Obergefell v. Hodges

Obergefell v. Hodges is the name of the same-sex marriage case heard by SCOTUS today, April 28th, 2015.

On this, the day that the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments about the “right” of Same-Sex Marriage, I thought two new thoughts.  But before I speak them, I want you, my reader, to be crystal clear where I stand.  One, I am 100% with the proponents of the right to same-sex marriage who want to be treated the same as traditional marriage couples in civil law, as it does no harm to anyone to allow them to share this “right” with opposite-sex couples.  And, two, this issue does not seek gay access to religious marriages; churches or congregations may continue to do as they want – let them marry gay couples or let them not marry gay couples – let them have their own internal struggles with this issue, and I am sure that many churches and surely many more congregations will fracture over this “right.”  So be it.  There you have it, FOR same-sex marriage in its CIVIL sense only, and FOR the freedom of religious institutions and religious practitioners to continue to discriminate (is this really a Christian thing to do?) against gays at the same time.  I am not threading the needle, I am NOT having it both ways, but no one is asking for private non-discrimination, only governmental non-discrimination.  If you, dear reader, think I am wrong, prove it; show me with a citation of a legal action to compel a church to officiate and/or to recognize a same-sex marriage.

SETI – The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

OK, this short blog post is a reality check.  “Are we really alone?”  Is Earth-based humanity the only intelligent species in the whole universe?  OK, we are pretty sure that we will find life – elemental life, single-celled life – pretty nearby and soon, on Mars, on one or more of Jupiter's or Saturn's moons.  But how about intelligent life, more intelligent than us – from whom we might learn SO much that would solve SO many human problems – how about really intelligent life?

A Modest Proposal

The genus Homo appeared on planet Earth about 2.5 million years ago, the species Homo Sapiens appeared roughly 800,000 years ago, and the subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens (double-wise?  Hah!) (that’s US, modern humans) about 200,000 years ago (as I am no paleoanthropologist, I can be excused for mis-stating the dates, but that does not affect my argument).  We modern humans traded hunting and gathering for the domestication of animals and agriculture a mere 12,000 years ago.  The Industrial Revolution (beginning with steam power) began less than 300 years ago, and the wide-spread use of electricity took place over decades from the late 1880’s through the Great Depression (still on-going in many places in the world).  Before that transformative transition, all of your ancestors knew what the Milky Way* was (they could see it, even if they didn't know what it was!) and they could see it every night.  And the stars that they could see with the naked eye!  Not hundreds, not thousands, more like 100,000 - uncountable.  The advent of Cell Phone technology in the 1990’s and of “Smart Phones” (Blackberry, iPhone and Android) in the last fifteen years signified the last nail in the coffin of our being able to differentiate work from play and rest, and our entire dependency on Industry, Electricity and Technology.  When you go on vacation today, even if you spend it on Tahiti; do you really go on vacation, are you really isolated in any real sense from your workaday world?  Even there, a real night sky overhead, do you ever look UP?  What is the difference between you and a robot that mimics you?  Today, we "know" the difference, but the tomorrow when we won't see the difference is not that far in the future.