Karl RSVPs to our wedding invitation:

I checked with my scheduler (ie my wife, who's back from Michigan now) and we unfortunately can't make it to your wedding. However, we would like to get you something, since it's not every day one of Knoxville's most eligible bachelors gets lass-oed. Are you guys registered any place?

Hi, Karl, sorry you and Stacey can't make it. As far as the wedding registry, for your convenience we're registered at both Mercedes of Knoxville and Lexus of Knoxville. We really don't prefer one car over the other, so just choose whichever dealership is closer to your work or home.

If neither one of those is convenient, we're also registered at Proffitt's and Target. Those links actually go to the online version of our registry, and you can order online. Pretty cool, especially for out-of-town guests. Wedding registries are amazing: bride and groom can select gifts using a Symbol scanner, guests can print out the registry using a touch-screen kiosk, and the whole thing is accessible online. That is some sweet technology.

Another option is a check. That may be considered crass by some people, but really, a check and a nice card would be great. Weddings are expensive, and since we're in our thirties we're footing most of the bills, not our parents. When we get back from the honeymoon fall semester will start and it will be time to pay tuition. Needs before wants.

There's another difference when you get married in your thirties. We already had most of the necessities of domesticity. When Melissa and I moved in together we had to combine two households worth of stuff and make it fit into one house. There's a limit to how many domestic possessions two people need, and we're pretty close to it. Still, All-Clad cookwear is pretty cool.

We picked a band!
The music for the wedding and reception will be provided by the Lake Terrace Trio from the University of Tennessee. The trio is two violins and a cello, and they play classical and jazz. Melissa requested their demo CD and it was wonderful.

Engagement pictures
Did you know you're supposed to get pictures made before the wedding? It was news to me. I polled our married friends and determined that about half of them had done it. One practical advantage that Terri notes is that engagement pictures allowed her to preview her hair and makeup and make some adjustments. That at least makes sense. Our wedding is in three weeks. The photographer can't process photos that quickly and he has weddings this weekend, so we're going to JC Penney's on Saturday.

LATER: It's done. Damn, getting family photos taken is a hectic, emotional bitch. If someone gives you a family photo, treasure it. You have no idea what they went through. And I guarantee it will be years before they make another one.

Expedition to Jonesborough
Melissa and Allison spent yesterday in Jonesborough ironing out details with Patty at The Wedding Loft. The flowers and a bunch of other specifics are set. Patty has been great, and I highly recommend the loft. I wrapped up a couple of issues this week, including gifts for the groomsmen and father of the bride, ordered from Keith at Knoxville Cigar Company.

SNOPES: Do toilets in the southern hemisphere flush in the opposite direction of toilets in the northern hemisphere? An oldie but a goodie.

STEVEN MILLOY: Is NOW's stance on silicone breast implants based on science or politics?

NAPLES NEWS (VIA EUGENE VOLOKH): Yesterday was the 25th birthday of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby.

It's hard to believe the uproar that the first test-tube baby caused. Pundits, religious leaders, politicians, and even some scientists warned that this was "playing God" and would lead to a moral breakdown of society.

Scientific American quoted Leon Kass, a biologist at the University of Chicago, who warned in 1978 that "the idea of humanness and of our human life and the meaning of our embodiment and our relation to ancestors and descendants" were at risk because of the first test-tube baby.

Fast forward to 2003. Test-tube babies are commonplace and the world hasn't self-destructed. But now people are pointing quaking fingers at the idea of cloning human beings.

"Cloning threatens the dignity of human procreation, giving one generation unprecedented genetic control over the next. It is the first step toward a eugenic world in which children become objects of manipulation and products of will." Who said that? The self-same Leon Kass.

The point is that every new capability in biology - particularly a new capability that deals with the creation of children - has been proclaimed to be wrong, evil or immoral by people who fear change. Yet today we live longer, healthier lives than any preceding generation of human beings.

Even the test-tube babies are getting along quite well, thank you.