[PHOTO] An orchid, right?

An orchid, right?
Originally uploaded by randyfmcdonald

Whatever this flower is exactly, it's still alive, and beautiful. (Actually, it's a snapdragon--thanks Bill--but I'll keep the title.)

[BRIEF NOTE] Same-sex marriage, and androids, and the good uses of mockery

Towleroad's Andrew Belonsky linked to something grand.

Consider a rambling argument made by Robert Broadus, head of Protect Marriage Maryland, at a hearing on a proposed same-sex marriage bill.

If you pass this bill, you will set the groundwork that one day, when artificial intelligence is that advanced, we'll be considering whether or not people can marry their Androids.

If anyone has watched Star Trek, and you've seen the character Data, he was able to generate a tear, because he could feel emotion. If you knock down marriage between a man and a woman now, if you say any two people who love each other can get married, then you set that precedent.

The crowd couldn't suppress their giggles, of course.

The video is here.

"Grimes - We Appreciate Power (Lyric Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

The video may get taken down by its embarrassed posters, it may not, but I don't doubt that it'll go viral. Just Google "android marriage."

Three reactions come to mind.

1. Citing science-fiction television, without obvious anchoring, to justify specific real-world policies and attitudes risks being silly.

2. Citing science-fiction television, or any document of popular culture, or any document, without understanding it is foolish. The android character of fits into the same role of "alien, but understandable outsider" that Spock played on the original series and Odo in Deep Space 9. Data's specific type of non-humanity, his origins in human manufacturing, was frequently explored. The speaker doesn't seem to have paid attention to the second-season episode "The Meausre of a Man", which saw Picard et al. defend Data against the charges of being an entity of the second rank, as a thing that could be assembled and disassembled at will. Data, it turned out, was just as much a person with just as many rights as anyone else. If you cite science-fiction television, at least cite with some meaning of what your subject actually means

3. People making silly arguments in support of bigotry, as Belonsky noted in his post, can easily be mocked, and this mockery will help bring them down..

I've argued before that ridicule and satire can be effective routes to taking down an ideological nemesis. As British Think Tank Demos noted in their study, A Radical Approach to Extremism, "Satire has long been recognized as a powerful tool to undermine the popularity of social movements: both the Ku Klux Klan and the British Fascist party in the 1930s were seriously harmed by sustained satire."

While surely we must continue our legislative and social actions, a little comedy never hurt anyone, and taking some light-hearted pokes at our opponents could may just help laugh them out of town.

So, please, help this video go viral! For if we don't defend marriage now, one day we'll be assimilated by the Borg. Or something.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Arctic Progress notes the Norwegian parliament's approval of a maritime border treaty with Russia, observes Russia's plans to build a research centre on the Arctic Svalbards.


• Bag News reports on the original self-taken image of former Republican Congressman Christopher Lee, the married man who tried to pick up women on Craigslist. It turns out to be even more evocative than the cropped versions which appeared in the press.


• At Behind the Numbers, Carl Haub observes that sex ratios in the most male-imbalanced states of India, as in the country as a whole, have improved, though not so much recently.


• blogTO's Robyn Urback visits some of the different stores in Toronto offering cash for gold and jewellery.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog's Karen Sternheimer takes a look at celebrity culture--especially of the "American Idol" way--as a way people can at least vicariously enjoy social mobility, if not escape one's class altogether.


• Far Outliers reports on a recent lecture by scholar Philip Jenkins, who notes that natural increase will take over from conversion in making Africa the centre of the Christian world, the continent perhaps becoming the first one with one billion Christians.


• The Grumpy Sociologist argues that the sexualization of young women in Japanese manga says things about the status of women and the state of the patriarchy in Japan.


• The Invisible College's Lennart Breuker takes a look at the Thai territorial claims on a Cambodian temple complex that have killed dozens in the past week. Thailand's claim looks to be very weak, inasmuch as Thailand never raised the subject when borders were up for discussion.


• Mark Simpson starts a discussion arguing that misandry is common in popular culture, with derogatory views of men as animals, etc. It's out there, but to what extent relative to others?


• At Nissology PEI, Hans writes about the latest political corruption scandal on the Island, something fitting into the grand global trend. At least it demonstrates a certain amount of voter engagement.


• The Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla examines the latest astronomical studies suggesting that Vesta may have been radically reshaped by the impact that created its massive south-polar crater, creating complications for those who hoped that the small world could have a preserved geological record intact.


• Andy at Siberian Lights notes that Russia is on track to become the largest online market in Europe soon, surpassing Germany; 65 of Germany's 82 millions were online at the end of 2010, but only 60 out of Russia's 142 millions. Search engine Yandex has done well, interestingly, holding its own against Google.

[LINK] "Rogue Planets Could Harbor Life"

Could rogue planets--worlds ejected from their planetary systems--support life? The latest from Lisa Grossman says so.

Planet formation models suggest that small planets are regularly flung from their solar systems by close encounters with neighboring gas giants. The giants’ gavitational fields create an interplanetary slingshot effect, sending smaller planets on unstable orbits that quickly leave their star behind.

Prior to ejection, some of those planets could conceivably be like Earth, with continents, oceans and biospheres. A new model suggests that submarine aliens on such a planet could have a chance at survival.

“We originally started with the question, what if you turned off the sun?” said University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot, co-author of a paper submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters and pre-published Feb. 5 on arXiv.org.

Along with fellow University of Chicago astrophysicist Eric Switzer, Abbot ran the numbers to see if an ocean could stay liquid without heat from a star. They called their rogue world a Steppenwolf planet, “since any life in this strange habitat would exist like a lone wolf wandering the galactic steppe.”

The pair assumed the planet was between 0.1 and 10 times Earth’s mass, with a similar amount of water and rock. Once the planet fled its warm, nurturing star, the ocean would start to freeze. But leftover heat from the planet’s formation and decaying radioactive elements in the rock could keep the ocean warm beneath a shell of ice. As long as the planet could keep the ice from freezing all the way to the core, the ocean should be safe.

[. . .]

In a slightly more bizarre twist, the Switzer and Abbot imagined the Steppenwolf planet with volcanoes spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The gas would freeze and fall as snow almost immediately, covering the world with an insulating blanket of dry ice. In that case, planets as small as 0.3 times the mass of Earth could keep a liquid ocean.

That second possibility is more dubious, if only because the planet would have to be extraordinarily active. In any case there would likely not be enough energy produced at the vents to sustain macroscopic life forms.

The pair's paper, "The Steppenwolf: A proposal for a habitable planet in interstellar space", is here.

I find the idea fascinating. I did a write-up of such a world, drawing from an earlier model suggesting that a dense atmosphere of molecular hydrogen could retain heat so well as to keep the surface habitable, called Weitwelt for the 2300AD system here. I like difference.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On Romania in 1989, and what it might mean for Egypt

The reaction to Mubaraks's announcement of non-resignation has been predictably very hostile.

[Mubarak] addressed the country on television late Thursday evening. Shortly after, Suleiman addressed the country, asking protesters to go home.

"This crowd went from joy and exuberance very rapidly through the course of [Mubarak's] speech to a lot of anger," the CBC's David Common said, reporting from a position overlooking Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Mubarak had been widely expected to resign, handing power over immediately to Suleiman. Instead, it appeared he will remain as president. Throughout the day, the crowds in central Cairo had been celebrating their expected victory and the removal of the president.

"Even about two-thirds of the way through the speech …, they drowned out a broadcast that was being played down there in Tahrir Square," Common reported.

In Washington, the CBC's Susan Bonner said: "This is hardly the transformational moment that President Barack Obama was hoping for."

Over at Facebook, David suggested that early suggestions that Mubarak might resign were leaked by the Egyptian military, so as to justify an eventual coup against Mubarak claiming the favour of the people. He, and others, brought up the Romanian Revolution of 1989, televised and ending in the end of the Socialist Republic and the execution of the Ceausescus. Luke was kind enough to point me to the video, in two parts, of Nicolae Ceausescu's final, uncomprehending, speech to the Romanian workers assembled in downtown Bucharest.

I like Wikipedia's summary of his attempted speech and its effects.

On the morning of 21 December Ceauşescu addressed an assembly of approximately 100,000 people, to condemn the uprising in Timişoara. However, Ceauşescu was out of touch with his people and completely misread the crowd's mood. Starting his speech in the usual "wooden language", spurting out pro-socialist and Communist Party rhetoric, Ceauşescu delivered a litany of the achievements of the "socialist revolution" and Romanian "multi-laterally developed socialist society". The people, however, remained apathetic, and only the front rows supported Ceauşescu with cheers and applause. As the speech went on, some in the crowd actually began to jeer and boo and utter insults at him. Ceauşescu's lack of understanding of the recent events and his incapacity to handle the situation were further demonstrated when he offered, as an act of desperation, to raise workers' salaries by 100 lei per month (about 9 US dollars at the time, yet a 5–10% raise for a modest salary) and student scholarship from 100 to 110 lei while continuing to praise the achievements of the Socialist Revolution, unable to realize that a revolution was brewing right in front of his eyes.

As he was addressing the crowd from the balcony of the Central Committee building, sudden movement came from the outskirts of the massed assembly, as did the sound of (what various sources have reported as) fireworks, bombs, or guns, which together caused the assembly to break into chaos. Initially frightened, the crowds tried to disperse. Bullhorns then began to spread the news that the Securitate was firing on the crowd and that a "revolution" was unfolding. This persuaded people in the assembly to join in. The rally turned into a protest demonstration.

The entire speech was being broadcast live around Romania, and it is estimated that perhaps 76% of the nation was watching. Censors attempted to cut the live video feed, and replace it with communist propaganda songs and video praising the Ceauşescu regime, but parts of the riots had already been broadcast and most of the Romanian people realized that something unusual was in progress.

Ceauşescu and his wife, as well as other officials and CPEx members, panicked, and Ceauşescu went into hiding inside the building.

The reaction of the Ceauşescu couple on the balcony is memorable: They staged futile attempts to regain control over the uprising crowd using phone conversation formulas such as "Alo, Alo" ("Hello, Hello"), Ceauşescu's wife "advised" him how to contain the situation "Vorbeşte-le, vorbeşte-le" ("Talk to them, talk to them"), and they urged the crowd "Staţi liniştiţi la locurile voastre" ("Stay quiet in your places"). In the end Ceauşescu allowed himself to be directed into the Central Committee building by his underlings.

And as I watched the videos on YouTube, a ticker appeared pointing me to al-Jazeera's coverage.

The comparison between Egypt now and Romania at the end of 1989 is useful, inasmuch as it points to the possibility of a violent end to Mubarak's regime and his life (and not, as rumoured, flight to Montenegro). It also brings other issues to light, like the extent to which Mubarak's regime might survive Mubarak. Romania's transition from Communism trailed central Europe substantially, with delayed economic reform and profound autocracy and occasional flirtation with state-organized violence against political opponents. If the post-Mubarak regime comes to power but doesn't change things significantly enough, or quickly enough, will the Egyptian new order last as long as Romania's?

[LINK] Two Harrowell links on the left in Egypt

First, at A Fistful of Euros, Alexander Harrowell blogs ("this is a public service announcement, without much content") taking a look at the state of affairs and arguing that the revolution is taking on an increasingly left-leaning tinge.

Everyone’s now beginning to notice the role of trade unionists and labour activism in general. In fact, the April 6th movement itself memorialises the deaths of a group of strikers. It’s part of the revolution’s DNA. Today’s callout was part of a massive strike wave – my favourite was the column of diving instructors from the Red Sea coast who arrived in Tahrir Square with a banner reading “Mubarak! Get out before the oxygen runs out!” This movement is not running out of anything – not numbers, not commitment, not ideas, not humour. If it didn’t set out as an Internet revolution, people certainly thought it would arrive at its first objective that way.

[. . .]

The general theme, of both the Egyptian political elite and the Western ones being at least a day and often more behind events, remains very true. The so-called Article 139 solution – delegation, then resignation – has been discussed for at least a week. Tellingly, it was also the Muslim Brotherhood’s favoured option. We’ve not heard anything from them tonight.

Second, via A Fistful of Euros' Hallowell I came across Paul Adar's article in Jadaliyya, "Why Egypt's Progressives Win", which argues that established orders--certainly the old ruling party, but also the Muslim Brotherhood, the military, and even big business--has been marginalized, that this is a grassroots people's revolution.

It is crucial to remember that this uprising did not begin with the Muslim Brothers or with nationalist businessmen. This revolt began gradually at the convergence of two parallel forces: the movement for workers’ rights in the newly revived factory towns and micro-sweatshops of Egypt especially during the last two years, and the movement against police brutality and torture that mobilized every community in the country for the last three years. Both movements feature the leadership and mass participation of women (of all ages) and youth (of both genders). There are structural reasons for this.

First, the passion of workers that began this uprising does not stem from their marginalization and poverty; rather, it stems from their centrality to new development processes and dynamics. In the very recent past, Egypt has reemerged as a manufacturing country, although under the most stressful and dynamic of conditions. Egypt’s workers are mobilized because new factories are being built, in the context of a flurry of contentious global investment. Several Russian free-trade zones and manufacturing settlements have opened up, and China has invested in all parts of the Egyptian economy. Brazil, Turkey, the Central Asian Republics and the Gulf Emirates are diversifying their investments. They are moving out of the oil sector and real estate and into manufacturing, piece-goods, informatics, infrastructure, etc. Factories all over Egypt have been dusted off and reopened, or newly built. And all those shopping malls, gated cities, highways and resorts have to be built and staffed by someone. In the Persian Gulf, developers use Bangladeshi, Philippine and other expatriate labor. But Egypt usually uses its own workers. And many of the workers in Egypt’s revived textile industries and piece-work shops are women. If you stroll up the staircases into the large working-class apartment buildings in the margins of Cairo or the cement-block constructions of the villages, you’ll see workshops full of women, making purses and shoes, and putting together toys and computer circuitboards for sale in Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf. These shop workers joined with factory workers to found the 6 April movement in 2008. They were the ones who began the organizing and mobilizing process that led to this uprising in 2011, whose eruption was triggered by Asmaa Mahfouz’ circulating a passionate Youtube video and tens of thousands of leaflets by hand in slum areas of Cairo on 24 January 2011. Ms. Mahfouz, a political organizer with an MBA from Cairo University, called people to protest the next day. And the rest is history.

The economic gender and class landscape of Egypt’s micro-businesses has been politicized and mobilized in very dynamic ways, again with important gender and sexual dimensions. Since the early 1990s, Egypt has cut back welfare and social services to working-class and lower-middle-class Egyptians. In the place of food subsidies and jobs they have offered debt. Micro-credit loans were given, with the IMF and World Bank’s enthusiastic blessing, to stimulate entrepreneurship and self-reliance. These loans were often specifically targeted toward women and youth. Since economically disadvantaged applicants have no collateral to guarantee these loans, payback is enforced by criminal law rather than civil law. This means that your body is your collateral. The police extract pain and humiliation if you do not pay your bill. Thus the micro-enterprise system has become a massive set of police rackets and “loan shark” operations. Police sexualized brutalization of youth and women became central to the “regulation” of the massive small-business economy. In this context, the micro-business economy is a tough place to operate, but it does shape women and youth into tough survivors who see themselves as an organized force opposed to the police-state. No one waxes on about the blessings of the market’s invisible hand. Thus the economic interests of this mass class of micro-entrepreneurs are the basis for the huge and passionate anti-police brutality movement. It is no coincidence that the movement became a national force two years ago with the brutal police murder of a youth, Khalid Saeed, who was typing away in a small internet café that he partially owned. Police demanded ID and a bribe from him; he refused, and the police beat him to death, crushing his skull to pieces while the whole community watched in horror.

Police demanding bribes, harassing small micro-businesses, and beating those who refuse to submit had become standard practice in Egypt. Internet cafes, small workshops, call-centers, video-game cafes, microbuses, washing/ironing shops, small gyms constitute the landscape of micro-enterprises that are the jobs base and social world of Egypt’s lower middle classes. The so-called “Facebook revolution” is not about people mobilizing in virtual space; it is about Egyptian internet cafes and the youth and women they represent, in real social spaces and communities, utilizing the cyberspace bases they have built and developed to serve their revolt.

In the case of the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s, the “bazaaris of Tehran” (the medium-sized merchants and shop owners) ended up serving as the crucial “swing vote,” moving the Iranian Revolution from left to right, from a socialistic uprising toward the founding of an Islamic Republic. In the case of Egypt, the social and political force of women and youth micro-entrepreneurs will lead history in the opposite direction. These groups have a highly developed a complex view of the moral posturing of some Islamists, and they have a very clear socio-economic agenda, which appeals to the dynamic Youth Wing of the Brothers. The progressive groups have a linked network of enterprises, factories, identities and passions. They would go to any length to prevent the reemergence of police brutality and moralistic hypocrisy that have ruled them for the past generation. The women and youth behind theses micro-businesses, and the workers in the new Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, Gulf, and Egyptian-financed factories seem to be united. And they grow more so each day.

Micro-entrepreneurs, new workers groups, and massive anti-police brutality organizations obviously do not share the same class position as Sawiris and Badrawi and the rich men in the “Council of the Wise.” Nevertheless, there are significant overlaps and affinities between the interests and politics of nationalist development-oriented groups, the newly entrepreneurial military, and the vitally well-organized youth and women’s social movements. This confluence of social, historical and economic dynamics will assure that this uprising does not get reduced to a photo opportunity for Suleiman and a few of his cronies.

Thoughts?

[H&F] "Hockey and pride as seen from Québec City"

I've a post up at History and Futility taking a look at Québec City's desperate, expensive, possibly futile effort to bring the NHL back to town. It all comes to pride.

Go, read.

[DM] "How emigration is hurting Gaelic football"

I've a post up at Demography Matters taking a look at how the economic collapse in Ireland is threatening the amateur sport of Gaelic football.

Go, read.