Talk Amongst Yourselves

Alright people, I'm feeling uninspired today so I shall direct your attention elsewhere.  A few links:

The post, I missed the memo, at unfogged generated some interesting comments.  From the original post:

Do people really abort because they find out the baby has Down's Syndrome? I thought that people had abortions because of the mother's circumstances, the mother's health, or because the baby had such severe abnormalities that it would only live a year or two.

But lately all these people have come out of the woodwork saying, "Yeah, we would have aborted it if it had had Down's." Really? Am I totally out of touch with the baby calculus going on in other people's heads?

Annnnnnd...did you know that, in NJ, you can vote by absentee ballot for any or no reason at all?  I did not know that...until yesterday.  From the NJ Division of Elections website page on Absentee Voting:

In New Jersey, any voter can now vote by Absentee Ballot for any election. You do not need a reason to vote by Absentee Ballot. Don't feel like going to the polls? Simply vote by mail. Now there is "no excuse" not to vote!

A voter may apply for an absentee ballot by completing an Absentee Ballot Application (see below) and mailing the application to their County Clerk by mail up to 7 days prior to the election. A voter may also apply in person to the County Clerk until 3:00 p.m., the day before the election. The County Clerk cannot accept faxed copies of an Absentee Ballot Application since an original signature is required. And here's the link to the application.  I'm thinking about doing it, for a few reasons: I'm lazy and my polling place is all the way down the street (as in, 5 blocks away; further as in, I could walk there in 5-10 minutes). The polls will probably be very busy that day. I'm considering volunteering to give rides to polling sites to people who need rides to said polling sites.  This way my vote will already be in and I won't have to worry about doing it on a day when I might be rushing around trying to get other people to the polls. I'm thinking about not doing it for symbolic reasons: There's something about going behind the curtain and physically casting your vote. My town is very Republican and, for some reason, I think of physically going to the polls here and casting my Democratic vote, standing in line with a whole mess of Republicans, existing Democratically for all to see, etc. as somehow symbolically important.  Not quite sure how, hence the 'somehow', but there it is. The important thing is that you vote. Somehow, some way, it doesn't matter how you vote, just do it! And now, for something completely different (well, perhaps not; it's about a proposition that's up for vote in CA): Frank Notes blogs about and against California's Proposition 8 here and here.  I am tewtally down with commenter Mary, who says: Whatever mystique there may be about the sacred tradition of marriage is absurd, IMHO. For much of history, marriage has been a means of transferring property (a woman) from one man (her father) to another (her husband). Quite honestly, I hope any adult who wants to enter into a lifelong commitment with another adult should be able to do that. Stheriousy.  My own comment (which came off a bit pessimistic): I’m with Mary who commented about the mystique of a sacred tradition of marriage. People who are against gay marriage often speak of hetero marriage as if it means the same thing to everybody, but it doesn’t, whether or not we married heteros realize it. People get married for different reasons: love, companionship, to start and raise a family w/another person, financial security, societal expectations, etc. I don’t mean to demean the love part of any marriage; I just mean to point out that it’s not the only reason people want to marry. It’s like saying there’s only one version of patriotism or one ideal of beauty. Not all hetero marriages are the same mysterious sacred union; they’re all variations on the theme of marriage. And the consenting adults who enter into marriage should be just another variation on marriage. I don’t think I expressed myself very clearly. I once heard a gay comedian talk about how, wrt gay marriage, gays just wanted a chance to be as miserable as hetero married people. It pointed up what I’m trying to say, just better and funnier. People make such a big deal out of marriage, like it's some sort of ethereal existence.  It's just one type of interpersonal relationship.  It has not always existed.  It has also played different roles in society throughout time, as Mary noted about its use of transferring property.  Or transferring power.  At some places and times it has represented - and continues to represent - the union of entire families rather than just two people.  Sometimes multiple spouses (usually multiple wives) are allowed, accepted as normal and perhaps even encouraged, but even that is often done for reasons other than bco some spiritual union business.  Basically, I doubt that very few people who get married actually do so for groovy mystical reasons. I'd like to see state-recognized marriage and all its benefits as a civil function, i.e., a civil wedding takes place and is the legal wedding for purposes of all those lovely benefits.  If people want to have a religious ceremony too, they can certainly do so.  My father used to occasionally get pictures from then-Communist Poland of relatives' weddings.  There seemed invariably to be two pictures: one of the happy couple at their civil wedding and one at their religious wedding.  So in my mind, then, this idea of civil and religious weddings suggests a Communist approach.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  But I assume that those who are afraid of the Pinko Commie Threat would oppose such an arrangement, but I bet a lot of such people wouldn't even know enough to make the connection to what Communist countries used to do. Shorter: Just take religious institutions out of the state-recognized marriage business. Even shorter: Separation of church and state.