A few thoughts on International Kissing Day, the holiday launched by the de-lovely Amber Taylor, which we've been blogging about here for a few days.

First, Spencer at Mediocrity's Co-Pilot argues that kisses are pricey. One error he makes off the bat (somebody notes this in his comments) is counting the future dates implied "almost contractually" by a kiss as a cost. It's not; it's a benefit.

More generally, I think his post bespeaks a fundamental failure to understand a great use of kissing day-- it should be used as an excuse to draw those that one fancies into one's net. Mention to a non-blog friend how international kissing day is approaching, imply that you're hunting for a kissing partner, etc. Far from being a chance to soak the single, this holiday is a boon to them.

Then there's Anthony Rickey, joined by Curtis of Singing Loudly, who complain that their respective kissables are miles away. That does pose a dilemma. I won't attempt to resolve the question of whether and when it's acceptable to kiss other people-- presumably that question rests on prior understandings that aren't my business (as well as, perhaps, the question of whether the other side is obeying his or her end of the potential bargain). But it's not a lot different from the dilemmas faced by the distant at any holiday. Where one can't gather around the tree, hunt for the afikomen, tuck into a turkey, or snog with one's loved ones, I suppose one does what one can. Send a kiss through the mail, send a lip-smacking telegram, or simply take a few tinglingly pleasant thoughts and a raincheck.

That leaves us with Tim Sandefur, whose curmudgeonly complaints are largely conquered by Int'l Kissing Day's' grand dame Amber Taylor. The thrust of his argument seems to be one that pops up at nearly every holiday-- "Why do I need a holiday to celebrate X? I celebrate X all the time without its help!"

Similarly, such spoilsports could oppose Christmas and Thanksgiving on the grounds that they already rejoice with their loved ones, abstain from July 4th on the grounds that they are already patriots, or Veteran's Day, I suppose, on the grounds that they already show Grandpa the respect he deserves. Those are legitimate knocks against holidays in general, but there's nothing unique about Int'l Kissing Day that makes it more vulnerable to those criticisms than any other day of merriment. Some people think that activities that ought to be commonplace needn't be singled out for special celebration. For those that disagree, celebrate International Kissing Day next Tuesday.

The real Doogie Howser, notably, will be starring in this movie come late July.

Is anyone else as excited as I am?

Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog writes about the frightening (to me) possibility that Congress might bring the BCRA machinery to bear on media organizations. I don't know if that's going to happen, but if so it would summon up a certain "I told you so" from Justice Thomas:

The chilling endpoint of the Court’s reasoning is not difficult to foresee: outright regulation of the press. None of the rationales offered by the defendants, and none of the reasoning employed by the Court, exempts the press. “This is so because of the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of distinguishing, either as a matter of fact or constitutional law, media corporations from [nonmedia] corporations.” Bellotti, 435 U.S., at 796 (Burger, C. J., concurring). Media companies can run procandidate editorials as easily as nonmedia corporations can pay for advertisements. Candidates can be just as grateful to media companies as they can be to corporations and unions. In terms of “the corrosive and distorting effects” of wealth accumulated by corporations that has “little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas,” there is no distinction between a media corporation and a nonmedia corporation. Media corporations are influential. There is little doubt that the editorials and commentary they run can affect elections. Nor is there any doubt that media companies often wish to influence elections. One would think that the New York Times fervently hopes that its endorsement of Presidential candidates will actually influence people. What is to stop a future Congress from determining that the press is “too influential,” and that the “appearance of corruption” is significant when media organizations endorse candidates or run “slanted” or “biased” news stories in favor of candidates or parties? Or, even easier, what is to stop a future Congress from concluding that the availability of unregulated media corporations creates a loophole that allows for easy “circumvention” of the limitations of the current campaign finance laws?...

Hence, “the freedom of the press,” described as “one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty,” could be next on the chopping block. Although today’s opinion does not expressly strip the press of First Amendment protection, there is no principle of law or logic that would prevent the application of the Court’s reasoning in that setting. The press now operates at the whim of Congress.

The Tribune has an update on the astounding progress of the U of C's only 13 year old med student, Sho Yano. The article also includes comments by former boy-genius, (and current man-genius) Eugene Volokh.

As a med student, I must say that I was peeved when I heard that Pritzker admitted a thirteen year old. Brightness aside, I don't believe that more than a handful of teenagers are emotionally mature enough to make the decision to enter medicine. For that reason, I'm no fan of seven year programs that admit high schoolers into combined BA/MD programs. (Remember Gratz v. Bollinger? I thought the admissions committee made the right decision in not admitting her, not because I support affirmative action, but because any young lady who can be dissuaded from a career in medicine (as Miss Gratz claimed) because of not being admitted at age 17 clearly does not possess the emotional maturity needed to enter medicine).

How do you tell a woman that her husband is dead? What do you do when a patient is in unbearable pain and wants to die? As an obstetrician, what do you do when maternal and fetal interests conflict? How long do you wait before ending a clinical trial? How much do you tell a child about his condition? These questions don't have easy answers and I don't know how comfortable I am with a person of short life experience handling them.

Nonetheless, the jury in my head is out on Mr. Yano, as I do not know him and as I suspect that he defies most of the rules of being a teenager. There's no question that he's exceptional and that he should not be denied opportunities to pursue his incredible talents just because he is young. And just because I've never met a teenager who I thought was mature enough to handle the ethical quagmires of medicine doesn't mean that they don't exist. Perhaps as part of his amazing brain, Mr. Yano's emotional development has also been accelerated a la Alia Atreides of Dune so that experiences that take years and hormones to cement in regular people's brains come to him quickly and clearly.

But being limited by my regular brain, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Marlon Brando-- Godfather extraordinaire and general oddball-- is dead.

In response to the blogging below about Catullus and stolen kisses, a reader writes in:

Given Will's post about stealing kisses and Sudeep's post of a Catullus poem on kissing, it is worth observing that this poem (Catullus 99) combines the two themes, pointing out the non-legal dangers that accompany unwanted kisses:

Surripui tibi, dum ludis, mellite Iuventi,

suaviolum dulci dulcius ambrosia.

verum id non impune tuli: namque amplius horam

suffixum in summa me memini esse cruce,

dum tibi me purgo nec possum fletibus ullis

tantillum vestrae demere saevitiae.

nam simul id factum est, multis diluta labella>

guttis abstersisti omnibus articulis,

ne quicquam nostro contractum ex ore maneret,

tamquam commictae spurca saliva lupae.

praeterea infesto miserum me tradere amori

non cessasti omnique excruciare modo,

ut mi ex ambrosia mutatum iam foret illud

suaviolum tristi tristius elleboro.

quam quoniam poenam misero proponis amori,

numquam iam posthac basia surripiam.


I stole from you, while you were playing, honey-sweet Juventius, a kiss sweeter than sweet ambrosia. But I did not go unpunished: for I remember being hung atop a cross for more than an hour, while I apologized to you but could not take away with any tears even a little of your anger. For right when it happened, you wiped clean your lips -- bathed by many tears -- with all your fingers, lest any contagion from my mouth remain, just as if it were the dirty spit of a filthy prostitute. Besides this, you did not hold back from delivering me, miserable, to hostile Love, nor from tormenting me in every way, so that to me that kiss, changed from ambrosia, was now more bitter than bitter hellebore [an herb with both medicinal and poisonous qualities]. Because, then, you thus punish unhappy love, never henceforth will I steal kisses.

And of course the Catullus I think should be the veritable theme for Kissing Day:

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, dearest Lesbia, and let us love so we should measure the rumblings of harsher older ages to be worth not even a penny [lit., ass -- Roman currency]! The suns rise and fall -- for us, however, as soon as this brief light is over, there is only an infinite night left for sleeping -- so kiss me a thousand times! Then another hundred! Give me a thousand more, and a hundred again, followed by yet another thousand then hundred. Then when we have made many thousands of kisses, we will mix up their numbers so that not even we will know them, or that no awful man may be jealous should he find out exactly how many kisses there were.

I guess I'll add my favorite kissing poem to the fray (chorus repeated after every verse):

Comin Thro' The Rye.
Chorus.
O Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
1.
Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
2.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
3.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?
4.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain,
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.

Via Amber Taylor comes this news that an Idaho jury found that stealing a kiss did not constitute battery.

The story, being a Yahoo news story, is unhelpfully short, so it's not clear whether the jury was nullifying based on their belief about the law, or whether they didn't actually believe that the defendant had committed the alleged act.

Given the Curmudgeonly Clerk's discussion of how non-consensual groping constitutes battery, it is difficult to see how non-consensual kissing would not do the same, if the facts were proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Apropos International Kissing Day, July 6th)

I said yesterday that I could think of no better kissing poem than Peter Meinke's Kissing. Upon reflection, I can think of one, which lacks the exultant and luxurious language of Meinke's, but makes up for it in brilliant simplicity and sheer force:

Jenny Kissed Me, by Leigh Hunt:

Jenny kissed me when we met
jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time– you thief– who love to get
sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I’m lonely, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me!

Sovet: Sunday, 27 June 2004

So it goes.

ThereТs still a lot I donТt understand. Does host grandma have a special preference for the volunteer Jon, or does she just like him because heТs got the same name as that good president whom she likes, Jo(h)n Kennedy? Why does СguestingТ (visiting people) get translate into English as УghostingФ? Why is there often a large plastic bag of bread hanging inside the shower (an outside shower) -- what, so it can mildew? Why, in a culture in which throwing bread away is done secretly and with some degree of shame at the wastefulness of the act, is far more bread than needed broken at each meal, and then served stale for three days? Why does the Kazakh language have four letters shaped basically like a СyТ, some of which are sometimes vowels and sometimes consonants, and all of which are only pronounced slightly differently from the next? Why, when I came home today, was there a guy with a scythe in my front yard, and a young woman trying to unlock my front door but not doing a very good job of it; and why did they ask me who I was and did I live there; and why did they leave when I came; and were they some of those people whom IТve met but forgotten?

I havenТt figured out the answer to any of these questions, and IТm not sure I ever will. About the last one, though -- I came home with my friend J--, and he stayed until host grandma came home a half hour or so later, so all was well.

ItТs been a busy social calendar. Wednesday was the high school graduation; Thursday was a concert in Almaty of traditional Kazakh music set to an electronic background; Friday was the sheep slaughter; and Saturday was the banquet for which the sheep was slaughtered.

The four Turkish girls with whom we had tea invited us to come to their graduation. ItТs not as somber as American high school graduations, and far more colorful. There are no robes. Instead, boys wear suits and girls wear prom dresses. Even the Turkish girls are allowed to wear dresses with spaghetti straps, but they must wear a token sheer shawl over their shoulders. They looked lovely. Kazakh and Turkish women are simply beautiful.

The students all sit in small tables in the middle the auditorium, and the families sit in rows of chairs at the back. The front is clear for people running up to take pictures, and dancing between some of the parts of the ceremony. Students rise one by one to come to the stage to receive their diplomas. Sixty-nine students graduated. All the people who think theyТre important give speeches -- someone from the ministry of Education, the school director, and the three vice principals --; as do the people who know theyТre important -- the three much-loved homeroom teachers whoТve been with their students for many years --; and the people who are seen as important for reasons they canТt understand -- the Peace Corps volunteers.

The speech R-- gave was shortest by far, and he was applauded after several of the longest words. We also had to sing. We did УYou Are My SunshineФ as an 1) American 2) folk song from a 3) recent popular movie (СO Brother Where Art ThouТ). I thought it was an awful rendition. The reported gossip was that it went over well. I think our real purpose at the graduation was to serve as backdrops for photos. The girls really got into this, and would pose in turn with all of us.

* * * * *

I can watch E.R. easily, or I could, before it jumped the shark, but I almost canТt take it when people speak of dislocated bones or bad breaks, and I jump at gun shots in movies. T--Тs host dad had invited us all to the sheep slaughter, and the next dayТs feast. I went to the slaughter out of curiosity in the other parts of the ceremony and process. T--Тs host dad is one of the tallest and broadest-built Kazakh men IТve met, quite strong and a very friendly joker; a good match for his host son. If there is a best place to go for such an event, it is his house.

It began with a long prayer in Arabic offered by our teacherТs host grandfather, who seems to be a respected religious layperson of the community. The killing of the sheep itself was quick, and the sheep made no sound. I didnТt watch this part, but I do know that the sheepТs throat was slit and the blood drained into a bowl. I would not be surprised if it were a more humane death than what met most of the meat I buy in American supermarkets. T--Тs host dad asked if I were a vegetarian (I am not), and if I would be a vegetarian tomorrow (pass the nan).

The sheep was carefully skinned, for its untreated hide will fetch several hundred tenge at the bazaar. The skin also served as a clean surface for the rest of the butchering, which is almost too harsh a word. Once the animal was opened and it began to resemble the pigs of high school biology dissection, I became more comfortable; unlike those pigs, parts that shouldnТt be lacerated were still whole. The organs were carefully removed, some to be set aside for cooking, and the rest for the dogs. By this time, the parts sold in grocery stores were becoming recognizable. I pointed to the sheepТs ribs and my own, and told T--Тs host dad that they were tasty. He agreed, but preferred the chops. HeТd been concerned that I wasnТt handling the butchering too well. IТm not up to the standards of non-queasiness set by T--, who was steadying the sheep as his host dad cut with the sharpest knife IТve ever seen. Through bone like butter.

The head and feet had been removed before the skinning began, and set aside on a sheet of metal. Once the main part of the carcass was taken care of, T--Тs host cousin began blow torching the hair and top layer of skin off of them. ItТs a slow and smelly process. Burn, scrape, repeat. By the end, the skin is supposedly nice and crispy, for those who like nice crispy skin. There was a small aside into American culture shock, when I told a volunteer from Indianapolis that I didnТt like the look of pigТs feet in jars in my grocery stores, and I didnТt like the look of burnt sheepТs feet any better. She thought that was some strange Southern food. Huh? You can find pigТs feet in the two grocery stores that were closest to my apartment in Chicago, and neither of those were known for their quality.

* * * * *

In the Kazakh culture, a boy is a baby until he is circumcised. T--Тs host brother, who is five, was circumcised on Saturday morning. We were all invited for the post-circumcision feast, featuring yesterdayТs sheep.

Like most of the guests, we arrived after the circumcision (and if class hadnТt detained me, something else would have. Maybe a trip to Ecik for a present). I came just in time for the presentation of the presents. The little boy was lying on his back, covered by a sheet, with a strategically placed small table aiding the draping. He had the look of someone who was both drugged and determined not to complain, but when I asked host dad how he was doing, he said Уgood, very good.Ф He got a suit, and dress shirts and dress shoes. He also got a NY Yankees baseball hat, a soccer ball, toys, chocolates, and a bag of money.

[ItТs Sunday night as I write this. T-- reported that by Saturday night, his brother was responsive, and by Sunday morning, he felt quite well enough to get yelled at for playing soccer in the driveway.]

Then the guests trooped out for the banquet. About half the guests were of the age to be grandparents, and they all sat at one table, men on one side and women on the other. The sheepТs head of honor went to that table, to be presented to the most respected guest. The men in their 40s and younger sat at the other table, along with the volunteers and our teacher. I think we may have violated the rules on womenТs and menТs sides of the table, but there certainly werenТt enough women to make up a side, as they were all serving the food and washing dishes between the courses. At times like this, itТs great to be an American, because it allows me to act like a man. IТm expected to stand around and chat as the mothers do the work of the meal.

The sheep came out in the second course, boiled and served atop a platter of noodles. The dish is called beshamak, or five fingers, for how youТre supposed to eat it. Twirling the pasta against the spoon didnТt get me into trouble, though. The ribs were good. I think two of our guys ate the stomach and other organ pieces for three of the girls. I passed my piece of stomach on to someone whoТd appreciate it more.

I realize I do seem to spend a great deal of my time eating. That is what being a guest is, and that is what the rural Kazakh social life is based around. Before we moved in with our host families, we were also warned repeatedly that itТs also based around alcohol, specifically vodka. [Muslim, in this part of Central Asia, does not mean abstains from alcohol. There may be some who do entirely abstain, but itТs not the norm.] I havenТt seen much of that yet. Some, yes. It may be partially the people with whom weТve been placed, for IТm sure they were lectured to not force drinks upon us. Still, I donТt think IТm in the part of Kazakhstan that generated the reputation for copious drinking. Peace Corps KZ has had problems with drinking in the past, and theyТve got a new alcohol policy to deal with it. Essentially, itТs donТt get drunk in public to the point where stories get back to headquarters about you, thanks to the efficient gossip wheels. There a number of stories of American men at drinking bars and discos, where the local women flock to them and the local men then beat them up for talking to and dancing with their women. Alcohol abuse is still a medical problem, but too many stories that degrade Peace Corps, and it can also now become grounds for administrative separation.

* * * *

I came home at 4pm, exhausted. I finished reading Devil in the White City and slept until 8am on Sunday, waking up once for a drink of water and a roll. I think Grandma was concerned about me. I tried to explain to her that I was tired and wasnТt feeling well, but it still didnТt quite seem normal to her. I was under the weather when I woke up, but tea and a liter of peach Piko has cured me. Peach Piko is my new cure-all. ItТs a peach juice sold by Coca-Cola. ItТs pulp-free and, unlike most juices, not too sweet. A campaign of emailed mass letters convinced Hormel to make Hot and Spicy Tabasco Spam available in Hawaii (previously, it had only been sold in Guam); maybe a similar campaign could bring Peach Piko to the States.

I now have some digital pictures of me with my host family that IТll try to post. The Russian couple across the street who took the photos came by to show them to me on their computer (I canТt seem to explain that I saw them when I checked email in Ecik, which I can easily do several times a week if IТd like to). IТd forgotten that digital pictures can be magical for people whoТve never seen them before. Too often I think of them as inferiors to the real thing. Grandma was delighted by the ones that were taken a week ago, and then by some more that the couple took as we were visiting them. The couple printed one picture of me with the entire family onto photo paper. It now sits in the chiffonier with the good china and the other important family photos from weddings and graduations.