Ronald Lindsay posted the text of his speech here in response to the outrage being thrown around, and I posted a gentle critique in the comments (scroll down to #35), but there is one more important thing that I want to say (and not have it get lost in the MRA chest-pounding and categorical hatred from all sides). I suggest you read his speech first; my comments are mostly stylistic (know your audience, remember their perspective is not yours, and think about what you’re saying), and diplomatically don’t include the fact that I wouldn’t have given that speech at all, or anything like it.

When you are making the opening speech for a convention, you are setting the tone for the whole gathering. While an opening speech won’t necessarily make an event great, it can poison the waters very effectively. A man getting up on stage and telling women at a conference about women in secularism that his biggest concern is that women not shout down men for being men**? Let’s just say that if I have to explain why that wouldn’t go over well, you… I do have to explain it?

*sigh*

What this speech said (whether he intended it or not) is that while he’s open to the idea of women participating in this larger group, that he’s concerned that women will use this power responsibly. So concerned, that he’s willing to make saying this the first official thing that happens in the convention. This does not speak well of his underlying assumptions.

Guys? Where people meet, there will be friction. There will be people taking advantage of the rules and fighting dirty. There will be fights over what’s important and schoolyard insults. There will be slander, and gossip, and lies. That’s not women, that’s dealing with humanity. What it isn’t is something to point out as your major concern. It’s like saying that despite the fact of traffic fatalities (let alone global warming), that your major concern about letting more drivers on the road is an increase in road-rage.

Priorities, guys. Priorities.

* Hey, your keynote speech is kinda by definition what you’re most concerned about regarding the things the event is called to address.

** It could also be interpreted to extend to class and race, but it was said in the context of feminism and privilege. I think I’m fairly certain I’ve got the gist here.

Kay: We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public!

Jay: Man, we ain’t got time for this cover-up bullshit! I don’t know whether or not you’ve forgotten, but there’s an Arquillian Battle Cruiser that’s about to…

Kay: There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!

“Men In Black” (1997)

That was then, and this is now.

One of the things that makes living at this point in time so fascinating to me, is that a very fundamental shift is taking place in how humans need to cope with disaster. Even more so than in the times at which the telegraph, telephone, and television were ascending technologies, the time between an event and people hearing about that event has shrunk. We’re well past the point where our ability to share information vastly outstrips our ability to collect (and more importantly, analyze) it. This means two things: 1. Alex Jones, Pamela Gellar, the New York Post, and many others are having just a swingin’ time firing off-the-cuff bullshit into the empty space where people want knowledge (as opposed to infotainment) about “what just happened.”

People making fun of these idiots are in a target-rich environment, and taking advantage of it too, but that’s neither here nor there.

The question I have for you is pretty simple, though. Are you prepared to live in this world, where not only you are able to hear about more and more of the wonderful and horrible things that are going on, but are tempted to substitute lame guesses (yours or someone else’s) for knowledge about these events? If you wonder why conspiracy theories seem to be growing on trees these days, and why ideological groups are more firmly divided now than ever, I offer two (non-exclusive) possible explanations. The first is that we’ve always been kinda nuts, and we’re just getting are noses rubbed in it via the Internet now. The second is that Internet-connected communities are forming that are centered around models of What Is Really Going On, and that many of these models exclude the others from any possibility of being true (as well as being pretty stupid in their own right). We do this because we are a species (like most) which was pressured to make decisions quickly, discard unnecessary information in favor of holding doggedly to what seems to be intuitively correct, and shun ambiguity. Unfortunately, this is a much better evolutionary strategy for an endurance predator living on the African Savannah than it is a sometimes-rational critter trying to figure out what to do with nuclear weapons, mass murderers (political and otherwise), kleptocratic governments, and climate change.

I’ll put it more simply: are you willing to accept from moment to moment that there are a great many things you do not know, that the scope of your knowledge will change over time, and that the changes in what knowledge you have are quite often not an improvement?* The challenge in answering this question is whether or not you can reserve judgement when you do not have enough information to make a good judgement, when your feelings are telling you you must do something NOW, and avoid coming to a conclusion when the process of thinking and being skeptical definitely should not be concluded. I’d write more, but as a problem the issue really is that (deceptively) simple, at least in expression.

* Where you in response to your answer to this question is a much, much bigger topic.

Dear Mr. President:

I am horrified at the continuing idea that reducing Social Security benefits in any way would benefit the larger economy. Shifting to CPI-E would not only increase the rate at which income inequality is growing, it would reduce the amount of money spent in low-income communities (by curtailing everything from small impulse purchases to being able to afford a full (rather than partial) antibiotic course of treatment, to reducing the small amount that seniors on Social Security can include in a Christmas card to their grandchildren). These are small changes, but small changes distributed across the national economy have tremendous effects, and the secondary effects are even larger.

Money aggregates where there is already lots of money being spent to make money; it’s a fact of economics. The problem is “how do we counteract this concentrating effect of wealth just enough to bring a broader-based prosperity without choking out the productive use of capital?”

I think we as a nation have erred greatly by assuming that the economic and political path of least resistance is necessarily the best one. I know the decisions you have been confronted with have been difficult, but the path we are on now leads us straight back (economically speaking) to the Gilded Age.

If anything, we need to increase Social Security benefits, lift the taxable income cap on the payroll tax, and perhaps even make the Social Security tax progressive, rather than flat. This will create broad-based economic demand in the way your reduction of the Payroll Tax did, while strengthening Social Security at the same time.

You may want to contribute your own thoughts as well.

Pretty catchy, huh?

Also, nice little touches like the blue-screen “PLAY” and the color test bars/tone give it a feel of authenticity.

There are a few problems, though. There’s no VHS distortion at the top or bottom of the video, but there is (surprisingly regular) tape distortion in the video (which leads me to believe that it’s a distortion filter). The aspect ratio doesn’t quite look NTSC video-sized. It screams parody. So let’s look for this church and see what’s up.

The domain for the website of the church says it closed in 2004 (which has the same picture) was registered in January of 2013. The registrant information is private, which was rare at that time. Nice touch with the “Sermons” page (an apparently malformed ASP call), that arguably could have been inserted by a WYSIWYG editor of the time… except that the page identifies the editor used to create it:

<meta name=”generator” content=”Starfield Technologies; Go Daddy Website Builder v6.1.1″/>

Version six of the editor was announced on August 15, 2012.

Also, the website has Open Graph tags embedded in the document which I believe were introduced in 2010.

The website image has a .jpg extension, odd blocky distortions and a moiré pattern across the front that looks like a highly-compressed jpeg file (but again looks more like a plugin than lossy compression to my suspicious mind). Unfortunately, it’s not a JPG – it’s a PNG, which is a lossless compression type, a puzzling decision since a PNG is a larger file of higher quality than a highly-compressed JPG graphic. Eh, I’ve spent enough time on this.

Let’s just say someone made a silly video, and threw an odd and contradictory puzzle together to go with it.

Life on the Internet as usual.

Military to open combat jobs to women

By Chris Lawrence, with reporting from Barbara Starr

The U.S. military is ending its policy of excluding women from combat and will open combat jobs and direct combat units to female troops, CNN has learned. Multiple officials confirm to CNN that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will make the announcement tomorrow and notify Congress of the planned change in policy.

“We will eliminate the policy of ‘no women in units that are tasked with direct combat,’” a senior defense official says.

But the officials caution that “not every position will open all at once on Thursday.” Once the policy is changed, the Department of Defense will enter what is being called an “assessment phase,” in which each branch of service will examine all of its jobs and units not currently integrated and then produce a timetable in which it can integrate them.

While I’m not a fan of our disproportionately high “defense” spending, I am VERY glad that this anachronism is being pushed back.

In related linkage, Wonkette has a pithy and amusing take on it, and Weasel Zippers haz a sad.

The Planned Parenthood clinic I volunteer at is located in the District of Columbia, which (because of DC’s odd property laws mostly stemming from the city being designed with the then-current tactics of revolution in mind) leads to what might charitably be called an inconvenient problem: everything from the street right up to the building is considered “private property set aside for public use” (this has had some interesting consequences). What this means is that people protesting *ahem* “sidewalk counseling” at the clinic can walk right up to the door. All they can’t do is touch you or block access to the facility. What they can do, however, is subject the patients walking in and out to a barrage of pamphlets, posters, pleading, and (occasionally) invective.

Fortunately, the protesters can’t just walk into the clinic, because the person who works the front desk has no tolerance for nonsense, and generally she won’t buzz the front door open unless you’re walking up with one of the escorts. Yes, the front door is a security door that must be unlatched from the inside. Yes, this is a medical facility. Get this, the door inside that goes to the waiting room (and the restrooms) also needs to be buzzed open by the person at the front desk. I wonder how many more patients could be treated each year if the clinics in the U.S. didn’t have to install and maintain such protective measures?

Anyhow. What a clinic escort does is (with the permission of the clinic) walk with the patients to and from the facility, interpose themselves between the patient and the more zealous of the protestors, talk with the patient to distract from the sounds of the praying/ranting/guilt-tripping going on all around them, and generally try and support access to the clinic. In short, this is the only activism I’ve ever done that has been in support of enforcing a federal law (specifically the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act), rather than an attempt to shake things up or change political dialogue. Both literally and figuratively, a clinic escort is an unpaid volunteer with no authority or powers whatsoever beyond the simple permission of the clinic to be there, who does nothing more than facilitate patients getting in and out with as little fuss as possible.

Now you can’t touch a protestor, but what you can do is slow down while they’re in front of you, or stand where they want to be standing (usually right next to where the patient will be). You can’t tell someone to shut up, but you can provide (with your voice) an alternate thing for the patient to focus on. You can’t touch the patients (as much as sometimes some of them look like they need a hug, reassurance, or even a handshake), but you can apologize for the craziness going on around them. You can’t prevent them from occupying the sidewalk, but you can call the police if they block the path. You can’t prevent the singing, praying, or wailing and gnashing of teeth going on to either side of the walk up to the front door, but you can pick your spot to stand so that the patient’s journey is marked by a friendly, or at least non-confrontational face along the way.

Now this is definitely no fun, but not because of the patients. At worst, the patients don’t acknowledge your existence, which is fine with me. It’s not because of little recognition and no reward, because if you are there for recognition, you’re in the wrong place. This isn’t about you; it’s about ensuring access to medical care. You don’t have enough information about what people going to the clinic are doing there (and living through) to make a sane and informed judgement about it. It’s not even the protesters specifically, because anyone who has spent significant time dealing with crazy people either IRL or on the Internet has tremendous experience with filtering out the crazy. It’s not the ugly orange thingie you wear to clearly identify yourself as a clinic escort (picture from la4choice.org); in fact, the environment was so tense that I forgot I was wearing it almost immediately (I also put it on backwards at first, before another escort pointed that out).

What infuriated me almost beyond reason was how the protesters seem to treat the patients. I can’t pretend to know what they were thinking, but their behavior speaks volumes. Decide for yourself.

I didn’t get affected by much my first day. Mostly, what I did was identify the choke points, ignore things said at (and about) me, and learn the patterns of movement. Not a big deal. Seriously, mad props to the Internet, the Tea Party, and lots of lefty-haters (as well as crazy stalkers) out there for toughening me up for this.

The lone African-American among the protesters, a young woman who appeared to be at least middle class, was there both of the times I have been there. Two weekends ago, she was there quietly praying when I arrived, and she occasionally handed out flyers and tried to intercept the patients as they went in (but was nowhere near as aggressive as Dick Retta, who is dogged about yelling at each and every person “don’t kill your baby,” regardless of gender, age, or why they’re there).

Last weekend, she brought a baby (I didn’t ask, but I’m assuming it was hers), and she and some of the other protesters took turns walking up and down the walk to the door and praying. Not classy and not kind, but still didn’t get me. Children are used for political purposes all the time. It’s disgusting, it’s pathetic, and it’s not surprising. It didn’t even surprise me to see the very white, very middle-to-upper class protesters all crowd around and share in carrying the baby around like some kind of holy symbol. Manipulation through emotional symbols is very characteristic of organized religion and politics, and the protesters were very steeped in both.

There is a woman there who takes pictures of the escorts, and she tries to take pictures of the patients and the inside of the clinic (we do our best to block her from those last two targets). She says all sorts of foolish things about the escorts, such as that when we die, we’re going to see the faces of all those that have been aborted there that we made happen (somehow). She shows up with a large poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and tells me that it was proved by Scientists! who were Atheists! that the paint could not have been from this world! That it was supernatural! (not the copy she has, but the original). Last time I checked, crushed beetle shells were decidedly of this world, and she’s worth nothing more than amusement.

Most of the other “sidewalk counselors” rush to meet the patients in front of the clinic, follow them (with us blocking) as they move to the door, thrust literature at them, and then once the patient goes in, stand there and adopt what I think of as “the expression,” staring at the patient’s back until they’re buzzed into the waiting room. Each of the protesters (again, they call themselves “sidewalk counselors”) has their own expression; for one it’s a beatific, warm, and almost forgiving smile, for another it’s an infinitely sad and somber look, for others it’s almost an expression of mournful pleading, for still another it’s an expression of serene sadness, and the list goes on. I suspect they keep it on because the person might turn around, see them, and be moved by the depth of feeling in “the expression,” and come out of the clinic. Who knows. Maybe it’s genuine emotion, maybe it’s cynical manipulation. What I do know, is that the moment the person turns to the waiting room door, the protester(s) stop watching, drop “the expression” like a bad habit, and move to be ready to intercept the next patient.

Overall, the individual protesters gave me the impression that they cared much more about how they felt about what was going on (and about the people going in/out and around the clinic) than anything to do with the people themselves, or the circumstances they might be in (you can only hear “LET US SAVE YOUR BABY” being yelled at women who yell back “I’M NOT PREGNANT; I’M HERE FOR BIRTH CONTROL!”
so many times without smirking). It also surprised me that, having seen some of the protesters in a coffee shop (hey, I like mah mochas and my morale was low), they seemed positively enervated, when the escorts looked like they’d been through a grind. These people actually get a tremendous charge out of what they do, and I don’t think they realize that what they do is make it more difficult for everyone around them to live their lives as they need to. They would argue that they are saving lives, but in my opinion, if you’re going to say that meaningful humanity lies solely in replicating DNA, then you debase everything else that a human being is and can be (and especially debase the woman, whose mind and personality is suddenly subordinated to her uterus in your eyes).

No, the protesters individually are not a problem, and they didn’t get to me with any of their antics directly. What got to me was when a woman with running mascara and tears, followed by her boyfriend, strode toward the clinic with (I think) mixed anger and grief on her face. She was moving fast, and she didn’t say much of anything to anyone. I don’t know why she was there, not my business. She needed to get in, we got her in.

But in the very short time I’ve been doing this, I never saw the protesters so energized, so quick to move, so fervent in their appeals, so confrontational with the aforementioned protester’s baby, and so completely indifferent to the facts of another human being’s life. Did it make a difference that the woman was white, with long blond hair and a tall white man accompanying her? Maybe, but I sincerely doubt it. She was not the only one to show up. But she was the only one crying that day. She was the only one showing pain, and showing it deeply.

What got to me was how the protesters pounced on her like sharks on a bleeding seal. They didn’t know her, they didn’t know anything about her, they just knew she was in the grip of emotion, and lunged at it. Believe me, that’s my polite way of describing it.

I’m shaking a little with an emotion I can’t name as I type this, and it’s been three full days since it happened. The picture-taking lady, apparently thinking she sensed vulnerability* then showed me a poster covered in pictures of babies, and said something to the effect of “this is what you are killing. This is what is dying in there.” I don’t remember what I said back, or what she said to me in response, but I’m grateful to one of the other escorts for saying to me “it would be helpful to the patients if you went back to your spot,” in a relaxed, matter-of-fact voice.

So without even pausing for thought, I went back to my spot and got over myself, because I’m not there for me. I’m very glad that he trusted that enough to think that his simple statement would shake me out of my reaction, and I’m very glad I refocused. I’m still not quite over the experience, but now I know something on an intuitive level that I only intellectually understood before: that the real problem with the protesters is that they don’t care about the full, complex, joyous, horrible mess that is life; they live to serve their idealized fantasy world, and will subordinate that which is human, living, and real to the service of that cause.

I expect most of the escorts will be doing family stuff, so I’ll be going again this weekend. I’m going to be focusing on the patients, being civil to them, and emotionally processing what I saw (they’re always very friendly and polite to us, except for the picture-taking lady), because I don’t think we have the same understanding of what it means to be friendly, or even what it means to be alive.

* A misjudgement that was roughly on par with Dick Morris’ claim that it was going to be a Romney Landslide. Let’s just leave it at that.

I’d like you to look at the maps of their congressional districts (Virginia, Pennsylvania – links open in new windows) and you may want to keep those windows open to look back at what is probably the clearest example of why we re-elect incumbent Representatives in the House.

First, let’s take a look at Pennsylvania. Notice that the five districts that went Democratic this time are clustered near major cities, and that the Democratic districts really don’t cover much in the way of area. Notice on the Secretary of State’s website that none of the races in the Democratic-leaning districts were really very close (in fact, they were very lopsided), resulting in the 5 Democratic Representatives (out of 18 total) being re-elected with solid majorities. The GOP winners won (generally) by much narrower margins. In PA, the Congressional districts are drawn by the State Legislature and approved by the Governor, while the Legislature districts are drawn by a commission balanced between Republicans and Democrats. If you wonder whether the redistricting process, consider that the total votes for Democratic U.S. House candidates in the 2012 PA election was 2,702,901, and the total votes for GOP U.S. House candidates was 2,626,851. So we have a state that’s almost evenly divided (Dem vs. GOP), but the House representation is 5 to 13.

Now on to Virginia.

First, the oddity that is the 3rd congressional district (the blot in the lower-right corner of the VA map linked above that looks like three little districts, but is actually all one district, is something that was put in place after the 2000 census. In Virginia, gerrymandering has been going on so long that it’s simply expected (and both sides cry foul at the other side doing it).

On to the stats. Virginia has 3 Democratic Representatives and 8 Republican ones, with 1,797,905 votes cast for Democratic candidates and 1,873,491 votes cast for Republican ones (aggregated from stats here). Given wailing and gnashing of teeth about Democratic gerrymandering in the link above, I’d say that the GOP is guilty of being more adept at the process.

Really, the only people who benefit from gerrymandering are the politicians themselves, since they’re choosing their voters. So remember, when you feel like bitching about “those elites in Washington who aren’t paying attention to us,” the reason they’re there is because of elites right next door who are deciding which elite you will vote to send to Washington, and in what group of voters your vote will be counted. Your local elections are what decide this, and you fail to participate in them at your peril. Also, I recommend much ranting and raving about the gerrymandering – it’s not cool when anyone does it, and I believe it’s at the root of how our two-party system has become so entrenched at the national level.

Hopefully I’ll think of something interesting to say over the weekend.

Here’s my contribution, which hasn’t been approved yet.

How to start this, beyond wry amusement at the idea that the “precious paycheck” is any more or less necessary to provide food and shelter because of your gender, or that once a child is conceived, the biological parents somehow exist in a legal and social vacuum that separates them from whatever else is going on in their lives, or in each other’s.

Thoughts?

——

(added to this will be another one I thought of after I hit submit: what if the man is in the coma? Then the father can legally adopt with the permission of the mother.)