Umbral Echoes Blog

As time goes on, the debate over gay marriage makes less and less sense to me. Why is it even a question?  There is no moral, legal, or even religious argument for why gay marriage should not be allowed within the law.

Here are some reasons why people argue against gay marriage, followed by why those reasons are not valid concerns.

• Gay marriage is against the Bible
  Well that’s fine. No one is trying to force your church to hold a marriage ceremony for two people that it doesn’t agree with.  If your argument is that gay marriage should be illegal because the Christian church (mostly) disagrees with it, I point you toward one of the founding principles of our country: the separation of church and state.
• Gay marriage is wrong because it can’t produce offspring
  If a woman is incapable of bearing children, should she be disallowed from getting married?  I doubt you’d agree to that.  Oh, but the barren woman could adopt,you say?  Well then why not a gay couple?  The arguments for/against gay people being allowed to adopt is, I feel, a separate issue.  However, undoubtedly you’ll say…
• Gay people shouldn’t have kids because there is no father/mother figure
  Then if a child’s father dies, and the mother doesn’t immediately re-marry, you absolutely must be in favor of taking the child away from the mother into protective services.  What, you’re not in favor of that? That’s not the same? Yes it is. In fact, it’s an even worse situation for the child, if anything — at least with a gay couple, it is not a single-parent situation.
• If we allow gay marriage, then what’s to stop us from allowing a man and his dog to get married?
  Really? Does anyone seriously think that this argument holds water? They must, because I’ve seen it in so many places. Marriage is a legal contract between two people of age. Two people. If you can’t enter into a contract with something (which you can’t, with an animal), then you can’t marry it. Why is that so hard to understand?

The exact same arguments being made against gay marriage today were made against interracial marriage many years ago — it’s against the Bible, it’s immoral, it’s not good for the kids, most people are against it.  Decades from now when gay marriage is allowed (I firmly believe it’s inevitable that it will be), the people who are giving those arguments against gay marriage will be looked upon the same way that we now look upon the people who gave those arguments against interracial marriage.

Honestly, I think the term “marriage” should be removed altogether from the law, in favor of civil unions for everyone.  If John and Jane want to get married, that’s fine — the law recognizes it as a civil union, the same as if John and Dick want to do the same thing. Again, let’s remember that one of the concepts that this nation was founded on is the separation of church and state. Christianity should be treated no differently, where the government is concerned, than any other religion.

Let it never be said that I’m not willing to try new things, and change my opinions.

Many moons ago, before I discovered this magical nugget called the iPhone, I thought that texting was pretty silly.  Why take 30 seconds writing something out when you could call someone and say it in a fraction of that time?  The phone companies charge extra money to add text messaging to your plan (though I’ll be damned if I know why, other than “because we can”), it’s cumbersome, and impersonal.

Well, recently I’ve discovered that text messaging does have a few good uses.

• At work — When at work, or other places you can’t have a voice conversation, text messaging lets you keep in touch with people.
• Noisy environments — When you’re at a concert, it’s sort of a pain to yell into the phone to tell your friend to shave and queue up the porn for some dirty fun later on.
• Low signal areas — I’ve been in several places where you can’t get enough reception to talk, but there’s still enough of that magical digital bandwidth to push a few characters through.
• When you don’t want to interrupt — Need to ask someone something, but it’s not really that high priority, and they might be in the middle of something more important?  A text works nicely.

I find that I articulate myself better in writing than in speaking anyway — or at least, I think I do.  And as much of an IM junkie as I’ve been over the years, it feels pretty natural to communicate in that way.

However, after exchanging 3 or 4 texts with the same person, I’ll generally just dial their ass.  At that point, you’re both just wasting time typing things out.  Texting is also impersonal, which in some cases is appropriate.  But I find that people over-use it as a means of communication.  Which I’m sure the phone companies are loving.  Damn you Apple!  Come out with your push IM service faster, so I can ditch this damn texting plan and just use AIM or Yahoo to text people.  Biggest annoyance with this phone is that when the screen goes off, you’re also signed off instant messengers and don’t get notified of new messages.

And now I’ll stop this before it becomes any more of a tech rant.

In celebration of The Age of the Geek, I give you I Will Derive.  Not nearly as awesome as Stuck in the Windshield With You, but it will probably invade your brain just as thoroughly.

I’m not sure if I really agree with the article as a whole.  Geek culture is definitely leading the Internet at large, with sensations such as lolcats, Chocolate Rain, Numa Numa, and all the others that were made fun of in that episode of South Park (starts at 11:45).  But that’s like saying that America rules at Basketball.  Of course we do — we created it, and we’re the people ones that put the most time into it on a large scale.  To say that, “[Geeks have] created a new definition of what it means to be cool, a definition that leaves out the talents of the jocks, the M.B.A.-types and the less educated,” though, I think is a bit much.  What’s happened is that geekdom has become a more recognized and accepted subculture — and a pretty large one, at that.

One excellent point the article made is that, “Nerds began making large amounts of money [in the 1980s] and acquired economic credibility, the seedbed of social prestige.”  Geek culture has worked its way into the mainstream, and continues to do so more and more.  I think one important thing that pushes this is gaming culture.  We of the NES generation are inherently enthralled with video games; we seem to have it in our blood.  An avid gamer is just as (or more) likely to be a former jock who is crazy about Madden or Grand Theft Auto, as they are to be the stereotypical geek.  Things like World of Warcraft are gaining much more widespread acceptance.  It does seem to me that in society at large, being a geek is no longer any more of a stigma than being a jock (though admittedly, I tend to hang out in crowds where “geek” is worn as a badge of pride, so my opinion is probably biased by that).

And I suppose that’s what it’s really about.  Society is learning that geeks are useful, and not the awkward, antisocial stereotype that they’re often played to be.  To quote Tyler Durden, “We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. We program the software that controls your money and guides your missiles. Do not… fuck with us.”  Okay, so I added a bit to that.

I have realized that for the past few years I’ve been developing a semi-conscious feeling that at some point within my lifetime, society as I know it will cease to be.  I think this is brought on by a few factors, and is probably more related to American society than human civilization at large.  Nothing lasts forever, after all, and all empires go through a cycle of power.  It feels to me like America hit its peak in the 80s and 90s, and is now on a downward trend.  So in the back of my head, I’m always thinking to myself, “How can I save up, and what skills should I be honing, for that inevitable day (or more likely, decade) when it all crumbles?”

I think people in general are paid too much money for what they do, and it also seems like the majority of jobs don’t really provide anything concrete to society.  The entertainment industry seems unbalanced in regards to other industries, for example — farmers feed us, construction workers house us, but the entertainment industry isn’t something that’s necessary for us to live, yet so many of our resources are tied up in it.  I just met someone the other night who works in marketing, and her salary is close to $200,000.  On the one hand, good for her!  On the other… I think there are too many jobs like this, and economically speaking, sooner or later something’s gotta give.  And it seems to be in the process of giving way.

Our monetary system is so complex that it is an industry unto itself.  One of the larger ones, in fact.  Doesn’t something seem logically wrong with that — like something akin to a circular argument?  And America is spending its dwindling riches feeding money into China to keep its lifestyle, which is essentially propelling the destruction of the environment.  Not to get all treehuggin’, but I’ve heard that China has now surpassed America in carbon emissions (or if not already, then they will very soon).  And with how their government is, I think that trend will only grow.

I looked out across the waters of Chicago, over to the mass of abandoned buildings in Gary, Indiana… and I wondered, “How long until most of America is like that?  How long until people have taken so much from the land that it can no longer support all of us?”  I imagine a world of people starving, crippled by the comforts of modern life and unable to survive without them.  And the crazy part is, a big part of me looks forward to it.  I think it’s best summed up by Chuck Palahniuk, so I will leave you with this quote:

“In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.”

Went to a lecture last night by Jackson Katz, which was centered on male violence toward women.  It was interesting to see a man speaking on gender issues, and likewise he did come at it from a very different angle.  His premise is that things like this shouldn’t be called women’s issues, or even gender issues, but men’s issues.  He gave several reasons for this, like the fact that the vast majority of violence/abuse is perpetrated by men, and therefore it’s an issue with the male culture of violence.  What struck home for me was when he said when it’s labelled “women’s issues” or even “gender issues,” men tend to automatically ignore it and assume it doesn’t apply to them.  I realized that I’ve been guilty of that, myself.

What was also interesting is that Katz is a very “manly” man — college football player, solid-looking guy with a square jaw and stubble, the whole nine yards.  It was an odd contrast hearing a guy like that talk about these sorts of issues, and I think that probably helps the effectiveness of his programs.  Hearing this same message from an effeminate guy, for example, wouldn’t have nearly the same impact.

One really interesting thing that he demonstrated was the image of males in the media.  We often hear about how women are pressured to be this ideal Barbie-like form, but he showed some examples of the image of men changing, too.  Professional wrestlers, for example, used to be big guys overall, but also a little tubby.  These days, they’re steroid-infused freakshows.  And the best example was toys — he showed an example of a Luke Skywalker figure from the 70’s, versus one from the 90’s.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a great one from the 90’s, but I think you can tell the difference here, regardless.

70’s:

90’s.  Check out these pecs:

Katz works with the Marines, high school and college sports organizations, and other such groups to curb violence against women.  He said that one really important factor was to create a culture in those groups where it’s not okay to abuse/mistreat women.  I found this to already be true in a lot of groups that I’ve been in — both friend groups, and sporting groups.  There has always seemed to be a general attitude of, “If some guy hurts a girl, I’ll kick his fucking ass.”

In fact, I knew a guy in middle school named Andy, who was 2 years ahead of me.  For a while he was sort of a big brother/mentor to me, and he was involved in a group that essentially acted as vigilantes.  He told me a story once of how they took a crowbar to the knees of a guy who physically abused his girlfriend.  Of course, I could never know if any of it was actually true, or if he was just trying to win my awe (he was successful, if so), but in either case it shows the sort of counter-abuse culture that Katz was talking about.  Though granted, probably taken a few steps past what he intends.

There were a lot of other neat points in the lecture, but I won’t go into them all here.  Suffice to say, it made me think about some things differently than I had before.  He came at it from a viewpoint similar to that in Boondock Saints.  “I don’t hit or rape girls,” isn’t really saying much of anything.  If you see injustice happening, and do nothing about it, then you’re essentially condoning it.

“What you think about comes about.”  Trite little nugget of faux-wisdom, stating the obvious.  But like all such trite nuggets, it’s there to remind us of the obvious when we for some reason overlook it.

Standard disclaimer: This post is not aimed at you in particular, dear reader.

Everyone knows at least one negative person — someone who is always complaining, nothing seems to goes right, and their life always seems to suck.  I think that this sort of person brings it on themselves.  Everyone’s life sucks; everyone’s life is hard, and has difficult and sometimes seemingly-insurmountable obstacles.  If you focus on the negative, then you magnify it in your own head.

That’s not to say that it’s bad to vent when something’s going wrong.  I think venting is quite healthy.  But there’s a difference between venting and dwelling — when you vent, you get it out and it’s gone.  But if talking about it only puts it on your mind more and makes it worse… then don’t talk about it.  I know I’ve fallen into that trap before, and sometimes it’s hard to realize that you’re in it.

So how do I get someone out of this if I see it?  Well, the short answer is: I don’t.  It’s something that they have to work through.  In my opinion, the best that you can do is to help them realize they’re in a funk, and then maybe give them some inspiration and hope.  But in the end, it’s up to them.

It’s rare that I get into that sort of a mindset, but the times in the past when I have, what works for me is to just get up and do something positive.  I find that even if I don’t feel like going out, or hanging out with friends, if I make myself do it, then I have fun.  Something to break up the norm, shake things out of the rut.

What about you — when you notice that you’re in a rut, what do you do to get out of it?  This is sort of related to the question on music and mood, I suppose, but on a broader scale.