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« October 2003 | Main | December 2003 » November 29, 2003Buying and Selling the Little Black BookSomehow, i failed to blog that Esther Dyson has a great article on the YASNS sphere. Can you count your friends? Better yet, can you organize them in a database? There's a lot of buzz about a new breed of software tools that can help people manage their contacts -- or, to make it sound more serious, leverage their social capital. It's an educated warning to developers, investors. She brings up brilliant challenges to the hype Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:49 PM | TrackBack (1) it's just cultural...Jill has a great entry on how Europeans don't understand why Americans don't text. The technology is there, so what's the problem? [The comments on this one are fantastic!] Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) irritated beyond belief..rant.. It was annoying when Friendster was slow. I got over my sighs when Friendster went offline. I can even deal with Bulletin Board messages going down every once in a while. But, this has me outright angry: Profile is unavailable Every time i try to surf to someone; every time i try to bookmark someone; every time i try to figure out who a person is that sent me a message... Every time i get that. So, i have to sit there and reload, reload, reload until i get annoyed and quit. The problem is that i'm trying to write notes down on "configuring the user" wrt Friendster and i need to be able to get to the primary text for analysis. Thus, i'm bloody pissed. It's one thing to have slow servers... it's another thing to make a technical nightmare out of something that was working. I don't think that i've ever so actively watched as a piece of software degrades so consistently over time. Classic software engineering problem. Throwing more coders, more money and more hardware at something dreadfully broken and already patched doesn't work. Even Macromedia knew went to re-write Director. And it wasn't even this broken! ::steam:: Tell me, Nielson, is this impacting the return user numbers as much as i'm hearing it is? I know no one who is willing to surf through this many barriers. ../rant.. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 4:41 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) friendster by handLast week, David Weinberg blogged about Friendster by hand. In order to explain why Friendster makes no sense, he describes a Friendster scenario that is laughable when translated to real life. His post made me think of a paper that i wrote a few years back called Sexing the Internet. It is really common for us to introduce ourselves to people in real life through a series of rituals. At the core, you're asking "what do we have in common?" but to do so, you ask where the person is from, who they might know that you might have in common, what the person does, etc. You are trying to find common ground. This type of behavior is easily translated to the digital world and even a query so simple as A/S/L is about more than the questions "age? sex? location?" At the core, you're asking if you have enough culturally common ground to speak and hopefully the answer will provide you with fuel for a pick-up line as exciting as "Oh, i lived in Boston once!" The thing is that the ritual of finding common ground is not so much about the answer as much as it is about the pattern of asking/responding. When we create profiles, we privilege the answer. This makes the response all the more awkward. Suddenly, "Oh, i lived in Boston once!" translates from trying to find common ground to "i've stared at your profile and i think you're hot but we have absolutely nothing in common and i have nothing interesting to say so i'm going to react to your location and hope that you're so desperate that you'll respond positively to my sketchy pick-up line that's even more offensive because i appear to be stalking you." Reacting to a profile is just 10x more socially odd than small talk. And unfortunately, the profile itself takes away one's ability to engage with the standard "what do we have in common" questions. Thus, the lurker gets that far and then they have to find something meaningful to say without the ice breaker. Given this, it's such a miracle that profile-based dating ever works. Of couse, that's the trick, right? It only works when both people are actively looking or when one person brings something brilliant to the table that goes far beyond small talk. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1) November 28, 2003as we may thinkI'm re-reading "As We May Think" with a careful eye in preparation for exams and this time, a quote stuck with me that i think is really important given some conversations i've been having lately: His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important. On one hand, this assumes that perfect memory is always valuable. Perhaps "the privilege of forgetting" allows us to not face the nitemares or other elements of our imperfect lives that limit our ability to move forward and live. I think of the people that i know who cannot forget the negative. What would it be like to always have it on hand? Would you always play it in a masochistic kind of way? Perhaps forgetting certain things is the only way to evolve. I will never forget the monks who came to visit me when i was younger. They spent a week building a beautiful work of sand art only to destroy it upon completion. Sometimes, life is about the ephemeral process, not any precise moment or end result. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 10:30 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) NYTimes -> Friendster requestsThe NYTimes says that i have 278 Friendster friends. The thing about this number is that i actually know all of them and only 3 of them have i never spent extensive time with in RL (research friends who i have had deep interactions with online, but not offline). Most of these people share significant bonds with me and i've been pretty vigilent about sticking to the "desired" Friendster behavior in this way. (Basically, i have no desire to be killed since i need this account for research.) I actually maintain multiple accounts. One of them, with my real name, is not linked to anyone. I created it in case old friends wanted to find me. Ironically, all of the requests to that account have been subjects, people who have answered my survey or others that i don't know at all. Since the NYTimes article came out, i've received over a dozen Friendster requests from people who i don't know at all (in addition to the emails of people asking me to be their friend and the 1 request via my used Friendster account). Frankly, given this, i'm amazed that anyone can think that Friendster is an accurate portrayal of social networks. To many of these people, i'm just another name in the paper, one that's known to have a large network. Thus, they link to me. I'm the perfect candidate to expand people's networks, right? So strange. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 5:42 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (3) seeing love play outMy friend C is madly in love with this boy D. C lives in NY; D lives in Santa Cruz. When Thanksgiving was being organized, C couldn't come out but everyone invited D anyhow, wanting to get to know him better. It was great - he's a sweetheart and *perfect* for C. The two of them have this great relationship where they connect on so many levels and the treat the world like a playground. It's so awe-inspiring. C decided that she must see him so she arranged something perfect. Another friend of ours put together a set of missions for D to complete, running around San Francisco on a treasure hunt to find clues that would finally lead him to a home where C would be waiting, having flown in immediately following her turkey dinner. I spent the turkey evening with D, hanging out and talking and it was sooo refreshing. His love for C just overflows from within him. But things in the mission plans got a bit screwed up. His mission was supposed to be found in one place, but it was mistakenly placed elsewhere. Thus, he didn't know the details of his mission. I was supposed to drop him off at a friend's house last night but that friend passed out so i took him home to my couch (and my book collection, which he dove into immediately). I woke up at 1, knowing that the mission was supposed to start then. I started preparing to take him back to the original location, hoping to find clues for how the mission would start. But behind the scenes, one friend had taken to mission instructions to the house where D was supposed to sleep last nite. That friend hurried them over to my place. When i gave D his mission, he looked at me and was like "Are you all in on this?" I laughed and told him that all of our friends adore him and we wanted him to be part of the family and this was his initiation. It's funny how much we'll all do to support their love and passion. Off he went, seeking his mission... by now, he's found his love waiting for him. How perfect! Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) nielsen data on FriendsterIn their latest report on Friendster, Nielsen/Netratings reports that average theFriendster user (who logs in) spends nearly 2 hours per day on Friendster, but that they are not yet up at competitive levels with other dating services regarding number of unique viewers. Anyhow, fascinating data. I truly wonder what Friendster looked like over time. Is the average user spending more time on Friendster than in June? Is the percentage of people who return changing? Are earlier users not loggging in as much? So many interesting data questions... Category: friendster
Posted by zephoria at 4:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) visualizing the internetThis project was created to make a visual representation of a space that is very much one-dimensional, a metaphysical universe. The data represented and collected here serves a multitude of purposes: Modeling the Internet, analyzing wasted IP space, IP space distribution, detecting the result of natural disasters, weather, war, and esthetics/art. This project is free and represents a lot of donated time, please enjoy. Category: visualization
Posted by zephoria at 3:57 AM | TrackBack (1) what motivates people to be mean?So, i just checked email today (oh dear me). There were so many fun notes from friends and from folks that i don't yet know - silly congrats, intriguing questions, business proposals, etc. It'll take me forever to sort out my email, but it was still such a nice little moment to be thankful for. Of course, i can't help but emotionally react to the one cruel email: Subject: sociologist? First, there's no doubt that i raise my eyebrows about being called a sociologist. Sure, many of the tools that i currently use for studying Friendster come from sociology (and i've even drawn from all 3 aforementioned philosophers in various arguments i've made). Still, i think that my advantage in the academic sphere is that i draw from such a variety of methods and theories and come up with new ways to bridge them all together. That said, i never take issue with people labeling me as a sociologist (or an anthropologist or even a computer scientist) even though that doesn't quite describe what i do. Still, people need a category. But aside from that point, i just don't understand what motivates someone to read a profile and write a scathing note to the person profiled in an attempt to discredit her. What satisfaction does this man derive from the knowledge that this note got through? What is so offensive about such a profile? Is it not valid enough because it is not written in discourse speak or littered with references to academics that most of the audience would not recognize? In my many conversations wtih Michael, i constantly referenced different academics, explaining what their foundational contributions were, but i totally understood that he had no reason to publish them. But it's clear that this man took the time to reference what i present digitally in order to write this note. It reminds me of what a friend of mine once told me... he said that you finish your PhD when you hate your advisor, you hate your topic, you hate your life, you hate everything. Apparently, this man never stopped hating. So weird. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:35 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0) November 27, 2003expounding on architecturesThe NYTimes briefly references how i relate properties of an environment to notions of architecture and i thought i'd expound on this since folks have asked. First, these ideas are based on language used by Lawrence Lessig when discussing four points of regulation in "Code": market, law, social norms, and architectures. So much of how we structure our social interactions is dependent on our understanding of an architecture. In the physical world, this element is constant. There are certain properties of the physical reality that allow us to assume certain social norms. Without technology, i assume my conversation is ephemeral. I can visually and audibly determine who overhears me. That said, generations of fiction have been created out of the problems with this assumption... what if the walls are listening? what if someone is in a secret passage way and can see you? what if?. But in a truly dialectic form, those questions only emerge because the majority of time, you understand who can see/hear you. Everything changes online. The architectures of the digital world are constantly shifting and being redeveloped. Technological determinists tell us to get over it: everything is public. But the digital public is so conceptually different than the physical public. People don't yet know how to operate in a space where everything is persistent, searchable, etc. More importantly, we're engaging with people *now* and can't even imagine what new architectures will form 10 years from now that will repurpose our current presentation into the future in a way that is quite different than we expect... even in the "public web." This is why Friendster intrigues me. Friendster is an example of that shifting architecture. The majority of users on Friendster don't have blogs (or journals) and aren't really present on the web. They are the Internet users who thrive on searching the web and using email. Thus, they are naively negotiating what it means to put up public data. They are forced to face some of the questions about how shifting architectures impact their presentation of self. At the same time, Friendster also shows how you cannot take sociological and anthropological theories generated in the physical world and expect them to work online. 1950s sociologist did not imagine that the foundation of their work, the underlying architectures, would shift. They assumed this to be constant and thus most of their work needs to be re-conceptualized with architecture as a variable. And this, this is why i'm having fun. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:58 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) graffiti archaeology
My friend Cassidy Curtis has been in awe of this phenomenon for ages and he put together a fantastic website entitled "Graffiti Archaeology" to allow us to navigate a city wall over time. He's been photographing walls and collecting images over time to compile these composites. Plus, now that it's hit the web, different artists are starting to donate graffiti images to him. [If you have graffiti archives, definitely send them his way!] I really like this project because it takes advantage of the digital medium's ability to see temporal data in any order. Thus, you can see how the different graffiti elements have impacted new drawings, have been repurposed, or have been obliterated. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 11:40 AM | TrackBack (0) November 26, 2003why i study FriendsterMany folks have asked me why i study Friendster. Others ask how i've gotten here. Some wonder where i'm going. Well, the The NYTimes asked those questions and wrote a profile of me. ::blush:: Of course, it's not the full story, because it can't be (only so much danah babble can fit into a 1500-word or whatever story). But even in the slice that is covered, i can hear myself and my advisors. (Oh, and for those who are interested in some of my anecdotes, the article also includes interviews from two people whose Friendster stories inspired me.) Category: friendster
Posted by zephoria at 10:38 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (4) babbling for the nytimes
For those who don't want to read the story: it's basically a profile of me framed around my work with Friendster. Doing the interviews for this piece was fantastic! I got to tell the story of how i started studying technology, about my work with Andy/Judith/Peter (Genevieve/Henry...). I got to talk about why Friendster interested me (and why the business side is not my passion). Michael interviewed many of the people who have had an impact in what i'm doing (Andy, Peter, Genevieve) and those who are helping me think through the space now (Mark, Joi). To hear their reflections of their conversations with Michael is such a treasure. ::laugh:: I'm a giddy little girl right now. November 27, 2003
SOCIOLOGIST among geeks and a geek among sociologists, Danah Boyd has 278 friends who link her to 1.1 million others.
Category: friendster
Posted by zephoria at 10:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (8) Not at Home for the Holidaysby Ethan Watters, author of Urban Tribes Years ago, when we were young and new to the city, we called them "orphan Thanksgiving dinners." We were beginning our careers, scraping by as artists or working as waiters and we often couldn't afford the expense or time to make it back to family for the holiday. At the beginning of November those who knew they would be stranded in town spread the word and one by one friends of friends would make themselves known. When Thanksgiving Day rolled around the card tables placed end to end could not hold us all and many would be forced to couches and the edges of beds to balance paper plates on our knees.
It was years ago that we called those gatherings "orphan Thanksgiving dinners." Something about them changed as my friends and I reached our late twenties and early thirties. The celebrations became more formal. The paper plates and coffee mugs were replaced with real, breakable dishes and matching wine glasses. Rituals formed over the years. Friends now wrote songs and rehearsed plays specifically to be performed at Thanksgiving. The after dinner walk had a specific route through the park. Looking back at my twenties, I can now picture us as explorers in a new social landscape where it was suddenly the norm for both men and women to spend ten or more years living single, far away from our families and hometowns. No one told us that we were going to delay marriage longer than any generation in American History and no one gave us a map for how to navigate that time. Faced with the social wilderness of the city we slowly forged communities among our friends. Years ago we gathered haphazardly because we could not make it home to family. This Thanksgiving, my friends and I will come together reverently with a desire to honor our group with this particular holiday. We give thanks for this self-made community and for the certainty that we are orphans no longer. danah note: this essay made me smile. I will be spending my Thanksgiving with my SF crew cause i can't afford to go back east. I wrote to my mom asking for her stuffing recipe, because we're doing a potluck feast. This is my first Thanksgiving (and was my first birthday) not spent with the family. And i'm looking forward to the shared festivities and the blended rituals. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) constructing an audienceLately, most of my (de)constructive thoughts have been focused at friends and myself (i.e. not my research). This has been soooo energizing. One on one, back and forth (de)constructive conversation. Critical feedback that is pushed directly and returned. Plus, i've been talking to Fernanda frequently about blogging audiences. This made me think about my own audience. I, better than most, have a deep understanding that my blog is a public presentation of self. And i have an understanding that while the content of this blog is not nearly as focused as my professional blog, my readership overlaps. But, even i, still foolishly imagine a certain level of security through obscurity. I forget that people might care about my opinion (particularly those who don't agree with me). It's terribly odd to me that people might get upset when i take a week off of my opinion rants on Friendster, et. al. I don't see myself as a public figure and i still view my blog as a space to put out half-chewed ideas and get feedback. Unfortunately, my audience doesn't seem to agree. ::sigh:: So, my blogs have weirded me out lately. Even this note feeds oddly constructed... i have no idea who the hell is reading this, but i know it will be part of my public archive. And that's particularly strange since i deconstruct my own blog entries as though they are just another piece of text and i imagine what i must be like from these entries and what an odd picture... And then there's interaction. I created the blog for my own records, but i put it out there publicly to engage folks to challenge me or provide me with better resources. Unfortunately, most commenting comes from spam. And the majority of non-spam comes from extreme opinons (or my beloved roommie) so i know that my audience is not represented in commenting land. So who is my audience? Now? 10 years from now? Whenever i go into these introspective moods, or try to go meta on myself, i find myself returning to the one-on-one. I always wonder what someone might think of my email archives. All of those highly directed musings, intended for an audience of one. Those interactions are so rich, so full of my confused head, my critical thinking skills, my philosophies, my religious views. I look back to the IMs and emails from this week and i see a reflection of myself. I look to my blog and i'm bored. But this begs the question. What is it about this medium that doesn't let me to play through those thoughts? Certainly, there's the confusion about who my audience is. And the feeling of interactivity. But there's also the beauty of truly intimate interactions, the feeling of getting to know someone better, of jumping into their psyche, of saying things that no one else hears, of reaching new depths. We're all vulnerable at those depths. But blogs do not provide safety for vulnerability. And thus i find myself going meta long before i dive down into the uncertainties that mark a contemplative mind. Thoughts to chew on... 'cause this blog is still about the innane, the random and the irrelevant. Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 1:03 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0) November 25, 2003Live Journal mood aggregationA friend of mine just sent me the first round snapshot of the aggregation of the mood of Live Journal that she's helping Mark Handel do. When Jesse & Andrew put together imood, they added a feature that let you know how the Internet was feeling. This was great, although a bit problematic since many people didn't update their profiles. Of course, with LJ, people put their mood in with each post and thus, an aggregator can collect this. Of course, it's funny to think of a collective sense of LJers since they i would think that they are quite geographically diverse. Of course, they all seem to be tired right now so maybe it's not as diverse as i'd think.... Category: LiveJournal
Posted by zephoria at 11:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (2) compelling environmental movieSay whatever you want about Leonardo. But global warming movie is a really beautiful and compelling little reminder to the masses in a non-aggressive way. WATCH IT. Category: politics
Posted by zephoria at 11:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (2) flash mobs articleA friend of mine is highlighted in an article on Flash Mobs for his research in the area. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 5:00 PM | TrackBack (0) (pseudo) apologiesDear unknown audience: My apologies for my recent absenteeism on this blog. As the term is nearing the end, my attention has been slightly diverted to thinking about Vannevar Bush (vs. Emanuel Goldberg), SCOT, Erving Goffman, reputation, mobile/camera phones, CHI, meta-blogging, etc. I promise that i will come back with interesting commentary on the social networks space shortly, but if you are really bored and looking for danah babble, feel free to follow my non sequiturs at http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ Category:
Posted by zephoria at 12:30 AM | TrackBack (0) November 23, 2003tech bloom in full flowerAlex's article on the tech bloom is out in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Yay!! Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:27 PM | TrackBack (0) November 21, 2003ipod sharingI can't help but smile every time i see someone with white cords sticking out of their coat pocket. It's like a dirty sign of solidarity, a fashion marker that bonds you all together. The white cord. The iPod. Problem is that i hate those little ear things. They never fit into my ears. Thus, i had this weird secret sitting on the BART, listening to my iPod through my big black headphones. Well, as fate would have it, i lost one of the pads for my fancy earphones (which had been falling apart anyhow). So, when i went to buy my Screensavrz, i noticed that they had noise reduction iPod big headphones. Complete with white cord. I bought them. Since the, i'm once again ackowledged by other iPod strangers, back in the cool. Well, apparently, i'm just not that cool enough. No one has ever asked me to !jack in! to their iPod. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 5:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) google archiving IRC?After a bot belonging to a Google IP address kept appearing in various IRC channels, folks started blogging about it. No one knows for certain if Google is archiving IRC interactions or otherwise tracking behavior, but it does continue to raise the question if Google realizes that taking information out of context might be more a disservice than a useful enterprise. Even if Google was not inside the IRC channel, many people log these things (just as they did Usenet, in which Google was also not inside). Yet, just as people's notion of "public" in Usenet did not include persistent & searchable, i'm guessing that most IRC folks are also not really constructing each message as though it will go down on their permanent records. Category: digitalness
Posted by zephoria at 5:46 PM | TrackBack (0) wired article on Friendster/TribeToday's Wired article discussing Friendster vs. Tribe is quite interesting. The basic critique against Friendster is: Yet, compared to Tribe, it has succeeded because it is so dating-focused and because: "I like Friendster because it is more people-oriented," she says. "Tribe is more geared towards selling used blenders and looking for a job. I don't need to be reminded how many jobless people there are, or what awful things people will do for a buck.... What I want is the fantasy that we are all rock stars, that everyone's ass looks great in leather, that everyone is sexy." Anyhow, read the article! Category: friendster
Posted by zephoria at 2:00 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) let water become fireIt has been a very peculiar week and i'm still scratching my head. Life has its balances though. Pay the consequences for foolish actions, repent and be selfless for a moment and get repaid in intriguing ways. People always talk about living in historical moments. They're talking about historical on a more monumental scale. I'm always stunned when i'm living through a period that i know that i'll never forget much of the absurdity of it. Normally, it's my own doing... normally, i create my own adventures. But this week... this week has been an act of gravity, force, fate and synchronicity. So strange. Ah yes, Scorpio is transforming into Sagittarius. Let water become fire! Category: reflections & rants
Posted by zephoria at 3:33 AM | TrackBack (0) November 20, 2003emanuel goldbergI can't help but slip into story time whenever i listen to an older male with a British accent, particularly professors; it just reminds me so strongly of my grandfather. Thus, i absolutely love listening to Professor Buckland talk about his ideas; i just sit there in a trance, completely incapable of thinking critically, but in love with everything presented. He convinced me to love him on my first visit to SIMS, explaining how SIMS is not interdisciplinary, but methodologically diverse while focused on one body of knowledge (i.e. departments vs. schools, methodology vs. target body of knowledge). Well, this week, Professor Buckland told us stories about Vannevar Bush and Emanuel Goldberg. I spent my formative years under the guidance of Andy van Dam. As such, i was indoctrinated with the philosophy that Vannevar Bush is god. Thus, when Buckland started telling us the story of Emanuel Goldberg, i was floored. A new book will be coming out shortly, but the simple answer is that Goldberg had pattened and CREATED the memex before Bush, long before Bush. Emanuel Goldberg appears to be a brilliant man who history has ignored (and Buckland is going to right that historical wrong). Category: social observations
Posted by zephoria at 12:38 AM | TrackBack (1) November 18, 2003perception and abstract representation
One of my professors presented this New Yorker cartoon in his lecture. It's *brilliant*. What does it mean to present an abstract representation of an idea and have others "read" that idea? When does conveying something work and when does it not? What are the implications of such? Category: academia
Posted by zephoria at 6:23 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) rape in bosnia... a must readAfter many years of working for V-Day, i can never forget the look on Eve's face back in 1998 when she told us about her visits to Bosnian refuge camps. There were six of us, all students, all determined to carry on the V-Day spirit and the second-hand look of incomprehension, horror and loss still sticks in my head, particularly since it came from one of the most vibrant and passionate women i've ever met. This morning, through the blog world, i was given a pointer to "a cradle of inhumanity". It's a heartbreaking feature story, echoing the pain that i always saw in second-hand form from Eve. The struggle of women who give birth to children after having been raped. The inequalities of being raped as a systematic tactic of war... not being recognized as a victim, not being given any level of economic or social support. The inequalities, the pain. It's hard to hear about this level of pain second-hand. I cannot imagine having a child that way. I cannot imagine the horrors that these women go through. But i can read, i can listen and i can try to make it never happen again. I ask you to do the same. Category: gender & sexuality
Posted by zephoria at 3:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) gay marriage in MassachusettsLast week, Massachusetts' highest court declared the state's ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional and demanded that the state change its laws. The CNN article on the topic is fascinating, revealing the underlying tensions. - Is marriage about children? Why do people in power feel so motivated by inequality that they are determined to make a constitutional amendment to protect their way of life? I'm fascinated by the fears that this issue strikes in straight folks... what on earth is the big deal? It's funny because we live in a country that likes to preach certain rhetoric but not really defend it. Equality for all! (When could women vote? What about blacks?) Tolerance! Separation of church and state! Massachusetts court rules ban on gay marriage unconstitutional Tuesday, November 18, 2003 Posted: 3:32 PM EST (2032 GMT) (CNN) -- Massachusetts' highest court ruled Tuesday that the state cannot deny gays and lesbians the right to marry and ordered the state's lawmakers to devise changes in the law within six months. In a 4-3 ruling, the court stopped short of allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the seven couples that challenged the Massachusetts law. The ruling could set new legal ground, and drew quick reaction from advocates on both sides of the issue. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney issued a paper statement saying he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and he would support an amendment to the state's constitution "to make that expressly clear." "Barred access to the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions," the court's ruling said. "That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law." Vermont is the only state in the United States that allows same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage. Vermont calls them civil unions, rather than marriage. California's State Assembly recently passed a domestic partnership law to provide similar benefits, but it stops short of allowing gays to marry. (States determine marriage laws) Romney left the door open for some other way of recognizing same-sex couples. "Of course," he said, "we must provide basic civil rights and appropriate benefits to nontraditional couples, but marriage is a special institution that should be reserved for a man and a woman." Connie Mackey of the conservative Family Research Council criticized the ruling, saying it was "a clear case of the courts overruling the majority opinion of the people." "If the will of the people has anything to do with it ... the people will throw out any legislator that upholds this ruling," she told CNN. "The culture has seen the family unit for thousands of years as one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children." Mackey also urged passage of a federal constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. But Elizabeth Birch, director of the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign, argued that the courts are not obliged to support a majority of the people. "If not for courts, African-Americans would not have had the right to vote, women would not have the right to vote," she said. "The purpose of a constitution is to protect a minority group from the wrath of the majority. "The majority of people understand that a government-issued civil license to marry is not a threat to anyone," Birch added. The seven same-sex couples that sued the state for denying them marriage licenses argued the Massachusetts' constitution prohibits discrimination because of sex. In its ruling, the Massachusetts court rejected arguments based on religious or moral grounds -- from either side of the contentious issue. "Our concern is with the Massachusetts Constitution as a charter of governance for every person properly within its reach," the ruling said. "The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry," the court said. "We conclude that it may not." The U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to interfere in the ruling, which was made solely on the basis of state law and not brought into federal courts. Gay activists say the American judicial system is beginning to catch up with modern society. In June the Supreme Court ruled that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional. (Full story) On June 10, an appeals court in the Canadian province of Ontario struck down a ban on same-sex marriage. But a majority of people surveyed in late October said gay marriages should not be legally recognized, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. According to the survey, 61 percent said no when asked whether gay marriages should be recognized as valid by law. Thirty-five percent said yes. The poll, taken October 24-26, surveyed 1,006 people and had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points. The same poll showed sharp difference on the issue based on gender. According to the survey, 70 percent of men said no to legalizing gay marriage while 26 percent supported such unions. The survey showed that 53 percent of women opposed gay marriages, while 43 percent supported legalizing them. The question posed by gender had a sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points. CNN Correspondent Maria Hinojosa contributed to this report. Category: gender & sexuality
Posted by zephoria at 1:16 PM | TrackBack (0) November 17, 2003wabi-sabiI was exchanging ideas with a friend today and he asked if i knew of the concept "wabi-sabi." I did not and he sent me on a google chase while briefly noting that it explained the Japanese aesthetic. Wiki upon wiki referenced the same thought: It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional. Needless to say, this aligns quite well with Zen, but it also hold great power in the context of the conversation. We were discussing why people bother to know one another, what creates draw. I was noting that the most interesting people for me are those that i don't understand, those that challenge my constructs, the differences. Everything is changing; everyone is evolving and it is that process that is so beautiful to me, far more than some completed picture. I've never believed in a universal and thus this concept really sits well with me. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 6:43 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) not broken, just sprainedOK, my toe isn't broken, but it is really badly sprained. It's purple and i can't put any weight on it. They have me on crutches which i can't use because of my carpal tunnel. Thus, i feel even more useless; i totally forget that i wouldn't be able to use crutches. Berkeley is *not* easy to get around normally, let alone when all banged up. It has tons of hills, no parking (even if you have the handicapped permit) and no services to help you navigate the campus. Plus, South Hall is *smack* in the middle of the campus. I'd been wishing for a tram before, but oh dear do i beg for one now. I scored a $50 parking ticket this morning trying to deal with this process (not helping the unnecessary spending rule) and i couldn't even make it to my second class because i couldn't penetrate campus to get to it (after about 2 minutes on crutches, my hands go numb). Not sure what to do. But my roommates are right: this is one of life's exercises in slowing down. And of course it's my birthday week. Have i ever not been sick on my birthday? I always attributed it to my body being run-down before Thanksgiving and me just breaking, but perhaps it's just karma. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 3:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) November 16, 2003my Ani site used for liner notes !?!?!So, a few months back, i learned that Righteous Babe was using my lyrics site to print lyrics for deaf patrons of Ani concerts. Today, a fan pointed me to this article in The Mercury News. Apparently, RBR is using lyrics sites to generate liner notes for Ani's albums. Oh dear me. They do note that there are tons of errors in whatever fan site they are using. I have to say that if it's mine, i certainly know it. I also know that way too many other fan sites copy my lyrics for their sites, replicating the errors. So, if you're from RBR and you're reading this, would you mind sending me the fixes that you do for liner notes? I'd love to fix up my version... it's only screwy because it's the version that i got from transcriptions of Ani's recordings. Category:
Posted by zephoria at 7:19 PM | TrackBack (0) |
Check out the Opte Project:
The NYTimes did a profile of me.
