The Law of Unintended Consequences

You've all heard about the law of unintended consequences, no doubt ... in Iraq (see above); in easy money (see above); in that bitter little motto "No good deed goes unpunished"; and so on.

If I had my life to live over again, I think I'd be a lawyer, cause I just love the crash between human reality and the attempts to make it fit rules.

Lately the case of the will of Tom Watson, Jr. of IBM fame and fortune has caught my eye, and my imagination. The massive fortune of Tom Watsons Sr. and Jr. passed to Jrs. widow upon his death, and upon her death was intended to be divided into trusts for their 18 grandchildren, as I understand it.

However, one of TW Jrs. daughters, OW, a lesbian, was partnered for years and that partner, had, she says, and I have no reason to doubt this, given up her own career in order to live in her partnership. But she then feared what might happen to her if OW were to be, say, killed in an accident.

And all these good people who have fought against gay marriage, or even civil partnerships for decades, centuries, then indirectly brought about what happened next.

There being no way to be civil partners, and certainly not married, at the time, OW did what many gay couples were doing at the time - she legally adopted her partner.

Trouble was, they broke up within a year. But upon the death of TW Jrs. widow, as the money was about to be divided among grand-children, this adopted "child" of OW said, hey, I'm a grandchild too!

It's all in the courts in two states, and still there, as far as I can find out. To further complicate matters, OW has now repartnered, and she and her new partner have adopted two little boys, who are counted among the grand-children.

Oh, man, there are enough unintended consequences in this story to make a lot of lawyers very rich, sadly. The people who ought to pay are, perhaps, those who have prevented the simple civil rights and acts available without a second thought to all the rest of us who happen to be wired differently.

News from the Technical World

Good news - no magnetic explosion in my knee -- and my sweetie's head MRI is normal!

Now, on to the business of blogging. Tonight, news from the world of technology.

First: Get ready to use that cell! Right now in Europe, you can get cash with your cell. Say the electric company needs to send you a refund (well, that's the example they give, though could they have chosen a more unlikely one??) They send you a text message with a bar code in it. You go to the Post Office, or a designated site in a store (in the US I'll bet Walmart, Walgreen's, etc. get on board). They scan your cell screen with the bar code, and give you the cash.

Like I say, already happening in Europe. Next, bar codes in your phone that are your credit and debit cards. And cash wages by phone (useful for those without bank accounts). And text coupons to use at the grocery (already done by European Unilever). Here comes your electronic wallet. A little matter of checking identity, of course, still remains, I mean, given how many cell phones are stolen in Europe! But get ready, you may have heard it here first.

Second, also in Europe, real-life police investigations may lead to real-life court trials for on-line rape - rape, that is, in the virtual world Second Life, where some disturbing cases of stalking and attacks have occurred. People who spend days and nights in a darkened room with their computer creating their fantasy being can, and I understand this, feel deeply violated when that on-line being is attacked, raped, savaged. The terms and conditions of joining Second Life, it must be said, prohibit all such activity. Thus the potential to apply real-life laws to those who violate others in virtual reality as well as on the real cement streets.

Oh sigh. Here is a beautiful second world, in which everyone gets to be pretty if they want to be (must explain the preponderence of big busted, long-legged young women, and studly gents)...and what happens? Because we can all go there, it begins to become, gee whiz, just like the real us after all. Full of good and evil, sanity and perversion. Except for appearances. It is harder to recreate the world in the image we would prefer than many wonderful good-hearted activists think.