Being at the heigt of controversial topics, I I thought I would talk about the recent issue brought forth by Sen. Rick Santorum (R - PA). He stated in an interview, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." Without going as far as removing Santorum from office, I think there is something to be said about this topic.

I have been trying to wrap my mind around this topic. Being an supporter of homosexual partners (many of my close friends are gay or lesbian), my gut reaction is to call this man crazy. Of course, my logical side kicks in and sees where there is some validity to his statement. Ok, bigamy, polygamy and adultery are on one side of the table but incest is on another. Bigamy, polygamy and adultery play into the idea of monogomy which is a separate issue. But, if my gay friends can be a couple, why can't I marry my cousin, aside from the fact that most all of my cousins are still well under the legal age of concent. (Grandma, don't worry, this is merely hypothetical.)

Genetically speaking, there are studies that prove that having a shallow gene pool does not lead to as many birth defects as once suspected. Most of that can actually be detected through blood tests. If we look back through history, royal families insisted on consanguineous marriages for generations. Well, we know that the hemophilia thing rears its ugly head every now and again, but for the most part, there have not been a whole lot of major problems.

If we liken incest to gay partnering, we would definitely have to discuss the whole offspring situation. Or maybe that is the entire issue. If there is no possibility of children, there are different rules of morality. Every other deviation that Sen. Santorum montioned has the potential of ending up with offspring. Usually, this arguement is used in the other direction for those conservatives that are trying to ban homosexuality. Maybe, this is a matter of if a sexual act between concenting adults cannot lead to children, it can remain private. Of course, then the sterile adulterers will have a field day. Polygamists will be running out to get vasectomies and hysterectomies. Or worse yet, forcing partners to have procedures done. I guess that theory is out the window.

I am at a bit of a loss. Does anyone else out there have any other thoughts? I know that William Saletan discussed this topic with the same outcome on MSN Slate Magazine.

Just as an FYI, Santorum issued a statement deferring the importance of his controversial interview with AP.
posted by Marney at 2:25 PM

 
I clearly do not understand this capitalistic world that we all live in. I don't know how I have lived this long as a fully functional and relatively intelligent member of society and I still just don't get it.

Let me 'splain.

Right now the national unemployment rate is 5.8%. In the New York City area, there is an unemployment rate of 8.4%. In the past year, there have been 7 rounds of lay-offs, hiring freezes, bonus cuts and no cost of living or any other type of raise in my company alone. I know more unemployed people right now than I have known in the rest of my life. New York City is scrambling to find billions of dollars to balance the budget. All in all, it comes down to the idea that money's tight for everyone. This stuff I understand. I don't like it, but I understand.

My confusion arises when I hear about golden parachutes and CEO Pensions lining the pockets of the ultra wealthy. Isn't it enough that the CEOs of large corporations make more money in a day before lunch than I will this entire year? Do they need to receive a $16 millon severence checks after they have been asked to leave? I wouldn't get anything like that if I was asked to go. Come to think of it, if Joe Peon is fired, all he gets is shown the door. Do these supreme rulers of the corporate world have special qualities that are intrinsic in their nature and warrant being paid large sums of money to leave a job?

Can someone lease explain this concept to me??? I clearly need to get out of the coporate finance world. It is making my head explode.
posted by Marney at 9:43 AM

 
I love how the media and other people twist the blame of crimes onto anything but the person that commits those crimes.

That's right, the first death in connection to the NYC Smoking ban has happened. A bouncer, Dana Blake, was killed trying to enforce the smoking ban at a local night club. As it was portrayed in the sound bite I heard on the news and the article to which I linked above, "Blake's older brother said he blames the death on the smoking ban."

I don't really understand how enforcing a law that is very well known can be the cause of death for anyone. Could there be some sort of blood on the hands of the person that actually stuck a knife in this man's stomach? For that matter, a bouncer is not the safest occupation in the world. Didn't this man's family understand that there could be health issues that may be a part of the career choice he made? Just because it is a controversial law, the media is trying to make it look like the reall killer is trying to stop people from smoking, and it turn killing themselves and others.

To mangle a cliche, Smoking laws do not kill people, idiots that are jonsing for their next fix kill people.
posted by Marney at 10:12 AM

 
This post is specifically for Nolan, who didn't believe me when I told him about this.

Local currency is not only legal but it is flourishing in some communities. Ithaca, NY has been using their own currency for the past 12 years (the Hour - 1 Hour is equivelant to $10). That's right, they have money that can be spent in and around the Ithaca area in businesses, between individuals, and anywhere that US currency can be used. The idea behind it is rather noble. By using this money, local businesses, farmers, crafters, artisans, and laborers are held in much higher regard than the mass produced, corporate world that is strangling Mom and Pop. It raises the minimum wage by supporting the idea that 1 hour of labor is equal to 1 Hour or $10. There have even been zero interest loans made in Hours. Because, of course, how can you ask for interest on labor?

I know it sounds a bit far fetched and even a little utopian. But, hey, if you can work within the system to make a change, use the free market system to your advantage and make abetter life for the people in your community, I say go for it.

By the way, it is exchangable and taxable. You just can't pay your federal taxes in Hours. Uncle Sam is so picky.
posted by Marney at 12:10 PM

 
If there will be Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I think at least one of them may be riding in on Hooters Airline. I saw an ad for this new airline yesterday morning and it has taken me a full day to try to make sense of it. So a restaurant that focuses on the physical attributes of the wait staff much more than their cuisine decides to enter the market of air travel since many of the current airlines are cutting back flights and hedging on bankruptcy. At what point should a potential passenger begin to get worried?

So the flights consist of Atlanta to Myrtle Beach (four flights a week in each direction), Newark to Myrtle Beach (three flights a week in each direction) and Baltimore to Myrtle Beach (not yet available). I'm wondering if the company is actually targeting low Hooters Restaurant populations (i.e. the New York metro area) to be converted to the glory of Hooterdom. Or maybe this is for Hooters regulars that decide to take a field trip to Myrtle Beach after Happy Hour.

Ok, I have actually run out of any kind of rational idea as to why this is in existance. Any other thoughts out there?
posted by Marney at 11:41 AM

 
Since I am feeling it today, I figure I will go on my diatribe about Daylight Saving Time.

As you may or may not know, DSL came about to conserve artificial light in the evening hours. By making it get dark later, we don't have to use things like lights. Can I just throw this out there. We live in a world where there are lights on 24/7 whether the sun is out or not. Has anyone taken a good look at Times Square during the day




or night




There is no conserving energy on any of these streets whether the sun is out or not. If we really want to do something to save energy, we should limit the amout of neon, flashing lights and lit up billboards on any given street. So needless to say, I don't really buy into the conservationist mumbo jumbo about having a kitchen light on for an additional hour at night.

Wait a minute, did anyone stop to think that we naturally use less artificial light in the summer because there are more hours of daylight as a whole despite what time they are? In the winter, we go to work when it's dark and leave for home after the sun has set. To top it all, the weather tends to be a bit grayer which gives us less light.

There is another school of thought out there. There are people that want to End Daylight Saving Time altogether. Well, this is a bit extreme, with the changing of the time zones (which makes more sense to me, living in a global society that has to count how many hours apart we all are to get business accomplished). I don't know if this is a better answer. I just know that I want to be able to get my sleep.
posted by Marney at 3:57 PM

 
I don't want to be calloused. I don't want to detract from the horrible feelings of the families of the people on this list or this list. I know what it is like to be in the middle of an emotional, painful disaster that does not let any relief in. I ache terribly for each person that is missing, captured, wounded or dead and their family members that will never be the same. That being said, I have to ask some very harsh questions.

Isn't this war about "freeing Iraq" and the oppressed people living under Hussein's regime? Isn't this about the people that live on the other side of the world? Aren't we killing people for their freedom? Then, why is it that we are focusing on our troops? Why is the rescue of Jessica Lynch the biggest story this week? What about the Iraqi civilians that have died, or are fleeing for their lives, or have no home, or are grieving for their country? Are we, as Americans so self-centered in our view of the world, that we can't even have compassion for the people in country we are destroying?

We are the agressors. We picked this fight. Maybe we were provoked, but we didn't wait until we saw the whites of their eyes. We shot first and are still waiting to ask questions. (Enough mangled cliches.) We don't have the right to have self pity. We don't have the right to ignore the very people that we set out to help because we feel bad for our own. We brought this upon ourselves.

I would like to see those embedded reorters tell us about the people there. The non-Coalition people. I want to know if the people we are "helping" are actually in a better place, or think they could be. I want to hear the words of the people that didn't have a choice but to have American and British bombs in their sky and American and British soldiers moving through their land.
posted by Marney at 2:37 PM

 
I am forever perplexed by the whole stockmarket thing. I mean, the volitilty of the market is so closely tied to current events in such a bizarre way. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, the progress of our troops approaching Baghdad makes Dell a good company?!?! I can understand why people would be hesitant to invest money during a time when there is very little surity in what will be going on in the world next but the changes in the market this week alone make me crazy.

On Monday, the Dow plunged below 8,000 with talk of there being bad choices made in sending such a small number of troops overseas. Tuesday, the market rose as troops neared Baghdad. Even today, there is an hourly rally as speculation of finally having a shortened war within our grasp and found POWs.

At what point does any of this make any sense? I know that past wars were always good for the economy. Usually it was the way to get out from under a rough economic slump. But those were the days when we needed to have more people in factories to make guns and boats and planes and so forth. There was a greater demand which caused the country to create a supply and therefore jobs and money. Today, we don't have that same kind of manufatcturing structure to our workforce. Now we have to rely on the whimsy of the fickle invester that has been burned one too many times by scandelous Corporate America.

I liked it so much better when I didn't pay attention to anything relating to the "Market."
posted by Marney at 10:36 AM

 
Last night I went into a bar for the first time after the smoking ban here in the City. At first, I didn't even notice anything different. Then a man came in and lit up, ironically, next to a "no smoking" sign. Within the first puff, he was talked to by the staff and went outside to finish. I only have to say, Thank you Michael Bloomburg!
posted by Marney at 9:25 AM