Well, that was unexpected

As all non-under rock dwellers know, the Supreme court today released their decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act. And as far as I know, no one predicated 5-4 with Roberts as the 5th vote.

This is a triumph for the over 40 million of uninsured Americans who will now have guaranteed coverage. And for the millions more denied care because of pre-existing conditions and all the other inhumane excuses insurance companies used to kill and maim the inconveniently ill.

The fact that it was this close at all is a shock and a shame. Virtually all constitutional scholars agree that the ACA was consistent with the Constitution and past Supreme court decisions. Yet many thought the court would strike it down anyways.

The Supreme court is at the edge of an abyss. Its credibility as a non partisan institution is already at the breaking point. I guess Roberts gazed into the abyss, and it gazed back into him. So he tip toed away.

But Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy are cheerfully waving as they plummet down. Come on in, they cry! The water's fine!

With this in mind, I know full well who I am voting for this November. Its not just about Obama. If the Supreme court goes full Monty partisan, the loss to our country will be incalculable. 

As unimaginable to those like me who grew up in the shadow of Bush vs. Gore, my father speaks wistfully of a time when the Supreme court was as unquestioned and trusted as the air. Lets do everything in our power to bring that back.

A Modesty Proposal

If you ask many conservative Christians, the greatest problem facing our country isn't war, poverty, the deficit or even The Muslim Menace™. Its women. 

Specifically, how they dress. There is an epidemic roiling the heart of America, and it is wearing cut off shorts. Everywhere these good men of faith go their eyes are assaulted by women wearing skirts above their shins, sleeves so small you can witness their elbows, and tops so low cut their collar bones are visible. As the proverb goes, these are the times that try men's souls. 

The scope and depth of this societal plague has been expertly cataloged by an online modesty survey here. It asks men the crucial questions of our time: How short is too short? Do only Jezebels wear jeans? And if a boy gets an erection, is it all the girls fault, or just mostly? 

But while good Christians have been fulfilling their holy duties to tell ladies to cover up, I fear we have been neglecting a group in desperate need of help. One that is already constantly struggling with sin. 

I am speaking of the gay man, those who never cease to be vigilant against the rising snake of sin, fearlessly beating it off whenever it rears it head. As has been reiterated elsewhere, men are visual and women are emotional. Women must be mindful of how much they show lest they cause a Brother in Christ to stumble. Men don't because no good Christian woman has ever been attracted to a man's body ever. This all well and true. But how does this help our devout gay man? 

Every trial the straight man faces they encounter double. All day they are taunted by the chiseled abs, mouth watering biceps and tempting thighs of their male peers. Even such sacred spaces for male bonding such as the football field and the locker room offer no respite. The less said about what football shorts do to men's buns the better. 

Add on the fact that even marriage offers no respite for these gay urges, and the torment can become intolerable. Is it any wonder so many of the poor men break, and run off to San Francisco to put glitter on their pants and destroy America? As fellow walkers in faith, it needs to become the Christian duty of men to do all they can to not be a stumbling block. Tuck in those shirts. Keep those sleeves rolled down. No more games of skins vs. shirts. And for God's sake keep those pants up. 

Being good people intent on preventing sin wherever it may appear, I'm confidant once I send my proposal to prominent Christian modesty organizations they'll immediately address these urgent concerns. How could they not, when the need is so clear and the danger so present? 

Any time now. Just you wait.

 

Brave: Mothers and Daughters

Yesterday my brother and I went to the theater to see the newest Pixar film. Despite some of our trepidations based on the trailers, we were eager to view it. Its Pixar after all. All of their movies have ranged from the excellent to the merely very good(Cars? What Cars movie?).

While this is one that ended up more on the very good end of the scale, there is still much to recommend about the film. "Brave" is centered around the broken relationship between the 13-14 year old Merida and her mother Queen Elinor. As Merida loves nothing more to ride horses and practice impossible archery feats and rock climb, her mother has been reduced to a nagging, correcting presence in her life. One whose words are mostly telling her what she most not do or be in order to become "a lady."

Naturally, this all comes to a head when the issue of Merida marrying comes up. The other three clans in the area have their first born sons all attempt to compete for her hand, but Merida will have none of it. It is in a fight that turns nasty about this that causes Merida to flee into the woods and into the cabin of a witch, promising a spell that can change her mother's mind.

The astute movie goer can of course see that this will lead to the sort of horrible complications that will force Merida and her mother to mend their fences. For spells are always broken by character development.

First, the good. Merida and her mother have a quite real and complex relationship. One that is explored well throughout the movie. Almost every element of the plot is foreshadowed in an intelligent and thoughtful manner.There are a number of well done comedic set pieces, and the animation. Oh lord, the animation. Suffice to say, Pixar's computers have clearly gotten to the point that the only limiters are imagination and expertise.

Now, while there aren't any major stumbling blocks or gaping flaws, there are little things that add up. Pixar, you do your first and likely only movie about a girl, and you make her a princess? Isn't that market a little saturated? Thankfully, it barely has an impact. Also, while there are action scenes that will get your heart pumping, for the most part they are the sort of thing that could have been done easily in live action.

While I could stretch more and add to the list, what is really missing is a je ne sais quoi. This didn't end blowing me away as Walle or Toy Story 3 did. As stated before, it was merely quite good. Which makes it better than 90% of what comes out, so go ahead and see it if you like Pixar, animation, or just well done movies in general.

Unintentionally Revealing: The Ugly Truth About Purity Rings

Recently on the blog Love Joy Feminism, the lovely blog host did a link round-up of dads celebrating and writing about giving their daughters "purity" rings. The particular one I wish to highlight is called Celebrating Another Milestone: Purity Ring for My Daughter.

First, a quick primer. Purity rings are a relatively recent phenomenon, starting in the late 90s to the best of my knowledge. Silver Ring Thing is a good example. The basic premise that daughters need to be abstinent before marriage to have a good, happy life. The ring is supposed to be a symbol and reminder of her promise to "purity." And a promise it is, for the girl in question is only half of the parties present for this contract. Her daddy is the one who slips the band onto her finger, the one who is supposed to protect her purity, and the one who the daughter swears her virginity to until another ring comes on her finger. 

With that in mind, let's take a look at this post. The father in question is celebrating giving his daughter her purity ring, in the same way another parent might after their child had a bar mitzvah. He takes her out to dinner, reads a letter to her for the occasion, then slips on the ring. As explicitly stated in the post, this ring is meant to be replaced only by a wedding ring. He also goes on to say:

It is a reminder for her to pray for her future husband and it also is a reminder that God has in store for her HIS BEST!  She doesn’t have to go prancing around trying to find or settle for second, but know that God knows already the person He has for her.

This alludes to an oft stated assumption that being a virgin is a building block and guarantor of a strong marriage free from strife or divorce. For if God has a chosen path for his daughter that she sticks to, then obviously his plan is for her to be with one man forever. Also quite clear is just how suffused in christian culture the entire purity ring concept is. While they pretended otherwise at times for the sake of getting into public schools, the entire movement is protestant Christianity through and through.

But the most revealing part comes up next. To quote:

DADS: WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PURITY OF OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS!  We cannot just hope that they figure all of this out!  And we cannot let Punks come in and destroy in days or weeks or months, what effort we as parents have put into our children for 13-14 years!

While the conviction that children cannot be trusted to guard their purity is one that can certainly be unpacked, the crucial bit is in the last sentence. Daddy is determined to not let "punks" come in and destroy 13-14 of efforts.

Lets spell this out as explicitly as possible. This man is basing the success of his parenting and his judgement of his daughter's character on whether she has sex before the approved time. This is the ugly, logical necessity of the entire concept of purity. For if someone is not pure, than they are corrupt, tainted, wrecked, destroyed.

Taking this man at his word, he would consider all his years of raising his daughter obliterated if she touches a penis before a wedding ring.

In this humble blogger's personal opinion, that is deeply screwed up.

Star Trek and Moral Myopia: The Myth of the Neutral Action

I am a huge Star Trek fan. I grew up on watching every week the trials and travails of the Voyager crew with my mother and sister. When I grew older one of my mother's boyfriends gave her a TV recorded set of the best Next Generation episodes. Even if he stank as a boyfriend, that was pretty sweet. It was only near the end of high school that I started watching Deep Space Nine. It turned out to be my favorite, and continues to be till this day, and likely forevermore.

Like all shows, Star Trek has had its ups and downs. And there is one episode in particular I despise like none other. What are its sins? Is it bad writing, laughable effects, shoddy pacing, infuriating character derailment?

It is none of these. It is evil.

That word is not one I use lightly or frivolously. Furthermore, it is often seen as one of the best episodes of the show by some people. A justification is in order.

The episode in question is from the oft derided "Star Trek: Enterprise." Entitled "Dear Doctor," it employs a narrative device of having the character Doctor Phlox narrate his day to day thoughts and happenings as a letter he is writing to a human friend of his back on the his home world. During the episode, an alien race contacts the vessel and begs the Enterprise for help. Their entire species is dying. Their own doctors being helpless to stop the disease the is afflicting an increasingly large portion of their race, the Valakians have turned to aliens for help.

Captain Archer of course agrees to help. When the crew arrive on the Valakian home world, one of the first things noticed is the Valakians are but one of two sentient species on the planet. The other species are called the Menk. They are unaffected by the disease, and are generally seen as less intelligent and capable than the Valakians. They usually are servants and service workers for the Valakians. Evidence from Phlox's and the other crew mates interactions with them though indicate that the Valakians are underestimating their abilities and intelligence.

The central conflict comes to a head when Phlox discovers that the so called "disease" is a genetic mutation that is increasingly prevalent among the Valakians. He comes up with a cure, but refuses to use it.

Why?

Because according to him, the genetic disease means that nature and evolution have destined the Valakians to die, and the Menk to rise up and dominate the planet. After one day of interaction with the Menk, the Doctor concludes they are getting smarter. To cure the Valakians would interfere with their natural evolution. So to death's cold embrace they must go.

That's bad. What's even worse is that Captain Archer agrees with this garbage, citing the old cliche of "not wanting to play god." And thus an entire species is doomed to die painfully by one man. And then the episode even has the temerity to have Archer winkingly cite some sort of "Prime Directive" to not interfere that Starfleet should cook up one day.

Tabling the the fact this episode's understanding of evolutionary biology would be laughable in a less despicable context, this script has a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire concept of the Prime Directive and non-interference. The Prime Directive was Gene Rodenberry's response to the United States believing it had the right to organize the affairs of any country it pleased, famously resulting in such lovely enterprises such as the Vietnam War. The core of the Prime Directive was about formally making note of the dangers in believing you know better than the natives how to run things.

Yet none of this applies to the situation in this episode. The Valakians were begging for help. And they weren't asking for weapons to crush a hated enemy or for technology they didn't know how to handle or understand. They merely desired survival. Rather than Vietnam, this was India getting hit by a tsunami.  

Yet incredibly, this episode is cited by many as one of the few episodes that Enterprise did well, that had complex moral dilemmas and even handed debate.

Now, most of these people are smart enough to defend the unadulterated horse manure that is this episode's take on evolutionary science. Yet defend this episode they do.

This comment from a Star Trek reviewer's website* is fairly representative of the general arguments of the defenders:

The question of the hour is about stakes--on the one hand, many seem to agree that when the extinction of a species is the inevitable outcome of inaction, any moral nuances are rightly cast out in favour of simple human compassion. It sounds alright in those terms, but only because the stakes are so high...the problem is our compassion sometimes blinds us to the larger picture. We see existing as an end unto itself, because, evolutionarily speaking, we want to exist for as long as possible. This isn't a question of correcting the injustice of an agressive alien culture against another or aiding the victims of some isolated natural disaster, we're talking about one crew, one man taking responsibility for the ultimate fate of an entire species, and by proxy an entire civilisation. Becoming extinct by way of your own genes is not "genocide."

What Archer realises, finally, in this episode is that holding up human values an example is one thing, but inflicting them, even upon request, on a scale beyond the comprehension or purview of what any individual can possibly apprehend is hubristic in the extreme.

To quote the ever-wise Picard, "[t]he Prime Directive has many different functions, not the least of which is to protect us. It keeps us from allowing our emotions to overrule our judgment." 

Got that? Preventing an entire sapient species from dying is letting compassion overrule our reason, and to do so is "inflicting" human values on another species, even on request. Because desire for your species not to die is a human value. And of course, would be playing god.


While the conflation of compassion and irrationality is both annoying and distressing, there is a far more fundamental flaw in this reasoning that inspired me to write this post.

The flaw is this: Doing nothing isn't staying above the fray or morally neutral. Doing nothing is as much a choice as choosing to interfere.

Captain Archer pushes a button, an entire race is saved. He does nothing, they are doomed. They are doomed because of a choice he made, even if it was to do nothing but watch. The commenter would have us believe that Archer was refusing to play god. This is only compatible with opting for genocide of an entire species if you believe in the fallacy described above.

Rather than going for the uncertainty of a living and breathing society, Archer prefers the quiet certitude of a tomb.

*Seriously, if you have any interest in Star Trek, read this guy's site. While I intensely disagree with his opinion on this episode, most of his reviews are spot on and are quite thought provoking.
http://www.jammersreviews.com/st-ent/s1/deardoctor.php

Caves of Steel: Windows and Wishful Thinking

We last left our irritable protagonist in a conversation with his boss, Julius Enderby. He is reluctant to get down to business.


He stood up, turned away, and walked to the wall behind his desk. He touched an inconspicuous contact switch and a section of the wall grew transparent.
Baley blinked at the unexpected insurge of grayish light.
The Commissioner smiled. “I had this arranged specially last year, Lije. I don’t think I’ve showed it to you before. Come over here and take a look. In the old days, all rooms had things like this. They were called ‘windows.’ Did you know that?”
Baley knew that very well, having viewed many historical novels.
“I’ve heard of them,” he said.
“Come here.”
Baley squirmed a bit, but did as he was told. There was something indecent about the exposure of the privacy of a room to the outside world. Sometimes the Commissioner carried his affectation of Medievalism to a rather foolish extreme.
Like his glasses, Baley thought.
That was it! That was what made him look wrong!
Baley said, “Pardon me, Commissioner, but you’re wearing new glasses, aren’t you?”

Yet another aspect of the setting has been established: Everything is enclosed. To the point that windows are a novelty known about by the curious and knowledgeable. Even more important, windows are unusual to the point that look out of them provokes discomfort for Baley. In our world, it is only the most intensely agoraphobic that experience anxiety from merely looking at the open and the outside. Furthermore, the language Baley uses to describe his distaste suggest that his feelings on the subject are the default mode of thinking in his society.

The label of "Medievalism" Baley uses to describe Enderby's affinity for objects such as glasses and windows shows that the label has shifted from Europe 1000 years ago to 20th century Earth in general. Enderby in this case would be like having someone proudly display a 10th century English coat of arms in their office.

The next few paragraphs describe how Baley and Enderby are lost in the spectacle of watching rain coming down out the window. They then have this exchange:


He said, “It always seems a waste for all that water to come down on the city. It should restrict itself to the reservoirs.”
“Lije,” said the Commissioner, “you’re a modernist. That’s your trouble. In Medieval times, people lived in the open. I don’t mean on the farms only. I mean in the cities, too. Even in New York. When it rained, they didn’t think of it as waste. They gloried in it. They lived close to nature. It’s healthier, better. The troubles of modem life come from being divorced from nature. Read up on the Coal Century, sometimes.”
Baley had. He had heard many people moaning about the invention of the atomic pile. He moaned about it himself when things went wrong, or when he got tired. Moaning like that was a built-in facet of human nature. Back in the Coal Century, people moaned about the invention of the steam engine. In one of Shakespeare’s plays, a character moaned about the invention of gunpowder. A thousand years in the future, they’d be moaning about the invention of the positronic brain.
The hell with it.

Here we have an age old argument: Old vs. New, progress vs. reaction, "The Good Old Days" vs. "Our Ancestors Sucked."

Deep irony can be found in some of Julius's proclamation. It is in fact a huge health concern that people in the US have taken to being inside most of the time, especially in the cities. Plenty of people have tiny trees caged in wire the closest piece of nature within miles, and we most certainly don't "glory" in rain.

In terms of our society, parallels can be drawn with the rampant fetishism of the 1950s and 60s. That numinous, nonexistent time when men were men, women were women and all children acted like ones in "Leave it to Beaver". Nostalgia is most poisonous when it enshrines a pop culture version of the past.

Its About People, Not Principles

Three days ago AP posted a story about a gay ex-couple in New Mexico fighting over custody of a child they adopted together. The court involved ruled that the partner of the adoptive mother does have legal rights and is able to pursue custody.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/18678067/nm-court-lets-same-sex-partner-seek-child-custody

For someone like me, its a story about the law catching up to new social realities. To the people over at the National Organization for Marriage, it is of course something else entirely.

In a post entitled: "AP: New Mexico Court Lets Same-Sex Partner Seek Child Custody," their only comment is to snipe about a court "defining parenthood away." Their commentators are less laconic.

A representative one by a commenter named Michael C is as follows: "This is absolutely ridiculous. Children have the RIGHT to be raised by their natural parents. Here is wonderful story about a little girl rightfully returned to her natural father after being ripped away from her biological parents."

Where to begin? First off, Michael's notion of the child being taken away from her adoptive mother and given to her back to her biological father is pure fantasy. The story makes no claim that could even remotely support this. Note also that its the father that this person imagines the child being returned to, and not just her general biological parents.

Of course, its the middle sentence that's the real kicker. Children apparently have a right to be raised by their biological parents, in the same fashion that we have the right to a jury of our peers.

How odd it is then that hundreds of thousands of children are adopted and put into foster homes each year. By the state no less! Forget voting, this is the real civil rights crisis of our time.

But I am being facetious of course. And I think it an easy assumption that if asked this poster would be quite puzzled if asked whether adoptive parents should be prosecuted for their wanton violation of human rights. The issue isn't adoption. Its who's doing the adopting.

For someone like this poster, actions aren't good or bad depending on what is done. Its bad based on who's doing it. So adoption isn't good or bad based on some half baked notion of children rights, but on whether icky gay people are involved.

This method of divining morality is unfortunately far too common.

Caves of Steel: Worker vs. Machine

This book starts off with the most commonly used of Issac Asimov's plot devices: A conversation.

Lije Baley had just reached his desk when he became aware of R. Sammy watching him expectantly.
The dour lines of his long face hardened. “What do you want?”
“The boss wants you, Lije. Right away. Soon as you come in.”
“All right.”
R. Sammy stood there blankly.
Baley said, “I said, all right. Go away!”
R. Sammy turned on his heel and left to go about his duties. Baley wondered irritably why those same duties couldn’t be done by a man.
He paused to examine the contents of his tobacco pouch and make a mental calculation. At two pipefuls a day, he could stretch it to next quota day.

These efficient series of paragraphs establish a number of facts about the setting:

1. The main character, Baley, has a colleague who is not a man.
2. R. Sammy's job was previously done by a man.
3. The economics of the society that Baley lives in necessitate rationing, similar to how it was in America during World War 2.

These three facts add up to circumstances that will color much of the story. Baley like everyone else needs to obtain a living, one that is simultaneously defined and threatened by the sort of scarcity that compels quotas and rationing. The fact that a non-human being is doing the job of a person in his office cannot be lost on Baley. Leading R. Sammy to be a source of irritation. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Simpson looked up from a merc-pool file as he passed. “Boss wants you, Lije.”
“I know. R. Sammy told me.”
A closely coded tape reeled out of the merc-pool’s vitals as the small instrument searched and analyzed its “memory” for the desired information stored in the tiny vibration patterns of the gleaming mercury surface within.
“I’d kick R. Sammy’s behind if I weren’t afraid I’d break a leg,” said Simpson. “I saw Vince Barrett the other day.”
“Oh?”
“He was looking for his job back. Or any job in the Department. The poor kid’s desperate, but what could I tell him. R. Sammy’s doing his job and that’s all. The kid has to work a delivery tread on the yeast farms now. He was a bright boy, too. Everyone liked him.”
Baley shrugged and said in a manner stiffer than he intended or felt, “It’s a thing we’re all living through.” 

Baley isn't the only one angered by the presence of R. Sammy. To them, he isn't just a machine, its a machine that hurt someone they both liked. And as brushed upon by Baley: Its been happening everywhere. And while replacement jobs may be provided, the horror and fear is akin to any chronically unemployed person in our time.

The boss rated a private office. It said JULIUS ENDERBY on the clouded glass. Nice letters. Carefully etched into the fabric of the glass. Underneath, it said COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, CITY OF NEW YORK.

Here we get two things. One, this story is set in New York. Two, it is here that the story introduces the concept of the rating. In this society, rather than higher pay, people get privileges for better positions. In this case, an office with a fancy name plate.


Baley stepped in and said, “You want to see me, Commissioner?”
Enderby looked up. He wore spectacles because his eyes were sensitive and couldn’t take the usual contact lenses. It was only after one got used to the sight of them that one could take in the rest of the face, which was quite undistinguished. Baley had a strong notion that the Commissioner valued his glasses for the personality they lent him and suspected that his eyeballs weren’t as sensitive as all that.
The Commissioner looked definitely nervous. He straightened his cuffs, leaned back, and said, too heartily, “Sit clown, Lije. Sit down,”
Baley sat down stiffly and waited.
Enderby said, “How’s Jessie? And the boy?”
“Fine,” Said Baley, hollowly, “Just fine. And your family?”
“Fine,” echoed Enderby. “Just fine.”
It had been a false start.
Baley thought: Something’s wrong with his face.
Aloud, he said, “Commissioner, I wish you wouldn’t send R. Sammy out after me.”
“Well, you know how I feel about those things, Lije. But he’s been put here and I’ve got to use him for something.”
“It’s uncomfortable, Commissioner. He tells me you want me and then he stands there. You know what I mean. I have to tell him to go or he just keeps on standing there.”
“Oh, that’s my fault, Lije. I gave him the message to deliver and forgot to tell him specifically to get back to his job when he was through.”
Baley sighed. The fine wrinkles about his intensely brown eyes grew more pronounced. “Anyway, you wanted to see me.”
“Yes, Lije,” said the Commissioner, “but not for anything easy.”

The paragraph dealing with Enderby's spectacles gives us a clue about the setting. While New York might now have robot office messengers, there aren't any sort of techniques available to correct eyesight, or other such bio tech advances. This becomes significant later on.

Another imporant thing to note is the seemingly throw away exchange about R. Sammy. While Sammy might be able to do poor Vince Barrett's job, it has to be given incredibly specific instructions to do so. Any human could have figured out that there is no need to linger after the message is given. Not so for Sammy.

One of Asimov's great strengths as a writer was his economy in his plots and prose. Already in these first few pages we have the central conflict set up: Squishy humans vs. chrome domed mechs.

Inagural Post

Greetings to all and sundry. Just like seemingly everyone, I now have a soap box to pontificate on.

Mostly, this post is about a statement of intent. If all goes as planned, this blog will be about equally split between posts concerning popular culture and media, and pondering of what's currently headlining the news.

To start this off, I will analyze and deconstruct a series of books near and dear to my heart, Issac Asimov's Robot series, beginning with The Caves of Steel. The posts will not be organized by chapter so much as how many pages is needed to get interesting material for a single blog entry. Thus there is no set pace for this deconstruction.

The other aspect of this blog will get posts as the spirit moves me so to speak. In all honesty, the more terrible things happen, the more likely such entries will happen.

See you then.