Lost Continent Words

Spinning

Tried my first "spinning" class today at the gym. For those who aren't hip to the lingo, Spinning (I think the term is copywrighted to Bally's but has become "Band-Aid"ified into the common term) is sort of a group fitness aerobic stationary cycle thingy. Which sounds incredibly silly, I'll admit, but then almost all gym activity involves doing things that, if examined objectively, appear quite similar to what a hamster does with his wheel, for which we laugh at him.

But its different, and a pretty intense workout. While I consider myself confident in my sexuality, there is something a little uncomfortable for me in the Fascist Aerobic Two-step. Unfair and irrational, I admit it, but hey, its there, and the spinning class felt a little less "odd" for me.

It was recommended to me by a cow-orker who said that the other spinning classes he had been to he didn't like, but the one on Tuesday (with Teresa) was a lot bettter, less fascist and with good music. And, in all the time I've spent *near* aerobics classes in the gym part of the gym, its the first time I've heard Front 242 used (Headhunter was the song), which was so incredibly cool, that Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" was almost passe' by the time it came around, and Orgy's cover of "Blue Monday" was no surprise at all. (I just used a French word to piss Andy off). Not that it was all industrial, there was also some standard pop and punk and overall a pretty cool mix, almost none of them the sort of song you'd expect from such a class.

So I'll probably go again, although I hurt in brand new places with great intensity, and so it probably won't be until next week.

Chalk one up for the Good Guys (I think)

Just a quick link to show there are some honorable hackers left.

Hackers

And then this one (which is old news, actually, but I just found it)

M$ doesn't appreciate wordplay

so chalk one up for the bad guys too. (At least he got an X-Box)

Gay Marriage (Part I)

On the front lines of the culture wars, combatants will invent any excuse to turn the clock in their preferred direction. But there can be no logical argument against allowing the same legal status to all committed couples regardless of gender, and ridiculous attacks serve no one.

Homosexuality has been a volatile subject in many cultures. While it is incorrect to say that it has been regarded as taboo in all, prohibitions have existed in many cultures as far back as recorded history can go. I'm not here to necessarily argue the rightness or wrongness, that is, the morality of such behavior. Rather, my argument is this: The current debate over gay marriage is a legal one, and as a legal issue there is no reason for prohibition.

First, let me tackle some of the non-legal details. The first, largest and loudest opposition comes from Christianity. And there are verses within the Bible which clearly forbid its practice. Yet in the Bible, Homosexuality is only mentioned in 18 of the 31,273 verses. (If you don't count the story of Jonathan and David in Samuel I, II; which some contraversially hold up as an example of a pro-homosexuality reference). As well, the strongest statements occur in the Old Testament Purity Codes (mainly Leviticus) which were set aside with the New Testament (which is the main reason Christians are not required to keep a kosher diet, or beard, or not sacrifice animals with bruised testicles, when their Jewish brethren must. On the other hand, Verses which are either in support of, or neutral towards human slavery number 30. The main point being, if Christians can accept some things in society have changed (e.g. slavery or even more markedly divorce) and the Bible is not an appropriate arbiter, they should grant that possibility in other cases as well.

But my ultimate point with respect to the Bible is that it is a religious text, and as such should have no legal dominion. As religious institutions, Churches shouldn't be required to perform gay marriages if their canon does not allow for it, but that should not be a concern of the state. There are many examples of things which the Church does not approve of, but remain legal, and for the purposes of government, marriage is a legal contract, not a religious one.

Another argument against gay marriage is its danger to the fabric of society. This paricular argument is taken up by this Orson Scott Card piece on Gay marriage. I'm told Mr. Card is an excellent Science-Fiction author, although I'm not yet read "Ender's Game" or any of his other work. But it is somewhat disheartening to see a clearly intelligent man so absorbed into the role of "Angry White Guy". This is an increasingly common archetype, and his article makes it clear that allowing homosexuals to marry is an attack on him, and a form of discrimination against heterosexuals. One of his central points in philosophy is that "inclusion" of any group requires exclusion by another. This is the sort of "Objectivist" zero-sum viewpoint that is the hallmark of the Angry White Guy argument. I see three primary collapses in his reasoning.

First, the above stated Angry White Guy argument. I'll try to summarize quickly if you're unfamiliar with how it goes. Basically it says, "As a white guy, I've had special advantages my whole life. If you start allowing other people to participate in society, I'll lose my special advantages, which is the same thing as discrimination. It's not fair!" It is a form of solipsism that stems from the same tree of delusion which spawned Objectivism. (I'll have more to say on that particular branch soon.)

Next, Card argues that the institution of marriage is falling apart, primarily due to the influence of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing. He then argues that homosexual marriage will hasten this collapse by undermining heterosexual role-models. However, his primary argument is against the "if it feels good, do it" ethic he identifies with the "fanatical Left", professing the standard stereotypes of homosexual promiscuity as an example of this ethic. This seems a strange argument to take as that is what homosexual marriage is also against, in an attempt to legitimize stable, committed, monogamous relationships. Really his argument seems to boil down at its most basic level to pure homophobia. Close reading of his article reveals that his biggest concern is that homosexuals will "take over" and it will become unacceptable to be heterosexual. Why? Because it would become "acceptable" to be homosexual, of course, and inclusion one place means exclusion somewhere else. As much as he continually makes the point that heterosexuality is a natural and genetically selected-for trait, he seems to think that allowing gay marriage would somehow destroy that genetic and hormonal balance. Not to put to fine a point on it, but the majority of people have been heterosexual for all generations. That's where the generations came from. If allowing "Adam and Steve" to get married is all it takes to destory that, then how natural is it?

But an irrational fear of homosexuals as people brings him to the conclusion that allowing them into society will cause everyone to "switch sides." It sounds to me like someone who isn't entirely secure with their own sexuality, personally.

Finally, Card argues frequently that homosexual marriages would lack "reproductive relevance." While in the strictest sense this is true, he does not extend this criticism to heterosexual couples who are infertile or who choose not to have children. Why, you say? It comes back to heterosexual role-models. Heterosexuals make good role-models that children should emulate, and can function as "surrogate parents" to the society. Homosexual couples, apparently, cannot serve as good role-models to children and instead spend most of their time plotting how to unmake the fabric of society and "turn people gay." Card states that it is "absurd to claim that homosexual "marriages" are in any way parallel to childless marriages in their effect on society in general", which is a short way of saying he doesn't have a logical argument against it. I myself can think of several parallels that I do not consider absurd.

*Both encourage monogamy.
*Both create a two-person unit which can serve as a safety net
*Both reduce population pressures.

And not to mention, Gay marriages reinforce the message of commitment and monogamy in a subculture in which those values have not been explicitly encouraged in the same way they have been in heterosexual culture.

The reproductive relevance argument seems all the more foolish in a world which is quickly approaching a Malthusian orgy of unsustainability and population pressures. While life expectancy climbs up, up and our means grow far larger than the long-term supply to support them, less children and reproductive couples are an important check on population increase. "The world must be peopled", surely enough, but the assumption that not having children damages society is untenable. In fact, stable couples that cannot have children of their own can help to soften the problems with surplus children, one of the main results of the irresponsibility so decried by Card. Of course, those children would have to be adopted and raised by dangerous, radical, subversive homosexuals who would convince their children to hate America, democracy, and freedom.

I can, however, agree with Card on the manner in which the most recent changes have happened. Society and homosexual couples desiring this change will be far better served by a movement of the genuine expression of the people than by proclamations issued from the high courts. Cultural revolutions always must come from the bottom up to last, as increasingly captialist China proves.

(To be continued soon with a focus on the forces hoping to pull the clock forward...)

Notes: Being neither Homosexual nor Christian I don't grapple with these religious issues often, but I've found several sites quite interesting in their approaches. As I've said, I don't find any of the Christian arguments to be relevant to the larger societal debate, but it is interesting to read. I'll also admit to a bias here that believes that Jesus meant what he was supposed to have said, and that love and forgiveness and humility are the values Christianity is supposed to be about (not that my opinion matters much).

Homosexuality and the Bible, a liberal slanted reading of the passages on Homosexuality in the Bible.

For me, Tony and Peggy Campolo's represent the real spirit of Christian Love, as Evangelical Christians who value Homosexuals as humans (although they disagree with each other about the Biblical wrongness of it). It's quite long, but this article is a beautiful read. If you've ever been angered by the hatred and intolerance displayed by some professed Christians, you should see how dismayed these (genuine) Christians are.

The case against the "David and Jonathan as lovers" theory

Responding to Pro-gay theology, a polemic by Joe Dallas. This appeared in the "Journal of Human Sexuality" which would appear to be a "faux-Journal" used to attack the gay-rights movement, as other articles appearing equate homosexuals with Nazi's and all articles take an editorial slant against homosexuality.

One Mennonite's opinion on Homosexuality and the Bible

Also, here is Ender's Game, which I'm told is a fine sci-fi book. Unfortunately, I'll have a hard time reading it without thinking of O.S. Card as a bigot. (Also notice, for those of you that might care that I've switched to allconsuming for book links instead of Amazon, thereby not implicitly supporting a company I don't like very much.)

EFF Action

A quick call to action: If you consider the RIAA's war on file sharing as dangerous and counter-technology as I do, then don't let your tax dollars support it. Visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Action Center for the new Bill proposed in Congress.

Global Conspiracy

I would have posted but the port that my computer was connected to is broken and it took me a while to figure it out. I'm certain this is a global conspiracy to keep me from writing something.

And actually, I'm copping out tonight too, cause I have two longer articles I'm working on but can't find the research I want right now. So bear with me, more soon.

Memoriam: Captain Smith

As you grow up, there are some things you take for granted. Like you and Steve really will be friends forever, and you'll never be without your treehouse, and the house you live in and the neighborhood will be there forever. Your parents will always be together, you really will become an astronaut, and someday you'll have it all under control. But mostly, you don't think about losing people. Captain Brian Smith was a lifelong friend of my father and someone I knew would always be around. But on Monday, like so many things I've taken for granted, that stopped being true.

It wasn't a surprise, exactly. It was over 6 months ago that we discovered that Brian had "Cancer of the everything". Lungs, stomach, spine, brain, anywhere you could put it almost. It was plainly amazing that he was alive. And astonishingly enough, he fought it off for a while, after complete courses of radiation and chemo finally coming to a limited remission last January. But like many things, it didn't last, and the doctors had already done everything they could, which left Captain Smith to watch as his body slowly betrayed him, starting with weakness, then seizures until finally he was bedridden. I hadn't seen him since the winter, until last weekend when I went to visit. He was smaller than in his earlier life, unable to get out of bed and barely able to control his movements. Days before, he had required both hands to be strong enough to smoke the cigarettes that even still he had been unable to quit, but by the time I saw him, he could barely lift his head.

He had been a Great Lakes Pilot for large vessels, quite an accomplishment, and had worked for the last several years as Master on a tour boat (the Diamond Jack) in the Detroit River. He had spent much of his life working on the water. You could always count on him for ideas (or especially criticism) for any project you worked on. You could always count on him for a smile, and a jovial mood, and a quiet sarcasm in everything, and recognize his loping stride a mile away.

I've thought about working on the water professionally for quite a while (and still think about it), and knew I could always ask the Captain for information or advice. I loved to hear the stories about working the lakes or just the daily life on the "Jack". I liked explaining my engineering work to him, which he always picked up quickly.

And still, whenever I go to visit my da, to watch a hockey game or go for a boat ride or just sit and watch the fire, I'll still expect him to stop by. I'll wonder why its been so long since I've seen him. I'll think about visiting at the dock for Diamond Jack when I'm at Hart Plaza downtown for the music festival.

I can't stop believing. There are some things I'm not ready to grow up for.

Sail Away, Captain.

All Consuming

In making the changes to the site, I also signed up on AllConsuming.net. It's a pretty cool site with bloggers specifically in mind. It tracks reading lists for you and provides an easy interface to display them and get recommendations from friends and such, along with comments. I think its pretty cool. ( In case you aren't particularly observent, that's it right there

--------------->>>

Chuck (my friend, and fellow geek, and fellow (far better than I) improv actor, and fellow etc.) put it up on his blog site and I decided to steal it. Thanks, Chuck.
It's also kind of interesting to watch how the most popular books change daily. For instance, after the recent TV version aired recently, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time has shot up to top 5.

Redesign

Got a little way on redesign for the site, but am currently giving up for a moment. Did you know that MS Internet Explorer is out of date with the Standards for CSS1, which have existed since 1996? Neither did I, until a short while ago. So while my browser (Firefox and a very fine browser it is) displays my code correctly, IE goes to hell.

I thought I'd surf a little to see if I could find a good solution and figure out what I was doing wrong, and I discovered dozens of webpages devoted to solving this incredibly simple problem. The problem you want to solve is this: Wouldn't it be nice if you could have three columns that exist on a page, don't overlap, and display the same in all browsers? Does that sound like it should be difficult to you? The problems with this have been going on for several years, and even though MS updated IE to version 6, they did *not* fix this problem. As a bonus, the Mac version of IE doesn't screw this up.

So I'm going to figure out the solution, just not now, cause I want to sleep.

Google IPO

Google has become the primary source for Internet searching over the last few years. It upcoming Initial Public Offering is drawing a lot of buzz from Wall Street, but do the $treet types get what Google's about, and will their misunderstanding kill its public aspirations?

In a very short time, Google has become an Internet powerhouse. It is widely praised as an example of how ingenuity can outpace huge size and capital competitors. With operating mottos such as, "Don't Be Evil", and "Democracy on the Web Works", Google has also been an unconventional counterpart to many of the captial-consumed Internet companies. All of which is pretty good for a company that was started by two not-quite graduated computer science students from Stanford.

When the IPO was announced, it was touted by many to be the beginning of the rebirth of the Internet economy. Not only is that a lot to pin on one company, it's also well outside of Google's own stated goals. You can read in their SEC Filing about their primary motivations, and untenable growth and massive revenues are not in there. Google's philosophy seems based on old-school solid financials (as practiced by self-professed idol Warren Buffett) as well as a desire to stay ahead of the game with technology and to use their power and position to improve their community. While many may consider this a naive enterprise, I want to see it suceed, as it's a naive vision I share, and would like to create with any company I eventually controlled.

But its a vision that cannot succeed without the genuine support (and belief) of it's shareholders. And given that people don't read the owner's manual for their VCR, let alone their investments, it's a message that most people won't get, and will listen only to the crowing on Wall Street. This is bad news for a company with a long-term vision, hoping to be an "unconventional" company, as last quarter's Earning's Per Share is all that's important to the Street.

Notes:
Google's SEC Filing (read the opening letter (hyperlinked here) which spells out Larry, Sergey, and Eric's vision for the IPO.)

History of Google

Google's Ten Things

One way Google is attempting to distance itself from the Wall Street machine is by making its initial offering as a "Dutch" auction. This is similar to the bidding of the same name found on Internet sites like ebay, and has been used ocassionally for such disbursements, but never in a company so large. Reaction seems to be mixed on whether this is triumph or travesty.

More news

One extra nerdy note: Google's initial offering is 2.71828... Billion shares, a number many of the geekiest among you (i.e. people like me) should recognize.

Update

It turns out that I suck instead of Comcast, but it took me a day to figure it out. I'm sorry Mr. EvilCorporateMindSucker! Will you forgive me?

Anyway, things is working again. Funny story: Some dipshit backed into my car while I was stopped at a light and crunched it all to hell. I don't have collision coverage, and here in Michigan insurance is no-fault, so the best chance I have of getting any money to pay for it is by talking the dipshit's insurance company into giving me money.

Wait, that's not actually very funny. Ummm.... And then the guy says, "That wasn't my donkey!"

Comcast sucks

and thus I have no Internet access. I'm entering this message from my cell phone which necessitates a short entry. Twenty five words, for example.

More Heinlein

I've been trying like hell every since leaving college to turn myself back into a "reader". Its been nearly 4 years, and I'm not quite there yet, but getting closer. As stated, I did finish "Time Enough For Love" which is quite long (and quite Long, as well), which is an accomplishment, but it took me over a month, which is pretty pitiful. I can remember a time of reading voraciously, but its just been very difficult to get back into the habit after college beat it out of me.

Finishing TEFL reaffirmed my love for (what I call) "classic sci-fi", which includes most things from the golden period from the 30s thru the 60s. (HG Wells and Verne, would go under pre-classic or original in my classification system). But mostly I'm referring to Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert and Clarke (all of whom wrote some outside this period). The real sci-fi from these folks is far more about exploring a universe of ideas and using the possibilities of science to explore questions of philosophy and nature and humanity. It seems like so much of whats out and around now is just a Robert Louis Stevenson adventure book in a different setting.

I've been told by my friends who enjoy the same things I do about Scifi that there are some current authors writing good books in the spirit of the classics. But I've still got a lot of catching up to do, so I'm going to stick with the big four for a while yet until I get through a fair amount of them. I've never been a huge scifi reader, so I've only gotten a few of them under my belt.

But back to TEFL; a book that can challenge the prevailing opinions on marriage, democracy, longevity, and incest, all while being witty, informative, and using a non-traditional format automatically gains my respect. Heinlein is always challenging, which I love.

Recently recovered from Ebola

OK, I've felt incredibly awful for the past week and have spent the majority of it sleeping and being pissed off. Thus, screw the blog. But semi-officially, I'm back again to resume.

So, what to say since I've been gone...

1) Derian Hatcher is perhaps the worst hockey player in the history of the game and should be publicly flogged.

2) Just finished "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein. (I do intend to put up a reading list on my blog frontspace, as soon as I get the time and motivation to figure it out.)

3) Had a meeting today with a company from Israel, and they told a really bad joke about the French. They said they only get to use their French jokes while they're in the States. To be truthful, some were a little uncomfortable with it, but didn't seem to be offended, merely weren't sure how to react.

4) Unfortunately, this same meeting was one I was called on to attend at the last minute (or 40 minutes prior), and included the Vice-somethingorother of Business somethingorother, who is like second in command. As usual, I was dressed on the very bottom acceptable end of "business casual" (Vans and all), which is always fun. That's OK, he probably doesn't have time to worry about peons.

5) Inching ever closer to getting the boat in the water. Definitely by Memorial Day.

6) Laura started posting!