The girls at Kidopolis

Yesterday, after a rather successful day at work, I got home to find that Omaha was stressing out over the presentation she was going to be given to a Toastmasters-like group she's been working with for the past year in association with her radio group. I agreed, therefore, to take both girls out to dinner and play at Kidopolis.

Dinner was at Zoopas, one of those all-you-can-eat buffet places with a good selection but spotty production. Sometimes their food is far too salty for human consumption. This time it was not so bad, but there was one moment of pure wrongness: they had pho. Pho is hard to get wrong; so many places seem to sell it and most do a passable job, although when you've had really good pho it is truly a sublime experience. This was truly bad pho: the broth was terribly bland and boring, there weren't enough sprouts, there was one pathetic leaf of cilantro and no basil whatsoever. They had the red pepper paste, but it had been left out and dried a bit; all the flavor oils had evaporated, leaving only pure hotness. It was a good, healthy hotness, but most hot sauces add something else, some savory flavor, and that's what connoisseurs look for.

In contrast to our last visit, both girls were very well-behaved this time. Yamaarashi-chan wore her eyepatch now so she wouldn't have to while at Kidopolis. At times I went with them to the various buffets, and at other times I let them go by themselves. For Yamaarashi-chan this was no problem, but Kouryou-chan was pleased that I let her go back to get her own utensils and drink.

After dinner, we went over to Kidopolis to let them run off their desserts. They wilded over the entire three-floors of human habitrail, chasing other girls and having a good time. I stayed on the ground for most of the evening but chased them up to the top for one round. While I was on the ground, they climbed to the top and made funny faces at me. Kouryou-chan shouted "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy Sternberg!" It was very cute.

Afterward, I herded the girls into the car. Kouryou-chan thrilled that I had found a dance remix version of the opening song from Little Snow Fairy Sugar. I took Kouryou-chan home, then took Yamaarashi-chan back to her mother's house.

I spent half-an-hour doing some data cleanup. I need to find a way to automate that process-- is there an external way to tell if a bittorrent is finished?

Non-Zero Utilitarianism and Terri Schiavo

What I'm going to say is probably unpleasant to contemplate, but take it at face value. Most of humanity has, for most of human history, loathed and feared other human beings who lack "local" characteristics: "they" have a different color, or speak a different language, or worship a different god. There's not much controversy in that claim.

There is only one group that has, more or less, ignored race, religion, culture, and language, and gleefully interacted with any shape, any color, overcoming language barriers in their pursuit of what they truly wanted. They were not philosophers, scientists, or theologians. No, the one group that really wanted to ignore the differences among men and enjoy only their commonality has been, for centuries, reviled by most right-thinking people.

They were the traders. In pursuit of profit, they ignored everything that was irrelevant to a man's character. Sometimes, this resulted in uglinesses of their own, but you can't deny that 15th century Venetians, 2nd century Romans, and 12th century Chinese merchants ignored what history and tradition said about their neighbors; they simply traded.

Traders have always been mistrusted. They violate the bonds of the tribe and override the instinct to "stick with one's own" in pursuit of something more interesting: economic power.

As unpleasant as it is to contemplate, we tribal humans have never regarded "them, over there" as useful, as worthy, as humans like us until their well-being becomes synonymous with our own, until we understand that their decline would result in our own. Once we've engaged "other people" in a non-zero-sum economic relationship, they become a part of "us." No other human institution has had the power to make us see others as equals quite the way capitalism has succeeded.

As hard and unpleasant as it is to contemplate, Terri Schiavo is no longer "one of us." One of the doctors arguing on the parent's behalf has said that Terri "has the mental capacity of a seven-month-old child, and you wouldn't starve a baby to death, would you?" But a seven-month-old baby is expected to grow up, to become someone, to contribute to the well-being of the community.

Terri has not had that capacity for fifteen years and, if medical knowledge and experience are anything to go on, Terri will never, ever have that ability again. You and I have no vested interest in what happens to Terri at this point. All we can-- and should-- do is trust our spouses, those empowered to speak for us when we can no longer speak for ourselves, to make the best choices on our behalf.

The Schindlers have invited this international voyeurism and have begged for judicial and legislative intervention into this tradition. They have allowed sentiment and deception to override a loving husband's best understanding of what his wife would want. But we should not look away from the harsh truth: Whether Terri lives or dies matters not one whit to our society anymore. But the legacy her parents leave behind will haunt us for decades to come.

What Terry Schiavo has taught me about today.

The Terry Schiavo case has made me aware of a couple of things:

I'm getting a living will. It may not matter, as the recent scuffle points out that my intimate and private decisions about the disposition of my own body can be overridden by Congress in a show of pure power politics. But I'm getting one anyway. I'm with PZ Meyers on this one: "In the event I am in a persistent vegitative state and a member of Congress threatens to interfere with my care, I hereby authorize my doctors to rewire my brainstem so my body can shamble over and rip his fucking head off." How does the whole "culture of life" thing deal with the undead anyway?

Bush continues to play the hypocrite. When was the last time the SCLM (So-called Liberal Media) told you about the Texas Futile Care Law? This is a law that then-Governor George W. Bush signed, that allowed hospitals to pull the plug on patients in Terry Schiavo's state if the hospital cannot find a private entity to fund the patient's ongonig care; the state will not be on the hook to hopeless cases.

The senate has lost all premise to principle. Pure sentimentality and a ruthless pandering to a perceived base have overridden any notions of personal automonomy or established family law.

Rick Santorum continues to be full of, um, santorum. Santorum spearheaded the legislsation, and this morning said that the federal judges who listened to the Schindler's appeals were "thumbing their nose" at Congress, since Congress's intent was clearly to tell the judiciary to put the tube back in first, then attend to the law second.

Republicans on this are not in touch with America. 70% of Americans think Terri should be allowed to pass; 87% of Americans believe that if they were in the same shape they'd want someone to pull the goddamn plug. And 67% of Americans think Congress is grandstanding. Between this and the Baseball Steroids hearing, could there be any more grandstanding?

I know how this feels!

I know exactly how this feels:

Transhumanism and the Terry Schiavo case

Okay, eventually I'll have said enough about this. Unless something more outrageous comes up, go read Hilzoy's analysis on Obsidian Wings about the case. That and Majikthise more or less say what I want to say about the present.

But what interests me more is that the Schiavo case represents one of a series of important battles in the rights of posthumans. Congress has chosen to intervene in someone's right to control the disposition of their own anatomy. In this case, the issue is one of decline; in the case of transhumanism the issue is one of enhancement.

As Congress evermore tightens its panopticon opinion of what you do with your body, as it works to limit tatooing and body piercing and what will ultimately biophysical enhancements, as groups agitate to make salt a controlled substance, I wonder if we aren't going to reach a state where every meal will require a prescription and any chance of improvement will be squashed as inegalitarian.

[King County] More on the Trucks at Seatac

Apparently, the locals have been raising holy hades over the trucks at the airport thing I earlier commented on. Omaha attended a meeting recently in her guise as a Democrat to find out that the trucks are both overweight and uncovered, and the highway patrol office is using between twelve and sixteen troopers per day to monitor the trucks. The troopers are writing tickets constantly.

The port authority has written this off as "business as usual," and both it and the construction companies are writing off the tickets as part of the price to pay for getting the runway done on time. They can do this because they're absolutely flush with taxpayer cash from property taxes, which is being funnelled to, um, state coffers by way of the state patrol.

Twelve to sixteen public peace and safety officers per day are spending their time recycling public funds in a fashion that could be covered by four port inspectors, and in a far more wasteful fashion.

[Polyamory] Covenant Marriage: A little jump to the Left!

If you're poly, remember this name: Elizabeth F. Emens. Ms. Emens has written an absolutely brilliant paper called Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence, available only in paper from The New York University Review of Law and Social Change, a journal for which my uncle used to be senior editor.

Emens makes a rather elegant case for extending the logic of gay marriage to legalized polyamory. She extends the argument from bisexuality: first, accept that some people do manage to be monogamous their whole lives, but also accept that many do not. There exists a continuum of individuals from intensely monogamous to intensely polyamorous, just as there exists a contiuum of individuals from intensely heterosexual to intensely homosexual. The argument from innateness is irrelevant. The question is simple: how do we adress the moral needs of those existent people now at the far end of the spectrum?

And Emens has an utterly, wonderfully clever argument for putting polyamorous relationships on a strong legal footing: covenant marriage.

A few states offer covenant marriages. The idea is simple: A covenant marriage is not covered under no-fault divorce laws. Instead of a traditional marriage license, the couple chooses to get a covenant marriage license which mandates, in part, that the couple may not get divorced without first receiving counselling and spending a significant period of time separated but actively seeking reconciliation.

It's clear from the source that covenant marriage is a religiously-inspired idea, but it's also clear that since anyone can apply for it, it serves a quasi-secular purpose and so is legal under the Establishment Clause.

If that's the case, Emens proposes her alternative: nonmongamous marriage. If the right can craft a menu of marriage licenses from "standard" to "strict," she suggests making monogamy itself another item on the menu. Couples could choose up front, by agreement, that their marriage will not include monogamy as a given.

This is something polyamorists have been arguing for years: that the assumption of monogamy in marriage, without explicit discussion, is harmful to marriage in general. Emens has created the foundation of a framework for mainstreaming polyamory while leaving intact the structure the right has been trying to create-- indeed, she's using their tools.

The American tradition of "fairness and equality before the law" now becomes a crowbar in the hand of polyamorists: if they have a law for their way of marriage, why can't polyamorists have one as well?