purplecthulhu

While waiting for the clouds to clear, I've been surfing the net and have found information on an interesting book called Against Love, by Laura Kipnis. Its more 'against marriage' than 'against love', from what I've read. A Salon review puts what appears to be the central thesis best:

'Those metaphors tend to showboat the real point of the book -- that marriage is the capitalist state's way of making its citizens into obedient workers. Adultery is the escape valve that lets us rebel against our husbands and wives, instead of clubbing our bosses to death with our lunchboxes.'

Being unmarried and poly, I don't play by these rules, but its an interesting thesis, especially given the central role that many politicians, especially on the right, feel that the standard 'nuclear family' has in society. Is it all a question of control?

Meanwhile, the hysteria about the health benefits of masturbation continues, with the latest Doonsbury being censored because it mentions this terrible crime. See the original strip here:

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20030907

While waiting for the clouds to clear, I've been surfing the net and have found information on an interesting book called Against Love, by Laura Kipnis. Its more 'against marriage' than 'against love', from what I've read. A Salon review puts what appears to be the central thesis best:

'Those metaphors tend to showboat the real point of the book -- that marriage is the capitalist state's way of making its citizens into obedient workers. Adultery is the escape valve that lets us rebel against our husbands and wives, instead of clubbing our bosses to death with our lunchboxes.'

Being unmarried and poly, I don't play by these rules, but its an interesting thesis, especially given the central role that many politicians, especially on the right, feel that the standard 'nuclear family' has in society. Is it all a question of control?

Meanwhile, the hysteria about the health benefits of masturbation continues, with the latest Doonsbury being censored because it mentions this terrible crime. See the original strip here:

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20030907

I've been discussing body clocks with purpletigron. Its well established that humans have an average natural day length of about 25 hours, which is odd since days around here are 24 hours long. This can be used to argue that we're all Martians, since Mars' day is about 25 hours, but there must be some other explaination. I was speculating that this might be due to the evolutionary effect of access to fire and other forms of artificial light for the last 50000 years or so. A prediciton of this would be that birds and animals without 'benefit' of artificial light would have a natural body clock with a day length closer to 24 hours.

So the challenge for you biologists out there... Is there any information about the body clocks of species other than homo sapiens? Can greenjavatroll or her purple colleague help? Anyone else?

I've been discussing body clocks with purpletigron. Its well established that humans have an average natural day length of about 25 hours, which is odd since days around here are 24 hours long. This can be used to argue that we're all Martians, since Mars' day is about 25 hours, but there must be some other explaination. I was speculating that this might be due to the evolutionary effect of access to fire and other forms of artificial light for the last 50000 years or so. A prediciton of this would be that birds and animals without 'benefit' of artificial light would have a natural body clock with a day length closer to 24 hours.

So the challenge for you biologists out there... Is there any information about the body clocks of species other than homo sapiens? Can greenjavatroll or her purple colleague help? Anyone else?