Saturday, July 19, 2003
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Gay "marriage" potpourri
Is there a right to be married? It's nowhere in the Constitution - not even within the emanation of a penumbra. Last I knew state govts could restrict it for various ways for straights. So it would appear to my non-legal mind that no such right exists even for straights. So what is up with this civil rights crapola we keep hearing from Andrew Sullivan?
Oh, but the govt has an interest in pairing us off; for once we have gays telling us promiscuity is a Bad Thing. Well, what about the other nonmarrieds, who by choice or otherwise remain single? Why should they pay any more so Gerald FitzPatrick and Patrick FitzGerald can share each others' health benefits? Should the feds buy match.com and set up the rest of us?
Hey, aren't most gays in the US white males? Is this some backdoor way to take something away from women and racial minorities?
And aren't there more gays than lesbians? Aha, another way for white males to extract benefits at others' expense.
Are handicapped people married at the same rates as everyone else? If not, doesn't this favorable treatment of marriage further handicap them?
And don't singles die younger even while they spend time covering for the marrieds who come in late after taking Johnny to school, or leave early to take Muffy to soccer practice, or stay home with sick kids, or just disappear from work for months at a time at their discretion to have kids? Maybe that shorter life expectancy is the excuse for taxing them at a higher rate, eh? Why make the remaining singles carry more?
And seriously now - when so many straights are getting divorced every year, what would possess gays and lesbians to want to get in on the act? And that's not enough - they want to adopt too, so they can have child support and visitation grief too.
Why must we pervert the traditional concept of marriage just to accomodate the whims of that fraction of the 2% of our population that is gay and is interested in marriage? With the brigades of lawyers and lobbyists involved in this, they could have drafted one hell of a code covering "civil unions" that could be adopted by statute by every state interested in doing so. Why not take that approach instead of doing what amounts to spitting in the eye of marriage traditionalists?
I'll tell you why. I'm sure there are some gays out there who are sincerely interested in their conception of a marriage. But IMO the gay marriage movement at its core is really about delegitimizing and ultimately destroying marriage.
Oh, but the govt has an interest in pairing us off; for once we have gays telling us promiscuity is a Bad Thing. Well, what about the other nonmarrieds, who by choice or otherwise remain single? Why should they pay any more so Gerald FitzPatrick and Patrick FitzGerald can share each others' health benefits? Should the feds buy match.com and set up the rest of us?
Hey, aren't most gays in the US white males? Is this some backdoor way to take something away from women and racial minorities?
And aren't there more gays than lesbians? Aha, another way for white males to extract benefits at others' expense.
Are handicapped people married at the same rates as everyone else? If not, doesn't this favorable treatment of marriage further handicap them?
And don't singles die younger even while they spend time covering for the marrieds who come in late after taking Johnny to school, or leave early to take Muffy to soccer practice, or stay home with sick kids, or just disappear from work for months at a time at their discretion to have kids? Maybe that shorter life expectancy is the excuse for taxing them at a higher rate, eh? Why make the remaining singles carry more?
And seriously now - when so many straights are getting divorced every year, what would possess gays and lesbians to want to get in on the act? And that's not enough - they want to adopt too, so they can have child support and visitation grief too.
Why must we pervert the traditional concept of marriage just to accomodate the whims of that fraction of the 2% of our population that is gay and is interested in marriage? With the brigades of lawyers and lobbyists involved in this, they could have drafted one hell of a code covering "civil unions" that could be adopted by statute by every state interested in doing so. Why not take that approach instead of doing what amounts to spitting in the eye of marriage traditionalists?
I'll tell you why. I'm sure there are some gays out there who are sincerely interested in their conception of a marriage. But IMO the gay marriage movement at its core is really about delegitimizing and ultimately destroying marriage.
XY + XX = HELL
Man, I was looking forward to some feedback from Acidman test-driving his new equipment. But I guess it's not ready to go yet, and in the meantime he's lamenting a woman that did him wrong.
Women! You can't put a bounty on them, but maybe this would cheer him up. (no pictures though - if you want something prurient you'll just have to go to see Susanna)
Women! You can't put a bounty on them, but maybe this would cheer him up. (no pictures though - if you want something prurient you'll just have to go to see Susanna)
Monday, July 14, 2003
Sunday, July 13, 2003
Ghoulish pleasure
Indianapolis is deeply involved with publishing and distributing books, so it's easy to find cheap ones on about any topic imaginable. And since I'm interested in most of that, I wind up with books about a little of everything. I'm sure a shrink would have some fun noting recently acquired books on crying and two different books about cadavers.
You'll have to wait for the crying one and I'm only partway through the first cadaver book. Actually the name is "Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death". Most of the volume of this small book is about the entomological and other research that has gone into providing estimates of the time of death. It's far less exact than some would have you believe, and in one whopper a leader of the discipline erred by about a century. There are no pictures, and for all the talk of odors there's not even a scratch-and-sniff.
One has to admire the dedication it must have taken to carry out this research. For instance, corpses are covered with maggots very soon after death, and it is very important to know one kind of maggot from another. You might think maggots are fairly featureless, and that's mostly true, but entomologists are up to the task of identifying the species. How? By examining what conceptually at least is one of the most disgusting things around - the maggots' anuses. And their anal spiracles, through which they breath - that's pretty disgusting too, but then think of what's happening on the other end. Anyway, different species have different designs of anal spiracles, and these change during their various larval phases (instars). Sorry, no pictures of this either.
Gosh, I can hardly wait for the rest of the book. But first I'm gonna go to the refrigerator and eat some of the dead flesh therein. Bon appetit.
You'll have to wait for the crying one and I'm only partway through the first cadaver book. Actually the name is "Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death". Most of the volume of this small book is about the entomological and other research that has gone into providing estimates of the time of death. It's far less exact than some would have you believe, and in one whopper a leader of the discipline erred by about a century. There are no pictures, and for all the talk of odors there's not even a scratch-and-sniff.
One has to admire the dedication it must have taken to carry out this research. For instance, corpses are covered with maggots very soon after death, and it is very important to know one kind of maggot from another. You might think maggots are fairly featureless, and that's mostly true, but entomologists are up to the task of identifying the species. How? By examining what conceptually at least is one of the most disgusting things around - the maggots' anuses. And their anal spiracles, through which they breath - that's pretty disgusting too, but then think of what's happening on the other end. Anyway, different species have different designs of anal spiracles, and these change during their various larval phases (instars). Sorry, no pictures of this either.
Gosh, I can hardly wait for the rest of the book. But first I'm gonna go to the refrigerator and eat some of the dead flesh therein. Bon appetit.
Can't we lock them *all* up?
There's no one to like in this case, courtesy of Therapy Sessions. Who's worse - the people who simply must have sex in public, or the guy who's been busted for videotaping them?
I suppose there are populations out there who have no choice but to copulate in public. I lived in a YMCA for a spell while in E-school and knew that the streetwalkers who couldn't be troubled with the hotsheet joint next door occasionally tore off a piece on the fire escapes. These typically weren't people anyone but anthropologist would want to videotape though.
A bit farther up the social scale, I've known people who couldn't wait to get home and had to get it on at work. Others couldn't go home because they were more likely to get caught there than at work. And many just thought the possibility of getting caught was incredibly erotic, but weren't quite ready for full-blown exhibitionism.
I'm suspecting that it was one of the latter group that was caught on videotape in the public park. Who would have guessed that they expected privacy?
This outdoor sex thing is overrated IMO. I didn't like it much even when I was a teenager. There's something about being interrupted by a spotlight from a sheriff's deputy's car that's just too counterlibidinous - I speak from experience.
Don't get me wrong - the videotape guy is about 99% likely to be a creep too. I leave him an out for perhaps some faulty reasoning - 1) human beings don't screw in parks, 2) I can videotape anything else, ergo 3) I can videotape this.
BTW, what ever happened to Ugly George?
I suppose there are populations out there who have no choice but to copulate in public. I lived in a YMCA for a spell while in E-school and knew that the streetwalkers who couldn't be troubled with the hotsheet joint next door occasionally tore off a piece on the fire escapes. These typically weren't people anyone but anthropologist would want to videotape though.
A bit farther up the social scale, I've known people who couldn't wait to get home and had to get it on at work. Others couldn't go home because they were more likely to get caught there than at work. And many just thought the possibility of getting caught was incredibly erotic, but weren't quite ready for full-blown exhibitionism.
I'm suspecting that it was one of the latter group that was caught on videotape in the public park. Who would have guessed that they expected privacy?
This outdoor sex thing is overrated IMO. I didn't like it much even when I was a teenager. There's something about being interrupted by a spotlight from a sheriff's deputy's car that's just too counterlibidinous - I speak from experience.
Don't get me wrong - the videotape guy is about 99% likely to be a creep too. I leave him an out for perhaps some faulty reasoning - 1) human beings don't screw in parks, 2) I can videotape anything else, ergo 3) I can videotape this.
BTW, what ever happened to Ugly George?
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