Nice one, SCOTUS

Wow, back to back semi-political posts. Sorry about that. But, as I noted here, stuff like removing legal barriers from gay marriage is worth writing about.

As you no doubt have already read in a million different places, the Supreme Court ruled that the ironically named Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. The ruling itself is a little dry, but has some nice snippets:

The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others…

This status is a far-reaching legal acknowledgment of the intimate relationship between two people, a relationship deemed by the State worthy of dignity in the community equal with all other marriages. It reflects both the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality.

Eloquently put. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but to me it really seems like an uncomplicated decision to make. Rather than being about gay marriage, it's about equality. So I'm happy that in the eyes of the federal government, at least, everyone I know--instead of just some or most--is equally able to marry the person they love.

I am reminded of another case you may have heard of, a little decision called Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education. The key verbiage:

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does... We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

That reasoning seemed radical at the time. It's simply common sense now. I suspect that United States vs. Windsor--the official name of the DOMA ruling--will look much the same 60 years from now.

It is so ordered.

The medicinal properties of passing years

In our travels--and especially during our time in the Middle East--Mrs. Blog and I have visited a lot of places with painful histories. Lebanon is a great example of this: although there is obviously a fair amount of tension beneath the surface, and violence occasionally spills over from Syria, it is a peaceful and calm place today compared with 30 or even 10 years ago. Beirut is a beautiful place filled with amazing art, friendly people, ancient sites and delicious food. But everywhere you go, you can see the scars of war. Sometimes it's figurative, in the form of monuments or signs. Other times it's literal: the bullet-pocked shell of the Holiday Inn still squats among luxury high-rise developments on high-priced waterfront real estate.

A building with a troubled past.

But in the formerly troubled countries we visited, America was never one of the major belligerents in the conflicts that had scarred them (although U.S. troops were obviously in Lebanon in 1982, Israel played the role of invader/occupier in that one). That changed with our recent, brief visit to northern Vietnam.

I'll keep this short and sweet: Hanoi is a friendly place. I didn't run into any lingering dislike of Americans, which, depending on how cynical you are, may or may not be surprising considering how many thousands of tons of bombs the United States dropped on and around Hanoi. This is possibly because in the end, the United States threw up its hands and left the country after realizing that getting involved in someone else's civil war was not worth American blood and treasure. If you're North Vietnam in 1974, that's victory. And it's easy to forgive when you're the winner. Maybe things would have been different if the Paris peace accords had held up, or a more Korea-like situation arisen through other means.

I can't say that I totally understand the complex psychology behind present-day attitudes. But I am glad the country seems to be at peace with its past. In any event, this picture sums up the result:

Photo courtesy iPhone of the Blog.

Those, by the way, are tourist boats cruising under a unified Vietnamese flag through a bay that empties into the Gulf of Tonkin.

So maybe there's no animosity because despite all the atrocities and bloodshed, things ended up right where both sides wanted them. In 1975, Ho Chi Minh was able to spread his banner of communism over the entire country. And the U.S. leadership of that era would no doubt have been thrilled to know that in 30 years, Vietnam would be home to a nominally capitalist economy (and the Soviet Union, the "head domino," would no longer exist).

Politics is a bloodsport

As I have mentioned before, it is kind of a blessing living overseas during a presidential election year: not only is voting easier but we are spared the barrage of campaign commercials.

I'm sure politics has actually always been like this, but to my eye it has become much more polarized--a sport rather than a discussion of competing ideas--and vitriolic. That makes it less interesting and more annoying. It is often juvenile and easy to ignore.

So let's talk about juvenile behavior for a minute. Way back in the day, I spent four summers taking some classes in North Carolina. We were a bunch of junior high and high school students basically living like college students: on our own except for showing up to class and meals. And after lunch, there would invariably be a crowd of people gathered around the cafeteria's Mortal Kombat machine. Oh, how we would drop quarters into its bottomless maw.

I was terrible at it, of course. I could barely make the characters punch and kick, let alone pull off the complicated combination of button pushes and joystick tugs that would trigger a signature move. It was fun (and oddly social) to watch, but not very interesting to play.

But today, I was introduced to a project that made both the video game and politics seem... well... awesome. Behold:




Paul's "church and state" move and "red vest straitjacket" seem unbeatable, honestly. But Romney was able to easily fight off him and Herman Cain's "creepy ad" power move. Impressive! And round 2:



There are a lot of cheap shots, but hey--art imitates life, right? And the Republican primary was indeed pretty brutal, rhetorically speaking. How will the rest of the battles shape up? We have less than five weeks to find out. Here's hoping the actual campaign has an exciting finishing move... except, of course, with a lot less blood.

Rain

Maybe it has something to do with growing up on the plains, where summer storms are plentiful, powerful, and visible from a long way off, but I have always found myself soothed or even oddly moved by a good deluge. Rain snick-snicking on an umbrella is a treat (unless you are trying to carry a bunch of things and stay dry at the same time); the white noise of a nighttime shower is a relaxing blanket when you’re trying to sleep (unless you suddenly remember you left the windows in your car open). Waiting out a rainstorm at a baseball stadium, an excuse to enjoy a beer, a hotdog and a cooling breeze in the middle of August. Laughing as you get caught in a downpour with someone you love.

The first short story I ever sold was called “Rain,” and the protagonist sought solace from his current situation—caught in the teeth of a steamy, jungle-based South American war—in the memories of childhood rainstorms.

Needless to say, it rains all the time here. Sometimes it’s annoying, like when I forget my umbrella or was planning to spend the day doing something outside.

But a lot of the time I find it stirs a sort of quiet contemplation.

Lightning flashes over the hills of Kowloon at night. A maelstrom of rain turns the air over the harbor opaque. A morning storm wakes me up with thunder and apocalyptically gray skies, and after pouring some coffee, I watch the rain pummel the pavement 13 stories down.

Yeah. There’s no telling why, exactly, I feel this way about heavy rain. But here in Hong Kong, I’m glad I do.

What would you do?

People living in the UAE consider it very safe. Violent crime is minimal and, for the most part, limited to the rather dismal industrial areas and prefab cities where "laborers," i.e., construction workers, are housed in massive, cramped barracks.

The main reason for this is that the justice system is horribly out of whack and you don't want to get caught up in it, even if you're innocent. If you're guilty (or found guilty), even some of the most minor offenses, like shoplifting, can get you deported. And for most of the blue-collar folks here--in other words, the have-nots, those most likely to commit theft--that's an economic death sentence, as their home countries offer worse wages, worse living conditions and fewer opportunities.

So what would you do if this happened to you?

Paying the taxi, I realised I'd left my wallet in the car. I called the girl at the service centre and headed back to Al Habtoor. I was laughing and joking with her as we got to the car together and I picked up my wallet, which had been relieved of its cash contents, about Dhs400 in all.

It didn't sink in at all until later. Someone had actually taken money from my car. To those of you living elsewhere, this will come as no surprise, you're probably sitting there thinking, 'Like, obviously, duh' and I appreciate why you would. But I live in one of the safest places in the world. We're all of us on the hog's back here, from labourers through to CEOs we're all in the UAE because we're better off than we would be back at home. Any criminal conviction, once you've done your time in El Slammer, means getting sent home and so crime, for the vast majority of us, doesn't pay.

The service centre manager was, I was told, investigating. After a while, he'd drawn a blank and, well, that was sort of that, really. I asked him to call the police. He said they wouldn't do anything, he'd had experience of this sort of thing before. I insisted. He refused. I pointed out it was his secure area, his employee and his responsibility. He said they had internal procedures and he couldn't call the police. I asked him to escalate to someone who could call the police and he ignored me. It all got a little heated. It wasn't really about Dhs400 by now, but about someone who had chosen to steal from me. I called the police myself. After ringing out twice, the 999 number answered. I had tried calling police HQ, but they didn't answer at all. You do wonder sometimes.

The CID chap turned up, a young chap in a baseball cap and dishdash. The service centre manager and I explained (he had no English) and he nodded sagely and took my ID, borrowing a pen and piece of paper from the manager to write down my details. Watching him, I was strongly reminded of our friend captain Mohammed filling out Paul's charge sheet in Olives, his tongue stuck out in concentration...

At this point one of the service staff popped in and put a wad of money on the manager's desk and murmered a name. I got the impression the staff had taken matters into their own hands - nobody really wants CID snooping around their workplace asking awkward questions. The culprit was called for - the most stupid thief imaginable - the man whose job it was to drive the cars around to the storage area prior to work commencing. He had already been through 20 minutes of questioning with the manager before the police were called and had professed his innocence. Now he broke down and pleaded for mercy.

On the one hand, you have been robbed. Dh400 is about US$100, not a ton of money but not trivial either. And there is principle to consider as well; no one likes the idea of a wrongdoer simply getting away with it.

On the other hand, in the U.S. stealing $100 would be a misdemeanor. The offender gets a fine, maybe some community service. Jail time is not likely unless they are wanted for some other crime too. To me, that's appropriate. It's punishment commensurate with the severity of the theft. In the UAE, as we see above, that guy is getting tossed out of the country, whether he winds up in court or not. I'm not sure I would want that on my conscience.

It actually reminds me of something that happened to me and Mrs. Blog the last time we were in the World's Greatest City. While walking back to our hotel on Michigan Avenue, a commotion broke out at a sidewalk restaurant ahead of us. A young man came sprinting out of the crowd, followed by cries of, "Stop that guy! He stole my phone!" I and a couple of other people who happened to be in front of him kind of corralled him and kept him from running. The woman whose phone had been jacked ran up and yelled at him. We let go of his arms and he gave the phone back.

And then everyone kind of unconsciously took a step back as the woman continued to berate him. He apologized, she shouted one last obscenity at him, and then he jogged away.

No one stopped him. Why? Again, I think it is that feeling that maybe holding this guy and calling the police might be a bit too much. He stole something, he got caught, end of story. I'm not sure that was the right thing to do, but collectively, that's what everyone apparently decided. If it happened again--or, more important, if Mrs. Blog or I were the person whose phone had been stolen--I might do things differently and get the police involved.

But here, having seen the way the police and courts operate, I think I would be predisposed toward not allowing them to punish someone for a minor theft. Right or wrong, I think I would rather get my money back and leave it at that. Justice may or may not have been served, but my life would barely be affected by losing Dh400, and it seems disproportionate to ruin someone else's life as a result.

I'm proud to be an American...

... where at least I know I'm free, and that my countrymen spent $27 million on a museum "proving" creationism.

For a group of paleontologists, a tour of the Creation Museum seemed like a great tongue-in-cheek way to cap off a serious conference.

But while there were a few laughs and some clowning for the camera, most left more offended than amused by the frightening way in which evolution -- and their life's work -- was attacked.

"It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

I mean, that's just painful. I knew about this place before, but the silliness is driven home by the reactions of the scientists touring it. And I know silliness is not a uniquely American trait, but geez, you know, in a country where my modest word-slinger's salary is the equivalent of eight taxi drivers', misspent funds--not to mention misguided ideals--sting just a little bit more.

But hey. It's Canada Day. So let's all just take a deep breath, pop open a Molson and relax. Ten million years from now, we can look back on all of this and laugh.

Certain universal truths

It's a cool thing to look up at the night sky and know that anyone on the planet has the same view of the moon you do (or will, once the Earth rotates a few more degrees). For me, anyway, it's comforting to know that the Fiance of the Blog and I share the same place in the universe on a grand scale.

And the stars in general have always fascinated me. I remember the first time I really saw the Milky Way: I was taking a night-time shower in Paraguay, trying not to think too hard about the fact that anyone with a flashlight could get as good a view as they wanted, and I looked up. Bam. The entire galaxy was spread out above me. It helped that there were maybe a dozen electric lights in the surrounding 100 square miles.

Kind of like this:

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

So Texans are good for something. If nothing else, it's a reminder that no matter what stars you see, your relationship to them is tiny and unchanging.