Ok, can I just say how awesome it is that the Republican dominated California supreme court gave the thumbs up to gay marriage? Sure, it was four to three, but still, I am excited beyond words that the court affirmed the constitutional right to marry for California gays and lesbians. It is not every day that the stodgy halls of the legal community strike a blow for civil rights, after all.

I was going to write about it yesterday, but I was too hot to move, let alone use the keyboard. I don’t know what the deal was, but it was seriously, seriously hot yesterday. I had all these grand plans of doing the laundry and going to the library, but instead I lay around the house in a desperate torpor, pushing cats away when they got too close because they were like little furry furnaces. And even the cats seemed to lack the will to move; Loki stayed in one position for nine hours, which may be a Loki world record.

One thing in the 172 page decision that I was really pleased about was the comparison of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage. The fact of the matter is that interracial marriage was one illegal in California, not that long ago, and as the decision rightly pointed out, history is not always the best measurement to use when considering whether or not something is constitutional. Overturning the ban on interracial marriage was a good thing for California to do, and I believe that overturning the ban on same-sex marriage is also a very good thing for us to do.

I also loved the repeated mentions in the decision about the right to have one’s relationship recognized and respected, and I especially enjoyed the little gibe which suggested that we should ban all marriage in the interests of equality. Perhaps I’m just a California hippie, but I seriously do believe that families come in a wide variety of configurations, and I would never presume to dictate which configuration is acceptable and which isn’t.

There was also a nice little bit about the fact that same-sex marriage in no way detracts from opposite-sex marriage, and that no religious organizations or officials are going to be forced to adjust their beliefs; if you don’t want to officiate at a gay marriage, then don’t, basically. The goal is not to cheapen opposite-sex marriage, and I’m sorry that some people feel that way, because the goal is to recognize and respect partnerships between couples of the same sex.

Of course, this means that there is now going to be a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage on the November ballot; and good on the governor for coming out strongly in opposition to any such thing. I’m hoping that this ends up backfiring on the conservatives, because I suspect we’re going to see record liberal turnout at this election, with voters fired up by the prolonged popularity contest and pissed at the conservatives. I swear to Pete, if that amendment gets on the ballot and passes, I am going to be seriously disappointed in my fellow Californians.

Apparently, the 2004 weddings in San Francisco were a major factor in the decision to support same-sex marriage in California, which is awesome. I think that as an act of protest, the decision to offer marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco was brilliant, and I hope to see a lot more of the same happening in the near future. Nice of them to overturn the ban just in time for a stack of June weddings.

As Andrew Sullivan pointed out in The Daily Dish, if thousands of same-sex couples marry in California between 15 June (when the decision takes effect) and November, any proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage would result in the simultaneous annulment of thousands of marriages. For those who claim to value the sanctity of marriage, I hope this creates room for pause; I imagine that straights would be pretty infuriated if their marriages were annulled at the polls, don’t you think?

An embedded journalist in Afghanistan is writing about his experiences for the Guardian, and taking some pretty neat pictures. I like pictures.

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of press right now, because everyone’s distracted by the Democratic popularity contest. But we should be paying attention to McCain, or we’re going to get nasty surprise when he wins in November.

An amputee runner has won the right to try for an Olympic spot, which is totally awesome. As he himself says: “It’s a great day for sport. I think this day is going to go down in history for the equality of disabled people.”

When prostitution is illegal, you end up with weird, tangled court cases that make absolutely no sense.

Steampunk appears to be attracting the attention of more and more media outlets. Something tells me that steampunkified options of electronics are going to be made available from manufacturers sometime soon, for with every trend comes a whiff of profit.

Foie gras is back on the menu in Chicago.

With “revitalization” comes an inevitable clash between rich and poor; this article happens to be a rather well written and researched discussion of the issue.

Yet another one of the books to come out of the Iraq War, Generation Kill was written by an embedded journalist who observed the early days of the invasion, and it was very interesting to read at the time. I thought I’d re-read it, since I seem to be reading a lot of war books at the moment. Generation Kill was also one of the first books to be published about the war, when things were very different, and it definitely shows in parts. Sometimes it feels almost naive, and at other times eerily prescient.

Personally, I found War Reporting for Cowards a better book. In Generation Kill, it felt like Wright was trying a little too hard to be one of the boys, and it’s kind of jarring. At times, the line seems to blur, and it makes it kind of hard to respect Wright as a journalist, because it seems like any hope at neutrality was compromised when he started pointing M-4s out the windows of humvees.

That said, it was still interesting to get a sense of what the invasion was like from the front lines. One thing Wright really stressed was that the Marines in the invasion were not used very effectively; they were asked to do things they weren’t trained to do, for example, and they were used largely as an experiment in a new kind of rapid warfare. While it’s good to adapt tactics to the changing nature of war, Generation Kill illustrated some of the serious problems with trying techniques out in the battlefield without providing adequate training.

The book also discussed the issue of insurgency, although insurgent activity wasn’t quite as big of an issue when the book was published. However, there were several interesting sections on the difficulty in fighting an enemy which hides among the people, making it hard to tell the difference between combatants and civilians. Wright witnessed some definitely ethical questionable things, and I have to give him props for writing about them. Something tells me the Pentagon may not have been too happy with this book.

The marketing copy for Generation Kill makes it out to be some kind of adventure/thriller, but it’s actually a very disquieting and sad book, when one is able to look beyond Wright’s somewhat flip writing style. I think that it’s also all the more thought-provoking to read in hindsight, five years after the invasion, when all of the careless asides about roadside bombs, religious tensions, and insurgents suddenly seem much more important.

Demographics:

Generation Kill, by Evan Wright. Published 2004, 320 pages. History.

Robert Kaplan has a very intriguing op-ed in the Times discussing the situation in Myanmar which I think is well worth reading, given that it’s fairly brief and Robert Kaplan often has an interesting take on situations, especially situations which seem intractable. I’m not quite happy with the piece; it seems like there’s a chunk missing which disrupts the flow, but that might be because of the zealous editorial staff more than Kaplan himself.

What’s going on in Burma/Myanmar right now is very, very interesting. The world seems to be in a strange holding pattern, eager to help, yet held back by the military junta. It’s always made me happy that the world seems to pull together in the event of disaster, regardless of other issues, sending food, medicine, and other supplies to the sites of natural disasters. It’s pretty neat that global efforts can be quickly mobilized to make a difference, and I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for aid workers trapped on the wrong side of the border.

(Although I guess they could always pop over to China and help out there, as long as they’re in the neighborhood.)

Talking about this with my father the other day, he expressed a sort of disbelief at the predicted death toll from the cyclone, and I pointed out that the government made the death toll even worse, by choosing to actively reject offers of assistance, and that both sickens and horrifies me. I can see why the junta doesn’t want foreigners in the country, but it’s still immensely sad that thousands of people have/are going to die because of their government’s decisions.

Kaplan’s piece discusses the idea of forcing Myanmar to accept aid, and the potential consequences. As he points out, the only way to force a country to accept your help is to basically invade, and there’s no way that would be a smart idea without a large coalition of forces. But he also explored some of the long term repercussions, like the fact that an invasion would probably topple the junta, and create a big, slimy mess.

Although what’s happening in Burma makes me angry, I don’t think that forcing the government to accept aid is the solution. After all, my government makes decisions which lead to the deaths of thousands of people, and no one’s invading us, because it’s a process of slow attrition, rather than a very public situation. I don’t think that anyone is seriously considering an invasion of Burma, but it was still kind of an odd thing to think about, the idea of forcing our way into a country to offer humanitarian aid.

The piece is an interesting thought experiment, pondering what would happen if we did invade, and how such an invasion should be handled. At the start, he points out that conditions are pretty much perfect, due to a confluence of factors which have come together at just the right time, but, by the end, he admits that an invasion would be a poorly conceived idea which could potentially cause all heck to break loose.

Of course, as Kaplan points out, the invasion of Iraq was presented as a form of humanitarian aid, with the implication that it was sort of a moral imperative to topple Hussein and give Iraq a democracy, and some of the world went along with us at the time. (”Democracy: the gift that keeps on giving” would have been a great tagline for the war, don’t you think?) It makes me wonder how a serious proposal for a US-led invasion of Burma would be greeted by Americans and the world.

George Bush gets used in advertising overseas a lot, apparently. Some of these ads are pretty neat…while others, er, don’t cross cultural lines well.

Polar bears are finally getting some protection under the Endangered Species Act. About time.

Needle exchange activists in Texas are facing charges for distributing drug paraphernalia.

In Italy, the CIA is on trial for kidnapping and torture, and some pretty amazing testimony is coming out of the case.

What makes a man a man? An intrepid journalist for the Stranger aims to find out.

The Animal Welfare Commission in San Francisco wants to outlaw cruel art, which is something I support, on the surface, but it does raise some interesting questions about free speech, animal rights, and art.

You’ve seen the movie, now read the book! But seriously. If you haven’t seen Four Hours in My Lai, you should, because it’s a really good movie, and the book is just as good. In a different way, of course. If you’re at all interested in the events of My Lai, I would highly recommend both. I’m kind of sad, actually, that I didn’t read this book when I was in college and, you know, studying the military, because it had all sorts of awesome information and insights.

I really like the way this book was organized and broken down. The authors really detailed not just the events of My Lai, but the things that led to those events. They did their homework, and it definitely shows in the book; we’re talking meticulous research, here. I was especially interested in the analysis of military culture during the Vietnam era, with a heavy focus on meeting the threat in Vietnam. In fact, a lot of the discussion of asymmetrical warfare and guerrilla activity reminded me a lot of what’s going on Iraq right now.

In a way, I think this book should be required reading for people who are confused about what’s happening in Iraq, because it talked about the psychology which leads to events like My Lai. It’s incredibly hard to engage with an enemy which hides among civilians, and hard to separate the enemy from civilians when both look alike, especially when the enemy is being consciously dehumanized by your superiors.

One of the points the book raised was the fact that the Holocaust is still very much alive in the German consciousness, but My Lai is definitely not part of the American mind. I had always assumed that most people knew about My Lai, until we read In the Lake of the Woods* in a college literature class, and a couple of students were clearly deeply puzzled by a huge section of the plot, until the situation was explained to them. And I remember thinking that was very odd, that people could not be aware of such a huge event in American history.

It makes me wonder if, in 30 years, people won’t know what happened at Abu Ghraib and Haditha, if these incidents too will be erased through a process of “willful forgetting,” as the authors put it.

Incidentally, smokers who take out library books, when you douse yourselves with cologne, the stenches of both cologne and cigarette smoke remain on the books you check out. And this causes other library patrons to want to kill you.

Demographics:

Four Hours in My Lai, by Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim. Published 1992, 430 pages. History.

*That book is good too, by the way. I read it every few years, maybe I’ll pick it up again later this year and write all about it.

While poking around for excellent articles to link to in my sites of interest post for the day, I came across this story at the International Herald Tribune, and I just had to comment on it in a post of its own, because the article is awesome, and it makes some really excellent points. Granted, many of these points have been made on this very site before, numerous times, but something about seeing them in print makes me all giddy inside. Go read it. It’s short, and it filled my heart with glee, so I think you might enjoy it.

The basic point of the article is that going “green” requires consuming less crap. I mean, fundamentally. The whole point is to reduce your impact on the world, so therefore you need to be consuming less, buying less, re-using more, and living a lifestyle which is oriented more on conservation than consumption.

The thing is, as the author points out, this is actually kind of boring. If you care deeply about the environment, you do things like showering less frequently, reusing containers, keeping stacks of recycling around, wearing used clothes, and so forth. You actually use everything you own until it wears out or cannot be retooled in a new way. You take your shoes to the saddlery to be repaired, you make rag rugs out of torn clothes, you use holey socks as dusters.

However, now that “green” has become fashionable, this weird situation is arising where major companies are marketing green products, creating a consumer market for green goods. Which is, uhm, totally insane.

Look. I am all for the production of necessary products in environmentally sustainable ways, and for the promotion of more ethical living. But I see the green movement going the same way as the local foodshed movement; it’s becoming an elite pursuit for the wealthy. By turning the green movement into an orgy of consumerism, we’re sending the message that you need to buy shit to go green.

On the contrary, to go green, you need to not buy shit. And I hate that two good movements, coming from a good place, are just turning into capitalist nightmares, marketed at the wealthy and the people who blindly follow trends. It seems like every “green living tips” article I see has a list of crap to buy, and that doesn’t really encourage people in lower income brackets to pursue more ecologically friendly modes of living. We should be stressing that caring about the Earth doesn’t require money, it just requires some logic, and anyone is capable of doing their part.

I’m “green” by nature, not because I care about the environment, although I do, but because I grow up dirt poor, so I’m a cheapskate. I use energy efficient tools in my house because they save me money, and the environmental benefit is a nice bonus. It would never occur to me to toss a container after using it once, to leave a light on when I’m not using it, to do anything but compost. I suspect that a lot of people lived green long before living green was a concept in the minds of corporations.

It’s gravely disappointing to me that the green movement is going where it is, that people are being told they can have their cake and eat it too. Sure, build a monstrous house! If you use “green certified” building materials, it’s ok! Sure, drive a car! If it’s a Prius, it’s ok! Be selfish! You can buy indulgences!

That’s what I was so pleased to see this honest and frank article in the IHT, because it pointed out the glaring truth of the matter. And how delightful it would be to see a genuine movement of people working to consume less, rejecting the products marketed to them and using common sense to think about how they can reduce their impact on the environment. There’s “living the green lifestyle,” and then there’s the reality of living a conscious life, and these two things are very different.

I disagree with this editorial, but I’m linking to it anyway, because there are some valid points in it. However, I don’t think that North Americans are “freaking out” about cheap gasoline; I think that North American politicians are making gas prices a political issue, and that’s an important distinction.

Obama’s campaign staff have faced down some pretty gnarly racist incidents, which are of course being played down by headquarters.

Food stamp allowances are not keeping pace with increases in the price of food.

Remember Kosovo? Almost 10 years on, displaced Serbs are still living in refugee camps.

Gardening tips from the Times of London, complete with saucy commentary. Alas, we aren’t cool enough to have allotments here in the States, but the gardening advice is still useful.

Stealing scrap metal is starting to get seriously profitable, thanks to rising commodities prices.

I’ve been having strange dreams lately about dead birds, so it seemed like a sign from the heavens when I saw this book on the new arrivals shelf at the library. The new arrivals shelf is such a curious thing, because the library is so dependent on donations, so it’s like a collection of unwanted books which one is forced to weed through to find the good. And then I find myself wondering about who owned this book before I did, what they thought of it, and why they donated it.

At any rate, this is a book about identity and self-discovery and all that rot, and apparently it won a prize because people were so into it.

I had a tough time, though. The lead character in the book is of mixed race; she’s black and Korean. And maybe it’s racist of me, but I had a tough time reading a book about a mixed race character written by a white person, because I feel like there are some fundamental things that we don’t understand. And that’s ok, really it is, and I like reading pieces by people who write about their own color and their personal struggles with identity. I just can’t imagine writing a book about, say, a black man and not feeling weird about exploring color and identity from the perspective of a race that isn’t mine. I don’t think I’m articulating this very well. I guess that I’m trying to say is that it just felt a little forced and awkward to me.

The book was ok. Not fabulous, but ok. I really liked reading about the Salton Sea, because the Salton Sea was almost a character in the book, and it’s a body of water that’s always intrigued me. And I liked some of the characters, although most of them felt like half-formed shadows who never really fully articulated themselves, leaving me wanting more from them.

Also, I hated the typography. I know it sounds snitty, but there it is. I didn’t like it. So shoot me.

Demographics:

The Book of Dead Birds, by Gayle Brandeis. Published 2003, 241 pages. Fiction.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking recently about beating someone up with a baguette. I think it might have been brought about by the scene in Buffy where Buffy pretends to stake Angel with a baguette, and when I saw the scene, I thought “that’s completely ludicrous,” but then the image stuck in my head, and I realized it wasn’t. Given the opportunity, I would probably do the exact same thing, because there’s something about a baguette which simply demands it, especially when said baguette has gone slightly stale, and it’s been coated in a fine layer of flour which rains down like dandruff.

It might be a “you have to be there” kind of thing, but the fact of the matter is that I did once beat someone soundly about the neck and shoulders with a baguette, and it was one of the most satisfying and invigorating events of my life. I should hasten to say that this wasn’t a case of bread rage, but rather a playful mock breadfight, made all the more awesome by being able to battle in a dumpster full of bread. I really think that humans don’t engage in play nearly enough. It satisfies so many primal urges and desires, you know?

Have you ever dived into a dumpster full of bread? It’s a pretty fantastic moment in your life. It’s the kind of thing where, as you’re doing it, you think “this is a pretty fantastic moment in my life,” as bread rolls skitter away under your feet and bags crackle. Really, the only thing that makes it better is grabbing a pair of baguettes and setting to, oldschool style, and prancing along the top of the dancer waving your bread about until it snaps in half and you are forced to grab a new loaf.

Alas, we don’t have a real bakery in town, let alone one which would produce bread in such large volumes that it would fill dumpsters with stale, discarded loaves. The only dumpster full of stuff to dive into around here is probably fish guts, and even that is a dwindling commodity.

Pity, really. Maybe I should start a baguette fighting squad, with members willing to have vigorous demonstration fights on the Guest House lawn in full Victorian regalia. Bustles and all. I should start knitting my baguette holster now.