APOLARITY

a.k.a. Links for the week.

I haven’t figured out a good workflow, a way to publish and comment on the things that I read and that are important to me. I’m still working out the kinks.

Here’s what I’ve been focused on lately:

The Proposition 8 Trial

As I wrote earlier, I’ve been very interested in the federal trial over the unconstitutionality of Prop. 8. It seems important and potentially ground-breaking. The courtroom provides an ideal environment for the societal and cultural stigmas surrounding homosexuality, the economic and social factors involved in the push for marriage equality, the role of religion in the democratic process, the nature of civil rights, the makeup of how a group of people is granted protected status, and other such issues to be discussed calmly, rationally, and with the input of experts.

But so anyway, here are some links, analyses, summaries, that have caught my attention lately, for what they’re worth.

• Prop. 8 Trial First Week Roundup – an AFER (American Foundation for Equal Rights, one of the organizations bringing the court case against California’s Proposition 8 ) summary of the trial’s first week of arguments and witnesses.
• “Home Court Advantage” and Determining Scrutiny, both from Prop 8 Trial Tracker, are helpful explanations of the process by which the case will be decided, and which side will be deemed to have the burden of proof.
• An Explosive Afternoon: LDS Church – It’s fascinating the length, time, and manpower the Mormons put into the passage of Prop. 8.
• Chinese Christians Are the Focus of Same-Sex Marriage Case – NYT article on one of the official proponents (one of the five people who officially filed Prop. 8), Hak-Shing William Tam, and his testimony this week. His testimony went a long way toward illustrating the animus involved in the push to pass the measure. Mr. Tam was more than willing to propagate falsehoods (read: lies) linking gay people to all sorts of societal ills: pedophilia, incest, molestation, prostitution, and recruiting children.
• An Odd Couple Defends Couples That Some (Oddly) Find Odd – NYT op-ed about the “odd couple” of the two lawyers arguing the case. An interesting comment regarding President Obama’s reluctance to support marriage equality:

Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn’t realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about.

• Why I’m Joining the Fight for Marriage Equality – well-written Fox News (!) piece with another conservative perspective on marriage equality.

Miscellaneous

• How to live to be 100+ – TED talk covering research on “Blue Zones”, areas of the world where people frequently live active lives into their 90s and 100s.
• EVIL little cameras – from Metafilter, an interesting collection of articles about a new type of camera (Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lenses) which has the quality of a dSLR in a compact size.

Personal

I’ve been making tasty concoctions.

• (faux-) Bailey’s Irish Cream – for the instant coffee, I used Starbucks Via. It turned out great.
• Hot pepper infused vodka – I used two green jalapeños, one red jalapeño, and a habanero, with a half-bottle of vodka. It smells delicious – I have tasted it but not yet made a drink with it. It’s going to be quite a kick in bloody marys!

This is getting to be too much for one post (and I’m running out of time for now). I’ll put the next installment in a post of its own.

Shalom,

Adrenalin Tim

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 4:21 am and is filed under Politics, Social Justice, links, personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.