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.

A man worth listening to

I would love to have the opportunity to shake this man's hand.

Some historical reflection

Did you hear about the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to sign a marriage license? He refused because he was concerned that the parents, who are of different races, would have a child.

He's not racist, he just doesn't believe in mixing the races "like that".

A few points:
1. If you don't believe in 'mixing races' and go so far as actively preventing it, guess what? You're racist.
2. It is no longer 1950.
3. He's concerned because, in his universe, people don't like interracial children:

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

So, uh...I've got some bad news, I guess?
4. Seriously, it's not 1950.
5. Nor is it 1967, when we stopped doing stupid shit like that.
6. Says the justice:

"I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don't think I've mistreated anybody," Bardwell said. "I've made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it."

Well, my read on it is slightly different, in that I read the situation as you're being a dick who's blatantly breaking the law because you're racist. And saying "no, I won't marry you because I'm a racist dick" is indeed mistreating people.
7. My god, am I actually compiling a list of "things that are wrong with denying people a marriage license based on race"? In 2009? Nearly a year after we elected a black president? What the hell?
8. He also says:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

..."Piles and piles?" He lets black people use his bathroom, therefore he's not racist? What the hell, does he think we'd otherwise assume he's got his own little Jim Crow setup at his house? Or that if he happens to have black visitors (which, somehow, I imagine isn't as frequently as he's trying to express) he makes them go piss in the backyard? The "I'm not racist, I have ________ friends" argument isn't particularly meaningful to begin with, but his phrasing is just baffling.

This week, read a book. Any book.

The last week of September is, in addition to an exciting time in baseball, also an exciting time in bookworld, because it's Banned Books Week. What does that mean? I'll just cheat and let the ALA start:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

It means that opinions should be allowed to be heard, and not suppressed because they're inflammatory or uncomfortable. It means that libraries should be a place where a member of the community, any member of the community, should be able to go and get information, whether it's biased or not (and there should be librarians to help them work through which is which).

Books are constantly being challenged in this country, in both school and libraries. Some of them are new kid's or YA books; some are time-honored classics. Some come with understandable controversy (Of Mice and Men, Lolita). Some controversies come with a heavy dose of irony (almost any children's book about non-heteronormative families), some are completely missing the point (1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451). And some are just completely inane (Charlotte's Web, Winnie The Pooh).

The common thread is that all of them have come under attack by people who think that they should be able to control what you or your child has access to, or should read in class. These people skip right past 'I'd prefer my child not read this' and 'I personally find this objectionable, so I'll return it to the library and be done with it', and leap right into 'this is wrong.' They speak in moral absolutes and strive to impose their morality on everyone around them. They insult everyone around them by assuming that they know better, or that you are unable to safely judge what is best for yourself or your child.

The problem isn't likely to every go away, sadly. People will always be reactionary and judgemental. But there's a simple way to counter this particular effect: read. Read books. Get a library card and use it. If a book is challenged within your community, check it out for yourself before passing judgement. Be involved, and point out that youdon't want someone else deciding what you may or may not read. You're an adult living in the self-proclaimed land of the free and home of the brave, so be brave and work for your own intellectual freedom.

And also, be nice to your librarians, be they in a stuffy academic library, corporate library at your workplace, or the public library in your town or county. They work for you, they want you to have as much information available as possible, and they're often faced with people who specifically want to keep information locked away and unavailable. So give 'em a smile next time you're in the library - it'll be appreciated.

Vermont legalizes gay marriage

First Iowa, now Vermont. Hooray!

Hey!

The world delivers a bit of good news on a day when I could really use it!

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge’s 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.

The ruling, viewed nationally and at home as a victory for the gay rights movement and a setback for social conservatives, means Iowa’s 5,800 gay couples can legally marry in Iowa beginning April 24.

There are no residency rules for marriage in Iowa, so the rule would apply to any couple who wanted to travel to Iowa.

Good job, Iowa!

The improvement in Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.

Good thing we started an epic, costly, horrible, stupid war to overthrow the government that had laws forbidding women from leaving the house without their husband's permission and such.

Yeah.

Because sometimes there's just too much love and happiness in the world, and we need to do something about it.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Watch this

Good news for once

Hooray Connecticut.

Someone is listening

In Brazil, an accusation of illegal wiretapping leads to the President suspending the higher-ups allegedly responsible until a full investigation is completed.

Gosh, I wonder what America would do in such a situation?

Oh, right.

Also, Thailand is having another overthrow-the-government party. Or maybe it's the same one and they just took a break for a while. I can't quite keep it straight at this point. (Dear Thailand: If you've still got a monarchy that upholds lese majeste laws, and you're rioting over attempts to bring down the prime minister...you might want to reconsider your priorities. Just my two cents.)

An unfair choice

About 400 members of the Rainbow Family threw rocks and sticks at 10 federal officers Thursday night as they tried to arrest one member of the group at its annual gathering in western Wyoming, the U.S. Forest Service reported.

So what do I like better: reading about rights-stomping full-of-themselves federal officers being harassed with thrown objects, or "l love the earth and all the people let's go get stoned and hug in our 'I wish I was born in 1950 so I could have been at Woodstock' pit in the woods and not bathe for two weeks!"-style 'Neo-hippies' getting smacked around for being intolerable idiots?

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.

Happy Griswold v. Connecticut day!

Forty-three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the state - to paraphrase slightly - has no damn business telling you whether you can or can't use contraceptives.  

Even today, there are some who would take that from others solely to impose their own morality on consenting individuals.  Their platform is built on antiquated religious beliefs, a lack of understanding of our Constitutional rights, and an absolutely appalling ignorance of science and biology.  

Hooray California!

I may be an east-coast elitist who thinks that the west coast will never, ever be as good overall as the northeast, but I'll admit, sometimes California does some things really right.

The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

Well done, California.

"There's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole"

Here's an interesting story about a soldier who was sent back to a base in the US from Iraq, because the Army couldn't protect him...from other soldiers who were harassing him for being an atheist.

Before saying anything else, I will say that I'm sure there's a hell of a lot to this story than we're given. One wire-service piece isn't exactly conclusive evidence of anything, even of there being an actual issue.

That said, I think that if this lawsuit goes anywhere, it'll set a interesting precedent. I know that at least certain branches of the military have had some religious tolerance issues in the past (I'm thinking of the Air Force Academy here, but I'm sure there have been other incidents), but so often it's broken down into a "Christian vs Jewish/Muslim/Other Not Christian Religions" viewpoint. If nothing else, it's intriguing to see an atheist take it on.

If his complaints have any solid grounding, then it's truly shameful. Isn't our military supposed to be fighting for freedom and liberty and equality and all that stuff? Shouldn't that start within the military itself, because it's awfully hard to show another country who already doesn't like you how to have a just and free society if the 'liberators' are being harassed by their peers for their religious views.

How to have a good country

Recently I was reading something about Bhutan.  Bhutan is a very, very isolated place, wedged between India and China.  It's small, landlocked, and up until quite recently, was pretty well cut off from the world.  They have no formal diplomatic relationships with most Western countries, including the US and the UK.  They'd had a ban on television which was finally lifted in 1999.  In short, partly due to governmental planning but also due to the harsh geography of the region, Bhutan is probably one of the most 'intact' cultures in the world.  They've only had a couple years during which they could Westernize at any appreciable rate.  

What's interesting about Bhutan is, perhaps as a product of the increasing westernization, they are in the process of electing a democratic government for the first time, changing from a totalitarian monarchy.  

Now, from what I've read, it seems like a fairly benevolent monarchy.  The current king, worried about the effect that westernization was having on the country, introduced something called "gross national happiness", an idea that I personally find to be wonderful.  In addition to looking at how our economy is doing, we'll also take a look at how happy people are.  Good idea, right?  A little bit inexact and if it's anything more than just a soundbite, it's a bit problematic, but a nice idea.  The Bhutanese people seem to by and large like their king, which I suppose is a good thing.

So here's the really interesting thing about the transition Bhutan is going through.  It was mentioned in the National Geographic article I read about the country.  Here's a quote from it:

Rural peasants aren’t the only ones harboring doubts. At a trendy Thimphu nightclub called P. Wang, a trio of power brokers relaxes after a round of golf, singing karaoke and toasting the monarchy. “I don’t want democracy, because it can lead to chaos, like in Nepal or India,” says Tshering Tobgay, a businessman. “But whatever the king says, we must eat—whether sweet or sour, poisonous or delicious.” Even Bhutan’s chief election commissioner concedes that he would prefer not to have elections. “Given the choice, of course, we’d want to continue to be guided by the monarchy,” Dasho Kunzang Wangdi says. So why change? “It’s a simple thing: The king wants it.”

I don't get it.  I really, really don't get this.  The only way I can possibly get this to make sense is that because their contact with other nations has been so limited, they just don't really understand what democracy means.  Democracy means you're in charge.  It means that you, the voters, get the ultimate say in how your country is run.  Don't like what the government is doing?  Tell them, and in theory they're obligated to listen.  They don't listen when you tell them?  Vote them out of office.  Still not happy?  Run for office yourself.  Democracy means you have the absolute power, not some dude who's sole qualification is he inherited Daddy's job. 

Try to parse this: The people of Bhutan don't necessarily want a democratic government.  The king does.  So the king is forcing the people into the change of needing to think for themselves.  It's like some insane inverted form of a dictatorship: "Instead of telling you what to do, I'll make you tell me what to do!"  It's really incredibly strange.  

Read the first amendment. Learn. Repeat.

Apparently, Prince Harry has been over playing soldier in Afghanistan. Good for him.

He's been there for ten weeks, and the British press decided not to publicize it for "security reasons" - allegedly he'd be a great big target. I doubt it, from what I gather Prince Harry is both as smart and as well-loved as a box of hair, but whatever. That's the British media's decision. Good for them*.

The Drudge Report broke the story today. Good for them. The big networks then picked it up. Good for them.

The MoD now has it's panties in a twist over that:

Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, who is head of the British Army, said he was disappointed the news had leaked.

In a statement, he said: "I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us.

"This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number overseas, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations."

Oh, come the hell on! A few minor little points:
1. You just referred to the British media as in possession of a responsible attitude. I'll buy that about the BBC, and more or less for both the Times and Guardian. The British media gave us reality TV and The Sun. Think about that, man.
2. American journalists don't answer to the British government. Nor do they answer to the American government, nor any government, nor anyone but the public and maybe whatever corporation they've been acquired by. They report the news, regardless of whether or not any given government wants it reported. That's because America truly does have a free press, and to speak in any way disparagingly of that is disgusting.
3. The media, and thus the public being aware that your little prince is off pretending to be GI Joe is not the danger. The danger comes from the war, what with the bullets and the bombs and such. The danger comes from you sending him there at all. If you're that concerned, you could have not sent him.
4. Monarchy is idiotic and has no place in modern society anyway. I know there was some ridiculous orgy of faux-grief when Princess Diana got in a car with a drunk driver and died, but would anyone actually care if Prince Harry was killed in war, any more than any other soldier? At the very least, Princess Diana had done a token amount of charity work before her death. Prince Harry has...joined the army and drunkenly attempted to punch a photographer. Whoo, a real royal hero there.
5. The monarchy is funded by the people. The army is funded by the people. Therefore, if His Highness leaves his nice comfy palace to go try to feel useful in the Army, the people have a right to know. Don't like it? Tough shit.

6.  He's not even ever going to be king!  If it was his father or his older brother, who both are in line to eventually be the head of state, I could maybe, maybe understand.  But he's not, he's like the understudy for a chorus-line position!

Seriously, aren't the troops over in Afghanistan ostensibly fighting for freedom and liberty and all that jazz? Isn't an absolutely free press one of the absolute cornerstones of a free society? Had the media listened to the government in some places in the late 1700's, America probably wouldn't have happened. People have an absolute right to know what their government is doing, and if you want to have a monarchy, then they're included in that. Don't like the precedent of America's free press? You should've fought harder in 1776, chumps.

*I'm assuming, of course, that it was their choice and not some gag law, which would just piss me off even more.

(Note: I still love you, UK. You're just having a rough day. It's okay, my country has plenty of them too.)

Gasp! No, seriously, this is shocking.

Mark the date on your calenders, folks, because today's something truly special:

I feel an actual - slight, very slight, but real - pride about New Jersey.  It's old news that I missed the first time around, but I can't let it pass without comment. 

Apparently in Rome, lighting up the Colosseum has become something of an anti-death penalty statement.  They did it in protest when Saddam Hussein was executed.  And, more recently, they lit it up in celebration when New Jersey banned the death penalty.  

So there it is.  Some of the international community honored something New Jersey did that promotes human rights.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go lie down until this feeling of goodwill towards the state of New Jersey goes away.  It's just too weird for me to deal with.

Out with the old, in with the new

Fidel Castro has resigned as the president of Cuba.

In a way, it's not surprising.  He's 81 years old and has been in power for nearly fifty years.  That's a long time.  And hopefully, our president's smarmy-as-hell reaction won't put the Cuban people off from demanding democracy and justice.  In my opinion, the biggest problem with our perpetual embargo against them is not simply that it's absolutely retarded (which it is), but that it prevents us from addressing the serious issues.  Yes, the missile crisis was very scary and sure commies are bad.  Communism is an economic theory, though, and really has nothing to do with their justice system.  The cause for an economic embargo should have been human rights violations all along.  Give me the choice between a nice, shiny, capitalistic nation where journalists are tossed in jail for not censoring themselves, and a grittier, socialist nation that has a truly free press, I'll take the socialism any day.  So hopefully, Castro's resignation may be the catalyst the world needs to tell Cuba to knock it off.

In other news: welcome, Kosovo.  

I'm surprised that the burning and fighting took so long to start, but here it is.  Russia, of course, isn't pleased, but Russia as a general rule isn't a tremendous fan of change to political establishments.  

I'll be the first to admit I'm shamefully ignorant about the situation in that region.  But my point of view is that if you've got a group of people in a given geographic region who don't get along.  You can try to get along under the same rule, and inevitably fight and fight and fight and fight and fight.  Or, at some point you can say, "Look.  This just isn't working out between us.  How about you go your way and we go our way?  It's probably going to be easier to tolerate being neighbors rather than roommates."

Maybe something crazy will happen, the rioting will die down, the situation will stabilize without NATO or the UN stepping in too much, and everyone will be at least not terribly dissatisfied.  That would be a nice change, wouldn't it?