I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.
—President Barack Obama, today
So last night North Carolina voters passed a dreadful amendment to their state constitution, declaring that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” In the wake of this I’m seeing a new upsurge of people finding it hilarious that many states ban same-sex marriage but allow cousins to marry.
It amazes me that so few liberal-minded Americans know this, but in fact anxiety over cousin marriage is a peculiarly American thing, the product of the same nineteenth-century anxieties about supposed backwoods degenerates and “corruption of our racial stock” that led to the early-twentieth-century boom in “eugenics.” First-cousin marriage is illegal in thirty states, and an outright criminal offense in five. By contrast, first-cousin marriage is legal in all of Europe save for Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia, and legal as well in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and most of Latin America. Although concerns over cousin marriage have occasionally surfaced in modern European political rhetoric—usually as a coded or not-so-coded way of stigmatizing immigrants from Muslim countries where cousin marriage is common—in law, among Western countries, the US is a complete outlier on this issue.
(Yes, citations needed. In fact I’m writing this from memory; I don’t have time to find all the links I’d like to embed, though maybe I’ll add some in the comments later.)
There are genetic risks in first-cousin marriage, but they’re fairly marginal, and can mostly be addressed by getting genetic counseling before having children. For marriages of second cousins and the like, the risks are nearly imperceptible. In fact, if the consequences of first-cousin marriage were as calamitous as many Americans seem to think, the human race would have died out tens of thousands of years ago. For most of history, most humans have lived in small communities and not traveled very far from home; cousin marriage has been extraordinarily common, and yet has somehow failed to yield a planet full of shambling six-fingered freaks.
The problem with finding it hilarious that some states ban same-sex marriage but allow cousin marriage is that you’re basically trashing those states for having laws which are progressive. And when you slam a state like North Carolina with this stuff, you’re participating in a long American history of using cousin marriage as a way of imputing that poor rural people, particularly poor rural people in Appalachia and the South, are depraved, terrifying, and other. Their physical infirmities aren’t products of poverty, malnutrition, and abuse; they’re because something’s fundamentally wrong with them as organisms. It’s not a rhetorical tradition to be proud of.
Disclaimer: Teresa and I are not cousins, nor were any of our immediate forebears, although both of us can certainly find first- and second-cousin marriages among our ancestors some generations back. This is overwhelmingly likely to be true of you, too. You freak.
Proposed: a drama about a respected member of the Shire community who discovers that he is afflicted with a magical item whose effects (particularly the heavy-breathing black-cloaked figures) are likely to kill him. While maintaining his veneer of normality, he addresses the problem by introducing into his neighborhood the deadliest of addictive agents, one for which he has an especial expertise. (I refer, of course, to adventuring.)
Soon he has become the despair of his gardener (who is already dealing with the effects of unexpectedly falling in love), as he begins the process of steadily leading his former associates astray.
Merry and Pippin ending sentences with “Yo” and “OK?”! Tom Bombadil as Tuco Salamanca! If Aragorn is Hank, does that mean Arwen has a shoplifting problem? What do you think?
We’re only partway through watching Season Two, so I’m going to need help fleshing out the cast in the light of later developments. Do note that I’m spoiler-immune. I suggest anyone reading this who is not up to date with Breaking Bad be so too.
This recipe is courtesy of, and with the permission of, my friend Alice Loweecey, an ex-nun who writes mysteries. (He’s an ex-cop with a dirty mouth and a soft heart, she’s a former nun with a big secret … they fight crime!)
Grilled Pizzas 1 lb. store bread dough OR here’s my bread machine recipe:
1½ cups water
2 Tbl oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
4 cups flour
4 tsp yeast (regular, not the “bread machine” kind)
1 Tbl gluten1 lb. shredded mozzarella cheese
1 jar sauce if you don’t have any homemade handy
1 lb. roll sausage, cooked, cooled, and crumbled
1 pkg sliced pepperoni
½ green pepper, sliced thin
(or any other toppings you might prefer)When dough is done, spray grill with cooking spray and turn it on to its highest setting. Split dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into circles, more or less. (I use a rolling pin because it’s easier than hand-tossing.)
Depending on the size of your grill, set 2-4 circles on it, and lower the heat to medium-high. Cook till they bubble up, usually one huge bubble. Pop bubble and check the bottoms. you should see nice brown grill marks. This will take about 4 minutes. Take them off and put the next batch on. Repeat till all the circles are cooked on one side.
Bring them back inside and turn them over so the grill marks are face up. This prevents burned bottoms and soggy tops. Spread 2 Tbl. of sauce on each pizza, leaving ¼” edge bare. place desired toppings on each. Cover completely with a thin coating of cheese.
Re-spray the grill and put them on 2-3 at a time, cooking till the cheese is melted and the bottoms have nice brown grill marks, about 4 minutes.
Cool a bit, cut into halves or quarters, and nom.
Trail mix (sometimes called Gorp) is an ad-hoc snack made from mixed dry ingredients including (neither necessarily nor limited to) dry cereal, roasted peanuts, chocolate chips, raisins, small pretzels, and/or similar items.
The ingredients are mixed by stirring them together in a large bowl, then divided into individual plastic bags and given to children to carry on hikes.
Neither particularly good-tasting nor good-for-you, it is popular because it’s inexpensive, easy to make, lots of above-said and afore-mentioned children can safely participate in its production, and, besides, it’s traditional.
We (Chris and I, and a bunch of local friends) saw The Avengers last night. It was a lot better than I was expecting based on this trailer:
Seriously, if you see it, stay through the credits. Even the long, boring text credits where they list the key grips and secondary unit accountants. A dangling plot thread is resolved!
Feel free to rant and/or rave about the movie in this thread; avoid if you hate spoilers and haven’t seen it.
And here I thought I wrote science fiction.
“Every stock owner should read this book.”
— Allan H. Meltzer, professor of political economy, Carnegie Mellon University* A radically new way to determine what stocks are really worth
* Why the Dow is still poised to zoom
* Why the financial establishment is wrong
* Why stocks are actually less risky than bonds