A question for my readers

Blogging is a little slow around here right now because my computer has acquired the habit of spontaneously rebooting itself. Sometimes it will go for hours with nary a wayward reset, and sometimes it won't go five minutes. Unfortunately, my efforts to narrow down the cause of the reboots have led me to believe that I am dealing with a hardware problem. But never fear! Replacement parts are on the way. Indeed, I am assured that they will be here no later than Monday. (Incidentally, the estimated day of arrival is itself somewhat vexing. I paid for second day delivery, yet the parts were shipped via UPS Ground. It is trying my patience, especially with geeky dreams of new hardware dancing in my head.) If I'm a little light on content for the next few days, well, at least I have an excuse this time. But rest assured I will make every effort to continue my recently-reacquired habit of posting in a more timely manner.

But now I'm going to change the subject. I have a question for you.

My son will be starting kindergarden in a little over six months. Caren and I are getting excited about it, but we also find ourselves facing a choice that neither of us are especially prepared to make. In the small town where we grew up, there was only one school. When it was time to go, everyone in town went to the same school. As you can probably imagine, the situation here in Omaha is quite a bit different. There are lots of schools, both public and private, for our kids to potentially attend. Omaha divides the public school district such that where you live determines where your kids will attend elementary school*. Since we have already ruled out private schools, the choice would be made for us...

...except that we're planning on moving to a different part of town this summer for a variety of reasons, one of which is the opportunity to choose which school our kids will attend. So we get to choose, which is good. But neither Caren nor myself have ever had any experience with choosing an elementary school. And that's where you come in.

We know that diversity is very important to us, and we know that we will be able to determine a school's diversity fairly easily. But beyond that, we are having a hard time figuring out exactly how we should go about this. I know we can schedule walk-throughs, but what should we look for? Are there standard questions we should ask? Also, I'm a little nervous about the whole thing because I've noticed that the schools with the best diversity are also the ones that people tell us are bad schools that should be avoided. But what exactly is a "bad school"? I'm not sure how much I trust such a general assessment. Caren teaches music at one of the so-called "bad" high schools, and she's never had any problems with her students. I have more than a little bit of suspicion that "bad" schools get that designation more from unconscious racism than any kind of academic consideration. Just how should one go about determining whether a particular school is "bad"?

I'm sure a lot of this will be obvious when I read your answers. But I feel like I've already let time get away from me -- when the heck did my kids get so old, anyway? And believe it or not, it didn't occur to Caren and me that we didn't know how to do this until we started actually trying to do it. So I'm hoping that some of you have dealt with this before.

So that's my question: How did you do it? Leave your answers in the comments, and thanks in advance!


* Actually, Omaha has cooperative zones. We can choose to send our kids to the school in the zone where we live, or we can send them across town to one other zone that partners with ours. I wouldn't even mention it except that I know there are a handful of people in Omaha who read this blog. The greater point is still true: If we are willing to move, we can choose which school our kids will attend.

Two more for the blogroll

Welcome, Alas, A Blog and I Blame the Patriarchy. The former was the one I'd forgotten the last time I updated the blogroll. In fact, it should've been added a long time ago. The latter is a blog I didn't fully appreciate until recently. They're both excellent reads, though I admit chances are high that you already know this because you already read them on a regular basis. I'm better off late to the party than never showing up, though, right?

With apologies to Twisty, I blame the patriarchy

I've been aware of Twisty's blog I Blame The Patriarchy for quite awhile now. Though most of the other bloggers I read rave about her, I must admit that when I'd read her in the past, I had mixed feelings about what she had to say. Sometimes, I absolutely loved it. But other times I would react very negatively to her ideas. Still, with all the glowing recommendations, when I found myself with some spare time the other day I decided to give it another shot.

All was going well until I read her recent post Kill Pill, which starts:

A while back, among a few facetious yet poetical lines written on the perils of chick-Viagra, I noted that women who are disinclined to submit to dudely impalement every 2 hours hardly suffer from a disease that warrants pharmaceutical intervention, and that any pill devised to make girls horny is obviously just a designer roofie and a sick ploy of the patriarchy to keep the sex class in thrall.

My reaction was negative and immediate. That's bullshit, I thought to myself. Twisty just doesn't understand. But as I planned a blog post in response, a funny thing happened.

You see, my initial reaction was emphatic because of personal experience. My wife and I have rather mismatched libidos. When it comes sex, I'd like it to happen quite a bit more often than she would*. We were married at the ripe old age of 20, and as you can imagine, both of us had plenty to learn about the other. Our mismatched sex drives caused plenty of problems, especially early on.

The response I began composing in my head went something like this: But lots of marriages suffer from mismatched libidos! If Twisty really knew how much of a problem this can be, perhaps she'd reconsider her opinion. Sure, a drug to enhance women's sex drive could certainly be abused. But it could also be really beneficial! Fortunately, my problems aren't anything that my wife and I can't work though. But imagine if it were worse: Imagine a heterosexual marriage where the woman had practically no interest in sex. Assuming the man had a normal sex drive, isn't it safe to assume that at least sometimes the woman would be interested in taking this pill? And if indeed her interest were genuine, how can one say that she is being oppressed?

As I thought this, I noticed to my dismay that my argument had plenty of problems. For one thing, it bears striking resemblance to the "how could I hate gays when one of my best friends is gay" argument, which was enough to give me pause. I have to admit that just because some women might want to take the libido enhancer, it doesn't automatically follow that the libido enhancer isn't oppressive. In fact, my argument also bears resemblance to another one that says makeup can't possibly oppress women because, after all, some women like makeup. Of course makeup in itself isn't oppressive. But lots of things that come along with it are, especially the almost universal expectation that a woman is required to wear it in public.

I also realized another thing. What happens when you reverse the tables? What if a female libido enhancer is not found, but a drug to decrease the male sex drive is found instead? The end result would be the same, right? But when I thought of it in those terms, my immediate reaction was almost as negative as my reaction to Twisty's post. And why shouldn't it be? After all, there's nothing wrong with me.

And that's the rub, isn't it? Because just as there isn't anything wrong with me for having a high sex drive, there isn't anything wrong with a woman who has a low sex drive, either. The fact that I would react negatively to treating a man's "problem" but not have the same reaction to treating a woman's is Twisty's entire point.

But that still leaves the original problem unresolved, doesn't it? What are couples who actually have these problems supposed to do? Just learn to live with it? Get a divorce? None of the options are satisfactory.

But then again, that isn't really the original problem anyway. If you take a step back, you'll notice that part of the problem comes from the assumption that neither partner is allowed to go outside of the marriage for sex. That assumption is a holdover from the old days when marriage was a means of property transfer. Back then, it was assumed that men didn't need to go outside the marriage because men could demand sex from their wives whenever they wanted it. Women were just property. Their needs didn't count. The problem of mismatched sex drives in a marriage is only a problem because of the patriarchal origins of marriage. And if this problem with no solution upsets you, well, I'm pretty sure I know what Twisty would say: I blame the patriarchy.

So what's the conclusion here? One part of it is that try as I might, I can never completely expunge from myself the gender biases that our society builds into each of us. (Why that should even come as a surprise I don't know. I am a benefactor of male privilege every day of my life.) I've also come to appreciate Twisty far more than I did before. I hope she never ceases to make me feel uncomfortable every now and then. She makes me think, and that can only make me better.

But for the other part of the conclusion, I go once again to Twisty (this time from this post in October):

See here. The patriarchy I blame isn’t people, it’s a system. It is a hierarchical system of dominance at the gilded pinnacle of which pink-faced male captains of industry luxuriate, and at the rat-infested bottom of which poor brown women die screaming in filth and penury. In between are sub-hierarchies, but one constant obtains across all class, cultural and geographical lines: within any given hierarchy, women are consistently relegated to the lowest possible status.

And the rich white guy outranks everybody.

So check this out: I’m blaming patriarchy, not impugning the feminist credentials of women who, for whatever reason, decide to get married. Or carry tiny handbags. We all do what we gotta do.

And perhaps that's what I had been missing. Patriarchy-blaming isn't meant to take choices away from people. If a drug comes to market that enhances women's libido, the women who choose to use it aren't the problem. But just because women do choose to use it doesn't mean that no problem exists. It doesn't mean the biases that make us think of a woman's low libido as a problem aren't oppressive. We all do what we gotta do. But that's no excuse not to acknowledge the oppression.


*   *   *

* I think it's worth mentioning that it isn't always the case that men have a higher sex drive than women. In fact, of all the monogamous heterosexual marriages in which I've been privy to this information, women have a higher sex drive than their husbands about as often as it happens the other way around. Admittedly, I don't have any hard data on this, and 'anecdote' is not the plural of 'datum'. But the greater point here is that it is misogynist to automatically assume that it will be the woman who has to shoulder the burden of the problems created by any such mismatch.

Ten reasons gay marriage is wrong

I got this list from Scott Kurtz's online PVP comic strip, of all places. He in turn received as a forward in his email, so apparently it's going around. I thought I'd share it here.

Ten Reasons Gay Marriage Is Wrong

1. Being gay is not natural. And as you know Americans have always rejected unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because, as you know, a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

From my inbox to your eyes

Date: Wed 1/4/2006 11:27 PM
From: mail@cia.gov
Subject: You visit illegal websites

Suuure I do. Spammer.

As promised, some follow up thoughts on polygamy

Yesterday, I referenced this post by Amanda and said that I wanted to post my thoughts later. Ladies and gentlemen, this is that post.

Amanda quotes from Marci Hamilton's God vs. the Gavel, who argues that the argument that is commonly put forward in favor of same sex marriage is inadquate when arguing for the legalization of polygamy. Because they both expand marriage rights, so the common argument goes, the two are roughly equivalent. But Hamilton argues that in fact, they are not. Though I quoted it in yesterday's post, here again is Amanda's summary of Hamilton's argument:

At first glance, the two arguments--one in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage and one in favor of legalizing polygamy--seem basically identical, which is to say that the people advocating for these changes feel that the marriage laws as they stand discriminate against them. But Hamilton argues that if you take a realistic look at the way religion factors into these arguments, then you start to see a much different picture emerge, because both controversies have someone arguing that their religious beliefs should dictate the law, but with same-sex marriage it's the opponents who are arguing this and with polygamy it's the proponents. If you start with her basic argument that it's antithetical to the 1st Amendment to allow law to be dictated by religious belief over other concerns like the greater social good, it's clear that these two reform movements are completely different--same sex marriage proponents are using a social good measure for their arguments and polygamy proponents are arguing that social good isn't a factor because their religious belief trumps it. To keep it simple.

Hamilton has a reason to want to keep these arguments separate. She argues that those in favor of polygamous marriage are most often members of certain religions who are using polygamy as a tool to oppress women. Because it is an argument from religion, and because the result is bad, polygamy shouldn't be legalized.

I do have a problem with this reasoning, and part of it comes from the definition of polygamy. Amanda quotes the United Nations' Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women:

Polygamous marriage contravenes a woman’s right to equality with men, and can have such serious emotional and financial consequences for her and her dependents that such marriages ought to be be discouraged and prohibited.There is a glaring hole in this argument. The implicit assumption is that all polygamous marriages consist of one man with several wives. But Mormons are not the only people who want polygamous marriage legalized. In fact, because most religions teach that polygamy is morally wrong, most of the arguments in favor of polygamy are strictly secular. And if secular arguments exist -- and they do -- then it doesn't make much sense to argue that we should ignore the arguments from social principles on the grounds that some people favor the same outcome due to religious beliefs.

I find it hard to trust Hamilton's argument here. It seems that she'll go to any measure to stop an existing abuse of women. While I applaud her goal, I think she's painting with too broad of a brush and ignoring some very real collateral damage that will occur as a result of her attacks.

Gay marriage vs. polygamous marriage: An introduction at Pandagon

Amanda at Pandagon is on fire. She's been writing all sorts of great things lately. One in particular that she posted caught my eye. This post is about the intersection between the fight to legalize gay marriage and the fight to legalize polygamous marriage. Here's an excerpt:

At first glance, the two arguments--one in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage and one in favor of legalizing polygamy--seem basically identical, which is to say that the people advocating for these changes feel that the marriage laws as they stand discriminate against them. But Hamilton argues that if you take a realistic look at the way religion factors into these arguments, then you start to see a much different picture emerge, because both controversies have someone arguing that their religious beliefs should dictate the law, but with same-sex marriage it's the opponents who are arguing this and with polygamy it's the proponents. If you start with her basic argument that it's antithetical to the 1st Amendment to allow law to be dictated by religious belief over other concerns like the greater social good, it's clear that these two reform movements are completely different--same sex marriage proponents are using a social good measure for their arguments and polygamy proponents are arguing that social good isn't a factor because their religious belief trumps it. To keep it simple.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing -- it's a very thoughtful article. Hopefully I can write a longer response later this evening.

Late thoughts on Mirecki

Though I'm late to the Mirecki thing by about a month, I want to weigh in with my thoughts nonetheless. I've seen it written about in a couple of the blogs I read, and though most of the articles are really good, from time to time (and especially in comments and on listservs) I've seen Mirecki's actions defended and represented in a favorable light. I have mixed feelings about that.

For those who don't remember or never knew, Dr. Paul Mirecki is a professor at the University of Kansas. He announced his intentions to teach a religious studies class on Intelligent Design via the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics listserv. The text of his announcement was relayed to the local media via someone who was lurking on the list, and it soon became a national story. Eventually, Mirecki was forced to cancel the class, and then to step down as the chair of his department. In between, he was beaten by some people who didn't approve of his ideology. Fortunately, he was sustained only minor injuries.

No one worth listening to would argue that the beating was justified, and I'm certainly not going to, either. I don't care who it is or what is being said, vigilante justice is not an appropriate answer to words. The violence was wrong, and I am in no way defending it.

Nonetheless, I am concerned about some of the defenses of Mirecki's actions that I've heard coming from some of us on the Left. Since I haven't seen it anywhere else, perhaps it is worth quoting the full text of Mirecki's email that started the whole mess:

To my fellow damned,

Its true, the fundies have been wanting to get I.D. and creationism into the Kansas public schools, so I thought "why don't I do it?"

I will teach the class, with several other lefty KU professors in the sciences and humanities. Class is:

REL 602 Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies.

Tuesdays 7:00-9:30pm. Smith Hall room 100. Open to undergrads and grads. Enrollment limited to about 120. 3 credit hours.

The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category "mythology". I expect it will draw much media attention. The university public relations office will have a press release on it in a few weeks, I also have contacts at several regional newspapers.

Of course, I won't actually be teaching I.D. and creationisms, but rather I'll be teaching ABOUT I.D. and creationisms as modern mythologies, indicating that these ideas have no place in a public school science class, but can certainly be analyzed in humanities classes for their function in society. Basic approach is my usual: anthropology with a focus on religious thought and behavior.

Any ideas for textbooks, guest lecturers and panels would be appreciated. So far, six faculty have eagerly signed up to lecture. I can probably pull Chancellor Hemenway into this also, especially in the light of his public comments supporting evolution.

Doing my part to piss of the religious right,
Evil Dr. P.

The defense of Mirecki that has me bothered goes like this: Mirecki's email was to a private listserv, which means that this issue is about freedom of speech. Because a professor's speech is being interrupted, it is also an issue of academic freedom.

First, though I'm splitting hairs, I'd like to point out that this wasn't on a private listserv. In the very least, SOMA has allowed non-members to join for quite some time. Though I've never been a member of SOMA, I've been on their mailing list for over a year (which is how I came by this email in the first place). Further, even if the listserv was a private list, it hardly matters, because whether it was written in public or private hardly has any bearing on whether it is an issue of free speech.

But besides that, whether Mirecki should be allowed to express his opinions about religion isn't the real issue here. The real issue is whether it was appropriate for someone in Mirecki's position to say the things he did in an official capacity. And it isn't.

Is it any wonder this story garnered national attention? Mirecki said he and "several other lefty KU professors" would teach the class. If there is a better way to fuel the Right's paranoia machine, I can't think of what it is. Mirecki's email appears to validate every critic who has claimed that our institutions of higher learning are biased against conservatives. Mirecki continued by saying that the Religious Right would consider the class a "nice slap in their big fat face," and that the purpose of the class was to piss them off. I do not believe it is appropriate for any university or other institution of higher learning to be teaching anything that exists primarily to piss off a large group of people.

Though it is bittersweet, ultimately I'm glad that Mirecki stepped down as the department chair. Canceling the class was also the right thing to do. But it's also an unnecessary shame. If this whole endeavor had been carried out in a high minded fashion, we would have another tool to at our disposal for the teaching if critical thinking. And if there is one thing our nation is in desperate need of, it is a strong dose of critical thinking.

A few more changes. I do hope you like them.

I've removed my Blogger/Haloscan comments javascript trickery for the time being. It turned out to be not nearly as clever as I'd hoped. It caused more problems that it solved. So for now the old comments are gone. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve that will hopefully allow me to get my old comments from Blogger into the new Haloscan system, and if it works out, I'll let you know.

But it did have an upside: it helped me to finally get off my ass and fix some of the problems with my Blogger template that had slowly been accumulating. While I was there, I also changed some things that were working as I'd originally intended, but which had grown to irritate me. And if you can't stand looking at your own blog, you know something is wrong.

The blogroll has moved from the right to the lower left to make more room for reading the posts, which hopefully is why you come here. Also, it gives more room for the title of the posts, which in my browser had sometimes been wrapping in a very irritating fashion. I also moved the date and time, centered some stuff, and made the permalink a little more obvious. And I moved my name to the top of the post instead of the bottom, because I've found that it can be a little irritating when visiting a new blog to have to scroll all the way down to find out who is doing the writing. Also, I got a little fancy with my blockquotes. It seems to be all the rage these days. [UPDATE: And I made the comments links visible from the permalink! And I changed it so all links launch in a new window! Yay me!]

I also added Sadly, No! to my blogroll. I know there is at least one other blog that I had intended to add, but I can't for my life think of what it was. I'm sure it'll occur to me at work tomorrow, or some other time when I can't change it.

There are a few more changes I'd like to make. The nosce te ipsum seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it just seems pretentious. I'm trying to come up with a good tagline for this blog, but I'm drawing a complete blank. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the new year, and a C.S. Lewis review

Welcome to 2006! Anyone care to take any wagers on how long it'll take me before I forget and write "2005" on some date or other? (Bonus: Guess how many times that has to happen before someone cracks a tired joke about this-and-such a document being dated a whole year ago!) This does not bode well for me. I'm pretty sure I was still writing 2004 up until a couple of months ago.

I had planned on going out with a friend this evening, but as day wore on, I realized that I was having trouble motivating myself to do even the most basic human activities, like taking a shower.

And mostly that was because I was having a hard time putting my book down. Fortunately, I was freed from the siren song of literature at about 8:30 this evening by virtue of having finished my book. As it so happens, I've actually managed to read no less than three books in the last two days. I must admit that this is the first time in quite some time that I can lay claim to that accomplishment. Unfortunately, as the title of this post suggests, the feat is somewhat diminished by the fact that the books in questions are the first three books of The Chronicles of Narnia. A few weeks ago I managed to see the first Narnia film*, and Narnia has been on my mind ever since.

I've had a soft place in my heart for the book version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for many years now. My dad read it to me when I was young. It was my first experience with a book that contained no pictures, and I would guess that it had a lot to do with for my lifelong interest in fantasy and science fiction. It definitely cemented my love of reading. I had always assumed I would read it to my kids, too, when they reached an age where they had a sufficient attention span. But after seeing the movie, and then reading PZ Myers' take and the accompanying comments, I wasn't so sure anymore.

I can't say I had the same problem with the movie that many of PZ's commenters seem to have. I know it's a Christian allegory, and I'm not really going to fault it for that. That's partly due to my impression of the books as a kid: I had no idea it was a representation of Christianity. In fact, all the references to "Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve" made me vaguely uncomfortable. As a six year old Hutton Gibson-style Traditional Catholic, I was fairly sure these books were probably upsetting God.

My disappointment in the movie wasn't due to the religious content so much as the execution. I felt like it didn't have the same magic that I remembered from my childhood. I was irritated that the movie made Susan into an unlikable character. (In the last book of the series, it is revealed that Susan doesn't get to come back to Narnia, which has by that point has become an allegory for heaven.) Okay, we get it, Susan is a bad person who doesn't get to go to heaven. But do you have to beat us over the head with it? Similarly, the movie added a bunch of unnecessary sexism in the form of banter between the Beavers. And I thought Aslan's voice was a little weak. When Mufasa sounds like a bigger badass than Aslan, you have a problem on your hands. Wasn't James Earl Jones available? But despite all of this, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps my memory was failing me. Would The Chronicles of Narnia hold up on a reread?

It turns out that the answer is a lot more complicated than a simple "yes" or "no." The tone of the books lends a charming atmosphere that is missing from the movie. But although the Beavers weren't annoying in the book, it turns out that the sexist rewrite of their dialog only serves to replace the sexism that was cut out from other places. For example, Father Christmas explains to Lucy how she is to use her gift:

"And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle."
"Why, Sir," said Lucy. "I think--I don't know--but I think I could be brave enough."
"That is not the point," he said. "But battles are ugly when women fight."

Because if there was any lesson C.S. Lewis learned from World War II, it was that wars aren't ugly when men fight them.

Another downside to the books is that they get a lot worse as the series goes on (at least if the first three books are any indication). Part of it is simply the plot device: now that I do know that it's a Christian allegory, it's hard to get too worked up over anything bad that happens. I know that at some point Aslan is going to show up and put everything right. But part of it is that C.S. Lewis' biases seem to come out stronger and stronger with each successive book. The third book's opening paragraph manages to get in a dig at vegetarians and other "very up-to-date and advanced people."

So I'm ultimately not sure whether I'll be reading this book to my kids when their attention span permits it. Probably it won't matter. By that time, they'll already have seen the movie.


* * *


* Because one of my friends is almost completely deaf, we saw Narnia in a theater equipped with closed captioning. It is the only such theater in all of Omaha. I don't mean that it is only one complex of theaters that support closed captioning. I mean that, in all of Omaha, there is exactly one screen in one theater that is capable of showing closed captioned movies. Now. That might make seem like it makes sense to you, if you, like me, hadn't been to a closed captioned movie recently. You might think that most people don't want to have to deal with the subtitles. And if closed captioning were the same as subtitling, that might be fair. But it isn't. The one single closed captioned screen in Omaha works by adjusting a mirror-like device that fits in a cup holder so you can see the words that are being displayed on a LED ticker above the projector. And having seen it in action, I'm having a hard time understanding why every new theater doesn't come equipped with this. One screen?! I hope you like what's playing.

Update: Fixed some typos pointed out by my lovely wife. Thanks, hon!