"We live in one of the world’s few car-free cities (gated communities aside, I guess): Discovery Bay, an island suburb of Hong Kong, established 1974."

 A reader named Peter writes, responding to a post from a few days ago, "We used to joke about 'killing the car, and we'd joke internally about how we were succeeding if people felt comfortable jaywalking" (about an effort to create cities where you could get to everything on foot or bicycle within 20 minutes).

We’ve lived here since 1998. Some might quibble with the word “city”, but, well, we call it that, and it’s deemed a “city” by our foundational Deed of Mutual Covenant. We’re definitely a “20-minute city”, with folks walking or bike-riding everywhere.

"There are no statistics about the number of platonic, best-friend marriages, and many people who are in them aren’t open about their situation."

"But chat boards on Reddit and within smaller asexual and aromantic communities have popped up recently, suggesting this could be a larger portion of the marriage population than numbers portray.... Many of these relationships... begin because the couple wants their family life separate from their romantic lives, as they don’t find their romantic lives to be stable. Others may be disenchanted with love, and feel that longstanding friendships with a history of resolving conflict may feel like a safer bet... Platonic marriages have been prevalent since marriage became an institution, while marrying for love is more of an oddity in human history.... In the United States, where marriage is incentivized with tax breaks and other couple privileges, getting married to someone with whom you are not romantically attached affords multiple benefits... 'Meeting people is hard, getting a bond and romantic feelings is hard, and more and more young people are starting to realize that there are other benefits to marriage other than romantic love: I mean, isn’t the point to marry your best friend?... So why can’t it be your literal best friend?'"

From "From Best Friends to Platonic Spouses Some people are taking their friendships to the next level by saying 'I do” to marriages without sex'" (NYT). 

The article discusses a lot of individuals and throws around a lot of picky terms — asexual, aromantic, pansexual, demisexual — but one thing stands out: They're all women! Maybe I missed a man in there somewhere, but come on, NYT, if it's all women, discuss why!

And as for those picky terms women are using to describe their experience of sexuality, "demisexual" was a new one for me. The NYT says: "Demisexual is defined as only being sexually attracted to someone with whom you have an emotional bond." I guess that means you never feel sexual toward anyone you've just met. You have to fall in love (or something) and then sexual feeling may emerge.

For the record: I think a Platonic marriage is a fine idea. You're forming a household, taking advantage of various laws that privilege marriage, and perhaps raising children. You want a family, a home, a feeling of stability and you don't need or don't want sex as part of that relationship. You either get your sex somewhere else or you don't want sex at all. That's a perfectly legitimate choice to make in life, and good for the women who've found that kind of lifelong friendship.

FROM THE EMAIL: Peter writes: 

Or a platonic marriage can happen over time. As it did in our case.

"Learn to Love our Natural World." [UPDATED with a list of 9 annoying things.]

Seen yesterday:





Meade points to the signage — orders from The State:

"Barack Obama, Socialist?"

Asks Power Line, with evidence that Obama ran for the Illinois Senate in 1996 as a member of the New Party. Was he a member or was he simply endorsed by the Party, which had a strategy of endorsing Democratic Party candidates who were sufficiently left wing?

In any case, I don't think it's right to call the New Party "socialist." I remember this party. One of the founders was UW lawprof Joel Rogers. They presented themselves not as socialists, but as left-leaning and progressive. I realize that for right wingers that counts as "socialist," but let's not be inflammatory.

I found an article in the LA Times, January 27, 1997, called "Life of the Party, Joel Rogers, Recipient of a MacArthur 'Genius' Grant, Helps Guide the Fledgling New Party and its Campaign to Provide Educational Opportunity and a Living Wage." (No link, because the LA Times website is inadequate.) Excerpt:

Imagine, [Joel Rogers] says, that in 2000 the Democrats run Al Gore for president and the Republicans offer, say, millionaire Steve Forbes....

A mad taxer might, instead, "vote his values" by poking the ballot next to Gore's name--not where he is listed as a Democrat, but beside his New Party nomination...

Either way, the vote would count toward the candidate's total. And the candidate, says Rogers, would get a sharp reminder that a certain percentage of his votes came from people who think a certain way--like New Party "progressives," for instance.

Which leads to the question of just what this New Party stands for, and how popular its "populism" would really be....

"If you ask, 'Do you think all kids should have an equal start in life,' 80% of the population would agree with you," he says.

Next he shoots out a rhetorical filament about declining incomes and wage disparity--reflecting the party's vehement support of "living wage" campaigns.

"People really don't think it's fair to work full time, 2,000 hours a year, and get such lousy pay that they can't even raise a kid on it," he says. "That has electoral promise, that sentiment. . . . You can't inflict this much damage on people's expectations and not see it show up somewhere in voter volatility and anger.

"When you say, 'It doesn't seem fair that Michael Eisner makes $ 75,000 an hour,' people respond to that."

The party also supports progressive taxation, international workers rights, environmental protection, urban renewal and the public financing of elections....

If anything bugs Rogers, though, it is the suggestion that his dream is a new playground for political hobbyists and pinko pointy heads.

"I think it would be unfair to characterize it as just a marketing strategy for old defeated socialists. . . ," Rogers says. "It attaches much less weight to the state--much less than even conventional liberalism."

It's not fair to call the New Party "socialist," and it's really not fair to paint Obama as a crypto-socialist today because of his association with it.

IN THE COMMENTS: One of my favorite commenters, Chip Ahoy, calls this "Simply the most incoherent post I've ever read here." He goes on:

Why not call a socialist a socialist? Don't tell me not to call a spade a spade or a club a club, I'll call them as I see them.

Everything about this post speaks to socialism, jealousy, income redistribution, class war. Joel Roberts [sic], whether or not he likes to hear it, is a socialist. There's nothing else to make of peeling off the most left of the left.

I didn't bother with the word clouds presented here earlier, but I recall hearing the word "fairness" a lot by both Obama and Biden. Now there's a word that grates. There. is. no. such. thing ◯ <--- emphatic period. What is an attempt to achieve fairness through social engineering if not a yearning for socialism? Bah. This was all so very interesting the first time we read about it in Animal Farm. Yes, Obama is socialist. In his bones. As socialist as allowed in American politics with himself at the control levers. Joel Rogers is attempting to stretch that allowance. I'm in poor spirit this morning. I fumbled boiling water and burned my leg. So I'm really not in any mood to be instructed how to redefine my native language. I spent too much time learning these words [than] to have somebody I don't know tell me they actually mean something else so that it becomes easier to slip proven-to-fail economic policies into American politics under another name.

I'm sorry you burned your leg, Chip. And I'm not speaking to the question whether Rogers is a socialist. But I think the New Party project was meant to be more mainstream ... left, but mainstream. I think candidates that were endorsed by the party, as it followed its supposedly clever strategy, were just very liberal Democrats.

AJ Lynch, another commenter with a fine reputation here, calls Chip's post "the best comment of the month." He adds:

I suggest you let them sink in Ann.

Peter snarks:

Let's not be silly. Of course Obama is a socialist!

The real question is this: Is Ann Althouse a socialist?

I'm just a humble citizen of Madison, Wisconsin, an observer of political things who is not herself political. I come from the world of art, and I sojourned into law, where I did not really belong, but I got ensnared in a career here, and blogging is my reemergence as the real person that I truly am. I have met many interesting people here in Madison, including many lefties, including Joel Rogers. They are the normal people around here -- here, where I feel so comfortable, where I have lived for a quarter of a century, even though I in no way belong here. Have some pity on me, dear readers.