So the Tokyo Gas repair guy on Monday spent an hour jiggling things around, frowning at my bathroom and kitchen keypads, and turning taps on and off before announcing that my water heater was on the fritz because a leak had caused a short at the main heating unit. The repair would cost about US $350, and the part wouldn't be in for three or four days. Not the worst-case scenario, possibly, but a pain.

That means I spent the next few days relying on the largesse of friends to stay hygienic. (I work out religiously, but I have equipment at home and run outdoors--no gym membership. And this being Japan, there must be a bathhouse somewhere in the neighborhood, but it seemed more trouble to figure out where it is than to bum off a buddy or two. Besides, borrowing someone's shower gives you leave to look at all his products at leisure without feeling as if you were snooping.) The part came yesterday; I skipped out of the office between our morning administrators' meeting and my evening mid-year performance review to be at home while it was installed. This morning I was able to perform my ablutions at home again. And to wash my tea cup and strainer without boiling another kettle of water.

What with all the busy-ness, I've only barely been keeping up with the news. (Something gay appears to have happened in New Jersey, right?) Anyway, Camille has another Salon interview that's worth reading. I usually don't agree with more than about 60% of her political pronoucements, but she seems to me to hit more bull's-eyes than usual this time around.

Sigh.

I realize this site has turned into GoReadClassicalValues.com, but I happen to think that Bill Quick is absolutely wrong about the point Eric makes here. That Eric didn't digress from his discussion to flesh out yet again why he doesn't support the push for gay marriage does not mean that his statement has "no logical support whatsoever."

Eric clarifies what he meant:

I agree with Bill that "percentages do not constitute logical refutation," and I did not mean to imply that just because 70% of the public disfavors same sex marriage, that this means they are not bigoted. However, if opposition to same sex marriage is defined as bigotry, then it flows that they (and most of the leaders of both parties) are. I just don't think that, considering all the circumstances, opposition to same sex marriage constitutes bigotry, and I'd say that even if only 20% of the country opposed it. I try to reserve the "bigot" label for people who want to do things like call me names, beat me up, put me in prison, or kill me.

I'm not sure that bigot has to be reserved for people who express their beliefs through confrontation; intolerance can be expressed by quietly cutting people socially or declining to employ them or the like. But I'm also not sure that Bill Quick has been following the gay marriage argument as it's developed over the last ten years.

It used to be that you had Andrew Sullivan and, for a few occasional paragraphs, Bruce Bawer arguing in favor of marriage or civil unions of some kind in the not-too-distant future, and you had the case in Hawaii, and that was pretty much it. At that point, most arguments from the opposition were confined to "gays don't actually fall in love and care for each other" and "most gay couplings are transient." Those arguments were, I think, often based on bigotry: people who didn't like gays much to begin with were all too willing to take Friday night in the Castro as representative of all gay life everywhere, pronounce us all sub-adult, and not dig any deeper before considering the issue closed.

But things really have moved on in the intervening decade or so. Skeptics began discussing how a legal change in the definition of marriage could affect the choices of straight couples who planned to have children. The most sound thinkers among gay advocates (Dale Carpenter and Jonathan Rauch, notably) deliberated over the same issues and often made good counter-arguments; but at the same time, the pro-gay side was frequently stuck in a "we DO TOO love our partners!" mode that the debate had moved beyond. And "self-esteem," that all but infallible indicator that malarkey is on the menu, was frequently invoked.

I realize that I haven't proved that, say, Maggie Gallagher and Stanley Kurtz aren't bigoted against homosexuals. But even if we could prove they were, does that mean much in policy terms? We're still left with the fact that they've taken the time to research and construct arguments for their positions, and that those arguments have to be answered on their own terms. I'd much rather see gays and those who sympathize with us keep at that than prolong the (already seemingly interminable) back-and-forth over who's a bigot.

Well, that bites. Today's a day off for me, and I'd planned to run some errands and shop and stuff...then I noticed that the water heater wasn't working. As in, the electronic panel shut off whenever I turned on one of the hot taps. I've tried flipping the breaker and looking for a reset button, but no luck. The customer service operator at Tokyo Gas was very nice, but (naturally) she can't tell me when between now and 7 p.m. the repair guy will get here, so I appear to be staying close by until he calls to say he's coming. At least the gas itself is working, so I can boil water at will.

The US is giving control of some airspace controlled by Yokota Air Force Base back to Japan:

The airspace controlled by the United States will be reduced from the current six areas, which range in altitude from 7,000 meters to 3,700 meters, to five areas with altitudes ranging from 5,500 meters to 2,400 meters, a reduction of more than 20 percent of the current airspace, the sources said.

...

U.S. permission is needed for aircraft to fly through Yokota's airspace. Because of this, flights to and from Haneda and Narita airports usually fly high over the space or detour around it.

In January, the Construction and Transport Ministry said that a 40 percent reduction of Yokota's airspace will benefit the economy to the tune of 19 billion yen annually, due to savings in airline fuel costs.

The partial return, to be accomplished by September 2008, is the first step in the process of giving full airspace control back to Japan. I have no way of knowing how the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport came up with that figure, but airspace around Tokyo is notoriously overcrowded, and from various observation decks around the bay, you can clearly see planes stacked up for landing at Haneda. And though the Yomiuri doesn't mention it, the move would fit into possible plans to make Japan increasingly responsible for its own military defense.

Rondi

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