Whence marriage?

I went to the beautiful wedding of Catherine's friend in Birmingham this weekend, but I had been reading too much Brothers K and was in an overly analytical mood. When the minister described marriage and love as if both originated from and were the exclusive province of a Christian God, I found myself wondering about the institution of marriage. I was kind of surprised that I had read so little explaining how we got to the point where churches sanctified and appropriated what must have at one point been the spontaneous union of two people to form a family. I found some random articles and the Wikipedia entry but I'm still not satisfied. Still looking for something better. Maybe it's worth finding a book?

Wikipedia is fun

I've been on a big Wikipedia-reading kick lately. I think it started when Catherine started asking me about Hinduism, and all I really knew was that Krishna stole butter and ate it and killed a serpent in the lake. Today, for kicks, I looked up "water sports", which was disambiguated into the secondary definition of Urolagnia. I feel much more educated after reading up on this topic. The one thing that worries me most about Wikipedia is the stories I've heard about people who made subtle alterations to pages, changing, say, the number of home runs of some obscure baseball player, and have had it gone unnoticed (despite general success in identifying vandalism). I like the idea of editors - maybe they could periodically mark release branches, just like in code development. Speaking of Wikipedia, the live recent changes feed is slick.

Funny

I would never do this.

Home

Blogging on my parents' new wireless network (courtesy moi). After a week at home, the one thing I miss most about work is Diet Coke. Luckily, I had some today. Home's been very fun. And warm! Basketball, the beach, parties. It's feels odd to have people you see exactly once a year. Everyone (i.e. Josh and Charles) has a blog! Driving is kind of fun if you do it infrequently enough. Cranium is awesome! (Spelling questions are best answered sober, though.) Apples to Apples is mysterious, but easily won with the "Driving off a cliff" card. Firefly is addictive.

As an aside (as if this all weren't!), this Dilbert really captures how I felt when I first moved to Boston. (Good find, Richard):


Leaving now to watch more Jeopardy (boy has my trivia brain atrophied) and erase comment spam.

Yes, I've been delinquent

So much has been going on, I've had no time to write about it. Working backwards, more or less. Ben Franklin documentary on History Channel, Ben as a playa. Bronx Zoo at night - tigers and sea lions and camels eating, reptiles sleeping, baby capuchin monkeys breastfeeding, reindeer locking horns. Fun, if pricey. A better deal if you get in during the day - it's almost the same price. Also, the entrance closest to the subway is closed at night. Oops. Before that, Scrabble. Good find: 2 letter and 3 letter words with definitions! Google holiday party - too much booze - why did they have to have it on a Thursday? Incredibles and Kinsey (really liked Kinsey, sad how little religious conservatives have progressed in accepting human nature). Finished Oryx and Crake (Catherine thinks it's faux-deep, but I enjoyed it. Anyone want to discuss the ending?) Still hunting for decent Indian food in this city. Fun Thanksgiving at Catherine's (precarious hike in the rain at night, arcane card games, suburbia, Trading Spaces, good food). New sweater, new duvet cover, new couch. The Game. The only thing sadder than Yale on the field was Harvard charging for tailgates(!).

More debate text analysis

I was reading old stuff in Bloglines, and ran across Cameron's toys for looking at the debate transcripts.

Purple proportional map!

Thanks to a pointer from danah: purple proportional map.