Saturday, November 29, 2003 Politics Is Sickening By Diana Hsieh @ 1:12 PM Oh yuck: During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal. Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat. Integrity is a precious commodity in Washington, so horray to those who did vote "no" despite this pressure cooker. Link / Noodles / Trackback Virtue and Vice By Diana Hsieh @ 10:24 AM Wishing ill upon evil people no vice. Link / Noodles / Trackback Friday, November 28, 2003 Metaphysical Confusions By Diana Hsieh @ 10:44 AM I've noticed that the arguments against gay marriage routinely confuse metaphysical facts with man-made facts. Case in point: Gay marriage, gay marriage, gay marriage. I don't think I've ever written a column on gay marriage. Perhaps I should. Trouble is, I can't get my mind around it. In this zone, I am totally a dinosaur. When I hear people talking about gay marriage, it falls on my ears as if they were saying: "OK, from now on, we are going to have Mars revolving round the Sun in Venus's orbit, and Venus in Mars's." Oh, are you? That's nice. But how are you going to do it? By an edict from the Supreme Court? I suppose that religious conservatives see marriage as a fact of nature rather than a human-created social institution because God is supposed to have established it. (Then again, God is also supposed to have put his stamp of approval on slavery, the subjugation of women, and many other delights conveniently forgotten.) In any case, the appeal to God doesn't make the argument any less stupid. Link / Noodles / Trackback Tuesday, November 25, 2003 The Overdue Update By Diana Hsieh @ 10:54 PM My farrier came to trim the horses hooves today... and lo and behold, he caught me on TV! I'm famous! Okay, well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But my first appearance as a talking head (discussing animal rights on "Drawing the Line with Reggie Rivers") was pretty exciting. Thankfully, I didn't embarrass myself with horrid arguments. But I found it harder than expected to get to the meaty philosophical points. Ari Armstrong wrote up some commentary on the show and animal rights in general. He even posted the picture below, which I have duly stolen. The official caption reads "Jennifer Melton, David Crawford, Ari Armstrong, Diana Hsieh, and Reggie Rivers discuss animal rights November 19 on Rivers' show, Drawing the Line." Now I'm going to go add that "Media Appearances" section to my CV! :-) Link / Noodles / Trackback

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