Review in Brief: Kurt Busiek/Stuart Immonen: Secret Identity

I picked up this trade paper collection on the recommendation of my local comics store guy, and it was a good choice. Busiek has written a sort of "alternate" life for Superman -- who is not really Superman, just a guy named Clark Kent from a small town in Kansas who happens to have superpowers, possibly the result of meteor strikes near his hometown when he was thirteen.

That doesn't really matter. (It's actually a throw-away toward the end of the book.)

What does matter is the story of Clark Kent's life -- enduring the Superman jokes through high-school and into his first job as a writer for The New Yorker (note that's "writer," not "reporter'), meeting Lois Chaudhari (not Lane), and on through a life that turns out to be pretty normal, give or take the superpowers and the side job of rescuing people and averting disasters -- and avoiding the feds, who are very, very interested in this guy, whoever he is. (Lest you think this is purely a feel-good sort of story, be advised that there are a couple of pretty horrific episodes. But we get past them.)

This is a very appealing comic, not least, I think, because it's told mostly in narration, from Clark's journal that he types on an old manual typewriter -- he doesn't want any of this on a computer, because computers can be hacked.

Stuart Immonen's art fits perfectly -- spare, brushy in places, stark in places, sometimes dense but never enough to distract from the visual narrative -- and that narrative is clean and clear throughout.

This one's a winner.

(DC Comics, 2004) Includes Superman: Secret Identity #1-4.

The Cheerios Effect

It's a thing. It really is. And it generated this ad:

The official YouTube description:

It seemed like André and Jonathan had it all - great careers, a beautiful home, and their love for one another. Then along came Raphaëlle.

Share your connection story at http://cheerioseffect.ca

And for the background on this, see Joe.My.God.

Finally, some good news.

Breaking: FRC Lies!

As if that's news. Alvin McEwen has dissected the FRC's latest assault on the military over at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters.

The Family Research Council is clearly implying that it is the Obama Administration's supposed attack on religious liberty and the decision to allow gays to serve openly which led to the survey's negative responses.

That is a lie.

Neither article linked by the Family Research Council (one from Military.com and the other from The Washington Times) mentions anything regarding "religious liberty" or gays serving openly in the military as reasons for the negative responses to the Navy survey.

Yeah, the FRC slander links to articles that don't support its assertions. Guess they're counting on the laziness of their readers. And when even The Washington Times doesn't support an anti-Obama, anti-gay rant, you know you've left reality far, far behind.

Idiot du Jour

Bryan Fischer is, among his other accomplishments, an expert epidemiologist, who knows all about transmission vectors and incubation periods.

Of course, in real life Fischer is a raving rabble-rouser who will say anything that will get him some attention, as well as being an everything denialist. (Denial seems to be as much a part of the Christianist toolbox as projection.)

It's people like him that make me sometimes regret that we have free speech in this country -- but then, unlike Fischer and his ilk, I have no intention of setting myself up as the arbiter of who gets to say what.

I wonder if he realizes how ridiculous he is to sane people.

Via Joe.My.God., where you will also find this article on the origins of HIV. Like, real science.

Culture Break: Béla Bartók: String Quartet No. 4: Allegretto pizzicato

I'm rather fond of Bartók, and always have been. And this seems to fit the mood today:

This is a performance by the Amadeus Quartet.

This Is The Way It's Supposed To Work

According to some. Very good post, if depressing, at Mahablog this morning, based on this article by Joseph Heath at Salon.

The take-away:

The status quo depends on nothing getting fixed, actually. So the status quo will see to it nothing gets fixed. Krugman’s column today says, “Today’s political balance rests on a foundation of ignorance, in which the public has no idea what our society is really like.” And the system is rigged so they can’t find out.

I very reluctantly have come around to thinking that the system is so broken it cannot be returned to anything resembling functionality. The most likely outcome is that the U.S. will continue to decline economically and politically over the next several years until quality of life is so eroded for enough people that something big and nasty and possibly violent will happen to change everything. We may actually have to become a failed state first, though.

Any student of history has seen this coming for a while. Think back to Dwight Eisenhower's warnings about the "military-industrial complex." Guess who's running the government. And our "independent press" is playing along -- the major news outlets are corporations, too.

There is a ray of sunshine, though -- a small one, and it's hard to know how effective it's going to be. From a post by Spocko at Hullabaloo, built around Google severing ties with ALEC:

ALEC and Rush appeal to people's most selfish impulses. They use greed, fear and ignorance to get what they want. They want us to believe that everyone thinks like they do, when in fact it is a self-selected minority that holds these beliefs. They say if you only believe them, you will be among society's winners.

But when we go to the interested third parties and educate them, many of those real winners are disgusted with what they hear. Combining that education with appeals to both personal and stated corporate values systems and you have a solid package to help them decide to walk away.

If you want to convince people within the corporate form to walk away from a right wing media personality or a right wing legislation bill mill, learn who they are, what they say their company is about and ALL the things that they care about.

There are more and more companies that are finding out that being socially conscious is good business. Whether that's enough to offset those who don't give a damn is the big question.

The Futility of Commenting

Against my better judgment, I've gotten involved in a couple of comment threads on the poor, persecuted "Christian" farmers in upstate New York who host weddings on their farm -- for some people. As long as those people are acceptable to cafeteria "Christians." There are several commenters on the YouTube thread -- yes, of course they made a video, with all the necessary buzzwords ("entrepreneurs," "family," religious freedom," etc.) -- and I finally just muted the alerts to stop cluttering up my e-mail. There are, of course, the requisite supporters of these bigots who seem to be impervious to rational arguments -- repeated assertion seems to be their preferred mode of discourse -- and since the discussion was going absolutely nowhere, I opted out.

There is, however, one thing I'd like to say to all of these people who claim that their "religious beliefs" are violated by having to treat gays and lesbians as human beings: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40, KJV)

There, I've gotten that off my chest. On the upside, I managed to write a Review in Brief. Look for it Sunday.

Marriage News Watch, September 29, 2014

With the delicious Matt Baume -- who I discovered recently has a partner. Bummer.

This is the week when the Supreme Court meets to decide whether to take a marriage case. After meeting in conference on Monday, the Justices will announce their decision next week, on October 6th. Currently, cases from Virginia, Indiana, Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma are ready for consideration. The court could take one case, or several, or none at all.

Note: I was going to do some more housekeeping in the Reviews pages, but a friend with a free pass invited me to go to the Art Institute, so I'm going to spend some time looking at art today. I need it.

Saturday Science: Reaching Critical Mass

No, it's not about atomic bombs. It's about the evolution of birds:

The early stages of the process through which birds evolved from dinosaurs was slow and gradual, and there was no single “missing link” separating the two different types of creatures, according to research published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Current Biology.

Lead author Dr. Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and his colleagues analyzed the anatomical make-up of more than 850 body features in 150 extinct species in order to map the evolutionary journey from meat-eating dinosaurs to ancient birds. Based on the fossil records, they found that the emergence of birds took place bit-by-bit over the course of 150 million years.

That's something I've noticed in reading about dinosaurs -- as we've discovered more about them, it's become apparent that things like feathers were around long before there were birds to wear them. It makes sense that other characteristics would pop up along the line until you had something approaching bird-hood.

And then things started happening really fast:

“There was no moment in time when a dinosaur became a bird, and there is no single missing link between them,” Dr. Brusatte said in a statement. “What we think of as the classic bird skeleton was pieced together gradually over tens of millions of years. Once it came together fully, it unlocked great evolutionary potential that allowed birds to evolve at a super-charged rate.”

And so we now have everything from sparrows to ostriches.

I have to admit of a certain fondness for sparrows. They're just always so busy.

Blackhat: Official Trailer

It seems to be turning into Movie Day. Just ran across this trailer at Towleroad, and I think it's going on my list of "must-see" movies:

I mean, Chris Hemsworth does a cyberthriller -- what could be better?

About Those "Sissies"

Offered without comment:

OK, without much comment: This is a film that should be distributed in places like Uganda, Nigeria, Russia, where they still hold to those stereotypes, which at this point are laughable in any civilized nation.

And no, I'm not an athlete, or a Navy Seal, or mountain climber, or any of those real macho types, but you know something? People don't mess with me on the street.

Logic and Robert George

I just happened to run across this story from last month, but I thought it was worth noting:

Last week, National Organization For Marriage cofounder, Federal Marriage Amendment author, and Princeton University professor Robert George went on Catholic radio to talk about openly gay Christian singer Vicky Beeching.

When pressed by host Todd Wilken for a biblical reason to stop at affirmation of consenting adults who love one another rather than move on to those who sexually abuse minors or who end the lives of others through serial murder, the prominent conservative thinker couldn't think of any "logical stopping place"[.]

I've read some of George's articles. I won't say that George and logic are complete strangers, but they're not what I'd call "intimate," you know?

Of course, one of George's problems, being the good Catholic that he is, is that he never questions his assumptions. Sorry, but if you're going to persuade me about anything, you first have to demonstrate that your assumptions are valid and have some basis in reality. So far on that score, George's arguments, such as they are, have proven to be notably lacking.

Dyspeptic

That's what happens if I read the news too much. Same old -- accidental shootings, shootings on purpose because whatever, Tony Perkins is lying (again), Bryan Fischer hates America (still), the "coffee cup salute" (note to the right-wing echo chamber: if that's the best you can do, you maybe should consider getting a real job -- and maybe start listening to someone who's not senile) (Oh, and on the "appropriateness scale":

And the president is not required to return a salute because a) his hands were full and b) he's a civilian and c) he's the commander-in-chief.)

And then there's the latest on your friendly, helpful police (oh, and Ferguson -- this is choice) and on and on.

Yes, it's a link dump. Sorry, but the commentary is too obvious.

This Is The Way Professionals Do It

You've no doubt heard about the security breach at the White House over the weekend, when a man jumped the fence and made it to the front foyer before he was intercepted by the Secret Service.

The Secret Service on Saturday launched a security review to learn how a man carrying a knife was able to get inside the front door of the White House on Friday night after jumping a fence and sprinting more than 70 yards across the North Lawn — the first time that has ever happened.

Within seconds, the man who his public defender said served three tours in Iraq — and relatives said served as a sniper — got to the front double doors of the North Portico, turned the brass knob and stepped inside the vestibule. There he was grabbed and subdued by an officer standing post inside the door. He had a folding knife with a 2 1 / 2-inch serrated blade.

I'm not going to address the possible lapses on the part of the Secret Service -- they'll take care of that. I just want to point out one thing: the man, whose name is Omar J. Gonzales, Jr., and who served 18 years in the armed forces, was not shot. Get that? Nobody shot him, because they didn't have to. And Secret Service agents are trained when to shoot and when not to shoot, and have to be aware of possible consequences -- like stray bullets, bullets passing through the target and hitting someone else, and the like.

Of course, if this guy had been a black teenager walking down the street someplace. . . .

Through the Looking Glass Award

Goes to Breitbart, for this headline:

Here's the real story:

More than 300,000 people marched through the streets of New York City on Sunday in what organizers called the largest climate-change demonstration in history.

With banners, flags, floats and drums, protesters at the "People's Climate March" overwhelmed midtown Manhattan in flocks of vivid color, demanding action ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit this week.

Via Joe.My.God.

Part of me is encouraged by the demonstrations, which are part of a world-wide effort, and part of me is wondering if the world leaders gathered for the summit are actually going to do anything. It's a toss-up, as far as I'm concerned. Consider what position the oligarchs running the oil-producing countries are going to take when faced with the possibility of cutting off the cash flow to their Swiss bank accounts.

Marriage News Watch, September 22, 2014

The official summary:

A surprising reveal this week from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg about the court's plans for taking up a marriage case -- or maybe not taking up any. An Arkansas clerk breaks ranks with top state officials, declaring for the first time that the state's marriage ban is unconstitutional. Plus: numerous states freeze their marriage lawsuits while they wait for a Supreme Court ruling.

I noted Justice Ginsburg's comments on Saturday -- if you missed it, just scroll down to the last post.

The Sky Is Falling! Oh, Wait. . . .

There's a new NYT/CBS poll out, that shows support for marriage equality in the U.S. at 56%, while opposition has dropped to 37%:

The long-running poll recorded 56% of people in favour of same-sex marriage across the US, while just 37% now oppose it.

The poll, which has run with the same wording for several years, registered a three-point drop in opposition from a similar poll conducted in July this year, when 40% of people had still opposed same-sex marriage.

The 37% finding also demonstrates a sharp fall in opposition from just two years ago, with a July 2012 poll finding 44% opposition.

The article goes on to note the likelihood of an appeal being heard by the Supreme Court in its next session:

There are currently a number of cases that have reached the court, from Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia.

However, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – one of the most liberal justices on the court, who has herself performed same-sex weddings – said this week that the Supreme Court will not be “rushed” into making a decision on the issue.

She said there is “no need for us to rush” to take up a marriage case, though “there will be some urgency” if the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Court rules against same-sex marriage, which is considered likely.

I've had the feeling all along that the Court will take any opportunity to dodge this, and there really is no reason for them to take it up if the circuit courts are in agreement.

And just for fun, this reaction on Justice Ginsburg's comments from Mat Staver, whom Ed Brayton has christened "the dumbest lawyer in American not named Larry Klayman.":

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an audience at the University of Minnesota Law School that if the Sixth District Court of Appeals rules in favor of same-sex marriage, there will be “no need for us to rush” on a decision on the definition of marriage. If however, the appeals court that covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee upholds the centuries-old, natural definition of marriage as one man and one woman, “there will be some urgency.”

“In casting a vote publicly before the case is even heard, Justice Ginsburg has violated the Judicial Code of Conduct,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “It is now her duty to recuse herself from cases involving same-sex marriage.”

It's obvious that Staver's English comprehension is in the negative numbers. Via Joe.My.God.

Not All Christians Are Assholes

By way of background:

Reminding the world that not all Christians are focused solely on hatred for their fellow man, a homophobic preacher who appeared on the campus of James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia earlier this week had his hateful speech drowned out by students with a Christian message of peace and love, reports Huffington Post.

According to witnesses, Ross Jackson, who is the founder of Revival Mission Ministries, launched into sermons condemning a variety of "sinful acts," including homosexuality, drinking alcohol and listening to country music.

He is also reported to have yelled “all homos are going to hell” at a crowd gathered at one of the talks.

The students' response:

Yes, There Is Still A United Kingdom

Of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. From The Guardian:

The yes campaign scored four big successes, winning 53% of the vote in Scotland's largest city, Glasgow, 54% in West Dunbartonshire, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire.

However, the no camp was victorious in 28 authorities. It won overwhelmingly in areas where it was expected to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders, but also in areas that could have gone to the yes campaign, including Falkirk, Inverclyde, Eilean Siar and Clackmannanshire.

In the final count, the no camp clocked up 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) to 1,617,989 for yes (44.7%).

The question was, for those not following the story, "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

Idiot du Jour

None other than Todd Starnes, who managed to come up with this:

Starnes told host Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, that he suspected that school officials were worried that the student’s t-shirt would persuade so many students to become abstinent that they would lose out on the profits they apparently earn through distributing “free condoms.”

“Here’s my take on it, I thought it was interesting, [the student’s mom] said what’s really interesting is that any child in that junior high school can go to the counselor’s office and ask for and receive free condoms and yet her daughter cannot wear her pro-abstinence t-shirt in the public school,” Starnes said. “Here’s what I think the issue is Tony Perkins, I believe that maybe they were concerned this pro-abstinence t-shirt might cut into this school’s condom profits.”

(Emphasis added.)

Yep -- that's what he said. There's audio at the link.

Via Joe.My.God.

Cute du Jour

And an example of teaching children decent values:

Via AmericaBlog.

Justice Ginsburg Called It

You may recall that Justice Ginsburg, in her dissent to the Hobby Lobby decision, said that the majority had "headed into a minefield." Guess what.

A federal judge in Utah has ruled that a member of a fundamentalist offshoot of the Mormon faith may refuse to answer questions in a child labor investigation as a result of the Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control.

The Sept. 11 decision by U.S. District Court Judge David Sam says Vergel Steed, who belongs to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), doesn't have to comply with a federal subpoena because naming church leaders would violate his religious freedom.

As the basis for his conclusion, the judge cited Hobby Lobby decisions by the Supreme Court and 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act shields people from having to obey laws that substantially burden their religious practices.

What can I say?

You Just Knew This Was Going to Happen

Did you see the story about the two straight guys in New Zealand who got married to win tickets to next year's Rugby World Cup in England?

Two heterosexual New Zealand men who got married to win tickets to the 2015 Rugby World Cup in London have managed to anger both gay rights campaigners and conservative groups.

Travis McIntosh, a 23-year-old engineering student from Otago University, and Matt McCormick, a 24-year-old teacher at Musselburgh School in Dunedin, were married at Eden Park in Auckland on Friday.

Gay rights groups are understandably pissed off at this, which was a stunt by a radio station in New Zealand -- the kind of contest radio stations do all the time. After all, the fight for marriage equality has been pretty serious business world-wide, and this just belittles the whole effort.

Of course, the anti-gays are all over this. Here's Jennifer Roback Morse, via Good.As.You:

Two men can get married for any reason they want. The law does not require them to prove that they are actually “gay,” or that they “love each other,” however those terms might be defined in a legal context. (!)

I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.

Back in 2010, I created this talk that showed what life under a genderless marriage regime would look like, thirty years on. The story did not contain a single “gay” or “lesbian” person. The story showed that changing the law would induce a whole series of behaviors among people who are not same sex attracted. Two men may want to get married to get off-base housing in the military. Or to get one of them a green card.

Or to win a radio contest.

Gay activists and their wealthy patrons seem surprised that they do not get to control what everyone does and why they do it.

They have not really thought through what redefining marriage will actually mean for the whole of society.

Let's do a little bit of dissection here -- actually, I don't even have to go into much detail: everything she says applies to straight couples as well as same-sex couples. No one asks why you're getting married.

The crack about "Gay activists and their wealthy patrons" is nothing more than pure projection. (And let's guess whose "wealthy patrons" are more than likely a couple of very rich churches who assume that everyone must do as they're told.)

As for the "radio contest" bit -- how many TV shows have there been that can be loosely grouped under the heading "matchmaking for ratings"? -- "The Bachelor," "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" "The Bachelorette," "The Dating Game" -- and there are more than I can't remember the names of. And as far as taking marriage seriously, check out this from Wikipedia:

Dating game shows are television game shows that incorporate a dating system in the form of a game with clear rules. Human matchmaking is involved only in selecting the game's contestants – usually for amusement value as opposed to any concern for their happiness or compatibility. The audience sees only the game; an important feature of all dating game shows is that the contestants have little or no previous knowledge of each other, and are exposed to each other only through the game, which may include viewing a photograph or at least knowing the basic criteria for participation (typically participants are not already married).

(Emphasis added.)

Eventually, of course, there were gay versions, but late in the game (if you'll pardon the expression). "Boy Meets Boy" ran for sex episodes in 2003 and wasn't particularly straightforward (a lot of the contestants were straight).

Roback Morse's final comment is a moderated form of "The sky is falling!" People very seldom think through the ramifications for society of anything they do. The only people who worry about it are conservatives -- those people who stand in front of the march of history screaming "STOP!" And all they can do is make wild predictions of doom, based on nothing.

Roback Morse and the other outraged conservatives are missing the point, a fact best illustrated by a comment from one of the contestants:

Mr McIntosh told the Otago Daily Times he thought the marriage would last about two years.

Opposition was understandable but the wedding was not mocking the institution of marriage, he said.

“It’s just seeing how far two good mates would go to win a trip to the Rugby World Cup.”

The institution of marriage is in trouble, but not because of gay couples wanting to get married. It's in trouble because of straight people.

Marriage News Watch, September 15, 2014

Heading toward the big climax:

The number of marriage cases before the Supreme Court keeps climbing, with the Court scheduled to decide which ones to take in just a few weeks. Plus, couples file new briefs in Texas, and appeal last week's anti-gay ruling from a federal judge in Louisiana.

NOM just doesn't know when to give up.

A New Definition

of persecution, from none other than professional conspiracy theorist Jerry Boykin:

Family Research Council executive vice president Jerry Boykin said in an interview on “Washington Watch” yesterday that people like himself who believe in discredited conspiracy theories surrounding the 2012 Benghazi attacks are facing “persecution” because no one believes them and dares to think there are political motivations behind their accusations.

Short form: If people see through the bullshit and call you on it, they're persecuting you.

Side note: Yes, of course Boykin is working for the Family Research Council. Where else? Except maybe Fox News.

Via Crooks and Liars, which has an audio clip of the rant.

Chocolate, Bookshops, What Have You

The "Reviews: Other" page now includes reviews from Sleeping Hedgehog of chocolates, bookstores, hand puppets, and a few other things.

(Well, it does say "Other".)

I'm' still fiddling with the style on this one.

And This Is a Surprise?

Gee -- the Republicans in the Senate are blocking a vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United:

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and other Supreme Court rulings dating back to 1976 that invalidated restrictions on money in politics.

The party line vote was 54 in favor, 42 against, falling short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

I'm actually surprised that there were no Democrats joining the Republicans on this one, but they probably figured they were safe. Oh, and Ted "Obama Will Censor SNL" Cruz didn't bother to show up for the vote.

And the Through the Looking Glass Award goes to Mitch McConnell:

"I have to say it’s a little disconcerting to see the Democrat-led Senate focusing on things like reducing free speech protections for the American people," he said before the vote. "This is what they chose to make their top legislative priority this week. Taking an eraser to the First Amendment."

There you have it: in the Republican lexicon, corporations are "the American people." What does that make the rest of us?

Culture Break: This Is Not Art

Interesting post from Jon Green at AmericaBlog about a phenomenenon he's run into around Boston:

I recently moved to the Boston area to working at a tech startup in Cambridge.

On my first walk to work, I passed by a small art studio with an oddly straightforward sign in the window.

I snapped a photo of it on my way home that night:

 

I didn’t think too much of it, except that perhaps the art studio was being a bit pretentious. (I suppose it’s nice of them, at least, to correctly label the product they’re selling.) But then, the following weekend, I was out and about in nearby Somerville and saw this:

It goes on from there.

Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was Magritte:

 

I'm sure you have your own thoughts.

Marriage News Watch, September 8, 2014

The official summary:

A massive victory for equality in Wisconsin and Indiana, with one of the most strongly-worded decisions yet. A judge in Louisiana has ruled against marriage equality, but there are some problems with his ruling. There are major oral arguments this week in multiple states, and more cases move closer to consideration by the US Supreme Court.

I like that bit about how "Feldman could not have written a more reversible decision if he tried."

The Ninth Circuit proceedings begin today.

Today in Disgusting People

You have to wonder what's going on in the head of someone like Laurie Higgins, the main voice of the designated hate group Illinois Family Institute. (Which, if I recall correctly, is the only state-level group so designated.) Here are her recommendations of books for school libraries, in a response to the ALA's Banned Books Week:

Young adult (YA) novels about teens who feel sadness and resentment about being intentionally deprived of a mother or father and who seek to find their missing biological parents.

Dark, angsty novels about teens who are damaged by the promiscuity of their “gay” “fathers” who hold sexual monogamy in disdain.

Novels about young adults who are consumed by a sense of loss and bitterness that their politically correct and foolish parents allowed them during the entirety of their childhood to cross-dress, change their names, and take medication to prevent puberty, thus deforming their bodies.

Novels about teens who suffer because of the harrowing fights and serial “marriages” of their lesbian mothers.

Picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy.

Do I really need to say more?

Footnote: The IFI was the original home of gay-sex-obsessed Peter LaBarbera, who left after he couldn't get enough signatures on an anti-marriage petition to even submit it. You can imagine how effective the IFI has been since.

Saturday Science: It Was the Gardener

who solved one of the mysteries of Stonehenge:

One of the many mysteries of Stonehenge may have been solved, not because of a brilliant scientific breakthrough or thanks to painstaking research, but after a maintenance team’s hosepipe turned out to be a little short.

Archeologists have long argued over whether the ancient monument was once a perfect circle or if it was always, as it is now, an incomplete ring.

When a hosepipe used to keep the grass green in hot spells failed to reach a broken part of the circle, unsightly brown patches began to appear. Custodian Tim Daw was fretting over the blemishes when he realised they matched the spots where stones would probably have stood if the monument was a complete circle.

The Tide Has Turned!

Or so Tony Perkins and Brian Brown would have you believe. On the day before the 7th Circuit handed down its devastating decision on the Wisconsin and Indiana marriage bans, a federal District Court judge in Louisiana handed down this travesty. From Slate:

In a startling reversal of a nationwide trend, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman upheld Louisiana’s gay marriage ban Wednesday, holding that it furthered the “central state interest” of “linking children to an intact family formed by their biological parents.” Feldman, a Reagan appointee, is not the first judge since 2013’s United States v. Windsor to uphold a gay marriage ban. He is, however, the first federal judge, a key distinction that gives his ruling significant clout.

What's more striking is the complete ignorance of the law revealed by Feldman:

The thrust of Feldman’s ruling rests on a misinterpretation of the so-called animus doctrine. According to the Supreme Court, laws motivated exclusively by anti-gay animus toward gay people violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. After the court struck down a federal gay marriage ban in Windsor, the vast majority of judges have concluded that all gay marriage bans are presumptively motivated by animus. That’s a logical conclusion, given the Windsor court’s assertion that the federal ban’s “principal purpose and necessary effect” was to “demean” and “degrade” gay people.

It's even worse than that. Feldman doesn't seem to know the standards of scrutiny, and ascribes to the Fourteenth Amendment a meaning that is nowhere in the language of the Amendment itself:

Heightened scrutiny was warranted in Loving because the Fourteenth Amendment expressly condemns racial discrimination as a constitutional evil; in short, the Constitution specifically bans differentiation based on race.

Except that it doesn't. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 are irrelevant in this case, since they deal with apportionment of representatives to Congress, limits on who may hold federal office, the public debt, and implementation. Nowhere does the Amendment mention race.

A number of people have made much of the fact that Feldman is a Reagan appointee, which doesn't hold much water with me: a number of judges that have declared state marriage bans unconstitutional are Republican appointees, and Richard Posner, who authored the 7th Circuit's opinion, was also appointed by Reagan.

I think it's much more noteworthy that Feldman doesn't know or understand the law.

Of course, this wayward decision, which is far outside the mainstream of judicial thought on all counts, is being hailed as the one to derail the inevitability of same-sex marriage. That's called "grasping at straws."

Read the ruling, and remember -- it's not Doctor Seuss.

We're Everywhere

Via Towleroad, this:

This was aired on DirecTV during last night's NFL season starter between the Packers and Seahawks. Aside from the fact that it's a cute commercial, I think it illustrates something that we're going to see more and more: gay men and lesbians* being treated as mainstream. The punchline, I think, gives it away: not only does it identify these two as a couple, but stresses that they're just like any other couple.

Cue the OneMillion(minus 999,999)Moms in 3. . . 2. . . . ("Save the Cheeeldrin!!!")

* Footnote: I'm not going the LGBT route because this is not an all-inclusive phenomenon. Trans folk have a way to go yet, and will undoubtedly soon enjoy the full brunt of the "Christian" right's attacks, now that said "Christians" have lost against gays. These are the kind of people who need an enemy to justify themselves, and people are as ignorant about trans people now as they were about gay men and lesbians twenty or thirty years ago. We've already seen the kind of misrepresentations and scare tactics the right will be using against them in the so-called "bathroom" fear-mongering.

As for bisexuals, they seem to get lost in the shuffle -- not, I think, because they're being ignored, but because they don't seem to form a cohesive and visible group. And if any of my readers are bi and feel I'm misstating the case, one bit of advice: if you feel you're being ignored, stand up and start yelling, just like everyone else has done.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

From Raw Story:

A group of heavily-armed militia surrounded and confronted a group of people near the U.S.-Mexico border who they thought were illegal migrants or smugglers, but who turned out to be a group of conservationists conducting a wildlife population survey.

According to Tucson News Now, the standoff took place on the night of Aug. 23 in Gardner Canyon area near Sonoita, Arizona, where members of a small group of biologists were counting bats.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada told TNN that the militia men — who are civilian volunteers and not actual federal border patrol agents — were riding ATVs, wearing camouflage and brandishing weapons when they came upon the group of scientists.

“Obviously, they mistook them for smugglers or illegal entrants,” said Estrada.

Obviously? What, did they have calves like cantaloupes?

And get this:

"These people that are completely out of their environment. They really don’t know the area. They don’t know the terrain. They have little knowledge of the dynamics of the border. So it can be a real problem,” he said. “We really don’t want them here.”

Nonetheless, indignation among U.S. nativists and other conservatives about the recent influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border has sent new waves of self-appointed guardians to the U.S. border, often packing high-powered weapons. The militia group in this incident was composed of out-of-towners who live in Colorado. . . .

As they rushed to confront the bat-counting scientists, the militiamen called Border Patrol agents to the area, pulling them off of areas that actually need surveillance, thereby compromising security efforts.

(Emphasis added.)

These morons don't know what they're doing. And they're interfering with the people who do.

While I Was Out

Wisconsin and Indiana got creamed at the Seventh Circuit. Here's the opinion -- I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing, but Judge Richard Posner wrote it. It's rather pointed, if not downright scathing.

14-2386 #212 by Equality Case Files

Lesson For the Day

From this video, via Digby, who credits John Aravosis:

Oh, what's the lesson? you ask. Simple: dogs respond to kindness. So do people.

Culture Break: Harold Budd's "The Gunfighter"

Harold Budd is one of those musicians who's worked with everyone, from Brian Eno on down the line. This video is a little murky and indistinct, but it fits the mood pretty well:

Just In Case You Were Wondering

Who it is American "conservatives" really admire, Digby has some clues for you:

Grover Norquist, is reported to have said back in the 1980's,"We must establish a Brezhnev Doctrine for conservative gains. The Brezhnev Doctrine states that once a country becomes communist it can never change. Conservatives must establish their own doctrine and declare their victories permanent…A revolution is not successful unless it succeeds in preserving itself…(W)e want to remove liberal personnel from the political process. Then we want to capture those positions of power and influence for conservatives. Stalin taught the importance of this principle."

Now you know.

Marriage News Watch, September 1, 2014

The official description:

Anti-gay attorneys took a beating before the Seventh Circuit last week, trying and failing to defend marriage bans before a panel of hostile judges. Now all eyes are on the Supreme Court to see which cases they'll take up in their fall session. There's another major marriage argument coming up in a few days. And the National Organization for Marriage still isn't giving up in Oregon, despite having lost months ago.

Poor Brian Brown just doesn't know when to quit.

Film Reviews

are now up to date.

It's Labor Day

On which we honor the labor movement and the workers who are the real creators of wealth in this country.

I may spend the day laboring.

Or not.

"I don't hate gays, but. . . ."

We're starting to hear that more and more. Jean Ann Esselink at The New Civil Rights Movement knows what it means, and lays it out plainly:

There seems to be a new strategy afoot by the anti-gay forces, who for years have been successful at depriving gay Americans of equal treatment by vilifying them. For the last half century, since the time when Harvey Milk urged gays to "come out, come out wherever you are," every passing year makes that character attack less productive. It was one thing when gays could be cast as deviants and criminals and mentally ill, but people don't like their sons and brothers and friends called names and disrespected. As a result, the traditional "God hates fags" rhetoric has been softening. Gay rights opponents are transitioning to a new, more devious posture. The words may sound kinder, but the message is not.

The same politicians, pundits and priests who once stood proudly and proclaimed their opposition to gays with words like "abomination", now preface their anti-gay remarks with a phrase like: "I don't hate gay people, but..." or "I have nothing against gay people but..." I named this tactic the "gay but" a few years ago after Rick Santorum was ballsy enough to speak those very words on camera.

What you need to remember about the "gay but" phenomenon is that what comes after "I don't hate gays but..." is usually an example of the hatred the speaker has just denied.

"Hate" is a stronger word than I would use, but considering the source is bigotry, maybe that's the right word after all. And the last comment there is key: consider "but" a flag announcing that you should ignore everything that came before -- the "I don't hate gays" part, which is a thinly disguised lie -- because what comes after the "but" is the real substance, which usually translates to something like "I just don't think they should be considered human beings."

One of the commenters brought up the equivalence with "Hate the sin, love the sinner," another one of those assaults on language and reason. That one is even better at demonstrating how these "Christians" (because they are almost always "Christians") can weave falsity into anything: the "sin" of course, is homosexual behavior, a viewpoint based not on any real understanding of morality but on cherry-picking 3,000 year-old (at least) tribal taboos from their holy book, the holy book of a tribe of nomads who considered women and children property and whose prime directive was "spawn 'til you die." (What is morality? Good question. Let's start with the idea that it has to do with the way you treat others, not what you do with your genitals.) What they don't admit is that that behavior is a result of an essential component of the "sinner's" identity: contrary to what the ex-gay movement preaches (a movement, let us note, that at present is in tatters because it is based on that lie), same-sex orientation is an integral part of one's personality and identity, which is the thing that makes the "love the sinner" part complete bullshit.

Go read Esselink's article. It's worth it.

Saturday Science: "It Takes a Village. . ."

to raise a child."

It seems that there is an evolutionary advantage in altruistic behavior, which seems like a no-brainer, but scientists have to be able to point to specifics. And now it looks as though a group of researchers has found something significant:

Until now, many researchers assumed that spontaneous altruistic behavior in primates could be attributed to factors they would share with humans: advanced cognitive skills, large brains, high social tolerance, collective foraging or the presence of pair bonds or other strong social bonds. As Burkart’s new data now reveal, however, none of these factors reliably predicts whether a primate species will be spontaneously altruistic or not. Instead, another factor that sets us humans apart from the great apes appears to be responsible. Says Burkart: “Spontaneous, altruistic behavior is exclusively found among species where the young are not only cared for by the mother, but also other group members such as siblings, fathers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles.” This behavior is referred to technically as the “cooperative breeding” or “allomaternal care.”

I've held the opinion for a while that the "nuclear family" ideal held out by the anti-gay right -- a father, a mother, 2.4 children, and a dog -- is quite recent and goes against the pattern of the real "traditional" family: parents, children, grandparents, maybe a stray aunt or uncle, and the neighbors. Looks like I was right.

And it looks like that pattern has other benefits:

The significance of this study goes beyond identifying the roots of our altruism. Cooperative behavior also favored the evolution of our exceptional cognitive abilities. During development, human children gradually construct their cognitive skills based on extensive selfless social inputs from caring parents and other helpers, and the researchers believe that it is this new mode of caring that also put our ancestors on the road to our cognitive excellence. This study may, therefore, have just identified the foundation for the process that made us human. As Burkart suggests: “When our hominin ancestors began to raise their offspring cooperatively, they laid the foundation for both our altruism and our exceptional cognition.”

That's part of the new drive to "talk to your baby" that I've been seeing around. From the New York Times:

Another idea, however, is creeping into the policy debate: that the key to early learning is talking — specifically, a child’s exposure to language spoken by parents and caretakers from birth to age 3, the more the better. It turns out, evidence is showing, that the much-ridiculed stream of parent-to-child baby talk — Feel Teddy’s nose! It’s so soft! Cars make noise — look, there’s a yellow one! Baby feels hungry? Now Mommy is opening the refrigerator! — is very, very important.

Another no-brainer: the more you interact with your kid, the better the kid's cognitive development. (And let's face it: language skills are a key component of cognitive development -- that's how we interact with the world.)

So now we're starting to understand how it happened.

Housekeeping Note

OK, the "Reviews: Books: BL Manga" page has been reformatted to bring the style into line with the other pages, and the anime listings on that page have been moved to the Film reviews page.

Which will probably be the next page to update.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Homelessness Edition

In our first story, it's the neighbors:

Two non-profits in Vancouver that serve the homeless had been letting about a half dozen people who struggled to get housing stay in the parking lot they shared. But now the organizations are telling them they can’t stay any longer. The homeless people will be evicted on September 2.

“Where are we going to park? We have nowhere to go,” Amanda Snapp, one of the people who has been living in the lot, told The Columbian. “This place is safe. Where can we go?”

Last week, police responded to a complaint from a neighbor and “reminded” the groups that Vancouver has a no-camping ordinance that applies to parks, streets, and other public property. While the lot is private property, letting people live in it could be a nuisance code violation if property is being stored on it or there are other problems.

Yes, it's Vancouver, but it's also just the tip of the iceberg. I was going to post another quote from the article, but read it -- it's a litany of horrors, including petty little ordinances directed at the homeless.

And gods forbid someone should try to call attention to the problem:

[Miley] Cyrus brought Jesse Helt, a homeless 22-year-old, as her date to the MTV Video Music Awards. She’d met Helt at My Friend’s Place, an L.A. center that aids homeless youth in the city. When Cyrus won Video of the Year, she sent Helt up in her stead. He gave a speech about the plight of homeless youth and directed viewers to Cyrus’s Facebook page, where they could learn more about how to help those in need.

Helt had moved to L.A. from Oregon and was trying to pursue a modeling career without a place to live.

Last night, the Associated Press reported that there’s a warrant out for Helt’s arrest in Oregon: he’d been arrested on charges of criminal mischief, criminal trespass and burglary when he was 18 years old. From the AP story, which ran under the headline “Miley Cyrus’ Date Wanted By Oregon Police“[.]

So of course, guess what the press is concentrating on. Hint: It's not the plight of the homeless.

What burns me is that homelessness is a problem that is solvable. It costs less to provide homes than it does to prosecute and jail the homeless. Chicago, I'm pleased to note, does have programs to help the homeless, including what's known as Plan 2.0:

Chicago’s Plan 2.0 is a broad-ranging, seven-year action plan that reaffirms, builds on the core tenets outlined in Chicago’s original Plan to End Homelessness – homeless prevention, housing first, and wraparound services - and identifies new strategies to improve access and opportunity for those most in need. Announced by Mayor Emanuel and key stakeholders in August 2012, Plan 2.0 includes seven strategic priorities that represent the most cutting-edge thinking on preventing and ending homelessness from around the country. Over 500 local stakeholders participated in the planning process, including 150 people who have experienced homelessness themselves.

(Emphasis added.)

I can't address how well the effort is working -- it's a fairly new program, and there's not a lot of data yet -- but here an article from the Chicago Tribune that has a fairly good take on the strategies and how they're paying off.

It's not just the City that's working on it. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a non-profit, offers a wide range of resources, including shelters, for homeless youth.

They're not the only ones. I just googled "chicago resources for homeless" and got over 9 million listings. The first three pages are actual resources, then the news stories start getting listed, but the point is, it's not only possible to do something to help the homeless, it's not hard.

We just have to want to.

Now You Know

why the term "pundit" has come to mean "clueless idiot."

Conservative pundit Ben Stein appeared on Newsmax on Tuesday to discuss the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and challenged the use of the term "unarmed" to describe Brown.

Stein was discussing the shooting with host Steve Malzberg and said the use of the term "unarmed" to describe Brown, who was "apparently on marijuana," was akin to "calling Sonny Liston unarmed or Cassius Clay unarmed."

"He wasn't unarmed," Stein said. "He was armed with his incredibly strong, scary self."

That's beyond pathetic. That's grasping for straws that aren't even there.

Point one: Have you ever seen anyone high on marijuana get violent? I haven't, and I've had lots of friends and acquaintances who were stoners. The effect has always been just the opposite. (Full disclosure: I tried it twice. I didn't like it.)

Point two: I've dealt with lots of large, strong people and you know what? If you treat them like regular people, they act like regular people -- unless, of course, they're trying to be assholes to start with, but somehow, a man standing there with his hands up doesn't strike me as very threatening.

Have you noticed a tendency on the right to demonize the victims in these cases? Wonder why.

Today's Belly Laugh

A federal judge in Utah has decided in favor of Kody Brown, a fundamentalist Mormon, and his four "wives" (in quotes because he is not legally married to all of them) against the state of Utah, declaring its statute criminalizing cohabitation unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups ruled the phrase in the law “‘or cohabits with another person’ is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is without a rational basis under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

This case seems to have a somewhat checkered history:

Last December the same judge first ruled in favor of the cast of the TLC reality show Sister Wives, who sued the state over the portion of the law that criminalizes polygamy-style "religious cohabitation." He later rescinded that ruling only to reinstate it today.

Today's decision reaffirms his original ruling and grants damages to the plaintiffs.

What I find funny about it is -- well, read the statement from Brown's family (emphasis mine):

The entire Brown family is gratified and thankful for this final ruling from Judge Waddoups. The decision brings closure for our family and further reaffirms the right of all families to be free from government abuse. While we know that many people do not approve of plural families, it is our family and based on our religious beliefs. Just as we respect the personal and religious choices of other families, we hope that in time all of our neighbors and fellow citizens will come to respect our own choices as part of this wonderful country of different faiths and beliefs. We hope that Attorney General Reyes will see this as a victory of us all in defending the freedom of religion and other rights in our precious Constitution.

As you might expect the "Christians" of the religious right had fits when the original decision was handed down. They're taking the decision as legalizing polygamy, which of course it does not, and you'll note that the judge was very careful to leave Utah's marriage statute basically intact. These are, of course, the same people who insist that bakers, florists, etc., have a right to "religious freedom" when refusing their services to same-sex couples.

I read this story and laughed out loud, which is not something I usually do. (Actually, my initial reaction was "OMG! Next they'll be legalizing same-sex marriage!")

Here's the ruling:

Polygamy ruling in Utah by Ben Winslow

Culture Break: Philip Glass/Uakti: Tiquiê River / Japurá River

This is from Aguas da Amazonia, which has turned out to be one of my favorite collections of works by Philip Glass, maybe because it is, in a way, not typical Glass. Uakti is the group he worked with on this, and they perform it on the CD.

The Jig Is Up

The World Congress of (Some) Families is due to meet in Australia this weekend, but seem to be having a bit of difficulty in figuring out just where. It seems no one is willing to host their little get-together:

The controversial World Congress of Families conservative Christian conference is in chaos only days before its scheduled start, after four Melbourne venues backed out of hosting the event. . . .

The line-up of anti-euthanasia, anti-divorce and anti-gay speakers from around the world has drawn condemnation from civil rights groups.

“It’s a mess,” Margaret Butts, one of the organisers told Guardian Australia. “We have no venue at the moment – the police are telling us it’s a safety risk because of planned protests and demonstrations.

“We are frantic at the moment trying to organise something else, we’ve had four venue cancellations. I can’t talk to you because we are just too busy right now.”

Among other things, it seems as though they neglected to worry about security, crowd control, and liability insurance.

Previously, they issued a letter condemning -- well, just about everyone:

The letter on the WCF website has been written to respond to what it claims has been “unremitting and grossly misleading attacks” in the lead-up to Saturday’s conference at St Cecilia’s school hall.

“Sexual radicals have launched a smear campaign to discredit the Melbourne conference, which misrepresents the international pro-family movement and the positions of the World Congress of Families,” it reads.

Both stories via Joe.My.God.

As for "misrepresenting" the WCF, I suspect the only ones doing that are the WCF themselves. Here's HRC's report on their activities:

HRC report on World Congress of Families by G-A-Y

I'm not usually prone to rejoicing in the misfortunes of others, but in this case, I'm willing to make an exception.

Yesterday In Chicago

I generally avoid listening to recordings of court proceedings (it's just me -- listening to recordings of people talking annoys me; I don't even listen to the radio any more because the announcers talk too much), but the proceedings in the Seventh Circuit yesterday are priceless. The recordings are all over the Internet; here they are at Good As You.

Most commentators have highlighted the grilling the states' attorneys are getting, but the attorneys for the couples aren't getting off so easily -- it's just that their arguments are stronger -- as in rational.

So listen while you're cleaning house or something.

Today's Police Blotter

The more you hear about the police in various towns and cities in this country, the more you want to move someplace else.

First, a businessman is arrested in Beverly Hills while walking back to feed his meter so he wouldn't get a ticket, and held for six hours. He was a suspect in a bank robbery because he "fit the description." (Hint: he's black.)

Second, in Foney, Texas, a woman and her four kids are pulled over and held at gunpoint because they "fit the description" of four men driving around waving guns. The department refuses to apologize (although one officer on the scene did apologize and try to calm the woman). How could they fit the description? They're black. Apparently, in Texas you can only drive around waving guns if you're white.

In a Greenville, South Carolina, WalMart, police beat a man after tasing him, while he was lying on the ground, because he was behaving erratically, while shoppers begged them to stop. Surprise -- the victim was white.

Last week, in Beavercreek, Ohio, a man was fatally shot by police at a WalMart while walking around with a toy gun he planned to buy. He was shot for "failing to comply with police orders." Ohio's an open carry state, but he was black.

In Ottawa, Kansas, police shot a suicidal teenager 16 times. The kid was apparently unarmed, and his aunt was standing there begging the police to stop.

And finally, not an incident, but a poll: Americans don't seem to have much confidence in their police.

The USA Today/Pew Research Center Poll found that 65 percent of respondents said police did “only a fair” or a poor job in holding police officers accountable when misconduct occurs, compared with 30 percent who say they do an excellent or good job.

There were similar findings when it came to the question of treating racial groups equally and using the right amount of force. . . .

The numbers, however, were vastly different when divided between black and white people.

More than nine out of 10 African Americans say the police do an “only fair” or poor job when it comes to equal treatment and appropriate force.

Wonder why.

Today's Must Read

A really scary post by Digby:

Ponder this: our government is systematically collecting vast amounts of data and information on US citizens and foreigners around the world and analyzing it for threats. But it is not systematically collecting or analyzing information of US citizens killed by government authorities and actively blocks citizens who try.

Read the post. And then maybe move to Canada?

Marriage News Watch, August 25, 2014

The official summary:

The anti-gay Governor of Indiana just got caught making some wild claims in court, and now a judge has called him out in a sternly-worded ruling. Marriage equality has picked up another victory, with the first federal judge to rule in Florida. There's a new case in Arizona, with an elderly couple about to lose their home; couples are fighting back against stalling tactics in Arkansas; and two major oral arguments are coming up in the next few days.

And a footnote:

Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Betell, (on the right) announced yesterday that he and his partner, Gauthier Destenay, (on the left) are engaged. The Prime Minister let it slip that it was Gauthier who did the proposing, but his response was a happy "yes". The two have been in a domestic partnership for four years, and Gauthier regularly attends official functions at the prime minister's side.

Same-sex marriage recognition becomes effective in Luxemburg on January 1, 2015.

Saturday Science: About That Asteroid

A fairly entertaining video on all (or at least most) of the things that actually caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Hint: the asteroid was the last straw.

And you may have noticed, that was not the only mass extinction -- there has been a whole series of them, including those known as the Big Five, when over half of all species were wiped out. There's actually an earlier one than the first described in that list, the Great Oxygenation Event, marked by the introduction of free oxygen into the atmosphere, which proved toxic to the anaerobic organisms that were the first life on earth. That one was several billion years ago.

And if you were paying attention to the articles at the links, you will have noted that all of these events involved climate change.

A lot of people are saying that we're heading into the sixth mass extinction. But it's not climate change that's driving it -- it looks like that will be, as it has been in the past, the last straw.

In a new review of scientific literature and analysis of data published in Science, an international team of scientists cautions that the loss and decline of animals is contributing to what appears to be the early days of the planet's sixth mass biological extinction event.

Since 1500, more than 320 terrestrial vertebrates have become extinct. Populations of the remaining species show a 25 percent average decline in abundance. The situation is similarly dire for invertebrate animal life.

The article cites a number of possible reasons, but it all boils down to one thing: the rise of agriculture and the concomitant increase in human population.

Freedom of the Press

To self-censor?

From Tom Levenson at Balloon Juice:

If there was a golden age for American media, it was long ago and it was short.

Over at The Atlantic, Torie Rose DeGhett has an excellent, utterly unsurprising article about a photograph taken in the last hours in the first Gulf War.

The work of the the then 28 year old photographer Kenneth Jarecke, the image captures a fact of war hopelessly obscured by the shots that angered Jarecke enough to postpone a planned hiatus from combat photography. “’It was one picture after another of a sunset with camels and a tank.” — or, once combat actually began, gaudy displays of gee whiz toys, the disembodied beauty of missile exhausts, or bloodless shots of tires and twisted metal. War as video game, or a spectacle for the folks back home.

The bulk of Levenson's post is an embroidery on DeGhett's article (at the link, where you can also find the photo, which is under copyright and so does not appear here) detailing the history of this photograph and the fact that no major "news" outlet would touch it.

DeGhett goes farther, though:

Let me say up front that I don’t like the press,” one Air Force officer declared, starting a January 1991 press briefing on a blunt note. The military’s bitterness toward the media was in no small part a legacy of the Vietnam coverage decades before. By the time the Gulf War started, the Pentagon had developed access policies that drew on press restrictions used in the U.S. wars in Grenada and Panama in the 1980s. Under this so-called “pool” system, the military grouped print, TV, and radio reporters together with cameramen and photojournalists and sent these small teams on orchestrated press junkets, supervised by Public Affairs Officers (PAOs) who kept a close watch on their charges.

The "free press" has learned its lesson. Granted, it's impossible to present all the news that's happening every day. Editorial choices have to be made, priorities implemented, but if you view more than one news source, you know some stories are being buried. Levenson, though, points out something from DeGhett's article we all need to keep in mind:

The key here, as DeGhett writes, is that there was no military pressure not to publish Jarecke’s photograph. The war was over by the time his film got back to the facility in Saudi Arabia where the press pools operated. The decision to withhold the shot from the American public was made by the American press, by editors at the major magazines, at The New York Times, at the wire service. The chokehold on information at the top of the mainstream media was tight enough back then that most newspaper editors, DeGhett reports, never saw the image, never got to make their choice to publish or hide.

You can guess the excuses. “Think of the children!” For the more sophisticated, a jaded response:

Aidan Sullivan, the pictures editor for the British Sunday Times, told the British Journal of Photography on March 14 that he had opted instead for a wide shot of the carnage: a desert highway littered with rubble. He challenged the Observer: “We would have thought our readers could work out that a lot of people had died in those vehicles. Do you have to show it to them?”

Why yes, Mr. Sullivan, you do.

Emphasis added.

There are days I just want to give up. Read both articles.

Giggle du Jour

First, from the inimitable Brian Brown, via Joe.My.God.:

After winning many lawsuits in lower federal courts presided over by hand-picked, liberal, activist judges, the momentum behind the marriage redefinition agenda is waning. Remember, in addition to the Supreme Court's intervention in Utah and Virginia, federal judges in states like Wisconsin are taking notice and issuing stays on their own decisions to allow the legal process to play out. Much, much more importantly, we recently won a case at the lower level in Tennessee! You might not know about it because the media is doing everything it can to ignore the facts. The rush to judgment declaring marriage to be unconstitutional is not only premature — it's flat out wrong! Won't you please give a generous donation today to help NOM continue fighting to defend marriage and the faith communities that sustain it?

We'll not dwell on the many howlers in this short quote (the best being "The rush to judgment declaring marriage to be unconstitutional. . . ." WTF?), because you can spot them easily enough.

And now, the punchline:

Via the ACLU of Florida:

Today, a federal district court judge in Tallahassee held that Florida’s discriminatory marriage ban cannot be enforced in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. The ruling applies both to the granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Florida and the recognition of the marriages of same-sex couples performed outside of the state.

Here's the full ruling.

The judge issued a stay pending appeal. Any bets on Brian Brown being back tomorrow calling that routine stay a "victory"?

Today in Christian Love

There are decent people in this country. And then there are those who aren't decent. They're known as "conservatives."

Spend some time following internet conversations about your liberal cause of the day (global warming, racial injustice, etc) and eventually someone will get to the nut of why the issue pisses many people off: they think activists want them to feel guilty and they don’t want to feel guilty. That’s pretty much it. A huge part of our failure to do anything about the climate disaster or racist asshole cops comes from people protecting their delicate ego.

Take for example the reaction when Mark Lane, an apparantly wonderful guy and excellent dad who runs Poppa’s Fresh Fish Company in San Diego, took in a Guatemalan family of four who had been processed by ICE while they looked for family with whom to live until their court appearance.

Sounds like a good guy, right -- just the sort of person we all like to think we are. Well, maybe not all of us:

But the decision to take in the family has also made him the target of threatening emails, falsified Yelp reviews, phone calls, and death threats by anti-immigrant activists.

“I needed to show my three boys that we don’t use hate,” Lane recently told ThinkProgress. “That’s why I started the ‘Boycott Murrieta’ Facebook page. We were advocating for the children.”

You know what? These assholes should feel guilty. (And of course, the question that always occurs to me: how many of them do you think identify themselves as Christians? Don't misunderstand: I've known enough real Christians that I'm very much aware that this particular subset -- the ones I describe as "Christians," with sarcasm quotes, are not representative. Not even close.)

To compound matters, this is what these families and these children are fleeing (via Digby):

By the time Isaias Sosa turned 14, he'd already seen 15 bullet-riddled bodies laid out in his neighborhood of Cabañas, one of the most violent in this tropical metropolis. He rarely ventured outside his grandmother's home, fortified with a wrought iron gate and concertina wire.

But what pushed him to act was the death of his pregnant cousin, who was gunned down in 2012 by street gang members at the neighborhood gym. Sosa loaded a backpack, pocketed $500 from his mother's purse, memorized his aunt's phone number in Washington state and headed for southern Mexico, where he joined others riding north on top of one of the freight trains known as La Bestia, or the Beast. . . .

"There are many youngsters who only three days after they've been deported are killed, shot by a firearm," said Hector Hernandez, who runs the morgue in San Pedro Sula. "They return just to die."

At least five, perhaps as many as 10, of the 42 children slain here since February had been recently deported from the U.S., Hernandez said.

Sorry, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that there are people in this country who would consign anyone, much less children, to conditions like that.

And just to justify the title of this post, let me jump over to this story at Joe.My.God.:

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has issued a call for Catholics to refrain from participating in the viral ice bucket challenge because it funds an ALS study that uses embryonic stem cells.

"The beneficiary of the ice-bucket challenge funds a study using embryonic stem cells, which can only be obtained by destroying embryonic life. For that reason, we have determined that our schools should not raise money for the ALS Association, and should instead – if they wish – donate to another organization doing ALS research," the Archdiocese wrote in a prepared statement.

I'm not going to start on the Catholic Church, which I consider one of the most morally bankrupt institutions in the history of Western civilization. The idea of forbidding the faithful from participating in fundraising for the organization that probably has the best chance of finding a cure of ALS because it "violates Church teaching" speaks for itself: life begins at conception and ends at birth.

I confess I don't understand how a religion that started off offering a positive message became so completely perverted.

Culture Break: Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8

The Borodin Quartet did the recordings I had on LP of the Shostakovich string quartets. Two things: I've always loved chamber music, particularly quartets, and Shostakovich put most of his creativity into his quartets, simply because they weren't as public as his larger works, which embody the required bombast -- because Stalin.

At any rate, it's some terrific music, but be warned: it's about 22 minutes.