Perfect

The Results are In...

...And they are fascinating. i'm sure most, if not all of you who ever read this had time to read/participate in the semi-scientific poll on the right column of this blog that has been up for a few months now. i did take Statistics in high school, so i'm aware that it's not the most unbiased random sample, though i have quite a conglomerate of vastly different associates and many of them had friends take it whom i do not know. It'll serve our purposes.

i start the apologies here:

If you disagree that it moderately represents our country, that's fine. However, i think the conclusions largely hold true, regardless of the exact numbers. i also apologize if the following conclusions grossly misrepresent you if you took the poll or if it bothers you to realize some of things i'm about to point out. This is possibly inflammatory. The following is intended to incite discussion, not conclude it...


Now. As to be perfectly clear, i will take you through each question and the conclusions. Questions:

Should marriage be legislated by moral constraints in the US?
What is the best way to determine who should be able to marry?
Should first cousins be allowed to marry in the US?
Should brothers and sisters be allowed to marry in the US?
Should Aunts/Uncles be able to marry their blood-related nieces/nephews in the US?
Should parents be able to marry their blood-related offspring in the US?
Should men/women be able to marry more than one person in the US (polygamy)?
Should same sex marriage be legal in the US?

With the exception of question 2, each question provided the options of:

Yes
No
State Issue- In my state, Yes
State Issue- In my state, No


If you read current research on the topic, you'll find that first cousins can marry and produce healthy offspring. This is why many states allow it. Additionally, it has been argued by many that sex is not the only reason to get married, and in fact no current laws require it or monitor it. Many have argued that couples have less sex after marriage, and there are certainly people who cannot have sex due to health or handicap concerns. All of the questions were about marriage laws, and not sex laws, which maybe should be discussed later.

This brings me to my first major point: every instance in questions 3 through 8 discuss whether or not to allow the marriage of one or more persons to another. All of them are strictly moral decisions. You're welcome to argue the point, but each and every one of them, whether you believe yea or nay, in this country or your state, it's a moral judgment call.

Why so interesting? In question 1, only 38% of the people said they think marriage should be legislated by moral constraints. However, a no answer on any of the questions that followed was a moral constraint. Guess what percentage would ban marriage based on moral constraints for the following groups:

First cousins: 84%
Brothers and sisters: 96%
Aunts/uncles and blood-related nieces nephews: 99%
Parents and blood-related offspring: 92%
Polygamy: 74%
and...
Same sex: 26%

So, the 72% who say no to moral constraints on marriage in the legal system? There's been a lot of talk in the media about "legislating morality." My suspicion for quite some time has been that many more people are comfortable with doing just that than will readily admit or even realize.

Aside from the final question on same sex marriage (which like it or not falls into the same category as the other questions as a moral decision), the majority of people who don't want the government going around legislating morality when it comes to marriage, are willing to say, "well, except here and here, and maybe over there. What? Gay marriage, no leave that one alone. i don't like forcing people to legally conform to my morals or someone else's."

i'm not passing judgment here. i'm merely asking everyone to stop and think about what it means to say one thing over here, and the opposite over there.

On top of all this, i find it fascinating that so many people are down on the cousin lovin' (84% oppose) and that more people are opposed to aunts marrying their nephews (99%) than parents marrying their own offspring (92%). This compared to the 26% ready to throw a parade for the polygamists and 74% for same sex marriage. Again, my opinion isn't relevant or nearly as interesting as those numbers.

Question 2, about the best way to determine who should be able to get married has its own fun intricacies. The options were:

Only an age requirement: 66% in favor
Parental consent: 6%
Psychological evaluation: 6%
No requirement: 24%

Side-stepping the issue of the moral judgments involved in psychology, 72% were in favor of deciding this on the basis of age or parental consent, both moral constraints. Some societies believe 12 is the age of reason, others 16 or 18. In the US, you are able to reasonably choose a political candidate or go to war at the age of 18, but cannot reasonably choose to consume or not consume alcohol until the age of 21. Again, the 72% in favor of moral constraints here in qeustion 2 is nearly twice that of those who said they believed the opposite in qestion 1. This is fascinating.

Additionally, while the age varies from state to state, between 14 and 18, and most states allow younger with parental consent, what makes this age magical? It can be argued that many people over the age of 18 do not posses the mental faculties that prepare them for marriage, or perhaps parenthood. Mentally handicapped people and people with psychological problems can legally marry. And apparently, you are more prepared to get married if your parents (who may or may not be trained psychologists, the law is quite nonprejudicial here) say so. The state often decides on a case by case basis (and psychologists are always part of this process) whether to try children as adults for crimes. Why not for marriage? Because age is not a magical number that automatically presents a person with reason and cognitive ability.

Maybe these were too many issues to tackle and maybe my conclusions are entirely erroneous, but my hope is that you can look at both these numbers and your own beliefs, as well as the beliefs of your friends and begin to tackle these questions in a new way. If you took this poll and are completely satisfied with your answers with no struggle or hesitation, i won't hesitate to say that you have a lot of work to do. Even i struggled with this poll and i wrote it.

Please feel free to respond to this in part or in whole. My sincere thanks to the people who participated, both in the poll and in the process of critically thinking about these topics.

Rules of Acquisition...

It has been said that there are five stages to acquisition: infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession and resale. i think this is extraordinarily true in this culture. We see items we can't live without, we rationalize why we need
them, we acquire them, we enjoy them, telling ourselves what a wise purchase it was (of course this period is shorter with food, drink, drugs, etc), and then we often regret owning them, or more often that we have spent money that we can't spend on the next infatuation.

Now, while this was meant to describe merchandise, i think that in our culture, we extend the stages to other things, hobbies for instance, or interests. My dad jumps from one hobby to another, exhausting everything there is to know and perfect, and then drops it. Some stick around much longer than others, but only one at a time gets full interest. i do the same thing sometimes with books and television shows. My sporadic intensity with working out over the past 5 years and then lapsing as i get busy with something else is evidence of this.

i also think people in our culture frequently go through these stages in relationships. This is not to say that we're not capable of having long term monogamy, but how many people in this country marry the first person they date or have all the same friends they did in childhood? Think about it. We become interested in someone. At some point, there is a higher threshold to holding onto this person than our average peer and we want to keep them, so we try harder or work at a relationship or give of ourselves, our time, our money, etc. We justify it by deciding we get as much out of the relationship or more than we put into it. Through this process we actually appropriate the friend or significant other. At this point, we revel in it. We rely on this person, confide in, and love them. At some point, we tire of them or don't want to put in the same effort or regret having to apply so much effort to what used to be easier or yield more satisfaction and regret we can't spend our resources elsewhere.

This is probably part of why half of all marriages end in divorce, and i suspect that this is why in our culture, friendships die at such a high rate. i would be incredibly curious to see the numbers on "friendship divorce." i think that the friendships and marriages that last are when people get to the resale stage and reinvest. They decide that the best use of their resources is to apply them where they initially began. This reinvestment may cost more than going elsewhere, but they also know more about what they'll gain from it. In some ways, it's a safer bet. In some ways, it's a very brave thing because if both parties aren't interested in this reinvestment, it goes badly.

i dislike thinking about human relationships in monetary terms or investment strategies, but i think that may be why i often don't understand why people give up on relationships. We live in a world and society where investment is a more comprehensible idea than love. Investments change from day to day. Love is unchanging. It is unselfish each day.

Well, as the bumper sticker says:

Apples to... chickens?

It's one thing to compare apples to oranges, but what about apples, carrots, and tomatoes to... chicken. McDonald's is running a commercial touting their super healthy... deep-fried chicken nuggets. They're ALL WHITE MEAT! The commercial is full of various fruits and veggies... oh! Aaaaand a quick glimpse of the all-white meat chicken nugget. Seriously? Do we take this kind of advertising for granted these days? Would you bat an eye?

Decisions, decisions...

Reason- a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc.

Excuse- an explanation offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation, promise, etc.

Forgiveness- the act of excusing a mistake or offense

Punishment- a penalty, imposed for a crime, fault etc.

As part of a society, we have police officers, prison guards, judges, and prosecutors who represent us, as much as possible, without passion or prejudice. Their job is to be the mechanism that investigates, sentences, and punishes those who harm part or all of society. They are not usually directly involved with the case or one of the victims and the system is designed to try and prevent that. Because of this, they institute punishments against people who have not personally wronged them. Though they might not like the criminal, they do not have to have any feelings at all to carry out the punishment. One does not have to harbor malice or ill will toward someone to punish them or want to punish them. Why is this important?

Many people will argue that forgiveness automatically implies cessation of the desire or need to punish someone. An excuse or mitigating circumstances may remit the necessity for a punishment, but a reason does not.

A man who downs 10 or 12 beers and plows into a pedestrian on the sidewalk has a reason for his actions, but a man who has a seizure suddenly and does the same thing has an excuse.

All of this to discuss something in the news that has come up on Law & Order. Specific genes have been identified that are linked to violent behavior and rape. The lawyer on the show made a good case. There's a gene that causes cystic fibrosis. If both parents are carriers, the child is 100% likely to develop the disorder. What about "violent" genes? Well, they say other factors come into play. The old nature v. nurture or the mix of the two. Again, a "violence" gene may even be a reason, but not an excuse. A bad childhood might also be a reason, but is it an excuse? i guess that's up to you. Who knows what a jury will decide.

Update

Out of the anti-itch stuff and going crazy.

Desperate for the morning when i can start my steroid pills and call for more of the itch stuff!!!!!

Also, NOT by me...

When someone else says it better...

Setting aside the scandal caused by His Messianic claims and His reputation as a political firebrand, only two accusations of personal depravity seem to have been brought against Jesus of Nazareth. First, that He was a Sabbath-breaker. Secondly, that He was "a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners"--or (to draw aside the veil of Elizabethan English that makes it sound so much more respectable) that He ate too heartily, drank too freely, and kept very disreputable company, including grafters of the lowest type and ladies who were no better than they should be. For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian Churches have labored, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the Communion-table, founded Total Abstinence Societies in the name of Him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatre-going. They have transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and, feeling that the original commandment "Thou shalt not work" was rather half-hearted, have added to it the new commandment, "Thou shalt not play."

-Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957), Unpopular Opinions [1946]

Playing House

Ashley and I took these tests to see how good we'd be as a...

1930's Husband...

126 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

1930's Wife...

54 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

Extra! Extra!

Yes, lots of posts today to make up for the lack over the past week whilst Olympics reign supreme in my "free" time. i will not be qualifying for any Olympic teams this week as per my visit to the doctor today. Yup, you guessed it, i'm pregnant.

Kidding, mom. No, i have been battling poison oak for a week, which has only gotten worse, despite some fantastic home remedies Ashley concocted. The Doctor walked in and i propped up my legs and said, "i think it's poison oak. It's itchy, not weepy, it's getting worse and it's all over our backyard and now mine."

She looked at me with her hands in her pockets, "Yep. i'm gonna give you a steroid pack and steroid creme. Want that now?"

i also asked her about the ear popping thing i've told a bunch of you about. She looked in my ear and said, "Yep, you're right. Fluid. Got Sudafed at home? Take it. Clear ya right up." And apparently all my self-diagnosis and jargon got her curious because she asked, "You got any physicians in the family?"

i said, "Yes, my sister is a nurse and i watch a lot of House." She laughed and said that sounded about right and good luck. So now i am much less itchy and i start my roids tomorrow. Woot!

Reach, throw, row... ooops, no show...

Gotta feel for the Chinese about now. One of their rowing athletes got confused about the time of an event and failed to show up for his single rowing match. This not only disqualified him for the singles, but also for his double match later. Poor guy.

As i was flipping over to the Olympics this evening, i caught the tail end of a show about Hybrid vehicles. As a present for the guest on the show, they ended by giving him a hybrid Ford Escape. This wasn't just any hybrid vehicle though, they explained. This car had calf-skin leather seats and had been "pimped out" with chrome spinners...

(let that sink in)

In case you were wondering, you reduce the eco-friendliness of a vehicle when you add metals to it, especially when you add heavy ones that will reduce the hybrid's improved (only slightly) gas mileage. This is to say nothing of the genuine leather seats or the fact that they are made from baby cows...

My New Hobby

Given the number of friends and family i've had in marching band, this seems like an ideal choice for a new hobby...

Thoughts on Faith

An Inconvenient Truth

i saw a segment on the ever-spiraling downward Daily Show today. They were interviewing this engineer who has dedicated himself to living a petroleum-free life. Not just not driving a car or heating a home, but not using any products that are supported, made, or transported by something that requires petroleum.

This man lives in the woods in a hut. This is a man who makes no sense, for a number of reasons. For one thing, this guy uses the tried and retired method of rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. i can see that using a lighter would be against his principles, but flint has been around for hundreds of years. Seriously. The only reason not to use flint and steel is to make your own life harder.

In addition to this stupidity, he gets a lot of his food from dumpsters and road kill. Now, i could be wrong, but my suspicion is that much of the food that ends up in the Trader Joe dumpster (his dumpster of choice because of its lack of maggots), despite being largely organic, might have arrived by trucks powered by petroleum fuel. i also suspect that much of the road kill is created by cars that might in fact be powered by petroleum too.

What do you prefer to be called?

i saw this posted on Post Secret today and it got me thinking. i've always thought that both the race and gender boxes on surveys and applications should be done away with. i don't think any racial equality will appear until people are forced to make decisions that aren't based on their preconceptions.

Race is a fairly ludicrous idea in and of itself. While certain traits and diseases are more prevalent in groups from specific geographic areas, nothing distinguishes race on the genetic level. A sample of a person's blood will not reveal their "race." It's a human and societal construction.

Race labeling has always been a complicated and often nearly arbitrary practice. Black? African-American? Colored? What about for "whites?" While some people are pretty pasty, "white" people can range from dental white to olive dark, just as "blacks" can range from dark of night to the lightest caramel. People come in a variety of beautiful colors.

So how have we labeled "whites?" Well, "white" is a popular one found on forms, but so is "Caucasian" and "Anglo-Saxon." If you are "white," have you ever stopped to consider why you would be named for a group of people from the mountains of Georgia in Eastern Europe? One German scientist in the 19th Century decided that German skulls resembled one skull from the slopes of a mountain in the Caucuses and concluded that, "I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind."

Does this sound like any basis to call all people who fall into the "white-ish" skin tone range Caucasian?

How about Anglo-Saxon? Interestingly, Webster's New World Dictionary that touts itself as "defining American English for fifty years," as well as being the official dictionary of the Associated Press and containing over 12,000 "Americanisms," does not contain an entry that describes this term as applying to all "white people" or anything even close. Wikipedia's dictionary lists 4 definitions and the first several match up with Webster in describing it as a term that refers to a language or the people who originally inhabited Germany. Wikipedia does include an entry that indicates it could refer to someone of British or Northern European descent or a "white" person, but indicates this is only true in the US. i know many people of purely Irish descent or Spanish or Italian or Portuguese would not include themselves in this category.

i think if more people understood the nature of race, or maybe i should say, the mythology of it, and how labels are derived, i'm not sure anyone would identify with a race, or a skin color.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that he dreamed of a day when his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. As long as race and skin color judgments are included on job and college applications and the US Census, we'll be lucky to see that dream come true for his grandchildren.

Grrrrr!

i just read an infuriating article. i was reading a Libertarian news website and came across an article that sounded like my dad wrote it. i'm not sure when this suspicion started, perhaps in the 60's, but somewhere along the line a group of conservatives got together and decided to be anti-environment for the hay of it.

They got together and said, "ok, some of these environmentalists (yack) are commies! They don't want to save the planet! They just wanna hurt my bottom line! They want industry to crash and destitution to rise! They want us to be overrun by other super powers!"

Well, at some point, someone pointed out, "hey, saving the environment is often cost effective! When you don't run your water the entire time you brush your teeth, you save money! When you buy local food that isn't shipped as far, you can save money! When you bike to the local CVS instead of drive your SUV when gas is 4 dollars a gallon, you save money! When you use a Compact Fluorescent energy-saving light bulb or appliance that uses 23% as much energy, you save money!"

At this point, these -- we''l call them capitalists instead of pig heads because it's what they prefer to be called -- stuck their collective thumbs in their ears and went "nnnnuh nuuuuh nuhhhhh, we can't hear you!"

This actually caused many rational people in the conservative camps and many moderates to jump into the ultra liberal boat and head for the shores of a land less polluted and more likely to support life forms known as grandchildren.

"Radicalism in your camp destroys moderatism in mine." This applies to politics, religion, and environmental policy. You want to affect change? Do it wisely and rationally and make a real case for it.

The article i read lambasted what my father calls "greenies" for being anti-capitalist. Think about this for a moment. If we pollute our country and the planet long enough and waste our money and energy resources and employ stop-gap measures for oil problems, we have to send more of our troops to places we get oil from, destroy our national parks, and spend more money than we have to. Seems to me that if you want to destroy capitalism and America, the best way to do it is to ignore environmentalists altogether...

Mean, green, reading machine...

If you read the previous blog and were interested in the Green Lantern, i compiled a list of articles that may pique your interest...

All of these have lots of links and charts if you question how they arrive at particular conclusions

Rolling down the Windows v. Using the A/C in the car

Hand washing v. Using the Dishwasher

Being green on st. Patty's: Cans v. Bottles

Obama v. Clinton v. McCain on Environmental plans (least biased article i've read on all the candidates)

CFL's v. Incandescent Bulbs (by far the best article i've read on the green bulbs, read THIS one if no other article) i'll blog on this later for sure.

If any of these spark you or you have your own question, ask the Green Lantern:

ask.the.lantern@gmail.com

The best 40 minutes in news television...

...are the last 10 minutes of the Daily Show and the whole thirty minutes of the Colbert Report. i stopped watching the Daily show after about sophomore year in college. John Stewart got a long ride on 4 years of Bushisms and it was gloriously funny. Then Bush won again in 2004 and John turned bitter. His only opening jokes were all about Bush. And he had clearly pulled them out of the trash from the previous 4 years. Nothing new. And this time, way less funny. Eight years of "Bush is stupid," just doesn't cut it. He kept up with great guests though on the show.

Last night, John did something unusual. Two things that were completely out of character. One, he deffended a politician (without being sarcastic, although impuning another politician to do it). And two, he stepped into line with rest of the mainstream news world. GASP! What caused this? Obama. Anyone surprised? John's opening TEN MINUTE tirade began and ended as a defense of Obama by attacking McCain.

i'm concerned. One reason obviously is that there's so much good material in making fun of Obama. However, my other big reason is what will poor Johnny do come November if Obama wins? Retire? If he keeps pulling punches on Obama, he'll have no one to make fun of or his jokes will lose their bite in favor of gumming Obama around the edges.

Brian Williams was his guest last night and he was fantastic. The dude is funny. Seriously, funny. He looked John in the eye and told him he was from Jersey and he would open a can of whoop-ass on him if he had to. Didn't bat an eye.

Colbert had a great guest in the middle of the show. This guy who writes for the Green Lantern (click on the link to see an article comparing the envrionmental benefits of soy v. milk) on environmental issues came on to talk about things people try to decide on. Nothing i hadn't heard before, but most people may not have and it made me want to read his column. He discussed how there's so much more to being green than just surface level considerations. Paper or plastic? Well, on the surface, paper, right? Plastic never bio-degrades, strangles sea turtles, etc. Well, yes and no. First off, while paper can be recycled, it often isn't and depletes our forests. It also takes more energy in production to make a paper bag than a plastic one and more energy and fuel are expelled in transporting paper bags (which weigh more) to stores.

Now, he didn't discuss your own reusable bags like the one Ashley made and our canvas sacks, but he had about 3 minutes on the show. He also gave a good rule of thumb that i need to pass on to my misguided eco-cousin, Katie. i've told Ashley before that for gas mileage in the summer, she should put the windows down around town, but it improves it on the highway to put them up and use the A/C. This seems common sense to Ashley and i. The wind resistance on the highway is too high to leave the windows down and lower gas mileage means bad for the environment. The rule of thumb is 45mph. Anything over that and you save by rolling up the windows and turning on that A/C. Anything under and you might as well go for the windows.

He wrapped up by talking about CFL's, the cute little enrgy efficient bulbs my dad was hating on for so long. Everyone is screaming about mercury. He said your only real concern is if you break one and then lick it. But Steven put him in his place and said, "well it's hard not to want to! They look like soft-serve ice cream!"