Curves for Women(*)

A columnist in an SF paper has come to my attention:

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7636
Transgenders at Curves? Get Used to It, Ladies -- Cinnamon Stillwell

The author of this piece was very surprised to notice that the person exercising next to her at her Curves was biologically male. And enquiry of the Staff as to how this could happen resulted in the reply that the person in question usually goes to another Curves and was just visiting for the day. The rest of the article is a familiar reprise of the indignation many women feel when "Women's Spaces", typically restrooms, are invaded by "wannabe women".

Part of the author's shock comes from learning that Curves can't be exclusively women in California.

According to the owner, it seems that Curves does not have an all-female membership, as I had formerly believed. Not in California anyway. Due to several lawsuits that ensued soon after Curves came to the golden state, Curves franchises in California were forced to make their membership all-inclusive. Before last week, I, and no doubt most of the other female members, were unaware of this policy and had we known, it’s safe to say that it might have affected our decision to sign-up.

So the whole event came as a double shock, which only intensified the indignation.

Although I can only speak for myself, I think I can say with certainty that most women do not want to share a bathroom, locker room, and especially what they thought was an all-female gym, with a man--whatever his genderr identity.'' But it seems that us plain-old females have no rights, because transgenders and their view of womanhood take precedence. Forget girlhood, puberty, pregnancy, or motherhood, when it comes to transgenders, it's the clothes, shoes, and makeup that make a woman.

The Bathroom Question is something that all people who wish to present as the gender opposite their biological one face. If you are presenting as opposite your biological gender, no matter which bathroom you choose to pee in you will get Looks. This is why Unisex and Family bathroom are such blessings, and even some university campuses are mandating that such bathrooms be available. If your presentation is pretty convincing you may be able to use the 'wrong' bathroom without raising eyebrows or hackles, at least until your fellow pissers learn what you 'really are' at which point the question becomes open for debate.

At this point I have to mention that it's not just men invading the women's loo. The other direction happens as well, but it isn't nearly as 'hot button'. Women cross presenting as Men is better accepted in our society, so the indignation suffered is less visible to all. But indignation does occur. Men exclude from their bathroom other men who wear dresses and makeup just as much as they'd exclude the woman who wears a male-cut suit and hairstyle. It happens, you just don't hear about it as much.

But it seems that us plain-old females have no rights, because transgenders and their view of womanhood take precedence. Forget girlhood, puberty, pregnancy, or motherhood, when it comes to transgenders, it’s the clothes, shoes, and makeup that make a woman.

The integration of transsexual women into Feminist society has been rocky. Certain loud and voiciferous feminist thinkers claim that trans-women aren't real women since they never had girlhood in their teens, the possibility of pregnancy hanging over their entire lives, or certain gender roles thrust at them since birth. Valid points, all of them; it does separate people into different experience categories. But when it comes to 'female space', those spaces where only Women can go, such divisions aren't nearly so hard and fast. If trans-women aren't allowed into these places, what about trans-men; with their nascant beardrecedinging hairlines, and deep voices? By the definition set up there, thdefinitelyely do qualify even if they don't choose to participate in such. Yet in women's spaces such as bathrooms presentation (beard, tie, a certain leer about the mouth) counts for more than history, so such people aexcludedded.

So by that definition and the realities, Womanhood is something you can only leave, never join. Manhood is handled similarly, though the boundaries are fuzzier. The author handles it thusly:

If the transgender in question still has a you-know-what, then as far as I’m concerned, he’s a ''he.'' Enough said.

The converse being, of course:

If the transgender in question wasn't born with a you-know-what, then as far as I'm concerned, she's a 'she'.

Yet I'm pretty sure if that hypothetical bearrecedingeding-hairline, suited trans-man walked into a stall while she was washing her hands, she'd be very offended too. It obviously hasn't happened yet, or her argument would be cleaner. Quite clearly we have a group of people who do NOT fit into Male/Female, and there is no easy way to deal with them.

In the case of Curves, the 'womens space' the author presumed Curves was, wasn't really such a space at all. The person on the next treadmill over had every right to be there, dismay not withstanding. That only sparked the indignation.

There aren't many gendered spaces in society any more. The bathroom is one such space that isn't going away. Places like locker-rooms and other places where people get naked are really the only other places anymore. People who are inclined to view people of their own sex ...fondly are a much higher percentage of the population than trans-people are, yet there is no hue and crexpelxpell them from bathrooms and locker-rooms. They LOOK normal, you CAN'T know. Another point towards 'presentation' being a defining factor over history.

This is why I view the advent of unisex bathrooms as a third option to the other two, not a replacement, as a very good thing. It removes one b-i-g layer of stress for people who either are around folk who don't fit the two big categories, and those people who ARE the people who don't fit. Back during the ERA days of the 1970's and early 80's unisex bathrooms were used by opponents as a club to instill fear in people, this is a good reason why such bathrooms need to be the third choice and not the only choice. It will reduce stress all around.

Public financing of elections

Rumor has leaked that Kerry may not formally accept the Democratic Nomination until the Republican convention. The idea goes that by delaying formal acceptance, he also delays the mandatory public finance period of presidential elections. Between the party nominating convention and the general election presidential candidates are capped on how much they can spend.

Both Bush and Kerry have opted out of public financing in the pre-convention stages, and both have blown away prior records for fundraising. Bush is well in the lead on this point, and Kerry by himself has already amassed funds of very impressive size. Both are well over what public financing would have provided.

It is conventional wisdom that the Republican convention was placed where it was in order to give Bush an advantage in fund-raising. Both parties placed the conventions later than usual this time around in order to take advantage of the pre-convention free-for-all. With the Republican convention five weeks after the Democratic one, this would have granted Bush five whole weeks to out fund-raise Kerry. Kerry's move is designed to eliminate this advantage.

If it works, I'm all for it. This will become a regular feature in future presidential elections, I am sure. Plus, we'll end up with the conventions possibly earlier again.

That is, if this doesn't bring public financing back into the political debate. Living in a battleground state, I get to see lots of persuasion aimed at me. This is a new experience for me, as my state has been solidly democratic for a long time. That persuasion costs money.

Both will get around $74M for the post-convention period. Considering that Bush has something like $200M in his warchest right now, that public financing sum looks almost paltry. The fact that presidential campaigns have out stripped the ability of the public to finance them will cause the debate to happen. Either jigger the public finance formula to determine who gets how much, change the dates the financing kicks in, or drop it all together.

The financing was put into place in order to level the playing field. That is a noble goal. The theory is that by unifying the finances of the contenders, the issues and the ability of the candidates to disseminate them would be what sways the election. Not the fact that Candidate Z outspent Candidate Y three to one. It is a well known anecdote that the candidate with more money is much more likely to win, though that is far from universal (Wellstone over Boshwitz, Kerry over Dean). A level playing field gives a superior message an equal chance of getting heard by the people who need to hear it.

I believe that public financing in the presidential campaigns is going to be here to stay, but the system will get tweaked after this cycle. We'll see which way it goes, as that largely depends on who wins the white-house and what their mid-term elections do to congress.

**Update 5/27**
It seems Kerry has announced that he will NOT be delaying acceptance afterall. On the grounds of, "the realities of elections have changed," he plans to appeal to the FEC for a ruling.

Endangered Vermont

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its list of top endangered historic things recently.

NY-Times

On that list is the State of Vermont. Yep, a whole state. The reason it is on the list is because WalMart (and other big-box retailers) will be pushing into the state in a big way, and that really threatens the 'quaint' feel of smalltown Vermont.

There is a real reason to fear just that. WalMart made its reputation by pushing into 2nd tier cities and rural settings, and in the process greatly undercutting "main street" businesses in those areas. WalMart has proven to be a big competitive threat to the Targets and K-Marts of the world, so such higher operating cost stores like Walt's Drug and Gifts have even less room to compete.

People LIKE the convenience of the big box retailers, but they don't do a lot to add to the cultural land-scape. In fact, they can do lots towards removing such cultural 'landmarks' like the family run Hardware Sales store that opened in 1941 and led two generations of families through home renovations and repair, Walt's Drug and Gifts where generations of teenagers have worked after school and during the summer, and the Benjamin Franklin.

It is an unfortunate fact that WalMart does lead to lower prices all around and slightly lowers the cost of living in those areas. The fact that WalMart itself feeds on teenagers and retierees for an employee pool help in that aspect. But... that isn't just it. You can't LIVE on your WalMart wage, and too many people are trying just that.

My sister recently moved out to a town on the Great Plains. There literally was no other general store but WalMart in that town, which made it very difficult to stick to principles in where you shop. The nearest store of that kind was a good 40 minute drive away if not more. Which if all you need is a cheap microwave stand, is too far to justify the drive.

WalMart claims to have cleaned up its act in this regard, but there are certain economic realities involved. Perhaps they can tune their offerings so as to keep out of Main Street's bigger store's market. WalMart's bread and butter are 'cheap plastic crap' which makes our lives easier, something that is harder for Main Street to keep up on. Enough lost profit margin to WalMart can put a struggling business, pre-WalMart, out of action completely.

Yes, WalMart and the retailers it represents are a threat to the rural character of Vermont.

On Godwin

Godwin's Law is a fairly famous 'law' from Usenet. Due to the fact that people have memories, it has also been carried over, in limited forms, to other discussion media. In short:

Godwin's Observation: The longer a thread on Usenet gets, the likelihood that Nazis will be brought up trends towards one. Such invoking is usually done as an insult to something or someone.
Godwin's Law: 1. At such time as one member of a discussion brings up Nazis, the discussion will be deemed over. 2. At such time as one member of a discussion brings up Nazis, that member will be considered to have lost the argument.

Needless to say, Godwin's Law, in the communities where it is tradition, can by itself cause great discussion.

Unfortunately, Godwin violations have been a lot more common lately. Some point to current events and cry, 'It is impossible to NOT violate!' Indeed, it is very easy to invoke that particular ghost of our past and compare our events to the rise of that particular evil power, but you don't have to.

Really, the thing that is causing everyone to get downright Aryan is really Fascism. For that you can look to Mussolini and his Black Shirts; for a quick look try here. No need to point to events in Germany. You can make your point, AND not tick off the Godwin purists! Heck, the guy coined the term "Fascism".

As for the argument itself, lets take a look at some data.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity. [I will just list the fourteen items here – see Britt’s full article for explanations, plus references.]

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

3. Identification of enemies / scapegoats as a unifying cause

4. The supremacy of the military / avid militarism

5. Rampant sexism

6. A controlled mass media

7. Obsession with national security

8. Religion and ruling élite tied together

9. Power of corporations protected

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

14. Fraudulent elections

Cite
Now to take them point by point.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
When Mussolini came to power, it was to fix a government widely viewed as broken. He was a patriot who was going to Do Something about the problem. People like that sort of sentiment. Keep in mind, Mussolini came to power with the will of the people against the government.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
If survival of the fittest is the rule, then heck yeah. You work for the good of the state, not yourself. If you don't agree with the government, then you get eliminated.

3. Identification of enemies / scapegoats as a unifying cause
The communists in Italy were largely broken by the time Mussolini came to power, but it was still a very effective threat. Heck, that worked for the US in the 1950's and we didn't have an attempted red revolt like Italy did.

4. The supremacy of the military / avid militarism
Mussolini wanted to re-establish the Roman Empire, and for that you need to spend lots on your military. A strong foreign policy it was called.

5. Rampant sexism
More of that survival of the fittest thing. Women stay home to breed strong men!

6. A controlled mass media
Controlled, as in anything but state-run or state-sanctioned media is illegal. Many deaths over this one.

7. Obsession with national security
Keys into point number three. You have to do something about that enemy, you know. Security must be addressed!

8. Religion and ruling élite tied together
If you co-opt the religious elite, or just plain make your own religion and its own elite to go with it, it is easier to control the masses. In Italy this wasn't as big since the Vatican was Right There. It was more important in Germany.

9. Power of corporations protected
A strong economy breed a strong nation. Everyone knows that. And what better way to strengthen the economy than by protection the corporations that drive it.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
Actually, the suppression applies to ANY organized force that is not co-opted by the fascist regime. But Unions are well known for their Red leanings. See point three.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
If you have an economy to get revved up, such frivolity is not needed.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment
See point three. Also, organized crime is as much of a threat to the fascist regime as any other organized unit. The People got these bozos into power, so it is a good idea to ensure the streets are safe at night. And ironically, that's a lot easier to do in a fascist regime.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
This applies to any government run by the personal connections of the leader, but yeah. Rampant in this case means near total.

14. Fraudulent elections
Also not exclusive to Fascism, but common. Fraudulent in this case means that voters were pressured to vote the right way, or not at all. See point 13.

As with psychactric evaluations, multiple points need to be satisfied to qualify as 'fascist'. After Florida's election problems in 2000 people were rather frothy on point number 14. I have to challenge that assertion as the 'fraud' here was in the courts, not in the ballot box itself. An antiquated balloting system was put in the cross-hairs of battalions of lawyers and the results were predictable.

Personally, I see the seeds of five of the fourteen points listed above. 1, 3, 7, 9, and 12. An truthfully, America can get off of this list by choosing a different Chief Executive this November. The power is in our hands. As always.

New Labor rules?

A month ago the Department of Labor issued notice of its intent to revise overtime rules as set down in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You can find the details at:

http://www.dol.gov/fairpay

This is NOT the Bush plan to extend Comp Time to private employers. This is something else.

Having been a Union steward in the past, I've had some familiarity with the FLSA. For a variety of reasons the thresholds specified in the FLSA as to salary and duties have not been updated in decades. The law states that employees earning over about $9,000 a year are professionals and exempt from Overtime requirements, something that is clearly no longer true in the workplace. What legislation has left behind, has been taken up by the courts and arbitration.

The datedness of the tests in the FLSA leaves us to rely upon case-law to find interpretations of how things should be. Unfortunately that leaves employers, unions, and unrepresented employees with plenty of wiggle room to classify employees as exempt and non-exempt. I say unfortunately, since resources determine how hard you can fight in court and greatly influence the end result. Because of this, any effort to diddle the system will cause a hue and cry from both halves, unions and employers, that the new 'clarifications' will unbalance the system.

There is a point to that. The new rules may very well define whole classes of employees as exempt that previously were non-exempt, and thus deprive them of their overtime pay. Conversely, "managers" that fall under the salary bar ($23,660/year) may suddenly start getting OT they haven't had for years. The first point will cause the Unions to scream, the second point will cause Business to scream. I believe this is the prime reason that the FLSA hasn't been touched in as long as it has, and I'm worried that it was a republican administration that kicked it off.

Foreign Impacts

Our standing internationally has been widely recognized to be... not what it used to be. One of the prime critiques of Bush during the 2000 campaign was that he was a light-weight when it came to foreign policy. His actions after 9/11/01 have shown that lack, and his actions recently in relation to Iraq have underscored it.

Molly Ivans (Registration required) had this to say on the topic:

On the plus side, Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. On the minus side, we have encouraged anti-American terrorists everywhere, put ourselves at greater risk of terrorist attack, lost enormous amounts of good will around the world, earned the resentment of many of our closest allies and cost ourselves around $200 billion that we really could have used for more constructive projects.

While the number isn't entirely true (part of that is 'normal' defense allocation), she does have a really good point. While our primary objective has been completed, we now get the dirty aftermath. We have no, 'Happily ever after,' in this particular conflict. Our reputation internationally is as bad as it has been for a long time. Back when we were "not the Soviets," we had a bit more leeway in how we handled ourselves internationally, but those times are thankfully gone.

As an example of what's going on, the European Union is soon to elect members of the EU parliament. Anti-war sentiment is running high everywhere except the newly added ex-Eastern Bloc states, and tongues are wagging that Tony Blair may be in a real fight for his job over events in Iraq. The EU events are particularly interesting since those elections, early June, are close enough that the torture problem will still be in the news when people go to the polls. As anyone who has been involved in politics for a while knows, events the week before an election and undermine months of campaigning. Madrid. The sudden death of Paul Wellstone.

In defense of the President, it is hard to be both resolute, and go-get-em, and also diplomatic at the same time. Whacking Afghanistan was justified, and we had international support for it. Toppling Saddam was not nearly as supported world-wide, and we're paying the price for it. Getting the UN to sanction our actions requires us to get through the Security Council, and the veto-wielding powers therein. We couldn't get a new resolution for Iraq, so we ended up reinterpreting the ones we already had and called it good.

Any time you go forth and do what needs doing in the face of sentiment to the contrary, you lose political capital with those that disapprove of your actions. Basic playground rule there, dressed up a bit with pretty words. It's OK for once in a while, but be prepared to mend fences afterwards if you intend to play nice with the other kids and have them play nice back. It doesn't matter that what needed doing, needed doing, what counts is that so and so said you shouldn't and you went ahead and did it anyway.

Again, Molly Ivans pointed to a way to mend some of those fences:

The Center for American Progress has an exit strategy that I think sounds useful. It is recommending that Bush call an emergency international summit immediately, seek to have the United Nations fully oversee the transition, have NATO take the security responsibility and set up an independent trust fund for reconstruction. Further details of the plan can be found at the center's Web site.

Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star-Ledger suggests that Bush do an LBJ announcement: "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president." That would improve the likelihood of the success of a summit, though the administration is in such deep denial about how badly this war is going that it seems unlikely.

Again, she analyzed it correctly. While that would be a nice gesture, and would help regain some of the credibility we lost getting into, and fumbling around in, Iraq, this administration is not going to do it. This is an administration that is well known to pundits on both sides to be very reluctant to admit to mistakes. Admitting, even indirectly, to have made a mistake in knocking over Saddam is so out of the George W. Bush character as to be guaranteed. It would take multiple members of his cabinet being strongly implicated in wrong doing related to Iraq for him to come close to a statement like that. And we're no where near that yet.

Nope, the Bush administration is going forward hoping that the pure rightness of its actions will win the pouty nations back into our good graces. Problem is, the pure rightness doesn't stand up well to the glare of public scrutiny. Yes, we DID get rid of a horrible dictator. But we also seem to have inflamed, perhaps greatly, the Jihadi problem which will only make our security situation that much worse in the coming decade. The full extent of the torture problem has yet to be revealed and that has the possibility of greatly impacting our standing worldwide.

The people of the United States have a chance to bring our country back into better graces, and that's by not electing Bush to a second term. That would leave Kerry the job of cleaning up, something that will take his entire first term of office. Also, it is a heck of a lot easier to pull of "Mea Culpa" if it isn't your mess in the first place.

Did that say.... impeach?

I'm now seeing media reports either of predictions of impeachment proceedings (so far exclusively from far-left sources), or calls for said from pundits. Given our relatively recent taste of that particular procedure, it does come to mind relatively easy. And truthfully, from an objective point of view the potential articles of impeachment for President George W. Bush are far more damning than the articles drawn up for Pres. William J. Clinton. But impeachment is a political tool, so objectivity only plays a minor role.

Of the three attempts at impeachment this country has witnessed, only one was for criminal acts that both sides of congress agreed upon were criminal. The other two, which both ironically progressed further than the criminal one, were politically motivated. The President can be impeached for sneezing funny (endangering public health!) so long as a super majority in the Senate can be mustered to agree to the procedure and the Vice President isn't just as bad as the guy who is getting the boot.

We are fortunate that such super majorities in congress, party-wise, are rare. If one party is so far in ascendancy that it can command that many senate seats, chances are real good the President will also be of that party. I believe it is not a coincidence that override of a veto requires the same majority in Congress.

In this case, our current President has two big things in his favor for dodging such a proceeding:

1: His party holds Congress, even if just barely
2: His job is up for public review this November

The only way that such proceedings will happen is if things go horribly wrong. And do so that even "Bush can do no wrong" supporters have to admit that things aren't right. We are nowhere near there yet. It would have to be something Nixon-like to get to that point. And then we'd be stuck with Cheney, who is even worse when it comes to the issue that'd get Bush tossed.

We're kinda stuck.

This leaves us with the only option of the election process. Which is vastly more expensive, but not such a challenge to our Constitution. High-level defections from the GOP's stance of supporting Bush for President would do wonders to get the guy out; much better than drawing up Articles of Impeachment would, since that would need GOP support too. If Kerry could somehow pick up a moderate Republican for VP, it could transform the election into a true referendum on how to handle Iraq.

However, things would have to get much worse for that to work. So far, only the one prison is implicated and there are still only rumors of another situation in Afghanistan. Also there is a perception that the Department of Justice is trying to suppress video of interrogations of post 9/11 detainees that might also show similar torture.

The worst that can happen with the Abu Ghraib prison is the sacking of the civilians over in DoD. That would have to include a clear paper-trail showing that the Civilian Authorities(tm) deliberately bypassed existing limits on the use of torture. And even then some righteous indignation, on paper dating from back when the decisions were made of course, from the military authorities would greatly help.

And even if the Afghanistan allegations turn out to be true, it would only be DoD getting the axe. If that is the case, there will be full scale witch hunts going on in the Pentagon to flush out the torturous evil and new Zero Tolerance policies. Not the impeachable, in this environment anyway, material needed to get Bush out of office.

If the post 9/11 stuff does pan out, that does implicate another branch of the government. That was either Dept. of Justice or Homeland Security, I can't remember. In either case, not the DoD. Depending on the severity of what surfaces, it could either spark more witch-hunts or another general sacking of appointees.

At any rate, both Afghanistan and the post-9/11 detainees would have to be just as gruesome as Abu Ghraib for any sort of impeachment proceeding to gain even a hint of traction. As we get closer to the party Conventions, it becomes more and more of a political football. Already you can count on speeches at the Democratic Convention blasting Bush for allowing torturers to operate in the US Military; how loud they are, and if they are echoed by moderate GOP, will depend on the severity of the problem at that time.

No, impeachment will not come. Not unless something truly shocking, something that makes Abu Ghraib look small, comes to the surface soon. What we'll probably get, at worst, is the sacking of civilians at DoD and possibly Ashcroft. As for international reaction, that's another story.

WalMart's evils

I will not shop at WalMart or Sam's Club. WalMart's policies towards worker treatment is so wildly out of sync with fair treatment that it is laughable. They are vigarously anti-union. They pay minimum wage. Their health-care, as a result, only covers a minority of workers. These are the three things that make me not shop their, their position as arbiter of culture to the masses is NOT.

The anti-union stance is completely understandable considering their goals as a company. Unions cost lots of money, and when you are a company priding yourself on "More for less," that can be a very significant thing. Understandable does not make it excusable.

The ideal worker for WalMart is someone looking for a second job, someone who is looking for a little extra money, and someone who is already covered for health insurance. Summer Job students, retierees, people with spouses already working full time somewhere else. Not primary bread winners. Not sole income earners. Not the uninsured. Not the working poor.

Unfortunately it is also the uninsured working poor that end up working there. WalMart is somewhere you can work if you really have no other job skills. WalMart is a place that can take practically anyone.

The same was said of the sweatshops of the 1800's and early 1900's. WalMart is as close as you can get to a sweatshop and still stay completely legal. I will not support them.

Gay Marriage pt 2

As I read today's news coverage of the MA weddings, I have to come to one conclusion. The progress of gay marriage will follow that of school integration. In the words of the NPR person this morning:

"I remember the day when the decision [Brown vs. BoE] as announced in class. The principal came before our class and said that we'd have colored kids in the class next year. It didn't happen. It didn't happen when I was in middle school. It didn't happen when I was in high school. It didn't happen in College. It didn't happen when I got my law degree. It finally happened in that school when I was teaching other law students about Brown vs. Board of Education and its significance."

Since it is only a state court that has kicked a door down, we still have the Feds to muck things up. Bush took today to reaffirm his support for a constitutional amendment to 'defend' marriage. Should that illconcieved amendment pass it will create a great barrier. Fortunately, even Republican Senators are reluctant to pass such a bill as they believe in a 'hands off' approach to the constitution. IF Bush wins re-election we can expect near constant pressure to get this thing passed. If Kerry pulls it off, the idea will fall by the way side but there are no guarantees that Congress will do anything to HELP either.

Once this election cycle is over, we'll have a good feel for how America feels about this whole idea. Several municipalities and county boards have gotten themselves into very deep water over their actions in handing out marriage licenses, and we will get to find out how they'll be impacted come November. My guess is that each of the boards (save San Francisco) will get more conservative suddenly.

All in all, it will be a long time coming. It already has, actually. The first case of a court mandating marriage licenses be handed out to same-sex couples was Hawaii, which really was the opening salvo. In that case the State managed to pass a constitutional amendment to prevent it from actually happening, much to the disappointment of marriage-reform activists everywhere. MA is special in that their amendment process is convoluted and long, so the courts were able to create a window in which licenses HAD to be passed out. As residents move out of MA and into other states we'll get challenges to other state laws and opportunities for other state courts to weigh in.

Gay Marriage

Today is the day the MA residents have the ability to get hitched to any one other person of appropriate age. And my, is this a good thing. For them, perhaps; the rest of us are a little behind.

Personally, I find it significant that this day happened on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education. Both events address class issues, though that isn't obvious to some people. Indeed, as with the Brown decision, there is a hue and cry that this country is going to pot because of it. Since this is 'only' a State Supreme Court, it doesn't hold near the weight a Federal decision would.

I say this is a class issue because the institution of marraige in our body of laws rather clearly creates classes. Marriage provides a host of benefits that are available either no where else, or only through adoption. Legal recognition of 'next of kin' being a prime example of something that is hard to work around. Qualifying as 'Spouse' with regards to insurance is another very sticky point. Tax benefits for those who would not incur the 'marriage penalty'. All of these things are denied to the class of monogamous couple who share the same sex.

Appropriate legal documents can approximate a lot of the things that a single marriage certificate grants, but they aren't near as durable or all encompasing. Estate law has 'next of kin' written into it, but if you are NOT next of kin legally, the actual next of kin can challenge any written will and thus incur great legal costs. Emergency Room access may be granted through powers of attorney, but establishing that with the ER in question can take a day or two. These are things that need fixing.

The challenge against same-sex marriage is based on a couple of arguments:

• God said you shouldn't do it
• Marriage is for procreation, and gay couples can't do that
• Historically, its never been done

God said you shouldn't do it
God in this case is the Christian God that has dominated American religious thinking since its founding. A friend of mine posted a link a month ago to an article describing the history of same-sex relationships in the Christian church. Unfortunately, I can't find the link. But in essence, as late as the 1700's there were rituals that Solemnized a same-sex union. The early church was much more forgiving of such brotherly and sisterly love. I really wish I had that link. It was good reading. The article in question was written in 1997.

Marriage is for procreation, and gay couples can't do that
Gay couples can adopt, Lesbian couples can carry their own through either IVF or 'naturally' with a friend. Such couples have been rasing kids for a long time, and first hit headlines in the 1980's. Proceation isn't the big benefit of marriage, its the stable home. And a stable home does far more towards giving the children advantages than what sex the parents are. This also keys into the larger debate of whether or not gay/lesbian couples should be able to adopt and raise kids, but that's the topic of another rant.

Historically, its never been done
As with all such assertions, it depends on what books you read. Marriage, in the modern civil sense, really hasn't been around that long. Marriage was a function of the Church and civil authority generally recognized families. That self same church was also permitting same sex unions, recognized in a church and everything, for several centuries. In classic lawyerese... "define marriage."

Marriage is like an insurance policy in some cases. For day to day stuff you don't notice it. But when disaster strikes (death, disability, etc) it can be invaluable. The 'civil union' movement is going the right direction, but until the word Spouse becomes synonomous with Married and Civily United it won't be the same.

Rights of the unborn

To continue the series on reproductive rights, I'll consider the coming debate on the rights of the unborn. This particular debate has its start around the time that medical science was able to reliably abort a pregnancy. If life begins at conception, then the mother has a duty to bring that life to term and into the world. If life begins much later, then the mother may terminate a pregnancy that would put an undue burden upon her.

Over the last two decades more and more laws relating to the rights of the unborn have passed. A common one allows the prosecution of a murder or manslaughter charge for the deliberate killing of a fetus through violence towards the mother, which can lead to a doubling of sentencing in the case of a murdered woman who was discovered to be pregnant at the time. Though some have been concerned that such laws could be interpreted to penalize abortion practitioners, all such have either an exception for voluntary termination or other safeguards.

Another such law is one that I find much more concerning. Though the details vary, the laws generally read something like this:

1. IF a woman is discovered to be pregnant, and
2. IF that woman is receiving medical care, and
3. IF that woman has filed the medical documentation required for either a Do Not resuscitate order, or otherwise made her wishes clear that she is not to be kept on life-support if there is no hope of recovery, and
4. IF she is temporarily receiving such medical care
5. THEN the State may lawfully override her stated wishes in order to bring the fetus to term and mandate that such intrusive and expensive supportive care be given until such time as the baby is delivered or dies of normal means.

It allows the State to override the previously clearly stated wishes of the woman in cases where the woman herself is not able to make her own wishes clear at that moment. Even if the entire family wants to follow her wishes, the State may override this preference for the public good.

Recently there was news of a rather disturbing nature relating to the rights of the unborn. A woman, albeit developmentally disabled, was pregnant with twins. In the ninth month of pregnancy, her doctor informed her that it looked like one of the fetuses was under stress and strongly recommended a C-section to save both. The woman refused to undergo the surgery. When she delivered a week or two later, one of the two children was dead on delivery. The doctor attempted to bring forth a criminal charge of negligence against the woman. The woman was, by all accounts, not so hot on decision making. But she WAS an adult, capable of making adult-like decisions.

The big problem that case brought up is to underline the potential legal liability the mother has towards doing healthy things for her growing fetus. Alcohol consumption has been known for some time now to have some potentially nasty side-effects for an assembling child, and all pregnant women are notified that they need to stop drinking. I personally do not know of any lawsuits related to a pregnant woman's lack of care towards her growing fetus, but it is a fear I hold. At some point there will be a case that gets splashed on the front pages of news sites everywhere relating to exactly that sort of thing.

Culture already does put pressure on pregnant women to Do It Right when it comes to helping an embryo grow with the least chances of problems. How is your folic acid intake? Are you sure all of your medicines are OK for pregnant ladies to take? What sort of nutritional regimen are you following? How long are you planning on breastfeeding? And when culture starts putting pressure on things, laws are a lot easier to pass that mandate such things. This could get more and more complicated the more we learn about how the things we do to our bodies affect a developing fetus.

I do not believe that women should be held legally accountable for the lack of care they supplied to the life growing in their bodies. To someone who does not wish the pregnancy in the first place, the whole progress can seem like an ever larger parasite growing in your own body; a feeling that women have had to be mentally prepared for until the advent of the medical abortion. A kid should not be able to sue mom for pre-natal neglect.

Voluntary Fertility

Abortion issues are again in the news this election cycle. They usually are, but the noise level is getting higher than its been for some time. The continuing low level betting pool for which Supreme Court justice will drop out and who will be president when that happens has been around for about six years now. It is commonly assumed that Roe v. Wade is just one vote from being overturned, and it is a liberal who is the current best-bet for leaving the bench.

Raised as I was, I take voluntary fertility to be one of the best things that modern medical science has given us as a species. The ability to prevent conception in the first place, followed by the ability to terminate a pregnancy, are two things that have done wonders. It has allowed women, a full half of the potential work-pool, to have a much greater impact on our monetary, information, and scientific economies very much for the greater good.

Unfortunately, these are very modern revolutions and our culture, based as it is on how Grandma had it back when she had a Grandma, hasn't really assimilated them fully yet. It wasn't until the 20th century that women had a reasonable expectation of controlling their own fertility and all that entails. In the words of a fantasy author known for his gritty realism, on life in the preindustrial feudal system:

I realized that of all the women I know, every single one of them had been raped at some time.

Even now rape has not gone away, stuff a person from 1820 would consider rape is still happening. Rumors of our own soldiers raping Iraqi women in custody have surfaced. Rape camps in the Bosnia conflict have spawned War Crimes trials. Countless tribal and civil feuds in Africa contain organized rape as a method of oppression. And that's just armed-conflict related rape, something that humanity has been doing since the dawn of time.

In a heartening form of progress, the definition of rape has expanded over the last hundred years. Rape inside the marriage is now considered possible, and people have been sent to prison for it. The "she was asking for it," defense, referring to the attacker's perception of the woman in question asking for their unwelcome attention through either dress, actions, or lack of either, no longer carries nearly the weight it once did. The concept of 'age of majority' and 'statutory rape' are also new innovations designed to give underage victims another weapon against their own attackers.

In another generation or two we will probably find that the debate over the morality of birth-control will be a lot quieter. In fact, since hormonal birth control made its break out in the 1960's (?) the debate has dampened down a lot. A previous rant touched on the FDA's decision over the Morning After Pill, and it does show that the issue of disease prevention has gained priority, from a public health standpoint, over the issue of pregnancy. That is a significant move, but I'm still trying to figure out if it is a good one or not.

In other events, we now have a generation of activists who do not remember the bad old days when abortion was completely illegal. The number of physicians willing to perform abortions goes down every year due in part to the immense pressure these doctors, and the institutions who train new ones, are put under by the anti-choice crowd. There is something galvanizing about having a close friend die of sepsis after an unhygenic back-alley abortion, and ironically the lack of such people since 1973 has taken the bite out of the pro-choice movement.

One of the big disconnects between both sides of the debate is the impact of the pregnancy on the mother versus the infant that will be born. The 'killer app' for this particular argument would be if science can somehow find a way to either artificially replicate a uterus (Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan universe touches on such a technology), or some way to move an implanted embryo to a new mother. This would allow a mother to say, "I'm not bringing this embryo to term, YOU do it," and allow the mother to not have such a high impact to her own life and allow the embryo to come to term. Both methods are no where near ready, much less in the pipeline, so we get to debate this topic for probably another century.

The impact to the pregnant mother is very great. The pro-life crowd proudly points out that there is quite a market for US-adoptions, and that the mother doesn't have to raise the kid if she doesn't want to. The biological impacts to the mother are also very great; a friend who blogged extensively about her own first pregnancy provided me with an excellent view of what kind of 'great' it is. There is also strong cultural pressure to raise a kid, unwanted or not, and not give them up for adoption.

The adoption option has its own problems. The two big questions parents who give children up for adoption face are, "why didn't you want me," and, "what will we do when they show up on our doorstep one day." Another friend of mine took this option when she got pregnant at age 18ish and has recently been contacted by the child. This is another form of emotional stress that can be very difficult to live through, no matter how strongly worded the "do not contact me" note is in the file.

The task of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term is a task that women have been facing since the dawn of humanity. The fact that it is now possible to avoid this historic task just makes it that much more hard to take when it does happen. With the modern view of pre-natal care you can start neglecting your child well before they are born, and that itself carries a new stigma that our grandmothers didn't get to face.

Oh yes, voluntary fertility is such a wonderful thing. I'll support it wherever I can.

PRT Will Save The World

Several progressively minded people have proposed a new transit system called, Personal Rapid Transit. A quick hit on google gives us this link:

http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/prtquick.htm

In short, PRT involves creating a second roadway system, typically above grade, on which only computerized vehicles are permitted. These cars are small, can be individually dispatched, and most importantly allow the user to designate their destination directly.

When fully deployed, it provides a number of excellent advantages:

• The central control of the cars permits a much greater efficiency than the old at-grade, driver-controlling system
• The cars can be run on alternate powersources much easier than switching over the existing at-grade road-system
• Starts/Continues the process of weaning transit consumers off of their expensive vehicles
• Can handle much higher traffic densities due to the 'big picture' central control gives
• Unlike existing transit systems like busses, subway, and Light Rail Transit (LRT, a.k.a. trolley), permit the user a straight-to-destination without having to 'share the ride' if they wish.
• Allows the system to charge users the true-cost (or a percentage there of) of the system, something that the current highway-based system doesn't do.

This is all very well and good, but it all depends on one key thing. The above benefits only are realized when fully deployed. Full deployment in this case means that a PRT station exists within easy walking distance of every user of the system, AND a large majority of the places they wish to go to.

Also, a fully deployed PRT system has the same order of magnitude cost as, LRT, dedicated bus corridors, heavy-rail commuter lines, and interstate highways. I say order of magnitude since a fully deployed system, regionally, for any of those technologies is a multi-billion dollar investment. PRT is cheaper than any of the others, but that doesn't change the fact that it still costs ten figures. At least.

Then factor in the fact that for any of those transit systems the costs will force the deployment to take decades. While a truly massive infusion of cash could force a fully deployed system to be put up in under seven years, the chances of someone ponying up more money than the US paid to put up the International Space Station are slim. Any allocation of public funds will be a yearly, or bi-yearly, ordeal subject to the same pitfalls of public funding any massive non-DoD project gets. The public likes highways. They understand highways. They do not understand PRT.

The two main pitfalls of PRT are not exclusive to PRT, but sink it none the less:

1. It is still mega-engineering, requiring a massive investment of resources to pull off
2. The time-scale for deployment really requires public investment, and all the uncertainty that brings

There are a couple of other problems that raise the cost of PRT. These are things that are actually taken into consideration by some of the researchers in the field, but I've met a few advocates who were not aware of them or chose to hand-wave them away as trivial. For clarity:

• The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that the above-grade stations be accessible to people in a wheel-chair. This will require elevators in each and every station, at least
• The above-grade track has to work around or with existing above-grade items like utility wires. Some municipalities have buried these, but by no means all.
• The above-grade track will definitely change the city-scape, which may lead to "not in my front yard" protests
• Above-grade needs to be earthquake proof in those areas where that is a hazard. We all remember the double-decker highways in California that collapsed during one of their earthquakes, and we don't need PRT pylons toppling into houses
• People are not used to walking very far anymore, so that station has to be within 300 yards of the front-door of people. Or immediately in front for people who have to carry heavy things like groceries for a family of four.

So not only will it take a massive public investment of resources, it will also require a culture shift. The second may be possible once it is proven that the PRT system can get you places faster than you can by car, but that also depends on PRT being deployed far enough that such is provable.

Which leaves us with the alternatives. And that is to upgrade our current infrastructure to work with the future. We've done this a lot in the past. Trolley systems have been paved over and replaced with more flexible busses. Long distance train travel has been replaced by Greyhound and airplanes. Commuter wagons in the inner cities have been replaced by busses and private vehicles. It is clear that what we need now is a replacement for the car, and that's difficult.

There are two technologies that will make the car into something more PRT-like:

• The advent of traffic tracking technologies in our urban centers
• Computer-assisted or computer-piloted cars

These two technologies, once mature, will provide a lot of the benefits of PRT but do so at grade on the existing roadway systems. Something like this is far more likely to catch on that a PRT system would. Yes, we do have to wait until the technology is ready, but we'd have to wait 15-30 years for PRT to be fully deployed anyway, so that's reasonable.

Such a system could be deployed like this:

1. State/Federal law mandates that cars be shipped with a transponder. This transponder can be disabled.
2. The state starts building in transponder readers into the road-system. A lot of states already have passive detectors so they can sense traffic jams, this just provides an active device to identify individual vehicles (note, the transponder can still be disabled).
3. The combination of transponders and readers creates a very nice datastream. Either the State department of transportation or private companies can use this feed to generate a very detailed congestion map. This second generation map, the first gen being what we have now, can be used by drivers as a subscription service (or publicly subsidized system, whichever) to be notified of traffic problems ahead on the route. Cars without enabled transponders are treated as the moving hunks of metal they are.
4. Car manufacturers and Federal safety regs permit the use of computer-driving along transponder-equipped roadways. Such cars can take the feed from the congestion-tracking service and make changes in route and speed to minimize things
5. The next generation of cars actively communicate with Central and with the cars around them in order to move most efficiently. Cars without active transponders, or in 'human driver' mode are given a larger safety buffer.

This provides some free-market incentives to jump on the technology bandwagon, and does not deprive the transit consumer of their much cherished vehicles. In the most densely congested urban centers, they may never actually drive their vehicle, but they could if they wanted to. And that's important.

To the paranoid, this does provide a way for the Feds to track your car through the system and that could be a violation of privacy. The privacy laws regarding the appropriate use of the data of where you are right now will still need to be assessed at some point. Whether or not this data stream belongs in the hands of the Government or some privately held third party I leave as an exercise for the reader. This is why I envision a transponderless option being in place for a good long time. Some states already encourage commercial trucks to have transponders, and encourage this by allowing transponder-trucks to bypass some weighstations.

The Morning After Pill

The current administrative theory about the morning after pill is not so much that it'll promote promiscuity, The Pill already does that, but more about the lack of safe sex. Certain Personages seem to think that this particular product will be viewed as a form of front-line contraception. And since this particular form of front-line contraception is not a barrier method, then all those fun STDs we learned about in school are perfectly transmissible. Therefore, the morning-after pill should ONLY be used after another barrier method has failed. Since you can't regulate that if the morning-after pill is over-the-counter (OTC), then you have to make it available only by prescription.

Logical so far as it goes. I will now point out that the same can be said about the birth control pill, and that is also (still) prescription-only.

ideally, both should be OTC. Yes, they both contain hormones that can screw a body up if misused, but there benefits really are present. The morning-after pill prevents an already fertilized ova from implanting in the uterus. The Pill prevents viable ova from being released in the first place. The morning after pill needs to be taken, well, the morning after unprotected intercourse. Preferably not after shelling out umpteen bucks for an emergency doctor appointment to pay another umpteen bucks for the non-insurance-covered drug.

Strangely, the debate over contraception is devolved to around two points:
1: Prevent the spread of diseases
2: Prevent teen pregnancy
Preventing of pregnancy in older women is somehow being dropped from the debate all together. And in this case, the presence of easily available alternate means of contraception is preventing this new last-ditch method from being available.

*inserts tongue into cheek*

Perhaps what we really need here is a division of Birth Control into two categories.

1. Pregnancy prevention methods
2. Sexual disease transmission inhibition methods

Pregnancy Prevention Methods
As the name suggests, this would include the devices used to prevent pregnancy. Such things as The Pill, the morning-after pill, and that odd testicular immersion method that reduces the sperm-count to zero would count under this category.

Sexual Disease transmission Inhibition Methods
As any sex-ed teacher is required to tell you, there is no sure-fire way to avoid sex-cooties and pregnancy but for plain not having sex in the first place. But who does that anyway? This category would include all those barrier methods we've come to expect. Like condoms, the female condom, and the diaphram. The big killers are blocked by these methods, usually, but the lesser problems (genital herpes anyone?) not so much.

OBVIOUSLY we need to restrict access to pregnancy prevention methods, but widely distribute the disease prevention methods. Stuff that prevents disease transmission and also prevents pregnancy, bonus! Legalize it for wide distribution! But anything that allows you to have pregnancy-free nookie without helping the public good by blocking diseases? Ban it!

*unplants tongue*