So this is pretty exciting.

A collector has uncovered what is so far the oldest globe to depict the New World, though said “New World” is little more than a scattered archipelago. The globe is made from two halves of an ostrich egg and dates to 1504 – twelve years after Europeans learned of the New World’s existence from Christopher Columbus.

Here the New World, or the cartographer’s vision of it, is depicted on the globe. Brazil is at the bottom, while “North America” comprises only a few islands – perhaps out of hope that Columbus just keeps running into them and a simple Passage to India does exist after all.

Now, contrary to popular legend, by 1504 the roundness of the earth was generally accepted by the academic community in Europe. The reason people scoffed at Columbus’ first voyage was not that they believed he would fall off the edge of the earth, but that they thought a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was beyond the reach of navigation. “It’s too far!” the [sensible] skeptics cried. “You’ll never make it!”

Of course, Columbus might have foundered in the world’s great ocean, were it not for the interposition of two continents blocking his way. His second and third voyages were made to explore the New World, but by 1502 he was ready to search for another passage to India. He would not find it, of course – the first successful passage to Asia didn’t come until the voyage of Magellan from 1519 to 1522.

We don’t know who created or commissioned this globe, but the mere fact of its existence leads me to speculate. Contemporary, pre-Mercator maps did their best to portray the round earth on flat paper (see the 1513 projection below), but, as our dear friend Mercator has taught us, you can’t do that without sacrificing something.

A 1513 map of the world, cartographer unknown. (Courtesy of the Washington Post)

In the above case, we find that the cartographer has made the Mercator-esque decision to augment east-west distances toward the poles. Norway, therefore, has become enormous. As you can see, though, Norway on the ostrich-egg globe is to scale, if slightly misshapen.

“Hic Sunt Dracones” – here there be dragons – appears in the sea above Southeast Asia. (Courtesy of the Washington Post)

The miracle of a globe is that you don’t have to sacrifice everything – distances and continent shapes are all accurate. A globe, after all, is just the earth in miniature. As a result, the distance from Europe to the New World looks much shorter than it does on the flat map.

The circumference of the Earth at the forty-fifth degree of latitude is approximately 17,600 miles. However, on our 1513 Mercator-esque projection, that distance appears identical to the circumference at the Equator, which is 25,000 miles. For the navigator attempting to make a voyage to the New World or find a passage to Asia – or the monarch funding such a voyage – the globe presents an easier, cheaper challenge than does the flat map.

For the Spanish king who is busy inquisition-ing and may not have the time to learn the nuances of cartography, an explorer looking to finance a voyage to the New World might want to have a globe as his visual aid rather than a flat map.

After all, maps are only valuable for what we read in them, and different types of maps will give us different impressions to carry forward. Perhaps this globe was meant to do just that – give the European nobility a new vision of the world, one that could be explored and conquered.

Save American Legitimacy: End Aid to Egypt

Democracy in Egypt is dead.

After yesterday’s horrific crackdowns on protesters that left hundreds killed and thousands wounded, I simply don’t see a near-future way forward for the country. With this kind of blood on the history books, reconciliation between the military and the Islamists is all but a pipe dream.

I hope I’m wrong; I hope we won’t see the nation go the way of Syria and erupt into full-blown civil war. But a timely end to the violence is drifting farther and farther out of reach.

The time has come for the U.S. to withdraw. Not that we have boots on the ground in Egypt – but we’re sending  an annual $1.3 billion of aid to the country, most of that going to the military responsible for yesterday’s violence. It’s stomach-churning that we’re still supporting this institution.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s justification for continuing the aid is understandable – he doesn’t want to give up what little leverage we have with the military. But if we can’t use that leverage to stop the murder of hundreds of civilians, then it’s clearly not good for much anyways.

To be realistic, cutting off aid to Egypt wouldn’t do much. It wouldn’t cripple the military government. But it would delegitimize the coup and back up U.S. condemnation of yesterday’s events with meaningful action.

After all, the Department of State can only issue so many “We condemn XYZ” statements before the rest of the world gets jaded. Our policy in Egypt up to this point has been wishy-washy. We’re trying to straddle both sides, making sure we don’t alienate whoever ends up winning. That strategy can work for a small, neighboring country, but not for the world’s most powerful nation. We need to take a stand by doing something concrete, even if it means angering the military government.

Should the U.S. ever want to step into a role as a mediator, cutting off aid would remove any perceived biases. Why should the deposed Islamists trust a moderator that continues to send billions of dollars to the military government that behaved so harshly towards them?

On the policy side, it would be easy to cut off aid – all the State Department would have to do is label the military takeover a “coup,” since U.S. law dictates that aid must be halted in such an event. Politicians across the national security spectrum, from John McCain to Rand Paul, have already used the word “coup” to describe events in Egypt. It’s imperative that the Obama Administration do the same.

When I read the papers this morning, I became more emotional than I usually do about horrific events overseas. Maybe it’s because I saw so much promise in the young Egyptian democracy. The transition was, after all, relatively quick and civil war-less – at least when compared to what happened in Libya and Syria.

Now it seems that Egypt is indefinitely doomed to wander in the state of unstable half-democracy. Our wishy-washy strategy has failed. If America wants to have any legitimacy in the region, we’ll get out now.

Some Fourth of July Thoughts

Courtesy of PBS

“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson

Happy Fourth of July! I’m so glad that we have a day to celebrate this country and everything that makes it great. I’d like to touch on something that dear Thomas Jefferson raised in that quote above. He spoke of an evolving society, with changing ideas, and how “laws and institutions” must keep up with that process. We certainly have come a long way since that sweltering day in Philadelphia 237 years ago, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Our country has seen a war for independence, a civil war, the abolition of slavery, suffrage made universal, two world wars, a legendary civil rights movement, and an ascension to the mantle of the most significant nation on earth. And along the way, we have evolved, because our Founding Fathers created a nation that allows its citizens to move beyond “the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

The Founders wrote a First Amendment that protects the right to free speech. They could have had no conception of the internet at that point, yet the First Amendment applies to the online domain just as it does to any other medium of speech.

Same-sex marriage is a concept that probably would have been revolting to the world of the 18th century. Yet our Founders wrote a Due Process clause that just last month the Supreme Court used to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act in one of the most important advances for gay rights in history.

Jefferson himself owned slaves at his Monticello plantation. Yet the amendment process he and the other Founders wrote into the Constitution eventually allowed the country to abolish slavery once and for all.

What’s truly great about America is its ability to move forward while retaining the values that made it great in the first place. We have built a society that inspires learning and innovation, and rewards hard work and risk-taking. The ability to rise – to evolve and become something greater than we were before – set us apart from aristocratic European societies that were set in their ways, with no desire to change. An emphasis on the individual and opportunity for all produced people like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Abraham Lincoln.

Going forward – as we move toward celebrating two hundred and fifty years of independence – I hope that we’ll be able to evolve when we need to while still retaining our values. With hope, and dedication, and an open mind, we’ll find that our best days are still ahead of us.

Happy Fourth. God bless America.

Ms. Power Goes to the UN

Samantha Power, Barack Obama’s candidate for Ambassador to the UN. (Courtesy of the Washington Post)

In the arena of foreign policy, President Obama certainly isn’t the non-interventionist hero the left was hoping for.

Recently, Obama announced that he would nominate former national security adviser and anti-genocide activist Samantha Power to the post of Ambassador to the United Nations. On paper, Power looks like the perfect selection. She continues a tradition of women in high positions in the foreign policy/national security arm of the Obama Administration, following Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Janet Napolitano. This is certain to placate diversity hawks.

Her appointment also suggests that the foreign-policy goals of President Obama’s second term will focus around human rights abroad. In an emotional speech last May, Obama promised to change the way the United States approached national security, bringing the war on terror to an end and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Some wonder if the appointment of Power and this new attitude signifies a turnaround for the Obama Administration on foreign policy. Progressives, especially young people weary of intervention abroad, hope Obama will finally give up the drones and take up dialogue.

There’s one problem: Samantha Power, like Barack Obama, is a liberal imperialist.

What is liberal imperialism? This article by Stephen Walt explains the concept in depth. But one of the main tenets is that the United States has a moral obligation to intervene in other countries when bad stuff starts happening. This concept is known as the “responsibility to protect.” Lately, though, public opinion among progressives has tipped away from liberal imperialism and the responsibility to protect. Remember Kony 2012, the video campaign advocating for direct military intervention in central Africa? That was liberal imperialism at its less-than-finest. After Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, liberal imperialists are choosing to be quiet, likely out of fear of being labeled, well, imperialists.

The best known liberal imperialist out there, though, is Barack Obama. Look no further than the US intervention in Libya to confirm that. Samantha Power is a liberal imperialist, too. She chided the Clinton Administration for not sending troops to Rwanda in 1994. And she is seen as a key figure in persuading the Obama Administration to go to war in Libya. Many call her the Obama Administration’s most passionate advocate of the responsibility to protect.

The cornerstone of Power’s beliefs about solution to genocide, though, is that governments must use all the tools in the shed to combat it. This includes economic sanctions, political pressure, use of international institutions, and yes, military intervention. Her critique of the Clinton Administration over Rwanda was not only over its refusal to send troops, but also over its non-use of other avenues, especially the United Nations, in bringing the genocide to heel.

Power’s appointment to the UN, then, puts her in a powerful position to deal with one of the most pressing issues facing the international community today: what to do about the civil war in Syria, which has already claimed over 70,000 lives.

Her appointment all but ensures that the United States will pursue the tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad more aggressively. Neoconservatives such as Sen. John McCain have already faulted the Obama Administration for not doing enough over Syria. But the memory of Iraq as an example of how intervention can just make things worse is still fresh in the minds of Americans, especially among the progressive young that catapulted Barack Obama into the presidency.

We’ll have to see what Power advises over the question of military intervention in Syria. Short of direct military involvement, we will probably see her press the UN to take more aggressive action, such as establishing a no-fly zone over Syrian airspace. It is unlikely, though, that such sanctions alone will be able to stop the genocide. Unless the rebels make significant gains on their own, which is looking more and more unlikely due to the fracturing of the opposition into different groups, Barack Obama may have to confront the American people with a fourth military intervention in the Middle East. Samantha Power will be standing behind him, if not leading him along.

For the war-weary public, it will be a disappointment. The responsibility to protect is a duty we probably can’t fulfill.

Can Gomez Win?

(Courtesy of the Boston Globe)

If you’ve been following the special Senate election in Massachusetts as I have, then you’re probably paying more attention than the average Bay State voter. For those who haven’t, here’s a quick summary: 18-term Democratic Congressman Ed Markey is facing Republican businessman Gabriel Gomez, a self-styled moderate who has never held public office. While Gomez – a Latino in a party saddled with diversity problems – is hoping for an upset a la Scott Brown, he has been consistently lagging in the polls.

To win, the final vote map needs to look something like this:

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Yes, that’s how Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley in his legendary 2010 special election victory to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Note that Brown performed well in the central part of the state, as well as the moderate exburbs of Boston. Gomez needs a map similar to this, where he gets conservatives to turn out in huge numbers and wins over Democratic-leaning independents in the Eastern part of the state.

Unlike Brown, a Gomez victory would not tip the balance of power in the Senate. The 2010 race was seen as a referendum on Obamacare; Brown’s victory cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority. (Imagine! They actually had to work with Republicans!) The lack of these circumstances in the current race could cut both ways for Gomez. Moderate Democrats might be more willing to give Gomez a shot, since they know the race won’t make or break the blue agenda (read: immigration reform). On the other hand, it could also reduce turnout among conservatives eager to tweak President Obama from supposedly friendly territory. It also deprives Gomez of an energizing message to run on.

However, the lack of such energy could work in Gomez’s favor. Low turnout means that special election voters are generally older and wealthier, a.k.a., more Republican. Democrats know this is a danger, which is why they have brought in high-profile names such as Barack Obama to campaign for Markey in hopes of replicating the record Democratic turnout that vaulted the president to a second term in 2012. The results of tomorrow’s election will tell us if such a strategy worked…and could foretell what election night will yield in 2014.

I’d give Gomez a 20% chance of winning tomorrow, which is probably too generous. While he’s run a strong campaign, Gomez doesn’t have the right-leaning national political environment and explosively weak opponent that benefitted Scott Brown in 2010. Still, if he comes close – say, within 5 or 6 points – it will send a message to Washington. Not as resounding as the one Scott Brown’s victory sent in 2010, but a subtle prod that partisanship has gone out of style.

Why Conservatives Should Support the Path to Citizenship

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) opposes the immigration bill because of the path to citizenship, or “amnesty.” Photo courtesy of the LA Times.

The Senate is set to vote this week on a sweeping immigration reform package that would reform our legal immigration system, beef up border security, and – most controversially – provide a pathway to citizenship for people in the country illegally. Many conservatives, notably Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, have decried this last provision as “amnesty” that rewards lawbreaking. Their position is understandable.

However, the party of fiscal responsibility ought to recognize that when it comes to dealing with our undocumented population, the path to citizenship is the most sensible option.

There are three choices for what to do about unauthorized immigrants – deportation, the status quo, or the path to citizenship. While deportation is the preferred option of many strident conservatives, the cost of this would be enormous. A 2011 estimate put the per-person cost of deportation at $12,500. Multiply by 11 million unauthorized immigrants, and you get a price tag of $138 billion. Not exactly fiscal sense in the era of high deficits.

Almost everyone agrees the status quo is unacceptable. Currently, employers are able to hire unauthorized immigrants at reduced wages without the burden of paying for social security and healthcare, reducing job opportunities for legal residents of the US. Undocumented individuals also take advantage of social services such as public schools, often without paying taxes, putting pressure on the budgets of state and local governments. Moreover, as Sen. Marco Rubio put it, the status quo is “de facto amnesty.”

The only option that remains is the path to citizenship. This should not be an easy path – for  moral and practical reasons, unauthorized individuals should have to pay fines and back taxes, learn English and jump through other hoops before they can be naturalized. Securing the border is also imperative, so more people don’t come here illegally to take advantage of the in-country path to citizenship.

It’s not a perfect solution. Conservatives have the right to be queasy about the path to citizenship. But when put up against other options, it’s the best one available. As I said before, deportation would cost the government billions of dollars, and could cost the economy more if American businesses are suddenly deprived of the low-cost labor they can get from undocumented workers. Granted, it’s wrong for businesses to employ people in the country illegally, and business owners who do so should be held accountable. But realistically, the shock of having 11 million people suddenly deported would have huge ripple effects on the economy. While we could debate its moral standing for hours, deportation doesn’t make practical sense.

So I urge lawmakers like Senator Sessions to offer up amendments to the immigration bill in order to make it better. But voting against it on the basis of rejecting “amnesty” is not a recipe for progress, nor will it make the country stronger.

Considering the Seventeenth Amendment

The Seventeenth Amendment: Crucial reform or outdated measure? (Graphic courtesy of NPR)

In a couple months, America will mark the one-hundred-year anniversary of a relatively glossed-over constitutional amendment: the Seventeenth, which empowered the people of each state to directly elect their senators, rather than having the state legislature do so as originally prescribed by the Constitution.

Some historical research told me that the Seventeenth Amendment was proposed due to corrupt state lawmakers auctioning off Senate seats. Partisan deadlocks in divided state legislatures also resulted in prolonged vacancies when those chambers couldn’t decide on who to send to Washington. On a more cynical note, the Seventeenth Amendment, championed by President Wilson, also helped the Democratic Party keep its Senate majority in the 1914 and 1916 elections.

Direct election is better, right? It gives the people a more potent voice in lawmaking, instead of the two-steps-away representation they had in the Senate prior to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Maybe. Here’s what Madison and Hamilton had to say about indirect election of senators in Federalist No. 63:

“Such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?“

So it’s not a wholehearted defense of indirect election of senators, but it points out the merits of an upper chamber that is not wholly bound to the whims of the people. This is precisely why senators have six-year terms instead of the two-year cycle in the House of Representatives. The House is where the current convictions of the people lie – which is why the House chooses a president in the event that no candidate receives an electoral college majority. It’s also the reason why the lower chamber has changed hands so often in the last few years.

The Senate rarely makes big swings in a single election cycle. In the Republican wave year of 2010, for example, 14.5% of House seats changed parties, compared to only 6% of Senate seats. The fact that only one-third of Senate seats are up for election in any given year means that change in the Senate happens slowly. The volatile swings in the House versus the more moderate changes in the Senate demonstrate that Americans sometimes get buyer’s remorse, and the Senate is a way to control for that.

The Senate is, as the authors of the Federalist Papers put it, a “defense to the people.” I get a little queasy about allowing the government to protect the people from themselves, as Federalist No. 63 implies. But the indirect election provision, and the Senate itself, is more than just a guard against the “irregular passions” of the people, but also a bulwark against misleading political campaigns influencing the outcome of an election too heavily.

Indirect election of the upper chamber, then, is a double safeguard against buyer’s remorse. In my view, such a safeguard also serves to protect against the Madisonian concept of tyranny of the majority, or the restriction of rights to a minority by a prejudiced majority, which can (and has) happened in a democratic system. It is for this same reason that constitutional amendments are passed by Congress and state legislatures, not the people.

It is conceivable that a prejudiced popular majority could elect a Congress bent on enshrining their prejudices into law. The Defense of Marriage Act and Jim Crow laws are examples of this phenomenon. However, keeping one chamber of Congress more removed from the people (either singly through staggered terms, or doubly through indirect elections) can help protect the rights of a minority from discriminatory legislation.

This is, of course, a slippery slope, since a government less accountable to the people is at higher risk of corruption. A safeguard against tyranny of the majority may give rise to the tyranny of an unaccountable government. Ideally, this is why we have two houses of Congress – one more representative of the people’s wishes (for good or ill) and one less so. But as we’ve seen in recent years, a divided Congress is not the most efficient body.

The Seventeenth Amendment, at the end of the day, is probably something that should stay in our Constitution. The Senate does need to maintain some degree of accountability to the people, and direct election eliminates the risk of state legislatures selling Senate seats to the highest bidder. But it’s worth reexamining why we have two chambers of Congress. And as voters, it’s worth thinking about whether our choices at the ballot box reflect what is popular, or what is right.

Hollingsworth v. Perry: Highlights and Analysis

Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments on Hollingsworth v. Perry, which will decide the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state not long after it had been legalized by a court ruling. Here are a few of my favorite moments from the transcript, denoted in italics. My comments are in brackets.

ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHARLES J COOPER, ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS

[Cooper is arguing on behalf of the proponents of Prop 8.]

MR. COOPER: I think, Justice Sotomayor, you’re probing into whether or not sexual orientation ought to be viewed as a quasi-suspect or suspect class, and our position is that it does not qualify under this Court’s standard and -­ and traditional tests for identifying suspectedness. The — the class itself is — is quite amorphous. It defies consistent definition as — as the Plaintiffs’ own experts were — were quite vivid on. It — it does not — it — it does not qualify as an accident of birth, immutability in that — in that sense.

[This bit marks the beginning of a long discussion that the court will have over whether laws that treat people differently based on sexual orientation should be subject to heightened scrutiny. Laws that do this based on sex or race are subject to strict scrutiny, whereas the Supreme Court decided in Romer v. Evans that sexual orientation should be subject to the rational basis test, or the lowest level of scrutiny. The Petitioners are arguing that sexual orientation is behavioral only and therefore should not receive the same privileged classification as sex or race, while the Respondents are arguing that LGBT people constitute a tangible identity, and Prop 8 should receive heightened scrutiny.

Heightened scrutiny makes it much more likely that the law in question will be struck down. In addition, subjecting Prop 8 to heightened scrutiny will serve to legitimize LGBT identity in the eyes of those who still view it as unnatural.]

JUSTICE SCALIA: I suppose we could have a questionnaire at the marriage desk when people come in to get the marriage — you know, Are you fertile or are you not fertile?

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: I suspect this Court would hold that to be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, don’t you think?

[Justice Scalia’s question was part of a line of thought concerning the procreative utility of heterosexual identity and Mr. Cooper’s argument that marriage shouldn’t extend to those who can’t procreate, namely, gay couples. Justice Kagan had asked whether elderly or infertile couples should also be denied marriage licenses.]

ORAL ARGUMENT OF THEODORE B. OLSON, ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENTS

[Olson is arguing on behalf of opponents of Prop 8.]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I’m not sure, counsel, that it makes — I’m not sure that it’s right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn’t get around and say let’s have this institution, but let’s keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples.

[Chief Justice Roberts returns to the question of whether LGBT people constitute a tangible “group.” This bit was a sign from Roberts, considered a swing vote, that he felt the government had an interest in excluding gay couples from the institution of marriage. Should the Court decide that laws dividing people based on sexual orientation are not subject to heightened scrutiny, this could be the “rational basis” that the Court needs to see in order to uphold Prop 8.]

MR. OLSON: But what I have before you now, the case that’s before you today, is whether or not California can take a class of individuals based upon their characteristics, their distinguishing characteristics, remove from them the right of privacy, liberty, association, spirituality, and identity that -­that marriage gives them. It — it is — it is not an answer to say procreation or anything of that nature, because procreation is not a part of the right to get married.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: That’s really — that’s a broad argument that you — that’s in this case if the Court wants to reach it. The rationale of the Ninth Circuit was much more narrow. It basically said that California, which has been more generous, more open to protecting same-sex couples than almost any State in the Union, just didn’t go far enough, and it’s being penalized for not going far enough.

[Mr. Olson pushes back on Chief Justice Robert’s previous point. Justice Kennedy, whom I believe to be the most likely defection among the Court’s five conservative justices, expresses hesitation about issuing a sweeping ruling and support for a strike-down of Prop 8 on narrow grounds that would restrict same-sex marriage rights to the state of California. One of my worries while reading the transcript was that Mr. Olson did not spend enough time defending the merits of a narrow ruling, which the Justices need to understand if they are to overturn Prop 8 on any grounds.]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Is there any way to decide this case in a principled manner that is limited to California only?

MR. OLSON: Yes, the Ninth Circuit did that. You can decide the standing case that limits it to the decision of the district court here. You could decide it as the Ninth Circuit did -­

JUSTICE KENNEDY: The problem — the problem with the case is that you’re really asking, particularly because of the sociological evidence you cite, for us to go into uncharted waters, and you can play with that metaphor, there’s a wonderful destination, it is a cliff. Whatever that was.

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But you’re — you’re doing so in a — in a case where the opinion is very narrow. Basically that once the State goes halfway, it has to go all the way or 70 percent of the way, and you’re doing so in a case where there’s a substantial question on -­on standing. I just wonder if — if the case was properly granted.

[Again with the all-or-nothing duality Mr. Olson seems to be setting up. It’s doubtful that the Court will issue a sweeping ruling, but a narrow victory for marriage equality, restricted to the state of California, is better than none. I worry that the Court (more specifically, Justice Kennedy), finding insufficient cause for issuing a sweeping decision, will vote to uphold Prop 8.]

MR. OLSON: I — I respectfully submit that we’ve under — we’ve learned to understand more about sexual orientation and what it means to individuals. I guess the — the language that Justice Ginsburg used at the closing of the VMI case is an important thing, it resonates with me, “A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.”

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

[Nice closing. Mr. Olson has style.]

ORAL ARGUMENT OF DONALD B. VERRILLI, JR., FOR THE UNITED STATES, AS AMICUS CURIAE, SUPPORTING THE RESPONDENTS

[Verrilli is arguing against Prop 8 on behalf of the Obama Administration.]

GENERAL VERRILLI: California did not through Proposition 8 do what my friend Mr. Cooper said and push a pause button. They pushed a delete button. This is a permanent ban. It’s in the Constitution. It’s supposed to take this issue out from the legislative process.

[General Verrilli pushes back on the argument that the states shouldn’t do “social experiments” by legalizing same-sex marriage.]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I don’t want to — I want you to get back to Justice Alito’s other points, but is it the position of the United States that same-sex marriage is not required throughout the country?

GENERAL VERRILLI: We are not — we are not taking the position that it is required throughout the country. We think that that ought to be left open for a future adjudication in other States that don’t have the situation California has.

JUSTICE SCALIA: So your — your position is only if a State allows civil unions does it become unconstitutional to forbid same-sex marriage, right?

GENERAL VERRILLI: I — I see my red light is on.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, you can go on.

GENERAL VERRILLI: Thank you. Our position is — I would just take out a red pen and take the word “only” out of that sentence. When that is true, then the Equal Protection Clause forbids the exclusion of same-sex marriage, and it’s an open question otherwise.

[The Obama Administration’s position on Hollingsworth v. Perry is that if a state allows civil unions but not same-sex marriages, it violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, Verrilli is arguing that the Court should issue a wider ruling and strike down bans on same-sex marriage in states that have civil unions. This is a valid (albeit flawed) argument from a constitutional standpoint, but from a practical standpoint it might discourage states from legalizing domestic partnerships or civil unions, since they might feel that the Court’s ruling would force them to go all the way and legalize same-sex marriage. I’m a little confused about the Obama Administration’s motivations here.]

GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, we — we think that, as I started my argument, Your Honor, that all the warning flags for exacting equal protection scrutiny are present here. This is a group that has suffered a history of terrible discrimination. The Petitioners don’t deny it.

[General Verrilli brings home the debate on what level of scrutiny to apply to Prop 8.]

Uzbekistan Journal: Nurata and Samarkand

NURATA

Nurata is a small, out-of-the-way town a little ways off the “Golden Road” from Bukhara to Samarkand. It is famed for a sacred fishpond and a 3rd century BC fortress of Alexander the Great. Unfortunately, the Uzbek police force doesn’t really like it when you venture off the main tourist track, so as a consequence we were detained for a couple hours. After our release, we were sent off to the sites with a police escort, who told us that it was his life dream to go study in America. Only in Uzbekistan…

Me with our police escort and our driver.

The sacred fishpond of Nurata. It is said that Mohammed’s son-in-law struck the ground with his staff and out came a spring of water. Ever since the site has been a place of pilgrimage for Muslims.

What’s left of the fortress where Alexander the Great prepared for the siege of Samarkand. He said of the city he was about to conquer, “Everything I have heard about [Samarkand] is true, except that it is more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

Blue sky over Nurata and the Kyzylkum Desert.

SAMARKAND

The Golden Road across Asia leads to what many have termed the center of the world. Filled with sprawling mosques and soaring medressas, Samarkand was the capital of the empire built by 14th-century conqueror Tamerlane and his grandson, Ulugbek the Astronomer King. The architecture and tile-work in this city is simply exquisite…I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Registan Square in Samarkand, the center of Tamerlane’s empire and “the noblest public square in the world.” The three structures are medressas, or Islamic colleges.

Ornamentation atop one of the Registan minarets. I would later slip a police officer $10 to let us climb to the top of it.

Statue of Ulugbek the Astronomer King (second from left) and some academics. While Ulugbek was no conqueror like his grandfather, he turned Samarkand into a center of intellectual and scientific advancement, making it the true jewel of the late-medieval Muslim world and earning it the storied reputation it has today.

Restored tile-work in the Ulugbek Medressa.

Inside the gold-plated prayer room of the mosque attached to the Tilya-Kori Medressa.

This guy runs a shop full of Zoroastrian and pre-Zoroastrian embroidery. I was able to bring home a tapestry which I now have no idea what to do with. The tapestries are rich with symbolism, with the flower at the center representing the family. Also visible are several designs meant to resemble the scorpion, a mystical animal among indigenous (pre-Islamic) religion in the region.

The Sher Dor Medressa, one of the few places in Islamic art where animals and human faces are depicted. Such imagery is generally forbidden by Islamic law, as it is believed that only Allah can create a perfect animal or human face.

View from the top of the minaret.

And going back down…

Bibi Khanum Mosque, at the time of its construction (c. 1400) the largest mosque in the world, at over 120 feet tall. In the foreground is a platform meant to hold a large Koran. It is said that if a woman crawls under the platform she will be blessed with fertility.

The main Mosque of Bibi Khanum.

Spectacular tile-work at the Gur Emir Mausoleum, where Tamerlane and Ulugbek are buried.

Outside the Gur Emir Mausoleum.

The “Avenue of Mausoleums” in the Old Quarter.

 

One last picture of the Registan, because it’s just so spectacular.

Uzbekistan Journal: Tashkent and Bukhara

Over Spring Break I went to Uzbekistan with my dad. It’s a truly fascinating country, sitting at the crossroads of cultures. The Greeks, the Persians, the Mongols, and the Soviets all controlled it at one time or another, each leaving a distinct mark on the country. A prime example of the culture mix is the language, which has heavy influence from Arabic and Farsi but is written in Cyrillic (Russian) script.

Following are some photos I took of the four cities I visited: Tashkent, Bukhara, Nurata, and Samarkand. Tashkent and Bukhara are included in this post; I’ll put up photos from Nurata and Samarkand tomorrow.

Map courtesy of Lonely Planet.

TASHKENT

The capital of Uzbekistan is a mess of unsightly Soviet buildings and long lines at customs. Venture a little ways outside, though, and there are some interesting sights.

Uspensky Sobor Cathedral in Tashkent. We stumbled into this Orthodox Christian service on Sunday morning, the first day there. Even though Uzbekistan is predominantly (80%) Muslim, it’s nice to see that other religions don’t seem to be marginalized or forced underground. Religion has been making somewhat of a comeback since the end of the anti-religious Soviet era, which is also a good thing.

Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent.

Dried fruits and nuts in the outdoor portion of Chorsu Bazaar.

Hazroti Imom Friday Mosque in Tashkent. This is the biggest mosque in the city, yet it was only built in the last couple decades, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The new government, while no gang of heroes otherwise, has made an effort to preserve the religious and cultural heritage of Uzbekistan. This was the only place in the country where I heard the call to prayer.

Khast Imom Square, the religious center of Uzbekistan. They had the world’s first Koran, dating back to the time of Mohammed, on display here. While photos of the holy book were forbidden for an astronomical number of reasons, I did get to see it, which must have been as wide as I am tall. Also on display were a collection of Korans in various languages, from various centuries.

Hanging on to a now-retired Soviet train at the Tashkent Railway Museum.

BUKHARA

One of the old Silk Road cities, filled with beautiful Islamic architecture. Also plenty of tourist shops filling its old bazaars, but a substantial lack of tourists. Aside from that, though, walking around felt like walking into the 16th century when Bukhara was at the peak of its glory. The city claims to host a mosque for every day of the year, and I believe it. “Everywhere else in the world the light shines down from Heaven,” an old saying goes, “but in Bukhara it shines up.”

The Ark of Bukhara, a 5th-century fortress occupied since then by the various rulers of the city, which included the Mad Emir Nasrullah Khan, who executed his wife and daughters on his deathbed so that they would remain forever chaste.

Carpets for sale in Bukhara.

One of the many pools and canals in Bukhara. This one was surrounded by mulberry trees that have been growing there since 1477. In the 19th century, though, the sitting water was a constant source of disease and parasites, which somewhat deflated the romantic notions Western travelers had of the city.

A medressa (Islamic college) in Bukhara.

Beautiful tile-work at the Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa, built in the 16th-century.

“Family owned and operated since 1400…”

Enjoying tea at the Silk Road Tea House.

Kalon Minaret in Bukhara. This is the oldest structure in the city, dating from the 10th-11th centuries AD. When Genghis Khan marched on the city, the sight of this 150-foot minaret stopped him in his tracks (not an easy thing to do). He ordered everything burned to the ground except for the minaret. As a consequence, it has become the city’s most enduring symbol.

Kalon Mosque, the biggest mosque in the city. It only survived the Soviet days because of its utility as a warehouse.

Archaeological excavation site on the top of the Ark. Most of the contents of the fortress were destroyed by Soviet bombings in 1920, but some structures are being restored. We slipped 6000 som (around US$2.50) to a workman to let us poke around the site.

Bukhara skyline.

Obligatory camel photo.

Photos from Nurata and Samarkand coming tomorrow!