Here's the CNN home page a 11:46 p.m. EST, on the day that Congress repealed the odious old Clinton-era legislation:
So, a woman has a baby. That's the main thing. Secondarily, there's North Korea. And "Dont miss" the fact that C.S. Lewis is still popular, there's a lot of Christmas trash, and geeks are "cooler than nerds." In the fine print, the DADT repeal is listed under "Latest news," after a "moderate" earthquake in Indonesia and before the fact that it's been cold in Europe.
The case is Perry v. Schwarzenegger. You can watch live on C-SPAN. I'll update with comments soon.
UPDATE: You can read some details about the case here. I'll have some of my own impressions in a little while.
UPDATE 2: You can watch the whole oral argument here. The first hour of the argument dealt with the threshold question of standing. California Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown were the original defendants in the case, and they have opted not to appeal. Proponents of Prop 8 (which banned same-sex marriage) need a way to intervene using some other party with a personal stake in the outcome or the decision of the district judge, finding Prop 8 unconstitutional, will be the final word on the subject.
It seems as though there should be appellate review, but the constitutional limits on federal court jurisdiction don't depend on how important it is for an issue to be heard. There are technical requirements, and it seems as though the plaintiffs' lawyers did a clever job of setting things up so a district court decision in their favor would be insulated from appellate review. But listening to the oral argument, I got the impression the judges thought it was too clever.
In the second hour, the substantive question boiled down to whether there was a rational basis for excluding gay people from marriage. The pro-Prop 8 side rested heavily on the fact that only heterosexual couples produce babies accidentally. But that has so little to do with the value of excluding gay people from the status of marriage. It's hard even to understand why reserving marriage to heterosexuals would make them do a better job of deploying their reproductive powers. Why should gay people, who aren't even the problem, bear the burden?
April finally comes up with the quote that my quote from Larry Tribe reminded her of. I was riffing on "Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsberg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy's mind." The quote that had found purchase in April's brain was from from "Raising Arizona."
What if the odd and arch use of the word "purchase" gained purchase in Larry Tribe's brain because he'd watched "Raising Arizona." Suddenly "the idea of the image Tribe had of Kennedy's brain" is funny in a whole new way. "Justice Kennedy's brain/womb was a barren desert in which Breyer/Ginsburg's seed could find no purchase." Tribe thought Elena Kagan would be much better at.... what?
But it's not such an odd image. We speak of fertilizing minds and seminal ideas and gestating thoughts and mindfucks.
By week four, we can pretty much say that Bristol has never looked happy to be here and we're beginning to suspect that somebody else talked her into doing this gig to serve, well, somebody else's ambitions. Bristol keeps bringing up the Big Contradiction in the Room, and she does it again tonight, in a rerun clip from Monday: "I go around and I talk about abstinence and then I'm here in my underwear doing a dance about sex and stuff, so hopefully it goes well -- hopefully I can pull it off," she's heard to say as we see her, wearing only a large white shirt and opaque stockings, preparing for Monday's dance. We can see her future speaking engagements: "Don't be like me girls. Don't get pregnant -- and don't go on celebrity dance competitions!"
I'm here in my underwear... hopefully I can pull it off...
By the way, I really wish I'd titled this post "Let's take a closer look at that fleshy display."
The Russians gradually lose interest in marriage and family. Recent opinion polls conducted in the Krasnoyarsk region showed that 72 of each 100 marriages end with divorce. Demographers say that family as a social unit became irrational because of the financial crisis. Psychologists explain the current trend with the development of new culture and substitution of notions. It is not ruled out that the institute of marriage will vanish in the near future....
What makes Russians live in loneliness? Every specialist would have their own opinion regarding the subject and all of them would be right in their own way.
It was believed that by denying a pregnant woman’s request, people incurred all kinds of misfortune. If a pregnant stranger knocked at someone's door, she had to be let in, fed and given overnight shelter. You could not raise voice at or scold a pregnant woman.
Russia on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the space flight of two dogs who became the first living creatures to circle the Earth and come back alive.
It brings attention and money to the impoverished places around the world, but this NYT op-ed, by Kennedy Odede says it shouldn't be done.
I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.
When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”...
I once saw [a tour go] into the home of a young woman giving birth. They stood and watched as she screamed. Eventually the group continued on its tour, cameras loaded with images of a woman in pain.
Odede stacks the deck with these anecdotes about completely inappropriate photography. Rude tourists with cameras are a notorious problem in many contexts. I'm sure proponents of slum tourism would assert that they follow good rules for photography, or they could fix the existing tours by enforcing new photography rules.
So the question remains, is the tourism wrong apart from the bad photography? I think it is, but then, I am not the slightest bit tempted to travel like this.
I can't imagine thinking that I am a better, more engaged citizen of the world because I spend money and effort to go look at things in person that I am capable of learning about the way I would learn about history: by reading. If I can't understand and empathize by reading, that is my problem, and I'd be ashamed to try to solve that problem by imposing my physical presence on people who are suffering.
"It’s likely that there are women who try to get pregnant on purpose in order to maintain or change a relationship. But now we can also say that there is another part of this story that we have not paid enough attention to: men’s direct role in promoting pregnancy against women’s wishes. It’s not the only cause of teen pregnancy, but it’s one that we’d managed to miss for a very long time."
Have we really missed this? I thought it was the oldest story in the book — embodied in the phrase "keep them barefoot and pregnant."
A study in BMC Public Health found 12% more male babies were lost in September 2001 after the 20th week of pregnancy than in a "normal" September.
Data says fewer boys were born in all states three to four months after 9/11....
Dr Tim Bruckner, who led the research at the University of California, Irvine... said: "Across many species, stressful times reportedly reduce the male birth rate.
"This is commonly thought to reflect some mechanism conserved by natural selection to improve the mother's overall reproductive success."
Maybe the problem was just that it's bad — or not good enough to justify lowering the taste level. We (might) laugh at the Jerry Springer show, but the Oscars are immensely glamorous, and crudeness is out of place. Out of place can generate humor, but who should be permitted to appropriate the glamour for comic effect and what are the costs? Isn't it mostly women who enjoy the Oscars? Quite aside from how James Cameron will feel, how will the show's natural audience feel?
But let me go one step further. Here's my theory: The Hollywood elite want the Democrats health care bill to make it through, and one stumbling block is abortion. The producers have therefore deemed this not to be a good time to highlight and laugh about undesired pregnancy. The unwanted unborn child is an overwhelmingly serious matter for people who care about the right to life. Don't antagonize them with edgy, blatant material. Not now.
But then after I thought that and thought the Instapundit thought (that men have a shorter life span), I saw the First Lady's point. Women may depend more heavily on the health care system, especially early in life when they need to manage their fertility. Childbirth and its alternatives — other than celibacy — require medical help. And babies and young children need their doctor visits, and a lot more women than men take responsibility for getting them.
[N]ew research into why the gap in male and female life spans exists suggests that a natural male propensity toward risky and daredevil behavior may be one reason men don't live as long as women....
More men than women die in car accidents, other types of accidents, homicides, and suicides, the researchers note. They add that in the U.S., the gender gap in death rates peaks in young adulthood and is mainly due to behavior.
And let's not forget that some of that male violence is directed at women — another reason women seek medical care.
Moreover, without advanced health care, the male life span would be greater:
“Up until very recently in human terms, life expectancy for men was greater than for women,” [said] Carol J. Hogue .... a professor of maternal and child health and of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health....
Why did women overtake men in life expectancy?...
“The major killer in early life for women was maternal mortality, and that has been tamed considerably, whereas the major killer for men is violence and accidents, and that has not gone down as dramatically as childbirth deaths have gone down,” Hogue says.
Women shouldn’t take their longer life expectancy for granted. The 2004 gender gap in U.S. life expectancy was the smallest it’s been since 1946. If women continue to adopt unhealthy habits like smoking, the gap may narrow further....
So, I'm going to say that Michelle Obama is right, that health care has a special women's angle, and it made sense to mobilize the rarely-seen female figurehead to tell us so.
If she could just squeeze that crying tone out of her voice. Stop hamming it up. Talk straight using real facts and tie it to actual provisions in a legislative text so we can check your work.
***
As for that belt. I know everyone is talking about the belt MO wore. Some people are perceiving a 3-D quality that make it look like it holds bullets. But it is flat, and it just happens not to be flattering.
Somebody has apparently decided that MO should accentuate what might be the narrowest part of her body, the very high waist. This theory has been taken to an extreme with wide leather belts. But the circumference isn't that small. And the "waist" at that level includes the rib cage. It's right over the diaphragm. You can't cinch that belt tight without restricting breathing. I'm thinking the belt looks bad, worse than her stylists realize, because she's giving herself breathing room.
I'm guessing Michelle is feeling chafed and constricted by a lot of things, and that belt isn't just literally suffocating her, but it's reminding her of all the many ways she's being reined in and tied down. It makes you want to let that belt out another notch. Or take if off all together. Use it as a whip. But no, she really can't. She's got to be First Ladylike. So here she is murmuring feelingly about women's health.
Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.
The first lady, in gray slacks and blue sweater, marveled that the people were "so pumped up" despite the rain. "I have never seen so many people so excited about fruits and vegetables!" she said.
Did she say that with admiration? I'm sure she tried. I imagine her thinking: They made me do this. They've consigned me to the vegetable department. Why the fuck are you people here?
The first lady picked up a straw basket and... she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and... two bunches of Tuscan kale. She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.
There now. Are you satisfied? I am not carrying this thing, and I am not doing any money transactions. Now get me the hell out of here. Where's my limousine?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking her. I sympathize. All this feminism for all these years and the First Lady — the First Lady with a Princeton and a Harvard Law degree and who had been the prime moneymaker in her family — gets squashed in the vegetable bin and squelched by an ugly belt to the solar plexus.
