May 11, 2005

Gay marriage in the year 2055

Someday my kids will look back at the current gay marriage debate with the same disbelief I have when looking back at the legal racial segregation from a generation ago. Let me explain:

Growing up, I was under the impression that human history was an inevitable progression toward something better. Toward equality, even. And looking at history as it is taught in public schools, this seems like a natural conclusion. Especially with American history. We learn that hundreds of years ago, Americans enslaved Africans and killed off an entire continent of Native Americans. But, we eliminated slavery and went to a system of segregation and oppression, which sucks, but isn't quite as bad as slavery. Next, we got rid of legal segregation as well. In the 90's there were race riots, but that's not near as troubling as segregation and slavery. If we stayed on this course, it seemed like racial equality would be just around the corner.

And it wasn't just racial issues that fit into this worldview of mine. Women's rights, environmental issues... pretty much everything seemed to be progressing toward something better, or maybe away from something worse. Of course, there will always be certain issues - like abortion and the death penalty - that will divide the country. In billions of years, when all life in the galaxy is on the verge of extinction due to the supernova of the sun, conservatives will still be protesting outside abortion clinics and liberals will be protesting outside prisons. And both will be wielding signs that read, "Respect life."

It wasn't until I grew up that I actually encountered racism and bigotry firsthand. While this may have distorted my worldview a little, I still maintained the impression that better days lie ahead.

But then along came the issue of gay marriage. President Bush tried to amend the constitution to hinder gay marriages, and the next thing you know we're living in a world that eerily resembles The Scarlet Letter. Republicans and Democrats are unified in their opposition to all things sexual (particularly homosexual); John Kerry is so scared of the issue, he doesn't want it to be part of the Democratic platform; lawmakers are trying to ban gay books; Texas is outlawing cheerleading; phone companies are becoming anti-gay; and researchers have people smelling pee and sweat to find out where The Gay comes from.

All of this is eerily similar to Civil Rights issues of the past century. Politicians were reluctant to openly support integration for fear of alienating voters, scientists debated biological versus cultural differences between the races, and companies supported and profited from catering to racist customers.

I still believe our society is progressing forward, I just made the mistake of thinking we were farther along than we really are. If I ask my grandparents what it was like living in a time when such racism and oppression existed, they would probably just say, "Nobody knew better at the time."

So when it comes down to it, the gay marriage debate and the power-grab by the ultra-conservative religious right is not that big of a deal. It will pass. Someday homosexuals will have the right to marry (or have civil unions) all across the U.S. And someday my grandchildren will ask me what it was like living in a time when the government was so concerned with what two men or two women did in the bedroom. I'll just laugh and say, "We didn't know any better at the time."

Posted by Elyas at 12:53 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

May 06, 2005

Evolution on trial (again)

From Reuters:

TOPEKA, Kan. (Reuters) - A six-day courtroom-style debate opened on Thursday in Kansas over what children should be taught in schools about the origin of life -- was it natural evolution or did God create the world?

The hearings, complete with opposing attorneys and a long list of witnesses, were arranged amid efforts by some Christian groups in Kansas and nationally to reverse the domination of evolutionary theory in the nation's schools.

William Harris, a medical researcher and co-founder of a Kansas group called the Intelligent Design Network, posed the core question about life's beginnings before mapping out why he and other Christians want changes in school curriculum.

School science classes are teaching children that life evolved naturally and randomly, Harris said, arguing that this was in conflict with Biblical teachings that God created life.

I'm sorry, but didn't we already have this trial 80 years ago? More on the issue from conservative John Cole, courtesy of Kos:

Bob Novak, on Crossfire:

Why don't we teach evolution and intelligent design and let students figure it out on their own?

The response from an unknown God-hating scientist:

Fine. Why don't we teach students the South won the civil war and let them figure it out on their own? Why don't we teach students that the moon is made of green cheese and let the students figure it out on their own.

Having grown up in rural Tennessee, I can remember a Creationist speaking to my class in our elementary school cafeteria. At the time, I was too young to think much about it either way. It was just another one of those things we got out of class for: school musicals, D.A.R.E., visiting magicians.

He had a nice display with charts and whatnot, and tried to explain how the world was only around 10,000 years old. The most confusing part for an 11-year-old to grasp was that it was the same science teacher that had said the Earth was billions of years old who let us out of class for the Creationist's presentation.

Note: Photo is not real. It's from The Onion.

Posted by Elyas at 10:41 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 27, 2005

Smallpox

I had planned on saving this post for May 8, the 25th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox. But I came across this article and decided to go ahead and comment.

A few years ago, around this time, I came across an article commemorating the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox. I don't remember which anniversary it was: the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox eradicated on May 8, 1980, but the last reported case was three years earlier.

I also don't remember who wrote the article or where I read it. The actual article is lost forever. But something about it has stuck with me since then. It has helped shape my worldview and provided an analogy with which I can explain my perspective. Every spring the article enters my mind and renews my twisted mix of optimism and cynicism.

Many regard the eradication of smallpox as one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. And they're right. This was the first time an entire disease had been eradicated from the planet. At the height of the Cold War, in a time when the threat of a global nuclear war haunted minds across the planet, the eradication of smallpox symbolized the best of the human spirit. The world's two superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union, set aside differences and worked together to eradicate this viral menace. For once it seemed like the world was able to look beyond imagined barriers of religion, race, and nationality and recognize the ties that bind us as a human species.

From the superpowers to the third world, humans battled virus. The WHO struggled through civil wars, natural disasters and reluctant civilians to vaccinate in some areas of the globe. In some cases, officials vaccinated people against their will in order to stop the spread of the disease.

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was in 1977. At a cost of merely 300 million dollars (a fraction of what it costs to wage most wars), humanity had defeated one of its greatest threats. The only greater threat to humanity would turn out to be itself.

The remaining post-eradication stocks of the smallpox virus were divided between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War was still going on, and it's hard to say what was done with the virus. Soviet defectors claim the Soviet military developed biological weapons using the smallpox virus. In 1999, Russia and the U.S. backed out of an agreement to destroy the last remaining stocks of the virus, and now the U.S. has accelerated smallpox research, with possible plans for genetically engineering the virus.

And now we're back at square one. The majority of the U.S. population is no longer immune to the virus, with the last vaccinations occuring in the 1970s. The breakup of the Soviet Union left many stocks of the virus unaccounted for. After the September 11 terroist attacks and the 2001 anthrax mailings, the prospect of terrorists using smallpox as a biological weapon is as haunting as the Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation.

Thus, the paradox of the human brain. We are capable of understanding the most complex mysteries of the universe, yet sometimes our minds are so simple. We split atoms and traverse every obstacle on the planet, but we overanalyze our differences and wage war over abstractions.

On the universal stage, we are both the villan and the hero. While there are ideological differences between the various religions and nationalities, we all share the same genetic matieral and the same human plight.

Some say this view is pessimistic. Afterall, humans have made vast technological advancements and have overcome many injustices throughout history. But optimists and pessimists have simply picked sides in a battle of ideas in which both parties are wrong. While a global catastrophe like a nuclear war or smallpox outbreak is unlikely, it is something that has entered into the world dialogue in the last century. As Kurt Vonnegut points out in his novel, Galapogas, with something like that on the table, it remains to be seen whether the human brain is the history's greatest evolutionary success or its greatest failure.

Posted by Elyas at 01:41 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

Somewhere over the rainbow

In Kansas, if an 18-year-old boy has consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl, the maximum sentence he can get (if for some reason the state decided to prosecute him for statutory rape) is 15 months in prison. He is protected by the "Romeo and Juliet" statue, which is designed to protect young couples, who are both teenagers, but one of them has passed the pivotal 18th birthday. It's a logical law, that gives comfort to anyone who turned 18 a few months or years before their girlfriend.

But when 18-year-old Matthew Limon had consensual oral sex with another 15-year-old boy in a boarding school dorm room in Kansas, he received a 17-year prison sentence for "criminal sodomy." Because Limon chose a male instead of a female for his teenage sexual experimentation, the next two decades of his life are ruined. If not more.

One can only imagine what life is like for him in there. Young men like Matthew are prime targets in jail. Gay prisoners are more than twice as likely to be the victims of rape in prison, and young gay men are particularly vulnerable. Worse, the rate of HIV infection among the prison population is higher than in the general population, so prison rape carries with it the added risk of HIV transmission.

Read the full article at Salon, it's worth the Site Pass.

Posted by Elyas at 11:21 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 25, 2005

Numbers game

From David Brooks:

The release of a report in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people represents an important moment in the history of world civilization. It is the moment when we realize that Mother Nature - unlike Ivy League admissions committees - doesn't like suck-ups.

It turns out she doesn't like those body-worshiping, multi-abbed marvels who've spent so much time at the bench press machine they look as if they have thighs growing out of either side of their necks. She doesn't like those health-conscious rice cake addicts you see at Manhattan restaurants ordering a skinned olive for lunch and sitting there looking trim and fit in their tapered blouses while their buns of steel leave permanent dents in the upholstery.

If I gained nothing else from four years of studying Sociology in college, I at least learned that statistics can lie. And the media's interpretation of statistics can twist a little lie into a far-fetched fantasy that doesn't resemble reality. Now, normally I can tolerate David Brooks, but he's so eager to gloat over the AMA's report that overweight people live longer than normal people, that he forgot to read the actual report..

Brooks does a disservice to the scientists who worked hard on the report, when he claims in his first sentence that the report says, "overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people." The actual report compares mortality rates in three categories - overweight, obese, and underweight - with normal mortality rates. The study finds, as would be expected, that being obese or underweight increased mortality. But, being "overweight was not associated with excess mortality."

So Mr. Brooks wastes 750 words babbling about the good news for overweight people, when the report basically just reinforces common sense. Being a little overweight (like Brooks' multi-abbed marvels) isn't going to be devastating in the long run, but it's certainly not Mother Nature's secret fountain of youth.

Unfogged has more a more detailed BMI analysis, as does Tom Maguire.

UPDATE: According to this association of restaurants and food producers, not only is overweight the new healthy, but obese isn't half-bad either.

Posted by Elyas at 10:42 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

This one's for Mark

Saying Texas Hold'em poker is "growing in popularity" is like saying Wal-Mart experienced a minor growth spurt in the last 20 years. Poker isn't just becoming popular, it's becoming a cultural fad, a decade-defining movement. And while I'm usually very reluctant to openly swim in the mainstream, this is one bandwagon I am not ashamed to have jumped on.

Hold'em poker is the ultimate sport, minus the exercise. It combines the intellectual stimulation of chess with last-minute excitement of March Madness basketball. With professional baseball being dragged through the mud over steroid scandals, Texas Hold'em is America's new pastime. What could be more American than a game with "Texas" in its name?

Cleverly marketed Internet poker sites and dozens of timeslots for poker tournaments on cable (most notably, the World Series of Poker) have given Texas Hold'em more cool points than Jon Stewart. It seems like only a matter of time before the honeymoon ends and it all comes crashing down. I didn't really want to bring politics into a poker post, but with social conservatives in charge of every branch of government imaginable, I don't expect gambling to remain a cultural icon for very long without taking some heat.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the government is too concerned with nipple flashes and feeding tubes and poker will fly quietly under the radar. Personally, I hope this is one fad that sticks around for a long time, and I take comfort in knowing that we now have one less reason to be ashamed of the species:

"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush." It is enough to make one ashamed of the species." -Mark Twain

Posted by Elyas at 01:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 16, 2005

Kids these days

I have to admit, I listen to Rush Limbaugh on occassion. Not very often. Usually it's when I'm driving across the country late at night. After driving for 10 hours straight, I find that listening to conservative talk radio gets me mad enough or makes me laugh enough to keep me awake through the night.

Now, I don't like political pundits in general, whether liberal or conservative. But some of the things Limbaugh says are just so out of touch with reality that he is far more entertaining than anyone else. Take his latest shennanigans. He recently sort-of, almost apologized after bashing Al Gore's upcoming cable news network, which is aimed at teenagers.

"What the hell is that, Al?" Limbaugh asked. "What the hell is the point of view of young people? Blow jobs, that's what they're doing out there. They're out there getting oral sex all day long, that's what they're talking about."

Does he really think that's what kids are up to these days? Getting oral sex "all day long?" He sounds a little bitter that he's missing out. And to beat it all, he blames Clinton.

"I am going to apologize not for saying what I said, but I'm going to apologize if it offended anybody," he said. "I never apologize for what I say, but if some of you were offended by a graphic term involving actions committed by Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, that have now spread to America’s high schools, I apologize."

So Clinton is solely responsible for a rampant culture of oral sex among young people? I can see why Rush is so popular. How can you not be entertained by this guy? The scary thing is, a lot of people take him seriously.[Related article by James Wolcott]

Posted by Elyas at 04:20 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack