Month: June 2011

Victims, Fake And Real

Adam Serwer analyzes the mindset of some marriage equality opponents:

This sort of moral inversion is really common throughout history at times when the rights of minorities are expanded, which those opposed cast as an infringement upon their rights. States seceding from the Union over the right to own black people as property did so in the name of fighting tyranny, waving the Gadsden flag as proudly as any modern-day Tea Partyer. So does the extension of same-sex marriage rights to gays and lesbians become "coercive state power" akin to Bull Connor siccing dogs and spraying firehoses at civil rights activists. That these arguments are actually deployed in service to "coercive state power," whether it be legalized slavery or state prohibition on recognizing relationships between consenting adults, is precisely the point.

And there is never an acknowledgment of the pain that the status quo can have. I.e. real victims. A reader writes:

When same-sex marriage became an item in the news here in Massachusetts, my children were in the 8th and 10th grades, and I thought this would would make a good dinner conversation. "So, kids, have you heard that Massachusetts is considering allowing gay people to get married? What do you think about it?"

There was a moment or two hesitation, a couple of eye rolls, and then my 14 year old son, Jeffrey, said, "Dad, this is stupid to even talk about. Of course gay people should be allowed to marry."

Jeffrey was always a thoughtful and sensitive kid. And I'm wistful because I'm recalling that at Jeff's funeral, his foreign-exchange sister said, "I am angry with the world for suffocating a sensitive soul." Jeffrey died of suicide eighteen months ago. He was 21.

So the question I have today is whether the words of the 14 year-old Jeffrey were prophetic and a sign of things to come, or just the feelings of a young man who proved to be too sensitive to survive this difficult existence? I'm hoping it's the former.

Me too.

Marriage Equality And Straight Marriages

Linda Hirshman notes that "conservatives defended heterosexual marriage inequality on the grounds that women were naturally suited only for certain kinds of lives." She believes that marriage equality will further erode that notion:

As the arguments for heterosexual marriage inequality were used to fight same-sex marriage, so the success of same-sex marriage is a living refutation of the argument that marriage requires congenital natural inequality with women on the bottom. Even the campaign for same-sex marriage, consisting of a torrent of moving stories about the happy same-sex couples who want to get married, is a feminist windfall. Maybe marital equality and happiness aren't so incompatible after all.

The very fact that two women can marry alters the perspective of women in a heterosexual marriage. Marriage equality is an advance for feminism too.

Can Science Kill God?


J. Anderson Thomson claims it “is no longer a question of whether religion shall wither away, just when”:

There is a massive, irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Religion was humanity’s original cosmology, biology and anthropology. It provided explanations for the origin of the world, life and humans. Science now gives us increasingly complete explanations for those big three. We know the origins of the universe, the physics of the big bang and how the basic chemical elements formed in supernovas. We know that life on this planet originated about 4 billion years ago, and we are all descendants of that original replicating molecule. Thanks to Darwin we know that natural selection is the only workable explanation for the design and variety of all life on this planet. Paleoanthropologists and geneticists have reconstructed much of the human tree of life. We are risen apes, not fallen angels.

But in what sense are we risen? Merely by intelligence? And isn’t it worth exploring why we first experienced our alienation as having fallen rather than risen? Maybe we have risen intellectually, but feel fallen spiritually – because we have a semblance of a sense of the transcendent?

And couldn’t religion, having been abused for so long and put to so many inappropriate purposes over the centuries, actually free itself from this trap and relate to truths beyond science and experiences of the whole? That is the real work ahead. And it will come within the churches or outside of them. The hierarchy will be the last to know.

The Fall-Out, Ctd

Walter Dellinger suspects New York's marriage law will have effects beyond the state:

Does the New York Legislature's action change the calculus on how the Supreme Court may ultimately rule on whether same-sex couples in more conservative states have a constitutional right to marry? I would think it might. One of the greatest influences on any culture is the "normative power of the actual" (a phrase I once heard from the late Yale Law Professor Charles L. Black, Jr.). The more common gay marriage becomes, the more hollow the defenses offered by states responding to constitutional challenges by gay couples wanting to marry will sound.

Scanning The Dark Side

Brain

Brain scan technology has been championed as the new frontier for terror interrogations. But Virginia Hughes posits that a "brain-scan lie detector is no more reliable than the polygraph":

[T]he same regions of the brain that light up during lying are the ones that we use for all kinds of high-level cognition and emotion — such as, say, intense anxiety over whether your captors are going to hurt you.

Scientifically, for reasons I described, that’s a waste of time and resources. But some ethicists say that it’s worse. They point to studies showing that non-scientists tend to treat brain scans as more credible and authoritative than other types of information. You can see it plain as day in the intelligence officer’s quote: we only apply intensive interrogation techniques to the ones that show reactions. Or more bluntly: they’re relying on unreliable blips of brain activity to determine which detainees will be tortured.

(Image via Zach Klein)

Why Should The Feds Bust Pot Smokers? Ctd

National Review endorses Barney Frank and Ron Paul's bill:

In addition to bringing federal pot laws in line with the Constitution and allowing states to pass reasonable marijuana policies, this law would eliminate the frightening discrepancies between state and federal policies regarding “medical marijuana.” In a society under the rule of law, a citizen should be able to predict whether the government will deem his actions illegal. And yet in California and Montana, businesses that sell medical marijuana — an activity that is explicitly sanctioned by state law — have been raided by federal law-enforcement officers.

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #56

Vfyw-contest_6-26

A reader writes:

You have to be fucking kidding!

Another writes:

Summary of clues: satellite dish, satellite dish direction, a steep Dutch gabled roof, the shadows of two deciduous trees, a dusky evening/morning sun, an air conditioner. Only those those pinched windows are unique, but they are not googlable. “Search by Image” turns up a set of brown faces.

Oh! another clue: pigeons on the ledge!  Sigh. You aren’t giving us very much to work with. But, the compact neighbouring house is reminiscent of countless NYC buildings (that faded brick and the stone lacing, those keystones over the windows), and the Dutch-styled one next door of course complements the notion that this window’s view is part of a Manhattan milieu.

So, I nominate: Manhattan, in the neighbourhood of Washington Heights. I’ll be surprised if the person who gets this didn’t live next door for some period in their life and thus win by destiny rather than prowess.  Is this VFYW deducible? Or am I an inferior sleuth?

It’s deducible, particularly if you think outside the window a little. Another:

Somewhere in New York City. I can’t get more specific than that, but I wanted to give at least a shot. I suspect Brooklyn, but I’m not sure.

The building on the left is classic NYC public school construction, circa 1929-40. I went to two schools on Staten Island with that basic look (PS 19 and Port Richmond High) and there are literally dozens of others still extant throughout the five boroughs. The style of that other building, while vaguely European, was a common motif on apartment buildings in the early years of the 20th Century. Wherever it is, the view is undoubtedly looking north, as the satellite dish (assuming a northern US location to be correct) would be pointed south.

Another:

The photo reminds me of Philly, when I visited last summer.  It seems like the US on the East Coast based on the age of the buildings, which, in my non-expert opinion, seem to be from the late 1880s.  The building strikes me as something a wealthy industrialist of the area would build.  It’s an advertisement of wealth, but fit within the confines of the location.  If you’re ever in Philly, check out the Lippincott House.  It’s a beautiful bed and breakfast near Rittenhouse Square that I stayed at with my fiancee.

P.S. I’m still amazed by NY’s backbone last night.  Now, if only California, my current state, can fix its mistake.  I’m still ashamed of Ohio’s, my old home state, constitutional amendment in 2004.  As progressive as Columbus can be, the rural areas and Cincinnati are not.

Another:

This screams Chicago to me. Where in Chicago, I don’t know. I say Chicago because of the unique edifice, suggesting some kind of East European influence.  But the satellite dish, well-kept screen, apparent height (3 to 4 stories), and the color of the bricks. I’ve not responded to this contest before, but I’m always entertained by the Tuesday posts and the devotion of your readers.

Another:

I ran a diffraction analysis on the sky area. The distinct spacing of the bug screen is of a type only installed in Krakow, Poland.

Actually, I’m flying to Krakow shortly and won’t have a chance to contemplate this one for more than a few minutes, so that’s my guess.

PS. Don’t know if Andrew himself reads these contest entries, but I had the Dish and the live-feed from New York up side-by-side last night, and I’m celebrating with him and everyone else. We’re not equal until we all are, and this is a step towards that.

Another:

In this photo, the satellite dish appears to be pointing south. So the place in question is probably in the northern hemisphere. The proximity of the building in the picture and the one from where the photo has been taken suggest narrow (European?) streets. The curved roof with similarly curved dormers appears to be northern European. Googling a bit, I found that parts of Belgium seem to have a predilection for roofs that look a lot like that, and the city of Bruges seems to have a lot of them – so I’m going to go with that. Not many other clues available, as far as I can tell.

This is my second attempt at the VFYW contest – my first was last week, and I guessed Luanda, so I’m hoping I’m one of the seven people you mentioned as having guessed correctly!

Yep, you’re on the list of correct guessers. Another:

Judging from the abrupt juxtaposition of neo-Georgian and neo-Dutch architecture, this view could easily be Dupont Circle or adjacent neighborhoods in DC.  Is this the view from YOUR window, Andrew?

Nope, but it can be found in the foreword of our book. Another:

Eugene, Oregon? Specifically, the building looks a LOT like St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, at the corner of Pearl St. and East 13th Avenue. I realize I’m probably about 7 or 8,000 miles off, but that’s my guess.

Closer to 3,000. Another:

Albany, New York?  The style of the buildings looks like what you might see on State St. in Albany, near Washington Park. State Street also runs by the State Capitol. I’m guessing this location might not be a coincidence this weekend.

Good guess! It was sent to us two years ago and we never posted it. Another:

I recognized a building I have seen all my life and confirmed by walking a few blocks.  I will be able to figure out the building from which the picture was taken when the threat of lightening subsides.

The reader never got back to us, so we pray the lightening wasn’t involved. Another:

When you put a Flemish Revival building up the day after the historic vote, Albany was the obvious place to go.  I’ve never been, but I know the kind of street in a Northeast town where you find high-quality turn of the century architecture, and State Street fit the bill.  Looks like the picture was taken from a third floor window of the Romanesque Revival townhouse across the street (one of the flat windows, not the bay).

Oh, and the building to the right of this Flemish Revival gem – a style briefly popular in the former Dutch colonies – is the Republican State Committee headquarters.  But you knew that, already, didn’t you.

And congratulations.  I watched live last night. It was inspiring and emotional.  And Ruben Diaz aside, it was a remarkably thoughtful and eloquent display from a body we New Yorkers have grown to deplore.  But Cuomo’s had a real effect – not just on this subject, but across the board.  I don’t really know why or how.  I voted for him, but I didn’t expect him to be so effective – on the budget, ethics reform, and now marriage equality. We’re a better state for it.

Another:

I won’t bother with getting Google Earth coordinates or screenshots of exactly what window the photo was taken, as I bought the VFYW book for my wife this past Christmas and we don’t need another. This is a great opportunity to tell you guys, however, that I took Post-It strips and covered the location of every single photograph in the book to make it a VFYW Contest book for her because she can’t get enough of this weekly feature.

Also, it seems a bit like cheating because we live in SmAlbany and I lived on that block about 10 years ago. Fun to finally get the answer correct, though! Keep up the great work, all.

Eight readers in all correctly guessed Albany, and none of them have nailed a difficult window in the past. But the following reader, an architect, was the most specific and closest to the actual address:

Screen shot 2011-06-28 at 12.06.53 PM

This was a piece of cake. I knew instantly that I was looking at a Dutch-Revival step-gable and not the real thing (in Amsterdam, say) – the Roman brick was a dead giveaway, and for this style of house to be located next door to a brick neo-Federal/Georgian with a dash of Beaux-Art (a.k.a. Modern French) there was only one state where this particular cultural confluence of architectural styles could possibly occur – New York.

Familiar with appearance of all the step-gable Dutch-Revival houses in New York City, I was quickly able to rule that out, and immediately asked myself: in what other prosperous cities in NY State before the turn of the last century would a private house require such a knowing, showy (and costly) display of state history? Albany, of course.

Ah, ha! How nicely you’ve worked in yet another layer of history by selecting the city of the moment on the morning of the historic marriage vote! And yes, two blocks away from the State Capitol! Knowing that all the best houses of that era in Albany are on State Street, it was very easy to locate the roof profile on Bing Maps aerial view (step-gables are uncommon, even in NY State), and boom! There we were! The houses at 300-315 State Street; shot from across the street, probably not coincidentally selected by you as another sly political reference – as it appears (per Google Maps) to be adjacent to the NY State Republican State Committee at 315 State Street … well, you can take over from here; I’m an unapologetic Roosevelt Democrat!

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