The Oscars and the Op-Eds

This is very late, but I've had a busy, busy couple of weeks!

I don't usually watch the Oscars, except for the first five minutes or so, but last night's show really sucked me in with its old fashioned glamour. And, of course, there was Sean Penn's acceptance speech. I hadn't actually intended on staying up that late, but ended up doing work while watching the show, so I was awake for Best Actor.

Well, I figured, it is Sean Penn. This isn't exactly out of the blue, for him. All the same, it was quite attention-grabbing to hear the word "shame" resounding around the glitzy, star-packed theatre.

From Thinking The Wright Way:

I am not ashamed for defending traditional marriage. I am not ashamed of my opinion that sexual preference does not define a person, OR deserve special rights. It is not on the same playing field as race or color. And same-sex couples ARE different from heterosexual couples, so it makes sense that their union should be called something different. And they still have all the same rights that married heterosexual couples have. It all comes down to the definition of one little word.

Laura's entries are always enlightening. I'm drawn to her no-bones-about-it writing in this passage, and her adherence to the definitions of "marriage" and "traditional marriage."

Living in a Mid-Atlantic state I can't help but come across the bolder headlines from the NY Times, and Laura's entry here put me in mind of an Op-Ed from this weekend written by a supporter of traditional marriage and an advocate for same-sex marriage. It's here, if you want to take a look.

It's so rare to see a partnership between a traditional marriage advocate and a same-sex marriage advocate that my attention was caught and kept.

I know in many European countries they have same-sex unions set up in such a way that they're not called "marriage." What do you all think of that way of doing things?

Which Dictionary?

Number 4, below, attracted my attention. This is Dictionary.com, and there are 10 separate definitions in the full entry; I deleted the irrelevent ones for space.

mar⋅riage
–noun

1.	the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.

2.	the state, condition, or relationship of being married; wedlock: a happy marriage.

3.	the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of a man and woman to live as husband and wife, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.

4.	a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other in the manner of a husband and wife, without legal sanction: trial marriage; homosexual marriage.

Origin: 1250–1300; ME mariage OF, equiv. to mari(er) to marry ¹ + -age

I wasn't aware that that particular definition was in use on Dictionary.com. This particular entry is "based on" the Random House Dictionary, and another entry below it, from American Heritage, also includes that basic definition. Entries from Webster's and Merriam-Websters, however, do not include any reference to extra-legal "marriage," nor, of course, does Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary.

I'd be interested to know more about the selection and editorial processes of dictionaries. Anyone have any knowledge on this topic?

Declaration

I was browsing a blog many of you know today, and roaming around got these phrases stuck in my head:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

(You all know whence that comes, so no need to cite.)

There's that word again: truth. Is it true that all men are created equal? I think it is, essentially. Barring major difference in circumstance (you don't expect someone growing up never being exposed to a second language to pick it up just as easily as someone who's taught a second language from infancy, do you?), I'd say that generally speaking human beings do emerge into this world equal, at least in essentials. I believe, as far as I can tell, in the basic doctrine of Existentialism: that we are our decisions and actions, not our predestined genetics and being. But I believe that, at a certain level, we are indeed created "equal." We all seem born with the capacity to love and hate. We all seem (at least all of us I've met) able to deceive and also to follow through the biggest and best surprises. We all seem to have the capacity to grow and change.

Is it true that we humans are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And if that is true, then is it also true that those rights are unalienable?

"Life" is an easy one that I don't feel the need to dissect here. I take that straight off of Maslow's Pyramid and say that if you achieve the bottom level of the pyramid, then you're a living (hu)man. Cats attain that much, after all.

So, to start: where do you cut off the definition of "liberty"? Do you limit it to physical liberty, the ability to move around and act as one pleases, if it harms no one? Do you extend that limit to speech and offer to say whatever truth you will, as long as it is not a slanderous or libelous lie? (We in the U.S. do, obviously!)

When do you limit the "pursuit of happiness"? When harm comes to others? I imagine Charles Manson was in some sick way "happy" with himself when he was free. (Maybe he still is; I don't like to hear or read about the man, so I don't know.)

Self-evident truths: Equality, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I don't see how my hopes for our country deprive anyone of any of those things. I really don't.

Etymology

Another post as set-up before I jump into the politics of it all.

I love etymology. I don't know much about it really, but as a momentary hobby I enjoy stumbling across the origin of words. So the first thing to catch my eye in a dictionary entry like this one...

truth
n. pl. truths (trōōthz, trōōths)

1. Conformity to fact or actuality.
2. A statement proven to be or accepted as true.
3. Sincerity; integrity.
4. Fidelity to an original or standard.
5. a. Reality; actuality.
b. often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.

[Middle English trewthe, loyalty, from Old English trēowth; see deru- in Indo-European roots.]

... is that "truth" comes from the Middle and Old English for "loyalty." We English-speaking people have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to vocabulary and can use many different words to express the idea "truth," "verity" being another option in some contexts - obviously that's not my real last name! :-D It's telling to me that out of all the synonyms for this concept, the one that springs from "loyalty" is the one that is arguably the most spoken by Anglophones. Go to Thesaurus.com and search "truth." I'm willing to bet you $5 (not that I'm a betting woman) that "truth" is the word you use most out of the entire list. (I will bet $100 that you say "truth" more often than "verisimilitude"!)

The second thing to attract my notice in dictionary entries is my favorite definition, since often the word has more than one. Definitions to a word can obviously be very different from each other. For instance, in #2 above, "a statement proven to be true" is a truth; "a statement accepted as true" is a truth too, but it can also be an axiom. #3, "Sincerity; integrity" does not define "axiom" in addition to "truth." This is what goes through my mind when I look at the puzzle of language.

My favorite definition above, or at least the most relevant to this blog, is #4: "Fidelity to an original or standard." Truth.

I'd like to think about WHAT is the original? WHAT is the standard? And WHY is it so?

Outline

Well, I finally joined the club and started a blog. I've been thinking about it for a while, especially since November, and now that Dominique got serious, I decided to join in!!

I've read blogs for several years now - at least since 2005 - and have been following some really interesting ones in the past couple of months. It feels like everything has gotten more interesting in the last couple of months sometimes, at least in our country! It seems like this is the time to make decisions and take a stand for truth, or justice, or BOTH, if they happen to be the same thing at the time.

Lately, I'm not sure justice is always oriented to truth. And truth certainly hasn't appeared in all the official justice the last few months. Those of you who know me in real life know I'm not a lawyer (or even a law student), so when I talk about "truth" or "justice" from a legislative standpoint I may sound a little ignorant to some of the readers who come across this blog. That's okay with me. What's not okay to me anymore is sitting back idly.

Here we go!