Taiwan!

Some stuff that’s accumulated in my browser tabs while I’ve been watching Cinetopia films…

Back in 2017 Taiwan’s constitutional court struck down the part of the civil code that says marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. The court gave the legislature two years to fix the situation. And yesterday, they did, choosing the option that uses the word “marriage” and even allows some adoption rights. The bill passed 66-27. Taiwan is the first country in Asia to legalize marriage equality.



CivicScience conducted a poll on this question: “Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals as part of their school curriculum?” 56% of the responses were no.

I hope you recognize this was a trick question. The numbers we use in every day life – 1, 2, 3 and all the rest – are called Arabic numerals to distinguish them from Roman numerals – I, II, III and so forth.

The results prompted a tweet from CivicScience CEO John Dick:

Ladies and Gentlemen: The saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we've ever seen in our data.

Dick adds that when the results were split by party the GOP responses were 72% no.



In response to the restrictive abortion ban in Alabama and an almost as restrictive ban just passed in Missouri, Matthew Dowd shared this:

We should pass a woman’s Heartbeat Law: if a woman has a heartbeat, you can’t tell her what to do with her body, ever.

Truthout tweeted:

If minimum wage had increased at the same rate as the average Wall Street bonus since 1985, it would be $33 today, instead of $7.25.

They have an article to go with their tweet.



A few days ago conductor Karina Canellakis made her debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. It went well, but not as planned. Just before the scheduled concert start, pianist Daniil Trifonov, became ill and had to be taken to the hospital. That sounds like an orchestra manager’s big nightmare.

At the scheduled start of the concert the librarian started handing out replacement music – Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony – to the orchestra already on stage. Though they would play it after intermission it still meant there was no time to rehearse. Canellakis had conducted it once before – five months ago. This symphony is considered part of the standard repertoire, but the newest members hadn’t played it before. Even though they played it cold, they played it well. Bass player Scott Feltham posted about it afterward, adding, “Time for a beer.”

Trifonov was well enough to perform in the second and third concerts of the series.