A person from Australia has been issued a passport with an X in the gender section, rather than F or M.
X marks the spot for intersex Alex
It appears to be the first such passport acknowledging that some people are of indeterminate gender.
Authorities in Australia initially told Alex that an M or F choice would be required because their computers couldn’t handle anything else. In the end, though, more enlightened heads prevailed and an appropriate passport was provided. One can only hope that other governments will start to follow suit.
It will be interesting to see the response in America when this issue comes up. The same groups who are worried about the “breakdown” of the family will likely be just as apoplectic about the breakdown on the sexes. After all, they will say, there was only Adam and Eve — no Alex.
One thing to notice as you read the article linked above: The author had to do some thinking outside the box in order to write the piece without once using the third person singular to refer to the subject. “Him” and “her” aren’t applicable, and “it” is definitely not appropriate. Should there be a new personal pronoun for those who are androgynous?
(found via one.point.zero)
Category: Politics, Policy & Culture
Japanese Clone?
The Raelian cult recently announced the impending arrival of yet another cloned baby, this one a Japanese boy.
Raelians’ latest claim: Japanese clone is next
Japan Times Online
Neither the Raelians nor Clonaid — their scientific partner — has offered any proof of this or the two previous cloned baby claims.
The Japanese baby is supposedly a clone of a boy who died 18 months ago in a traffic accident.
Although the baby will be born outside of Japan to a surrogate mother, the soon-to-be parents say they plan to live in Japan. This raises some interesting questions, to say the least.
Human cloning brings such an overwhelming raft of questions and quandaries — ethical, moral and practical. The first thing that came to mind when I read about this latest claim was the relatively pedestrian question of citizenship.
What will be the baby’s citizenship? He comes from a deceased Japanese citizen, and will be born outside Japan to a non-Japanese surrogate mother. What kind of paperwork will the parents have to show when they bring the child to Japan? There’s no way they’re going to be able to sneak him back into the country considering the advance warning. And then the Japanese media will be all over this like… well, like the Japanese media.
Human cloning is banned in Japan. But there is no law covering cloning of or for Japanese citizens outside of Japan.
What kind of birth papers are created when a cloned baby is born? Are the Raelians resorting to forged documents to make the baby appear to have come into existence through traditional means? Or will there be some kind of special birth records for cloned babies, whether they were born legally or not?
If these claims turn out to be true, it’s going to be the beginning of a very strange and fascinating time. It will be interesting to watch the attempts to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. It’s going to become more and more difficult to control science through law, for better or worse.
Helen, If You Think…
Helen Thomas asks tough questions.
Q (Helen Thomas): At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the President deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up.
MR. FLEISCHER: I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds. And the President, as he said in his statement yesterday, deplores in the strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people, innocents in Israel.
Q: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?
MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends —
Q: They’re not attacking you.
MR. FLEISCHER: — from a country —
Q: Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?
MR. FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein’s aggression then.
Q: Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?
Hoorah for Helen! Go git ‘im!
Did you hear about this in traditional, mainstream media? CNN? Fox? Anyone? It’s sad that the bubbly fluff that gets spit out of the tube and into print is never this interesting. And is poor old Helen Thomas the only one in the White House press corps trying to light a fire under the President’s ass?
(found via EastWest, Cursor and Bloggy — I need to get Trackback up and running)
Open Source Food?
A yogurt from Georgia (in Asia, not America) has been spreading throughout Japan by being passed from person-to-person.
A sample of Caspian yogurt, as it’s being called, was brought back from Georgia in 1986 by a Japanese scholar studying longevity.
Bacteria spreads across nation to create slimy, healthy treat
There is no commercial version of the product, which has spread thanks to friends and neighbors sharing samples.
Car Vapors
A researcher in Japan says new cars are full of unhealthy chemicals.
The interior of a brand-new vehicle could contain more than 30 times the acceptable level of volatile organic chemicals, known to cause symptoms of illnesses linked with sick building syndrome, according to a recent study by a public health researcher.
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For those concerned about the chemicals, Yoshida recommends thorough ventilation.
In other words, drive with the windows open at all times.
Do Corporations Have Rights?
Thom Hartmann has written an interesting article about Nike’s claim that it deserves free-speech rights. At issue is whether corporations can knowingly deceive the public.
In the next few weeks the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear Nike’s appeal of the California Supreme Court’s decision that Nike was engaging in commercial speech which the state can regulate under truth in advertising and other laws. And lawyers for Nike are preparing to claim before the Supreme Court that, as a “person,” this multinational corporation has a constitutional free-speech right to deceive.
About the founding fathers, Hartmann writes:
Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would “ban monopolies in commerce,” making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be “to serve the public good.”
The amendment didn’t pass because many argued it was unnecessary: Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons.
(found via Kottke)
Super-Duper Dipstick
This is one of those moments when you really hate being an American.
House Majority Leader Tom Delay is asked by Fox News’ John Gibson if America should be trying harder to work bi-laterally with other countries. This is his answer. Seriously.
DELAY: John, we’re no longer a superpower. We’re a super-duperpower. We are the leader in the world. We are the leader that defends freedom and democracy around the world. We are the leader in the war on terrorism. When we lead, others will follow. For us to fight this war by consensus is a prescription for defeat. It has been a prescription for defeat in the past, and it would be in the future.
Thank goodness we have such a strong leader in George W. Bush that understands that when confronted with evil, you have to root it out. And that’s what he is attempting to do. These apologists for idleness are doing nothing that is constructive in the war on terrorism. We have to go after it, we have to fight it differently than we fought wars in the past, and the president has the right doctrine to do so. It’s called the preemptive doctrine.
Groan.
(found via Joi Ito)
Driving Mass Media
At least two recent events — the Trent Lott controversy and the Henry Kissenger debacle — highlight just how asleep at the wheel the mainstream media has become. But they also show that a vibrant and growing online community is becoming more and more influential in providing a true national discussion.
As Arianna Huffington points out in her recent Salon.com column, it was a community of bloggers who kept discussion and coverage of these events in play. But unlike traditional media, the discussion came up from the bottom rather than being dictated — or neglected — from the top. This is what Cokie Roberts was so worried about.
As mainstream news continues it’s transformation into entertainment and corporate propaganda, real news, information and perspective is bubbling up from below.
Counter Intelligence
Denver’s police department has been gathering and maintaining intelligence information on local citizens for decades. In recent years, the information was transferred from index cards to a computer program developed by Orion Scientific Systems.
Controversy erupted after files were leaked, showing the department had been tracking political and social activists, and had been classifying some of them as “criminal extremists.”
Going Electronic, Denver Reveals Long-Term Surveillance
Working under the direction of the Denver police intelligence bureau secretary, officers classified organizations like the American Friends Service Committee as “criminal extremist” groups, one of the choices offered in a pull-down menu by the software.
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The police said that each officer had used his own judgment in characterizing a group and that it had often been labeled “criminal extremist” because it did not seem to fit any other choices.
Other police departments — including New York City’s — use the Orion system. Orion says the “criminal extremist” classification has been removed from the program. Perhaps it’s been replaced by “Arab.”
If surveillance systems like this have been in place for so long, it’s frightening to think what’s being developed, used and abused now. Law enforcement agencies need to be able to gather certain types of information, but the danger has always been in the abuse of systems when appropriate safeguards aren’t put in place.
On a brighter note, there are those who are stepping up to the plate to protest excessive spying. Let’s hear it for librarians!
Cities Say No to Federal Snooping
Fearing that the Patriot Act will curtail Americans’ civil rights, municipalities across the country are passing resolutions to repudiate the legislation and protect their residents from a perceived abuse of authority by the federal government.
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Another group to vehemently oppose the act has been librarians. They are now required to divulge patrons’ book-borrowing and Internet-surfing habits to federal investigators and are prohibited from making such requests public.
In retaliation, some librarians have called special meetings to educate their communities about the Patriot Act’s implications. Others now routinely purge borrowing records and Internet caches. One former librarian devised a series of technically legal signs to warn patrons of FBI snooping.
WTC Designs
New World Trade Center Designs Unveiled
After the first round of designs were heavily criticized for lacking vision (and rightly so), new proposals for a rebuilt New York City World Trade Center have been unveiled. There’s a lot more of interest in these designs, and on first glance I especially like the one pictured above.
Unlike the other proposals, this one looks unfinished, like a shell of what used to be there. It evokes memories of the original structures, without being too fussy about it.