Plaintiff in Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas Case Dies

From Towleroad blog:



Plaintiff in Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas Case Dies: "Tyrone Garner, one of the plaintiffs in the historic Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas which struck down sodomy laws in 13 states where it was criminalized, has died, Lambda Legal reports.

In a statement, Lambda's Executive Director Kevin Cathcart said, 'We extend our heartfelt condolences to Tyrone's family and friends and we join them in mourning his passing. Because Tyrone Garner and John Lawrence had the courage to challenge homophobic sodomy laws, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that love, sexuality and family play the same role in gay people's lives as they do for everyone else. That's a colossal legacy and one for which his community will forever be thankful.'
. . ."

Males inclined to cooperate against external enemies aka War

Link Interesting study which shows why men are mentally geared towards conducting wars. Is this why Bush's action in Iraq was so easily approved by Congress? Do we need more women in Congress?

Population collapse predicted in Russia

It seems the end of the cold war has left Russia in a pretty bad state. Who knew that male life expectancy in Russia is at 59 years? Seems to be in worse shape than Japan. NYTimes article

-- updated 9/7

Economist article on the same topic.

Science behind the Aktins diet

Link It turns out it's not all bulls**t. Looks like protein stimulates more peptide YY production, and peptide YY tells you that you are full.

When the beard is too painful to remove

[NYTimes] An interesting piece on the difficulties of gay men in leaving straight marriages. It is somewhat inappropriately linked to the 'fashion' section, as if anything gay is fashionable -- disturbing stereotype for a serious issue.

-- updated Sep 3

It's probably my still piss poor gaydar, but I think I know of at least a few couples in the above situation and perhaps a couple more in the reverse situation (lesbian woman in a straight marriage). One might wonder what my opinion of such arrangements are. It might be obvious, based on my biases in this blog, that I don't think very highly of them. In fact, in general I think they are wrong and should be ended as soon as possible. Now are there situations where such arrangements may still be acceptable for a time.

One consideration is whether there are children. Perhaps, here is a case where if the kids are still living in the house, disrupting an otherwise harmonious situation might make one hesitate. Still, if an amicable parting can be managed and finances can afford a split, the benefits of getting the gay spouse out of hiding and the straight spouse out of the dark should outweigh the short term pain.

Another consideration might be age and finances. This is speculation on my part, but perhaps an long married couple (not sure how to quantify long) in such a relationship might have developed dependencies which when broken will bring such detriment as far as lifespan or health to the couple that it outweighs the benefits? Still, I am inclined to say some elements of this scenario should be getting rarer. Women now have careers and can survive without being dependent on the man. Divorce should ensure that both are not destitute (if the couple wasn't destitute when together). Also, being gay is becoming more mainstream and common and less problematic for careers and acceptance.

Perhaps the couple has developed an intimate bond, despite the sexual desire mismatch. This I don't think should be an excuse. Because upon splitting up the marriage, there should be benefit to both of a potentially much more rewarding bond (to more appropriate partners) based on truth instead of deception.

And this is where my self-interest comes into play. It might be true that all the good guys out there are married or gay. But there's another thought of mine that many good gay guys get snapped up by insistent women who want to get married to a their favorite guy, a high school or college sweetheart, and won't take no for an answer. If these guys survive the marriage night, they may just end up trapped in these Brokeback marriages. (Hopefully not many end up as Jack Twist did.) In any case, I say break those things up. Guys, you only live once...

-- updated Sep 4

Of course, there is the concern brought up by the article, it's tough to leave the relative haven of marriage and re-enter the dating game later in life. This issue is difficult to answer. It is an adjustment, but one which should bring some reward over time -- hopefully a good mate, for those relationship minded, and perhaps different rewards for those who are not. Simply not living a lie should be some reward, too.

NYT Op-ed: Bush took our optimism

Link An interesting opinion piece. I don't know if people can be turned from optimists to pessimists that easily. But actually there are books which say that optimism can be learned. If that's the case, I guess pessimism can also. I am generally an optimist, but I think I've definitely learned to temper my expectations over these last 6 years of Bush rule.

And news like this about the massive price inflation threatening stability in Iraq don't help.

For a more light-hearted look, check out Jon Stewart dissecting Bush's recent sound bites.

A Hamas figure appears to say something reasonable

Link I think it's encouraging that Palestinians might accept what the outside world might see as a reasonable arrangement (I'll not say compromise, because it was given unilaterally by the Israelis); i.e. a cessation of hostilities and Gaza strip under Palestinian control including the lucrative hot-house farms which Israel had built there.

Plains states drought worst in 50 years or more; Europe sees earlier spring

Link People will argue there isn't any global warming. But I seem to recall one of the predictions of global warming is droughts in the Eastern US, similar to the one the US is experiencing now.

In a separate story, the BBC reports about a study showing spring arrived about a week earlier than it did 30 years ago.

Economist seems to hint, Iran Venezuela unlikely to cut production

Link Suggestive of calling Iran's bluff. Wonder what game theory says.

Clinton extols welfare reform success

Link Of course, Bill is my favorite President (ok, there's the crazy "don't ask don't tell" policy, but I'll overlook that for now). I guess successful welfare reform will be one of his lasting legacies.

Why enemy of my enemy isn't my friend

Slate created a table which demonstrates why it isn't so simple.

US versus China, bad idea; US versus Islam, bad idea

There's an estimated more than 1 billion Muslims in the world. It's behind Christianity at around 1.7 billion. Just as in the old days, the US thought it was wise not to piss off the Chinese who had a 1 billion population, it seems the Americans might have dealt with Muslims the same way.

Still, there's a lot not to like about the Muslim faith. In extreme incarnations, they persecute women and kill homosexuals. Iran recently hanged two homosexual youths. They seem inclined to resort to violence to resolve problems including promoting the idea that suicide bombers/killers of 'infidels' will go to heaven. (Another reason it's a Islamist's duty to have a lot of children, and yet another example of war by population. It's very practical that suicide bombers are typically young folks. You don't want people you've invested in greatly -- older wiser people -- blowing themselves up. And by the way, what a nice way to get rid of that black sheep who never listened to you anyway?) By contrast, Christianity most successfully spread because of more gentle persuasion tactics (okay, well at least we've forgotten about how violent they might have been). Islam today is just not a very tolerant religion it seems. Buddists and Christians are saints by comparison.

There is a lot not to like about Chinese government policies including censorship, although by constrast the Chinese seem a lot more humane.

Still, it seems like it would be have been wise to use the same methods that we used on China to deal with Muslim countries. In China's case, we pointed out human rights violations. We told China we would defend the Taiwanese democracy. But essentially we waited for the liberalism of capitalism to take hold. Maybe we would have philosophically liked the communist dictatorship to fall, too, but that would have been very destabilizing and unpredictable.

Now Afghanistan seems a bit more clear cut case where military force was needed. However, it seems to me that Iraq might have been treated the same way as China. It does seem that Saddam (and his likely successor sons) were more corrupt and stupid than the Chinese politicos. But we still had lots of time -- probably years -- before the US absolutely needed to do anything in Iraq specifically and independently. (Probably the UN could have dealt with instability at the time of Saddam's eventual death?)

One might ask, but what about this general hatred of the US being fomented in Muslim countries by Al Qaeda. We need to somehow prevent terrorism from spreading. It seems to me possible that quiet prevention of terrorist activity might be more effective than the more direct attack -- but in the wrong country -- that we are conducting now. The US is a rich country, it could do a lot through financial rewards to convince people to be our friends and the right kind of friends. The ones who try to minimize radical pan-Islamic teachings. The ones who liberalize their religions to be more inclusive and tolerant. Maybe the US should've given money to the more peaceful Fatah in Palestine. But by giving attention to the terrorists and raising stakes by getting directly involved, we are becoming a great marketing machine for the 'successes' of radical Islam.
#

As a side note, the US military put too much stake in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" argument in invading Iraq. One might have thought we should have garnered significant Shiite good will around the world, including in Iran, by toppling Sunni dictator and oppressor Saddam. But clearly this has not happened. The more radical Shiites have made their position clear that unless we renounce our allegiance to Israel, they still don't consider us their friends. And probably there's some natural feeling that they could have taken care of their own affairs. And besides it seems only 'true' Moslim countries can be friends of such countries.

Democrats strategize for a smarter primary

Link Two interesting points from democrat strategy sessions: (1) attempts to officially include gays and (2) idea of punishing candidates who win in states that violate party primary schedule. I.e. New Hampshire might try to maintain influence over the primary by moving up their schedule to beat Nevada and South Carolina. The party may penalize candidates who campaign in states which attempt to do defy the newly determined and more inclusive (read: less WASP-y) early party primary schedule. Here's the NYTimes article on the same topic.

Book written about Iraq failures

Link Economist points out that despite the seeming retread of known material the book shows how badly America mismanaged the Iraq war and it's aftermath.

Adult Americans least likely (except Turks) to believe in evolution

Link There's an interesting graph there. Weird. I never thought the most technologically advanced country would also be the most lacking in it's belief in a fundamental part of science. A harbinger of doom for the country's current pre-eminence.

BBC: Warmer world will cause disasters

Link Scientists say risk increase for disasters as temperature increases. Droughts (including in the Eastern US) and forest losses are projected. Carbon (dioxide) will be released as temperature increases -- sounds like a positive feedback or potential runaway effect.

Turning back the clock: anti-gays want gays labeled "sick"

Gay activists had the sense to get APA to remove homosexuality as an illness in 1974. This was accomplished after studies showed that gays were as balanced as straights in cognitive and emotional studies. Crazy anti-gays want to undo that scientific work today. Link

Men and women think differently

Link Economist story about innate differences between men and women. It's not PC to say so, but the scientific data indicates the difference exists. Several interesting data points mentioned:

• Even primate males generally like trucks and balls and primate females mostly prefer dolls.
  
• Men use more grey matter. Women use more white matter.
  
• Women are better at spelling. Men are better at spatial tasks.
  
• Women can be trained to improve at spatial tasks...
  

The last one is an interesting thing to ponder. Despite the genetic and/or developmental differences, some gaps can be bridged through training...

To visit this in context of a recurrent theme on this blog, could a gay guy be trained to be straight? There have been attempts to force this conversion in the past, electro-shock therapy etc. Even when conversion was the desired outcome of the patient, it was rarely if ever successful.

I'm not sure, but I suppose some things just aren't really trained, they're more like instincts. I mean when you like the way something looks -- take the recent BMW 5-series, some people like it, and some people are repulsed -- it's not readily changeable. For example, if you dislike the car, although people could try influence you to see their point of view about high trunk-lids being strong, bold, and attractive, it would likely not truly change your mind. Just not your cup of tea, maybe?

West Point thesis challenges gay policy

Link Surprisingly the paper won an award from the military academy. Kudos to Mr. Raggio.

Who hit first and who hit harder

Link The author of Stumbling on Happiness notes how human nature and the rules of 'legal' retaliation have helped to escalate conflicts in human history.