heidi - 02/06/09 20:28
I think it's interesting what it says about convenience store clerks...

hodown - 02/04/09 18:00
That's pretty awesome. I'm kinda a secret Star Trek fan. Ok not so secret now..

theli - 02/03/09 18:24
Danke.

I haven't watched much Adult Swim in a while. When you get access to a dvr, you start wondering why you should even bother trying to find something good on at random.

tinypliny - 02/03/09 17:06
Yikes indeed. I hope everything works out well for you!! Some extra-strong good wishes coming your way... >>>

jason - 02/03/09 16:29
Yikes. Hope everything ends up well!

By the way, I missed the last Cowboy Bebop entry you made - I love Cowboy Bebop! I used to stay up late and watch it on Adult Swim but lately it seems Adult Swim is shit.

metalpeter - 01/17/09 16:59
I have seen some cowboy bebop and it is a pretty good show. I'm not sure what the tittle was but I saw a movie version might have been called Cowboy Bebop The Movie, and it was good. Yes he does do some goofy acting where he sounds all mellow and all laid back. But I have also seen some movies where he didn't use that style and he was very good, one where he is like this cop, and then he did good voice work and acting in a Scanner Darkly.

paul - 01/16/09 18:05
I think it sounds like an interesting role for him.

metalpeter - 01/17/09 17:25
That was a pretty interesting article, Wish I would have caught this post on the first day it was posted. A lot of people have a lot of great points. (e:theli) the latest point you made about family is very true or atleast it used to be, it was about marring into a certain family. I think anything that I wanted to say has been covered. So I will add this If it was me I would make sure at the least that I got the Beer first. I also think this case shows us how messed up our country is. We are supposed to be the melting pot. In there society it is ok to set up a marriage and this is what he did. He wasn't selling his girl into sex slavery they where not going to give the girl a gang bang and sell the streaming video on the internet. This farther shouldn't be charged with any thing, well he isn't here legally but other then that. If we want to be the melting pot that we claim to be then when different societies have different culture they follow then none of those things should be a crime, or there should be a way that what looks like a crime can be set aside if it isn't really one.

theli - 01/14/09 10:08
To be fair, sometimes the girls are also a commodity in that case. If you can compare these families to nobility, as if it was possible to increase your standing by having your offspring marry the right people...

And I think that is a major element of most societies with arranged marriages too. The offspring are often treated as bartering tokens for the bettering of the family as a whole, or just the father or mother figure, besides just a gain in wealth specifically. There is this strong possibility for a desire for something other than the desires of the one to get married.

So yeah, that debutante nonsense can be equally as bad, if not worse.

jason - 01/14/09 09:16
I wasn't trying to be funny for once! I really don't know exactly how arranged marriages in India work other than property is involved to some extent. I don't assume it has the same shady overtone as this case, but I'd like an Indian perspective.

(e:Lauren), I think this is the distinction between this type of arranged situation and waspy class preservation. I don't believe the women in that situation are treated as part of a financial or property transaction. In other words they are not a commodity. They're just trying to preserve their socioeconomic superiority, and take it from me, it ain't a joy being a man who doesn't measure up to a girl's dad because you don't have the right job or car or club membership.

lauren - 01/14/09 08:35
haha. i have enjoyed your back and forth conversations very much. i certainly could join this one, but I couldn't help but add what I thought of while reading...debutante balls in, gasp, America by, gasp, wealthy (often white), Christian/Jewish/Other "Americans." Women, 15 and up are "presented" as being eligible to date to a bunch of similarly placed socioeconomic men and their families. Now, perhaps I'm stretching, but how different is this from varying types of "arranged" marriages? Perhaps they aren't trading Coronas, but I think they are certainly related.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 19:59
OMG. I have to stop but I can't!!!!!

You are right - not all of them care about you, but if you have an ounce of Indian blood running through your veins, you will feel obliged to interfere at the smallest and the most trivial opportunity that presents itself. LOL. We are an AWFULLY nose-pokey-where-its-totally-not-wanted lot and we actually revel in all this nose-pokey crazy behaviour. If I had to describe any Indian with three words, I would pick: a)interfering b)snobbish c)gregarious. Hahaha

theli - 01/13/09 19:46
That reminds me of ethnic communities.

I'm not involved in my own, but it's pretty much the case that everybody within that community knows a lot about everybody else. Pretty much how you describe.

Again though, exclusion is essentially what that connectedness is based on. That kind of connectedness is in no way present with people outside of that community.

You may gain friends outside of the community, and learn about their families and acquaintances. But no one who you are connected to in that community will care anywhere near as much about those friends unless you go about extolling their virtues until you convert them over.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 19:39
That got me thinking about the specifics of who qualifies as a neighbour and who qualifies as your society back home. Let's see. All relatives, all in-laws (hereby caled etc.), everyone who lives at least 3-4 blocks up and down your street, their etc., everyone you meet at the weekly farmer's market, their etc., everyone you meet shopping for daily grocery, their etc., everyone who meet at the parent-teacher's meeting, your workplace, your spouse's workplace, all their etc, your classmates' families and etc. .. I can't possibly finish this list but I can tell you, there is no end of people in it! And imagine everyone knows your name and what you are doing and pretty much everything that matters about your affairs!! Nothing really can be a secret!

I have often wondered what brings me back to (e:strip) again and again. Why am I even interested in all of you and the conclusion is very interesting. All of you remind me of my extended neighbourhood family from back home. I wouldn't say this of just any site. The fact that I know all of you personally to some extent factors into it.

Ofcourse, as you have probably noticed, not all of us connect evenly - but that is true of any neighbourhood and any society. To put in some genetic slang here, mating is never non-random - else we wouldn't have lost the variation that exists in Africa. ;-)

theli - 01/13/09 18:28
(Well, it certainly took me aback. :p)

That is something that we've lost, a sense of connectedness.

But either you keep your world small, limited to maybe under a thousand people such as in a secluded village or otherwise rural area. Or, you regiment it in a manner where you very explicitly define who is part of your "society" and who is not.

No group, no family, can survive the removal of all exclusion.

I can absolutely see people within a certain social strata living the way you describe. But what of those that aren't in that strata?

I really think that our public isolation is a direct result of attempting to include as many people, at least as far as a common set of guidelines and expectations.

Because of this breakdown of division, people have gotten nervous. So then they learn, or teach others (such as their children), to fear unknown people in general.

And in some sense, that really is necessary. But it has almost always gone too far.

But to connect from person to person without all pretense of exclusion...that's actually a difficult thing to do. It requires a certain level of "self-actualization", maybe.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 18:18
LOL @Jason

jason - 01/13/09 18:18
I wonder how different this arrangement for some beer and cash is from an Indian arranged marriage.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 18:18
That was not a criticism. :)

tinypliny - 01/13/09 18:15
And the fabric of society itself is completely different. The "society" is like a giant world-wide-web there. I still find it very hard to accept that here my neighbours don't care about me, or sometimes, know me even. Think of a society as an extended (sometimes well-meaning, but mostly annoyingly familiar) family extension. You don't need to date to meet people. You just do! :)
Gaaah. I know its tough to explain, because I am still not sure how it works and works so well.

The three attributes you have mentioned are very unfortunate and point to a sad state of affairs, but you don't necessarily have to be any of the three (whether you are a male or a female) to enter into an arranged marriage. The "arrangement" is not all done by foreign parties. Part of the arrangement is done by the people marrying each other. The word "arrangement" is not equivalent to "use of force"!!

theli - 01/13/09 18:12
Oof, that's some harsh criticism there. :}

You're right. I guess I might just trust computers more than my parents, and parents in general. :p

And I see it as a tool. There's no one there making decisions for me.

Although even that's not quite true. The elements of a dating site do have an affect on who you meet and how you meet them. But these at least appear to be elements without agency, even if that's probably not true. Societal assumptions have manifested themselves in all dating sites to some degree without exception. But maybe that's just unavoidable.

I think trying to date without the help of that tool will give me a different experience, which is why I am currently attempting to do so. But I don't see anything inherently bad about using whatever you have available to you.

If those who seek arranged marriages really see their parents as just something like a tool, then alright. But somehow I don't think that's quite the case for most. :}

tinypliny - 01/13/09 18:03
Hmmm.. Let me put it this way. Arranged marriages to Indians are say, like online dating sites. Think about it. Aren't you asking the online dating site to "please help you find your mate?"

theli - 01/13/09 17:55

• nods*

Yeah, it can be applied to both genders. Just because you are a man, that does not mean that you are strong willed. And vice versa.

People in general need to be given the opportunity, and capability, to direct their own lives. It is when concepts and states such as submissiveness, ignorance, and helplessness are sometimes celebrated that I get nervous.

In the society I've grown up in, all three seem to be celebrated in women from time to time. And that's hardly ever the case for men. (It's usually ignorance for that gender.) So I've become a bit sensitive to that in particular.

Not all arranged marriages may involve expressed submissive. But the very concept suggests it. "Please help me find my mate." Meh.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 17:47
I do come from a society that believes in marriage, heart and soul. I have my own reservations about the institution as a whole (for reasons that are not relevant here).

Though we (as in a society that attests and practices arranged marriages) believe and celebrate marriages, I would like to point out that we don't discriminate between arranged and non-arranged marriages. The end outcome is important for us. The family unit that results from unions is probably the most revered back home.

Its somewhat hard to explain for me, and I am not going to try, but believe me, even with the existence of arranged marriages, there is a TON of choice.

I think its possible that not every marriage and family unit is successful - but attributing this to arranged marriages alone might be a flawed generalization. I have personally seen both arranged and non-arranged marriages fail in my immediate family. I have also seen a HUGE number of success stories, so I wouldn't be quick to point fingers at arranged marriages yet.

Not everyone is happy with their marriages. This is true for any marriage regardless of what kind it is.

Also, what makes you think women alone suffer from arranged marriages? Marriage is not just an institution in a patriarchal society. There are matriarchal communities that also value this institution. The roles are so reversed, you'd be surprised. :)

theli - 01/13/09 17:39
Dating certainly requires a hardy spirit. Heh

I don't deny that there are faults in American and/or western society. In fact, we may have a greater variety, if not severity, than most others. It would probably be impossible to resolve every single one.

But... I would personally prefer that people be lost than to be guided by lousy...guidelines.

Everybody seems to be so scared that they might not know what to do with their lives... But, why?

Why is that so bad?

janelle - 01/13/09 17:32
You're right that societal pressures are down right insidious sometimes. The whole dating scene that we have puts pressure on people too. I've experienced the fun of that pressure.

Not accepting the dating culture here can leave you feeling socially isolated.

I think it's great that you care about this issue. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the concept of arranged marriages as most people practice it, but I want to be careful to take the plank out of my eye before looking at the speck in someone elses.

theli - 01/13/09 17:26
To that I can only counter that societal pressures are downright insidious, sometimes.

If you do not accept this tradition as something good and right, will you be ostracized?

If you do not appear to want your life to be planned to you, will others judge you poorly?

How could it not be the case in cultures where these practices are celebrated that a few are pressured to "learn to love" their fate as their society expects?

A thousand women can tell me that this is something they wanted. That this was right to them. And I would believe that this might be true for most of them. But I simply can't believe that this could possibly be the case for every single one, regardless of how kind and accepting the societies they come from might appear.

And I don't believe that just because I am a man that I cannot be, reasonably, concerned about this.

tinypliny - 01/13/09 17:23
Not all arranged marriages are about beer and money, you know? ;-)

Also, how do you know they restrict choices? Any personal experiences with any? :)

janelle - 01/13/09 17:18
I think arranged marriage probably greatly varies from society to society making it difficult to all out judge the practice as a whole and decisively condemn as an inferior practice.

Arranged marriages that force individuals unwilling or unable to consent, I would agree are problematic and not worth it.

Arranged marriages in which people agree to participate in a formalized process that establishes clear parameters on who they're looking for and who want parental input and guidance ... well, that hardly sounds inferior.

theli - 01/13/09 17:00
I can understand that. But I always have difficulty accepting societal standards that seem to unnecessarily restrict one's choices. And this has been around for a while, but just because it's traditional doesn't make it right.

Is the security and comfort that people find in this worth the abuses that it is sometimes, however frequently, put to?

My instincts say no.

I would compare it to Monarchy, and royalty in general. It can be grand and wonderful and noble. And it has some advantages. But is it something that should persist in perpetuity?

janelle - 01/13/09 16:51
Arranged marriages are hardly a cultural quirk given the number of societies that still practice it. While this particular incident was clearly an illegal situation and nasty situation and probably not an isolated incident, I have a couple of friends from college (some from India and some from conservative Christian families) who participated in some form of arranged marriage and all seemed to go well.

For every bad story of arranged marriages, I'm sure that people from societies that practice it can provide us with examples of love marriages and dating gone awry.

Trying to find a life partner can be really tricky, I think, and if people want to do it through arranged marriages, so be it.