Sometimes there aren't words

I'm having an incredibly hard time forming a coherent response to this Rolling Stone article.

This is an important thing for people to read, because this is happening, here, in America. This isn't happening off in some third-world hellhole where they live under religious law and stone adulterers; this is happening here in America where our religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution and adulterers run for the highest office in the federal government. This is modern America. This is a town that might be pretty similar to where you live, and unspeakably horrible things like this are happening there. We need to know about this, because we need to make it fucking stop.

Most of my reaction involves obscenities directed at people who wage idiotic, baseless emotional war against children. If I need to explain why it is completely and wholly unacceptable for anyone to ever try to emotionally compromise a child, then I have nothing to say to you.

Back from the dead for a very important birthday message

It's that time of year again - time for us to throw some dead animals on a fire, drink a juice made from fermented flowers and shoot some explosives pointlessly into the air, all in honor of the fact that around this time 235 years ago, a bunch of passionate (or crazy, or both, depending on your point of view), brilliant men wrote a document saying "Enough is enough." Sitting there in the heat and the humidity (and boy, in the past month or so have I learned about heat and humidity), fifty-six men decided that the injustices rained upon them by Great Britain were no longer tolerable - and as such, the nation of United States of America would no longer sit back and accept it. "...all men are created equal," they wrote. Britain refused to treat them as such, and so it was natural, the morally right thing, to dissolve all bonds uniting them.

Simple, really. Brilliant. Unprecedented, at the time. World-changing.

It's been a rough year, yet again. Our economy still stumbles. We've had tornados and floods, political scandals and conflicts. Our government nearly shut down. We've made significant leaps towards equality in some arenas - soon gay, lesbian and bisexuals will be allowed to serve openly in the military, and can now get married in six states. Six out of forty-four may not seem like a lot, but consider that sodomy was illegal (and such laws were selectively enforced only against same-sex couples) within the past decade, and the progress is clear.

25,000 American soldiers died during that first war. Today we still have troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan; more than 6,000 of them have died. This resonates more with me this year than it did last - petty, perhaps, but at the end of January I raised my right hand and swore to spend the next four years in uniform, protecting and upholding the Constitution against all enemies. And in April one of my friends, who I've known since the first day of college six years ago, deployed to Afghanistan. Many of my new friends will be heading over there in the next six months. I may be myself.

It's a funny country we have here. We began with those words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." and proceeded, for 236 years, to refuse to treat all men equally. This is a nation that was born in the mud and fire and pain and heartbreak of war, a war we were thoroughly unprepared for, that we went into without an idea of what came after the war - and here we are, two and a half centuries later, doing the same thing, plunging headfirst into war after war. Some may be morally justified, truly fighting for the ideals our nation was founded upon. Some may be fought for vague and muddy, nebulous reasons. Do we always get it right? No, not by a long shot. But sometimes we do.

So here's to Jefferson and Franklin and Adams. To the fights we've fought for the right reasons - for freedom and liberty. To those who've fought in uniform, in the press, and in the streets; those who've fought against fighting and stood resolute and said that they will not raise up arms, that their fight will forever be one of words and ideas but never violence. To the flag on the moon and Francis Scott Key's flag which still hangs in our nation's capitol. To all the patches on the quilt - the colors and ideas and conflicts and contradictions that make up this country. We have been many things, and will continue to be many things, and someday maybe we'll figure out what we are.

Congratulations! It's a representative democracy!

Well, it's that time of year again: time to cook some dead animals over open flames, drink beer, and then maybe watch some things blow up in the sky.

It's been a rough year for you, America. That's inevitable, I suppose, when you're a nation founded on the idea that every man has the right to stand up and speak his mind, and every man has the right to seek his own fortune. Now don't get me wrong - a dictatorship might look tidier, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Recently I've been reading a bit about America's western expansion. An odd time in our history, wasn't it? On one hand, it was a time of pure possibility: there was a hell of a lot of country out there, and if you could gather your things up and get a horse, well - go find your slice of it! But at the same time, amidst all this passion and hope and enthusiasm, it was at best overlooked that there were already people living there; at worst they were forcibly relocated, starved out (intentionally or not), or just plain killed.

So we've kind of always been a nation of mixed messages - we are all Americans! every man for himself! - and this year has been no different. Right now, of course, one of the biggest stories is the BP oil spill in the Gulf, which is the largest accidental oil spill in history and unquestionably the worst environmental disaster in American history and quite likely in the world. We've got people drawing Hitler mustaches on pictures of the first non-white president (which is...uh, logically questionable), shouting that we can't possibly offer some sort of state-run health insurance (other than Medicare, Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, the VA, health care for active-duty military members and their dependents and SCHIP), and pulling over brown-skinned people and asking for their papers (not to mention what happens if you're a different shade of brown and try to get on an airplane). And our economy, of course, is still somewhere south of awful, with no meaningful recover on the immediate horizon.

So, yeah, a rough year. And that's part of why I tend to have a kind of hard time with the 4th of July as it's celebrated. Celebrate our freedom, sure. Commemorate both the political minds who had the audacity to declare "Sorry, George, we're a free and independent nation" and those who fought on the ground for it. And enjoy and use that freedom that people fought for: have fun, take a day off work, say what's on your mind. But don't forget that we're not perfect, and to claim we are leads down a dangerous road.

And yeah, we've got some good stuff going for us. We've got a non-white president, and no matter what: we've got the freedom to draw a Hitler mustache on a picture of him, and we've got the freedom to tell the mustache-drawers that their thoughts are moronic. And when it comes down to it, today is a holiday because 234 years ago, a group of men sat down and said, "Our government has failed us, so we no longer recognize them as our government. We tried to reconcile things peacefully, and that didn't work, so we're taking matters into our own hands." No colony had ever declared themselves to be an independent state before, and certainly no rag-tag band of thrown-together militias had ever dreamt of successfully taking on the British forces. But they did it and - god almighty, it worked. I grew up less than ten miles from where Mr. Jefferson took Mr. Locke's philosophy and turned it into something real, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But here's my other problem with celebrating the 4th of July the way we do: when those 56 men signed that piece of paper, they were committing treason and effectively declaring war against the greatest military force in the world. When George Washington had the Declaration read to his troops in New York, there were British forces camped within sight. Imagine that: you're a soldier in the Continental Army in 1776 - which quite possibly means you were no more than a teenager. There you are, in a scruffy uniform, camped in the oppressive New England summer in New York, and you can see the greatest military force in the world, right there, waiting. And then here comes your general, and he reads out a document that declares that this is not some little uprising, and this will not be just a series of small skirmishes. This is war, and not just that but a war of ideas. This is about liberty and freedom and self-determination; this is about the fact that we will not yield to your tyranny.

And then the British responded: we will not leave. We do not accept your declaration.

And so they fought. 25,000 American soldiers died. 20,000 British sailors died. 7,500 Germans died. Some of those soldiers died in combat. More of them died from illness - from cold, from starvation, from scurvy and smallpox and pneumonia and everything else that thrives in big groups living in close quarters, in the cold, with no clean water, under tremendous stress. Over fifty thousand people - almost entirely men, mostly young - dead. Because of what was written on a piece of paper and signed on July 4th.

Was it worth it? As much as a death in war can be worth anything, absolutely. Had those men not died we would have no concept of political freedom like we do today; the closest anyone had come was promising limited rights to the rich elite, via the Magna Carta. If ever there was a war which made the future better, it was the Revolutionary War. But it was still a war. Young men still died. Families were still torn apart. Tens of thousands of lives were shattered.

So - keep that in mind. Enjoy what you have and celebrate that you have it. Take a look at the actual Declaration - it's truly a masterpiece and well worth reading. And take a moment, just a few seconds even, to remember that this day commemorates not just freedom, but a war. That American independence did not just happen; the British were in no rush to let it be taken. Maybe they fought because they truly believed in American independence, in that je ne sais quois that is America and not Britain. Or maybe they just knew they were asked to fight, so they did. Or maybe they were pressed into service. Or they were simply young and looking for something to do. It doesn't matter why, because in the end, they either lived, or they died. That's worth remembering, even now.

Ah, for the simple days of alien invasions

I'm working at this church, and one of my responsibilities at work is to put together the "order of service" - the little 'program' handed out every Sunday morning that tells people what songs and hymns are being sung and who's singing and so on and so forth. People email me all that information, I pretty it up and print it out.

Of course the theme this Sunday will be, well, the fourth of July. People will speak about patriots and revolutionaries from within this church and there'll be lots of terrible patriotic songs and so on. I got it early this week - I don't normally until Friday - and so I'm taking my time with it, trying to make it readable and, most importantly, hunting for some nice patriotic clip-art for the cover. It's printed brochure-style, on a legal-sized piece of paper folded in half, and the front page has the name of the church and the date and the ministers name and so on, and some vaguely-thematic picture.

So, to Google I go! "Fourth of July" gives me lots of animated GIFs and pictures of hot dogs, which aren't really doing anything for me. I tweak my search terms. I get a sudden thrill of joy...before the cold knowledge of reality smacks me down.

It probably would not be appropriate to put the movie poster from the film Independence Day - either the version which depicts a giant alien spaceship blowing up New York City, or the version which depicts a giant alien spaceship blowing up the White House - on the cover of this. Will Smith sitting on top of a smaller alien space ship smoking a cigar, having just punched an alien in the face and shouted "Welcome to Earth!", is probably also inappropriate.

Inappropriate - especially considering that the average age in this congregation is, like, 80 - yet oh so very tempting.

ETA: Further things which are probably inappropriate: Captain America, a derogatory map of "the world according to America", a picture of Mickey Mouse saluting a flag, Obama with a Hitler mustache, an image of the Twin Towers superimposed on an American Flag, an image of fireworks with the words "Armed citizens used assault weapons to fight tyrannical and oppressive government", a rather attractive young lady wearing tight-fitting jeans and an American-flag-print bikini top throwing up a peace sign while standing in a wheat field, a picture of Mario reaching the end of a level and bringing down the American flag next to the castle, an attractive young woman wearing *only* an American flag, a dog dressed as a WWII-era soldier in front of an American flag, and a kitten in an American-flag hammock. Internet = weird.

Second edit: Also, while it is vaguely thematic in that it has the Liberty Bell on it, it would probably be frowned upon if I used the Phillies' logo.

To the idiot on the internet who are WRONG

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IS NOT A LEGALLY BINDING DOCUMENT.

Citing it in a debate is roughly as worthwhile as citing the little trivia blurbs under the lid of your bottle of Snapple. Yes, it's a brilliantly written document of unprecedented importance, and yes it's full of good ideas like "all men are created equal" and the general idea that tyranny is bad and that if you're living under a tyrant you have not only the right but the absolute obligation to tell said tyrant to go to hell. That does not mean that it's valid as legal precedent, or that the words contained within that document are federal law, or anything of that sort.

This nearly made me put my fist through the table during seminar (Lincoln, I think) at St. John's and now I need to yell at the internet about it too.

In honor of the holiday I'm drinking some British tea.

Happy birthday, America, you magnificent bastard. It's been not a bad year for you. There's been better, but there's been worse.

This year saw your economy collapse, which surprised far, far more people than it should have. A cynic could say it was just desserts for your unquenchable thirst for more, and that it was purely your fault. That cynic may be right, but the more gentle soul will argue that lots of people who had the least lost the most, and had no role in creating the disaster. The cynic may respond that that's certainly not the first time your poor bore the greatest burden for a problem they did not create, and again, the cynic may be right. The gentle soul can only hope that you'll finally begin to learn from it.

This year saw the tail end of a presidential election, one that brought lots of contentious and sometimes ugly issues to the forefront, one that saw record voter turnout and - quite improbably - a black man elected as president. For perspective, the White House where he now lives and works was built in the late 1700s primarily by black slaves and a few months before Mr. Obama was born, a number of people were severely beaten for suggesting that different races didn't need different buses. So that's some pretty good progress.

Meanwhile we've had a bit of back-and-forth on the issue of equal rights for gays and lesbians. Some states have taken monumental steps in granting those equal rights; others have gone in the exact opposite direction. It was only a few years ago that it was ruled that consenting adults can have whatever type of sex they want with each other, though, so the issue is still young.

So the year's been a mixed bag. There's been some great things - oh, did I mention that the Phillies won the world series? God bless baseball - and some not so great things. The nation has not collapsed, we're beginning to withdraw from one of our messes of a war, and even thought many things are bad, there's still that curiously American sense of 'Yeah, but we'll get through it.' Because this is a country born of the most improbably circumstances, a band of ragtag idealists and extremists who decided to poke their huge, hulking overlord in the eye - and then keep poking, and eventually escape his grasp. This is the nation which, after building it's capital on the backs of slaves, elected a black man president. This is the nation that learned that drafting people into military service to fight preemptive was is a bad idea, but hasn't yet learned how not to start needless wars. It's the country that loves sports, but went ahead and invented it's own damn games.

Today I'm going to listen to a ball game, go to a barbecue, drink some beer, and of course engage in that all-American pasttime of blowing things up in the sky. Why? Because 233 years ago, in my hometown of Philadelphia, a bunch of mad geniuses sweated out the hot summer and came to the conclusion that what the English parliament was doing was wrong, and those men had the responsibility, as people, to put a stop to it. So they, with their large but wholly uncoordinated and untrained militias, went to it, and fought, and many of them died, but in the end the right side won.

Keep on keepin' on, America.

(I really did start the day with a mug of PG Tips tea.)

Strip searches and Advil

The Supreme Court has ruled that the middle-school principal who strip-searched a student in his quest to hunt down contraband prescription drugs was (not entirely surprisingly) in the wrong.

The drugs in question were ibuprofen (technically prescription-strength) and naproxen, which are both available over-the-counter, will not under any circumstances get you high, and at worst may cause some minor stomach upset*. The strip-search in question was rightfully characterized as an unnecessary overreaction, as well as frightening and humiliating for the student.

The only thing I don't like about this decision is that the court opinion upholds that deeply irritating idea that a search of a student and/or his belongings can still be reasonable under the 4th Amendment without having probable cause. I personally think that the perpetual double standard against school children makes no sense at all: we require that they be in school and provide public schools to fill that need, and either a student is protected by the Constitution or not. The latter, obviously, would have some problems, so instead of providing full Constitutional protections there's this weird half-assed gray territory where a search needs to be reasonable but doesn't need probable cause**, and students are free to protest so long as it doesn't disrupt anything, and so on. It just strikes me as jarringly odd.

*Granted, there is an extremely slim possibility that someone could have an allergic reaction, I suppose.
**It's my opinion that if there isn't probably cause a search is by definition unreasonable.

"This legislation keeps me from hitting kinky people!"

My god, the Republican party has been hilarious lately.

Here's a Congressman who apparently thinks that the cure to gay-bashing is that the gays just shouldn't show affection in public, or let people know they're gay. Also, he's apparently upset because the proposed law would make it a crime to hit someone who's into asphyxiophilia. Because as the law stands now in crazytown, we're apparently totally fine with beating up people with relatively weird kinks.

Now, I agree that there may be a problem with hate-crime laws in general, because punishing people for what they're thinking is a little bit...dubious. But to argue that the law is not acceptable because it makes it illegal to hit people kind of misses the point, doesn't it?

A budget-cutting measure we can believe in

From a (slightly dated) WaPo article:

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

Let's do it, says I.

I really can't speak at all on the caliber of officers produced by ROTC vs academies vs any other route, so I'll withhold judgement there. I know two guys who are enlisted members of the Army and are both extremely nice, intelligent people. I know two officers, one Air Force via the academy, and one Army via going straight to OCS. Both are extremely nice, intelligent people.

I probably shouldn't speak about Ricks's criticism that most West Point professors don't have doctorates, if only because a not-insignificant number of instructors at my school of choice do not hold doctorates. But at my school something is extremely problematic if your instructor is lecturing, because lecturing has no place on the Program. I don't believe that they use the same approach at any of the service academies, and since the entire approach is much more 'traditional' there than at St. John's, then I don't think it's unreasonable to want your educator to have reached the highest level of education in that field.

Proponents of the academies, in my opinion, claim that the students get a top-notch education at no cost, and you want your future military commanders to be well-educated. I absolutely agree that we want them to have solid educational backgrounds, and I think that if we had higher standards for the military overall we'd have far fewer problems with the military doing stupid things. From the little I know about the academies, the education provided is excellent, if not terribly well rounded*. I also think that someone enrolled in an ROTC program - or, for that matter, simply enrolled - at a respectable college or university will also recieve an excellent education.

Proponents of the academies say that the institutions are excellent training programs and instill honor. Is the implication of this that enlisted soldiers and officers via OCS and ROTC aren't well-trained and honorable? If so, perhaps we ought to fix that post-haste. If not, then that argument falls apart. Also, there may be some debate about the honor bit.

Here's the way I see it, as someone who has admittedly a minimal amount of knowledge from a complete outsider's viewpoint: There are three ways to become an officer in the military - academy, OCS, or ROTC. All of them require a 4-year degree. One of those routes incurs no excessive cost: someone joins the military, applies to OCS, goes and gets trained up as an officer. One of them includes the cost of college tuition - ROTC scholarships, if I'm not mistaken, generally pay near the full cost of even a private-school tuition. And the third option costs the equivilant of an expensive four-year education, and an active-duty paycheck. It also needs to be considered that, unlike ROTC scholarships, the DoD isn't just paying for tuition for students; they're shouldering the entire cost associated with running three full-on colleges**.

So we've got three possible options to become an officer in the military, one of which is cheap, one is kinda expensive, and one is mad pricey. There is not, as far as I'm aware, any conclusive evidence that academy grads are somehow more prepared to serve than other officers nor better at their jobs. And we're the only country which has a program remotely like this, where the military will in fact pay you to go and get a four year degree in exchange for a few years of pushing paperwork around a desk. That in and of itself, I think, ought to be a clue.

I don't expect that the system will significantly change anytime soon - even Obama is content to keep letting the DoD take however the hell much money it wants, regardless of what it's used for (hello, our extremely expensive fleet of fighter jets which are awesome for shooting down those damn red soviets. hello, not including WAR in the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE budget.), but it is nice to at least see someone in a mainstream publication pointing out that there may be some ways to cut some costs very significantly.

Also, I find the idea of enmeshing higher education with military indoctrination to be fairly reprehensible. I really don't like the idea of the same organization which says "well, I guess it's okay to be not-heterosexual, if you have to, but we'd prefer you not mention it. ever, to anyone you work with. and if anyone asks you about your personal life, lie I guess. and don't, you know, have sex or kiss or hold hands or anything gross like that. because if you do and we find out about it we'll fire you because gay people are really kinda gross" also saying, "Yes! We will give you a fine, honorable higher-level education and train you to be one of the best leaders in the world!" absolutely, repulsively hypocritcal. You want to talk about honor? Stop making it illegal to be queer, stop torturing people, stop having your recruiters lie, and stop shooting brown people because they like their boomy skyvoice more than your boomy skyvoice, you jackasses.

*Granted, sometime in the past five years I've developed the horrible mindset of seeing any sort of remotely sepecialized education as not well-rounded, so make what you will of that.
**Maybe four? I admit that I don't have a clue who exactly pays for the Coast Guard academy, as they're a military academy but the Coast Guard is recently run by DHS since we decided boats aren't transportation anymore, but I think that a lot of their money comes from the defense budget, so I'm not even going to try to understand. Also the Coast Guard apparently doesn't do ROTC, but really I think that there's like six hundred people in the entire Coast Guard and all they do is change lightbulbs on buoys, so I'm really content to ignore on. I have no grudge with the Coast Guard.

Arlen Specter (D-PA)

Pennsylvania's got itself a new Democrat in the Senate.

Personally I think that if his gripe is that he hasn't been representing the Republican party, as per the article, then he ought to either resign because he's not doing his job, or just drop party affiliation altogether and be an independent. Then again, I personally wouldn't shed at a tear if the entire two-party system we have collapsed into rubble.

If the Dems get Franken in (sidenote: JESUS CHRIST HE WON AND IT'S ALMOST MAY LET IT GO ALREADY), they've got the much-coveted 60-seat majority in Senate, which practically speaking means...well, not a damn thing, since Democrats tend to be spineless cowards who are afraid to actually do anything lately, and really Specter's not going to be much of an asset to those few who are still truly liberals in Congress.

So, interesting, but really doesn't mean much of a change.

(also, countdown until Specter and Lieberman go off and form their own "we're crazy and the worst goddamn democrats in the universe!" party together.)

Thesis thought of the night

Occasionally I feel that my trying to write academically about the Constitution is pretty much the same task as a 12-year-old girl writing academically about the Jonas Brothers.

Americans hate themselves

A recent poll:

If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office.

...

Only half (49%) believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure (see crosstabs).

Well, gosh, I'm shocked. There was overwhelming, very possibly unprecedented protest from constituents everywhere, across party lines and with no real regard for geographic location, on a bill. And in a fairly stunning turn of events, Representatives listened to their constituents and said, "No, this is not what the people want and therefore I'm not going to vote for it," and it was enough to shoot down the bill.

And then pretty much all of Congress turned around and spat on the people who put them into office, saying "screw you, we're doing what the rich people's lobbyists tell us to we think is right, because of course we don't have any obligation to listen to you guys."

We're involved in two wars that are as astonishingly pointless as they are costly, we're watching our economy self-destruct, our civil liberties rot away. We've seen a 300+ page bill signed into law three days after it was proposed*, be found to be largely unconstitutional, almost expire only to be re-authorized over the screaming protests of anyone who cares about protecting the Constitution.

This country has been grotesquely mismanaged for a long time. The problem did not start with the current President, though he's probably done more than any one individual ever has to harm the country**. Through it all Congress has been asked to jump and their collective response has been "how high?"

For the love of god, call your senators and representative and tell them, not just some pollsters, how pissed off you are and why. And if you don't do that, at the very least, VOTE. If you won't even take the effort to vote in a general election, you're ruining any credibility you may otherwise have.

Now I'm going to go weep tears of bitter sorrow into my copy of Tocqueville.

*The PATRIOT Act. Proposed Oct 23, 2001, signed into law by Bush on Oct 26, 2001.

**In my not-so-humble opinion he should be tried for treason. Then again, I also think that most people who held high-ranking positions in the government and military during the Cold War should also be tried for treason.

Personal Responsibility

Jesus christ, yes, the lenders and banks were very bad and are very hold a lot of fault for this economic problem. You know who else was responsible? YOU.

Yes, you. American Consumer, get up here, front and center. You, Joe Average, Madam Hockey Mom, whoever you are. Did you run up a lot of credit card debt? Did you buy a house that you weren't absolutely sure you could afford? Did you take out a personal or business loan that seemed too good to be true?

Congratulations, you dipshit, you were part of a massive team to sink the American economy!

Here's what needs to happen for a national-scale economy to work: People need to have money to loan. That means that the people who take out those loans need to be able to repay it. In the past, if you took out a loan that you couldn't afford, you were an idiot and/or scumbag living above your means. Recently it seems that doing so is not a stupid, scummy, irresponsible thing to do, but rather your own little slice of the American Dream.

If you took out a mortgage, you signed a contract saying that you accepted full responsibility for it. That means for one that you should have done your damn research before signing it. But that also means it is your responsibility. No, you cannot just walk away from it and expect the bank to write it off as a loss. No, you cannot expect a government bailout to make everything better*. No, you cannot blame the banks. Yes, they are partly culpable, but you know what? YOU SIGNED THE AGREEMENT. You saw the numbers you talked about it, you did it anyway.

Of course they told you it was a good idea and a great investment! Jesus christ, of course they told you that! You know why? They're selling it! If I go to a car dealership they're going to try to talk me up to the absolute peak of my price range. If I go to a realtor they're going to try to talk me up. Why? Because that's how they make their money, you ignoramus! That's like people who are stunned, absolutely horrified, to find out that their doctor is trying to tell them that tests X, Y, and Z are in fact neccesary and that you should really be on this and that drug. If you do it they get more money; if you don't they don't get the money. I was under the impression that this wasn't a terribly complex idea, but apparently it is.

I don't think I'm going to be able to watch the entire VP debate; it's going to make me too angry.

*Can someone *please* explain to me how this is going to solve anything long-term? We need regulation, not for our representatives to ignore their constituents and vote for a bill that's more pork than anything useful.

This is why I hate Texas and want the majority of their population to die horrible horrible deaths

What the hell:

Gonzalez had endured several break-ins at his trailer when the four boys, ranging in age from 11 to 15, broke in. Gonzalez, who was in a nearby building at the time, went into the trailer and confronted the boys with a 16-gauge shotgun. Then he forced the boys, who were unarmed, to their knees, attorneys on both sides say.

The boys say they were begging for forgiveness when Gonzalez hit them with the barrel of the shotgun and kicked them repeatedly. Then, the medical examiner testified, Anguiano was shot in the back at close range. Two mashed Twinkies and some cookies were stuffed in the pockets of his shorts.

Another boy, Jesus Soto Jr., now 16, testified that Gonzalez ordered them at gunpoint to take Anguiano's body outside.

That's terrifying. But it gets worse:

Many people in Laredo — a town just across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where drug violence runs rampant — defended Gonzalez's actions. In online responses to articles published by the Morning Times, comments included statements such as "The kid got what he deserved" and calls to "stop the unfair prosecution."

Jesus Christ in a bathtub, what is wrong with these people? Your constitutional right to property does not take precedence over another person's right to life, you under-evolved troglodytes! Shooting anyone at close range in the back is not self defense, it's an execution. Shooting a kid who stole some of your shitty snack food in the back at close range as he kneels on your floor begging for mercy is not self defense, that's murdering a child.

This guy should rot in prison for the rest of his disgusting, worthless life, as should every member of the jury that apparently is A-OK with shooting an unarmed, crying child in the back. The only thing I can hope for is that the family of the victim sues the asshole into oblivion.

Things that shouldn't amuse me quite so much...

But really, really do:

In the hallway outside the cafeteria, there were two tables representing various groups.

One - which was announced well in advance in the college's weekly bulletin of events - had two representatives from JET. There were a decent number of people there. In fact, at first I thought that it was the line for the cafeteria, but it was in fact just the group around the table.

The other table, just on the other side of the wide hallway, had three uniformed representatives from some branch of the military, with a table full of pamphlets and such. There was no one at that table, and all three of them looked rather bored and a bit lonely.

Happy Constitution Day, everyone!

Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, 23 July 2008

To the Editor:

Re “Eyes Off the Price” (Op-Ed, July 19):

Dan Ariely might have mentioned a far more compelling factor in our shock at gas prices: there is no simple substitute for gasoline. For short- or mid-range travel, most Americans have no alternative to taking the car and paying for gas.

When the price of butter goes up, we might switch to margarine, or olive oil, or jelly, or just eat our bread plain. But when the price of gas goes up, we have no substitutes: pay more, or stay put.

Sweet Jesus, when the hell are more Americans going to get it through their head: YES YOU DO HAVE ALTERNATIVES.  Here, from the official site of the government of Asheville, where our intrepid writer lives:

Asheville Transit provides bus service service throughout the City of Asheville and other local areas with 24 bus routes running from 6 a.m.-11:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Ta-da!  Or how about this option?  Or even this one?  Gosh, wouldn't it be grand if us humans had some sort of built-in way of easily and gracefully moving ourselves from one place to another?  Besides those who live actually within America's largest cities - I mean the people who live in Manhattan or Center City in Philly or similar - suggesting someone "get there someway other than driving a personally-owned vehicle" is like suggesting that they just flap their wings and fly to commute.  It's really not that hard - and we'd be less fat as a nation, too, if more people accepted it as an option.  My boss has two kids, a husband, and zero cars.  They ride their bikes, walk, take the bus, or some combination of the above.  If they absolutely need a ride somewhere, they get a ride from a friend or call a cab.  Simple.  

Here's another point: until more people start taking public transportation, or walking, or riding their bikes, or however-the-hell-else getting to work and the grocery store and that great cafe, the systems aren't going to improve.  There's no motivation to put in sidewalks and more bus routes if no one's using them.  Use them, be vocal about how you want them to be changed, and it'll change.  

In his defense, the writer does go on to make a good point:

And lingering in many minds, of course, is the awareness that as gas goes, so goes heating oil. While it may be possible to forgo a vacation trip or delay a trip to the store, with heating oil, the choice is more stark: pay or freeze. That choice makes a jump in the price of yogurt seem trivial.

This is true, and it is going to be a problem.  Part of it is a problem of our own making (hint: apartments are easier to heat than McMansions; your family of four really doesn't need a six bedroom house), it's also a symptom of our miserable economy.  

The solution of course is obviously to cut taxes and sink more money into the defense budget.  Anything else makes you a terrorist!  (Actually, it's more alternative power sources, more conservation, and...well, I don't know, but I'm not an economist or an energy or economics policy advisor).  

Argh

So I go to a July 4th fireworks for the first time in years, in Santa Fe, and what happens?  It rains.  

Argh.

Happy birthday, America!

Lincoln was a topsy-turvy man

Hooray for habeas corpus!  At least a few people in the federal government are beginning to remember that the United States Constitution governs what the United States Government can do.  It doesn't grant specific right to American citizens, it flat-out tells the government: "Here are things you are absolutely, entirely obligated to do.  And here are the things that you may not, under any circumstances, no matter what, never ever ever do."  Sure there's some gray area in the middle, but the beauty of it is where those grey areas aren't, such as Section 9 of Article 1:

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

Huh.  Note that it doesn't say that 'American citizens are entitled to habeas corpus', but rather that the right can't be suspended barring rebellion or invasion.  Last time I checked, there's no rebellion against the American government*, and we sure as hell have not been invaded.  Hopefully, those prisoners will come a bit closer to justice soon.

In vaguely related news - as the last president to suspend habeas corpus was one Mr. Lincoln (which admittedly was during a rebellion) - at work I've been doing an inventory of our reserve materials.  We keep a copy of all program books behind the counter on reserve, for in-library use only, and I'm making sure that what we have matches the list of what we should have and that all the books are in decent condition.  One of the items is some photocopied excerpts from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, used in senior seminar.  It's just photocopies, purchased from the bookstore, in one of those three-hole folders.  I flip it open to make sure it's not marked up and whatnot**, and...the back of every page is upside-down.  Meaning, they're two-sided copies, and while page number 1 is right-side up, page 2 on the back is upside down.

Please understand that most likely, someone with a college degree assembled these packets and thought it was okay to sell them for $2.

Sometimes, this school makes my brain hurt, not in the expected way.

*Hey, guess what?  If we'd get the hell out of some of the places we are, a lot of people will be happier with us!

**If I believed in the afterlife, I would absolutely believe that there is a very specially unpleasant section of hell reserved for those who write in library books.  Ingrates.

Memorial Day

The buses were running on a Sunday schedule today due to the holiday.

Am I the only one who thinks there might be a trace of irony in remembering the sacrifices people made so (coughallegedlycough) that we could live our lives as normal...by changing up the normal routine and inconveniencing people?  I mean, wouldn't a better memorial be to run everything as normal and just take a few moments to enjoy how great our version of normal is?

I treated myself to brunch at the Santa Fe Baking Co. today, then went to Borders and spent most of the afternoon cheating Corporate America by sitting and reading magazines I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of paying any money for.  It was a lovely day.