Indian, Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and more. So, a first generation German immigrant has to be "White", a first generation Nigerian immigrant has to be "Black", but a fifth-generation Chinese American gets to be Chinese. If the question about race is going to be asked, everyone should get to fill in the box with whatever they want.
Then, there's the actual legal purpose of the census. According to the US CONSTITUTION (remember it?), Section 2, Clause 3:
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (See Note 2) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."
The only race issue there was if you're an Indian who doesn't pay taxes, or an "other Person", which was code for slave. Since we don't have "other Persons" anymore, and I believe the American Indians are treated like taxpaying human beings (most of the time), this clause essentially says:
"For the purposes of apportioning representative and direct taxes, the U.S. Government will count everyone, every 10 years."
RACE DOESN'T MATTER. INCOME DOESN'T MATTER. WHAT KIND OF HOUSE YOU LIVE IN OR CAR YOU DRIVE DOESN'T MATTER. HOW MANY TOILETS YOU HAVE DOESN'T MATTER.
The only right the government has is to ask you if you exist. Don't like the race section? DON'T ANSWER IT. Don't like any of the other stuff? Don't answer. It's none of anybody's damn business anyway.
If all men are created equal and we all have equal protection under the law, then we should all be counted as people, and congressional districts should be drawn to include the proper number of people, with the smallest possible perimeter. Representatives are for ALL the people who live inside that IMAGINARY LINE, not just the black, white, natives, Filipinos, or anything else.
Tell the census bureau how many people live there, and then tell them to take a flying leap. And remember, an official census taker will NEVER ask to come inside your house, EVER. And, find the appropriate number for your area to verify that the person at the door is official: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/contact/index.php
My problem is, the whole "race" section is flawed. White or Black/Afr Am/Negros get only those options. American Indians get to give a tribe. Below that, are checkboxes for: Asian Indian, Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and more. So, a first generation German immigrant has to be "White", a first generation Nigerian immigrant has to be "Black", but a fifth-generation Chinese American gets to be Chinese. If the question about race is going to be asked, everyone should get to fill in the box with whatever they want.
Then, there's the actual legal purpose of the census. According to the US CONSTITUTION (remember it?), Section 2, Clause 3:
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (See Note 2) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."
The only race issue there was if you're an Indian who doesn't pay taxes, or an "other Person", which was code for slave. Since we don't have "other Persons" anymore, and I believe the American Indians are treated like taxpaying human beings (most of the time), this clause essentially says:
"For the purposes of apportioning representative and direct taxes, the U.S. Government will count everyone, every 10 years."
RACE DOESN'T MATTER. INCOME DOESN'T MATTER. WHAT KIND OF HOUSE YOU LIVE IN OR CAR YOU DRIVE DOESN'T MATTER. HOW MANY TOILETS YOU HAVE DOESN'T MATTER.
The only right the government has is to ask you if you exist. Don't like the race section? DON'T ANSWER IT. Don't like any of the other stuff? Don't answer. It's none of anybody's damn business anyway.
If all men are created equal and we all have equal protection under the law, then we should all be counted as people, and congressional districts should be drawn to include the proper number of people, with the smallest possible perimeter. Representatives are for ALL the people who live inside that IMAGINARY LINE, not just the black, white, natives, Filipinos, or anything else.
Tell the census bureau how many people live there, and then tell them to take a flying leap. And remember, an official census taker will NEVER ask to come inside your house, EVER. And, find the appropriate number for your area to verify that the person at the door is official: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/contact/index.php
Friday, January 8, 2010
I Get That a Lot
I love to judge a book by it's cover, or in this case, a TV show by its promo. As far as I'm concerned most of the shows on TV are total garbage. I'm not a TV hater, I do watch TV, just selectively for the things I like. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see ads for a new show that I'm convinced I'd hate, as 1) It simplifies my schedule, as I don't have to try to watch or record it and 2) I get to complain about it. Things get complicated when someone else in the house wants to watch the garbage, though. One member likes a few of the reality competition shows, and they drive me absolutely nuts, as with few exceptions, I absolutely detest everyone on them, or at least, I detest the way they behave on camera. When I wind up watching these shows, I typically wind up spitting vitriol and obscenities at the TV, and it doesn't make me feel any better, since those people are going to keep on being morons who make the viewers even dumber.
So, I've seen the ads for this new show "I Get That a Lot", in which celebrities take a "normal job" and then get filmed on hidden camera interacting with people. Apparently, the "humor" of the show comes from the celebrity denying that they are the celebrity, and mocking their true self. Then they admit it, and everyone has a good laugh.
WHO DO THEY THINK YOU'RE KIDDING WITH THIS CRAP?
The point of a hidden camera practical joke show, like the original Candid Camera, is to film people reacting to truly odd situations. The point of the practical joke shows, originally, was to have people pull jokes on other people THEY ALREADY KNOW. Like Harpo and Chico Marx going on "To Tell the Truth" and fooling Groucho as to their identities. Having a "celebrity" pretend they're someone else, to people who've never met them before, is not particularly interesting. Especially to me, since it's very unlikely I'd recognize any of the people appearing in the ads.
The scenario would run like this:
Incompetent dry cleaning clerk: Here's your tux and receipt.
Me: Thanks.
Clerk: I'm really Rachael Ray, and we're filming this.
Me: Good for you, see you next time I throw up on my tuxedo.
If the "celebrity" were doing something interesting, that would be different, but all the clips are of them being unconvincing at an uninspiring job, and responding to questions about who they "look like" with, are you ready, "I get that a lot". Hi-larious.
Just because someone's famous doesn't make them comedy gold when you point a camera at their interactions with people. Just watch any talk show and that point is abundantly clear. Tune in to see an actor/actress you like on Leno or Letterman and odds are you'll find out they're dull as a sack of rocks.
To sum up:
Reaction of man/woman on the street to bizarre situation, a stampede of penguins down main street, for example - humorous
Friend pulling prank on friend/relative - humorous
Famous person delivering pizza to home of person DEMONSTRATED to be a fan of theirs - possibly humorous
Gene Simmons saying to complete stranger, "I'm not Gene Simmons, really, I'm not. OK, you got me, I am." - Cancellation.
So, I've seen the ads for this new show "I Get That a Lot", in which celebrities take a "normal job" and then get filmed on hidden camera interacting with people. Apparently, the "humor" of the show comes from the celebrity denying that they are the celebrity, and mocking their true self. Then they admit it, and everyone has a good laugh.
WHO DO THEY THINK YOU'RE KIDDING WITH THIS CRAP?
The point of a hidden camera practical joke show, like the original Candid Camera, is to film people reacting to truly odd situations. The point of the practical joke shows, originally, was to have people pull jokes on other people THEY ALREADY KNOW. Like Harpo and Chico Marx going on "To Tell the Truth" and fooling Groucho as to their identities. Having a "celebrity" pretend they're someone else, to people who've never met them before, is not particularly interesting. Especially to me, since it's very unlikely I'd recognize any of the people appearing in the ads.
The scenario would run like this:
Incompetent dry cleaning clerk: Here's your tux and receipt.
Me: Thanks.
Clerk: I'm really Rachael Ray, and we're filming this.
Me: Good for you, see you next time I throw up on my tuxedo.
If the "celebrity" were doing something interesting, that would be different, but all the clips are of them being unconvincing at an uninspiring job, and responding to questions about who they "look like" with, are you ready, "I get that a lot". Hi-larious.
Just because someone's famous doesn't make them comedy gold when you point a camera at their interactions with people. Just watch any talk show and that point is abundantly clear. Tune in to see an actor/actress you like on Leno or Letterman and odds are you'll find out they're dull as a sack of rocks.
To sum up:
Reaction of man/woman on the street to bizarre situation, a stampede of penguins down main street, for example - humorous
Friend pulling prank on friend/relative - humorous
Famous person delivering pizza to home of person DEMONSTRATED to be a fan of theirs - possibly humorous
Gene Simmons saying to complete stranger, "I'm not Gene Simmons, really, I'm not. OK, you got me, I am." - Cancellation.
Whither blogging
I actually remember the first time I heard about blogs. I got some kind of spam email from a person who claimed to be my friend, telling me about how they'd just gotten started "web logging", and what a great time they were having. Now, I didn't know this jackhole, and what they were describing sounded dull as dirt - essentially floating around the web, then publishing where you'd been and what you thought of it. This created the term "blogging" which then got away from the initial concept.
Early on, webpages were pretty much lists. That's what mine was (and still is, since I pretty much quit updating it in the 90s). Here are some cool websites I like, here are some people I know, here's my favorite movies, the books I've read lately, some cool picures I found, etc. Not particularly interesting, and not a lot of reason to ever go back to a site like that, unless it were regularly updated, and so people did. But what do you do to update a website? I would just put up the latest batch of comic strips I thought were clever, still not that much worth seeing. Webcartoonists got going because they had consistent new content, and could get an audience to keep coming back. Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works had new info going up all the time, and, importantly, wound up with so much stuff on it, that people could keep coming back for stuff they hadn't seen before.
But still, there's only so much new content that you can put on a webpage. Enter blogging. You don't need content, you just have to say something. Now, there's a free and easy outlet for everyone out there who thinks they have something to say, no matter how moronic. As a result, the vast majority of all blogs are masturbatory bullcrap. I'm not excluding myself, I'm not doing this for the benefit of the nonexistent reader, it's all about me feeling significant here. There are blogs that actually contain real information, they've become the outlet for people who want to spread the news and distribute what they feel is important info, but don't have any actual journalistic credibility. Most bloggers are the modern equivalent of people who would be standing on the street corner handing out cheap mimeographed pamphlets of rants, or carrying signs about the end of the world, but the bloggers are too introverted to actually go out and face people.
Don't believe me? Go up to the top of the page here, and click on "next blog". I bet you'll find something that isn't worth your time to read, and make you wonder what on earth is wrong with the person who put it there (some of them _will_ tell you what's wrong with them, in excruciating detail). Don't feel obligated to come back to this page when you're done there, you won't hurt my feelings.
So, bloggers are nuts screaming into the void, and good for them. It gives them an outlet, and as I said, I'm trying to complain here so that I stop annoying the people willing to put up with me in person, so it's my outlet too. I just get pissed off over people taking their own blogs too seriously, or other people's too seriously. Get over it, we're all idiots most of the time. The blogs I look at most (all 3 a year) are people telling random stories of their lives and showing pictures of what they've eaten lately. Beats me why this is entertainment, and I wouldn't miss them if they were gone.
Early on, webpages were pretty much lists. That's what mine was (and still is, since I pretty much quit updating it in the 90s). Here are some cool websites I like, here are some people I know, here's my favorite movies, the books I've read lately, some cool picures I found, etc. Not particularly interesting, and not a lot of reason to ever go back to a site like that, unless it were regularly updated, and so people did. But what do you do to update a website? I would just put up the latest batch of comic strips I thought were clever, still not that much worth seeing. Webcartoonists got going because they had consistent new content, and could get an audience to keep coming back. Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works had new info going up all the time, and, importantly, wound up with so much stuff on it, that people could keep coming back for stuff they hadn't seen before.
But still, there's only so much new content that you can put on a webpage. Enter blogging. You don't need content, you just have to say something. Now, there's a free and easy outlet for everyone out there who thinks they have something to say, no matter how moronic. As a result, the vast majority of all blogs are masturbatory bullcrap. I'm not excluding myself, I'm not doing this for the benefit of the nonexistent reader, it's all about me feeling significant here. There are blogs that actually contain real information, they've become the outlet for people who want to spread the news and distribute what they feel is important info, but don't have any actual journalistic credibility. Most bloggers are the modern equivalent of people who would be standing on the street corner handing out cheap mimeographed pamphlets of rants, or carrying signs about the end of the world, but the bloggers are too introverted to actually go out and face people.
Don't believe me? Go up to the top of the page here, and click on "next blog". I bet you'll find something that isn't worth your time to read, and make you wonder what on earth is wrong with the person who put it there (some of them _will_ tell you what's wrong with them, in excruciating detail). Don't feel obligated to come back to this page when you're done there, you won't hurt my feelings.
So, bloggers are nuts screaming into the void, and good for them. It gives them an outlet, and as I said, I'm trying to complain here so that I stop annoying the people willing to put up with me in person, so it's my outlet too. I just get pissed off over people taking their own blogs too seriously, or other people's too seriously. Get over it, we're all idiots most of the time. The blogs I look at most (all 3 a year) are people telling random stories of their lives and showing pictures of what they've eaten lately. Beats me why this is entertainment, and I wouldn't miss them if they were gone.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Gripe the first
Huzzah, I'm now a blogger, come to the party about 15 years late. I used to have a website that I updated now and then with stuff I thought was clever, it's still out there, but I don't do anything with it anymore. Kinda like the old friends that I lost touch with for 10 years, found again, exchanged a "Hi, how ya doin', can't believe I found you" email, and then ignored again after confirming each other's existence.
Anyway, here is my manifesto (or mission statement if you prefer), which I've got in the blog description and will leave there until I get tired of it:
_________
I'm here to complain, but what's the point, right? Everyone who wants to complain has their own blog alreay. Well, sometimes I just get so irritated that I've got to say it, and my family is tired of hearing it, so even if nobody ever reads this, at least I've said it, and maybe got it out of my system. I might come up with a unique gripe now and then too.
_________
That's pretty much it. Whenever something irritates me enough that I think it's worth mentioning, I'll try to say something about it here. When posting becomes a drag, I'll quit, much like how I lost my first girlfriend, by ignoring her. In my defense, it needed to be ended, but to my discredit, I did it very badly. First time out though, what do you expect.
My role models for this are Emily Litella and the Ranting Swede. I am not deliberately out to be controversial, obscene, or even thought-provoking, I'm just here to say stuff that I feel like saying.
Welcome to the show.
Anyway, here is my manifesto (or mission statement if you prefer), which I've got in the blog description and will leave there until I get tired of it:
_________
I'm here to complain, but what's the point, right? Everyone who wants to complain has their own blog alreay. Well, sometimes I just get so irritated that I've got to say it, and my family is tired of hearing it, so even if nobody ever reads this, at least I've said it, and maybe got it out of my system. I might come up with a unique gripe now and then too.
_________
That's pretty much it. Whenever something irritates me enough that I think it's worth mentioning, I'll try to say something about it here. When posting becomes a drag, I'll quit, much like how I lost my first girlfriend, by ignoring her. In my defense, it needed to be ended, but to my discredit, I did it very badly. First time out though, what do you expect.
My role models for this are Emily Litella and the Ranting Swede. I am not deliberately out to be controversial, obscene, or even thought-provoking, I'm just here to say stuff that I feel like saying.
Welcome to the show.
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