Gay Banditos.
The title, if you were wondering, is from a bit of a Lewis Black skit that a friend referred to when I mentioned the whole "Sally Kern is a homophobe" thing on a messageboard.
First, what happened.
Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern (who authored the bill that I disagreed with in yesterday's post) was invited by a group of Republicans to give a speech regarding her views on homosexuality, which was secretly recorded by someone there and then posted on YouTube by a D.C. gay rights group, Victory Fund. It's since been all over the internet and I'm actually the last person with a blog to comment on it, but whatever. Throughout the speech, she makes assertions that she can't back up with actual evidence ("The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation. It's just a fact."), statements which might be factual but which ignore possible causes (noting that homosexuals have a higher rate of suicide, but ignoring the fact that part of that is likely because there's a huge stigma imposed by people like State Rep. Kern which is responsible for at least some of that rate discrepancy), things that ignore all of society except the issue of homosexuality ("Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades."), some vague moral panic rhetoric (They're after the two year olds! Gays are more dangerous than terrorism!), some weird conspiracy theories about gays taking over city councils (in my home town of Pittsburgh, which I wasn't aware of, but maybe it was a side plot on Queer as Folk) and claims that students lives are being ruined by joining Gay-Straight Alliances and not judging people solely on who they sleep with.
Most of it's logically fallacious, and it's clear that State Rep. Kern doesn't like homosexuals or homosexuality, and that's totally fine with me. Her religion tells her she shouldn't, and I'm all for people believing whatever they want to believe so long as they cannot force their beliefs upon anyone else. Unfortunately, she can, but even that's sort of ok. A lot of people have been calling for her censure by the Oklahoma House, demanding her resignation and demanding that she apologizes. Thankfully, she hasn't resigned and hasn't apologized, and to my knowledge she hasn't been censured (though I imagine that takes a bit of time). And, frankly, she's probably right that she couldn't have said those things in public (rather than at a meeting where she was asked to say them) and therein lies what bugs me about this whole thing.
She should be able to say whatever she wants. Sure, she's a state representative, but that doesn't mean she forfeits the right to free speech. If anything, it's more important for her to be allowed to say whatever she wants, and this kind of honesty should be encouraged. She said a lot of things I disagree with and a lot of things that I think reflect poorly on her ability to function as an elected official (the "gays are more dangerous than terrorism" is my favorite bit, because it just implies that she has no concept of priority. To borrow another bit from Lewis Black to illustrate, who's a fine comedian but by no means my favorite which is why it's odd I've now brought him up twice, "Gay marriage is on page six of things we need to worry about, after 'Are we eating too much garlic as a people?'"). But none of that matters. She should say whatever she truly feels and she should be encouraged to do so.
Censuring is an empty act. It's pointless and accomplishes nothing. Luckily, we live in a place where we're allowed to choose the people who represent us by casting ballots. If someone says something insane that we disagree with, we don't need everyone in the house to tell them they've been naughty and that they made people sad and they should learn to be more secretive about their opinions. We are free to throw their asses out of the legislature. What Sally Kern did is exactly what politicians should do. She let her electorate know precisely how she feels. So now Oklahoma voters can either say "Sure, I agree with that, and your wacky ideas for getting kids to be awarded credit for answering demonstrably incorrectly on science exams by government force is right up my alley. I'll re-elect Sally Kern" or they can say "My God. I'm being represented by someone who's way too concerned with what consenting adults do in bed, prioritizes 'who's sleeping with whom' above 'terrorism' on the list of things to be worried about, who wants to change reality by fiat and who is trying to use her position of power to foist her specific religious ideas on the rest of us. I'll pull the lever for the other guy."
That's the beauty of living in a free society with free elections. You enter into the marketplace of ideas and if someone's obviously batshit crazy and obsessed with minutae, you can elect not to have them represent you, because they don't accurately represent your opinions. Or, if she does accurately represent how you feel, you can vote to keep her in the legislature, where she can divert any resources that would be going to keep you safe to make sure Bill and Frank don't shack up and annihilate society. Take funds away from protecting the citizenry and make sure they aren't allowed to express their love for each other publicly and give each other power of attorney. I personally could not care less about what Bill and Frank do, where they express their feelings or what legal rights they feel like sharing. So I'd vote against her. That's just me though.
Bill and Frank shacking up and annihilating society made me think of "gay antimatter" and then I realized that it's probably a subject that's been explored extensively in some twisted Star Trek fanfic out there, which indicated that I should probably sleep.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Let's Vote on the Sex of the Cat
I think I've used that analogy before, but I'm not positive and don't want to type "murphspot cat sex" into a search engine. It's meant as an analogy for the objectivity of reality. Let's say you and six of your closest friends are sitting around in a room. There is no form of entertainment in the room, and so you're profoundly bored. A cat wanders into the room, and one of your friends (let's call him James) asks you whether it's a male or female cat. Is the proper response:
1) Vote on the sex of the cat. Take a poll of those people who are sitting around you and ask them not "Is the cat male or female" but "What do you believe about the cat's sex?" Simple majority wins.
2) Check.
The proper response, which is to say the response that acknowledges the objectivity of reality, is "Check". If you and your friends all want the cat to be male, that doesn't stop it from being female (if it happens to be female) nor did it influence the cat to become male because you all wanted it to be. It simply is either male or female, and the correct answer is the one with the most independent evidence to back it up. It doesn't matter how you check (presumably, you'd just look at the genitalia, but if that makes you feel funny, I'm sure there are other ways of determining a cat's sex, though unfortunately I don't know them as I have no concept of cat physiology), only that you check and that you be able to back up your answer with evidence that isn't dependent upon what you want the answer to be.
Unless you're in Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives Education committee has approved House Bill 2211, a "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act". There are some bits of it that are simply redundant, like Section 5, which states that students are allowed to organize prayer groups and "see you at the pole" gatherings before, during and after school to the same extent that other groups are allowed to form non-religious clubs that have nothing do do with curriculum, which I'm pretty sure they're already allowed to do. I know, for example, and this is only anecdotal, that there were "See You at the Pole" gatherings at my high school, though I never attended. And really, so long as everyone's allowed to go to everything, I could not be more supportive (though I'm somewhat curious about the "during" school thing, because I don't know that any extracurricular clubs had meetings during school). This is how the whole "prayer in school" issue is solved. You don't have the teachers leading prayer in their capacity as employees of the state, and kids are allowed to pray/worship however they want, as long as it's not disruptive to other students learning. Which is fine, because you're not allowed to disrupt other students if you're doing it for non-religious reasons either (standing up and singing "Paradise City" during a test, while amusing and actually happened once in high school, isn't something they encourage, and so I have no problem with asking Little Bobby to sit down and stop reciting the Namokar Mantra.) I'm somewhat skeptical of a "moment of silence" before the day starts, because it's my understanding you could just pray for the few minutes before the day starts on your own without the school telling you to, but I'm not going to get into that here. So yes. That part of the bill, from my view, is redundant and pointless, but then this is a legislature, and so that sort of goes without saying.
The part that's got everyone all hot and bothered is this.
The problem, as a others have pointed out, is that the way that section is phrased, it becomes impossible to penalize a student who gives an incorrect answer in, say, a science class as long as the student claims that it's based on their religious beliefs. As the second linked article points out, it becomes illegal for a school to take off points if, in a science class, a student claims the earth is 6000 years old, despite the fact that the scientific evidence points to the Earth being roughly 4.5 billion years old. It's an attempt to change reality by governmental fiat, and subverts everything that science is supposed to be about.
A significant theme in the Creationist movement recently has been appealing to "fairness", which is fine and good, except that facts are not determined by what we wish them to be. The exclusion of religious interpretations of creation from science classes isn't a form of religious persecution, it's the exclusion of theories which have no scientific evidence to support them and are not falsifiable. Attempting to paint them as persecution is not only intellectually dishonest, but is actually an insult to those people around the world who actually are persecuted for their beliefs, or their non-belief.
So yes. Unnecessary-to-actively anti-education bill has passed in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Hopefully, the State Senate will recognize it for what it is and discard it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Oh, one last thing. The bill was formally authored by State Rep. Sally Kern, who has come into some trouble in the past few days for some virulently anti-gay comments that were recorded and posted on YouTube. I'll have my opinion up on that sometime tomorrow.
1) Vote on the sex of the cat. Take a poll of those people who are sitting around you and ask them not "Is the cat male or female" but "What do you believe about the cat's sex?" Simple majority wins.
2) Check.
The proper response, which is to say the response that acknowledges the objectivity of reality, is "Check". If you and your friends all want the cat to be male, that doesn't stop it from being female (if it happens to be female) nor did it influence the cat to become male because you all wanted it to be. It simply is either male or female, and the correct answer is the one with the most independent evidence to back it up. It doesn't matter how you check (presumably, you'd just look at the genitalia, but if that makes you feel funny, I'm sure there are other ways of determining a cat's sex, though unfortunately I don't know them as I have no concept of cat physiology), only that you check and that you be able to back up your answer with evidence that isn't dependent upon what you want the answer to be.
Unless you're in Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives Education committee has approved House Bill 2211, a "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act". There are some bits of it that are simply redundant, like Section 5, which states that students are allowed to organize prayer groups and "see you at the pole" gatherings before, during and after school to the same extent that other groups are allowed to form non-religious clubs that have nothing do do with curriculum, which I'm pretty sure they're already allowed to do. I know, for example, and this is only anecdotal, that there were "See You at the Pole" gatherings at my high school, though I never attended. And really, so long as everyone's allowed to go to everything, I could not be more supportive (though I'm somewhat curious about the "during" school thing, because I don't know that any extracurricular clubs had meetings during school). This is how the whole "prayer in school" issue is solved. You don't have the teachers leading prayer in their capacity as employees of the state, and kids are allowed to pray/worship however they want, as long as it's not disruptive to other students learning. Which is fine, because you're not allowed to disrupt other students if you're doing it for non-religious reasons either (standing up and singing "Paradise City" during a test, while amusing and actually happened once in high school, isn't something they encourage, and so I have no problem with asking Little Bobby to sit down and stop reciting the Namokar Mantra.) I'm somewhat skeptical of a "moment of silence" before the day starts, because it's my understanding you could just pray for the few minutes before the day starts on your own without the school telling you to, but I'm not going to get into that here. So yes. That part of the bill, from my view, is redundant and pointless, but then this is a legislature, and so that sort of goes without saying.
The part that's got everyone all hot and bothered is this.
Section 4. Students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. Homework and classroom assignments shall be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school district. Students shall not be penalized or rewarded on account of the religious content of their work.
The problem, as a others have pointed out, is that the way that section is phrased, it becomes impossible to penalize a student who gives an incorrect answer in, say, a science class as long as the student claims that it's based on their religious beliefs. As the second linked article points out, it becomes illegal for a school to take off points if, in a science class, a student claims the earth is 6000 years old, despite the fact that the scientific evidence points to the Earth being roughly 4.5 billion years old. It's an attempt to change reality by governmental fiat, and subverts everything that science is supposed to be about.
A significant theme in the Creationist movement recently has been appealing to "fairness", which is fine and good, except that facts are not determined by what we wish them to be. The exclusion of religious interpretations of creation from science classes isn't a form of religious persecution, it's the exclusion of theories which have no scientific evidence to support them and are not falsifiable. Attempting to paint them as persecution is not only intellectually dishonest, but is actually an insult to those people around the world who actually are persecuted for their beliefs, or their non-belief.
So yes. Unnecessary-to-actively anti-education bill has passed in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Hopefully, the State Senate will recognize it for what it is and discard it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Oh, one last thing. The bill was formally authored by State Rep. Sally Kern, who has come into some trouble in the past few days for some virulently anti-gay comments that were recorded and posted on YouTube. I'll have my opinion up on that sometime tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Milorad, Money, Church and State
Something about the state level of government kind of eludes me. I know enough about local governments to try to get people who understand science on school boards (which is to
say, barely anything) and the federal issues are all over the place, and so there's no way to really avoid them. I don't think I could tell you very much of what Tom Ridge or Ed Rendell
did when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, which was fine because I never voted for either of them. And then when I moved to Illinois, I lagged behind and had some issues with my registration, and so didn't vote in the last gubernatorial election.
Anyway, Blagojevich has gotten some criticism in the past for being fiscally irresponsible, which is sort of an enormous problem. If you're reading this and you're, let's say, Hal, you'll
probably say that that's a huge understatement, and I'd agree. But the purpose of introducing the fact that he's terrible with my money is to work us into the specific story that was
floating around on the Sun-Times this evening.
Blagojevich: $1M for church went to 'wrong place'
Ok, so right off the bat we're in a place where I'm a little confused. Why on earth is Blagojevich talking about money for a church?
It was $1 million in aid for the Pilgrim Baptist Church, which was located at Indiana Ave. and 33rd in Bronzeville,
was on the National Register of Historic Places and is credited as being the birthplace of gospel music, with Thomas A. Dorsey as music director and played host to Mahalia
Jackson, Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers among others. All of that is fantastic and it deserves all the credit in the world for helping to pioneer a new genre of music. Sadly, it
burned down in early 2006. And that's awful. The church I went to when I was but a wee little blogger was consumed by fire about a year and a half ago, and the diocese has recently decided not to rebuild. It's taken a toll on the people who went there and destroys the sense of community the parish had, perhaps even moreso at a small church like Transfiguration because you know everyone that goes there.
So I agree that it's sad, and understand how the congregants at Pilgrim Baptist Church lost something when their church burned down, and how they'd want to rebulid. That doesn't mean that they should be getting government money.
Churches are, by definition, private organizations. They're allowed to exclude whomever they want, they can preach whatever they want (with some restrictions in the instances of priests drumming up political support for particular candidates, which is a bit of a separate issue) and they're making controversial statements about reality by their very nature. It must be the government's position to hold no position for or against any particular faith. This is not, as many on the religious right contend, some kind of attempt at instituting "state atheism" or whatever scare word they're using most recently. It is, rather, an integral part of protecting the freedom of every citizen to believe what they want to believe, completely seperate from what that belief system is, including no belief. Because it's intrinsic to the claim of any one religion that it is the sole source of truth, with the implication that all other religions are false, recognition or aid uses my tax money to help champion a religious belief I do not hold. Even within a larger religion (such as Christianity) there are disputes between Catholics and Baptists, Lutherans and Methodists. Using the money of an adherent of one sect to help champion the beliefs of another chips away at the adherent's ability to believe what he or she wishes. I have to wonder whether people who attempt to get prayer explicitly back in the schools would be as gung-ho about it if it were implied that there was going to be some time set aside to pray to Allah, or if school boards started proposing that the Zoroastrian creation myth be taught in science classes. Proponents of getting rid of the separation of church and state appear to have this idea that if that's done, they (the church) will be free to mandate what the state does, which is fine with them so long as they're the ones who are perpetually in the majority. As soon as it's proposed that another church might take power, that scenario doesn't look as appealing. Furthermore, intermingling the two would imply a reciprocity. It would allow the state to start to make demands of what the church does and how the churchgoers practice their faith, because, after all, it is the state's money, and for some reason I don't think that idea appeals to a lot of religious folk. It is absolutely in the interests of the religious to protect their ability to practice freely by supporting church/state separation.
Blagojevich attempts to get around the entire issue of a wall of separation between church and state with the following
which is absurd. Because you're helping to fund the people who are in charge of the church and giving money so that the church can educate children doesn't make that less of a violation of church/state separation. I'm not even sure how he was able to construe that so that he thought it made any kind of sense.
I'm not saying that the church shouldn't be rebuilt, or that it shouldn't be allowed to shout whatever it believes as loud as it can, but this is a matter for charity, not government intervention. I hope they do rebuild. I'm not going to contribute any money personally, because I don't believe what they do, but more power to 'em. Strengthening the marketplace of ideas is always a good time. Being as historic a church as Pilgrim Baptist was, I'm sure someone who isn't using my tax money can pony up and help rebuild, a scenario that isn't as likely for the tiny church in Russellton. Such a large church is going to be rebuilt, and it's mostly going to be done using charitable donations from the members of the church, as well as perhaps a few very large donors. It doesn't need tax money, and even if it did, it shouldn't get it. It violates the nature of the church as a private organization, which harms both those of us who do not belong to the church and those that do.
More bizarre than the fact that Blagojevich doesn't seem to understand the importance of church/state separation is the stunning incompetence he seems to display with money.
What do you mean it went somewhere else? Letting aside the fact that he shouldn't have been giving state money in the first place, how do you lose the money and then pledge more state money?
He doesn't think it's been earmarked for other purposes? Why in the hell is he guessing at this? Isn't this something you could look up? Are there stacks of millions of dollars lying around in Springfield, neither being returned to taxpayers or used for things that are breaking down, like the CTA for example?
At this point, I'm not taking him at his word anyway, but I'm pretty sure they do need to approve the move. You can't just keep tossing money around without, you know, consulting the people who represent the people whose money it is.
So yes. I'm not sure why he's giving them money anyway, but more than that, I'm not sure why he seems to be so cavalier with money he took from me.
say, barely anything) and the federal issues are all over the place, and so there's no way to really avoid them. I don't think I could tell you very much of what Tom Ridge or Ed Rendell
did when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, which was fine because I never voted for either of them. And then when I moved to Illinois, I lagged behind and had some issues with my registration, and so didn't vote in the last gubernatorial election.
Anyway, Blagojevich has gotten some criticism in the past for being fiscally irresponsible, which is sort of an enormous problem. If you're reading this and you're, let's say, Hal, you'll
probably say that that's a huge understatement, and I'd agree. But the purpose of introducing the fact that he's terrible with my money is to work us into the specific story that was
floating around on the Sun-Times this evening.
Ok, so right off the bat we're in a place where I'm a little confused. Why on earth is Blagojevich talking about money for a church?
It was $1 million in aid for the Pilgrim Baptist Church, which was located at Indiana Ave. and 33rd in Bronzeville,
was on the National Register of Historic Places and is credited as being the birthplace of gospel music, with Thomas A. Dorsey as music director and played host to Mahalia
Jackson, Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers among others. All of that is fantastic and it deserves all the credit in the world for helping to pioneer a new genre of music. Sadly, it
burned down in early 2006. And that's awful. The church I went to when I was but a wee little blogger was consumed by fire about a year and a half ago, and the diocese has recently decided not to rebuild. It's taken a toll on the people who went there and destroys the sense of community the parish had, perhaps even moreso at a small church like Transfiguration because you know everyone that goes there.
So I agree that it's sad, and understand how the congregants at Pilgrim Baptist Church lost something when their church burned down, and how they'd want to rebulid. That doesn't mean that they should be getting government money.
Churches are, by definition, private organizations. They're allowed to exclude whomever they want, they can preach whatever they want (with some restrictions in the instances of priests drumming up political support for particular candidates, which is a bit of a separate issue) and they're making controversial statements about reality by their very nature. It must be the government's position to hold no position for or against any particular faith. This is not, as many on the religious right contend, some kind of attempt at instituting "state atheism" or whatever scare word they're using most recently. It is, rather, an integral part of protecting the freedom of every citizen to believe what they want to believe, completely seperate from what that belief system is, including no belief. Because it's intrinsic to the claim of any one religion that it is the sole source of truth, with the implication that all other religions are false, recognition or aid uses my tax money to help champion a religious belief I do not hold. Even within a larger religion (such as Christianity) there are disputes between Catholics and Baptists, Lutherans and Methodists. Using the money of an adherent of one sect to help champion the beliefs of another chips away at the adherent's ability to believe what he or she wishes. I have to wonder whether people who attempt to get prayer explicitly back in the schools would be as gung-ho about it if it were implied that there was going to be some time set aside to pray to Allah, or if school boards started proposing that the Zoroastrian creation myth be taught in science classes. Proponents of getting rid of the separation of church and state appear to have this idea that if that's done, they (the church) will be free to mandate what the state does, which is fine with them so long as they're the ones who are perpetually in the majority. As soon as it's proposed that another church might take power, that scenario doesn't look as appealing. Furthermore, intermingling the two would imply a reciprocity. It would allow the state to start to make demands of what the church does and how the churchgoers practice their faith, because, after all, it is the state's money, and for some reason I don't think that idea appeals to a lot of religious folk. It is absolutely in the interests of the religious to protect their ability to practice freely by supporting church/state separation.
Blagojevich attempts to get around the entire issue of a wall of separation between church and state with the following
The money is to be used for church administrative offices and educational purposes so as not to violate the separation of church and state.
which is absurd. Because you're helping to fund the people who are in charge of the church and giving money so that the church can educate children doesn't make that less of a violation of church/state separation. I'm not even sure how he was able to construe that so that he thought it made any kind of sense.
I'm not saying that the church shouldn't be rebuilt, or that it shouldn't be allowed to shout whatever it believes as loud as it can, but this is a matter for charity, not government intervention. I hope they do rebuild. I'm not going to contribute any money personally, because I don't believe what they do, but more power to 'em. Strengthening the marketplace of ideas is always a good time. Being as historic a church as Pilgrim Baptist was, I'm sure someone who isn't using my tax money can pony up and help rebuild, a scenario that isn't as likely for the tiny church in Russellton. Such a large church is going to be rebuilt, and it's mostly going to be done using charitable donations from the members of the church, as well as perhaps a few very large donors. It doesn't need tax money, and even if it did, it shouldn't get it. It violates the nature of the church as a private organization, which harms both those of us who do not belong to the church and those that do.
More bizarre than the fact that Blagojevich doesn't seem to understand the importance of church/state separation is the stunning incompetence he seems to display with money.
Governor Rod Blagojevich is giving $1 million to the historic Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago because the initial $1 million grant he pledged to the burned out church mistakenly went somewhere else.
What do you mean it went somewhere else? Letting aside the fact that he shouldn't have been giving state money in the first place, how do you lose the money and then pledge more state money?
His latest grant comes from available capital money he doesn't think has been earmarked for other purposes.
He doesn't think it's been earmarked for other purposes? Why in the hell is he guessing at this? Isn't this something you could look up? Are there stacks of millions of dollars lying around in Springfield, neither being returned to taxpayers or used for things that are breaking down, like the CTA for example?
Blagojevich says lawmakers don't need to approve the move.
At this point, I'm not taking him at his word anyway, but I'm pretty sure they do need to approve the move. You can't just keep tossing money around without, you know, consulting the people who represent the people whose money it is.
So yes. I'm not sure why he's giving them money anyway, but more than that, I'm not sure why he seems to be so cavalier with money he took from me.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Walking as an Energy Source
The push to get away from fossil fuels is something I'm sure all of the readers of this blog are familiar with. Two quick things along those lines while I get ready to head out of Evanston for the night.
First, this paper in Science which I'd like to claim that I found while perusing scientific journals at 7am with a big cup of coffee, but in reality I found on Ben's desk, which shows a prototype for a device which takes advantage of a normal human walking motion to generate electricity and their attempts at overcoming the burden of having to wear a big knee brace while you're walking. They employ a one-way clutch to gather energy only when the knee is straightening (not when it's flexing) so that power is generated when you step forward. I know nothing of the engineering here, but it seems like an interesting if unwieldy idea. They do a fair job of pointing out some applications for the technology, primarily power-generation in places on the earth that are not connected to a power supply and the use as a power-generating source for motorized prosthetic limbs, such that you'd use your healthy limb to help you move the prosthetic, which is kind of cool.
Second, an interesting discussion on the feasibility of biofuels on Talk of the Nation last week. I'm more familiar with cost-effectiveness arguments for and against the use of biofuels (it's not feasible to use corn as a source of ethanol in the US because of the way we grow and harvest corn and its poor return on investment, while Brazil derives a bunch of ethanol from sugar cane as a waste product, and so it's relatively cheap and easy for them to implement biofuels.) Their argument is more focused on carbon-release, and without getting into the whole global warming discussion, it's an interesting phenomenon to note that if we're going to grow crops like switchgrass (which is much more energy efficient than corn) to use as a fuel source, we'll end up either leveling forest to free up land to do so or using land which would otherwise be used for food, which forces the food-farmers to go and level forest, and so the end result is the same. I recommend listening to the bits on the use of algae and bacteria to produce fuel, but mostly because I've got a friend who's a synthetic chemist and has been, as far as I can recall, playing around with bacteria to get them to make things for him.
First, this paper in Science which I'd like to claim that I found while perusing scientific journals at 7am with a big cup of coffee, but in reality I found on Ben's desk, which shows a prototype for a device which takes advantage of a normal human walking motion to generate electricity and their attempts at overcoming the burden of having to wear a big knee brace while you're walking. They employ a one-way clutch to gather energy only when the knee is straightening (not when it's flexing) so that power is generated when you step forward. I know nothing of the engineering here, but it seems like an interesting if unwieldy idea. They do a fair job of pointing out some applications for the technology, primarily power-generation in places on the earth that are not connected to a power supply and the use as a power-generating source for motorized prosthetic limbs, such that you'd use your healthy limb to help you move the prosthetic, which is kind of cool.
Second, an interesting discussion on the feasibility of biofuels on Talk of the Nation last week. I'm more familiar with cost-effectiveness arguments for and against the use of biofuels (it's not feasible to use corn as a source of ethanol in the US because of the way we grow and harvest corn and its poor return on investment, while Brazil derives a bunch of ethanol from sugar cane as a waste product, and so it's relatively cheap and easy for them to implement biofuels.) Their argument is more focused on carbon-release, and without getting into the whole global warming discussion, it's an interesting phenomenon to note that if we're going to grow crops like switchgrass (which is much more energy efficient than corn) to use as a fuel source, we'll end up either leveling forest to free up land to do so or using land which would otherwise be used for food, which forces the food-farmers to go and level forest, and so the end result is the same. I recommend listening to the bits on the use of algae and bacteria to produce fuel, but mostly because I've got a friend who's a synthetic chemist and has been, as far as I can recall, playing around with bacteria to get them to make things for him.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Political Surveys and their Ramifications
I've never been more interested in the Mass. 5th congressional district GOP primary for a special election following the resignation of a guy named "Marty".
Unfortunately, political science studies I'm involved in don't involve some kind of crazy reënactment of the Scopes Trial performed by schoolchildren or an assesment of our feelings toward a movie depicting bears in overalls running out of a burning building.
Rather, it was a relatively tame survey of our political opinions, our political knowledge and our reactions to a twenty minute debate leading up to the GOP primary to determine the Republican nominee in a special election for the congressman for the Massachusetts 5th district after Marty Meehan decided he was going to be the Chancellor at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. So stunningly interesting.
Jim Ogonowski (left) and Thomas Tierney, two of the most strongly accented individuals ever to compete for a Congressional seat. Tierney describes his plan for reducing the deficit as "wicked." Or he would. If he was ever more than ten minutes from taking a nap.
Nothing too difficult in the survey. It appeared to be attempting to determine if we'd been awake during the debate and had us assess who we thought won and where the participants stood on the issues. But, they came through with $20 for my participation and gave me lunch, so I'm happy with them.
To think, there will eventually be a time, if everything goes well, that I won't be a graduate student. And I might be able to not get excited over $20 for participating in a survey. Those times are, as far as I can tell, far away, so I'll happily capitalize on my ability to rank things on a scale of one to seven in the interim.
Oh, and Ogonowski crushed Tierney in the primary (which isn't surprising, as Tierney's positions seemed more similar to those of the current incarnation of the Democratic Party and he admitted that for him, political parties are more about finding the easiest way to get on the ballot rather than ideology), then lost to Niki Tsongas (Paul Tsongas' wife) in the general election. In case you were interested.
Unfortunately, political science studies I'm involved in don't involve some kind of crazy reënactment of the Scopes Trial performed by schoolchildren or an assesment of our feelings toward a movie depicting bears in overalls running out of a burning building.
Rather, it was a relatively tame survey of our political opinions, our political knowledge and our reactions to a twenty minute debate leading up to the GOP primary to determine the Republican nominee in a special election for the congressman for the Massachusetts 5th district after Marty Meehan decided he was going to be the Chancellor at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. So stunningly interesting.
Jim Ogonowski (left) and Thomas Tierney, two of the most strongly accented individuals ever to compete for a Congressional seat. Tierney describes his plan for reducing the deficit as "wicked." Or he would. If he was ever more than ten minutes from taking a nap.
Nothing too difficult in the survey. It appeared to be attempting to determine if we'd been awake during the debate and had us assess who we thought won and where the participants stood on the issues. But, they came through with $20 for my participation and gave me lunch, so I'm happy with them.
To think, there will eventually be a time, if everything goes well, that I won't be a graduate student. And I might be able to not get excited over $20 for participating in a survey. Those times are, as far as I can tell, far away, so I'll happily capitalize on my ability to rank things on a scale of one to seven in the interim.
Oh, and Ogonowski crushed Tierney in the primary (which isn't surprising, as Tierney's positions seemed more similar to those of the current incarnation of the Democratic Party and he admitted that for him, political parties are more about finding the easiest way to get on the ballot rather than ideology), then lost to Niki Tsongas (Paul Tsongas' wife) in the general election. In case you were interested.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Murphy, Study Participant
I'd somehow envisioned a brighter start to my New Adventures, involving a wide variety of flora and fauna not native to wherever I happened to be. Turns out, not so much. I'll have to settle for being part of someone's undergraduate thesis.
I'm planning on participating in a political science study tomorrow that I found out about yesterday. I'm going to pretend that I'm doing this because I think that undergraduates are our future and they need all the help they can get in forming their theses, and because I think that the concept of furthering knowledge for the benefit of mankind by sacrificing some of my time that we may better understand society is a noble endeavor. Mostly it's the free pizza and the $20 compensation. But I also think it'll be a good time.
I've always wanted to be part of polls, or somehow contribute to "popular opinion" though I'm sure that desire would go away as soon as I actually started to be asked to participate on a regular occasion. I've only been polled once, last year, on the rare occasion that my landline phone was actually charged and I was home during the evening. It was mostly about the presidential election and which issues I was most concerned about, but also, oddly, how excited I was for the 2007 MLB season.
But for tomorrow, I am left with the charge of getting enough sleep to be coherent for the study and with the weighty decision of whether I should answer honestly or just give the most batshit insane responses I can come up with. And whether those are two different things. I'll try to post about how it goes, unless I'm forced to sign some contract that says I won't because the undergraduate is going to try to publish or some such. If that's the case, I'll come up with an absurdly complex and unwieldy coding system and relate my experiences that way.
I'm planning on participating in a political science study tomorrow that I found out about yesterday. I'm going to pretend that I'm doing this because I think that undergraduates are our future and they need all the help they can get in forming their theses, and because I think that the concept of furthering knowledge for the benefit of mankind by sacrificing some of my time that we may better understand society is a noble endeavor. Mostly it's the free pizza and the $20 compensation. But I also think it'll be a good time.
I've always wanted to be part of polls, or somehow contribute to "popular opinion" though I'm sure that desire would go away as soon as I actually started to be asked to participate on a regular occasion. I've only been polled once, last year, on the rare occasion that my landline phone was actually charged and I was home during the evening. It was mostly about the presidential election and which issues I was most concerned about, but also, oddly, how excited I was for the 2007 MLB season.
But for tomorrow, I am left with the charge of getting enough sleep to be coherent for the study and with the weighty decision of whether I should answer honestly or just give the most batshit insane responses I can come up with. And whether those are two different things. I'll try to post about how it goes, unless I'm forced to sign some contract that says I won't because the undergraduate is going to try to publish or some such. If that's the case, I'll come up with an absurdly complex and unwieldy coding system and relate my experiences that way.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Super Tuesday and Ventilation
Another update on the results of playing floor hockey. Sure, it's awesome, especially when we're good, but my back is killing me. Damn it.
I thought about doing a big Super Tuesday post, but I'm just not really feeling it. I'm pulling for a McCain/Obama matchup, because I think I'd be least sad with the winner of that advancing to the Presidency. I've got huge issues with Clinton, and I could go into those if you'd like, but not in this post. It's a long list and includes her position on censorship, her healthcare plan and its economic viability and long screeds on her support of an incredibly strong executive branch, along with her willingness to play identity politics, her insistence that she's not the establishment candidate when it's clear that she is and I need to lie down now. And positions on a ton of other issues. And Romney strikes me as completely incapable of doing the job as I have no idea what he thinks about any given issue. Plus that whole thing where I'm trying to match up socially and personally liberal with slightly economically conservative. Romney seems to me to represent the socially/personally conservative thing that I'm not down with.
For that same reason, I'm crazy opposed to Huckabee, but he's not going to get the nomination anyway.
But yeah. I'd rather not get into that too much. Unfortunately, now that I'm looking for a blog topic on the news outlets I go to for my news, they're all going on and on about the Primaries.
So I shall merely complain about my back, and the fact that the ventilation has apparently been screwed up in Pancoe, which I think isn't going to kill me (as most of the stuff I'm working with at current is aqueous solutions of metal salts) but it does make it completely impossible to open the doors. Well, not completely impossible. Just imagine trying to open a door when there's oh, say a gale wind pushing on it. It's like that. The ventilation is supposedly a result of the storm that's a-comin', though I haven't noticed any of the six to twelve inches of snow we're supposed to get tonight.
I'm apparently never riding my bike again.
I thought about doing a big Super Tuesday post, but I'm just not really feeling it. I'm pulling for a McCain/Obama matchup, because I think I'd be least sad with the winner of that advancing to the Presidency. I've got huge issues with Clinton, and I could go into those if you'd like, but not in this post. It's a long list and includes her position on censorship, her healthcare plan and its economic viability and long screeds on her support of an incredibly strong executive branch, along with her willingness to play identity politics, her insistence that she's not the establishment candidate when it's clear that she is and I need to lie down now. And positions on a ton of other issues. And Romney strikes me as completely incapable of doing the job as I have no idea what he thinks about any given issue. Plus that whole thing where I'm trying to match up socially and personally liberal with slightly economically conservative. Romney seems to me to represent the socially/personally conservative thing that I'm not down with.
For that same reason, I'm crazy opposed to Huckabee, but he's not going to get the nomination anyway.
But yeah. I'd rather not get into that too much. Unfortunately, now that I'm looking for a blog topic on the news outlets I go to for my news, they're all going on and on about the Primaries.
So I shall merely complain about my back, and the fact that the ventilation has apparently been screwed up in Pancoe, which I think isn't going to kill me (as most of the stuff I'm working with at current is aqueous solutions of metal salts) but it does make it completely impossible to open the doors. Well, not completely impossible. Just imagine trying to open a door when there's oh, say a gale wind pushing on it. It's like that. The ventilation is supposedly a result of the storm that's a-comin', though I haven't noticed any of the six to twelve inches of snow we're supposed to get tonight.
I'm apparently never riding my bike again.
Friday, February 01, 2008
New Mexico, the Sierra Club, and Duke Nukem.
I was starting to get worried. It looked like there wasn't going to be very much interesting to write about today, and you'd all be forced to read uninteresting autobiographical things using some kind of Ludovico Technique setup. I'd considered the case of a MySpace group for atheists and agnostics that was shut down a month after someone vandalized it (and after it had been deleted by MySpace once before following a "protest", whatever that means in terms of MySpace), but that's kind of boring and involves MySpace and therefore it's hard for me to write something coherent on it before my loathing for MySpace takes over and destroys the village.
I was going to write a post on the nominees for President, but I think that's probably either going to be very long or I'll just keep postponing it until after February 5 and then it'll be possibly irrelevant.
I'd also considered whining about the train, but you've had enough of that.
But then New Mexico stepped up to the plate. Or, more specifically, the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club.
Groups Push for Taxing TVs, Video Games as Part of 'No Child Left Inside' Initiative
The Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club would like the state of New Mexico to institute a one-percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment in order to fund outdoor education initiatives to show kids that the outdoors exist and it's occasionally fun to actually play a sport, rather than watching a little avatar play it on a screen.
I agree with them that kids should play outdoors, that it's not so good if everyone's obese and that it's fun to actually play a sport rather than playing MVP 2005 exclusively. But this seems, to me anyway, to be the wrong way to go about it. Some points in no particular order.
First, if you accept for the time being that attempting social engineering by levying taxes on things that are deemed vices is ok for the sake of argument, I don't know that that can apply to video games. Sure, Jack Thompson thinks that anyone who plays a video game is a sociopath who will inevitably destroy the world*, but in general, video games, in moderation, are just like any other hobby. There seems to be, in popular culture, a sort of bias against someone who would put the idea of beating some immensely difficult video game on the same plane as building a ship in a bottle, but I'm not really able to see what separates the two. Millions of well-adjusted, productive people play video games and they seem, to me anyway, to be not intrinsically bad for you. Sure, there are studies which say that video games (violent ones, anyway) make you more aggressive, but they also improve coordination, reflex times, act as a social tool either over the internet in MMORPGs or as a way to connect with friends playing Halo when there's a foot of snow outside.
The problem, as is the problem with alcohol and drug abuse, gambling addiction and other things which have negative impacts upon the person engaging in the behavior and those around them is not the presence of the vice. You can enjoy alcohol and gambling without being a raging alcoholic or giving your house and all your possessions to Vegas. Rather, the problem is that the person who has a problem with them is not enjoying them responsibly. It seems to me to be an overly wide approach to go after everyone to punish a few who have a problem. Offer them support, give them help, sure. But punishing people who can enjoy a hobby responsibly because some can't? I don't know. That is, I don't know that I agree with attempting to socially engineer things by levying taxes on everyone, especially as they're not only targeting video games, which most people enjoy responsibly, but televisions, which a much larger population uses and which is, by most people, used without incident. Is it possible that people spend too much time inside watching television instead of interacting with other people? Sure. But I don't know how much this will do to stop that.
Second, I don't know how effective this would be in actually influencing anything. If you're buying your kid the newest game system when it comes out and constantly buying them games, you're likely either spending really irresponsibly in which case you're not going to notice the effect of the tax because you're not acting rationally, or you're spending a bunch on video games and televisions because you have a lot of money to spend, and you're not going to be affected by a paltry 1% tax. Who this will affect are those who aren't making that much money, either lower-class families or young people who don't make much money yet, and there's something that irks me about trying to influence the behavior of only those people who can't afford to ignore your tactics.
Third, I'm not sure how effective it will be because those of us who don't have that much money to spend on video games might not buy our video games new. Those of us who don't spend more than $100 aren't going to be affected enough to not buy the games, and we're able to avoid the affect of it by buying things cheap and used. I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a video game.
Lastly, it seems like if the Sierra Club really wants to start an outdoor education program to convince kids not to be fat losers who sit inside and play video games, that's a fantastic idea. There are two problems I see with it. The first problem is that the enormous increases on taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol are supposed to be doing precisely that and if that money's not going there, I don't think the idea is to tax more, it's to find out why that money's not going there. The second is that you might be able to do it either with sponsorships or private donations from, oh, the members of the Sierra Club. I'd personally be much more willing to donate more than you'd ever get from me from the tax to fund this kind of thing (which isn't hard as I think you'd have gotten $2 from me over the past three years). Run it as a private enterprise and see if that doesn't work, I think, before you start demanding social engineering taxes on a hobby. Give positive incentives (upon stumbling upon two people playing catch outside when I was in undergrad, while twelve people watched two other people play MVP2005, it seemed like "Hey, let's all go outside" worked pretty well), rather than positive incentives associated with negative ones.
Ok. There we go. An incredibly long post on a day on which I already had one. I guess I could change the timestamp later, or fall back on the "I said one post per day and as long as I average that, it's cool," but we'll see how it goes. My posts probably won't be as political as this, but why not kick off this shindig with something that's actually in current events and not me complaining about my pathetic social life, I thought.
I was going to write a post on the nominees for President, but I think that's probably either going to be very long or I'll just keep postponing it until after February 5 and then it'll be possibly irrelevant.
I'd also considered whining about the train, but you've had enough of that.
But then New Mexico stepped up to the plate. Or, more specifically, the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club.
Groups Push for Taxing TVs, Video Games as Part of 'No Child Left Inside' Initiative
The Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club would like the state of New Mexico to institute a one-percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment in order to fund outdoor education initiatives to show kids that the outdoors exist and it's occasionally fun to actually play a sport, rather than watching a little avatar play it on a screen.
I agree with them that kids should play outdoors, that it's not so good if everyone's obese and that it's fun to actually play a sport rather than playing MVP 2005 exclusively. But this seems, to me anyway, to be the wrong way to go about it. Some points in no particular order.
First, if you accept for the time being that attempting social engineering by levying taxes on things that are deemed vices is ok for the sake of argument, I don't know that that can apply to video games. Sure, Jack Thompson thinks that anyone who plays a video game is a sociopath who will inevitably destroy the world*, but in general, video games, in moderation, are just like any other hobby. There seems to be, in popular culture, a sort of bias against someone who would put the idea of beating some immensely difficult video game on the same plane as building a ship in a bottle, but I'm not really able to see what separates the two. Millions of well-adjusted, productive people play video games and they seem, to me anyway, to be not intrinsically bad for you. Sure, there are studies which say that video games (violent ones, anyway) make you more aggressive, but they also improve coordination, reflex times, act as a social tool either over the internet in MMORPGs or as a way to connect with friends playing Halo when there's a foot of snow outside.
The problem, as is the problem with alcohol and drug abuse, gambling addiction and other things which have negative impacts upon the person engaging in the behavior and those around them is not the presence of the vice. You can enjoy alcohol and gambling without being a raging alcoholic or giving your house and all your possessions to Vegas. Rather, the problem is that the person who has a problem with them is not enjoying them responsibly. It seems to me to be an overly wide approach to go after everyone to punish a few who have a problem. Offer them support, give them help, sure. But punishing people who can enjoy a hobby responsibly because some can't? I don't know. That is, I don't know that I agree with attempting to socially engineer things by levying taxes on everyone, especially as they're not only targeting video games, which most people enjoy responsibly, but televisions, which a much larger population uses and which is, by most people, used without incident. Is it possible that people spend too much time inside watching television instead of interacting with other people? Sure. But I don't know how much this will do to stop that.
Second, I don't know how effective this would be in actually influencing anything. If you're buying your kid the newest game system when it comes out and constantly buying them games, you're likely either spending really irresponsibly in which case you're not going to notice the effect of the tax because you're not acting rationally, or you're spending a bunch on video games and televisions because you have a lot of money to spend, and you're not going to be affected by a paltry 1% tax. Who this will affect are those who aren't making that much money, either lower-class families or young people who don't make much money yet, and there's something that irks me about trying to influence the behavior of only those people who can't afford to ignore your tactics.
Third, I'm not sure how effective it will be because those of us who don't have that much money to spend on video games might not buy our video games new. Those of us who don't spend more than $100 aren't going to be affected enough to not buy the games, and we're able to avoid the affect of it by buying things cheap and used. I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a video game.
Lastly, it seems like if the Sierra Club really wants to start an outdoor education program to convince kids not to be fat losers who sit inside and play video games, that's a fantastic idea. There are two problems I see with it. The first problem is that the enormous increases on taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol are supposed to be doing precisely that and if that money's not going there, I don't think the idea is to tax more, it's to find out why that money's not going there. The second is that you might be able to do it either with sponsorships or private donations from, oh, the members of the Sierra Club. I'd personally be much more willing to donate more than you'd ever get from me from the tax to fund this kind of thing (which isn't hard as I think you'd have gotten $2 from me over the past three years). Run it as a private enterprise and see if that doesn't work, I think, before you start demanding social engineering taxes on a hobby. Give positive incentives (upon stumbling upon two people playing catch outside when I was in undergrad, while twelve people watched two other people play MVP2005, it seemed like "Hey, let's all go outside" worked pretty well), rather than positive incentives associated with negative ones.
Ok. There we go. An incredibly long post on a day on which I already had one. I guess I could change the timestamp later, or fall back on the "I said one post per day and as long as I average that, it's cool," but we'll see how it goes. My posts probably won't be as political as this, but why not kick off this shindig with something that's actually in current events and not me complaining about my pathetic social life, I thought.
Monday, November 27, 2006
I Need Another Vacation
I'm awake at 1am on a Sunday (which is admittedly pretty early for me) and I'm not quite able to go to sleep yet, so I thought I'd write a bit on here whie I wait for water to boil so that I can have some rice. I've not posted on here in a while, but rather than try to catch this up to what's been going on, I'm just going to kind of wing this return.
1) Thanksgiving: We actually did it. Jenna and I actually, successfully, cooked and ate Thanksgiving dinner. I'd like to start by noting that I had no idea how much food is required to cook a proper Thanksgiving dinner, or how much spices cost. Admittedly, we bought these things at the Big Apple Supermarket twenty feet from the back door of my building which tends to be more "small-market"-ish and thus a bit more expensive than, say, Dominick's, but we offset this by buying the cheapest spices available (I'm sure the fine people at McCormick would argue that theirs is just as good, and I'd be inclined to agree because disagreeing costs me double). Still, I ended up paying, evidently, $3.99 for bay leaves (3g), which I'm not even sure what they do, $4.99 for ground ginger which I think may have gone into the pie, but in any case I've still got like ninety percent of the 22g bottle, $5.79 for sage (14g), which was just sort of sprinkled on the squash we cooked anyway and I think we probably could have gotten by without, and cloves (17g) which were supposed to be ground but evidently no one in Chicago sells ground cloves so they're whole and Jenna ground them in a food processor. Suddenly, I feel like I should probably have ground ginger on everything I eat. Especially, say, fish sticks.
Still, the whole thing worked out well, there were no "family movie/sitcom" situations in which we burned the turkey and were forced to eat at the diner (which, incidentally, was offering a pretty good deal at $10.49 for whatever the hell the "complete dinner" consisted of), and I even took some pictures, though because my digital camera is somewhere at home at the moment, I'll only be able to get up once I have them developed and scan them. We've got a good amount of food left over, though did have to eat out over the weekend because turkey's really boring and Jenna went all super-cook today and made soup from turkey bits and celery or something. I don't know. I was playing Katamari Damacy and sacking Ben Roethlisberger.
2) Things I've been reading lately: I just finished World War Z, which is Max Brooks followup to the Zombie Survival Guide which was occasionally humorous and pretty interesting. World War Z is his crack at, I guess, historical fiction, though that term makes me think that Washington and Lincoln should be involved somehow. It's essentially, in the first half or so, an amalgam of the last two bits of the Survival Guide, being the description of a world in which zombies not only exist but have taken over and little "personal accounts". It was a fun and interesting read, and as I've got a 40 minute commute as penance for living in a neighborhood that accepts "Pocket Puppies" as a valid store, it helped stave off long hours of staring out the window and being talked to by, well, anyone. From there, it appears I'll be proceeding with a book I picked up while buying presents, Bertrand Russell's Sceptical Essays. I'll let you know more about that as I actually get into it.
3) Music: Tower Records, if you haven't heard, is being liquidated. As it happens, I live about 200 yards (some ridiculous standard measurement) from one, and so have really cheap music and videos really closeby. Today's purchases: In the Mood for Ska: The Moonska Years- The Skatalites and Ace of Spades- Motörhead. It's odd. I actually like Motörhead quite a lot apparently based on the first few listens, and Ace of Spades seems like a good album to start with when it's $8, their first album isn't actually still in stock and I know the song Ace of Spades from a video game (which is the lamest reason to buy a CD). The Skatalites are, as I expected, fantastic on the two disc set that has them playing with Doreen Shaffer, Laurel Aitken and some stuff from Tommy McCook apart from the general output.
4) The Steelers' O-line makes me weep.
5) Al Jazeera has begun broadcasting in English though no cable companies have agreed to air it actually in the US and if you want to see it in the States you have to pay $6 a month to stream it from their website. It's being carried in the UK on Sky Digital, which, as a bit of trivia, is owned by NewsCorporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. From reviews I've read, Al Jazeera is actually pretty good at providing an alternate perspective, which is really the only reason that any cable company should agree to carry it, as it's not as though we need another 24-hour news channel. It's a channel broadcasting from and centered on the Middle East, and should, I think, if well done, provide an interesting view from inside that allows us to get an alternate viewpoint, which is good. There are, of course, those that claim that we shouldn't be allowed to elect to watch it, as it would be a mouthpiece for anti-Americanism, something that I have no clue about. It might be, but I haven't actually seen it to make a judgement, and I suspect that most people that already have very strong opinions about it probably haven't either. Then again, none of that really effects me as I don't subscribe to cable and get my news from listing to NPR all day with wicked huge wireless headphones because I don't have to pay for it and it tends to be somewhat neutral, but it's an interesting topic, I think.
6) In addition to my weekly subscription to the New Yorker, I've been occasionally picking up the libertarian magazine Reason now and again. The experience of violently switching between either agreeing completely with what it's saying and denouncing it as unreasonable is kind of fun (I tend to agree heavily on social issues but am a bit of a centrist with regards to the economy, which is actually a change from a few years ago). The issue I picked up most recently does have a moderately interesting interview with the creators of South Park and a bit of a long article in which different individuals are interviewed to try to discern whether someone who is in complete agreement with the magazine on every issue (which is how I presume they define "libertarian") should vote for in the elections that happened a few weeks ago. It's an older issue. Not surpringly, Grover Norquist wants you to vote for Republicans on the "less taxes" issue (which is juxtaposed wiht an article immediately after this one which tries to discern why the Republican party, which campaigns on being fiscally responsible, isn't even close), the guy that runs Daily Kos and Terry Michael, former spokesman for the DNC say the libertarians should vote D on social grounds, and Markos Moulitsas throws in a bit about perhaps the solution to neither party going wacky lies in perpetually divided government, and a guy who was running for representative in Arizona as a Republican says, essentially "please don't vote me out of power, we're still better than those damned Democrats." He won his seat... over the Libertarian candidate, who the last person interviewed in the article, the President of the Libertarian Party, would have preferred. More updates as I continue reading.
7) I think I might be the only person who's disappointed that O.J. isn't releasing his book, tentatively titled "If I Did It", in which he posits that if he puts things in the subjunctive, everyone will be so stupid that they don't realize that the book is basically a confession. Slate had a bit of stuff a while ago about potential legal troubles for O.J. as they related to the book/TV deal. Conclusion: Not really all that much. I don't think I'd read it, but in a world where they're doing things about the Jon-Benet Ramsey case as recently as this year, I can't believe that there's actually no interest in what this particular scumbag has to say. In that, I agree with Timothy Noah. It's news.
I'm going to bed.
1) Thanksgiving: We actually did it. Jenna and I actually, successfully, cooked and ate Thanksgiving dinner. I'd like to start by noting that I had no idea how much food is required to cook a proper Thanksgiving dinner, or how much spices cost. Admittedly, we bought these things at the Big Apple Supermarket twenty feet from the back door of my building which tends to be more "small-market"-ish and thus a bit more expensive than, say, Dominick's, but we offset this by buying the cheapest spices available (I'm sure the fine people at McCormick would argue that theirs is just as good, and I'd be inclined to agree because disagreeing costs me double). Still, I ended up paying, evidently, $3.99 for bay leaves (3g), which I'm not even sure what they do, $4.99 for ground ginger which I think may have gone into the pie, but in any case I've still got like ninety percent of the 22g bottle, $5.79 for sage (14g), which was just sort of sprinkled on the squash we cooked anyway and I think we probably could have gotten by without, and cloves (17g) which were supposed to be ground but evidently no one in Chicago sells ground cloves so they're whole and Jenna ground them in a food processor. Suddenly, I feel like I should probably have ground ginger on everything I eat. Especially, say, fish sticks.
Still, the whole thing worked out well, there were no "family movie/sitcom" situations in which we burned the turkey and were forced to eat at the diner (which, incidentally, was offering a pretty good deal at $10.49 for whatever the hell the "complete dinner" consisted of), and I even took some pictures, though because my digital camera is somewhere at home at the moment, I'll only be able to get up once I have them developed and scan them. We've got a good amount of food left over, though did have to eat out over the weekend because turkey's really boring and Jenna went all super-cook today and made soup from turkey bits and celery or something. I don't know. I was playing Katamari Damacy and sacking Ben Roethlisberger.
2) Things I've been reading lately: I just finished World War Z, which is Max Brooks followup to the Zombie Survival Guide which was occasionally humorous and pretty interesting. World War Z is his crack at, I guess, historical fiction, though that term makes me think that Washington and Lincoln should be involved somehow. It's essentially, in the first half or so, an amalgam of the last two bits of the Survival Guide, being the description of a world in which zombies not only exist but have taken over and little "personal accounts". It was a fun and interesting read, and as I've got a 40 minute commute as penance for living in a neighborhood that accepts "Pocket Puppies" as a valid store, it helped stave off long hours of staring out the window and being talked to by, well, anyone. From there, it appears I'll be proceeding with a book I picked up while buying presents, Bertrand Russell's Sceptical Essays. I'll let you know more about that as I actually get into it.
3) Music: Tower Records, if you haven't heard, is being liquidated. As it happens, I live about 200 yards (some ridiculous standard measurement) from one, and so have really cheap music and videos really closeby. Today's purchases: In the Mood for Ska: The Moonska Years- The Skatalites and Ace of Spades- Motörhead. It's odd. I actually like Motörhead quite a lot apparently based on the first few listens, and Ace of Spades seems like a good album to start with when it's $8, their first album isn't actually still in stock and I know the song Ace of Spades from a video game (which is the lamest reason to buy a CD). The Skatalites are, as I expected, fantastic on the two disc set that has them playing with Doreen Shaffer, Laurel Aitken and some stuff from Tommy McCook apart from the general output.
4) The Steelers' O-line makes me weep.
5) Al Jazeera has begun broadcasting in English though no cable companies have agreed to air it actually in the US and if you want to see it in the States you have to pay $6 a month to stream it from their website. It's being carried in the UK on Sky Digital, which, as a bit of trivia, is owned by NewsCorporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. From reviews I've read, Al Jazeera is actually pretty good at providing an alternate perspective, which is really the only reason that any cable company should agree to carry it, as it's not as though we need another 24-hour news channel. It's a channel broadcasting from and centered on the Middle East, and should, I think, if well done, provide an interesting view from inside that allows us to get an alternate viewpoint, which is good. There are, of course, those that claim that we shouldn't be allowed to elect to watch it, as it would be a mouthpiece for anti-Americanism, something that I have no clue about. It might be, but I haven't actually seen it to make a judgement, and I suspect that most people that already have very strong opinions about it probably haven't either. Then again, none of that really effects me as I don't subscribe to cable and get my news from listing to NPR all day with wicked huge wireless headphones because I don't have to pay for it and it tends to be somewhat neutral, but it's an interesting topic, I think.
6) In addition to my weekly subscription to the New Yorker, I've been occasionally picking up the libertarian magazine Reason now and again. The experience of violently switching between either agreeing completely with what it's saying and denouncing it as unreasonable is kind of fun (I tend to agree heavily on social issues but am a bit of a centrist with regards to the economy, which is actually a change from a few years ago). The issue I picked up most recently does have a moderately interesting interview with the creators of South Park and a bit of a long article in which different individuals are interviewed to try to discern whether someone who is in complete agreement with the magazine on every issue (which is how I presume they define "libertarian") should vote for in the elections that happened a few weeks ago. It's an older issue. Not surpringly, Grover Norquist wants you to vote for Republicans on the "less taxes" issue (which is juxtaposed wiht an article immediately after this one which tries to discern why the Republican party, which campaigns on being fiscally responsible, isn't even close), the guy that runs Daily Kos and Terry Michael, former spokesman for the DNC say the libertarians should vote D on social grounds, and Markos Moulitsas throws in a bit about perhaps the solution to neither party going wacky lies in perpetually divided government, and a guy who was running for representative in Arizona as a Republican says, essentially "please don't vote me out of power, we're still better than those damned Democrats." He won his seat... over the Libertarian candidate, who the last person interviewed in the article, the President of the Libertarian Party, would have preferred. More updates as I continue reading.
7) I think I might be the only person who's disappointed that O.J. isn't releasing his book, tentatively titled "If I Did It", in which he posits that if he puts things in the subjunctive, everyone will be so stupid that they don't realize that the book is basically a confession. Slate had a bit of stuff a while ago about potential legal troubles for O.J. as they related to the book/TV deal. Conclusion: Not really all that much. I don't think I'd read it, but in a world where they're doing things about the Jon-Benet Ramsey case as recently as this year, I can't believe that there's actually no interest in what this particular scumbag has to say. In that, I agree with Timothy Noah. It's news.
I'm going to bed.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Apples, Rick and Art
I've not been updating much recently, but then I've been somewhat busy. So you'll have that. A few things that I've recently discovered which have confused the hell out of me:
1) Food. Mystery. Novels. While I understand how the final two words in that sequence are supposed to work together, I'm still a bit lost on the first. I've discovered the existence of this genre while doing my laundry. In the laundry room of the building I'm living in, which is mostly vacant when I'm home to do my laundry (Fridays after, like, 1am) there's a folding table that holds a stack of apparently communal books. Things to read if you're hanging out in the laundry room near the creepy darkened fenced in section under the tree that wants to die because it's in a laundry room. Many of the books are standard $1.99 paperbacks that never quite made it big, several of them mysteries and some of them, that's right, food mysteries. Things like this that focus a whodunit plot on eating, cooking and the like. Several have recipies in the back that relate to whatever the central food of the mystery is. They've got names like "Dying on the Vine", "Death Al Dente", "Candy Apple Dead" and "Double Shot". They appear to be written mostly by either a man named Peter King or a woman named Ellen Hart, evidently the luminaries of the field. I don't actually know what demographic finds these most appealing, though I suppose it's simply a combination of two things people might like. I remember reading two different mysteries that had a hockey theme when I was very young, presumably because young boys might like both hockey and mysteries, but I don't think I'd be able to comprehend "Hockey Mysteries" as as much of a genre as "Food Mysteries" seems to be. Maybe I'm missing something though. I haven't read any of the books in the laundry room of my apartment building, but may have to just to understand what the hell is going on.
2) Evidently, in defending the War in Iraq, Santorum through out some complex, crazy-assed Lord of the Rings reference at the debate yesterday that kind of implied that the current strategy for the war on terror is to keep Iraq unstable and have terrorists kill people over there so that we're not getting killed. While "not having us killed" is good, simply substituting people to get killed for us is not, some of those people he's substituting are troops, and diverting terror attacks onto other targets isn't really a viable goal. But the real problem, at least from my perspective, is that he likens terrorist organizations to the "Eye of Mordor". Ignoring for a moment the problems with comparing the war in Iraq to a fantasy novel, including the problems of comparing the varied terror organizations and individual terrorists a single consolidated eye, the real issue is that his comparison fails because the Eye was the Eye of Sauron. Mordor was a location, and while that's where the Eye was located, Mordor did not posess the eye.
PA voters: If you're not going to take this guy to town for any of the seriously bizarre things he's said and the fact that he's pretty far off the nutty end of the pool, and that his best defense is to now liken what he does in Washington to Tolkein novels, at least demand of your Senator that he know what the objects in his metaphors are called. Vote. Him. Out.
3) I've been listening to a lot of weird stuff at work lately, since buying my super-awesome and super-freaking-huge wireless headphones so that I can listen to streaming audio in this impregnable radio fortress. Mostly NPR and podcasts of Penn Jillete's radio show, which is pretty damn good, and narrowly avoiding what I would think to be my low point today by refusing to listen to C-SPAN radio. Incredibly strange stuff to be found here, where you'll find a schedule for what public radio station is playing what program when, including Deutche Welle Radio. I figured I'd listen for a perspective outside of the Chicago radio I'm usually listening to, and having minored in German know at least a minimal amount about what's happened in the recent history of Germany. Today's "Movement Featured on DW-Radio That I Never Knew Existed Because I'm Not Exactly Plugged Into Art But Am Not Surprised That It Does": Stuckism.
Who knew.
ADDENDUM:
I'm going to be going through my blog over the next couple days attempting to put labels on as many posts as I can. So watch for that. Also, I have a cut on my palm from a rough piece of glass that I got yesterday and is really more of a scratch, but is in a terrible damn place and hurts quite a lot. So there's that.
1) Food. Mystery. Novels. While I understand how the final two words in that sequence are supposed to work together, I'm still a bit lost on the first. I've discovered the existence of this genre while doing my laundry. In the laundry room of the building I'm living in, which is mostly vacant when I'm home to do my laundry (Fridays after, like, 1am) there's a folding table that holds a stack of apparently communal books. Things to read if you're hanging out in the laundry room near the creepy darkened fenced in section under the tree that wants to die because it's in a laundry room. Many of the books are standard $1.99 paperbacks that never quite made it big, several of them mysteries and some of them, that's right, food mysteries. Things like this that focus a whodunit plot on eating, cooking and the like. Several have recipies in the back that relate to whatever the central food of the mystery is. They've got names like "Dying on the Vine", "Death Al Dente", "Candy Apple Dead" and "Double Shot". They appear to be written mostly by either a man named Peter King or a woman named Ellen Hart, evidently the luminaries of the field. I don't actually know what demographic finds these most appealing, though I suppose it's simply a combination of two things people might like. I remember reading two different mysteries that had a hockey theme when I was very young, presumably because young boys might like both hockey and mysteries, but I don't think I'd be able to comprehend "Hockey Mysteries" as as much of a genre as "Food Mysteries" seems to be. Maybe I'm missing something though. I haven't read any of the books in the laundry room of my apartment building, but may have to just to understand what the hell is going on.
2) Evidently, in defending the War in Iraq, Santorum through out some complex, crazy-assed Lord of the Rings reference at the debate yesterday that kind of implied that the current strategy for the war on terror is to keep Iraq unstable and have terrorists kill people over there so that we're not getting killed. While "not having us killed" is good, simply substituting people to get killed for us is not, some of those people he's substituting are troops, and diverting terror attacks onto other targets isn't really a viable goal. But the real problem, at least from my perspective, is that he likens terrorist organizations to the "Eye of Mordor". Ignoring for a moment the problems with comparing the war in Iraq to a fantasy novel, including the problems of comparing the varied terror organizations and individual terrorists a single consolidated eye, the real issue is that his comparison fails because the Eye was the Eye of Sauron. Mordor was a location, and while that's where the Eye was located, Mordor did not posess the eye.
PA voters: If you're not going to take this guy to town for any of the seriously bizarre things he's said and the fact that he's pretty far off the nutty end of the pool, and that his best defense is to now liken what he does in Washington to Tolkein novels, at least demand of your Senator that he know what the objects in his metaphors are called. Vote. Him. Out.
3) I've been listening to a lot of weird stuff at work lately, since buying my super-awesome and super-freaking-huge wireless headphones so that I can listen to streaming audio in this impregnable radio fortress. Mostly NPR and podcasts of Penn Jillete's radio show, which is pretty damn good, and narrowly avoiding what I would think to be my low point today by refusing to listen to C-SPAN radio. Incredibly strange stuff to be found here, where you'll find a schedule for what public radio station is playing what program when, including Deutche Welle Radio. I figured I'd listen for a perspective outside of the Chicago radio I'm usually listening to, and having minored in German know at least a minimal amount about what's happened in the recent history of Germany. Today's "Movement Featured on DW-Radio That I Never Knew Existed Because I'm Not Exactly Plugged Into Art But Am Not Surprised That It Does": Stuckism.
Who knew.
ADDENDUM:
I'm going to be going through my blog over the next couple days attempting to put labels on as many posts as I can. So watch for that. Also, I have a cut on my palm from a rough piece of glass that I got yesterday and is really more of a scratch, but is in a terrible damn place and hurts quite a lot. So there's that.
Friday, September 29, 2006
More Legislation
The House approved a bill that would allow for a form of the "warrantless wiretaps" program to continue. On a side note, it's hilarious how much Congress can get done when a) they break on Friday and b) they're not trying to figure out if we should amend the document that literally defines the country to worry about whether or not gays can marry. While I'm very cautious about giving the government power to conduct searches that are in violation of the 4th amendment, this bill would at the very least provide some guidelines, as follows.
1) The President has to clear any and all searches by the House and Senate congressional committees and notifies leaders of both (though how much good that would do for a group of people that appear to be entirely defined through which team they're on is debatable)
2) The President has to have reason to believe an attack is imminent and has to explain why the hell he wants to wiretap them.
3) He's got a 90 day certification on all of that.
So it does set some limits, as opposed to "whatever the hell he feels like." Again, I don't think that a dystopia is upon us yet. But I'm not sure how one sets this into law without the first person it's used on claiming violation of the 4th amendment. I can see why wiretaps could be invaluable to fighting organizations which wish to harm us, but I really dislike the "if you're not doing anything wrong, why do you care" argument, because it's asinine.
So I'm torn. Whatever. The wheel keeps turning.
1) The President has to clear any and all searches by the House and Senate congressional committees and notifies leaders of both (though how much good that would do for a group of people that appear to be entirely defined through which team they're on is debatable)
2) The President has to have reason to believe an attack is imminent and has to explain why the hell he wants to wiretap them.
3) He's got a 90 day certification on all of that.
So it does set some limits, as opposed to "whatever the hell he feels like." Again, I don't think that a dystopia is upon us yet. But I'm not sure how one sets this into law without the first person it's used on claiming violation of the 4th amendment. I can see why wiretaps could be invaluable to fighting organizations which wish to harm us, but I really dislike the "if you're not doing anything wrong, why do you care" argument, because it's asinine.
So I'm torn. Whatever. The wheel keeps turning.
Update on Everything
I've finally gotten around to seeing Brick, which was recommended to me long ago in a coffeehouse in NYC (The Esperanto Cafe, if I remember correctly) which served coffee in short glass mugs that offend my senses as well as furthering Dr. Zamenhof's ideals of peace through common language and fuel for sitcom jokes. And muffins. I regret that it took me so long to get around to it, particularly when it was playing in Evanston at Century Theater's "less popular movies" annex for about a month. It's a bit hard to buy the whole "No really, everyone actually talks like this" and odd to think that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is two years older than I am and is apparently still in high school, and that no one ever goes to class ever, but I'll take it. It kept me interested throughout, which is something Jenna's latest Netflix Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story didn't do so well, though they're vastly different films in every possible aspect. I'd recommend checking it out.
The Pirates have three games left in the season, all against Cincinnati, who is at this point struggling to hold on to the possibility of coming out on top of the Central, as they've been eliminated from the wild card. Depending on how the next weekend goes, either the Astros or the Cards are likely taking the division, while the wild card is up in the air between whoever doesn't win the NL West and the Phillies. Not that any of that will matter, as the Mets are the ones going to the World Series. I'm still hanging on to some hope that they'll be facing the A's.
The Senate voted today 65-34 to approve a bill which would set up rules for dealing with those deemed "enemy combatants" and would define, more or less, what is or is not allowed to occur in an attempt to comply with the Third Geneva Conventions, after the Supreme Court found that we probably couldn't just ignore bits. There has been a fair amount of controversy in that it eliminates, for those declared enemy combatants, the right to appeal with habeas corpus. This would follow not only for combatants held in, say Guantanamo, but in any U.S. prison anywhere in the world, and can be suspended during such time as it is being determined whether or not they are enemy combatants.. Habeas corpus, historically, can only be suspended in the United States in time of war, and while the current situation differs from war in most classical aspects (that is, we're not waging war on a country, but on a concept), it is the opinion of a majority of the Senate that this right to revoke should be available. I'm not positive where I stand on this. It is necessary to try those who may be a threat to the wellbeing of the people of this country. But in doing that, is it right to withdraw one of the most fundamental tools for a defendant against possible wrongful imprisonment? I simply don't trust the government enough to believe that everyone they arrest as being connected to a terrorist plot is actually the correct person. Which is why, of course, they're tried, to determine whether they're guilty or innocent. During the Nuremberg trials, the United States were one of the entites that most desperately clung to the concept that there are rules and ways of doing things so as to use a legal system to determine who is to be punished and punish them accordingly. We are faced with a similar challenge today. We must find out who is responsible for the planning of crimes against humanity in the form of terrorist attacks, and we must punish them accordingly and work to prevent those attacks. In doing so, we must not trample the rights of those that aren't planning such attacks.
There are those that would read this and conclude that I'm supporting the coddling of terrorists. Those people are attacking strawmen. Terrorists, as everyone agrees, are not to be taken softly and should be punished in the harshest manner. But before we can do that, we must determine accurately who they are to a further degree than who we have in custody. Among the three Guantanamo detainees that committed suicide this summer, two were about to be released after the military had acquired evidenced that acquited them of attempting to plan and carry out a terrorist attack. They were innocent, but had not been told, and were denied the basic human rights outlined in our Constitution. While it would be nice if our methods for rounding up those who would do us harm were infallible, it's not. So we must have a system to decide whether or not we have made the proper arrest. Would those who seek to do us harm do the same, allowing for reporters captured in sensitive areas to appeal to be released because they're not spies? Of course not, they'd kill them on the spot. But I would like to think that the unwillingness of terrorists to step away from barbarism and savagery is not a rationale for treating our own prisoners below our own standards that are enshrined in the document that makes the United States a country. We're better than they are. We can win without stooping to their level. I'm simply at odds with the concept that we might be playing into their hands.
I am not at all against aggressive interrogation, and recognize that often, it is necessary to extract information that could harm many many people. I am simply concerned whenever the government begins to restrict the basic defenses of anyone in a trial situation. Do I think this will evolve into a dystopian scenario where thoughtpolice pick up those who disagree with the government in big black vans for treatment in Room 101? Of course not. But neither do I think that every single person detained is the #3 man in Al-Qaeda. I don't like the path our high-ground is heading down if we abandon tenets like habeas corpus, the ability for the defense to review the evidence against them, and while I understand the importance of aggressive interrogation of people who are actually terrorists, I find it troubling that what we're fighting so tenaciously over is the definition of torture.
The Pirates have three games left in the season, all against Cincinnati, who is at this point struggling to hold on to the possibility of coming out on top of the Central, as they've been eliminated from the wild card. Depending on how the next weekend goes, either the Astros or the Cards are likely taking the division, while the wild card is up in the air between whoever doesn't win the NL West and the Phillies. Not that any of that will matter, as the Mets are the ones going to the World Series. I'm still hanging on to some hope that they'll be facing the A's.
The Senate voted today 65-34 to approve a bill which would set up rules for dealing with those deemed "enemy combatants" and would define, more or less, what is or is not allowed to occur in an attempt to comply with the Third Geneva Conventions, after the Supreme Court found that we probably couldn't just ignore bits. There has been a fair amount of controversy in that it eliminates, for those declared enemy combatants, the right to appeal with habeas corpus. This would follow not only for combatants held in, say Guantanamo, but in any U.S. prison anywhere in the world, and can be suspended during such time as it is being determined whether or not they are enemy combatants.. Habeas corpus, historically, can only be suspended in the United States in time of war, and while the current situation differs from war in most classical aspects (that is, we're not waging war on a country, but on a concept), it is the opinion of a majority of the Senate that this right to revoke should be available. I'm not positive where I stand on this. It is necessary to try those who may be a threat to the wellbeing of the people of this country. But in doing that, is it right to withdraw one of the most fundamental tools for a defendant against possible wrongful imprisonment? I simply don't trust the government enough to believe that everyone they arrest as being connected to a terrorist plot is actually the correct person. Which is why, of course, they're tried, to determine whether they're guilty or innocent. During the Nuremberg trials, the United States were one of the entites that most desperately clung to the concept that there are rules and ways of doing things so as to use a legal system to determine who is to be punished and punish them accordingly. We are faced with a similar challenge today. We must find out who is responsible for the planning of crimes against humanity in the form of terrorist attacks, and we must punish them accordingly and work to prevent those attacks. In doing so, we must not trample the rights of those that aren't planning such attacks.
There are those that would read this and conclude that I'm supporting the coddling of terrorists. Those people are attacking strawmen. Terrorists, as everyone agrees, are not to be taken softly and should be punished in the harshest manner. But before we can do that, we must determine accurately who they are to a further degree than who we have in custody. Among the three Guantanamo detainees that committed suicide this summer, two were about to be released after the military had acquired evidenced that acquited them of attempting to plan and carry out a terrorist attack. They were innocent, but had not been told, and were denied the basic human rights outlined in our Constitution. While it would be nice if our methods for rounding up those who would do us harm were infallible, it's not. So we must have a system to decide whether or not we have made the proper arrest. Would those who seek to do us harm do the same, allowing for reporters captured in sensitive areas to appeal to be released because they're not spies? Of course not, they'd kill them on the spot. But I would like to think that the unwillingness of terrorists to step away from barbarism and savagery is not a rationale for treating our own prisoners below our own standards that are enshrined in the document that makes the United States a country. We're better than they are. We can win without stooping to their level. I'm simply at odds with the concept that we might be playing into their hands.
I am not at all against aggressive interrogation, and recognize that often, it is necessary to extract information that could harm many many people. I am simply concerned whenever the government begins to restrict the basic defenses of anyone in a trial situation. Do I think this will evolve into a dystopian scenario where thoughtpolice pick up those who disagree with the government in big black vans for treatment in Room 101? Of course not. But neither do I think that every single person detained is the #3 man in Al-Qaeda. I don't like the path our high-ground is heading down if we abandon tenets like habeas corpus, the ability for the defense to review the evidence against them, and while I understand the importance of aggressive interrogation of people who are actually terrorists, I find it troubling that what we're fighting so tenaciously over is the definition of torture.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Woo! Things!
I've finally moved into my new place and gotten acquainted with the neighborhood, and so I'll try to be posting here a bit more regularly. Some topics.
1) I've capitulated and gotten Netflix, partially because it's a pretty good deal given how many movies I try to watch , but mostly because I've decided that, at least for now, cable is pointless. I'm not home enough to warrant spending $50 on television per month, and it was starting to make the fact that I have game consoles pointless. So far, I'm so-so on the service. The turnaround could be a bit quicker, but then that might not be something I should be blaming entirely on Netflix, given that the post-office does actually have to make sure they get to my door. So I'll give it a little while longer before I go about cancelling.
2) Can we go thirty seconds without a damn story about YouTube? I understand. YouTube's great. I use it probably every day, mostly because it's a bit of a way around the whole "illegally downloading songs" while (surely copyrighted) music videos are still up. Surely, the RIAA will be by shortly to slap the hell out of Darshana90 for posting the worst quality video of "Wonderboy" in existence. Still, it's like the media got the hint that the whole "blogging" thing it got all crazy about was kind of overblown and not really that interesting, and had to find something to grab on to. (Incidentally, "Wonderboy" was playing on the radio when I went to the NYC location of Forbidden Planet Comics, which is evidently surprising. I don't know. Ask Jenna.
Post script to that: I hope every single person who has some video of themselves lipsyncing to Bossy tries to run for office. Not because I'd want them in power, but more for the "What the Hell Was Going On In Your Basement" factor. Incidentally, the actual video for Kelis' Bossy is the most godawful thing I've ever seen. What's with the cake? The poodle? Too Short? I can't think this is how music is supposed to be.
3) I get angry at the CTA at times, despite the fact that it's damn convenient and no where near as expensive as owning a car and I would be lost without it, mostly because it's occasionally delayed. Usually, this is because of work on the tracks, but as a person who regularly drove on Rt. 28 outside of Pittsburgh, "delayed by construction" is almost a default for me. That said, I'm incredibly glad I'm in Chicago, land of the overcast recently, and not London where trains are stopped by happy, jolly, coercive rays of sunshine.
4) Slate has been showcasing the new 9/11 Commission Report Graphic Novel. I'm not quite sure about what I think about that, partially because it does, to an extent, trivialize the event by portraying it as more of a cartoon than ever (though I suppose it could be debated whether this is the first attempt which has actually made a cartoon out of 9/11). Still, I don't believe that the medium of graphic novels (or comic books) is inherently "comic," as many political graphic novels, historicals and hell even Doonesbury prove time and time again. It's more or less pictures of the event and aftermath set to excerpts from the committee report, and does do the service of putting the report in a format that people might actually read. Which is definitely a good thing.
5) If you happen to be in Chicago, here's a list that the Tribune put together of stuff to do before the summer ends. But then, if you're in Chicago, you ought to come out to Chicago's Jazz Festival. It'll be awesome.
1) I've capitulated and gotten Netflix, partially because it's a pretty good deal given how many movies I try to watch , but mostly because I've decided that, at least for now, cable is pointless. I'm not home enough to warrant spending $50 on television per month, and it was starting to make the fact that I have game consoles pointless. So far, I'm so-so on the service. The turnaround could be a bit quicker, but then that might not be something I should be blaming entirely on Netflix, given that the post-office does actually have to make sure they get to my door. So I'll give it a little while longer before I go about cancelling.
2) Can we go thirty seconds without a damn story about YouTube? I understand. YouTube's great. I use it probably every day, mostly because it's a bit of a way around the whole "illegally downloading songs" while (surely copyrighted) music videos are still up. Surely, the RIAA will be by shortly to slap the hell out of Darshana90 for posting the worst quality video of "Wonderboy" in existence. Still, it's like the media got the hint that the whole "blogging" thing it got all crazy about was kind of overblown and not really that interesting, and had to find something to grab on to. (Incidentally, "Wonderboy" was playing on the radio when I went to the NYC location of Forbidden Planet Comics, which is evidently surprising. I don't know. Ask Jenna.
Post script to that: I hope every single person who has some video of themselves lipsyncing to Bossy tries to run for office. Not because I'd want them in power, but more for the "What the Hell Was Going On In Your Basement" factor. Incidentally, the actual video for Kelis' Bossy is the most godawful thing I've ever seen. What's with the cake? The poodle? Too Short? I can't think this is how music is supposed to be.
3) I get angry at the CTA at times, despite the fact that it's damn convenient and no where near as expensive as owning a car and I would be lost without it, mostly because it's occasionally delayed. Usually, this is because of work on the tracks, but as a person who regularly drove on Rt. 28 outside of Pittsburgh, "delayed by construction" is almost a default for me. That said, I'm incredibly glad I'm in Chicago, land of the overcast recently, and not London where trains are stopped by happy, jolly, coercive rays of sunshine.
4) Slate has been showcasing the new 9/11 Commission Report Graphic Novel. I'm not quite sure about what I think about that, partially because it does, to an extent, trivialize the event by portraying it as more of a cartoon than ever (though I suppose it could be debated whether this is the first attempt which has actually made a cartoon out of 9/11). Still, I don't believe that the medium of graphic novels (or comic books) is inherently "comic," as many political graphic novels, historicals and hell even Doonesbury prove time and time again. It's more or less pictures of the event and aftermath set to excerpts from the committee report, and does do the service of putting the report in a format that people might actually read. Which is definitely a good thing.
5) If you happen to be in Chicago, here's a list that the Tribune put together of stuff to do before the summer ends. But then, if you're in Chicago, you ought to come out to Chicago's Jazz Festival. It'll be awesome.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Lessons Learned
Things that were learned this weekend:
1. When I go to Pirates games, they win. When I don't, they lose. I suppose I could have made the same assumption earlier in the year with a mere thirty flukes, but this weekend drove home that point in a way I'm going to buy into so that it makes it seem like I'm more important than I am*. The games I went to were the kind of wins that we've not have any of this season, those in which we're actually fighting to stay in it and succeed, only to come up with the loss yesterday after giving up four runs in the eleventh when we'd managed to run out of relievers. As far as the lineup is concerned, I realize they were both pulled by the end of the game, but starting a lineup that includes both Cota and Burnitz is almost like Jim Tracy's attempt to make up for the fact that he can't bring in Vogelsong anymore. Maholm looked good
yesterday, but meh.
2. From the game on Saturday: If you're going to attend a baseball game, I'm fine with you yelling things, for the most part. Probably shouldn't be profane, but other than that, it's part of the experience of being a fan. That said, you should try to make it make some modicum of sense. By which I mean if you scream after every foul ball into the seats (two sections up) "Just catch it!" at Sean Casey (it appears you think he's either Spider-Man or is the kind of hometown guy that smiles a lot and reminds everyone of nice things and is capable of running screaming up the stairs for two sections, stomping on children), I'm going to want to hit you with something. I won't, but you should probably go ahead and shut up*. And yes. That goes for any player. It'd go for Burnitz, even though he'd probably be napping comfortably in a lawn chair.**
3. Sometimes, the people that are paid to find you an apartment are so stupendously bad at their task that they manage to make the fact that you have people that are willing to bail you out in the case of you not being able to actually do the whole apartment thing into something which actually disqualifies you from an apartment.
4. Some people in Arizona think it would be good times to turn the electoral process into a lottery. Is it bribery to get people to vote? Sure. Does it take away some legitimacy from the perfectly valid option of voicing one's opinion by electing not to vote? Somewhat. Considering how many people buy lottery tickets, will it work? Possibly. What concerns me is that this would appear to encourage voting for the sake of voting, rather than because you think Person A would do a better job at it. Then again, voting anymore looks more and more like team sports, in which votes are cast for either of the Big Two teams without actually bothering to learn about either party's platform. So the legitimacy that's actually involved here is probably somewhat negligible.
5. Turns out aviation authorities really like to pull "Just Kidding" forty minute delays. How hilarious.
*For other ways to feel more important than you are, please, consider blogging.
**I'm presuming that for six million, he can afford a lawn chair in which napping can be described as "comfortable" rather than "acrobatic in how I've not fallen off yet."
1. When I go to Pirates games, they win. When I don't, they lose. I suppose I could have made the same assumption earlier in the year with a mere thirty flukes, but this weekend drove home that point in a way I'm going to buy into so that it makes it seem like I'm more important than I am*. The games I went to were the kind of wins that we've not have any of this season, those in which we're actually fighting to stay in it and succeed, only to come up with the loss yesterday after giving up four runs in the eleventh when we'd managed to run out of relievers. As far as the lineup is concerned, I realize they were both pulled by the end of the game, but starting a lineup that includes both Cota and Burnitz is almost like Jim Tracy's attempt to make up for the fact that he can't bring in Vogelsong anymore. Maholm looked good
yesterday, but meh.
2. From the game on Saturday: If you're going to attend a baseball game, I'm fine with you yelling things, for the most part. Probably shouldn't be profane, but other than that, it's part of the experience of being a fan. That said, you should try to make it make some modicum of sense. By which I mean if you scream after every foul ball into the seats (two sections up) "Just catch it!" at Sean Casey (it appears you think he's either Spider-Man or is the kind of hometown guy that smiles a lot and reminds everyone of nice things and is capable of running screaming up the stairs for two sections, stomping on children), I'm going to want to hit you with something. I won't, but you should probably go ahead and shut up*. And yes. That goes for any player. It'd go for Burnitz, even though he'd probably be napping comfortably in a lawn chair.**
3. Sometimes, the people that are paid to find you an apartment are so stupendously bad at their task that they manage to make the fact that you have people that are willing to bail you out in the case of you not being able to actually do the whole apartment thing into something which actually disqualifies you from an apartment.
4. Some people in Arizona think it would be good times to turn the electoral process into a lottery. Is it bribery to get people to vote? Sure. Does it take away some legitimacy from the perfectly valid option of voicing one's opinion by electing not to vote? Somewhat. Considering how many people buy lottery tickets, will it work? Possibly. What concerns me is that this would appear to encourage voting for the sake of voting, rather than because you think Person A would do a better job at it. Then again, voting anymore looks more and more like team sports, in which votes are cast for either of the Big Two teams without actually bothering to learn about either party's platform. So the legitimacy that's actually involved here is probably somewhat negligible.
5. Turns out aviation authorities really like to pull "Just Kidding" forty minute delays. How hilarious.
*For other ways to feel more important than you are, please, consider blogging.
**I'm presuming that for six million, he can afford a lawn chair in which napping can be described as "comfortable" rather than "acrobatic in how I've not fallen off yet."
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
16-9?!
Three things today.
1) The Pirates. I could take last night's loss (Rockies 5, Pirates 4) and still feel pretty happy with what the team's been doing in the past few days. The Rockies have been doing better so far this year than they were last year (they're 29-30 this year over 59 games, while last year they were 20-39), and I can handle the loss given the level of play before, say, the San Diego series. Today's loss just made me very angry at Oliver Perez. When you give up nine runs in two innings of work in what turns out to be a 16-9 game, that's something that's going to happen though. I understand the guy gets really upset really easily and completely loses it, but allowing this to happen over and over again doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
2) The Pennsylvania House voted to implement a ban on gay and polygamous marriages in the Pennsylvania constitution. In order to be amended to the Pennsylvania constitution, it will have to achieve a majority (of 50) in the Pennsylvania senate, and then do it again in the next session of the General Assembly, and then hope that a majority of the electorate. A few issues.
So, while I agree that it's a state's rights issue, I'm sad that Pennsylvania legislators appear to want to go ahead and pass that. It's absurd that we're considering amending even the state Constitution to make sure that dudes that like each other can't enter a committed relationship with the same legal rights as they could if Ted were named Tina. I find it absolutely laughable that the legislators that have been hammering on this for the past few months are trying to pretend this isn't partisan posturing to attempt to reclaim a base of voters or simply to remind voters which team they're for (as I have trouble distinguishing anymore between how people relate to political parties and how people relate to sports teams), or to try to appeal to new voters based on a one issue stand, or, in PA's case, to get people to try to forget about the whole pay raise/unvouchered expenses thing. The President was correct when he said that the constitutional amendment probably wouldn't pass given the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act still exists, and allows states to not recognize out of state marriages despite the "full faith and credit" clause. If I were a backer of said plan to ban gay marriage, I'd feel used at this point, I think, given the zeal with which it was pursued until 2004, at which point it was dropped, only to be picked up again (without the context of the mayor of San Francisco giving marriage licenses out on his own and in the face of the banning of gay marriage in the past two years by everyone) right before 2006's elections.
3) Living in Chicago means I'm around a lot of Chicago sports fans. Cubs fans mostly, as I live on the north side and most NU students who didn't have a team before tend to default to the Cubs. And while most of my feeling bad about things time is spent on myself and the misery of being a Pirates fan, you'd think that this is probably pretty disheartening to most of them. Poor Kerry Wood.
1) The Pirates. I could take last night's loss (Rockies 5, Pirates 4) and still feel pretty happy with what the team's been doing in the past few days. The Rockies have been doing better so far this year than they were last year (they're 29-30 this year over 59 games, while last year they were 20-39), and I can handle the loss given the level of play before, say, the San Diego series. Today's loss just made me very angry at Oliver Perez. When you give up nine runs in two innings of work in what turns out to be a 16-9 game, that's something that's going to happen though. I understand the guy gets really upset really easily and completely loses it, but allowing this to happen over and over again doesn't seem like the right thing to do.
2) The Pennsylvania House voted to implement a ban on gay and polygamous marriages in the Pennsylvania constitution. In order to be amended to the Pennsylvania constitution, it will have to achieve a majority (of 50) in the Pennsylvania senate, and then do it again in the next session of the General Assembly, and then hope that a majority of the electorate. A few issues.
- I find it nonsensical that the proposed ban includes both same-sex marriage and polygamist marriage, as they're two separate cases. No, they're not as simple as "Oh, well they're both some sort of weird fetish, so they're the same," as William Saletan attempted to demonstrate. Including polygamy, however, does increase the likely hood that it'll pass, which is the only reason I can think it was included there.
- I find it unbelievable that this is something we're seriously talking about changing the constitution over. The federal marriage amendment failed earlier in the day, which I think is a plus, as at the very least this should be a states rights issue, but I think I'll have to defer to Lewis Black on this:
"On our list of national concerns, gay marriage should be on page six, right after 'Are we eating too much garlic as a people?'".
I, personally, think that marriage by the state between same sex couples should be allowed. No church should ever be forced to conform to a marriage definition they don't agree with, as that's absolutely ludicrous, but if Bill and Ted are 40 year old guys who are in a committed relationship, I find it hard to say "No Bill, you can't have visitation rights when Ted has a heart attack." Whichever church you believe to be the Truth doesn't want gays to get married? That's cool. Your church of choice doesn't have to let gays get married (and shouldn't have to, and won't have to as long as this whole "avoiding political influence in religious customs" thing stays on track). I just can't for the life of me figure out why that means that Bill and Ted, who are not members of your church, but of a church that allows for gay marriage, or not members of a religious denomination at all, should be denied the legal rights afforded to them if Ted was named Tina.
So, while I agree that it's a state's rights issue, I'm sad that Pennsylvania legislators appear to want to go ahead and pass that. It's absurd that we're considering amending even the state Constitution to make sure that dudes that like each other can't enter a committed relationship with the same legal rights as they could if Ted were named Tina. I find it absolutely laughable that the legislators that have been hammering on this for the past few months are trying to pretend this isn't partisan posturing to attempt to reclaim a base of voters or simply to remind voters which team they're for (as I have trouble distinguishing anymore between how people relate to political parties and how people relate to sports teams), or to try to appeal to new voters based on a one issue stand, or, in PA's case, to get people to try to forget about the whole pay raise/unvouchered expenses thing. The President was correct when he said that the constitutional amendment probably wouldn't pass given the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act still exists, and allows states to not recognize out of state marriages despite the "full faith and credit" clause. If I were a backer of said plan to ban gay marriage, I'd feel used at this point, I think, given the zeal with which it was pursued until 2004, at which point it was dropped, only to be picked up again (without the context of the mayor of San Francisco giving marriage licenses out on his own and in the face of the banning of gay marriage in the past two years by everyone) right before 2006's elections.
3) Living in Chicago means I'm around a lot of Chicago sports fans. Cubs fans mostly, as I live on the north side and most NU students who didn't have a team before tend to default to the Cubs. And while most of my feeling bad about things time is spent on myself and the misery of being a Pirates fan, you'd think that this is probably pretty disheartening to most of them. Poor Kerry Wood.
Friday, May 19, 2006
The Northwestern Soccer thing.
I tend not to get around to posting about news stories until they've been thoroughly gutted by the press, and the backlash has already occurred. That's not purposefully done to try to somehow get the last word on a subject, as I'd much rather blog about this kind of stuff when it's still going on, but because I'm trying to get these syntheses to work and because I've got the attention span of something with almost no attentions span, it's somewhat difficult to get around to typing something out.
But here we go anyway.
As most of you know (as the people that read this blog tend to be people that know me personally), I'm doing my thing at Northwestern University, which has been, if you hadn't seen, in the news a bit lately for the actions of one of the sports teams. Namely, the girls soccer team. During some form of event about a week back, the girls soccer team apparently blindfolded and bound the hands of the freshman players, drew things on them in marker and evidently had them do vaguely sexual things while remaining clothed. Someone posted those pictures on the web, and since then have been the subject of most of the coverage of Northwestern sports. Said photos have sinced moved elsewhere, and the entire soccer team has been suspended.
My opinion:
Sure, no one got hurt, and, according to at least one player in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, no one was forced to do anything and in the pictures everyone's smiling and happiness was never borne out quite so perfectly as when one is trashed and has phalluses written on their cheek. Or something. The problem here is twofold, for me. First, they know there are hazing regulations that the University enforces. It enforces them for a reason and by agreeing to be a member of the sports team, they're agreeing to abide by the University's policies. So I honestly don't understand the shock at being suspended for this. If the policies had been voted on and never announced, or if they hadn't existed but the University decided to come down on everyone anyway, then maybe some shock. As it stands, they should have known at least not to post pictures of what they were doing where people that might care and punish them could find them.
The second bit is that i disagree with hazing across the board, and support zero-tolerance policies where hazing is concerned. Was anyone forced to get drunk and have stuff written on them against their will? Probably not. But hazing tends to have a way of forcing people to conform to what everyone's doing without saying much at all. It could even take the form of an event in which the participants are told they can sit out. People being hazed are simply more likely to go along with it to avoid looking like someone that couldn't handle the task in front of their friends and people they respect enough to be in a situation where they could be getting hazed in the first place. While in this case the hazing appears to be relatively innocuous enough to the point that yes, the hazed were probably fine with being given free alcohol, the practice itself has a way of transforming into something that not all of the potentially hazed are okay with over time. While that would seem to constitute a slippery slope fallacy, caution, in the case of enforcement, must be the rule. Some may contend that this is about political correctness. Not wanting to make anyone feel bad, and so banning the practice of hazing outright, while it still may serve a function of binding the hazed together as a result of their ordeal. I do think that organizations that make a big deal about having to be humiliated or beaten to gain entrance to things should be held accountable for beating people, this is something that's much easier to have be a self policing kind of thing. That is, either the organization can elect not to do it on their own and use that as a selling point (in the case of Fraternities, who are competing for members), or kids can wake up and realize that getting beaten up/running around naked in the cold is something they don't have to go through, and that the organization that's going to do that to them may not have their best interests in mind. Let me then personalize this, move it away from the realm of policy enforcement and get to why I disagree with hazing.
For those of you who don't know me but are reading this blog and haven't been able to piece together from the links on the left side there that I was in a Fraternity in college, I was. It was good times and, if you can find a chapter that's worthy of having you as a member, I highly recommend it. And yet, because of the strict anti-hazing policy the Fraternity took, I never felt as though I was being pressured to do something against my will or in any way separate from anything that was being done by the seniors in the Fraternity. Bonds and brotherhood were formed, in the case of my class and those that preceeded and will follow (hopefully, that stance won't change) was necessarily left to discussion and the way any other friendship is formed, rather than through unification to get through an ordeal. I could never understand why, as a new member, being beaten with a stick or made to drink in a dark room (or whatever these kids are doing now) was something I would elect to go through to join a group. That is, possibly, a relic of the fact that my chapter had been recently reformed, and so there was a lot more pressure on the Fraternity to sell itself to prospectives, but I just can't understand why I'd elect to run around naked with a bucket of gasoline or something when I could just as easily tell this group of people that want my money or athletic skill to eat it.
To summarize, if you want to be in a Greek organization or soccer team or something, that's cool. You shouldn't have to jump through any crazy hoops to get there. Testing devotion of new members is pointless through hazing, I think, as it can be done in much more efficient ways that don't isolate the new members and beat up on them.
Then again, I must be missing something, as a lot of these kids seem very willing to undergo bodily harm for the organization of their choice.
Oh, addendum.
When are people going to learn to stop putting up pictures of being general schmucks up on the internet? I can't read a news site anymore without hearing about how so-and-so hazed their freshmen/did massive amounts of drugs/burnt down buildings/whatever, took pictures of it and then posted the incriminating evidence on their damn Myspace. Here's a tip kids. Just because you're posting something on your own private computer, in your own private dorm room with your private door shut or, alternatively, in your own private basement/apartment/account on an computer in a library doesn't mean that that content is somehow not available to the entire world now. Don't want to get caught for having thirty pounds of marijuana? Don't post pictures of it on your Myspace now that it's common knowledge that law enforcement officials browse it to find idiots that post pictures of things they shouldn't.?
But here we go anyway.
As most of you know (as the people that read this blog tend to be people that know me personally), I'm doing my thing at Northwestern University, which has been, if you hadn't seen, in the news a bit lately for the actions of one of the sports teams. Namely, the girls soccer team. During some form of event about a week back, the girls soccer team apparently blindfolded and bound the hands of the freshman players, drew things on them in marker and evidently had them do vaguely sexual things while remaining clothed. Someone posted those pictures on the web, and since then have been the subject of most of the coverage of Northwestern sports. Said photos have sinced moved elsewhere, and the entire soccer team has been suspended.
My opinion:
Sure, no one got hurt, and, according to at least one player in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, no one was forced to do anything and in the pictures everyone's smiling and happiness was never borne out quite so perfectly as when one is trashed and has phalluses written on their cheek. Or something. The problem here is twofold, for me. First, they know there are hazing regulations that the University enforces. It enforces them for a reason and by agreeing to be a member of the sports team, they're agreeing to abide by the University's policies. So I honestly don't understand the shock at being suspended for this. If the policies had been voted on and never announced, or if they hadn't existed but the University decided to come down on everyone anyway, then maybe some shock. As it stands, they should have known at least not to post pictures of what they were doing where people that might care and punish them could find them.
The second bit is that i disagree with hazing across the board, and support zero-tolerance policies where hazing is concerned. Was anyone forced to get drunk and have stuff written on them against their will? Probably not. But hazing tends to have a way of forcing people to conform to what everyone's doing without saying much at all. It could even take the form of an event in which the participants are told they can sit out. People being hazed are simply more likely to go along with it to avoid looking like someone that couldn't handle the task in front of their friends and people they respect enough to be in a situation where they could be getting hazed in the first place. While in this case the hazing appears to be relatively innocuous enough to the point that yes, the hazed were probably fine with being given free alcohol, the practice itself has a way of transforming into something that not all of the potentially hazed are okay with over time. While that would seem to constitute a slippery slope fallacy, caution, in the case of enforcement, must be the rule. Some may contend that this is about political correctness. Not wanting to make anyone feel bad, and so banning the practice of hazing outright, while it still may serve a function of binding the hazed together as a result of their ordeal. I do think that organizations that make a big deal about having to be humiliated or beaten to gain entrance to things should be held accountable for beating people, this is something that's much easier to have be a self policing kind of thing. That is, either the organization can elect not to do it on their own and use that as a selling point (in the case of Fraternities, who are competing for members), or kids can wake up and realize that getting beaten up/running around naked in the cold is something they don't have to go through, and that the organization that's going to do that to them may not have their best interests in mind. Let me then personalize this, move it away from the realm of policy enforcement and get to why I disagree with hazing.
For those of you who don't know me but are reading this blog and haven't been able to piece together from the links on the left side there that I was in a Fraternity in college, I was. It was good times and, if you can find a chapter that's worthy of having you as a member, I highly recommend it. And yet, because of the strict anti-hazing policy the Fraternity took, I never felt as though I was being pressured to do something against my will or in any way separate from anything that was being done by the seniors in the Fraternity. Bonds and brotherhood were formed, in the case of my class and those that preceeded and will follow (hopefully, that stance won't change) was necessarily left to discussion and the way any other friendship is formed, rather than through unification to get through an ordeal. I could never understand why, as a new member, being beaten with a stick or made to drink in a dark room (or whatever these kids are doing now) was something I would elect to go through to join a group. That is, possibly, a relic of the fact that my chapter had been recently reformed, and so there was a lot more pressure on the Fraternity to sell itself to prospectives, but I just can't understand why I'd elect to run around naked with a bucket of gasoline or something when I could just as easily tell this group of people that want my money or athletic skill to eat it.
To summarize, if you want to be in a Greek organization or soccer team or something, that's cool. You shouldn't have to jump through any crazy hoops to get there. Testing devotion of new members is pointless through hazing, I think, as it can be done in much more efficient ways that don't isolate the new members and beat up on them.
Then again, I must be missing something, as a lot of these kids seem very willing to undergo bodily harm for the organization of their choice.
Oh, addendum.
When are people going to learn to stop putting up pictures of being general schmucks up on the internet? I can't read a news site anymore without hearing about how so-and-so hazed their freshmen/did massive amounts of drugs/burnt down buildings/whatever, took pictures of it and then posted the incriminating evidence on their damn Myspace. Here's a tip kids. Just because you're posting something on your own private computer, in your own private dorm room with your private door shut or, alternatively, in your own private basement/apartment/account on an computer in a library doesn't mean that that content is somehow not available to the entire world now. Don't want to get caught for having thirty pounds of marijuana? Don't post pictures of it on your Myspace now that it's common knowledge that law enforcement officials browse it to find idiots that post pictures of things they shouldn't.?
Monday, April 24, 2006
It's late!
So now that I’ve got a moment to write in this thing, Blogger’s down. C’est la thing.
Some updates in what’s going on.
I’ve just given my group meeting, which means I can stop freaking out about giving my group meeting until, oh, late September. There are some things I’ve got to work on, but overall, things are going well with research. Until this weekend. We’re moving, you see, to the building across the way where I’ll have a seat next to a ground floor window, a desk much closer to where I’m actually doing research than I’ve got set up right now, and the most incredible lab chairs in history. The downside is that the next week is going to be somewhat hectic as we try to pack up the entire lab and move it, while cleaning. And that this weekend, vacuum lines were shut down, meaning I couldn’t do much. Sadness. On the upside, once again, chairs.
I have quite a lot to complain about with my current domicile (and will probably have about the same luck when I move into a new place this September) but at least the Earth has not yet opened up to devour my building. Knock on wood. Or particle board. Whatever the hell this thing is.
It appears a new petition has been drafted calling for what would essentially be a revival of the Federal Marriage amendment though this time it’s not evangelical Protestants, but Catholics that have signed this petition, which seems like it's a bit of non-news, at least in the sense that yes, we were already quite aware that same-sex marriage is against the beliefs of several churches, and that's cool. While I understand and certainly respect the right of those that believe homosexuality is evil to hold that belief, I just cannot comprehend the idea of then effectively legislating that belief. I have absolutely no problem with individual churches deciding that they’re not going to grant marriages to same sex couples. Any law that would grant homosexuals the right to marry one another that would force any church to do so is clearly unconstitutional, and that’s not what anyone’s talking about. That’s entirely their prerogative, and if it’s their belief that to do so would be directly contradictory to their faith, that’s cool. They’re not hurting anyone, really, as in becoming a member of a church, you're accepting its beliefs, and if one of their beliefs is that gays can't marry (or form relationships), it's kind of nonsensical to call yourself a part of that church and then prattle on about them being discriminatory. By somewhat, I mean completely. If you're not down with how a church views gays, then don't be a part of that church. I have, however, yet to hear a solid argument that entirely avoids both the arguments of religion and tradition and gives me a good reason why Jack and Bill shouldn’t be able to get the whole power of attorney deal.
Why would I require that the reasoning be non-religous and non-traditional? Because atheists get married all the time as long as they're of opposite sexes (as do billions of people of any number of faiths, so tying it to a single faith or even a subset is silly), and when you start applying tradition to things like who's allowed to date whom, things get prejudicial.
I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I just can’t get past the whole “legislating religion” deal that must go along with this. It’s not a matter of letting people run rampant with all sorts of crazy marriages. Presumably, just the opposite, allowing homosexual marriage would allow for at least some shedding of the conception of gays as people who have sex with anything and everything. As William Saletan argues, it’s not akin to allowing polygamy, as marriage between members of the same sex is not the arbitrary decision to stick marriage at “two” but rather to put it at “one”, as in “devotion to one spouse”, which is what it is now. Frankly, I’m not so sure banning gay marriage is about that so much as it is the ability to control and wield power over a decidedly small portion of the population. In the political sense, not the religious sense. In the religious sense, it’s simply “we don’t do that.”, and I’m down with that.
Summary: Some religious leaders have petitioned for the banning of same sex marriage. I support their right to do so, believe it’s a perfectly rational extension of their beliefs. I think they’d probably be remiss if they didn’t. At the same time, I don’t believe that banning gay marriage is the right course of action, at least from a completely secular, "go down to city hall and they let Frank visit Alexei in the hospital when Alexei falls ill" standpoint. To me, from a strictly non-relgious standpoint, it appears to be the same as being allowed to marry anyone else. And I can't quite see how chromosomes (or genitalia, though I'm not certain about what the current legal state of marriage between a man and a male-to-female post-op transsexual is) should decide whether one can put one down on their insurance.
Baseball:
Damn Pirates. I don’t know what kind of state of mind you have to be in to consider putting Jose Hernandez at third over both Joe Randa (who has had some good defensive work this year, and hasn’t been sucking out loud at the plate really) and Freddy Sanchez (who I’d like to see out there from the start, so that the first inning is only a three run Astros lead, as Berkman doesn’t reach on something Hernandez would have had if he weren’t daydreaming about why Jack Wilson is so completely non-photogenic. Going onto the Pirates message board on MLB.com right now is like entering into a battlefield. A battlefield with incredibly low morale where the infantry has decided to shell itself for kicks.
Who knew.
I’m going to bed.
Some updates in what’s going on.
I’ve just given my group meeting, which means I can stop freaking out about giving my group meeting until, oh, late September. There are some things I’ve got to work on, but overall, things are going well with research. Until this weekend. We’re moving, you see, to the building across the way where I’ll have a seat next to a ground floor window, a desk much closer to where I’m actually doing research than I’ve got set up right now, and the most incredible lab chairs in history. The downside is that the next week is going to be somewhat hectic as we try to pack up the entire lab and move it, while cleaning. And that this weekend, vacuum lines were shut down, meaning I couldn’t do much. Sadness. On the upside, once again, chairs.
I have quite a lot to complain about with my current domicile (and will probably have about the same luck when I move into a new place this September) but at least the Earth has not yet opened up to devour my building. Knock on wood. Or particle board. Whatever the hell this thing is.
It appears a new petition has been drafted calling for what would essentially be a revival of the Federal Marriage amendment though this time it’s not evangelical Protestants, but Catholics that have signed this petition, which seems like it's a bit of non-news, at least in the sense that yes, we were already quite aware that same-sex marriage is against the beliefs of several churches, and that's cool. While I understand and certainly respect the right of those that believe homosexuality is evil to hold that belief, I just cannot comprehend the idea of then effectively legislating that belief. I have absolutely no problem with individual churches deciding that they’re not going to grant marriages to same sex couples. Any law that would grant homosexuals the right to marry one another that would force any church to do so is clearly unconstitutional, and that’s not what anyone’s talking about. That’s entirely their prerogative, and if it’s their belief that to do so would be directly contradictory to their faith, that’s cool. They’re not hurting anyone, really, as in becoming a member of a church, you're accepting its beliefs, and if one of their beliefs is that gays can't marry (or form relationships), it's kind of nonsensical to call yourself a part of that church and then prattle on about them being discriminatory. By somewhat, I mean completely. If you're not down with how a church views gays, then don't be a part of that church. I have, however, yet to hear a solid argument that entirely avoids both the arguments of religion and tradition and gives me a good reason why Jack and Bill shouldn’t be able to get the whole power of attorney deal.
Why would I require that the reasoning be non-religous and non-traditional? Because atheists get married all the time as long as they're of opposite sexes (as do billions of people of any number of faiths, so tying it to a single faith or even a subset is silly), and when you start applying tradition to things like who's allowed to date whom, things get prejudicial.
I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I just can’t get past the whole “legislating religion” deal that must go along with this. It’s not a matter of letting people run rampant with all sorts of crazy marriages. Presumably, just the opposite, allowing homosexual marriage would allow for at least some shedding of the conception of gays as people who have sex with anything and everything. As William Saletan argues, it’s not akin to allowing polygamy, as marriage between members of the same sex is not the arbitrary decision to stick marriage at “two” but rather to put it at “one”, as in “devotion to one spouse”, which is what it is now. Frankly, I’m not so sure banning gay marriage is about that so much as it is the ability to control and wield power over a decidedly small portion of the population. In the political sense, not the religious sense. In the religious sense, it’s simply “we don’t do that.”, and I’m down with that.
Summary: Some religious leaders have petitioned for the banning of same sex marriage. I support their right to do so, believe it’s a perfectly rational extension of their beliefs. I think they’d probably be remiss if they didn’t. At the same time, I don’t believe that banning gay marriage is the right course of action, at least from a completely secular, "go down to city hall and they let Frank visit Alexei in the hospital when Alexei falls ill" standpoint. To me, from a strictly non-relgious standpoint, it appears to be the same as being allowed to marry anyone else. And I can't quite see how chromosomes (or genitalia, though I'm not certain about what the current legal state of marriage between a man and a male-to-female post-op transsexual is) should decide whether one can put one down on their insurance.
Baseball:
Damn Pirates. I don’t know what kind of state of mind you have to be in to consider putting Jose Hernandez at third over both Joe Randa (who has had some good defensive work this year, and hasn’t been sucking out loud at the plate really) and Freddy Sanchez (who I’d like to see out there from the start, so that the first inning is only a three run Astros lead, as Berkman doesn’t reach on something Hernandez would have had if he weren’t daydreaming about why Jack Wilson is so completely non-photogenic. Going onto the Pirates message board on MLB.com right now is like entering into a battlefield. A battlefield with incredibly low morale where the infantry has decided to shell itself for kicks.
Who knew.
I’m going to bed.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Majoring in Florida
So here's the thing. I'm not a big supporter of Jeb Bush, usually. I'm not so sure that's the case in this specific instance. Quick overview, Jeb wants to start having high schoolers declare a major.
Schoolers? Is that right?
Schooners.
"You know what? There is no Easter Bunny! That over there's just a guy in a suit!"
Ok. Back to the task at hand.
On the one hand, this could very easily turn into a lot of stress for a lot of kids, mostly in pressure from parents who want their kid to be a doctor, and so force the young'n to major in bio or, if they're particularly awesome, chemistry. And that's not good times.
On the other hand, I think that students should be allowed to self-design their curriculum as long as certain minimum criteria are still being met. I like the concept of having to have a minor, so long as that minor is in a field disparate from that of the major. I really do support the concept of a liberal arts education, and think that I benefited from having to go through all of that German/Econ/Psych junk at Allegheny. I disagree with Jebuchadnezzar that this'll stop, or significantly decrease dropouts, but I'll let him have that. If implemented properly, I don't see how it would be much different than the already existing vocational programs, except that it would allow kids that are really into chemistry study more chemistry, those that are really into english focus on that and those that are really into machining work on machining.
Then again, college students can be really stressed out, and many probably don't need that extra pressure. Those that are really driven to study whatever are going to do that regardless of whether there's an actual system designed for them (and they shall weep when I fail them on their lab reports, and such), and they might be successful at that (e.g. R. B.) or they might have an anyeurism, but that's independent of what's going on here, I think.
Final Verdict: Interesting experiment. You Floridians tell me how you like that.
Schoolers? Is that right?
Schooners.
"You know what? There is no Easter Bunny! That over there's just a guy in a suit!"
Ok. Back to the task at hand.
On the one hand, this could very easily turn into a lot of stress for a lot of kids, mostly in pressure from parents who want their kid to be a doctor, and so force the young'n to major in bio or, if they're particularly awesome, chemistry. And that's not good times.
On the other hand, I think that students should be allowed to self-design their curriculum as long as certain minimum criteria are still being met. I like the concept of having to have a minor, so long as that minor is in a field disparate from that of the major. I really do support the concept of a liberal arts education, and think that I benefited from having to go through all of that German/Econ/Psych junk at Allegheny. I disagree with Jebuchadnezzar that this'll stop, or significantly decrease dropouts, but I'll let him have that. If implemented properly, I don't see how it would be much different than the already existing vocational programs, except that it would allow kids that are really into chemistry study more chemistry, those that are really into english focus on that and those that are really into machining work on machining.
Then again, college students can be really stressed out, and many probably don't need that extra pressure. Those that are really driven to study whatever are going to do that regardless of whether there's an actual system designed for them (and they shall weep when I fail them on their lab reports, and such), and they might be successful at that (e.g. R. B.) or they might have an anyeurism, but that's independent of what's going on here, I think.
Final Verdict: Interesting experiment. You Floridians tell me how you like that.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Planner
I don't think I get it.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't get it. It, of course, being the reason that I'm just not really coming up with much to write about in this blog lately. I try. Really I do. I'll get in little fits of ambition and cruise Fox News and CNN, only to learn that I really don't care about the Ports deal and think that, while natural disasters appear to occur more or less round-the-clock, there's not much to say about them. Yes. They're bad times. But more than that, they don't make for very interesting blogging.
I will say that I am excited that I'm finally done with Winter Quarter (though my grades aren't up yet, Northwestern. As you're reading this, you big anthropomorphic degree-granting institution, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know how I ended up doing in Bioorganic. Thanks. Now, if you'll remember, "I'm done".) So I've only got one class left, got out of this one alive, and can finally get some actual progress on the synthesis of these probes.
It just seems that I'd have something, not always witty, but at least something last summer, when this blog really took off in earnest. Maybe McDonalds is thousands of times more exciting than Northwestern (It's not. If you're at McDonalds, I'd advise you to instead move to Chicago) or maybe the diminished social interaction that goes along with working these damned hours is to blame (again, not likely as I'm a hermit at home too). Perhaps I just have less time recently to poke around on the internet until I find something worth commenting on.
But enough of that for right now.
On to the interesting things.
In fads, culturebox examines the appeal of Whole Foods, which, if you're not familiar, is an "organic food store" that is prohibitively expensive for, well, me, and is capitalizing on the craze over organic foods. Some reasonable points are made (Any ecological benefit derived from using a more earth-friendly fertilizer is effectively negated if the chemically fertilized stuff is from Jersey and the earth-friendly stuff is from Chile due to transportation, that if these foods really are better for us, increasing their price so drastically is akin to elitism, and that really, the claim that a vast majority of organic farmers are family farmers is playing with semantics), though for the most interesting point to my mind you'll have to go somewhere else. Namely, that you can call something "organic" if everything you put on it, in it, around it, or through it is found somewhere in nature.
So that quite a few of these additives are synthetic (not that there's anything actually inherently wrong with synthesized products).
Smoking cigarettes is really a disgusting habit that kills you, and I understand the importance of second-hand smoke legislature. Hell, I'll even go as far as to say I'm down with Chicago's recent ban on smoking in public buildings. Chicago's specific ban includes a restriction on smoking outside in one place, resulting in the bizarre march of the smoker, up and down the alley so as not to be in violation of standing outside a building and smoking, but Calabasas, I'm afraid I just can't agree. Sure, relegate cigarette smoke to a strictly private affair in one's own domicile or one one's property (so long as that property isn't right up against some public property), but this bit's a bit rich:
Smoking in one's car is allowed, unless the windows are open and someone nearby might be affected.
Nicotine addiction is a disease. Smokers are not within their rights to threaten the health of nonsmokers by smoking at them. But the fact that they're now forcing smokers to confine said deadly toxin (for slow release into the atmosphere through the ventilation of the car) in such a small space is just further damaging the health of the person who's smoking. Moreover, they're doing it in a big polluting metal machine. One wonders if they're not banning the smoking in cars thing such that the nearby person can enjoy the fresh, wonderful smell of car exhaust.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't get it. It, of course, being the reason that I'm just not really coming up with much to write about in this blog lately. I try. Really I do. I'll get in little fits of ambition and cruise Fox News and CNN, only to learn that I really don't care about the Ports deal and think that, while natural disasters appear to occur more or less round-the-clock, there's not much to say about them. Yes. They're bad times. But more than that, they don't make for very interesting blogging.
I will say that I am excited that I'm finally done with Winter Quarter (though my grades aren't up yet, Northwestern. As you're reading this, you big anthropomorphic degree-granting institution, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know how I ended up doing in Bioorganic. Thanks. Now, if you'll remember, "I'm done".) So I've only got one class left, got out of this one alive, and can finally get some actual progress on the synthesis of these probes.
It just seems that I'd have something, not always witty, but at least something last summer, when this blog really took off in earnest. Maybe McDonalds is thousands of times more exciting than Northwestern (It's not. If you're at McDonalds, I'd advise you to instead move to Chicago) or maybe the diminished social interaction that goes along with working these damned hours is to blame (again, not likely as I'm a hermit at home too). Perhaps I just have less time recently to poke around on the internet until I find something worth commenting on.
But enough of that for right now.
On to the interesting things.
In fads, culturebox examines the appeal of Whole Foods, which, if you're not familiar, is an "organic food store" that is prohibitively expensive for, well, me, and is capitalizing on the craze over organic foods. Some reasonable points are made (Any ecological benefit derived from using a more earth-friendly fertilizer is effectively negated if the chemically fertilized stuff is from Jersey and the earth-friendly stuff is from Chile due to transportation, that if these foods really are better for us, increasing their price so drastically is akin to elitism, and that really, the claim that a vast majority of organic farmers are family farmers is playing with semantics), though for the most interesting point to my mind you'll have to go somewhere else. Namely, that you can call something "organic" if everything you put on it, in it, around it, or through it is found somewhere in nature.
So that quite a few of these additives are synthetic (not that there's anything actually inherently wrong with synthesized products).
Smoking cigarettes is really a disgusting habit that kills you, and I understand the importance of second-hand smoke legislature. Hell, I'll even go as far as to say I'm down with Chicago's recent ban on smoking in public buildings. Chicago's specific ban includes a restriction on smoking outside in one place, resulting in the bizarre march of the smoker, up and down the alley so as not to be in violation of standing outside a building and smoking, but Calabasas, I'm afraid I just can't agree. Sure, relegate cigarette smoke to a strictly private affair in one's own domicile or one one's property (so long as that property isn't right up against some public property), but this bit's a bit rich:
Smoking in one's car is allowed, unless the windows are open and someone nearby might be affected.
Nicotine addiction is a disease. Smokers are not within their rights to threaten the health of nonsmokers by smoking at them. But the fact that they're now forcing smokers to confine said deadly toxin (for slow release into the atmosphere through the ventilation of the car) in such a small space is just further damaging the health of the person who's smoking. Moreover, they're doing it in a big polluting metal machine. One wonders if they're not banning the smoking in cars thing such that the nearby person can enjoy the fresh, wonderful smell of car exhaust.
Friday, March 17, 2006
V/WBC
So then there's that.
Finals are, for all intents and purposes, complete, though I will have to turn in a report on my work. So it goes. More importantly, two things:
Following my last final today, Bioorganic Chemistry and grading for a few hours for the undergraduate sophomore organic chemistry course's final, I had the pleasure of not having to pay for dinner for once. That is, Northwestern picked it up for me, as I'd been given the nod to take the prospective graduate students out for dinner with NU picking up the tab. Sometimes, I can dig it. Burgers at Nevin's is a good time. But that's not what inspired me to write this post. What did was what I did afterwards, which was, unfortunately, not picked up by Northwestern as it wasn't at all related to the students. I saw V for Vendetta, and enjoyed what I saw. Without regarding what it maintains the line of the comic books or not, I found it to be quite interesting, and an exciting action movie. Good for that.
What I'd like to take a second to respond to is the amount of bloggers and imdb.com message board patrons that are somehow twisting this into being a decisive attack on conservatives, others callling it an explicitly "anti-American" movie. Honestly, I have no idea what to make of that, mostly the second one. I'm not entirely surprised. Star Wars Ep. III was boycotted by some who viewed it as an explicitly anti-Bush film. Precisely the same sentiment appears to be popular now about V for Vendetta. I'll give them a bone here. At least V for Vendetta is actually somewhat political, and I believe it's mentioned somewhere that John Hurt's "Sutler" character was at one point a member of the Conservative Party of Britain (though two seconds later it makes it clear that he either left or was forced out, invented his own party which overtook both the Conservatives and Liberals in the UK, which is, if anything, a parallel to the NSDAP). Star Wars is Star Wars. But that doesn't justify the comparison. I know many really want this to be anti-American or anti-Conservative, as it then becomes another piece of the vast liberal plot to brainwash children out of making up their own minds, but it's just not. The big bad guys aren't conservatives. Or liberals. They're fascists. They're Big Brother. The Party. Singular and without distinction between conservatives or liberals or anything in between or outside of the relatively narrow conservative-liberal spectrum. It's Big Invasive Government. V's call for revolution against the militaristic, dictatorial and, here's the kicker, fictional government is nothing more than the demand that the citizens of a nation hold its Government accountable for what it's doing, not have to live in fear of being threatened or abducted by the government, and that maybe we shouldn't beat people with rods. The corrolary to that that I've seen in several places, that the movie is a movement for the Gay Agenda (now existing in a theater near you!) because it shows the beating and imprisonment of homosexuals by the government. Two points here. 1) Valerie's imprisonment is in the comic books, so it makes sense to include it here. 2) The point of the scenes with Valerie's letter isn't to convince people to flip their gay switch on, but to suggest that maybe we shouldn't beat people with rods and imprison them for digging on certain types of people.
The allegation that it's anti-American is just plain incomprehensible to me (unless one would like to make the claim that America is a fascist nation or that it should be and this negative depiction of fascism is clearly an attack on what America should be) or that V is a communist (mostly because the term communist has lost essentially all of its meaning because of its general application to people that one disagrees with. The interesting thing here is that I ran into a blog claiming this exact thing which attempted to use the posters as proof that V is a communist. Which is just ridiculous. They're propaganda type posters, but that's really more of a reference to the Big Brother type government. No. the fact that so much red is associated with the posters and imagery is not relevant either, as the V symbol and all the red and black is very clearly a reference to the symbol and colors of the general concept of anarchism. Which isn't communism.)
Furthermore, the "War" that the movie charges America with starting... I'm not counting that as an "anti-American" bit in the film or the book, nor am I willing to give credence to the conclusion that it is the current "War on Terror", more likely deferring to the fact that it more or less makes America a non-factor (which is important to the focus on why the UK is alone in all of this) and adds to the dystopia by tying up the US in civil war.
So:
Good movie.
Action. Some knife throwing. Natalie Portman's in it.
It's not anti-Conservative or anti-American. It's pointing out that totalitarian fascism probably isn't awesome. Essentially, 1984.
V's not a communist. He doesn't propose any other system of government, just that it'd be nice to be able to walk around without a curfew, and that citizens have a duty to hold their governments responsible for their actions.
I don't believe that anarchy is a viable system of government. Don't do it.
Proposing that beating homosexuals probably isn't cool doesn't make this a Gay Agenda (TM) piece.
So that's that.
Now. The important thing:
How the hell is the US out of the World Baseball Classic?! We're not supposed to lose. We did, essentially, everything we could to rig the damn thing, putting ourselves in an opening pool with Mexico, Canada and South Africa and structuring the tournament such that we wouldn't even have to think about facing any of the really threatening Latin American teams until they'd killed each other off. I just... what the hell.
That said, this thing is amazing. I'll be watching it until the end, and loving it.
Finals are, for all intents and purposes, complete, though I will have to turn in a report on my work. So it goes. More importantly, two things:
Following my last final today, Bioorganic Chemistry and grading for a few hours for the undergraduate sophomore organic chemistry course's final, I had the pleasure of not having to pay for dinner for once. That is, Northwestern picked it up for me, as I'd been given the nod to take the prospective graduate students out for dinner with NU picking up the tab. Sometimes, I can dig it. Burgers at Nevin's is a good time. But that's not what inspired me to write this post. What did was what I did afterwards, which was, unfortunately, not picked up by Northwestern as it wasn't at all related to the students. I saw V for Vendetta, and enjoyed what I saw. Without regarding what it maintains the line of the comic books or not, I found it to be quite interesting, and an exciting action movie. Good for that.
What I'd like to take a second to respond to is the amount of bloggers and imdb.com message board patrons that are somehow twisting this into being a decisive attack on conservatives, others callling it an explicitly "anti-American" movie. Honestly, I have no idea what to make of that, mostly the second one. I'm not entirely surprised. Star Wars Ep. III was boycotted by some who viewed it as an explicitly anti-Bush film. Precisely the same sentiment appears to be popular now about V for Vendetta. I'll give them a bone here. At least V for Vendetta is actually somewhat political, and I believe it's mentioned somewhere that John Hurt's "Sutler" character was at one point a member of the Conservative Party of Britain (though two seconds later it makes it clear that he either left or was forced out, invented his own party which overtook both the Conservatives and Liberals in the UK, which is, if anything, a parallel to the NSDAP). Star Wars is Star Wars. But that doesn't justify the comparison. I know many really want this to be anti-American or anti-Conservative, as it then becomes another piece of the vast liberal plot to brainwash children out of making up their own minds, but it's just not. The big bad guys aren't conservatives. Or liberals. They're fascists. They're Big Brother. The Party. Singular and without distinction between conservatives or liberals or anything in between or outside of the relatively narrow conservative-liberal spectrum. It's Big Invasive Government. V's call for revolution against the militaristic, dictatorial and, here's the kicker, fictional government is nothing more than the demand that the citizens of a nation hold its Government accountable for what it's doing, not have to live in fear of being threatened or abducted by the government, and that maybe we shouldn't beat people with rods. The corrolary to that that I've seen in several places, that the movie is a movement for the Gay Agenda (now existing in a theater near you!) because it shows the beating and imprisonment of homosexuals by the government. Two points here. 1) Valerie's imprisonment is in the comic books, so it makes sense to include it here. 2) The point of the scenes with Valerie's letter isn't to convince people to flip their gay switch on, but to suggest that maybe we shouldn't beat people with rods and imprison them for digging on certain types of people.
The allegation that it's anti-American is just plain incomprehensible to me (unless one would like to make the claim that America is a fascist nation or that it should be and this negative depiction of fascism is clearly an attack on what America should be) or that V is a communist (mostly because the term communist has lost essentially all of its meaning because of its general application to people that one disagrees with. The interesting thing here is that I ran into a blog claiming this exact thing which attempted to use the posters as proof that V is a communist. Which is just ridiculous. They're propaganda type posters, but that's really more of a reference to the Big Brother type government. No. the fact that so much red is associated with the posters and imagery is not relevant either, as the V symbol and all the red and black is very clearly a reference to the symbol and colors of the general concept of anarchism. Which isn't communism.)
Furthermore, the "War" that the movie charges America with starting... I'm not counting that as an "anti-American" bit in the film or the book, nor am I willing to give credence to the conclusion that it is the current "War on Terror", more likely deferring to the fact that it more or less makes America a non-factor (which is important to the focus on why the UK is alone in all of this) and adds to the dystopia by tying up the US in civil war.
So:
Good movie.
Action. Some knife throwing. Natalie Portman's in it.
It's not anti-Conservative or anti-American. It's pointing out that totalitarian fascism probably isn't awesome. Essentially, 1984.
V's not a communist. He doesn't propose any other system of government, just that it'd be nice to be able to walk around without a curfew, and that citizens have a duty to hold their governments responsible for their actions.
I don't believe that anarchy is a viable system of government. Don't do it.
Proposing that beating homosexuals probably isn't cool doesn't make this a Gay Agenda (TM) piece.
So that's that.
Now. The important thing:
How the hell is the US out of the World Baseball Classic?! We're not supposed to lose. We did, essentially, everything we could to rig the damn thing, putting ourselves in an opening pool with Mexico, Canada and South Africa and structuring the tournament such that we wouldn't even have to think about facing any of the really threatening Latin American teams until they'd killed each other off. I just... what the hell.
That said, this thing is amazing. I'll be watching it until the end, and loving it.
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