Leap day

Sunday, February 29, 2004

7:11 AM: I am so far behind. Yet hope returns with the morning coffee and “paper,” and I put off the draft papers, the memos, the emails, the web-revisions while I read the NYT Op-Ed. John Adams, I learn from Joseph J. Ellis, wrote the Massachusetts constitution, re-phrasing Jefferson:

"All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties," Adams wrote. "In fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness."
. . .
Are Adams and Jefferson rolling in their graves? This is not just a rhetorical question, since opponents of same-sex marriage are sure to argue that neither man intended his words to be interpreted as a sweeping endorsement of gay rights. While such opponents would be historically correct, their argument would also apply to civil rights for blacks and, at least in terms of Jefferson, to voting rights for women. A literal enforcement of their original intentions, in short, would necessitate rolling back a full century of liberal reforms now broadly regarded as beyond debate.
But the open-ended character of their language on individual rights is a crucial clue to a more relevant version of their original intentions. Both Adams and Jefferson regarded the American Revolution as a long-term experiment to test the limits of personal freedom. Present at the creation, they did not want to place any cap on the potential achievement of the experiment in the future. Jefferson was particularly eloquent in urging each new generation to interpret his famous words anew. Adams was a more cautious revolutionary, emphasizing way stations on the road forward to allow time for popular opinion to catch up with jarring changes. He may well have favored civil unions as a sensible compromise in the current furor.
Most important, the way they framed the question gave great advantage to the side in favor of expanding the scope of individual rights. Notice, for example, that recognizing gay marriage will not require a constitutional amendment, but blocking it will. And the founders made passage of a constitutional amendment very difficult indeed. Our debate over gay rights has just begun, so it would be foolish to predict all the legal and political contortions that lie ahead. If history is a guide, however, everyone who has bet against the expansive legacy has eventually lost.

And this by Nathaniel Frank:

The traditionalists may well be right that a monogamous relationship between two unrelated, consenting adults makes a strong foundation for a stable family, and thus for a vigorous social order. They're just wrong that those two people have to be of different genders.

Oh, and Friedman’s good on outsourcing too:

Indians are so hospitable. I got an ovation the other day from a roomful of Indian 20-year-olds just for reading perfectly the following paragraph: "A bottle of bottled water held 30 little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy. The problem was that there were many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles."
I was sitting in on an "accent neutralization" class at the Indian call center 24/7 Customer. The instructor was teaching the would-be Indian call center operators to suppress their native Indian accents and speak with a Canadian one — she teaches British and U.S. accents as well, but these youths will be serving the Canadian market. Since I'm originally from Minnesota, near Canada, and still speak like someone out of the movie "Fargo," I gave these young Indians an authentic rendition of "30 Little Turtles," which is designed to teach them the proper Canadian pronunciations. Hence the rousing applause.

7:52 AM: And then there’s the morning spam: 42 that got through the spam filter to my in-box, and 43 filtered, apparently (and atypically) all of them correctly.
12:27 PM: The 4 College kitchen: Espresso brewing: Plan for my three courses, before I get to the student drafts. An additional essay topic for Psych 105g:
Pick a passage from Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice that especially moves or interests you. Explain quickly how it relates to an important theme in Freud (S or A) or Erikson. How does Gilligan clarify what’s at issue, change our thinking about an aspect of “psychosexual development,” or reshape an aspect of Freud or Erikson? 600 words.
12:59 PM: I was moved to speak at HMM today about my response to Ellis and Frank, my realization that the founding fathers wouldn’t have approved (or thought of, in most case) the application of their “all men” to Blacks, women, or gays, my conviction that “marriage” must be term of choice for couples, and my joy in being part of our gay-friendly community. ‘Twas a busy time thereafter, and most seemed moved.
1:16 PM: Now, then. Those papers…