I Speak of Dreams

More Low Behavior On The Right

I am in favor of the state staying out of reproductive issues of all kinds. This means, of course, that the continuation of a pregnancy should be between a woman and her doctor.

Making Light has sponsored links in the left-hand column, below the fold. One is to SaveRoe (a Planned Parenthood link) that points out a disgusting comment Karen Hughes made this week:

Civil Marriage for All

I found somebody who said exactly what I believe about same-sex marriage.

Evolution's Rainbow

This article has a good synopsis of the arguments against homosexuality--and a new, biologically based argument for the evolutionary fitness of homosexuality, and an interview with Joan Roughgarden

Now, while the rest of the country is grappling with the issue of gay marriage, Stanford evolutionary ecologist Joan Roughgarden is trying to untangle Darwin’s mess by publishing Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People. Roughgarden’s thesis begins with the idea that since homosexuality is not a reproductive strategy, according to Darwin it’s an aberration that should die off. But instead of deciding that homosexuality is wrong from an evolutionary standpoint, Roughgarden arrived at another conclusion: Darwin’s theory of sexual selection must be wrong. Traveling this path and others, her book marks the first time that a scientist has presented a cogent challenge to one of Darwin’s sacred cows.

(The Good Vicar sent me there)

A faltering Credo

Teresa has posted her personal credo, ending with (I believe) the Nicene Creed.

I used to find the saying of the Creed somehow comforting and settling. But now, I believe in something inexpressably other...I don't believe there was a

maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

And no, not Jesus and his divinity, nor his death as atonement.

Working on Google for Passover

I am not a Jew. I have come to believe I'm not really Christian. But I am very much anti-hate.

I was rolling through Blogopolis, and stopped by Crooked Timber, who reported on a google bomb run underway, in that the top Google search for "Jew" is a floridly anti-semitic spew of bile.

Norm tells more.

Now, in my mind, all right-thinking persons should denounce such prejudices as anti-Semitism early, often, and loudly.

Jew links to the wikipedia article on Jews and Judaism; there was some discussion on the editable nature of the wiki making it liable to, well, malicious attacks.
Jew, or Judaism 101 being an non-wiki site, was also nominated. (They are now #2 and #3.) The #4 spot as of this second is a mission to convert the Jews to Christianity.

This person and his commentators have some interesting things to say about Google (although he believes that Google practices censorship)

But maybe there is something to that, as Joho the Blog and his commentators have mention of other Google page rank tweakages in the past. Although is suidide and heart attack in the same category of severity?

A Celebration of a Long-Lasting Union

[This got stuck in "draft mode" on December 17, 2003.  Rather than put it back there, let's put it here.]

Republic of T asks "Could these two old men be a threat to your family? Some would have you believe so. They are Gustavo Archilla (88) and Elmer Lokkins (84), a same sex couple who have been together for 58 years, and who just got married in Canada.

The New York Times carried their "elopement" story. RoT heard about it from Religious Liberal.

(Oh, it was RoT's blog that pointed me to Margaret Cho's blog, which splained to me why Tupac really is important, which got me in good with my girl .  Thanks, dude.)

And did you all catch Why social conservatives should support same-sex marriage by Jonathan Rauch?

Nuance

I don't often write or post on political issues. People who write and think more clearly than I do are doing fine, thank you.

One of the things I am most interested in is nuance, or perhaps the opposite of ideology. Or perhaps the opposite of thinking and arguing with slogans and processed cheese conventional wisdom received opinion. There's a group blog, Crescat Sententia, that captures a lot of nuance.

On this topic, as in many others, it is helpful to remember that, as Mark Kleiman so wonderfully puts it (regarding another issue entirely), "there are patriotic, humanitarian folks who know more than you do about the problem who disagree with you." For this debate, I'd substitute "liberal, tolerant," but it's a big world: you can pretty much pick your adjectives of approval and there'll be people who meet it.

The "on this topic" is the French banning of religous wear in the public schools. The problem, it turns out, seems not to be religion vs. secular French values, but the breakdown of civility in the French schools:

The action that causes problems, in short, isn't scarf-wearing at all; it's intimidation, backed up by credible threats of violence.

Integrity Deficit

Ron Bell, who is of all things an attorney, stands up and says it forthrightly:

But the leadership problem in America isn't that we lack laws sufficient to tell us what to do, it's that too many prominent people have chosen to do the wrong thing when they thought they wouldn't get caught. We've been living for too long in Scooby-Doo's America, where leaders aggrandize perks and power like that sales manager Carole confronted, snarling at the end of each scandal, "I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids."

We don't have a leadership deficit, we have an integrity deficit.

So I've got a tip for the presidential candidates and for would-be social climbers of the next generation: If you really want to make a difference, be different. Strive to be men and women of character not because character will make you more electable or better at your jobs but because character is an end in itself.

Otis Young has a pretty good canned sermon on integrity deficit disorder.

But what if you aren't a Christian? How do you go about curing integrity deficit?

A Single Face

Dorothea gave a workshop on how to post. The possibility of self-disclosure horrified one of the participants.

This, at the same time that a lot of criticism of social-networking software centers around the various circles of acquaintanceship we all have, and how said circles mostly don’t know about each other, and how each of us shows different faces to our various circles, and how the SNSes don’t allow us to do that.

I recognize the problem, and I see how it applies to blogging, though I think the workshop attendee thought I was clueless. I think she thought I was in for all kinds of trouble when Someone Who Shouldn’t finds and reads CavLec. And who knows? Maybe I am.

I think that Dorothea is on the right track. Secrecy or having multiple "faces" or personalities for different settings just doesn't seem ethically correct to me.

My Mom is Crazy, Send Help

These pictures have been roaming around the internet. I feel sorry for both Knormal and his/her mom, they don't seem to be able to get a handle on this hording behavior.

Here's a definition of hoading in the elderly, and steps to help.

Andrea got real help from Flylady, but it didn't work the first time.

Amber needed Flylady and some other help:

I recently discovered FlyLady. The ideas presented on the site are mostly common sense, but that seems to be what many people are lacking. I was able to overcome my hoarding with Celexa. During my holiday vacation I emptied my attic. Literally. Years of my life piled into over THIRTY 55 gallon garbage bags, along with other various things too large to be bagged. I have hired a man with a dump truck to help me haul it away; it is That Much Stuff. Do yourself a favor... don't let it go that far.

There's a hoarding-clutter online support group, and a group that focusses on the Obsessive-Compulsive Attributes.
Flylady has a lot of members with slowly-reducing clutter

There's even a service to help you.