Funeral Misbehavior

I don't follow gossip columns, or even broadcast news. But I do read a few blogs. Yesterday FriendlyAtheist posted Tony Danza’s Funeral Outburst Makes Sense. I don't particularly care about the actor or the author involved. But apparently he has gotten some negative press for an action that I wish I'd had the cojones to do a couple of times. He cut off a a cleric who was in full stride in a fire and brimstone recruiting speech at the funeral of a friend, to redirect focus to the friend. Personally, I think the cleric was misbehaving, not the friend. And I wish more people would stand up at funerals and demand that the subject be of the life departed, not of the faith of the orator. Better yet, make sure the minister knows beforehand that bald propagandizing will not be tolerated. If the deceased had been a pious person, then discussing the faith and piety of the departed meets with my approval. But using the occasion simply as a recruiting drive is too common of an occurrence. I've been to a few funerals where the cleric/priest/minister had nothing particular to contribute about the guest of honor, but went on and on about how doomed the rest of us were unless we took his preferred sacrament. He simply knew a captive audience and marketing opportunity when he had one. Very dissatisfying to those of us who knew the decedent. I have also been to good memorials, where the focus was on the life as lived. My two favorite memorial services ended with a participatory kazoo performance, or recessional music by Groucho Marx. They were fully celebrations of the life departed, not dire warnings to the audience. Unless as a cautionary example to enjoy life while you can. Here is an example of an appropriate farewell, although NSFW:

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Road Trips, Nertz and ADD

I wonder sometimes if road trips will become a thing of the past. For my wife and me, they’ve certainly dropped a bit on the list of things to do, but that may simply be a product of schedules, interests and rising gas prices. We used to drive multiple many miles just to see things, turn around and drive back. In California, 13-14 years ago, we decided one day to take our kids to see the sequoias, so we drove 400 miles, saw them, said, “Cool.”, and drove back. In the same day. Now, a custom van makes it a comfortable option, but we take fewer of those trips. Nertz is a card game that is best described as group solitaire on speed. There are different sets of rules, but we play a “Navy” way taught to us in the 1990s and almost always play in teams of two. We have since evangelized it across the continent and halfway across the world, and my wife taught it to many of her Korean students during our seven years there. After teaching the game to very good friends also stationed in Korea, we would often answer the door at 10:30 on a Friday night to Barb, pitcher of margaritas in hand, saying “Rick’s taking out his contacts and grabbing a bottle of wine….you guys up for some Nertz?” Road trips and Nertz converged this past weekend as we decided to drive from Dallas (actually Rowlett), Texas to Memphis (actually Atoka/Millington), Tennessee to see Rick and Barb, our friends from Korea; a weekend which we thoroughly enjoyed and did manage to squeeze in several hours of Nertz playing. We left at 5:00 pm on Thursday with me driving the one way 7.5 hours (without stops) of 440 miles in a different (but now 11 year old) custom van, accompanied by my wife, two younger sons and the ADD-wired brain that has been my companion for near 50 years. I sometimes wonder what it is like to be “normal”. [More . . .]

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Refusing to recognize marriage

Tom Ackerman has an provocative approach for dealing with a constantly simmering problem here in America: gay marriage. Whenever someone mentions their husband or wife (or their "marriage"), he makes a blunt statement that he "doesn't recognize marriage." His reason? "[N]obody should have marriage until everybody does." That gives people who have been privileged with the ability to marry a bit of the perspective of those are aren't allowed this privilege. Here's how he does it:

Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend. She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,” “Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.” The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years, “How’s your longtime companion, Jill?” “She’s my wife!” “Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.” Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs.

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Reaching out

Lisa Rokusek often writes for Dangerous Intersection. She also writes for her own website, The Rhino and the Buddha. Lisa and her partner have made a cottage industry of reaching out to help others, including cats, and dogs, but mostly to other human beings. Lisa is a good friend of mine and she never ceases to impress me with her willingness to keep trying, sometimes against all odds. I'm not trying to embarrass her by saying this, but merely indicating that some of Lisa's bouts of empathy are endeavors that I would be hesitant to attempt. Framed with quotes by Pema Chödrön, Lisa's most recent post, "No Guarantee," is a charmingly well-written but less-than-satisfying episode that ends with several important observations:

Sometimes we sow seeds we don't get to see grow. Sometimes we expend effort and it has no impact. Sometimes little things we do without noticing make all the difference.

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Forbidden love and the Westermarck effect, illustrated

The linked video is an example of a father (John) having a romantic relationship with his own daughter (Jenny) and having children with her. The documentary also introduces viewers to a romantically involved half-brother and half-sister. But doesn't nature rig close relatives so that they are sexually repulsed from each other? Yes, but only if they live in close proximity during a critical early developmental window. This potential desensitization to sexual attraction is referred to as the Westermarck Effect. In the case of John and Jenny, the daughter had essentially no contact with her father for the first three decades of her life. Same situation with the half-siblings. Without the Westermarck effect to pull back on the reins, "genetic sexual attraction" kicks in to supercharge the romance. Notice how the moralistic and legalistic discussion in this documentary runs orthogonally to the biological research. Not once is the Westermarck Effect discussed, even though it sheds substantial light on these situations. It often occurs to me that we'd be better off analyzing social situations in terms of evolution and ecology in addition to legality and morality, but that would deprive us of so many opportunities to engage in angry finger-pointing and judgmental barking. To consider the science would admittedly require some effort, something that many of today's self-assured people are unwilling to do. If people did take the time to think things through more rigorously, however, they would likely see that this "father" and this "daughter" are dramatically unlike prototypical fathers and daughters in dramatic ways that correlate to solid biological and psychological research. If they took the time to understand this situation using (easily available) science rather than simply folk-morality, even the harshest critics of these couples might have the following thought: If I had been in that situation, these same sorts of powerful attractions might have overwhelmed me too. A perspective infused with even a bit of science would have set a different tone for this entire documentary. A bit of scientifically-informed self-critical thinking might even open the door for a more empathetic perspective. It's a new multidisciplinary world out there with regard to "morality," as psychologist Jonathan Haidt eloquently explains at Edge.

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