music

Item the First: Happy Halloween!

Item the Second: Kiddies, by Self, a Song About Tricks and/or Treats.

Item the Third: Lady Bug and Poodle Skirt Find Cymbals More Fun When Shared.

My casual observation suggests that children of lawyers are more likely to be lawyers than the general population. So the good news/bad news is: Being a Lawyer and Male Makes You a Top Earner, Census Report Shows.

On a related note, do you think Woody Guthrie realized when he was writing This Land is Your Land that it would not achieve perfection until recorded by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings in 2005? Have a listen:

Enjoy!

How dost thou afford thine rock n’ roll lifestyle?

Part way through the first chapter of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond starts into a pretty interesting story about extinction. Sg, you seem to be pretty keen on animals, so maybe one day you'll find this interesting. The story goes like this: animals that evolved over thousands of years alongside humans developed a wariness about our species. This development probably started when we first started tipping over turtles, so that by the time we had the technology and language skills to bring down big game, most of the local animal kingdom understood that humans = being had for dinner.

Not so in places where humans weren't. When humans arrived in new lands with spears and hunting parties, they were able to walk right up to big and little tasty beasties alike and skrrrrkkk. (That's the finger-being-slid-across-the-neck noise.) The result — fairly rapid extinction.

Mr. Diamond rattled off a few of these species (some I'd never heard of) that sounded cool enough to write down and check out later. This is that later, and these are those animals. Behold:

(A little extinction music, please —)

1. Australian Megafauna.

These guys lived in Australia until the boats started arriving, about 35,000 years ago.

1.1. Giant Kangaroo.

Red Kangaroos are big enough to scare me a little bit. These extinct giants (Procoptodon goliah) stood as high as three meters tall, which (in case we still aren't teaching the metric system) means that a big one could stand up in our hallway, but without much room to spare. Each of its legs ended a single giant claw. Very creepy. Thank you, early Australian settlers, for making sure that I never see one of these outside of my nightmares. (It probably doesn't help that the one in the drawing here is kind of watching you out of the corner of its beady eye, just waiting for you to let your guard down; then it's HOP!! SKRRRRKKK!!)

(Still thinking you'll sleep soundly tonight? What if I told you that there was also a carnivorous kangaroo? Here's a picture.)

1.2. A Wombat the Size of a Rhino.

Seriously — a two-ton relative of the wombat and the koala standing six feet tall at the shoulders. The Diprotodon may be the source of the aboriginal legend of the Bunyip. (What's up with the Australian tic of giving everything cute names? Bunyips sound like something that might be kind of sweet, not like beasts whose "blood-curdling cries can be heard as they devour any animal that ventures near their abodes.") Again, the extinction of the Diprotodon went something like this:

Invading human: Mind if I stab you to death?
Diprotodon: Sure, why not. I don't know what "stabbing" or "death" are, but it's a nice afternoon and I'm up for whatever. Maybe after we skrrrrkkk.

1.3. Marsupial Leopard.

I'll just turn this one right over to Wikipedia:

Pound for pound, Thylacoleo carnifex had the strongest bite of any mammal species living or extinct; a 100 kg (220 lb) T. carnifex had a bite comparable to that of a 250 kg (551 lb) African Lion and is thought to have hunted large animals such as Diprotodon spp. and giant kangaroos. It also had extremely strong forelimbs, with retractable catlike claws, a trait previously unseen in marsupials. Thylacoleo also possessed enormous hooded claws set on large semi-opposable thumbs, which were used to capture and disembowel prey. The long muscular tail was similar to that of a kangaroo. Specialized tail bones called chevrons allowed the animal to tripod itself, and freed the front legs for slashing and grasping.

Its strong forelimbs, retracting claws and incredibly powerful jaws mean that it may have been possible for Thylacoleo to climb trees and perhaps to carry carcasses to keep the kill for itself (similar to the leopard today). Due to its unique predatory morphology, scientists repeatedly claim Thylacoleo to be the most specialized mammalian carnivore of all time.

Now you know the answer to the following question: "An animal the size of a leopard is tripodding itself while slashing at you with its retractable claws; you try desperately to stay clear of its steel-trap jaws; you know that even if the animal does not succeed in killing you and dragging your carcass into a nearby tree, it has a tiny version of itself hidden in its pocket to finish you off; what animal is mauling you?" How about a picture? This one (from Wikipedia) makes it look like a buff cousin of Pikachu:

But check these out:

1.4. Reptiles.

The Megalania is related to the komodo dragon, but twice the size. As in 7 meters (23 feet) long. The guy who named it was combining the Greek words for "great" (for obvious reasons) and "roamer" (because it's a terrestrial lizard, see). But the combination is the same thing you'd get if you combined the Greek words for "great" and "butcher". Ooops! I'll just point this out — along with the shifty-eyed drawing of the giant kangaroo up there — as examples of how extinct species do not hire public relations representatives.

Also, there was a seven meter-long crocodile with legs under its body (all the better to chase you through your nightmares with) that had blade-like teeth for slicing. And a ten meter-long python. Ten meters! That means it could eat its own tail for 15 feet before it would be all like "I'm halfway through eating myself!"

2. Dodo.

The dodo first met humans in 1581 and was extinct 100 years later. A record? (No, probably not. The moa was a 12 ft tall flightless bird living in New Zealand whose only predator was Haast's eagle, with a wingspan of 10 ft, until the Maori killed the last moa less than 100 years later; the eagles had nothing to eat, so they all decided to die too.) Dodos don't taste very good, they say, so maybe we just screwed up their environment.

3. Giant Lemur.

I'm getting sleepy, but before I go, I'll just toss out there that there once were giant lemurs in Madagascar (pleased to meet you, little green bird)…

4. Giant Flightless Geese.

…and there were giant flightless geese in Hawaii and we're done.

July Fourth:

July Fifth:

Bonus Tunage:

Soul Makossa
by Lafayette Afro Rock Band
from Soul Makossa

Sg, I hope that it will one day strike you as odd that you lived in a time when most of America forbade same-sex marriage. It certainly blows my mind a little that my parents (who still don't seem all that old to me) lived in a time of separate water fountains for blacks and whites. And it still hasn't been 100 years since women were allowed to vote in U.S. federal elections! These kinds of institutionalized prejudices are costly to maintain, yet there are groups that somehow find the energy to keep them up.

For example, there are people who claim to have thought about same-sex marriage and come to the conclusion that it poses a threat to the welfare of our society. In other words, they are trying to keep gays and lesbians from marrying other gays and lesbians, respectively, not because it icks them out, but because failure to do so would weaken or destroy our civilization. Here's an example of that kind of argument from a website called Defend Marriage:

Marriage has been understood and transmitted down through the centuries and across civilizations as a man married to a woman. It has been proven^[1] to be the best institution in which to provide for the continuance of life, to protect and provide for children and to train them to be good citizens and responsible members of society.

Governments and society have uniformly granted benefits and protections to men and women in marriage because of their biological potential to bear and effectively raise the next generation.^[2] Since homosexual relationships are based entirely on "feelings"^[3] and a particular type of sexual activity, rather than on producing and nurturing the next generation,^[4] legalizing same-sex "marriages" would create a new standard by which a "right"^[5] to marry would be recognized. This would then open the door to any kind of "marriage" which met this standard, such as letting any number of people "marry" each other, allowing close blood relatives to "marry," permitting adults to "marry" children and so on.^[6]

One of the biggest threats to legalizing same-sex "marriage" is that it would make it more difficult to prevent same-sex couples from adopting children. Studies show^[7] that the incidence of child abuse in same-sex "families"^[8] is many times higher than in traditional families and that children in homosexual families are more likely to suffer emotional problems.

This illustrates fairly well that the people who are against same-sex marriage, and who also don't want to admit to plain old bigotry, need to frame their argument as a defense of what they call "traditional marriage."^[9] I have always found that idea to be pretty ridiculous — is my marriage somehow worth less if same-sex marriage is legal? But this morning I read something that changed my mind.

Amanda Marcotte (who, studies have shown, is awesome), writing at Reproductive Health Reality Check says:

just because conservatives dance around why same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage, it doesn't mean they're crazy or don't have their reasons for opposing it. Mostly, they know that their reasons won't sit well with the general public. Which is why I read with amusement Tara Parker-Pope's piece in the New York Times about why same-sex relationships might be healthier on average than opposite-sex marriages.

The article had a tin ear for what makes opponents of same-sex marriage fearful. Conservatives say that gay marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage, and this article all but answered, "Oh yes it is and thank God for it."

The article she refers to describes research that indicates that there is less inequality in same-sex marriages:

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

Did you catch that last bit? A disproportionate share of the burden of domestic strife is borne by women in heterosexual relationships. Same-sex couples tend to share the burdens more evenly. It is straight married men, then, who are receiving a bonus from marriage. If same-sex marriages become common, it seems reasonable to think that some of that marriage egalitarianism will slip into the mainstream. As Ms. Marcotte puts it:

The Times article argues that the equality modeled by same-sex relationships could influence opposite-sex marriages to adopt that kind of equality. This is exactly the assault on "traditional" marriage that conservatives are talking about.

... Opposite-sex couples can learn how to relate more equitably, and equal marriages are happier.

Happier, pray tell, for whom?

Not for the men who would suddenly be living in a world where dishes don't just do themselves and diapers aren't changed by magic. Men who face the prospect of having to give up being right in every conflict, having to take the wife's opinion on finances seriously, or even of having their right to name their wives after themselves called into question might dispute the idea that they'd be "happier" in this new egalitarian world.

Falling
(Obi Blanche Remix)
by Norman Palm

I hope that one day, when you are reflecting on the crazies who once tried to keep same-sex marriage illegal, it is from a world where the inequality they were defending is a generally-recognized ill. I hope it is from a world where there is no real question that sexism is not, in fact, simply the way things were meant to be.