What's Wrong Around Us?

Book Burning for the 21st Century (and beyond)

2009-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Book burning--book banning--is generally viewed as a harbinger of evil in our society, past and present. Whether it's an historical account or an imagined future world, most of us shudder at the thought of a society in which information and ideas are torn from our hands, in which the thoughts of the past or the facts of history or daring newborn ideas are concealed from us.

Even in the direst of futuristic visions, books were forcibly removed, destroyed, forbidden. In the real world, we're giving them away.

This thought has been playing in the back of my mind for some time, but it bubbled to the surface this past week when Amazon deleted copies of two George Orwell novels previously purchased by Kindle owners across the United States. Sure, Amazon had a reason for deleting the "books". Sure, Amazon said it would never do it again. But isn't the real issue that they were ABLE?

I've resisted the move toward readers like Kindle for a reason entirely unrelated to the future of our society: I love books. I like the look and feel of them. I like to hold them in my hands. I like the texture of paper and to watch the size of the chunk of pages behind the bookmark diminish as I work my way through a novel. I simply don't WANT to read a digital copy. But there's another, much more significant reason to resist that move--one that unfortunately seems not to have occurred to most of those on board with the "progress" that is a shift toward electronic books.

Imagine that today, some powerful entity decided to do away with the ideas set forth in George Orwell's 1984. Eradicating the novel would be a huge, probably insurmountable job. Physical copies exist in huge numbers, in multiple languages, in countries around the world. And, of course, no one really knows who has all those books...and if we did know, it wouldn't be especially useful information because a book can be easily hidden or handed off. Books are resold, donated, and recycled every day. Some are undoubtedly thrown away; others are destroyed inadvertantly. Even if we knew who had purchased every single copy of the book ever printed--which we don't--that wouldn't mean we knew where they were now, or even how many still existed.

In short, eradicating an existing book in print (particularly a popular one) would be virtually impossible.

Eradicating the Kindle copies of two well-known novels was apparently relatively quick and easy. Today, that's an inconvenience, an outrage to some, a bad move in customer relations terms. But today, Kindle is just beginning to take root. Today, most of us still have the books we treasure safe on our shelves at home, and it would be difficult for someone to make them disappear.

20 or 30 or 40 years from now, when we've all "caught up with the times" and there aren't any of those clunky, old-fashioned paper books lying around, will someone make all of our "books"--all of our history and information and ideas--disappear with the click of whatever has replaced the mouse in that future-world?

Should Satan Have a Gun License?

2009-07-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Women Scorned - Maybe It's Time We Started Showing Them Some Respect

2009-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Eugene Robinson started out an Op-Ed piece by pointing out that "at least" Governor Mark Sanford faced the music alone--meaning that Sanford didn't drag his poor victimized wife out and force her to stand by his side while he came clean.

Where, oh where, is that "/sarcasm" tag when you really need it?

Others, including former President Bill Clinton and former New York Governer Eliot Spitzer, have been accompanied by their wives when they made public disclosures about their infidelities. Notice what I said there? Pay close attention now, because the language is important: have been accompanied by their wives.

What I didn't say, in case you missed the distinction, was "brought their wives along" or "dragged their wives with them" or any of the other things I've seen again and again in news reports, opinion pieces, and even heard in real life discussion. Here's why: I have enough respect for these women to believe that as adults who are often also educated women and parents, they have the power to make their own decisions.

Quick show of hands: Who sees Hillary Clinton as a victim type, easily manipulated by men into doing things she doesn't want to do?

That's what I thought.

Writer after writer has lamented the fact that these men "bring their wives" along with them to make these disclosures, exposing them to public humiliation and such. And every time, I'm struck by the same thought--as an educated, professional woman, I would be far more "humiliated" at thought that the entire country believed me incapable of making my own decision about whether or not to stand by my husband's side than by the fact that people knew he'd had an affair.

Yes, infidelity and dishonesty are wrong. Yes, it's unfortunate that these women are forced to make hard choices and endure tough circumstances based on situations that may not have been in any way of their own making. But are we really improving that situation by disrespecting the choices they do make, by suggesting that they're mindless puppets subjected to whatever course of action their cheating husbands choose?

I Just Don't Give a Crap About Marijuana Legalization

2009-03-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Really. Not one little bit. I'm not for it. I'm not against it. I'm not worried about it. It just doesn't have my attention. What does have my attention, though, is the level of attention it's getting from other people, and the apparent misconceptions that drive a lot of that attention.

First, let me say that what I'm about to say does not apply to medical marijuana issues. I get why that's an issue some people feel needs to be at the forefront of national attention--particularly with some states having legalized medical marijuana use, only to have their citizens arrested by federal authorities. But the medical marijuana issue is a much narrower one, and one that's fundamentally different from the larger issue.

It's fundamentally different because people who are using marijuana for non-medical reasons are free to stop. Am I saying that they should stop? Nope. I couldn't care less, so long as they're not driving around impaired or operating machinery or any of the things that might be dangerous to the rest of us. Just don't care. But here's the thing--the right to use marijuana (non-medically) is just NOT IMPORTANT. The economy is collapsing. Millions of people are losing their homes. People are dying in Iraq. And somehow "But I really wanna get high NOW" just doesn't resonate with me.

Proponents of legalization will point out (and rightly so) that we waste a lot of money prosecuting and jailing people for marijuana crimes. That deserves a look, but it's hardly the most pressing issue on our plates. The other major argument is that lives are being destroyed over marijuana charges..and it's true. As a former criminal defense lawyer, I can definitely attest to the fact that jail time usually does more harm than good. It' s a tragedy, for sure, when a young man with a family and a good job ends up in prison because he had a small amount of marijuana in his care.

But he has a choice. Until this issue is resolved, every single American is absolutely free to just NOT POSSESS MARIJUANA. Should he have to make that choice? Well, that's up for debate. But as of today, the law is what it is, and everyone knows what it is. And so anyone who doesn't want to risk going to prison can decide not to take that chance. That sort of undermines the sense of urgency in my mind. No one is at risk who doesn't choose to take that risk.

But let's say for a moment that it is a pressing issue, that we should set aside foreclosures and the death count in Iraq and get focused on making America safe for people who opt to use marijuana. If that's the goal, then let's get sensible about it.

First, let's consider the fact that the federal law against possession of marijuana was enacted by Congress--it's not an executive order. The President could, of course, encourage Congress to pass such a bill, but that's it; it's their purview, not his. And then if Congress DID pass such a bill, and the President signed it, the problem would be all solved...except that there would still be dozens and dozens of state laws criminalizing marijuana use--laws the President is ABSOLUTELY POWERLESS to affect. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, state and local prosecutions make up 99% of all marijuana prosecutions.

So...let's recap. An apparently huge movement within the United States wants the President of the United States to make it his priority to tackle something that's Congress's job, in order to repeal a law that will impact 1% of marijuana prosecutions across the country.

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about how disappointed people are in Obama over this issue. Seems to me that if all of those people got out there and rallied and donated money and campaigned to get Obama elected so that he could get the federal prohibition on marijuana repealed, the disappointment should be running the other way.

Why I Wouldn’t Want My Son to Get Off on Watching Women Eat Feces

2009-03-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote a blog post called “Two Girls, One Cup, and Your Kids”. In that post, I had the audacity to suggest that the Two Girls, One Cup video (and others like it) might not be the best possible material for our middle-schoolers to be viewing. I’d learned, quite by accident, that a lot of young kids in my area had been viewing this video, and was pretty sure that their parents had no idea. My primary concern was that these kids—some of them as young as 11—were as-yet unformed in their sexuality and just exploring and beginning to understand their own interests and inclinations.

The varied response was very interesting: a clinical psychologist talked about how early exposure to this kind of thing could have a lifelong impact on how a girl viewed her own sexuality and what she thought was expected of her; parents talked about the internet protections they had in place; and a surprising number of people suggested that I was a totalitarian right-wing lunatic who wanted to repress everyone’s sexuality and possibly kill them. One gentleman, whose knowledge of history is apparently a bit shaky, suggested that I probably thought homosexuals should be “gassed like the Jews”—I guess he wasn’t aware that homosexuals were also on Hitler’s hit list.

The general gist of the outraged comments I received was that a person’s sexuality was his own business and it said something negative about me if I didn’t think it was just fine if our kids were influenced by things like Two Girls, One Cup and grew up thinking that women eating feces and vomit was hot. Let me cop right off to the fact that I don’t think those particular “tastes” are “normal”. In no way shape or form am I going to try to tell you that I think that’s a choice that’s “just as valid as any other” or any such thing. I do, however, believe that what consenting adults do in private—assuming that it’s truly consensual—is their own business.

Apparently, some folks felt that my desire not to have our children’s sexual development influenced by this sort of material was inconsistent with the idea that what adults do in private is their business.

Children. Adults.

Get the difference?

Seems like not, so here’s the thing: you may find it hard to understand why, if I wouldn’t condemn an adult for doing something, I’d want to help a child avoid going down that same path. Frankly, that’s just stupid. It’s every adult’s own business, for instance, whether or not he smokes—but we don’t encourage our children to start smoking. And while those of you in the “you probably want to burn people with sex lives at stake” camp are probably fairly popping out of your chairs right now yelling that we ALL KNOW that smoking is bad for you, and you can’t compare that to someone’s sexual choices…

Nonsense.

Here are just a few of the reasons that I wouldn’t want my son (or anyone else’s) to be influenced by something like Two Girls, One Cup and decide that it was really hot when chicks ate feces and vomited:

1. Eating feces is a serious health hazard. I’d hate for my son (or anyone’s) to be in the position of needing to jeopardize someone else’s health and well-being to satisfy his sexual desires.

2. This kind of activity can be damaging to a woman’s self-esteem and even mental health. Argue away, but it’s a well-documented fact, and I would hate to see someone I loved responsible for that.

3. Most of the population doesn’t participate in this sort of activity; I’ve had at least one comment that suggested I should speak for myself and this was a puritanical view, but it’s a simple fact. Most people don’t eat shit for sexual gratification. That means that a boy who does develop these proclivities is limiting his relationship possibilities or setting himself up for conflict in his relationships, perhaps for the rest of his life.

The other argument I received was that kids just weren’t going to see this as sexual. Right. An adolescent boy watching two naked chicks make out—possibly seeing such a thing for the first time—would never associate that with sex, right? And the vulgarity of the feces consumption would ensure that he was far too grossed out to have any kind of physiological response to those naked chicks making out. Right. And sexuality isn’t influenced by our early sexual reactions AT ALL. Right?

Come on.

But What are You Going to DO With My Fingerprints?

2009-03-14T10:28:00.001-07:00

There's been a lot of concern floating around the internet this morning about the new requirement that home sellers in Cook County, Illinois provide a thumbprint. There are, of course, the obvious concerns that always arise when some governmental agency or other starts collecting even more personal data about citizens. We all know about that comprehensive database the FBI is building, and some of us get a little nervous when we notice some new data collection method.

But that's not what bothers me about the thumbprint requirement. What bothers me about the thumbprint requirement is the extreme unlikelihood that it's going to serve any purpose whatsoever. You see, fingerprints are only useful when we have something to compare them with. In a criminal case, fingerprints help in two ways. If you have a suspect, you can match the fingerprints from the evidence to find out whether or not they match your suspect. And if you don't have a suspect, you can run the fingerprints through various databases to find out whether they match anyone whose fingerprints are already on file.

The latter can be a slow process, and it doesn't always bear fruit. After all, most of us don't have our fingerprints on file anywhere. If you've been arrested, applied for certain professional licenses, been in the military, etc., your fingerprints are in some database somewhere. Even finding those is dicey without a full-scale effort, because most searches don't include all of these databases. There's a hierarchy of priorities, and in some cases a backlog.

So, let's imagine that every home seller in Cook County provides a thumbprint. The vast majority of those thumbprints serve no immediate purpose, because there's nothing to match them against. If a problem arises--if it turns out that a home has been sold fraudulently--they may serve a couple of purposes. First, they could help the actual homeowner prove that he wasn't the one who sold the house. That's good...except that when a home has been fraudulently transferred by a third party, this usually isn't much of an issue. The second way it could help is that IF the actual seller's fingerprints were in some database somewhere, and IF the appropriate law enforcement agency ran the thumbprint against the right database, the perpetrator could be identified and prosecuted. The FBI currently has fingerprints on file for about 20% of the U.S. population.

So, the big question in my mind isn't "Is this too much of a burden?" or "Is this a civil rights issue?" or "What kind of liability issues does this raise?" or "Is it really fair to charge homeowners for this?", though those are all valid questions. My big question is this: What's the point?

I haven't seen any reporting thus far that sets forth any practical way in which this measure will help reduce fraudulent transfers.

Two Girls, One Cup, and Your Kids

2009-03-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, I took a trip across the country with a great bunch of middle-class suburban kids ages 11-14. Over the course of four days, Two Girls, One Cup was mentioned more than once. There were, mercifully, some kids who didn’t know what it was—but there were others willing to fill them in. A troubling number seemed to have actually watched the video. (If you have the good fortune not to know what I’m talking about, follow the link above—or suffice to say that the video sexualizes both the consumption of solid human waste and vomit.)

If I’d overheard one of these conversations in a public place, I think I would have engaged in that kind of wishful distancing that many of us employ instinctively when a child disappears—blame the parents, and that will mean that as long as I do everything right, my child is safe. The thing is, I know these kids and I know their parents, and while none of us are perfect these aren’t disaffected rich kids raised by nannies or latchkey kids whose single moms are working two jobs and forced to leave them alone too much. This is the heartland: family vacations, volunteering at the schools, homework before dinner.

And somewhere in the mix, a little Internet porn.

Two Girls, One Cup (and its ilk), it seems, has become the new millennium equivalent of sneaking a peek at dad’s Playboy…except it isn’t equivalent at all. Playboy sexualized pretty women in various stages of undress—something we might not have wanted shared with our sons too early, but that largely represented what they would eventually discover and experience. Not so Two Girls, One Cup and the like, which sexualize things most people never do—or never did, in the era when getting risqué meant sneaking a peek at Playboy.

The associations formed in the early days of sexuality are powerful and lasting, and there is no question that our kids are getting very different messages about what is sexy and sexual than the ones we were exposed to in our youth. Adolescent boys are going to react to naked women kissing one another—and if those women happen to be incorporating feces and vomit into their make-out session, those images and associations are going to get confused. Sexual triggers will develop where they don’t for most people (or didn’t in the past).

I suspect that we can’t avoid this entirely, any more than parents 50 years ago could prevent their adolescents from spying on the neighbor lady when she bathed or looking at the pictures their older brothers hid under the mattress. But the risk is something entirely different today, and access is a thousand times easier than it was even ten or fifteen years ago.

We all need internet filters, no matter how good our kids are. They’re also curious and subject to the buzz that gets going about something like this. We all need to be aware; parents of today’s adolescents cover a large age-range and have different degrees of familiarity with the Internet. Know what’s out there, and how readily available it is. You can read all about Two Girls, One Cup on Wikipedia, for instance. And we need to talk to our kids about more than how to avoid pregnancy and STDs. Uncomfortable as it might be for everyone involved, they need to know that there’s a wide range of healthy, loving sexual activity that doesn’t involve the sorts of images they’re seeing: images that may, for some, be the first exposure to explicitly sexual material.

NOTE: For those in the "you're a neo-fascist totalitarian" camp, please see my follow-up post: Why I Wouldn't Want My Son to Get Off on Watching Women Eat Feces

Apparently, Barbie Isn't Our Biggest Problem

2009-03-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

State Representative Jeff Eldridge has reportedly introduced legislation to ban Barbie dolls in West Virginia. The idea of zeroing in on Barbie in a time of economic distress, war, and rampant medical coverage issues is a bit absurd to begin with, but Eldridge's explanation as to why he's pushing for this measure is pure gold:

"Basically, I introduced legislation because the Barbie doll, I think, gives emphasis on if you're beautiful, you don't have to be smart."

I'm guessing Eldridge might have played with a few too many Barbie dolls in his youth.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Bearing Unexpected Fruit - Clinton's Questionable Order Deserves a New Look

2009-01-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

Sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton changed the policy on homosexuals in the military and angered virtually everyone in America. Conservatives who didn't think our boys should be forced to share barracks with gays were outraged that Clinton was letting them into the military at all; gay-rights supporters were equally upset by what they perceived as a cop-out that allowed homosexuals to serve in the military but still said it wasn't quite okay and that they'd better keep quiet about it.

But cultural change doesn't happen overnight: it usually happens in baby steps. A representative said earlier this week that President Barack Obama would change that policy. He said it unequivocally.

But more interesting than the announcement itself was the context in which I saw it announced. This brief introduction on Opposing Views reveals that President Obama is operating in a very different cultural context from that in which the Clinton order took effect.

That introduction says in part:

"Don't ask, don't tell" prohibits anyone who "demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving in the armed forces of the United States, as it "would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability." This policy of forbidding homosexuals to disclose their sexual orientation has proven extremely controversial over the years, and now it looks as though its days might be numbered.

Of course, if you were politically aware in the 90s, you know that's not entirely true--"don't ask, don't tell" scaled back a previous military policy that simply didn't allow homosexuals to serve, period. And a lot of Americans thought that was outrageous. In less than two decades, the debate has changed radically--the idea that homosexuals shouldn't be serving in the military has given way to a debate over how that should occur. That's a big change for a relatively short period in history.

Maybe it's time for everyone--including the Clinton camp, which has long acknowledged "don't ask, don't tell" as a misstep--needs to re-evaluate the order in its historical context and think of it as a foundation.

Litigation in America

2009-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Washington Post features an op-ed piece from George Will on litigation in America, and many of Will's points are well-taken. The examples he cites to show how frivolous litigation can grind normal human behavior to a halt are apt: teachers who are afraid to touch students even under urgent or the most innocent of circumstances; playgrounds stripped of the equipment that made them fun after inadequate supervision suits; a ban on running at recess.

But Will overlooks--whether innocently or intentionally--the real culprit in these cases. It's not parents who sue the schools when their children get hurt in ordinary accidents. It's not schools acting to protect themselves from litigation. It's insurance companies. And, unfortunately, the role that insurance companies play in such cases is generally invisible to the public. "Litigation happy" citizens take the blame. The court system takes the blame. But let's consider the anatomy of these cases:

A child is injured on the playground. The parents take the child to the doctor, and the doctor's office submits the bill to the child's medical insurance carrier. A week or two later, the parents receive a letter from the insurance company saying that they can't make a determination as to whether or not they should pay it, because it appears that there might be third-party liability. In other words, the insurance company isn't going to pay the medical bill if they might be able to pin it on the school. The parents then have to complete a form describing exactly what happened, so that the medical insurance company can decide whether or not someone else should be responsible.

Ironic, isn't it? The same medical insurance companies that tell us every day--that spend hundreds of millions of dollars telling us--that litigation is driving their costs up and making them overcharge us and our physicians have to put the brakes on to determine whether there might be someone else to sue.

If and when a lawsuit is filed, the actual defendant has little power over what happens next. For example, Will cites a case in which a teacher placed a restraining hand on the back of an unruly 7th grader and the school district was sued for $17 million and settled for $90,000.

If, in fact, all the teacher did was place his hand on the student's back, why did the school district settle? Of course, I'm not privy to the details of this particular case, but I can tell you how it goes in most cases. The school district has an insurance carrier. It's really the insurance carrier who is on the hook for the payout, and the insurance carrier's attorneys handle the case.

Now, if you were an individual--say, a teacher accused of abusing a student--you'd probably fight tooth and nail to clear your name, to keep that cloud from tainting the rest of your career. But the insurance company needn't concern itself with that sort of thing, and doesn't. The insurance company crunches the numbers and determines that it's less expensive to settle the case for $90,000 than it would be to go to trial and win--and so it pays up. The accused teacher has no say in the matter; the school district itself has very little.

And then the insurance companies come back out to the public with sad stories of how much these silly lawsuits are costing them, and how they're forced to raise prices. Because it's more cost-effective for them in the moment to hand out the cash, they create the precedent that invites lawsuits like this to move forward--as Will said himself, the case settled. SETTLED. Not the result of a rogue judge or a runaway jury, not the result of a slick lawyer playing the sympathies of the good people in the jury box--a conscious decision by the insurance company to maximize profits this quarter and the future be damned.

More on why access to litigation is critical to your safety as an American here: Corporate America Doesn't Care if You Die

Blogs that Appall Me, # 2

2008-10-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a year since I wrote my first Blogs that Appall Me post. As I said then, I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I was hesitant to provide links and publicity to a blog I found appalling, and pointing out the negative is generally only useful if it leads to some kind of productive action--this didn't seem like it would. So, after that initial post, I let the idea languish. But I've once again run across a blog that so horrifies me that I just can't keep my mouth shut.

Today's nominee is called "WTF Are We Going to Do Now?" It's about having a baby, and it's NOT tongue-in-cheek.

Before I go on, let me remind you that the Internet is forever. Our kids are stuck with what we've written, whether that means someone Googling their names and turning up information they'd rather have kept private or it means making ugly discoveries themselves. We've all seen movies in which some adolescent child hears a story or stumbles across an old letter or journal entry and discovers that the circumstances of his birth weren't what he thought. But tomorrow's kids won't even have to work that hard.

Brad's child, for instance, will only have to visit the "about Brad" page (or the version of it that's archived on the Wayback Machine or some other archiving site) to learn that his father was "not excited about this baby" but had decided to "do his best" to love it since that's "a father's job". Just what every kid wants to hear, don't you think?

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt on referring to his upcoming child as "the new pet". I'm hoping that's just a matter of concealing the news from their older child until he's ready to share.

Brad's wife, Katy, is a little softer. She only refers to this new child as her biggest "life interruption". And she gives her husband props for "giving up most of what he wanted to do with his life" in order to support her and their existing child. My first reaction to that was just a wave of pity for her and that child, to feel that they were an onerous obligation that kept this man from the life he wanted instead of...you know...BEING the life he wanted. But then I thought a little further, and I couldn't even make sense out of it.

You see, in another post, Brad shares that he's been a stay-at-home dad for almost ten years. Apparently at the moment both parents are at home, but he's hoping the wife will go back to work soon. Based on his ten years of experience, he offers all kinds of sage advice about how it's our responsibility as parents to suck it up and pretend that we're enjoying time with our kids when we'd rather be playing xbox.

I have to admit that I feel a little sorry for Brad and Katy. When my daughter came tumbling into my life (also unexpected, and at a very bad time for both medical and financial reasons) it was like a little piece of the sun had unexpectedly landed in my house and just stayed around lighting the place up and spreading warmth. It's painful to think that there are parents who are so focused on what they're giving up that they can't take that kind of joy from their children. But it's all the more troubling that they choose to share it with the world and, ultimately, probably with their children.

For once in my life, I'm glad to see a deluge of full-page pop-up ads. Maybe people will give up before they get to the actual text, and the bots won't be able to wade through the crap and archive these atrocities.

The Biggest Set-Up in American Political History?

2008-09-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

There’s been a lot of back and forth about whether McCain’s outrage over Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment is phony or Obama’s outrage over McCain’s outrage is phony, but I think the outcry from Democrats misses the point…and the outcry from Republicans is intended to ensure that the rest of us do.

In Sarah Palin’s convention speech, she referred to herself as a “hockey mom” and devoted a lot of time to talking about her family and her PTA experience and such. That begged for a response—and McCain had to know it before Palin ever opened her mouth to speak. And maybe that was the plan, because the moment the Democrats (and other rational people) said, “Being a hockey mom doesn’t qualify you to be President”, crises of sexism rang from sea to shining sea. Never mind that NO ONE had suggested that being a hockey mom disqualified one from being qualified for public office. Sarah Palin identified herself as a hockey mom, loud and clear, and then the Republican spin-machine went straight to work repositioning “hockey mom” as a sexist term.

It’s brilliant, really. In her speech at the RNC, Sarah Palin artfully couched her greatest weaknesses in terms that wouldn’t allow anyone to point them out without raising the diversionary cry of “sexism”. Never mind that millions of the people now being accused of sexism were fervent supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton for the Presidency.

It wasn’t limited to “sexism”, either. Palin analogized herself to a pit bull and then when the moniker stuck, Republicans came out in force to protest the way Democrats were attacking her by, among other things, calling her a pit bull.

And it worked. Millions of Americans think those who don’t feel “hockey mom” is a credential worth boasting about in the Presidential race are sexists. Millions of Americans think it’s unprovoked meanness when someone points out that Sarah Palin compared herself to a pit bull. Suddenly, her weaknesses are her strengths, because anyone who points them out must be mean, sexist, or both…and therefore not worth listening to.

Talk about sexism. I can’t recall there ever before being a major-party political candidate at the national level whom we weren’t allowed to find fault with.

And it’s working. It’s such pure genius that I’d almost think Plain was qualified to be Vice-President, in a twisted, Machiavellian kind of way…if I thought for a minute that she was doing any more than reading what was put in front of her.

Universal Truth

2008-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

I was struck today by a quote from someone on a blogging forum I frequent. A brief, brilliant, clear, illuminating statement in that, "Well...enough said" sort of way that doesn't roll around very often.

This is what he said: Palin believes a lot of stupid shit.

It was a standalone comment, too. No elaboration, no examples, as if that were all there really was to say.

The author's blog is primarily about atheism. I'm an old school Catholic. The author is a teenage male. I'm a middle-aged mother. In a dozen or a hundred ways our perspectives and foundations and world views differ...and yet, the single sentence is so resoundingly, clearly complete and accurate that both of us can look at it and said, "Yep, that's pretty much all there is to say."

Out of the Mouths of Babes - Sarah Palin

2008-09-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

As we were leaving a store this afternoon, my 12-year-old daughter pointed out a headline saying that Lindsey Lohan and her girlfriend were having a baby. Now that I have a 12-year-old, I know a lot more than I ever expected (or wanted) to about teenage celebrities, but when she talks, I listen and engage. She's an adolescent, and opportunities may be limited.

I mentioned that I'd heard Lohan had been blogging about Sarah Palin, and the tone sounded positive.

"Why am I not surprised?" my daughter asked.

That surprised ME. "I'm very surprised," I told her. You know, Sarah Palin is very conservative and religious..."

"But," my daughter cut in, in that well, DUH tone of voice, "she's a wack job.

Identity politics at work again?

Colorado Amendment Question 48 - What's the Point?

2008-09-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that when I first heard about the proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would redefine "person" to include human embryos from the moment of fertilization, I got a little excited. It wasn't for any of the reasons you might expect from a normal person, though--it was because I foresaw a HUGE legal glitch. You see, if the Colorado Constitution defined "person" in that way for purposes of Colorado law, there would have been a teeny, tiny problem: the state's murder statute would have been effectively rewritten to include first-trimester fetuses and would thus have violated the current interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Just like that, the statute could have been struck down and all murder could have been legal in Colorado.

I guess I wasn't the only one who thought of this, though, because the proposed amendment DOESN'T redefine "person" for purposes of all Colorado law: it only redefines the word as it's used in specific provisions of the Constitution.

Thus, no major legal snafu...just a whole lot of nothin'.

The provisions specified are, of course, those that relate to inalienable rights and such...but what to do? Life, for instance, is an inalienable right. And the Colorado Constitution may well be amended to extend that inalienable right to a fetus at the moment of conception. But then what? The current interpretation of the U.S. Constitution--the interpretation that's prevailed for decades--says that states can't limit the right to elective abortion in the first trimester. Thus, the state of Colorado can deem that unborn child a "person" and say it can't be deprived of life without due process of law, but what due process is available? The only due process permissible under the U.S. Constitution would be a hearing or other process to determine that the woman was, in fact, in the first trimester of her pregnancy. Once that was determined, the U.S. Constitution would prevent any further regulation of her access to an abortion.

Doesn't do that "person" a whole lot of good to have been renamed, does it?

Naturally, lawmakers and lobbyists alike know this. So what are they doing? What's the point of spending time and money and commanding the time and attention of Colorado voters as if this were a serious issue, when they all know that the practical effect of the amendment will be nonexistant?

I guess it looks good on a resume.

Why Would White Supremacists Fear Obama?

2008-08-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, three white supremacists were arrested and, although they haven't been charged, officials appear to believe that they planned to attempt to assassinate Barack Obama. At a glance, the idea of white supremacists wanting to assassinate a black Presidential candidate makes a lot of sense; upon reflection, it makes it appear that they lack the courage of their convictions.

After all, don't white supremacists believe that whites are...well...superior? Isn't it, in their view, a natural superiority, granted by God or nature or some combination thereof?

But if they're so confident that whites are superior and blacks are inferior, then what do they have to fear? Even if a black man could win the Presidency, he wouldn't be up to the job in the way that our "superior" white Presidents have been, right? And wouldn't that just prove their point?

It seems to me that if white supremacists think a black man is enough of a threat that they want to assassinate him, they must fear that he'll prove them wrong.

Who's Raising that "Perfect Child" Now, Sarah?

2008-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

In the hours since John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his running mate, there's been a cacaphony of pro and con discourse. Was Palin chosen for her credentials, experience, positions and talents, or was she chosen because she's a woman and McCain hopes to court voters who previously supported Senator Hillary Clinton? Palin is low on experience, but she has a reputation for pulling out all the stops, and just might restore some of McCain's lost maverick image. Perhaps more significantly, she's a good looking woman with the kind of life and history that makes other women nod and say "You go, girl!"

But through all the buzz--positive and negative--one thing has been troubling me: one thing that I haven't heard mentioned by anyone else.

Just this past spring, Palin gave birth to her fifth child, a child with Downs Syndrome. As a pro-life politician, Palin gained points and gathered accolades simply for having her child--after all, many Downs Syndrome babies are aborted. But what is she doing now?

One of the things that has always troubled me about a large sector of the pro-life movement is the idea many pro-life activists seem to have that it's only their business for as long as it takes to make sure that the baby is born alive. Sure, some people active in the movement work to provide support to those new mothers and make it possible for them to raise healthy children, but for many, the victory is achieved and the battle over when a woman safely passes into her second trimester and can no longer obtain an abortion on demand.

It's always seemed to me that if those people were really so "pro life", they'd be worried about the babies and the toddlers and the adolescents, too...not JUST the unborn.

I don't know enough about Sarah Palin to judge her sincerity one way or the other, but her actions right now are reminding me quite a lot of those people who want to bar the doors of the abortion clinic but then consider the child "not our problem" once it's actually born. She's been applauded and patted on the back by all those "pro life" and "pro family" organizations for giving birth to the child, and now she's...going off to run for Vice President. How, exactly, is it "pro family" for a woman with a special needs infant to hit the campaign trail vying for one of the most demanding jobs in the world? Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought that part of being pro family was putting the needs of your family ahead of your own ambitions.

Huh..I Guess 4016 Diggers CAN Be Wrong...

2008-08-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yep, 4016. That's how many Diggs a single article on my webzine, Rational Outrage, got not long before Digg decided that the domain was spam and banned us.

My webmaster inquired right away. After all, our site is entirely non-commercial--we're not selling anything, and there's no advertising at all on the site. And to the best of our knowledge, about a dozen of our posts have been submitted to Digg since Rational Outrage launched on March 17. That didn't seem excessive.

The response from Digg stated: As you know, Digg is a community-driven website – our community has consistently reported the domain to which you refer as spam.

Uh huh.

"Consistently", while they were upvoting our school bus rape story 4016 times: http://digg.com/world_news/7_Year_Old_Raped_On_School_Bus_School_Court_Don_t_Care Apparently those 40,000+ Digg visitors who crashed our server and left dozens of comments were just doing spam research.

So then, if that doesn't count for anything, surely the little ones won't, either:

Not the police taser abuse story with 225 Diggs.

Not the maverick composter article with 125 Diggs.

In fact, five of the twelve stories submitted to Digg received more than 100 Diggs. Surprising "the community" could find time to "consistently report" this domain as spam, what with all that upvoting going on.

The cut and paste from Digg also suggested: While we welcome users to submit their own content, overdoing it often incites the users to mark the user as a spammer, the site as a spam site, and otherwise decent content as blogspam.

12 stories. Six months. Submitted by six different people, three of whom have no connection to the site.

I've always pointed out that sites like Digg are private companies and free to make whatever decisions they like within the bounds of the law. If they want to ban us because they don't like our politics or our color scheme, they're perfectly free to do so. But guys...you don't gotta LIE.

UPDATE: On Wednesday evening, August 27, we received a brief email from Digg apologizing for the "confusion" and saying that we should be clear to submit pages from Rational Outrage again. We did not receive any explanation, either from Digg or in response to my requests in the Digg comments for one of the people who had been "consistently reporting us as spam" to explain on the forum or via email. However, we do seem to have been unbanned.

Remember Roe v. Wade?

2008-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps the better question would be: Did you ever know what Roe v. Wade says?

I've seen pro-life literature that says, "Did you know that Roe v. Wade allows elective abortions up to the seventh month of pregnancy?" Nope, I didn't know that. And I read the case.

I've seen seen pro-choice people insist that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the whole country would be immediately cast into a dark world of back-alley abortions...overlooking, of course, the fact that before that happened, each state would have to enact independent legislation prohibiting abortion.

With the Presidential election around the corner, the issue is once again getting a lot of press, but little (if any) of it accurately represents just what Roe v. Wade said or the role it plays in the future of abortion law across the country.

The law that was challenged (and struck down) in Roe v. Wade criminalized abortion in all cases except where it was a life-saving procedure. The United States Supreme Court found that such a restrictive statute violated the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause and that states could exercise varying degrees of discretion in regulating abortion, depending upon the stage of pregnancy.

During approximately the first trimester, states could not limit the right to abortion--that was to be left to the "medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."

From the end of the first trimester to viability, the state could "regulate abortion in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health".

After viability, the state could regulate--or even prohibit--abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

One interesting point is that the regulation allowed post-first-trimester was required to be reasonably related to maternal health, whereas that shifted post-viability and the state interest in preserving the "potentiality" of human life was deemed sufficient reason for the restrictions.

It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court ruling only placed a limit upon the regulations a state could impose--it did not impose any regulations itself. Thus, for instance, when pro-life activists say that Roe v. Wade "allows" for abortion minutes before birth, it's technically true...because Roe v. Wade doesn't put any restrictions on abortion; it simply sets forth the circumstances under which a state may do so. And that's as it should be; health and welfare provisions are specifically reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution (and in any case wouldn't be the purview of the judiciary). What Roe v. Wade said about late term abortions was that states could forbid them, except where the mother's life was in danger. Period.

On the flipside, if Roe v. Wade were reversed, it wouldn't mean that abortion was illegal--it would mean that if states so chose, they could MAKE abortion illegal.

Obviously, Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that changed the face of abortion law across the U.S. But abortion law is made by the states, within the parameters set forth in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. Before millions of Americans--pro-life or pro-choice--base their votes in the Presidential election on the chance that the next President might appoint Supreme Court Justices who might have occasion to rule on a case that might impact the Roe decision, we should all understand what the case says, and what that means to the states.

And Now, For Another Perspective...

2008-07-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I shared with you a touching and reality-based view of Bosnia from someone who'd been there. Today, I can't help but share a much more humorous (but nearly as serious) description of the inner workings of the U.S. Postal Service.

This may have rung especially true with me because of my own past experiences with the U.S. Postal service...experiences that once led my five-year-old daughter to tug on my sleeve as I stood at the counter in my local post office and say innocently "How 'bout FedEx?" But somehow I think that if you've ever tried to ship a package...or pick one up...or figure out why one with someone else's name on it was left on your porch...this post is for you.

Bosnia Up Close and Personal

2008-07-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

This post by an American lawyer who worked in Bosnia in 2001 brings home the destruction wrought by Radovan Karadzic. Maybe his crimes aren't so far away after all--in time or space: Karadzic's Destruction of Bosnia Last Long After War

Are you REALLY entitled to your opinion?

2008-07-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

I'm inclined to say no.

Not to everyone, of course, and not even to those who disagree with me. No, I just want to cut off this whole "right to my opinion" thing for people who don't have a freaking clue and can't be bothered to get one.

Again, whether or not I think you have a clue does NOT depend on whether or not you agree with me. It depends entirely upon whether or not you have a basic understanding of the basic factual information necessary to FORM a meaningful opinion. If you'd prefer not to be bothered with the facts, that's fine: just acknowledge that you don't know enough to have an opinion and SHUT UP. Or, if you really, really feel strongly about your "rights" (even though you're probably misusing the term), go right ahead and form an opinion without any of the necessary information...but then keep it to yourself. Please. Don't confuse others, who might assume that you know what you're talking about.

And here's a tip: it's not a good investment of time to go around forming strong opinions about things that never happened.

Just a few examples:

The Supreme Court did NOT make a recent ruling relating to victims of domestic violence--rather, it made a ruling with universal applicability to the admission of certain kinds of testimony in criminal cases.

A UK court did NOT sentence a man to one day in jail for the murder of a prostitute--it sentences him to one day in addition to approximately thirty months of time already served.

The woman who burned herself with McDonald's coffee did NOT win millions of dollars--and she did suffer very serious injuries necessitating reconstructive surgery.

Bottom line: learn the facts. Or don't. It's your call. But if you choose not to know anything then please, please, please...also choose not to share your ignorance.

Look How Far We Haven't Come

2008-06-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen a lot of press coverage over the past few days concerning the Connecticut man who was struck by an automobile and then lay paralyzed in the street while bystanders went on about their business and passing cars switched lanes to go around him without so much as slowing down.

Despite the outrage all of us seem to feel while sitting in our living rooms and watching the inaction of the people on the street, it's impossible to ignore the fact that there were a lot of people out there--people who weren't together, weren't conferring, were of various ages and presumably various other demographics...and they all behaved pretty much the same way. They are us. And I know the inclination is to immediately protest that WE would have done something. I feel the same way.

But do we honestly believe that those people who stood there on the street and did nothing wouldn't have said exactly the same thing if they'd seen that clip on their televisions instead of finding themselves in the middle of the action? I think the vast majority of them would have.

44 years ago, a woman named Catherine Genovese was murdered in Queens. "Kitty" Genovese became something of a poster child for what's wrong with our society today...err...I mean...what was wrong with our society 44 years ago...because 38 people watched her being attacked and ultimately killed. The attack reportedly went on for half an hour, but not only did no one intervene, no one called the police until it was over and she lay in the street, dead from 17 stab wounds.

The public, of course, was horrified.

And here we are, 44 years later, still shocked by the same kind of reaction.

Maybe it's time to stop shaking our heads in disgust and wondering what's wrong with other people and try to take an honest look at the roots of this kind of reaction BEFORE we find ourselves in circumstances in which we'll have to find out what we're really made of.

What Passes for Inspiration

2008-05-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've probably mentioned before that I don't turn on the television very often, but this evening I wanted to watch John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama and then I didn't turn it back off. Big mistake. What came on afterward involved some soap opera actress who'd gone in for lap band surgery.

Even (insert name of big celebrity magazine), they told us, was covering her "inspirational journey".

In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I have some feelings about lap band surgery, and they're not positive ones. But that's not what this post is about. It's about the "inspirational journey" of someone who paid $12-25,000 for a surgical procedure to make weight loss easier.

Have we really fallen that far in this country, that a 45-minute surgical procedure and the weight loss that follows is an "inspirational journey"? Have we really grown that weak? Are we that short on true inspiration?

We Have a Winner

2008-04-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Since I started this blog about a year ago, I've written about the outrageous, the unbelievable, and the just plain stupid. It's often seemed that there were so many varied things wrong with our world today that they fell into an undifferentiated mass. Until today, that is.

Today, a co-worker sent me this link, and everything changed.

Yes, that's right. For a mere...well, okay, for several thousand dollars...you can have "the carbon from your loved one" made into a synthetic diamond and...you know...wear pieces of your dead friend or family member.

The process is simple, really. You just have your beloved cremated, ship the ashes off to LifeGem with a small boatload of money, and the company uses its "patented process" to press your loved one's carbon into a synthetic diamond just for you. You can also buy settings, of course, and cases, and everything else you might need to go with your ~~chunk of dead relative~~ beautiful new piece of jewelry.

The LifeGem website contains testimonials that I can only hope are faked. Here are a few excerpts:

"I've requested in my will that my children turn me into a diamond when I die."

"Knowing that my mother is in the stone and I can take her with me is an awesome feeling."

Some are even more...disturbing. I don't want to recreate those here because these letters, if they are real, were written by people who have suffered terrible losses and evidently are finding some comfort. Unfortunately, that comfort is being offered in a way that is not only disturbing, but extraordinarily expensive. The least expensive loved-one-turned-diamond that I was able to find on the website was $2,699. That's just the diamond--no setting or anything--and there's only one that comes that cheap.

Our loved ones, of course, are more than their carbon. It's unfortunate that a company has sprung up to capitalize on the pain of people in mourning by pretending that crushing a bit of their organic matter into a diamond is what remembrance is all about...and that if you REALLY loved your husband (or mother, or child, or wife, or cat), you'd go with the SEVEN thousand dollar diamond....