Wednesday, August 06, 2003

I'm off to paint.  Goal number one is going to be the hard one.  Anyone ever written a children's book care to give advice?  ----------- I made it back from the painting. I think I did my very favorite painting ever!!!  And this is one I'm supposed to give away. Hhmm..maybe I'll trade it out. I had fun doing it too - I like to get my hands dirty and make lots of texture.  Texture is awesome.  I also did some little watercolors.  Watercolors encourage me to try to draw a little more and they're easy to churn out.  Comments7:27:43 PM

I was reading the below (worth reading in full) and found it pretty interesting.  I'm not sure I agree completely.  I don't think that the government/religious leaders are taking the RIGHT stance, but I don't think it's because they believe that things won't happen without their backing.  They're trying to make a silly statement about how they don't agree with it and they need a moral stance to keep things from getting worse.  Similar to prohibiting alcohol.  However, I agree completely with Ben's conclusion.  ----- Ostrich Politics. Ostrich Politics is about sticking your head in the sand and refusing to view immoveable facts as a practical, reasonable basis for policy. Will pushing abstinence by instilling fear actually stop people from having sex? No, say the studies: people are simply going to have sex. Except they might have unsafe sex because the information about safe sex is not being made available. Will refusing to recognize gay couples (10% of the population) somehow make them go away? No, say the scientists. Homosexuality is not a disease. It can't be "cured," and doctors have known that since the 1970s. Homosexuality just is. It's a fact. Yet life-long homosexual partners are forced to live their dedicated, loving relationship in a social no-man's land, without proper healthcare support, government benefits, or inheritance rights. Faced with facts they don't like, Ostrich Politicians choose to ignore them and enact policy that would make sense if these facts never existed. Not only will this fail to achieve intended goals, but the actual results are disastrous: more people having unprotected sex, and more citizens ostracized by the government. In computer science, we have an important principle: garbage in, garbage out. If you make poor assumptions, you'll get poor results. Leaders can preach ideology as much as they want, but actions should be based on facts, not wishful thinking. By ben@cyber.law.harvard.edu (Ben Adida). [Benlog] Comments7:26:20 PM

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