Scattered Thoughts, Post-yoga

In the alley between the Bourgeois Pig and Z's Divine Espresso, there is a wonderful picture of Brownback.  We should enshrine it.  Blessed be its creator. 


I am wondering these days if Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are anti-revolutionary in disguise.  Last night, they made me laugh so hard I forgot about the need for revolution, for a little bit, and I felt like there might be good people in the world even in places of power.   Like there are enough comrades that the world is about to turn, for real.


This is my third-to-last week of yoga class, and after yoga I'm in a stupor.  Today, I think it's mostly because of the pain.  Up until this week I was able to do everything the instructor asked us to do, but some of the new poses she introduced this time were just not possible for my body.  But it is nice to have to focus so entirely on my body and what it's doing that I can't think about anything else--for physical activity to be a strong cognitive task.  Also, I never knew how hard standing still was until I started taking yoga.


Oh yes, and today in crappy news from Kansas politics:  The legislature commissioned a study to find out if social security net benefits had an impact on marriage rates.  They wanted the study to demonstrate that people avoided marrying because they might lose welfare benefits, thereby bolstering claims about welfare encouraging cohabitation, bad poor people not getting married on purpose to con the government, immoral poor people just not getting married because they are totally motivated by money, victim-blaming, etc, etc.  Shockingly, the study concluded that people get married because they make a personal decision to do so or not.  Apparently, researchers found that there were some "loopholes" in the program that might provide a financial disincentive to marriage; however, in interviews, they found that virtually no one based their decisions to marry or not based on those "loopholes."  Didn't you know the poor based their marital statuses entirely on taxpayer-conning and not affection and circumstance like good people?  Dang.  


Now the study has contradicted the preconceived notions of the legislature, and they are demanding a different study.  This highlights the importance of a scientific mindset.  When evidence suggests that your preconceived notions are wrong, the notions must change, not the evidence.  This set of preconceived notions is ridiculous--offensive--dehumanizing to human beings and their complex relationships.  When not even evidence that you commission supports your bigotry, it's time to back up and look for evidence-based solutions rather than the other way around.