Idiotic arguments

Ack. I think I need to stop reading the Marriage Debate weblog, which is devoted to discussion of marriage rights. It’s run by Maggie Gallagher and Eve Tushnet, who both oppose the freedom to marry, though they claim to have a balance of pro- and anti- opinions on the blog. Anyway, so many of the anti-freedom arguments are just so incoherent and wrong that they drive me to distraction. Here’s an example, by Mark Tardiff:

There is no longer any subject to posit actions since 'I' cannot be identified with either my body or my consciousness. In genital sex between a husband and wife, on the other hand, we see not one person decomposed into two but two who become one flesh. Husband and wife separately can perform the bodily functions of eating and digestion. But the reproductive act can only be performed by the two of them acting as a single reproductive principle.

Tardiff has clearly confused genital sex with organ donation. I’ve had sex. I wasn‘t closely related to my partner, so though I’m not actually certain, I’m pretty damn sure that if we had become one flesh, there would have been some serious immune system issues and rejection symptoms. Or maybe this one-flesh thing only happens with married couples; I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t have any problems along these lines.

And did you notice that Tardiff also seems to be unaware that people can reproduce without being married or having genital sex?

"How often would they clean the pigeon droppings?"

The Black Table reviews proposals for the World Trade Center memorial:

It's not that these potential memorials lack the appropriate gravitas or are altogether terrible, it's just that they all feel the same. From the street level, in the shadow of a massive new World Trade Center, passersby will likely see a park. Or a reflecting pool. Or some lights. Or some combination of the three. It's as if it were half-price day on "running water over engraved stone" at the old idea shop and all these guys had coupons.

My shirt stinks of tobacco smoke

The downside of hanging out at Ground to draw is that I come out smelling like cigarette smoke. Yech. The upsides are (1) cheap coffee, (2) good lighting, and (3) comfy seating.

This right here is a copy of a photo of Kate Moss on the cover of W magazine; I’m trying to get a better handle on how to dramatically light faces. The rest of today’s dump is out of my head.

Looking back over my big sketchpad (spiral-bound Canson), I can see that I’ve made a good chunk of progress in the past, what, year or so.

( More sketches )

Family values, Republican-style

Details from the divorce proceedings of Neil Bush, Dubya’s younger brother:

The Bush divorce, completed in April, was prompted in part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.

The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and engaged in sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

"Mr Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.

"It was very unusual," Bush said.

(Via CalPundit)