Published Philosophies

On Sex Talk

Attraction is an involuntary reaction and not a choice, as usually argued about gay people and their nature, not something to judge or debate, a reflex; conversation is a series of choices, political, and likely to invite judgment or debate. So it seems that a conversation about sexual attraction, even what you like or don’t in a sexual partner, is a useless exercise. It is bound to offend somebody needlessly. Suppose you are a dwarf, round, with goitres on your neck but you are in love with – or at – a supermodel. The likelihood of consummating that attraction doesn’t change the fact of it, and if you are disgusted by your own reflection chances are that being set up with someone who has the same afflictions will not solve your dilemma.

On Scandals and Celebrity Gossip

There is no even trade-off between the artist’s need for publicity and the media’s need for copy or content. If there were, Paris Hilton’s music and movie career might be in better shape and Anna-Nichole Smith might have. . . No, maybe that train of thought is already derailed. (I remember a director’s commentary on Naked Gun 33 and a Third describing the way he had to direct Anna-Nichole to shift her eyes to indicate thinking about something; he had to point to objects for her to look at.) Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. Obviously if an actor calls a press conference or babbles in an agreed-upon sit-down interview then it is his or her own fault whatever damage is done. But some of the most respected figures in Hollywood appear on front covers heralding “What they Look Like Without Make-Up” or speculating on who is secretly gay or heading for a break-up or may have had a miscarriage. None of this helps up anyone’s asking price. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Jodie Foster, any well established performer with a body of work and a foothold in their respective industry has earned respect. The current 18-25 demographic may not be aware of or may not have seen the best of their credits and may only have the word of bottom-feeding gossips to round out their public image. In the worst case scenario, should a celebrity choose to keep some of his/her personal life “on the down low” they should be as entitled to do that as a gay or lesbian is to come out. They will however be branded as “self-loathing” by morons who presume that “self” is entirely defined by how that person gets his/her kicks romantically. Public speculation about whether someone has had an affair, an abortion, lived on welfare or has paid for sex might fall into the same class of journalism – gutter trash scum. Performer or athletes may reinvent themselves or overcome something or change their fortune and are entitled to consider their new status as a survival story without having old dirt rubbed in their faces by garbage picking low-lives. The celebrities usually are people who generate a product that we want; the gossip industry (loosely calling itself entertainment media) is a parasite giving us nothing. At most the latter group creates is filler in a newspaper or a website homepage cluttered with anti-news and moronic, misinformed opinion. Paparazzi are a dangerous extra element in public events and in the private lives of artists and athletes which can impede their movement and even contribute to fatal accidents as in the case of Princess Diana’s car crash. (If they were not present it either would not have happened or the assassination attempt would have been more efficiently reported.)
Gossip rags need to be boycotted and held more accountable. Celebrities can party on.

On Abortion

People tend to retro-fit their philosophy to support whatever they have done or plan to do.

To avoid or suppress a feeling of guilt, some will go so far as to change or spin definitions of human, life, gestation, or death. It may be considered rude to publicize the fact that doctors and nurses use codes or numbers to refer to arms, legs, or head (Number 1 being head, the last item typically removed during a D&C). This can cause undue stress to a woman who has suffered a miscarriage and may not need be reminded that her foetus had human body parts. But sensitivity to her feelings or those of the abortive mother need not prevent the facts from being confronted.

Since an unhappily pregnant woman can malnourish, injure and neglect the resident of her womb any number of ways up to and including back alley abortions, it is a compelling argument that enforcement of anti-abortion laws would be a waste of energy and attention. This concession seems to be pro-choice, but it need not be a picket-waving embrace of that “side” in the debate. There are, after all, many abortion issues and not simply the question of keeping it legal or forcing doctors in remote areas to perform it.

Whose choice is it? Many woman are compelled by boyfriends or husbands to abort.

Is abortion pro-female? Women around the world routinely have ultrasounds to determine the gender of the foetus and if it is female have a sex-selection abortion.

Does an act have to be spun into ethically pure before it can be accepted? The tiny soap-bubble cluster of cells that is a fertilized human embryo can be harvested and used for stem-cell research without denying that letting it attach to the lining of the uterus and come to term likely will result in a baby with birth certificate, crying and shitting. Medical advancement historically straddles the fence of morality. People are so used to being told what they want to hear by advertisers and media that it is easy to believe that no baby exists before the umbilical cord is cut and that nine months of gestation is merely time to arrive at that unimpeachable stage of choice. It may also be tempting to believe that because a sperm and the fertilized embryo are both microscopic they are of equal value, forgetting that a sperm left alone will die merely a sperm and an ovum left alone will be evacuated as unused but the fertilized embryo left to its process may potentially grow to cast a vote in an election 18 years and nine months later.

Which “side” is more silly and illogical, the idea that gestation from conception to birth is a phase of human life or the idea that we “become” human at birth? Avowed atheists have been heard to say that the baby becomes “quick” at birth, which would seem to attribute to them such a thing as a soul. There is a high-handedness in both camps, but it is not accurate to perpetuate the pro-life side as religious and the pro-choice side as secular. Long before Christ managed to live without weighing in on the subject, Aristotle suggested that the potential of the unborn feeling pain should determine right and wrong on the matter; he also said that no abortion should be allowed unless the baby was expected to be “deformed or female.”


On voting under a veil

Is a passport photo ID valid if the person is depicted with face covered by a veil or a mask? If not, and a woman voting has posed for a passport photo without a veil then she has set a precedent that there is no religious urgency that should outweigh the obligation to show her face to the returning officer when giving ID to vote in an election.

Furthermore, it should be understood that a person becoming a Canadian citizen renounces allegiance to their country of origin. Arguments that values and conflicts or traditions carried over such as female genital mutilation or female circumcision / castration or patriarchal tolerance of domestic abuse therefore have no merit.