The Tin Man » 2006

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

One poll shows that a majority of Virginians supports a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that will be on the ballot in November. However, when voters hear the amendment’s actual language, support slips and it becomes a dead heat. Here’s the actual language of the proposed amendment; the first poll uses only the first sentence.

Shall the Constitution of Virginia be amended to state “That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”?

There are two ways to look at this: either people are less likely to support a ban if it also bans gay civil unions, or people are less likely to support a ban if it could affect the relationships of straight people.

Here’s a memo that includes the actual language of the proposed amendment.

[via Good as You]

10:50 AM | oil me

Last night we saw a preview of a revival of The Fantasticks, a show I never saw during its 42-year run at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in the Village.

The name of the place where the revival is playing?

The Snapple Theater Center.

The world is going to hell.

11:06 AM | 3 drops of oil

It’s rare that I read a book review that makes me want to run out and buy the book being reviewed, but that’s what happened to me yesterday. Literally. The New York Times ran this review of a new novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by a first-time novelist named Marisha Pessl.

Right after I read the review, I went to Amazon.com and saw that the book’s official release date is not until next week. But I know that The Strand, a great Manhattan bookstore, sometimes has half-price reviewer’s copies of new books from overstock. I checked out the Strand’s website and saw two copies listed, so I walked over to the store. There was only one copy left when I got there, so I bought it.

Unfortunately, I’m reading another book right now, and I won’t get to the new one right away.

Incidentally, in writing this blog post, I googled the author, and the first two results were these two blog posts that say almost the exact same meta-thing about her. This:

So right away we’ve got the many of the necessary ingredients for being news-worthy: Pessl is young, she’s female, and her book sold in the mid-to-high six-figure range with lucrative foreign rights sales. [snip] … as I’m sure you’ve likely guessed by now — she’s the latest in a long, long line to suffer from “Hot Young Author Chick” Syndrome.

And this:

It happens a few times a year now. An attractive, young writer will come out of nowhere with a debut novel that leaves the publishers salivating. Sometimes it’s not the book itself that causes the commotion, but rather its perceived marketability—maybe the drool-worthy author photo, or the potential connections the book/author represents—that really get the publicity departments going… [snip] It would be easy to dismiss Marisha Pessl as another one of these writers. Her bio, after all, does list her as a model and actress as well as a writer. Her dreamy, airy author photo pretty much guarantees articles in fashion magazines along with snarky reviews by people who may or may not have actually read the book. The difference in this case, however, is that, despite a rocky start, her novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics is really quite good.

So apparently this book has gotten lots of pre-publicity buzz. God, I hope reading this book isn’t going to make me seem trendy. I hate looking like I’m hopping onto a bandwagon.

11:04 PM | 1 drop of oil

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

I recently finished reading a brilliant book that’s greatly affected my thinking about constitutional theory: Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, by Randy Barnett. Here’s a summary of the book. Barnett, a law professor at Boston University, is a libertarian and a believer in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Because there is no true way for 100 percent of the population to consent to the Constitution, Barnett believes there should be a “presumption of liberty” - people have the right to be left alone unless it’s really necessary for them not to be. He states that the courts have wrongly eviscerated the Ninth Amendment - which protects unenumerated rights from the federal government - and the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment - which he contends protects unenumerated rights from the state governments. These unenumerated rights are a subset of natural rights, which philosophers like John Locke said are the rights we hold merely because we are human beings, even before government comes into existence.

He disagrees with the Supreme Court’s creation of the doctrine of “fundamental rights,” or rights that deserve greater protection than others. Rights are rights, Barnett says, and there should be a presumption in favor of all of them. One thing I really like about this book is how Barnett criticizes many Supreme Court doctrines, such as the doctrine of fundamental rights and the doctrine of the various levels of scrutiny used in equal protection analysis. These doctrines are nowhere to be found in the constitution and don’t always make sense. (While I’m on this, I’d really like to find out more about the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. Was it meant to apply exclusively to racial classifications? And does “equal protection of the laws” really mean what we say it means today?)

Barnett’s reason for being an originalist is very persuasive. Unlike many ideologues, such as Bork and Scalia, he’s not a results-oriented originalist. He believes in originalism because he believes in the importance of a written constitution. He says that if you believe in a “living constitution,” what you’re really saying is that you believe the constitution is flawed and needs to be changed. He finds nothing inherently wrong with this position, but he says that its proponents should acknowledge it so that there can be an honest debate. There is a valid way to change the constitution, of course: via the amendment process.

The only problem I have with this theory is that I’m not sure how much it protects equal rights for minorities. Barnett barely discusses equality in his book. Constitutional amendments require the support of supermajorities, and majorities are not usually concerned about granting equal rights to minorities. James Madison himself was concerned about oppression by a majority as well as by a minority.

Specifically, of course, I’m most interested in how Barnett’s theory applies to gay rights. Barnett supports the outcome of Lawrence v. Texas, stating that Justice Kennedy properly grounded his opinion in the right to liberty rather than the iffier right to privacy. (The article linked in the previous sentence is a great introduction to Barnett’s thought, actually.) But Barnett doesn’t discuss same-sex marriage in his book, and I can’t find anything online about whether he thinks same-sex marriage bans are constitutional.

Is marriage a natural right? A liberty? Technically it’s a government benefit. Libertarians probably believe there should be no marriage at all. I’m not a libertarian and I disagree. At any rate, you can argue that although the government is not required to allow marriage, because it does allow it, it should do so on an equal basis. But is that necessarily a justiciable court claim? Hard to say.

I would much prefer that same-sex marriage be permitted by legislatures instead of by courts. I think litigation is a last resort.

What do you do when something is right, but the legislature won’t allow it? That’s the question.

12:27 AM | oil me

Now that Joe Lieberman has lost (and has decided that primaries don’t matter anyway), the mainstream media and the Republican Party are going to play up the view that Democratic Party has been taken over by rabid frothing McGovernites. However, that’s not the case at all. There’s still room in the Democratic Party for politicians who voted for the war and even for those who think we need to keep some troops there. Lieberman was of a different ilk, as this note from Salon says.

It cannot be argued in good faith that Democrats are intolerant of any elected official who supported the war in Iraq or that such support is some sort of “litmus test.” There are scores of pro-war Democrats who are not being ejected from the party or even being challenged electorally. Lieberman went far beyond mere support for the war, and repeatedly adopted the most demonizing and extremist rhetoric used by Bush’s supporters to equate opposition to the Bush administration’s foreign policies with anti-Americanism and support for America’s enemies. It should surprise nobody if the people whom Lieberman has been attacking and demonizing in this manner decide that they would like to have a different senator.

“It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years. And that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.”

Or, as former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer once put it, people “need to watch what they say.”

Who’d want to vote for a Democrat like that?

11:47 AM | 3 drops of oil

V: The Series: the opening credits. Oh, the memories. My cousin and I used to watch this every Friday night.

5:58 PM | oil me

Thursday, August 10, 2006

From the Times:

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman seized on the terror arrests in Britain today to attack his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, saying that Mr. Lamont’s goals for ending the war in Iraq would constitute a “victory” for the extremists who are accused of plotting to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States.

Yeah, because there were absolutely no terrorist attacks before we went to war in Iraq.

What a nutball. When is he going to drop out?

3:43 PM | 2 drops of oil

Tomorrow morning we’re headed to Montreal for the weekend. My little baby brother is getting married! I can’t believe it.

We’re taking the train. The wedding is in Montreal because his fiancée is from there.

I’m the best man, so I’ve been working on my toast. I hope it turns out okay.

Hopefully their wedding announcement will appear here.

See you next week!

9:13 PM | 2 drops of oil

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Well, my little brother and only sibling is finally married. It was a picture-perfect wedding. The ceremony and reception were here; that particular hall is where the ceremony took place.

My brother looked dashing, my new sister-in-law looked stunning. They’re one fantastic-looking couple.

The weather in Montreal was beautiful all weekend - mostly mid- to high-70s - although it got a little humid the day after the wedding.

The trip up to Montreal for me and Matt was not too fun, though. We took Amtrak, because there was no room in my parents’ car. The train was packed, and we almost couldn’t sit together. We finally found two seats, one behind the other, and I asked a guy if he wouldn’t mind switching with one of us so we could sit together. He said no. Fortunately the guy next to me turned out to be a train employee and soon got up, so Matt was able to move next to me after all. But I fumed silently at the obstinate traveller on and off for the next three hours until he got off at Albany.

The trip is supposed to take 10 hours and 15 minutes - long enough, given that it takes 6 or 7 hours by car - but it wound up taking 12 hours in reality. We were stuck at the border for a long time because the customs officials kicked someone off the train.

There were these three guys in our car sitting together right in front of us from the beginning of the trip. Mid-20s, New York/Long Island guys, fratty types. At one point I saw them in the dining car sharing a bottle of whiskey. They were in there for like three hours, and soon after they came back to their seats, Matt and I moved away so we could get some peace and quiet. But when the train stopped at the border, and the customs people came through the car, they spent a long time down at the end of the car with the fratty guys. Next thing I knew, one of the guys was carrying his suitcase off the train, followed by a customs official. About half an hour later, the guy came back through the car, again accompanied by a customs official, and got another of his bags. As he and the customs official walked off the train again, they were followed by one of the guy’s friends. The customs person told him to stay. But he said, “If Canada doesn’t want my friend, then I don’t want to be here either!” The official said something else to him, and he responded, “Fuck off.”

Not what you want to say to a customs official.

Long story short, the guy and his friend both left the train and the third friend stayed on for the rest of the trip.

On top of that, at lunchtime I had to wait on line in the dining car for 45 MINUTES just to get some crappy food for me and Matt.

Later, Matt threw up into a plastic bag on the train because he had a stomach flu.

So the trip up was pretty bad.

Never again will I take the train to Montreal. Fortunately there was room in my parents’ car for us on the trip back.

The rest of the weekend was fabulous.

I’m so proud of my brother and so happy to welcome his new bride into the family. May they have a long and wonderful life together.

6:11 PM | 2 drops of oil

Thursday, August 17, 2006

I find this letter about the potential redefinition of “planet” very profound:

To the Editor:

So much fuss about a labeling problem! Pluto is a cold round object orbiting a hot round object — call it what you will. How arbitrary our labels are.

When the human race finally manages to do away with itself, all else in the universe will continue to exist (with the possible exception, depending on our method of self-destruction, of the rest of the earth’s biota).

Gone, however, will be the names and categories and interpretations that we have imposed on it.

Phyllis Cohen
New York, Aug. 16, 2006

11:02 AM | 1 drop of oil

Sunday, August 20, 2006

The Complete New Yorker is going to be re-released as a portable USB-powered hard drive.

Drool.

12:35 AM | 1 drop of oil

Voyager 1 passed 100 AUs (astronomical units) the other day. One AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, so Voyager 1 is now 100 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is. It’s farther away than any human-made object has ever travelled, and it’s getting closer and closer to interstellar space.

In 1990, after Voyager 1 had completed its explorations of the outer planets and right before its cameras were turned off forever, Carl Sagan suggested that it take one last set of photos of all the planets, a final “family portrait.” Here’s Earth, a “pale blue dot”:

pale blue dot

And here’s what it inspired Carl Sagan to write:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

11:29 AM | oil me

Negative book reviews are fun:

Every few years, as a reviewer, one encounters a novel whose ineptitudes are so many in number, and so thoroughgoing, that to explain them fully would produce a text that exceeded the novel itself in both length and interest. Faced with such a book, one wishes only to let it slip quietly to the seabed of culture, there to join thousands of other unneeded books in their slow, silent compaction into the limestone of literary history.

Ouch. But I think this is even more damning:

Although it fails at every imaginable level — metaphysical, ethical, technical, thematic — it is at the stylistic level, the level of the sentence, that Welsh’s novel is most wanting.

Guess he didn’t like it.

11:42 AM | 1 drop of oil

Monday, August 21, 2006

Although it’s existed for a year, the other day I finally discovered LibraryThing, which lets you create a catalog of every book you own. It’s also a social networking tool - it lists the people who have the most books in common with you and does other stuff. Yesterday I entered all of my books, so if you’re interested, feel free to browse my bookshelves.

I currently own 379 books - not all of which I’ve read.

4:33 PM | 2 drops of oil

I have an opinion piece in this week’s New York Blade: Gay Sex in the ’00s.

(I’m in print, I’m in print, I’m in print…)

5:37 PM | 12 drops of oil

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

“Perhaps the most delightfully named branch of the federal bureaucracy is the Library of Congress Cataloging Directorate, which sounds oddly like an office of totalitarian librarians.”

11:51 AM | 1 drop of oil

“The expulsion of Pluto would make for a fine new bit of mythological lore. Schoolchildren might feel sorry for Pluto at first, but as they reached adolescence, they’d appreciate his outlaw cachet. He’d be the leader of a disaffected rebel gang — Pluto and the Planetinos, or the Plutonoids, or whatever the coolest rocks from the Sun were called. As new ones were discovered out on the fringes, they could get appropriate names like Hendrix or Cobain.”

11:54 AM | 1 drop of oil

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Someone named Gordon describes me in a comment on this post: “Not as bright as he imagines himself to be.” What are you, Gordon, my fifth-grade teacher? What a smarmy, smug thing to say. Way to psychoanalyze me based on one 800-word opinion piece. You have no idea how bright I don’t imagine myself to be sometimes.

As for the actual post itself, Farmboyz has it all wrong.

1) Once again: I love sex. And anonymous sex can be lots of fun. Guess what? I’ve had lots of it. It can be quite a rush. But at least three different people so far have come to exactly the opposite conclusion after reading my piece, which means either that I should have thought harder about how my words would be read and revised the piece accordingly, or that some people equate criticism of repeated unprotected sex with prudery. All I can guess is that some people are so bitter about the outrageous criticism of the religious right and Anita Bryant clones - at least 30 years’ worth of criticism - that they lump any questioning of the 1970s way of life into that same category. This, despite the fact that I specifically wrote in the piece that my original feeling of scorn was wrong.

As I also wrote in my piece, sex in itself is not inherently dangerous, and there’s a difference between anonymous sex and unprotected sex. As far as physical health is concerned, whom you have sex with is less important than the precautions you take with that person. That’s more or less a direct quote.

2) As for meeting Farmboyz: I do remember meeting him at Pieces during a Christopher Street blogger bar crawl, and he’s right: whatever dissing or judging he imagines is completely in his head. I’ve only read his blog once before, actually, and it was because Joe (I think it was Joe) linked to a multi-part piece he wrote about something that happened a long time ago. I thought it was amazingly well-written. No idea where he came up with the feeling that I was judging him.

It’s true that I was uncomfortable that night. I was flattered that Joe invited me, but I get shy when I’m in a large, unfamiliar group of people who all know each other. Makes me feel like the odd one out. All I can guess is that my discomfort must have been visible on my face and he misinterpreted it.

I don’t get where the hostility toward me is coming from, but then again I don’t know Farmboyz or his blog very well.

3:28 PM | 5 drops of oil

One blogger has weighed in on my piece and also clarifies some of what had me confused about Farmboyz’s post.

Update: Meanwhile, a few other people have commented at Farmboyz’s post and are reacting as if I’m telling people how to live their lives. Where the hell in my piece are they getting this from? Have some gay men become so overly sensitive and defensive that they see offense when there isn’t any?

6:19 PM | 2 drops of oil

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Well, this has been a learning experience, perhaps an overdue one: people are dicks. It’s actually not a new lesson, but one I keep having to re-learn, because I tend to be pollyana-ish about these things.

My piece in the Blade was far from the best thing I’ve written. It had flaws. If people want to criticize the piece, go for it. Criticize the reasoning I use, criticize the metaphors, criticize the tone, criticize the word choice. A couple of people have done that and I fully embrace it.

But don’t fucking attack me personally. Don’t lay me out on a couch and try to analyze me, someone you don’t even know. Because, trust me - you don’t know me at all. What a pompous thing to do. It also exhibits a total lack of respect for my personhood and for personal boundaries.

Because I want everyone to like me, I tend to dwell unnecessarily on those who don’t. But there’s a saying: “What you think of me is none of my business.” I need to remember that more often.

I also need to develop a thicker skin.

8:51 AM | 8 drops of oil

Pluto is officially no longer a planet. This makes me happy, because it creates a nice, neat definition of a planet and corrects an astronomical error - even though Pluto must be sad.

On the other hand, isn’t it wrong to allow an unelected body to redefine the word “planet” for all of us? Shouldn’t we let the people decide?

Oh, wait, I was thinking of “marriage.” Sorry. Wrong debate.

11:52 AM | 1 drop of oil

Friday, August 25, 2006

Britain/Great Britain/United Kingdom &c: Some Common Confusions. For anyone confused about the difference between England, the United Kingdom, Great Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and so on.

12:44 PM | oil me

Sez Pluto: “I’m here. I’m a sphere. Get used to it.”

3:21 PM | 2 drops of oil

Trivia tidbit of the day:

From January 20 to June 22, 1993, there were eight former or present first ladies alive at the same time: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Hillary Clinton.

That’s a lot. And it’s more than the highest number of presidents who have been alive at any one time, which I think is six (first while Lincoln was president - Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Lincoln - and again during Bill Clinton’s first 15 months as president until Nixon died - Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton).

Useless trivia for a Friday. Why not.

5:10 PM | oil me

My! Very educated morons just screwed up numerous planetariums.

10:51 PM | 1 drop of oil

Sunday, August 27, 2006

I seem to be on a fiction-reading kick, which hasn’t been the norm for me in the past couple of years; I’ve tended to read more non-fiction. But the other day I finished reading a new novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (it has a fun website, but don’t click on too many objects if you prefer going into a novel cold). And last night I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I thought about reading it last year, but I wasn’t in the mood; now I seem to be. I’ve read the first 20 pages and I’m already hooked.

It’s loooooong, so it should keep me entertained for a while.

12:21 PM | 3 drops of oil

Monday, August 28, 2006

The world’s oldest person has died at age 116.

Nobody has yet broken the record of Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 and died in 1997.

This led me to some related links on Wikipedia:

- Oldest people - a list of various people who have at one time held the title of the world’s oldest living person.

- The still-living veterans of World War I.

- The last veteran to die of every U.S. war.

10:05 AM | oil me

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

For anyone who likes behind-the-scenes articles about the Supreme Court, here’s a piece about Justice Alito’s first months on the Court. Whatever your opinion of his judicial philosophy, it’s a very interesting article in which he’s rather open about what the experience has been like.

5:42 PM | 1 drop of oil

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Bush gave a speech today in which he said, “The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq.”

Fred Kaplan of Slate calls him out:

Here’s the question: Does anybody believe this? If you do, then you must ask the president why he hasn’t reactivated the draft, printed war bonds, doubled the military budget, and strenuously rallied allies to the cause.

If, as he said in this speech, the war in Iraq really is the front line in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”; if our foes there are the “successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists”; if victory is “as important” as it was in Omaha Beach and Guadalcanal—then those are just some of the steps that a committed president would feel justified in demanding.

If, as he also said, terrorism takes hold in hotbeds of stagnation and despair, then you must also ask the president why he hasn’t requested tens or hundreds of billions of dollars for aid and investment in the Middle East to promote hope and livelihoods.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some Democrats talk about this in the fall campaign. Run to Bush’s right, as it were - although that’s really the wrong way to put it. This shouldn’t be a right-wing position; it should be a common-sense position.

If Iraq is important, if we need to “win,” then we need to do what it takes to do that. If we can’t “win,” or if being there isn’t accomplishing anything, then we need to leave.

We need to shit or get off the pot.

7:55 PM | oil me

Here’s a fun article on the evolution of brunch.

Quotes:

“[T]here’s an argument that [Sunday brunch] owes a great deal to American Jewry. Brunch, Gary Greengrass acknowledges, was a kind of Jewish alternative to church. Jewish families, with nothing much to do on Sunday mornings, would take a long, leisurely meal, with traditional foods like bagels, lox, and blintzes. Occasionally, they would take that meal out.”

“As far as I can tell, the essential quality of an Upper West Side brunch seems to consist of milling in a large group outside of a restaurant for over an hour.”

“Brunch often has a distinctly post-coital vibe. Either one is brunching with one’s romantic partner from the previous evening, in which case a louche afterglow hangs in the air, or one is brunching with friends, in which case one is wondering aloud why a louche afterglow isn’t hanging in the air.”

I don’t know if brunch has a “post-coital vibe” - it sounds a bit too chick-lit to be true - but it’s fun to think about anyway.

8:07 PM | 2 drops of oil