Big Bellies & Small Minds

If I decide to eat an entire box of chocolates and get sick from it, I can blame you for it and expect you to do something about it. I’m American, after all. (Photo by HA! Designs/Artbyheather via Flickr Free Use Photos)
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During student dismissal at my school, I’m in charge of patrolling the parking lot crosswalk to make sure that no one speeds or runs over any children. It’s sad but yes, a position such as this became necessary because many parents don’t feel that they should have to drive slowly through our school parking lot, even though small children are walking back and forth. In fact, last year I witnessed two parents attempt to drag-race each other through the parking lot to see who could get to the stop sign first.

A few days ago I noticed that one of our parents was sporting a brand new, very large, very detailed (very expensive) tattoo. The tattoo was made in memory of her fiancé, who was killed in a fire about a year ago.

What bothered me about the situation wasn’t that immediately after her fiancé was killed, local businesses put out collection jars for her. She would then check each jar three or four times a day to see how much money was there. Not only that, but she acted as if we (those who donated) owed her whatever we donated. (And yes, I initially donated $5 as part of a district-wide casual dress day.)

She’s also on welfare. She’s not on welfare because she can’t work; she’s opted to go on welfare because she’d rather not work. Thus, we see her at the school several times a day just hanging out, driving around, or dropping her other children (she has three and appears to have one on the way) off for a daycare program which is provided for low-income and no-income families.

I’m mentioning this situation because apparently I’m not the only one who is fed up with seeing able-bodied Americans take advantage of other able-bodied Americans simply because they think that they’re entitled to do so. They have the idea that their fellow able-bodied—and responsible—Americans owe them.

While perusing my local newspaper, I came across this letter-to-the-editor from Dr. Starner Jones, which was reprinted from the August 29, 2009, edition of the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi:

Dear Sirs:

During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone.

Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our President expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?

Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture—a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

A culture that thinks I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me.

Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.¹

Even though I was pleased to see such a comment made, given that I’ve been angered by seeing irresponsible behavior rewarded on a regular basis only because the number of irresponsible people is increasing on a generational basis (and given that numbers equal votes in the eyes of politicians who are both incumbents and candidates), I wasn’t shocked to see a few people—people who have the entitlement mentality—take offense to the doctor’s suggestion that people take some responsibility for their own behavior.

Those people, however, didn’t want to actually debate that aspect of the issue. That would, no doubt, show them for who they really are. Instead, they choose to spin the issue into class warfare and yes, even racism. Those who have responded went so far as to ignore the main idea of the letter (providing for irresponsible people) and have attempted to entirely reconstruct the issue into something which it isn’t.

For instance, this letter-to-the-editor was written in the Clarion Ledger in response to the letter from the doctor:

I’ve been stewing about an Aug. 23 letter to the editor (“Why Pay for the Care of the Careless?”) in which Dr. Starner Jones questioned the worth of a patient to receive Medicaid because of her gold tooth, tattoos, R&B ring tone on a new cell phone, cigarette-smoking and beer-drinking.

This kind of personal attack is nothing new with the hateful rhetoric of late. But it’s a real slippery slope when one questions whether another human merits support for health care because of appearances and choices. There are a lot of folks in this state who make less-than-perfect choices about finances and health. We are the poorest, fattest state, after all.

We need to turn off our TVs and radios and do our own research on health care reform. All the Fox-fed and MSNBC-led masses are out spewing the same language the pundits are using.

Look at entities who, bottom line, want to raise their ratings and celebrity, not facilitate a meaningful or productive discourse.

This country deserves more. Read the health care reform bill. And learn the real issues of our entire community. We’re all Americans.

This is no “us vs. them” issue. We are all in this together.

Jennifer Sigrest
Clinton²

I especially enjoyed reading this response because Ms. Sigrest undertakes a rather common move in modern-day “debates”: when you can’t argue against what is in front of you, spin the story.

In this case, Ms. Sigrest is unhappy with Dr. Jones’ view, but instead of attacking his main idea—that of being upset with able-bodied citizens taking advantage of their neighbors because they hold an entitlement mentality—she spins the situation into that of “personal attacks” and “hateful rhetoric.” (Then again, perhaps some people think that expecting others to be responsible is a form of “personal attacks” and “hate.”)

Contrary to what Ms. Sigrest says, the doctor does not question a person’s “merits” because she has undertaken avoidable irresponsible behavior; he questions why we—as taxpayers—should have to collectively finance the procedures to combat the avoidable irresponsible behavior. There’s no doubt that Ms. Sigrest wouldn’t want to debate that side of the issue, as it wouldn’t look too good to openly defend irresponsibility.

Her conclusion is not surprisingly devoid of substance: let’s come together because we’re all Americans.

Well, of course we’re all Americans. We’re not going to debate a political topic from Turkey or Brazil, are we? We’re debating a national entitlement mentality and the nation is the United States.

But her point is that of hoping that if we’re all Americans, we must all agree in an effort to be united. (This sounds like the same rhetoric that we heard when the PATRIOT Act was being pushed under the Bush/Cheney regime, doesn’t it?) If we’re truly united, we’ll agree with her; if we disagree, we’re no doubt treasonous and we support an “us versus them” mindset.

As an aside, what’s truly ironic in the response is that the “us versus them” mentality, which Sigrest is vehemently against, is actually the basis for healthcare reform in the first place: the have-nots are waging a war against the haves.

She is not alone in her approach, however. A comment left on the Vitals.com Website shows that some folks are even attempting to make the debate one about race. A person named TL writes:

Jones should be ashamed of his apparent bigotry which should have no place in the medical field. You took an oath but must have forgotten that part of your reason for wanting to be a doctor. So it would seem that you are far more concerned about the financial aspect. Since we are on the subject of vises, you forgot to mention the one that plagues most people in this country according to statistics…overweight fat people are also at a health risk. So would that be considered in your estimation of the people who deserve health care. That would certainly preclude most folks from your idea of people who take care of themselves. My waistline has never changed since High School..31″ so i say this to all you people who thank Jones for his bravery in speaking up…check your waistline…if you are fat…then perhaps you should consider going on a diet before you mouth off!!!…. These comments smack of the perfect Arryan Race…look what happened to Hitler.³

The teacher in me wanted to correct the spelling and punctuation errors, but I opted to leave the comment in tact to best illustrate the critic’s mental prowess. Regardless, you can see the feeble approach: when you can’t actually debate the issue, change the issue. If things get really bad, throw Hitler’s name in. It’s kind of like how right-wingers will throw in the word “communist” if all else fails. This time, the leftists hope that class warfare and Nazism create a little bit of smoke on the mirror of healthcare reform.

Discussion and discourse will continue to be a problem in this country given that some people are unable to actually extract the main idea from paragraphs as well as debate the real issues at hand.

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Mommy Dearest

I’m learning more and more that people are truly evil.

At the end of the school year last year I had a second grade student whose mother took her on a trip to New York. The little girl took her library book with her and left it there. When I asked the mother to either return the book or pay a replacement fee so that I could purchase a replacement copy for my library, the mother sent me a nasty note along with a dirty, coffee-stained paperback copy of the book in question. The note basically told me that I could shove the worn-out copy up my ass.

The summer break passed and I hadn’t heard anything more on the book or the replacement fee. Because neither choice had been met, my policy is that the student can’t check out another book.

In response, the mother has now told the daughter—who is currently in third grade—that Mom paid for the book and that I’m lying about not having the money.

Yes, mom is lying to the little girl to make a point and she’s using me as the bad guy so that in the little girl’s eyes, Mommy is still good.

If I last 15 years in public education I’ll use that 15-year mark as a time to assess where I am professionally and personally, what I’ve accomplished professionally and personally, and what else might be available to me. Some of these parents are truly evil and we’re not even through the first full month of school.

Ω

Hitting New Lows

In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate Cult committed suicide in the hopes that their souls would venture up into the cosmos to hitch a ride on a UFO which was supposedly “hiding” behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Besides becoming known as kooks, these 39 people became famous for their wardrobe selection: running attire which included a pair of Nike sneakers.

Now, if I told you that I used this instance as “scientific evidence” that wearing Nike sneakers leads to suicide, you’d quickly disagree wouldn’t you? If you read a news article stating that 100 percent of the Heaven’s Gate Cult who wore Nikes on that night did not survive, you’d quickly say that my research was flawed, wouldn’t you?

Well, a similar thing just happened with a news story about spanking and IQ which leads me to think that some of our “scientific” studies which are being made newsworthy aren’t so worthy of being in the news.

Before I continue, I need to state a few things. First, this essay isn’t meant to debate spanking; your view of spanking is yours. If you’re against it, so be it; if you’re in favor of it, so be it. Second, when I was young, I was spanked if I did something wrong. What my current IQ is isn’t important, but I’d like to think that it’s reasonably high. With that said, I’m also of the belief that a person’s audience will determine if that person is or isn’t “intelligent.” For instance, if you think that I’m smart, that’s great. If you think that I’m dumber than a steaming pile of cow manure, to you that’s my intelligence level. Either way, I’m comfortable.

Now, onto the “study.”

The story comes from New Scientist and is entitled “Smacking Hits Kids’ IQ.” The authors of a new “study” suggest that if you spank your child, his/her IQ will go down. The study’s leader, Murray Straus is hoping that pædiatricians and child psychologists begin telling parents one thing: “Never spank under any circumstances.”

But how did this “data” come about? That’s the part that has me questioning the results of this “research.” According to New Scientist:

“The IQs of 2- to 4-year-olds who received regular spankings from their parents dropped by more than 5 points over four years, compared with kids who were not spanked.”

The story also states that “the new research makes a stronger case for a cause-effect relationship between spanking and intelligence than other studies,” according to Elizabeth Gershoff, a child development researcher at the University of Texas, Austin.

The study was said to have accounted for variables, such as ethnicity, education levels, and whether or not the children in the study were read to by their parents.

Here’s where a few red flags went up for me with this story.

A study like this is being passed off as a causal-comparitive study when it should be considered a correlational study. A correlational study simply says that one thing is present with something else, but the two aren’t necessarily related. A causal-comparative study, however, is much more direct and almost accusatory; it suggests that one thing causes another.

While I was in grad school I had to a take a research methods class. In it I learned that it’s crucial to never confuse the two studies. Moreover, it’s also crucial that you try to avoid making a correlational study into a causal-comparative study simply because you like the results. That’s not only scientifically inaccurate, but it’s ethically wrong.

Remember the Heaven’s Gate Cult example earlier? Their wearing of Nikes was correlational to their suicides. Nike sneakers had nothing to do with their deaths. Yes, 100 percent of the people wearing the Nikes were dead, but the Nikes didn’t cause that.

In this spanking study, too many variables have not been taken into consideration for us to simply sit back and say that spanking lowers IQ.

Here are just a few things that I’m questioning with it:

• The authors seem to brush aside the fact that some of the kids who were spanked still had high IQ. One part of the story says that “[i]n younger children, the thing that made the biggest difference to IQ scores was whether or not mothers provided cognitive stimulation. This was more important than anything else, including corporal punishment.”

Well, if it’s more important, why is this story being pushed as a causal-comparative study in the first place? If the whole thing is correlational, we shouldn’t be reading headlines like “Smacking Hits Kids’ IQ.” Instead, we find this paragraph conveniently buried at the bottom of the story.

• Have the “researchers” considered the starting IQ of each subject and what was their percentage of IQ decrease? Did one child start low and make a drop in several points while another started high and dropped one or two points?

One might be called a big decrease while the other is small.

• The researchers were willing to pass this study off as causal-comparative to support their obvious dislike for spanking, but I didn’t see anything listed anywhere that showed whether or not kids with low IQ to start “needed” to be spanked in the first place. By this I mean were the low-IQ children behaving worse than the kids with the high IQ right from the start?

• One of the comments on the story points out something else that puts some major holes in the results of this study: its methodology.

Children were first studied in the 1980s and then studied later. The thing is, it wasn’t until 1991 that the WISC-III test was developed for accurate IQ measurement. How are we to know the accuracy of the IQ points in the 1980s if they were given using a WISC-R test? The WISC-R had a habit of showing higher scores. If the researchers were comparing these scores to WISC-III on the same child, they’d no doubt be lower.

The comment also poses a question that is crucial to the accuracy of this study: Was the follow-up test given on a WISC-III test, WISC-R test, or even a Stanford-Binet test? We don’t know. We should be told, though, because this could alter the IQ numbers if we’re comparing them.

• The comment also points out the instability of IQ in young children, which is why kids aren’t tested for gifted classes until later in their school career.

The comment notes that children of younger years are still undergoing intellectual development that will help them think more abstractly in later years. Thus, how can we seriously think that a 2-year-old can accurately be compared to that of a 6-year-old based on whether or not they were spanked? Over the course of those four years that single child may have had life experiences aside from the spanking that weren’t even considered.

• Finally, how are we defining “spanking”? Is it one hit on the bottom? Is it two hits on the bottom? Is it 10 hits on the bottom? Is it two hits on the bottom and one on the face?

In a research study we’re supposed to have concrete definitions to analyze the data. I didn’t see a definition for “spanking” listed even once.

As I had said earlier, this essay isn’t to debate the pros or cons of spanking. I just wish that scientific “research” had more data and fewer holes.

ReferenceCallaway, Ewen. “Smacking Hits Kids’ IQ.” New Scientist. 25 Sep. 2009.

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Setting Sail

I’ll be busy with work for a while, so this is most likely going to be my last post for quite some time. I wanted it to be something that was somewhat philosophical to a certain degree, and as such it will touch upon something that has been weighing on my mind off and on for the last few years.

I’ve come to a point in life where I’m not sure what “right” and “wrong” are and I’m not sure what “good” and “bad” are. More specifically, I’m not sure if what I do—or what I’ve done—has been “right” or “wrong” or “good” or “bad,” no matter what it has been.

Over the last few years I’ve noticed that the more I’ve accomplished, or the more that I’ve attempted to accomplish things that I thought were good and positive, the more that I’ve had people distance themselves from me and in a few cases I’ve received outright criticism for it as well hatred for having done it.

This is forcing me to re-evaluate many of the views that I’ve held for most of my life. This process of re-evaluation is taking me into uncharted waters but at the same time it feels as if it’s a course that I have no choice but to take.

Keeping with the metaphor of water, I’m not sure if it’ll be a course that will eventually take me to a new land or if I’ll simply continue sailing towards a horizon that never has a landmass pop up—ever.

Perhaps sailing for a while is the course itself. We’ll see.

gestapo@whitehouse.gov

“You’re a traitor!” yelled the boy. “You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!”

Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting “Traitor!” and “Thought-criminal!,” the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of the tiger cubs which will soon grow up to be man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy’s eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.

[...]

With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected to it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother—it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak—“child hero” was the phrase generally used—had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police.

—From George Orwell’s 1984, Book One, Chapter Two

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On August 4, 2009, the following was posted on the White House blog by Macon Phillips, whose title is “director of new media”:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

This caused Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to ask President Obama to “cease this program immediately” and say: “I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had [George W. Bush] asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House.”

When asked about it, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs—who is beginning to look more like Joseph Goebbels than Karl Rove did—would only say that “nobody is collecting names.” He wouldn’t comment on the collection of e-mail addresses (which usually contain names) or Website URLs that were critical of Obama or the nationalized healthcare plan.

That’s already the case for law professor Matthew Staver, who actually took the time to read through over 1,000 pages of HR 3200—the so-called America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009—and he reported the following (the included commentary is his—not mine):

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC Bill - YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!

Pg 50 Section 152 in HC Bill - HC will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer.

(NOTE FROM RJ-This really does mean they can take your money at any time. Who will have this authority?—a government bureaucrat.)

Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government is creating a Health Care Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.

Pg 84 Sec 203 HC Bill - Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your health care!

Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Government mandates linguistic appropriate services.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The government will use groups i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps to sign up individuals for government Health Care Plan

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members - Your health care WILL be rationed

Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against government monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The government will tell YOU what you can make.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.

Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k and above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll

Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between 251k and 400k who do not provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll

Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care according to government will be taxed 2.5% of income.

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay).

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans' financial and personal records.

Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC - “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that.

Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.

Pg 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of doctors' time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.

Pg 265 Sec 1131Government mandates and controls productivity for private health care industries.

Pg 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients - welcome to rationing! Many cancer treatments will not work unless implemented early, but the waiting time just to see a specialist will likely be months when this plan is implemented. As you can see in this bill, the option of the health care bureaucrat is to deny treatment to those they deem not likely to be helped by it. Watch the cancer death rate skyrocket, like in Canada and the U.K.

Page 280 Sec 1151 The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release).

Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors that treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Government will penalize you.

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.

Pg 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.

pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception, BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health Care the way they want. Rationing.

Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Government plan.

Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!

Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Tele-health Advisory Committee. Health care by phone/Internet?

Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “adv. care planning consult” will be used frequently as patient's health deteriorates.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 “adv. care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life. The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non-profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?

Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?

Pg 489 Sec 1308 The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. They will insert government into your marriage.

Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.

PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the U.S., including your data.

Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The “Center” will collect data both published and unpublished (that means public and your private info).

PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.

PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from Health Care consumer reps – Can you say unions and ACORN?

PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.

PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what quality means in health care. Since when does government know about quality?

Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.

PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients.

PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.

Pg 628 Sec 1443 Government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of “Quality” Measures.

Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those multi-stake holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding health care quality.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any “Quality measure” of health care services as they see fit.

PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed “Quality Measures” for Physician Services and Dialysis Services.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on doctor but not government.

Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.

PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.

Pg 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the government with an $18 million website? Or $60 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud every year?

PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of health care plan isn’t in Government Health Care Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.

PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on health care provider or supplier, government can do background check.

PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny health care providers/ suppliers admittance into Health Care Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.

Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.

PG 722 Sec 1639 Government MANDATES doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.

PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (your kids).

PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other health care service.

Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement, proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL data.

PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That's your tax dollars people).

Pg 757-762 Federal Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)

Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin.

Pg 765 Sec 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)

Pg 768 Sec 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).

Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services - “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government ABORTIONS anyone?

Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and State Sovereign.

(NOTE FROM RJ—Can you believe that in America you will be told how many children you can have, and when? Does this mean we can expect the government to impose mandatory abortions? How else can this be interpreted?)

Pg 789-797 Government will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.

Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control doctors’ educations.

PG 801 Sec 1751 The government will decide which health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!

Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. req. to register. Government takes over private payment system.

Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.

Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.

PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!

PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.

Pg 838-840 Government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families expecting kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes government coming into your house and telling you how to parent!?

Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that’s billion.

Pg 865 The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where doctors perform mandatory health care for two years for part loan repayment.

PG 876-892 The government takes over the education of our medical students and doctors.

PG 898 The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health prof.

PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.

PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.

PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.

PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular and Reserve Officers. HC Draft?

PG 910 The government will develop, build, and run Public Health Training Centers.

PG 913-914 Government starts a health care affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.

PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDDATES Cultural and linguistic competency training for health care professionals.

Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.

PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!

PG 936 Government will develop “Healthy People and National Public Health Performance Standards” Tell me what to eat? This is no joke -- the government will be able to actually mandate what you can eat or not eat. This could be helpful for some, but do we want the government doing it? What is the most fat and out of shape entity on the planet? The Federal Government. What kind of shape do you think the bureaucrats will be in who mandate such for everyone else?

PG 942 Lines 22-25 More government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women’s Health

PG 950- 980 BIG GOVERNMENT core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems, health info sys, etc.

PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won’t have a chance.

PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say government brainwash!

PG 1001 The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

In a rebuttal, chairman of the Committee on Education & Labor George Miller responded to this. Not surprisingly, most of this “rebuttal” was semantics. For instance, where Staver refers to a “committee,” Miller asserts that The National Health Benefits Advisory Council “is not a ‘government committee’” because it’s called a “council.” Come on.

In another section, Miller argues that Staver’s use of the word “audit” is incorrect because it’s not an “audit”—it’s a “study,” as he says. So if I “study” a book full of numbers, that’s not an “audit”? It’s a “study”? Does that mean that a straight person isn’t heterosexual, but rather they’re “non-homosexual”?

I did find one part that Miller might want to revisit if he wants to be taken seriously. Professor Staver states that on page 58, the federal government “will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!” In his rebuttal to this part, Miller states: “This section says nothing about a National ID health card, or accessing your personal financial information.” But when I did a search of the text of HR 3200, I discovered the following in Section 1173 A (a)(2):

(D) enable the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual's financial responsibility at the point of service and, to the extent possible, prior to service, including whether the individual is eligible for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility, which may include utilization of a machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card;

Again, semantics; Staver called it a “national ID card” but the text calls it a “machine-readable health plan beneficiary identification card.” Thus, Miller proclaims that it’s not a national identification card—even though it’s national and it’s an identification card. Yes, and maybe now we can call the color white “non-black” and black “non-white” and they’ll suddenly become different colors.

Getting back to the part of turning your neighbors in when you find an enemy of the state, I came across a blogger—whom I won’t bother giving any extra traffic by posting her URL on my site, but I will offer a screenshot—urging readers to file a complaint with state bar associations because she doesn’t like knowing that someone actually took the time to read the text of a 1,000-page bill. Obviously the concept of “transparency” is like the concept of Nancy Pelosi’s “Americanism”: it’s only called that when it goes your way.

_______________________________

Instead of celebrating the dissent that was embraced by
progressives during the Bush years, this blogger would
rather see a lawyer disbarred because he doesn’t like
the Democrats’ nationalized healthcare plan.
_______________________________

There’s no doubt that my blog URL will now be sent to flag@whitehouse.gov because my un-American dissent toward President McCarthy’s...er...I mean, President Obama’s push for HR 3200 is treasonous, traitorous, and would inflame the public dialogue. The children will surround me with their pistols and the thought-police in the White House will be notified.

George W. Bush’s eight-year reign was routinely equated to the totalitarian concepts put forth in George Orwell’s 1984, but from what I’ve seen so far, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Ω

America: © 2009 Democratic National Committee

Hillary Clinton in 2003:

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic and we should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in their recent USA Today opinion piece:

Remember boys and girls: Dissent is only “American” when you’re with them and not against them.

Ω

Scrapped

The federal government’s “cash-for-clunkers” program, in which potential new car buyers are offered up to $4,500 in rebates to trade in their gas guzzlers for new, fuel-efficient cars, was suddenly suspended last night because the deal was “too popular.” The House is now holding emergency debates on whether or not to pump another $2 billion of tax dollars into the program.

It’ll be interesting to see how the same group of people who mismanaged a car-buying program will do when it comes to running an entire healthcare industry.

ReferenceKeane, Angela Greiling. “Lawmakers Voting on $2 Billion to Replenish ‘Clunkers’ Program.” Bloomberg.com. 31 July 2009.

Ω

The Bases Were Juiced

A new report shows that David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox and former Red Sox outfielder (now Dodger) Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during the 2004 season, in which they “beat” the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

I’m not sure how much a legitimate victory it was, knowing now that they cheated their way to the top.

This isn’t new for Ramirez, however. A few weeks ago he finished serving a 50-game suspension for yet another drug violation in which he tested positive for steroids.

My hunch is that it’ll all be accepted by most baseball fans. You see, what I’ve noticed is that most fans are happy to see their guy use steroids to win but they hate seeing other teams’ players do the same thing.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this image from a recent Dodgers game in which Manny Ramirez hit a pinch-hit grand slam. Did I happen to mention that it was also Manny Ramirez bobble-head doll night? Did I also mention that he got a standing ovation while he was rehabilitating at the triple-A level in New Mexico while finishing his 50-game suspension?

I don’t know about you, but a standing ovation from fans, a special section called “Mannywood,” and a bobble-head doll giveaway following a 50-game suspension for steroid use seems to suggest that people have embraced cheating as long as it helps their team win.

Reference“Ortiz Confirms He Tested Positive for PEDs in 2003.” AP/Fox Sports. 31 July 2009.

Ω

Drinking Problem

Racism is a serious issue in this country and the recent irresponsible comments by President Obama added to the fray. So, what kind of hard-hitting, serious reporting comes to us on the problem via ABC News?

Analyzing what brand of beer will be served at the White House meeting between the three men involved in the story, of course.

Ω

Why I Left Second Life

Given that I’ve only mentioned Second Life twice in the last two years on any of my blogs, it might come as a surprise to find out that I’ve been a Second Life user—or “resident,” as the term is—since May 2007. Throughout that time I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to say that I’ve never been addicted to this virtual reality world, but the time has come for me to distance myself from it and its other residents.

For those unaware, Second Life is a virtual reality environment in which you decide what it is to you. Thus, it’s not a game per se; it’s a world that is whatever you want it to be. Whether you want to be an entrepreneur and sell virtual merchandise or whether you want to be a bum on a beach, you can do it. Whether you want to be a vampire or an purple cheetah from a planet with an unpronounceable name, you can. It’s all up to you.

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A map of the Second Life grid.
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I’d be using a lot of space trying to explain the entire thing with words, so if you’re trying to figure out what it is, go to the Second Life FAQ page which is offered by Linden Labs, which is the company that developed the whole thing.

Before I get to the negatives, I do have to mention a few positives that came from my experience with Second Life: I did meet a few really great people and I learned how to use technology that was off my radar until I learned about it through Second Life. This technology ended up helping me with my job in real-life and was a godsend. Two items in particular are a photo editing tool called GIMP and a self-publishing Website called Issuu.com.

But like I had said, with the positives come the negatives, and there were quite a few. What I’ll do is frame these in a way that will hopefully make sense to both Second Life users (or former users) as well as those who have no clue as to what Second Life entails. So think of this list as a guide-sheet for newcomers—only it’s giving you a heads-up for some of the crap that you’ll run into on your virtual journey if you choose to explore it.

••••

RELATIONSHIPS
There are two aspects to this section, so keep both of them in mind if you decide to sign up.

Partnering
In Second Life, you can “partner” with a person of your choice. This is Linden Labs’ version of going steady with someone. What you’ll notice, however, is that most of this “partnering” turns into a really bad episode of Degrassi Junior High. For instance, a guy named Brock might be partnered with a woman named Sexykins this week, but next week you’ll see that Brock is partnered with Nippleicious and Sexykins is partnered with BigDick. Then BigDick finds out that Sexykins is having an “affair” with some guy named Gangsta, Nippleicious is having an “affair” with DJSmooth, and Brock is having an “affair” with an intergalactic vampire named Zorgonella who comes from the planet Xonix 15. Oh, and throughout that whole time, Sexykins was also cyber-fucking a girl named Trixxi, but it wasn’t supposed to be known because Trixxi didn’t want anyone knowing that she was a bisexual (since she had promised her girlfriend that she was strictly lesbian). In the end, everyone “unpartners” and DJSmooth names himself a “slave owner” with his slave being Trixxi, who is more than happy to have someone “own” her. They open a Second Life BDSM club and live happily ever after.

Making Your Avatar Look Hot
Since I’m writing this from the perspective of a straight male, I’ll offer these tips to other straight guys if you’re thinking about signing up with Second Life in the hopes of meeting women in this particular virtual world:

• Make your avatar look as unnatural as possible. Give him shoulders that look sickeningly broad. Give him legs that look so muscular that he’s undoubtedly a steroid freak. Give him hair that would make an emo band envious. Give him as many piercings as possible. Be sure that he has a waxed chest because a lot of straight women in Second Life hate chest hair; the pre-pubescent look is very popular. And top it all off with more tattoos than you can shake a stick at. Whatever you do, don’t make him look realistic. And no matter what, never make your avatar look unique. Conformity is important here.

_____________________________________




_____________________________________

• Be obnoxious. If you can act immature, do so. For some reason, many straight women in Second Life love men who act like seventh-graders.

• Tell them that you’re a DJ. Even if you’re not, just tell them that you are. Your sex appeal will skyrocket. Tell them that you’re a DJ in real-life and you’ll have it made.

• Tell women that you’re rich. The vast majority of straight women in Second Life who are looking to meet men want to know that you have lots of money. They also want to know that you’re willing to spend it on them: big virtual homes, expensive virtual cars, and lots of virtual land. Upon my first arriving in Second Life, a woman asked me, “Where’s your house?” When I told her that I didn’t have a house in Second Life, her response was, “It was nice meeting you.”

• Finally, tell them that you’re married in real-life. It was disturbing to see how many women wouldn’t even talk to men in Second Life if the men weren’t married in real-life. Some women wore it as a badge of honor to “date” and partner only married men.

If you’re a guy who’s looking to meet women in Second Life, and if you’re a guy who wants women to like you for not acting like an asshole, there is a little bit of hope: those women can be found in Second Life. The only catch is that we call those women lesbians.

ECONOMICS
The economy in Second Life is probably the most capitalistic, freest market that you’re going to find on the face of the Earth. You can make virtual goods to sell or you can just buy Linden dollars (Linden Labs’ version of in-world play money) to spend. If you decide to make stuff to sell, just be aware that some merchants in Second Life are whiners. In fact, they’ll blame you for their own failures.

____________________________________________________

A Second Life store near a beach club.
____________________________________________________

Just before I called it quits in Second Life, a brouhaha broke out amongst a few merchants in which some merchants were whining because other merchants were charging less for their goods and thus making more money than the merchants who were charging more (they were viewing sales in terms of seller-side instead of consumer-side). The former merchants thought that the latter should voluntarily raise their prices to make things “fairer.” The latter merchants basically told them to go pound sand. Either way, get used to this. Second Life is full of people selling merchandise who have no familiarity with the world of retail sales or economics trying to survive in a cut-throat economy. Add to that an entitlement mentality and you find yourself with a situation that leads to thousands of shouting matches.

The economics of Second Life also lets us to see who the hypocrites are. You notice them very quickly because they preach the virtues of socialism and economic regulations while urging people to buy as much of their merchandise as possible to maximize their own profits. These people have the theory that capitalism and profits are evil unless it benefits them and no one else. This is just proof that you can’t remove the real-life, tangible world from a pixelated virtual world because human beings are running the entire thing.

ATTITUDES & PERSONALITIES
While the issues that I discussed under the relationships section were a close second to this, this section was ultimately the biggest reason why I quit Second Life. I have to deal with enough of this stuff on a regular basis in the real world, mainly at work, so my time in Second Life was supposed to be relaxing if not fun. But when you have several kinds of negative personalities on the Second Life grid (the “grid” being the map of existing areas to which you can travel), there were several times that my time online was neither relaxing nor fun.

The Drama Queens
These folks aren’t necessarily women, either. The drama queen can be male or female and they’re constantly making a mountain out of a molehill. Some of them just gossip about other people but others actually save entire instant message conversations and paste them for others to see (which is actually a violation of the terms-of-service) in order to create conflict.

The Attention Whores
Similar to the drama queens, the attention whores come in male and female versions. You notice them quickly: as soon as you stop talking to them or stop noticing them, they freak out.

The Power-Trippers
From what I saw during my time in Second Life, these were usually males and they usually fell into two categories: club owners and “police officers.” Second Life virtual clubs look a lot like real-life clubs: laser lights, glitter balls, and music. These virtual clubs are basically just a place to socialize and listen to music if you have your music stream option enabled. If you get too many people in a club, however, you’ll experience lag. I have a pretty kick-ass iMac and even I experienced lag a few times. Prepare yourself if you go.

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

Anyway, a lot of guys who own Second Life clubs—and it was usually always guys who fell into this category—had issues with control. They own the club and they want you to know it. They set the rules, they decide who can enter and who can’t, and one guy even had the idea that once you walked into his club, he somehow “owned” you and everything that you would do while there.

I can’t help but think that these guys are trying to compensate for a lack of first-life worth. Their lives suck in the tangible world, so they want to be important in the virtual world. In a few cases, it actually works. Sadly it’s because of what I mentioned earlier in my critique when I talked about what many women in Second Life are drawn to. In this case, if you say you’re a club owner, all of a sudden you’re “cool”—and when you’re a student at Degrassi Junior High, you want to be cool, no?

“Police officers” are the second lot, and I use quotation marks because they’re not really real police officers—that is, they have no real law enforcement ability as they’re not under contract with Linden Labs. There have been multiple reports of these “cops” acting in inappropriate ways and justifying their actions by having “a badge” that they themselves made. Again, these guys want power any way possible and for them, threatening people in a virtual world with their pixelated handcuffs and pixelated guns gives them what they need.

Stalkers
Even though I never had a problem with someone “stalking” me in Second Life (basically just following you around, asking your friends about you, never leaving you alone, etc.), I know several people who were routinely stalked. I figure that I wasn’t stalked because I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t a DJ, and I wasn’t married in real-life. My value in Second Life was, for the most part, pretty rock-bottom. Still, I would not want to be the victim of this kind of harassment.

••••

I will say that Second Life isn’t the spawn of Satan that some folks in the mainstream media would have you believe. In fact, when you think about it, they’ve brought a virtual 3-D world to the masses.

Yes, there have been problems in the past with the exchanging of child pornography, but to blame Second Life as an entire platform for the criminal acts of a few individuals would be like blaming the entire Internet for it, too. With that said, it’s not an environment that I could see myself returning to visit on a regular basis anymore. After two years it took its toll on me. Rather, many of the people in it took a toll on me.

My hope was that it would be some kind of positive outlet for an otherwise negative, mundane, real-life tangible world. The possibilities of creativity and imagination lured me in, but the specters of conformity and bullshit drove me off.

This post wasn’t designed to tell you what to do with your own decision on whether or not to try Second Life. By all means, if you want to check it out, go for it. If you like it and decide to use it regularly, more power to you. If anything, I’d be the first person to tell you to give something a try before making a decision on it. Don’t knock something until you try it—except for suicide, of course.

I tried Second Life. I lasted for a little over two years, but this weekend I came to a decision to click File ➞ Quit for what was probably the last time.

Ω

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

“The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.” —President Barack Obama after admitting that he did not know the details of the Professor Gates arrest

“In some ways, this is every black man’s nightmare and a reality for black men.” —Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

“I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain—if I’m not mistaken.” —White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs after being asked about a possible backlash from police groups given that Obama has received praise from the law enforcement community up to this point

“I think now it’s about conflict resolution and I don’t think that the officer is at all being coöperative in any kind of extent of resolution to this. I think he’s been defensive at best by saying, you know, even on the show I saw yesterday, he refuses to give an apology. So as the [Cambridge] mayor just eloquently stated my father has said that he’d participate in whatever the next step must be and if the officer is saying that he won’t, I think that maybe he needs to extend his sensitivity training.” —Elizabeth Gates, daughter of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

••••

When this story first broke, I was going to comment on it but I held off because I didn’t want to adopt the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later mentality that was prominent throughout the eight years of George W. Bush (and no pun is intended with Dick Cheney’s “hunting” incident).

President Obama, however, has no problems following in Bush’s footsteps and quickly commented on Professor Gates’ arrest even though he admitted that he didn’t have the facts pertaining to the incident. That being the case, he still had no problem saying that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.”

Now that the police incident report has come out, and given that hundreds of news stories are out, I have to add my voice to the many who have said that it more likely that Obama was the one to have acted stupidly (no doubt upsetting his sheepish followers).

Before I do, I feel the need to preface it by saying that I’m usually critical of bad police. Whether it’s a cop who drinks while on duty or an entire police force that selectively targets gay bars for full-scale raids on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, I could easily be accused of being anti-police.

The truth is, I’m not. I’m simply in favor of good cops. I hate bad cops for two reasons: (1.) the idea of taking advantage of your position to violate the very concepts that you supposedly stand for is morally and ethically wrong, and (2.) I actually had a corrupt cop in my family many years ago.

It’s not something that I’ve ever mentioned in any of my other posts over the last four years, but I felt the need to mention it so that it didn’t seem like I was being selective with my support of law enforcement.

••••

In the late-1930s, my great-great uncle was a police chief in a neighboring town. Unfortunately, he didn’t use his position to protect and to serve.

Due to his position—and God knows it wasn’t because of his looks—women loved him. He had power, he had a uniform, and he had a wife; he was the prime candidate for female pursuers.

He wasn’t too careful, though, because he got one of his girlfriends pregnant. And, being the kind of guy that he was, he solved the problem the only way that he knew how: he killed her.

Since forensics in the late-1930s weren’t what they are now, he literally got away with murder. Everyone in the town knew that he did it. Everyone in the town where the girlfriend lived knew that he did it. The problem was that no one had any hard evidence to pin the crime on him.

He ultimately became the black mark—if not the black sheep—of the family. His son refused to even speak about his father. To this day, I can’t even find out what the girlfriend’s name was because so few people want to remind themselves of his existence.

••••

When I first heard the story of Professor Gates, my immediate thought was that he was the victim of power-hungry police. When I learned that he was black, I thought that he was the victim of racist power-hungry police. Then the police report came out and explained that the arresting police officer, James Crowley—who incidentally teaches a class on avoiding racial profiling after having been hand-picked by a black police commissioner—radioed his communications center to let them know that the subject whom he was to investigate (Gates) was “very uncoöperative.”

Here’s an excerpt of Crowley’s report:

When I arrived at [redacted] Ware Street I radioed ECC and asked that they have the caller meet me at the front door to this residence. I was told that the caller was already outside. As I was getting this information, I climbed the porch stairs toward the front door. As I reached the door, a female voice called out to me. I turned and looked in the direction of the voice and observed a white female, later identified as Lucia Whalen. Whalen, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless telephone in her hand and told me that it was she who called. She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of [redacted] Ware Street. She told me that her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry. Since I was the only police officer on location and had my back to the front door as I spoke with her, I asked that she wait for the other responding officers while I investigated further.

As I turned and faced the door, I could see an older black male standing in the foyer of [redacted] Ware Street. I made this observation through the glass paned front door. As I stood in plain view of this man, later identified as Gates, I asked if he would step out onto the porch and speak with me. He replied “no I will not”. He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was “Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police” and that I was “investigating a report of a break in progress” at the residence. While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed “why, because I’m a black man in America?”. I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist police officer. I assured Gates that I was responding to a citizen’s call to the Cambridge Police and that the caller was outside as we spoke. Gates seemed to ignore me and picked up a cordless telephone and dialed an unknown telephone number. As he did so, I radioed on channel 1 that I was off in the residence with someone who appeared to be a resident but very uncooperative. I then overheard Gates asking the person on the other end of his telephone call to “get the chief” and “what’s the chief’s name?”. Gates was telling the person on the other end of the call that he was dealing with a racist police officer in his home. Gates then turned to me and told me that I had no idea who I was “messing” with and that I had not heard the last of it. While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me. I asked Gates to provide me with photo identification so that I could verify that he resided at [redacted] Ware Street and so that I could radio my findings to ECC. Gates initially refused, demanding that I show him identification but then did supply me with a Harvard University identification card. Upon learning that Gates was affiliated with Harvard, I radioed and requested the presence of the Harvard University Police.

••••

Police don’t always know what kind of situation they’re going to walk into when they’re dispatched for a call. In this case, the dispatcher received a cell phone call from someone who saw a person wedging their way into a house. In this case, it was Gates; Crowley didn’t know that when he received the dispatch order from the dispatcher. He had no idea if Gates was or wasn’t an intruder. He had no idea if there were more people in house. He had no idea if anyone was carrying a concealed weapon.

When I looked at this case I tried to put myself in the shoes of both Crowley and Gates. And, truth be told, I at first put myself in Gates’ shoes: that of an innocent home-owner who was being put through the wringer by a power-mad cop. Then as the story unfolded, I put myself in Crowley’s shoes: going into an unknown situation where you might or not be ambushed. In fact, any apprehensions that Crowley might have had before going on-scene at Gates’ home might have been heightened by Gates’ immediate defensive behavior, as well as his quick accusation of racism.

••••

President Obama wasn’t willing to wait to comment on this story. He wasn’t willing to make firm comments on the protests in Iran—protests in which people were shot and killed in the name of democracy—but this time around he was willing to shoot his mouth off even though he admitted that he didn’t have all the facts. And as if that weren’t enough, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs—whose behavior as an arrogant prick is nothing new—tried to make a racial issue even bigger by turning it into a racial and political issue by suggesting that police organizations just don’t like Obama as evidence in their support for John McCain during last year’s election.

Now that he’s realized he screwed up, he’s attempted to make nice by saying that this was simply a “teachable moment” and that he, Gates, and Crowley can come to the White House for a few beers.

I just hope that they don’t drink too much because I’m not sure if alcohol poisoning is covered under Congress’s socialized healthcare plan.

ReferencesBurns, Alexander and Carol E. Lee. “Police, White House Exchange Barbs.” Politico.com. 24 July 2009.

Chen, Edwin. “Obama Says Police ‘Acted Stupidly’ in Arresting Gates.” Bloomberg.com. 23 July 2009.

Cooper, Chase Edwards. “Raid ‘Em, Cowboy.” The American Philosophy Company. 4 July 2009.

——. “Sex, Lies, and Computing.” The American Philosophy Company. 25 Nov. 2008.

——. “Sticking to the Script.” The American Philosophy Company. 1 July 2009.

Crowley, James. Cambridge Police Department police report, incident #9005127. The Smoking Gun. 16 July 2009 (posted on July 23, 2009).

“Gates’ Daughter Calls Cop Uncooperative.” CBS News. 24 July 2009.

“Is the Gates/Crowley Affair a ‘Teachable Moment?.”” Chicago Tribune. 24 July 2009.

Salsberg, Bob. “Black Officer at Gates Home During Arrest Said Scholar Acted Strange, Supports Arrest.” Chicago Tribune. 24 July 2009.

Saltzman, Jonathan and Andrew Ryan. “Police Unions Call for Apology from Obama, Patrick.” Boston Globe. 24 July 2009.

Weir, Richard, Laurel J. Sweet and Benjamin Bell. “911, Police Tapes Key in Gates Case.” Boston Herald. 24 July 2009.

Ω

UPDATE: JULY 27, 2009
The 911 tape from the caller was released and it turns out that she never mentioned the skin color of anyone involved until the 911 dispatcher asked her for the descriptions of the men.

All That They Can Leave Behind

Just be sure that you’re doing your part to save the planet because it’ll help offset U2’s carbon footprint of their 2009 tour.
___________________________

While Bono’s attempted hug dodge of then-president George W. Bush is becoming the talk of the Internet, I’m more amused at how Bono’s celebrity status somehow exempts him from criticism from many U2 fans, given that his image seems to be a bit of a façade. Consider these:

Bono is famous for preaching to governments, asking them for debt-relief of third-world nations. In order to recoup those losses, these governments would then have to raise taxes on their own people.

But when it comes to taxes for Bono and the other three guys in U2, it turns out that they’re not too interested in paying them if they can get out of it. Financial Website Bloomberg.com reported:

[Adviser to the Tax Justice Network Richard Murphy] points to the band’s decision to move its music publishing company to the Netherlands from Ireland in June 2006 in order to minimize taxes. The move came six months before Ireland ended an exemption on musicians’ royalty income, which is generally untaxed in the Netherlands.

“This is somebody who’s exceptionally rich taking the opportunity to shift his tax burden to somebody else, but then asking governments around the world to spend that tax take in the way that he would like,” Murphy says.

U2’s move to the Netherlands is wrong, says Dick Molenaar, senior partner at All Arts Tax Advisers, a Rotterdam-based tax consulting firm for artists and musicians. “Everybody needs to pay his fair share of taxation to the government, and therefore we have roads and education and everything,” he says.

During the 1990s, U2 used nonexecutive directors who were resident in an offshore tax haven to limit the amount paid by the four band members—in addition to Bono, they’re lead guitarist The Edge, 45, whose real name is David Evans, bass guitarist Adam Clayton, 46, and drummer Larry Mullen, 45.

Another thing that Bono is famous for is his stance on helping the planet and putting an end to global warming. He once remarked that “[c]limate change will most effect the poorest people: the people who do not have the resources to deal with the coming changes.” These changes, say the climate-change-awareness people, are undoubtedly due to human beings (you know, never mind that the Earth was actually warmer than it is now until around the year 1300). And as such, one of the biggest culprits is carbon dioxide.

So now that U2 is out on tour, how much CO₂ is Bono and the boys pumping into our fragile atmosphere? Let’s take a look. A Guardian story from July 10, 2009, reports:

“Looking at the 44 concerts, U2 will create enough carbon to fly all 90,000 people attending one of their Wembley dates (in London) to Dublin,” Helen Roberts, an environmental consultant for carbonfootprint.com, told the Belfast Telegraph. Put another way, U2’s CO₂ emissions are reportedly the equivalent to the average annual waste produced by 6,500 British people, or the same as leaving a light-bulb running for 159,000 years.

But, says one U2 fan, hypocrisy is okay as long as it makes us feel good:

Though U2 may yet announce that they are paying to carbon offset their world tour—they would need to plant 20,118 trees a year, according to Roberts—at least one fan has argued that the environmental damage is worth the price. “The carbon footprint of this might be quite large, but the spiritual rewards to the audience of this are those that enhance a life,” Mark Reed wrote in a review for the Final Word website. “If all life were bread and water, then there would be nothing to lift mankind above the amoeba.”

I guess as long as you give people a “spiritual reward,” you can say whatever you want to and do the opposite.

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A Black Eye for Women

During my senior year in high school, one of my classmates beat his girlfriend—another fellow classmate—so severely that she had to go to the hospital and was out of school for a week recovering. Upon her return, she wore sunglasses for another week until all the bruising healed.

What struck me the most was that many of my classmates viewed her more negatively than they did the boyfriend. It was almost as if they were angry at her for somehow making him look bad by coming back to school with the bruises.

That’s why I wasn’t shocked when a friend sent me an e-mail with a link of the new Chris Brown apology. Brown beat his girlfriend Rhianna and not only made a videotaped apology, but he’s been forgiven by hundreds of fans.

What struck me most in this case was that the majority of negative comments weren’t from women—they were from men. In fact, the majority of positive comments were from women.

I figured that I’d post a few here for your viewing pleasure. Please be aware that I didn’t cherry-pick these comments. I didn’t have to; they’re all there in their we-forgive-Chris glory. Click on the link to the video to see for yourself.

For the last few years I’ve argued that if you’re a man who wants a woman to be attracted to you, you need to treat her like shit. I’m not happy about that, but it’s true. And it’s been evidenced over and over again.

Here’s a message to those of you who might consider yourselves feminists: Men aren’t as big a threat to your beliefs as your fellow females are.

EDIT: After mulling it over, I’ve moved this comment to its own spot because I’m not sure if it’s positive or negative. Actually, I’m not sure what language it is.

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Wanted: Narcissist

I don’t have a Twitter account and I admit to it. I don’t have a MySpace or Facebook profile, either, which means that, given that it’s 2009, I’m essentially “not with it.”

To be honest, I view Twitter with more disdain than the other two, which might sound odd because having seen many MySpace profiles I’ve come to the conclusion that some people shouldn’t be allowed to work with HTML code whatsoever.

That aside, Twitter is a bit different because not only is it designed to be more narcissistic—it’s actually supposed to tell everyone what you’re doing at any given minute of any given day—than the other two, it does so in a way that is based on the premise that we need to limit ourselves in terms of expression: 140 letters or less.

We’re constantly hearing about the “dumbing down” of our culture, and Twitter is a wonderful way to help this movement along. Instead of expecting someone to introduce something, write about it, build upon it, make their point, and wrap their topic up in a conclusion, Twitter now lets people pull off a brief sound bite and carry on.

Our cultural push to make Twitter as popular as humanly possible is helping it happen. Almost on a daily basis I’ve heard “Twitter this” or “Twitter that.” Even C-SPAN is now scanning Twitter posts for viewer input, in place of the usual e-mails that they used regularly. Now their Washington Journal guests get to hear one- or two-sentence quips instead of three or four well-written sentences to which they must respond.

Before I continue, I need to mention that I’m not blaming the guy who started Twitter. He didn’t force anyone to pick up on the fad. (And yes, I think it’s going to be a fad; MySpace was said to be amazing and people thought that it would have staying power but now it’s on its way out. As for Twitter, 60 percent of all Twitter sign-ups quit after only 30 days.) Twitter’s creator simply offered a service and others liked it. It’s akin to texting: no one forces people to text and type things like “kewl,” “u” for “you,” “ur” for “your,” or “2” for “to”—people do it themselves.

On one hand our society laments about the poor writing skills of our students and quickly blames teachers, but then we simultaneously encourage the use of a tool that ostensibly aids in eroding the ability to write properly. We no longer have to present our topic; we can simply fire off a one-sentence comment on it and move on to the next topic.

Why do we do this? Well, because it’s popular. In fact, this reason is one that I see given quite often as to why everyone should be on Twitter 24 hours a day, seven days a week: everyone is doing it so you should, too.

This is why I wasn’t really surprised to learn that Best Buy recently listed these two requirements for being considered for the position of Senior Manager/Emerging Media Marketing: have a bachelor’s degree and have a Twitter account with at least 250 “followers.”

I can understand that Best Buy wants someone with a college degree. I can understand that they want someone in “emerging media” to know how to use Twitter. What amazes me is that they’re so focused on the popularity factor (at least 250 followers) that it seems to trump the ability of the applicant. The exposure is the be-all and end-all.

It’s not hard to get “friends” on MySpace; some people have thousands and tens of thousands because they sit at their computer and just send out friend requests all day. Having a certain number of Twitter followers doesn’t mean that your ability at something is greater than someone else who might have half that number. I wonder what might happen if in a year or two Twitter falls in popularity. Will this senior manager be given the boot?

I can imagine the new qualifications for Best Buy’s CEO position: must like pizza and be good at Halo and World of Warcraft.

ReferencesAlbanesius, Chloe. “Many New Twitter Users Not Coming Back for More.” PC Magazine. 29 Apr. 2009.

Kavur, Jennifer. “How Many Twitter Followers Does it Take to Get a Job?” ComputerWorld Canada. 10 July 2009.

McDonald, Loren. “Twitter: Email with a 140-Character Limit?” MediaPost. 15 Jan. 2009.

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Had She Only Been Aborted...

Seventeen-year-old Cheyenne Cherry killed a kitten by putting it in a 500-degree oven and letting it cook to death. Not only does she wear it as a badge of honor, but she was quoted as yelling, “It’s dead, bitch!” at a group of animal rights activists who protested at the courthouse.

From the Daily News:

A heartless kitty killer hissed angrily at animal rights activists Wednesday, grinning widely as she took credit for stuffing the helpless pet into a 500-degree oven.

“It’s dead, bitch!” snapped an unrepentant Cheyenne Cherry, sticking her tongue out after a plea bargain that will put her behind bars for a year in the May 6 killing of tiny Tiger Lily.

Cherry, 17, was confronted after her guilty plea in Bronx Supreme Court to charges of animal cruelty and attempted burglary in the May 6 killing at her former roommate's apartment.

Tiger Lily was left to die inside the blistering oven after Cherry and a 14-year-old friend trashed the apartment of Valerie Hernandez, destroying furniture before stealing DVDs and food.

After her arrest, Cherry told police the cat killing was “just a joke.”

[...]

Cherry is not new to animal crimes.

She was busted last year for using a BB gun to dog-nap a teacup Yorkie with her boyfriend. She was also arrested for robbing a man of his iPod at gunpoint.

This piece of shit is threat to society as a whole. It’s just too bad that we can’t stick her in a 500-degree oven for a few hours, too.

ReferenceBlock, Dorian. “Teen Cheyenne Cherry Taunts Animal Activists After Guilty Plea for Killing Kitten in Oven.” New York Daily News. 16 July 2009.

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You Could Already Be a Loser!

A few months ago one of my coworkers got an e-mail from a guy in Zaire who wanted her username and password. The e-mail was written in poor English and was clearly sent from an e-mail address located in Zaire given its “.zr” suffix. The e-mail explained that my coworker’s e-mail account would be deleted if she didn’t send the nice con man her private information.

So, she was going to do it. If I hadn’t overheard her reading the e-mail aloud, I wouldn’t have been able to quickly shout out, “Don’t send him your information. That’s a scam!”

A few weeks later I was watching my local television news when a story came on about a woman who received an e-mail from “her grandson” who needed $2,000 because he was falling on hard times. She sent the money to the man, but there was one little red flag in the story that never seemed to go up for the woman: She didn’t even have a grandson. She sent the money anyway.

As it turns out, these people are not the only ones to be suckered by e-mails. In fact, according to a new survey, some people aren’t even sure why they click on some of the e-mails that they do.

From the poll:

• 82% of the respondents were aware of e-mail bots, but many considered themselves immune to them.

• 52% admitted to having clicked on spam offers

• Of those 52% who click on spam offers, 12% were actually interested in the stuff being offered

• 13% said that they weren’t sure why they clicked the spam

• 6% said that they “wanted to see what would happen.”

Yes, 13% simply did not know why they clicked their mouse and 6% just clicked the spam offer for the hell of it, possibly putting their computer in danger of viruses and spyware.

Since we have these people out there, I’m making an offer to everyone reading this: I have a large piece of oceanfront property in Nebraska and I’m willing to sell it for only 50 cents an acre. Who would pass that up? You don’t want to. You know that you want to buy this land. So do it.

To buy this piece of beautiful Nebraska oceanfront property—which overlooks the magnificent Wyoming Ocean—just send me your name, address, Social Security number, and all your credit card numbers.

You didn’t pass up the offer for your inheritance from Crown Prince Shaka Zulu, those impotence pills, or that Russian mail-order bride, so don’t let this one get away!

ReferenceCheng, Jacqui. “12% of E-Mail Users Have Actually Tried to Buy Stuff from Spam.” Ars Technica. 15 July 2009.

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For Some, Even "Free" is Too Expensive

I’m showing my age here, but when I was in ninth grade, the once-mighty Metallica held a free listening party on the cusp of the release for their now-legendary “black album” (the real title of the CD simply being Metallica). The free listening party was held at New York’s Madison Square Garden, but even though no one had to pay a single cent to enter and be blown away by the new offering from a band that had turned into American metal icons by the late-1980s, people still complained.

Some were upset because even though they had a chance to hear a new CD for free, the band didn’t play for free.

I mention this story because I noticed it happen yet again on a Website called Scribd. Scribd is a bit like Issuu in that any Joe Sixpack with a PDF converter can make their own e-magazine or e-book and upload it for the world to see—for free. However, I quickly noticed that “free” isn’t free “enough” for many readers. They want all of Scribd’s books to be downloadable in the format of their choice. Hell, they probably want it to be brought to them in a leather-bound edition on a silver platter.

Such was the case when I clicked on the Scribd page for Chris Anderson’s controversial book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Comments left on the Scribd page for Free called Anderson a hypocrite because it was only viewable on Scribd’s embedded browser; readers couldn’t download it or print it. Therefore—they somehow reasoned—the book wasn’t “free.” For them, reading it on the Internet was costing them in some way.

Others refer to Anderson’s book on Scribd as a bait-and-switch scheme; one calls it “false advertising” (since Anderson’s book is about making information available for free, which he does here); one commenter goes so far as to suggest that his/her “freedom” is being limited simply because he/she has to read the book online. Few seem to understand that the information itself is being given out for free; the majority want it to be delivered their way for free. Give it a few more weeks and we’ll no doubt have people calling for a free movie version of the book so they don’t have to actually read anything.

This is the case in America today. We’ve turned into a bunch of spoiled, selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic fat-asses who can be given an inch and then want a mile.

And I won’t charge you for this bit of information.

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"Guiding" Light

The fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term “democracy” as the following:

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. 2. A political unit that has such a government. 3. Majority rule. 4. The principals of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

I offer this because it is supposedly at the heart of a soon-to-be released book by Alex S. Jones entitled Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy from Oxford University Press. The description of Losing the News is as follows:

What is wrong with the news?

To answer this dismaying question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones explores how the epochal changes sweeping the media have eroded the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy.

At a time of dazzling technological innovation, Jones says that what stands to be lost is the fact-based reporting that serves as a watchdog over government, holds the powerful accountable, and gives citizens what they need. In a tumultuous new media era, with cutthroat competition and panic over profits, the commitment of the traditional news media to serious news is fading. Should we lose a critical mass of this news, our democracy will weaken—and possibly even begin to fail.

The breathtaking possibilities that the web offers are undeniable, but at what cost? The shattering of the old economic model is taking a toll on journalistic values and standards. Journalistic objectivity and ethics are under assault, as is the bastion of the First Amendment. Pundits and talk show hosts have persuaded Americans that the crisis in news is bias and partisanship. Not so, says Jones. The real crisis is the erosion of the iron core of “accountability” news, a loss that hurts Republicans and Democrats alike.

Losing the News is a vivid depiction of the dangers facing fact-based, reported news, but it is also a call to arms. Despite the current crisis, there are many hopeful signs, and Jones closes by looking over the horizon and exploring ways the iron core can be preserved.

Dan Rather, who stood behind CBS’s use of fraudulent documents while George W. Bush was dictator-in-chief, gives Losing the News a glowing review, which leads me to believe that I’ll bypass this if I see it on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble. That aside, I caught an interview with Mr. Jones on C-SPAN’s BookTV this weekend and found it a bit odd that this book was even written.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s based on a contradiction: democracy must be saved, but the people who make the democracy shouldn’t have a say in what happens.

During the BookTV interview, Jones elaborated on his love of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as well as printed newspapers and magazines. He lamented over the obvious decline of print media with the growth of the “new media” on the Internet.

What I found troublesome was at one point during the interview, he said that while the Internet can be a powerful thing, our society needs to be “guided” in the right direction toward print media. He explained that while people might let the Internet overtake print, we shouldn’t just let it happen on its own.

Here’s the contradiction that makes me question the basic premise of this book: If the book has been written under the guise of “saving” democracy, how can Jones also become upset when the members of that same democracy—in this case, the United States—are the very people who have decided that print is no longer what they want?

Moreover, if you have to be “guided”—more than likely by the federal government—you no longer have any element of democracy. If anything, you have a situation where an authoritarian government telling the people what’s best for them.

The sentiment that Jones expresses is similar to that of newspapermen a few months ago who called for a “bailout” of the newspaper industry when it became apparent that printed newspapers were dying with the rise of the paperless Internet. These newspapermen were upset to see their industry threatened, and quickly used the same defense: they wanted government intervention to “save democracy”—even though their own democracy is the one that showed little interest in what they were offering.

I agree with Jones that much of our current news media is essentially a joke. I’ve been critical of it on several occasions, especially when I see both major news Websites as well as smaller outlets offering fluff pieces as major news stories. My local newspaper Website, for example, has begun to routinely list news on reality television shows next to stories about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as reports on the Iranian protests.

Obviously—at least for me—these stories don’t belong together. Having crap articles about mindless entertainment next to serious news is ludicrous. But unfortunately, they’re doing it because they know that it’s what their readers want. This is what their readers enjoy and whether anyone likes it or not, this demand is going to affect advertising revenue. Advertising revenue is what pays the bills and allows the Website to stay in business in the first place.

Who are these readers? The readers are the same people who make the democracy. The readers are the same ones who lost interest in the print media. And yes, sadly the readers are the ones who lost interest in hard news.

I don’t say that because I like it; I say it because it happened and it continues to happen. If, however, we have the government come in and “save” the print media field—or the “traditional” media, if you prefer—we’re actually violating the very premise of the fight.

If you need to “guide” the citizenry, there’s nothing democratic about it. As such, you shouldn’t even bother using the term “democracy.” At that point it’s no longer a democracy; it’s a nanny state.

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True Lies

In a case worse than the Duke rape hoax, a former Canadian police officer has just had the truth come out after spending two decades in prison for molesting his own children: the kids admitted that they lied about being abused.

The Associated Press reports:

As if that isn’t bad enough, there’s this part of the story:

The chief criminal deputy prosecutor, however, isn’t interested in whether or not Spencer is innocent:

The ones who belong behind bars in this case are the children’s mother, former detective Sharon Krause, and prosecutor Dennis Hunter. They’re more a threat to society than anyone else in the story.

Reference“Kids Recant Abuse Claims After Dad Jailed 20 Years.” AP/ABC News. 12 July 2009.

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Distress Signals

Vito Congine, Jr. served with the United States Marine Corps in Iraq in 2004. Now that he’s home, he attempted to start a new business in the village of Crivitz, Wisconsin. He purchased a building, spent $200,000 fixing it up, and wanted to turn it into an Italian restaurant. He applied for a liquor license, but that’s when he hit a snag.

The village board voted against it.

In protest, he began flying his American flag upside down, which is often used as a distress signal. Unfortunately for Congine and others who support the First Amendment, the county’s district attorney, Allen Brey, and the county sheriff, Jim Kanikula, had four officers forcibly remove the upside-down flag in time for the village’s Fourth of July parade because village residents didn’t like it.

Brey refuses to talk about, but Kanikula said that while Congine didn’t actually do anything illegal by flying it upside-down, it might upset people and that would ultimately cause a disruption. Kanikula said, “It is illegal to cause a disruption.”

To add insult to injury, the village’s president, John Deschane, remarked: “If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it.” And that way would be what, Mr. Deschane? A way that is designed to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? A way that you don’t have to actually hear it or see it? A way that you can ignore it and pretend that it doesn’t exist? Would that make you feel better? No doubt it would.

The thing is, life doesn’t work that way, and it shouldn’t work that way in the United States. There’s sick irony here: Congine’s not only a veteran, but he’s having his First Amendment rights pissed on for the very day that is supposed to honor him and for what he supposedly fought.

I don’t know Vito, but I do know that Vito has more balls than I ever will. He served in the military on foreign soil and was willing to die for his country. Then he comes home and he’s greeted with the same fascist tactics that the United States was supposedly fighting against.

The only things different are the names.

Folks like Allen Brey, Jim Kanikula, and John Deschane probably smiled on the Fourth of July and felt like good little Americans because they had the power to quiet someone with whom they disagreed. Now Vito Congine has a chance to remind them of something that he was fighting for while in the Marines: free speech.

If these guys thought that flying a flag upside-down was going to cause a disruption, how about a nice settlement for violating Congine’s First Amendment rights at the expense of the taxpayers?

God bless America and Vito Congine, Jr.

ReferenceImrie, Robert. “Dispute Over Flag Protest Erupts in Wisc. Village.” AP/Yahoo! News. 10 July 2009.

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Their American Way

Since the Supreme Court ruling on the New Haven firefighter discrimination case didn’t go the way that they had hoped, the liberal organization People for the American Way along with supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayo—who have made skin color more important than the ability to save lives—have begun a campaign to bring down Ricci v. DeStefano plaintiff Frank Ricci by citing past “troubles” that he’s had.

But what are these “troubles,” according to them?

Well, for one, he filed suit in 1995 after he claimed that he was discriminated against for being dyslexic. They also cite a story saying that he was fired from the Middletown Fire Department because he raised safety concerns at the department, which was eventually fined for safety violations.

Now, let’s take a look at these:

• In the first case, we can easily believe that Ricci was discriminated against by New Haven officials because they’re already known for discriminating against people based on skin color. Why wouldn’t it be easy to think that they’d discriminate against a learning disability?

• In the second case, he raised concerns about safety violations. This is in a field where safety concerns are of the utmost importance.

The People for the American Way are upset over these? Seriously?!

The only thing that is made clear in this story is that the People for the American Way are a pro-discrimination, anti-ability outfit which now has a place in liberal politics that is akin to the conservatives’ Joe the Plumber.

I certainly hope that that isn’t the real “American way.”

ReferenceDoyle, Michael and David Lightman. “Sotomayor Backers Urge Reporters to Probe New Haven Firefighter.” McClatchy Newspapers. 10 July 2009.

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Waiting to Exhale

A few days ago I jokingly suggested to a friend that we work on a satirical public service announcement that would urge people to stop exhaling to save the planet. Since carbon dioxide is given off when human beings exhale, and since carbon dioxide is considered a greenhouse gas, every time a person exhales, he or she is polluting the environment.

It was a joke. It was satire. It wasn’t supposed to be a prediction. But it was.

Reuters’ Deborah Zabarenko reports:

To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.

Since about half the planet’s climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[...]

The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one.

For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person's emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion “high emitters” in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion.

By counting the emissions of all the individuals likely to exceed this level, world leaders could provide target emissions cuts for each country. Currently, the world average for individual annual carbon emissions is about 5 tons; each European produces 10 tons and each American produces 20 tons.

The emphasis above is mine. It’s to show that this study is pushing the idea of monitoring every single person in the country for how much carbon dioxide they give off.

For those of you who don’t want the government in your lives, no matter your ideology—for instance, conservatives want government out of the schools and liberals want the government out of the bedroom—you haven’t seen anything yet if this study’s proposals are adopted.

You haven’t seen government intrusion until you consider the possibility of your government tracking and monitoring how much carbon dioxide you emit.

What’s even better is that throughout this story they talk about the “rich” but they conveniently don’t define “rich.” Hell, depending on how this group defines “rich,” every person in the United States might be “rich”—and every person just might end up paying a massive carbon emissions tax simply for exhaling.

ReferenceZabarenko, Deborah. “New Climate Strategy: Track the World’s Wealthiest.” Reuters AlertNet. 6 July 2009.

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Into the Fire

I didn’t take any time to say anything about the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision on the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, in which city officials in New Haven, Connecticut, threw out the results of a job promotion exam for the city fire department because none of the black candidates who took the test scored high enough to qualify for a management job in the department.

City officials panicked when they saw the results and feared a discrimination suit from those who didn’t meet the required score. They had not planned on a lawsuit from the white and Hispanic firefighters who did score high enough.

The result was a massive discrimination and affirmative action firestorm (pun intended). The result was a close decision in which the Court’s conservatives saw it one way, and the Court’s liberals saw it another.

While I’m happy to see the result, what worries me is that it was a close vote. In fact, what worries me even more are the reasons given by those who have decried the Court’s decision. Not once have I heard any of the dissenters say one damn word about qualifications. Over and over and over again they’ve touted the routine terms of “fairness” and “diversity.” The superficiality is the most important thing for them.

In May, Salon’s Joan Walsh didn’t want to mention anything but the candidates’ skin color. She lamented that the United States’ paid fire departments are “disproportionately not just white, but Irish Catholic” and that in New York, the “majority of New Yorkers are black or Latino, and only ten percent are firefighters.” She not once mentioned ability.

This was also the case on TV and the radio. On KMOX, a gentleman expressed concern over the types of questions that were used (e.g., multiple choice versus true and false versus fill-in-the-blank versus essay). His argument was that certain kinds of questions are unfair to certain ethnicities. I’ve heard of question topics having a bias, but now we’re getting to a point where we’re supposed to think that whites and Hispanics have an advantage when multiple choice questions are asked? Seriously?

Getting back to my point: This job was for a fire department position. The fire department is part of the emergency services field, along with the police force and EMS. These are jobs in which split-second decisions have to be made. These are jobs in which physical standards have to be met simply in order to do the job properly. These are jobs in which a person’s skin color or sex do not matter because the outcome—saving a human being’s life—must be the most important thing. The bottom line is the only thing that matters.

A burning building doesn’t care if it’s being doused with water from a hose which is held by a black man, white man, or Hispanic man. The fire doesn’t care if it’s a man or a woman. An automobile wreck won’t be any less or any more fatal depending upon what color the first responders’ skin is. A heart-attack patient won’t respond differently because of a paramedic’s skin color. A police officer responding to a bank robbery won’t be any more successful or any less successful just because his or her skin happens to be a certain shade.

Sadly, the critics of the recent Ricci ruling have no interest in saving lives. They’re only interested in image. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said as much: “Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow,” she said, and explained that “blacks and Hispanics make up almost 60 percent of New Haven’s population, and that this should be reflected in the higher positions of the city’s fire department.” Ability be damned.

Ginsburg said, “The court’s order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power.”

The notion of the field of emergency services being based on the ability to save lives won’t have staying power, either. I only hope that if any of the dissenting justices or the critics of this ruling ever need a firefighter to save them from a bad situation that they have the balls to tell the first responders that they’ll wait for a rescuer who has a particular skin color.

After all, saving lives isn’t the important part of the job anymore, is it?

As an aside, it’s quite ironic that throughout this ordeal the people who usually call for America to be a “color blind” society have been the loudest to tout the virtues of using skin color to make decisions.

ReferenceWilson, Nick. “Supreme Court Rules 5-4 for White Firefighters.” Courthouse News Service. 29 June 2009.

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Raid 'Em, Cowboy

In an apparent “celebration” of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Ft. Worth police along with the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission (TABC) raided a newly-opened Ft. Worth gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge, rounding up patrons and putting one in the hospital with a critical head injury.

According to multiple reports, the law enforcement officers forgot to bring their breathalyzer equipment but did remember to bring their billy-clubs, extra zip-tie handcuffs, and several police transport vehicles (a/k/a paddy wagons). They arrested people for “walking funny” and literally busted heads. In fact, one patron is still in the hospital with bleeding on the brain after allegedly being beaten by up to six police officers.

A photo that’s making its rounds on the Internet is also adding fuel to the discussion, since it shows an officer wearing a “State Police” shirt—even though Texas doesn’t have an actual state police force. Some people have suggested that this is the outfit worn by the TABC, but if that’s true, I’m curious as to why they don’t have “TABC” across the back.

Perhaps “Anti-Gay Task Force” doesn’t fit as nicely.

References“DFW Gay Community Upset After Bar Raid.” CBS 11. 29 June 2009.

Nash, Tammye. “Halstead Promises Thorough Internal Investigation, Asks Those Who Witnessed Raid to Contact Department.” Dallas Voice. 1 July 2009.

“US Attorney’s Office Will Review Raid at Fort Worth Gay Bar.” The Dallas Morning News. 4 July 2009.

Ω

Hang 'Em! Hang 'Em High!

It’s both amusing and frightening to watch my fellow Americans act clueless with respect to certain laws when they’re more concerned with emotional knee-jerk reactions.

In the aftermath of Lori Drew’s conviction—a conviction that had absolutely nothing to do with her bullying a 13-year-old girl who eventually committed suicide—a federal judge has tentatively thrown out the convictions. That’s because the charges were for “computer fraud” since nothing else would stick in court. The prosecutor knew two things: (1.) the public wanted blood and didn’t care how they got it, and (2.) the “fraud” charge was the only thing that would stick, thus public opinion was more important than the legal system.

The problem was that if the fraud charge—which was leveled against Drew because she signed up for her MySpace account using a fake name—stuck, it would also mean that millions of people who have signed up for Internet accounts of any type would then be subject to the same jail term simply for using an alias. And many times they used an alias just to avoid spam or being tracked for additional advertisements in the mail.

But, judging by the comments left on ABC News’ Website, the American people don’t give a damn about the law. They want blood; they want someone to hang; and they don’t want to let the law get in their way.

I applaud the judge for actually looking at what happened and seeing that if this conviction would stand it would have massive implications for Internet users across the nation who have never even considered bullying anyone. This conviction had nothing to do with justice and it had nothing to do with what Lori Drew did to Megan Meier. It had to do with a mob of people wanting to see someone punished even if it meant a slippery slope to do so.

Ω

Sticking to the Script

© Lawrence Manning/Corbis
___________________________

Having paid attention to politics for several years, I already knew that most politics were a sham and were staged (remember Jeff Gannon?). That’s why it didn’t shock me when it was announced that a recent “town hall meeting” with President Obama was as scripted as a soap opera. In case the video is taken down at some point—either because Real Clear Politics does it voluntarily to save space or because the Obama administration threatens them—I’m going to post an interesting back-and-forth that recently took place between reporters Helen Thomas and Chip Reid and Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs:

Reid: The concept of a town hall is to have an open, public forum. This sounds like a tightly controlled audience and list of questions. Why do it that way?
Gibbs [obviously annoyed]: How about we do this: You can ask me that question tomorrow based on what questions were asked rather than preselecting your question based on something that may or may not come true.
Reid: Why preselect? Why not just open it up to people and allow any question to come in?
Gibbs: Well...I...uh...Chip, I think if you get on your computer, and your e-mail address—did you send in a question?
Reid: I think that would inappropriate; this is for the public.
Gibbs [more agitated than before]: Well...I’m sorry; I’m confused. Are you not a member of the public?
Reid: Well, I think that if you were going to allow questions from the press, you have us in a prominent position there and allow us to ask questions. You haven’t done that.
Gibbs: Let’s not get into the notion of where you’d be sitting if I let you ask a question.
Reid: Well out of shouting range.
Gibbs: You could e-mail.
Reid: Would you put my question in?
[Gibbs shrugs his shoulders in an “I don’t know” way.]
Reid: I don’t think so.
Gibbs: Maybe. Have you e-mailed?
Reid: I mean, this is an open forum for the public to ask questions but it’s not really open. It’s not open.
Gibbs: Based on what?
Reid: Based on the information that your staff gave us on how the audience and the questions are being selected.
Gibbs: The questions are being selected by people that e-mail on Facebook and Twitter.
Reid: No they’re not. They’re not deciding what questions you get into.
Gibbs: I appreciate again—
Reid: It just feels tightly controlled, unlike his town meetings all through the campaign [indecipherable].
Gibbs: I appreciate the preselected questions on your part. Um...
[unknown questioner]: How about dissenting views?
Reid: Yeah, how about that?

At this point, Gibbs attempts to change the subject.

Gibbs: I think that’s a...a...very safe bet. But again, let’s uh...how about we do this: I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I’ll let you ask me a question tomorrow to whether you thought the questions to the town hall meeting that the president conducted in Annandale based on—
Thomas: That’s not his point. His point is the control. We have never had that in the White House.
Gibbs: Uh...
Reid: Not this White House.
Gibbs: Yeah, I’ll let you amend her comment.
Thomas: And we have had some but I’m amazed at you people who call for openness, and transparency and you control—
Gibbs: You haven’t even heard the questions.
Reid: It doesn’t matter. It’s the process.
[Gibbs laughs]
Reid: Even if there’s a tough question, it’s a question coming from somebody who was invited or who was screened or the question was screened.
Thomas: [inaudible]
Gibbs [flustered]: Chip...Chip...I’m...I’m...I’d...let’s have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting. How about that? I think you’d be—
Thomas: We’re having it now.
Gibbs: I’ll be happy to have it now.
Thomas: It’s a pattern.
Gibbs: Which question did you object to at the town hall meeting, Helen?
Thomas: It isn’t the question.
Gibbs: What’s a pattern?
Thomas: It’s a pattern of controlling the press.
Gibbs: How so? Is there any evidence currently going on that I’m controlling the press? Poorly, I might add. [laughs]
Thomas: Your [inaudible] engagements are prepackaged.
Gibbs: How so?
Reid: And controlling the public. That’s the—
Thomas: By calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on?! That is shocking.
Gibbs: We had this discussion ad nauseam.
Thomas: Of course you would because you don’t have any answers.
Gibbs: Well...uh...because I didn’t know you were going to ask a question, Helen.
Thomas: Well, you should have.
Gibbs [to Thomas]: Have you e-mailed your question today?
Thomas: I don’t have to e-mail it. I can tell you right now what I want to ask.
Gibbs: I don’t doubt that at all, Helen.

This packaged crap doesn’t end with politics, though. Science is taking a cue from it, too. Just a few headlines away from the press conference story I found a story from The Telegraph entitled “Polar Bear Expert Barred by Global Warmists,” in which a polar bear expert of 30 years named Dr. Mitchell Taylor was told that he would not be allowed to attend a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group in Copenhagen because his studies blame warm water currents from the Pacific Ocean for Arctic warming instead placing the blame on carbon dioxide, which is the popularly-accepted cause.

Taylor was told that his exclusion was because his views were “counter to human-induced climate change” and were “extremely unhelpful.”

Is there anything that isn’t scripted anymore? Politics...science...what’s next?

ReferencesBooker, Christopher. “Polar Bear Expert Barred by Global Warmists.” Telegraph. 27 June 2009.

“CBS, Helen Thomas Challenge Gibbs on ‘Controlled’ Town Hall Meeting.” RealClearPolitics. 1 July 2009.

Ω

The Times: They're Not Changing

It meant that he might change his mind after getting into the White House.
__________________________________

When I was in high school, I heard a great many people who were outraged at the elder George Bush’s reneging on his promise to not raise taxes. “Read my lips: no new taxes!” was his infamous line which he used to grab the voters’ attention during the campaign. He later changed his mind and signed a tax increase.

Then came Bill Clinton, who did the same thing, although it wasn’t as dramatic. He wasn’t going to raise taxes on the middle class while he was a candidate, but after he got into the White House, he informed the American people that he made a mistake with his calculations and had no choice but to raise taxes.

What bothered me even more than seeing taxes increase was seeing the same people who hated the elder Bush for having lied suddenly sympathize with and forgive Clinton for his “miscalculation.” Raising taxes has to happen, they reasoned—even though they were the same ones who previously wanted the elder Bush to be strung up by his toenails for having done the same thing.

Now it turns out that Barack Obama is taking a cue from both aforementioned presidents and is considering his own middle class tax hike to pay for his healthcare plan. This idea is the very same plan that John McCain pushed for throughout his campaign. It’s the same plan that Mr. Obama referred to as a plan that we “can’t afford.” McCain’s plan, said Mr. Obama, would “cost your family thousands.”

AP reporter Philip Elliott reports:

There’s no doubt that Obama’s minions will quickly defend his proposal because they’ll view it as being something which is in the best interest of the nation—the same way that Clinton did it and the same way that the elder Bush did it.

We live in a country where the constituents can be handed a bag full of horse-shit and they’ll view it as “good” or “bad” simply because it has the letters R or D drawn on the bag. They’re not really interested in what is inside the bag.

Changing that mentality is the real change that this country needs.

ReferenceElliott, Philip. “White House Open to New Tax on Health Benefits.” AP/Google News. 29 June 2009.

Ω

The Blame Game

Maybe he started it.

_____________________

I have a family member who is a staunch Republican and while Bush was in office, whenever something negative would hit the news about Bush, this family member would quickly say that it wasn’t necessarily Bush’s fault—it was something that Bill Clinton started and Bush had to live with it, thus we should blame Clinton for whatever it might be.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, Obama supporters are doing the very same thing. It happened several months ago when it was discovered that Obama supported the library record provision in the PATRIOT Act, and now it’s coming into play with the top-secret gag order in the case of Doe v. Holder, in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation was ordered to justify a gag order. They did justify it, but even the justification was done so in secret.

A story from Ars Technica on the case refers to the FBI’s “Bush-era secrecy,” and I found it amusing because Obama has been in office for about five months and the Democrats have control of Congress. Their supporters have given them credit for “stimulating” the economy and trying to save the auto industry. This weekend the House passed a bill that will supposedly help stop global warming. (It’s also going to cost each family of four roughly $6,800 in taxes by the year 2035 and about $161 billion by 2020 for the economy as a whole, but we can probably afford it given our great economy.)

Maybe we can just push everything back a few more administrations and just say, “George Washington started it.”

ReferencesStokes, Jon. “FBI Compounds Mystery with Secret Justification of Gag Order.” Ars Technica. 25 June 2009.

“The Cap and Tax Fiction.” Wall Street Journal. 26 June 2009.

Ω

Bipartisanship

Given the recent announcement that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was AWOL in Argentina with his lover, and given that I laugh at the double-standards of both Republicans and Democrats, I wasn’t shocked with all the sanctimonious moralism being espoused on The Huffington Post following Sanford’s admission of infidelity. It was akin to the Republicans crying foul after Bill Clinton’s cigar smoking session with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office while he was in the White House.

As such, it’s time to play The American Philosophy Company’s online game Name That Politician!. This is a matching game in which you can draw an imaginary line on your computer screen with your finger, from either choice (A.) or choice (B.) to the correct photograph. There’s no right or wrong answer to this game because it simply depends on your political party affiliation.

(A.) This man is a bad man. He lied to his wife and his constituents by carrying out an affair. Infidelity is immoral, and this man is truly despicable. He should hang his head in shame.

(B.) This man is a good man who had a moment of weakness. In fact, this weakness was brought about by a seductive vixen who preyed upon a poor man who sometimes thinks with his penis. We must cut him some slack and realize that everyone makes mistakes.

Did you win? Of course you did!

Reference“Sanford in Argentina, Not On Appalachian Trail, He Says On Return.” The Huffington Post. 24 June 2009.

Ω

E-7

I’m not sure why people were so up-in-arms throughout the 2000 presidential election. I kept hearing, “Bush cheated! The Republicans cheated!” It puzzles me because a lot of people like cheating. Los Angeles Dodger Manny Ramirez, coming back from a 50-game suspension for having tested positive for steroids, received widespread cheers while playing a game for the Dodgers’ triple-A team in Albuquerque. The Associated Press reports:

As an aside, I don’t think that a suspended player should be able to get back into playing shape in the minors while they’re still supposedly serving a Major League suspension. If Ramirez comes back, it should be after the 50-game suspension is up (which, in his case, will be July 3). If he’s not in playing shape at that time, then it’s tough shit; that’s part of the punishment that both he and the Dodgers should have to face.

With that out of the way, I’m saddened by seeing such a display from the Albuquerque fans. Ramirez’s controlled substances weren’t just controlled substances—they were performance-enhancing drugs. Steroids can and will alter both performance and recovery if a player is injured. That means that his statistics can be directly affected by (read: increased by) the substance(s) in question.

This isn’t a situation where a player was drinking too much alcohol or even using illicit substances like marijuana, cocaine, or heroin.

Maybe Sammy Sosa has nothing to fear with the recent revelation that he, too, tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. If anything, he might be getting a round of applause.

Indeed, even comments left on a Fox Sports news story about the case suggest as much. Sosa’s test results should have been kept confidential, they reason, and since they were leaked to the public, he shouldn’t be criticized and his place in the Hall of Fame shouldn’t be questioned.

Just give these “fans” a few home-runs and they’ll go home happy, fat, and stupid.

Play ball.

References“Dodgers’ Manny Goes Hitless, Crowd Doesn’t Care.” AP/Fox Sports. 24 June 2009.

“Sandberg: Sosa Doesn’t Deserve Hall of Fame.” AP/Fox Sports. 23 June 2009.

Ω

Keeping it Real

“Reality” television star Kate Gosselin has filed for divorce from her husband and co-star Jon, and TLC has shelved their “reality” show Jon & Kate Plus 8. (I use quotation marks because there really isn’t anything “real” about “reality” shows. The actors might not read scripts, but the show itself becomes scripted simply because there are roles that have to be played only because a camera is rolling. If you want reality, don’t have any cameras around.)

I’m not sure how Americans will survive this. They might have to watch the Discovery Channel, PBS, the History Channel or—God forbid—read a book.

I’d like to think that my cynicism is justified. On a daily basis I listen to coworkers talk about “reality” TV shows nonstop: Jon & Kate Plus 8, American Idol, The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, and so on. When I tell them that I don’t watch reality TV shows, I get stared at as if I had 20 eyes and six arms. When I tell them that my television viewing usually consists of things like baseball, hockey, the History Channel, or shows on politics, the stares turn into inquiries. “Why would you watch that stuff?” they wonder.

Oddly enough, I wonder the same thing about those who watch “reality” shows.

Queensrÿche vocalist Geoff Tate once said of “reality” TV shows:

The way we live nowadays is so very strange. There’s a lot of living vicariously through others, with reality TV and that kind of thing. People come home after a hard day’s work and watch someone else live their life. That’s weird to me. We sit on the couch and eat junk food and watch somebody else have this wonderful, adventurous life.

One major Pennsylvania newspaper offers its readers regular Jon & Kate updates on its homepage of “serious” news.
_____________________________

I can’t help but agree with him. I’m not sure what some of the news Websites are going to report on, since many of them—including a major Pennsylvania newspaper—have taken to daily Jon and Kate updates. In fact, today’s front page had not one but two stories dedicated to the pair on their homepage. The hard news was obviously on other pages. Meanwhile, “Kate Gosselin” was listed as the day’s number one search on Yahoo!.

Today’s top Yahoo! search was none other than Kate Gosselin.
____________________________

Perhaps it’s time to make a reality show on people who do nothing but watch reality shows.

ReferencesFlint, Joe. “Jon & Kate Plus 8 Goes on Production Hiatus.” Los Angeles Times. 23 June 2009.

Lafon, Mitch. “Queensrÿche’s Geoff Tate Describes Band’s New Material As ‘Very, Very Aggressive.’” Bravewords.com. 5 July 2007.

Rubinkam, Michael. “Kate Gosselin Says Marriage ‘Irretrievably Broken.’” AP/Yahoo! News. 23 June 2009.

Gestapoville, USA

If you want a city job in Bozeman, Montana, you have to first hand over your username and password to your personal e-mail account as well as usernames and passwords to every other account that you might have online. City officials say that it’s to make sure that you’re a “reputable” and “honest” person.

__________________________

Over the last few days I’ve read two stories that made me rather concerned with respect to what—if any—privacy we have left today. The first story details a court ruling in England in which their High Court ruled that bloggers have no right to keeping their identities secret. The ruling pertained to a case in which a detective constable, who ultimately won the Orwell Prize for his writing, blogged about cases using aliases and changed certain details of the stories. He offered social and political commentary in the stories and often criticized politicians and police officers.

In the case, the judge said that the detective constable should not have had any “reasonable expectation” to remain anonymous because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity.”

A few days later it was reported that the Las Vegas Review-Journal was served a subpoena to hand over the “identities and personal information about people who posted comments” on a story which reported on a federal tax fraud case. While the comments were violent in nature and written anonymously, the push to reveal names of the anonymous was set in motion.

This morning I came across a story from Montana that is just as—if not more—frightening. The story is entitled “City Requires Facebook Passwords from Job Applicants,” and reads as follows:

If you’re planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, prepare to clean up your Facebook page.

As part of routine background checks, the city asks job applicants to provide their usernames and passwords for their social-networking sites. And it has been doing it for years, city officials said.

“Please list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” states a city waiver form applicants are asked to sign. Three lines are provided for applicants to list log-in information for each site.

City officials maintain the policy is necessary to ensure employees’ integrity and protect the public’s trust, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana says they may be crossing the line.

[...]

City Manager Chris Kukulski said the city checks the sites in order to ensure that employees who might be handling taxpayer money, working with children in recreation programs or entering residents’ homes as an emergency services worker are reputable and honest.

“It’s just one of the tools, like all the other tools, that we’ve used to do a thorough background check,” Kukulski said.

The city also checks credit reports, criminal history, references and past employment, among other things.

“We have to do some due diligence,” Kukulski said.

As with many fascist tactics, this one has its share of support. I quickly noticed a comment left on the story that supports the measure and states: “If an applicant supposedly has nothing to hide, they should have no problem complying.” Isn’t that what we heard throughout the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush?

A few points on this story:

• First, the very idea of this is horrific. Having to hand over your username and password to any and all things that you do online just to get a city job is absolutely frightening. A Google and Yahoo! username and password can give them access to your e-mail account, and that’s what they want. They want to make sure that you’re saying everything that they want you to say. They no doubt also want to read your personal e-mails that have nothing to do with the job.

• Second, I have no problem with employers—public or private—holding employees accountable if they publicly bring negative attention to their job due to blatant public displays of questionable actions. I’m in that position at the moment, given that I’m a public sector employee. I don’t tell people who I am, which city I live in, and I don’t post photos of myself whatsoever. If a person does choose to make questionable information and photos public, they have to live with the repercussions of that information and those photos.

This requirement by the city of Bozeman is so far removed from such a concept that it’s nauseating. Instead of saying, “Don’t post questionable stuff online,” they’ve said, “We want to know what you’re doing and saying at all times.”

• Third, in a world where identity theft is a prevalent as it is, how on Earth can anyone justify adding dozens of usernames and passwords to a database that could ostensibly become a smorgasbord to identity thieves? Moreover, now they’d have even more personal information given the easier access to personal e-mail accounts.

There’s no doubt that many Bozeman residents as well as other Americans will support such a concept. Their idea of “doing what’s right” is, in reality, “doing what the government wants you to do.” I’m guessing that it was the voters who put this fascist regime in power in the city of Bozeman, and sadly this might be what they want.

I’m just hoping that Bozeman City Manager Chris Kukulski makes his usernames and passwords public so that we can sniff around to see what he’s been up to lately.

UPDATE—June 23, 2009
After public outcry and threatened legal opposition, the Bozeman City Commission has rescinded the requirement to hand over personal usernames and passwords for city job applications.

Commissioner Eric Bryson said, “We’re not suspending this requirement—we’re completely eliminating it.”

Apparently the commissioners didn’t even know that the requirement had been added to the job applications. The update, as reported by Amanda Ricker, states:

The commission also took authority over any future changes to the city’s hiring policies and planned a meeting within the next 30 days to get caught up on the current procedures. Hiring procedures are generally handled by administration.

ReferencesGibb, Frances. “Ruling on NightJack Author Richard Horton Kills Blogger Anonymity.” Times Online. 17 June 2009.

Ricker, Amanda. “City Requires Facebook Passwords from Job Applicants.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle. 18 June 2009.

“Vegas Paper Gets Subpoena to ID Online Commenters.” Associated Press / Washington Post. 16 June 2009.

Ω

Rocky Road

Truth be told, I’m a bit of a health nut. I watch what I eat on a daily basis, trying to make sure that it’s high in fiber and nutrients and low in fat and cholesterol. I would love to see everyone eat well, but I know that many—if not most—people don’t really care what goes into their mouths as long as it tastes good.

One thing that I try not to do is tell others what to eat. For me, such a move goes against my it’s-your-body-so-you-can-fuck-it-up-however-you-want-to approach to life. For mom MeMe Roth, however, telling you what to eat is her goal in life.

In fact, Roth wants her local public school in New York to require parental permission slips be handed out and returned before students are allowed to eat any kind of junk-food that might be brought in from students as birthday snacks.

Roth’s approach has been called “hostile” by administrators at the school and at a school board meeting she “tossed valentine candy” and “used foul language.”

When asked about eating sweets in moderation, Roth said, “Show me an American that knows what moderation means.”

Well, Ms. Roth, I’m doing pretty damn well; I’m 147 pounds and feel pretty good. I’ll have a cupcake or cookie if one of my students brings it to me as their birthday treat.

Here’s an idea, Ms. Roth: tell your kids that they can’t eat any junk-food when it’s brought to school and let the other parents raise their children the way that they see fit. Please leave your holier-than-thou attitude at the door.

ReferenceChang, Juju, et al. “Food Fight: Mom’s Crusade Against Classroom Sweets.” ABC News. 17 June 2009.

Ω

I Know What's Best for You

Many of us look for our 15 minutes of fame, and right now two Leesburg, Florida, mothers want theirs, too. A daughter of one of the mothers found sexual content in a Gossip Girl book that she found in her local library’s young adult (YA) section, and the mommies decided that it was time to take action to save the public from the bad S-E-X word.

Two Leesburg mothers are asking the Leesburg Library Advisory Board today to remove books from the youth-adult section of the Leesburg Library.

Dixie Fechtel said she became outraged after reading passages depicting sexual content and drug use in two young-adult books her 13-year-old daughter borrowed from the library.

“A parent or student walking into the youth section should not have to get something off the shelf as shocking as this,” said Fechtel. “There needs to be some sort of system to enable parents to check out those kind of materials for their children.”

Notice that Fechtel deliberately referred to the young adult section as the “youth section,” but the story continues:

The books could be placed in a separate section and labels attached to the cover of the book to let parents know that it contains objectionable material they may not want their child to read, Fechtel said.

[...]

Fechtel has been corresponding with city commissioners and Library Director Barbara Morse since last August without any luck in getting the books removed. She submitted a request in January to the advisory board to hear her case.

Morse told Fechtel and Diane Venetta, who has joined Fechtel in her cause, that the books would not be removed from the shelves of the youth-adult section.

I only watch Fox News if I happen to be in the need for something humorous or fictional, but this morning I was running errands and one of the televisions near me was tuned to Fox. The three stooges who anchor their weekday morning show were in a tizzy because the book mentioned that one of the characters said that he/she used his/her bed for sex. (Graphic, isn’t it?)

Here’s a tip to the two mommies who want to be heroines of Salem...er...um...I mean Leesburg: Tell your kids to avoid the YA section until they’re at least eligible for Medicare. For the other mommies and daddies who let their kids go to the library, it’s up to them to decide what their kids read.

That’s the same rule that applies to the two of you, also.

ReferenceDonald, David. “Gossip Girl Book at Center of Library Debate.” Daily Commercial. 10 June 2009.

Ω

One Down, 29 to Go

Now that I’m officially done with my first full full-time year in the world of public education, I felt the need to vent before embarking upon my two months off. (And yes, it’s two months—not three—for those of you who have no understanding of how the public education system actually works but you nonetheless yell, “You get three months off!” Yes, I’m still happy about two months; no, I’m not happy about the ignorance of the masses.)

Anyway, while I could make this long, I really don’t want to. The job has good aspects, bad aspects, and ugly aspects, but that’s how life works. Hell, there are even some people who are good, bad, and ugly. I’ll indirectly mention them later in this post.

So without further ado, I bring you...

THE GOOD
• Overview
Without question, the job itself is great. Being a school librarian gives me a chance to present a new topic and new information almost every week with students. It doesn’t matter if the topic might be historical (e.g., the Titanic) or something related to research, such as discussing plagiarism with the sixth grade students.

With younger students, I’m hopefully able to get them interested in reading and learning in general. Not only can books be fun, but I’ve attempted to show them that the concept of “education” in general isn’t one that has to begin when they walk through the school’s front door and end when they leave. It’s something that they can—and should—do on a regular basis. I know, I know—this isn’t going to happen, but I’ll mention that in a bit.

• Environment
Taken as a whole, working in a school library isn’t bad at all. My assistant and I are basically in a bubble because we have little reason to leave the library throughout the day, but I say that in a positive way. While we don’t agree on everything, we’re able to work well with each other. Even though some people might think that being cut off from the rest of the faculty is a negative, I’ve learned to view it as a positive because I’m not subjected to any faculty gossip and I’m not a member of any faculty clique.

There’s obviously both pros and cons to this kind of insulation. For instance, if you need the support from someone on something, if you’re not in their clique, you might find yourself out in the cold. On the other hand, if someone doesn’t like something that you’ve said or done, if the clique in power at the moment doesn’t look favorably on the first clique, they’re more than likely going to ignore anything that’s been said. Thus, this insulation can work for you and against you.

• Students
Obviously there are kids whom you can’t stand and even kids whom you know are going to end up in prison by the time that they’re 21. At the same time, there are kids who make you take notice because you can see that they’re going to be accomplished writers, inventors, creators, and business owners. They’re going to make the world go around and you can see it very early. From the questions that they ask during the class lesson to the books that they check out after the lesson is over, these are the kids who are going to be—or rather, should be—our future leaders. I say “should” because sometimes the bad kids get positive attention from fellow students, but that’s coming up in my “Bad” section.

• Faculty
Overall, my fellow teachers have been a fairly reasonable lot with which to work. From what I’ve heard, this is most likely because of my aforementioned state of insulation. By essentially creating my own clique, I’ve cut myself off from the negativity that might otherwise come with being a regular classroom teacher. I’m able to get along with everyone from kindergarten to sixth grade, with minimal to no friction.

That doesn’t mean that they’re not talking about me behind my back, but I can’t stop that and to be frank, I don’t give a shit.

THE BAD
• Stereotypes
One of the things that has been tough to deal with, and even tougher to overcome, is that many people have ideas of who I am or what I like simply because I’m a librarian. Moreover, I’m a male librarian and that adds yet another component to the equation with which they can stereotype. I’ve had coworkers who were shocked to learn that I don’t like to eat junk food, shocked to learn that I don’t like Star Trek or science-fiction in general, shocked to learn that I don’t play World of Warcraft, and shocked to learn that I listen to music like Slayer and Type O Negative instead of Toby Keith, Taylor Swift, or Kelly Clarkson. (They probably wouldn’t be shocked to learn that I also like Morrissey, but given that most of my coworkers have never heard of Morrissey, the point is moot.)

This has created a few awkward moments, especially when I’ve had coworkers try to fix me up with other coworkers who were “right” for me, except for the fact that my likes and dislikes weren’t the same likes and dislikes that the former coworkers had assigned to me in their own minds, making me “right” for the latter coworker.

• Coworkers
Before you think that this is a misprint, I’m listing my coworkers in both the good and bad. This is because some of my coworkers have taken some time for me to get used to them, as their mindset is what I refer to as “typically American.”

Until this point in my life, for the most part I’ve been able to associate with people of my choosing. It didn’t matter if it had been people in a chat room or grad school or friends from around my hometown; I was able to interact with like-minded people. That ability isn’t there with this job, as many of the people are from different backgrounds and have interests that mean little to me. For instance, on days that my coworkers choose to debate American Idol contestants or who should be picked on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, I have to sit and listen to the conversations with nothing to offer. If I do have anything to offer, it’s the usual, “I don’t know; I don’t watch it.” I then get odd looks.

And speaking of oddities, one thing that I’ve learned from many coworkers is that conformity is embraced. Being “normal” means doing what the crowd does, and doing what the crowd does is encouraged. Questions such as, “Why don’t you listen to country music?” or “Why don’t you watch NASCAR?” were commonplace earlier this year. Now the questions are more like, “How can you be comfortable knowing that you’re not like everyone else?” I don’t try to explain it because if they don’t know the answer to their own questions, they never will.

This is why my view on being an adult is this: As I get older, I continue to see that being an “adult” means being expected to preach the virtues of creativity, diverse viewpoints, and individuality to children while simultaneously preaching the virtues of conformity, uniformity, and collectivist thought to your peers. We basically feed kids a big, steaming pile of bullshit when we tell them to be themselves because once college is over, we tell each other to do what we do and we disguise it by calling it “unity.” It’s not unity; it’s narcissism and arrogance.

• Other Viewpoints
I’m sure that it’s the case in almost every job, but I’ve had to endure a few opinions from classroom teachers who have their own idea on how my library should run, no matter the topic. From book check-out procedures to inventory procedures, I’ve had my share of the you-should-do-it-my-way mentality. I would never attempt to tell them what to do in their room; I’m not sure what makes my library “okay” to critique.

• Being “Too” Smart
This is going to sound odd—and possibly even unbelievable—to people in different parts of the United States, but in my area, the locals have a rather depressing view of education and intelligence: you’re supposed to be smart enough to get the job done, but it’s “bad” to be too smart because being too smart makes you a nerd. You don’t want to be a nerd, so you shouldn’t be too smart.

THE UGLY
There are primarily two items to list here and I wasn’t sure which should be listed first. They’re both sad, so it shouldn’t be assumed that I’m making one “uglier” than the other.

• Parents
When I was a kid, if I did something wrong in school I had two things to fear: (1.) punishment from school, and (2.) punishment at home. My parents didn’t take any shit from me and if a teacher ever told them that I did something out of line, they didn’t cut me any slack. Before I continue, please keep in mind that this was roughly 20 years ago.

Let’s fast-forward to 2009 to when we meet the new breed of parents. This new breed isn’t interested in showing their kids right and wrong; they’re interested in being liked by their kids and being their kids’ friends. They don’t say, “Kid, you fucked up; you need to take the punishment”; they instead say, “That rule is unfair! Kids shouldn’t have rules!”

Just this year I had a student whose mother is raising him to believe that he’s always right, no matter what. She’s taught him that if he gets into a fight, it’s always the other kid’s fault because if the other kid hadn’t been there in the first place, the fight would have never occurred. When he’s older his mom will no doubt bail him out of jail after he’s arrested for bank robbery and Mom will say, “Honey, it’s not your fault. If the bank hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been robbed. It’s their fault.”

I had another student whose mother thought that I should do away with due-dates on books because they’re “unfair” to students. She was also opposed to my informing her daughter that she had any overdue books. Such reminders, said Mom, would “upset her daughter” and “embarrass” her.

One other example, even though it has nothing to do with the library, is that of having bedtimes set for children. Two months ago I asked several classes for their bedtimes as the topic came up during a lesson. I was astounded to find that at least one-third of the students in each class, from grades three to six, had no bedtime whatsoever. They went to bed whenever they felt like it. In one class, almost half went to sleep between two and three o’clock in the morning on a regular basis. When I was younger I had a fixed bedtime until I was in high school. My parents weren’t doing it to be hard-asses; they did it because they knew that had they not done it that I’d be staying up until four in the morning reading, writing, or listening to music.

Many of my students’ parents have done away with bedtimes because their view is that bedtimes are—again—“unfair.” Kids shouldn’t have rules, they figure, because Mom and Dad didn’t like bedtime when they were kids, so now it’s time for them to change the rules.

But maybe that’s why we have some of these parents and their hands-off approach to parenting: they didn’t like rules as a kid, but they never really grew up to realize that some rules are necessary. They’re simply 40-year-old children who are trying to raise 11-year-old children. Their mentalities aren’t much different.

• Women
I wasn’t sure if I was going to include this because it has nothing to do with the job per se, but I decided to list it after all and list it as my last item.

I can’t sugar-coat this topic so I won’t. After this last year, my view of women in terms of relationships has become more negative than during any other time in my life. To be quite frank, after having seen and heard what I saw and heard over the last nine months, being single doesn’t bother me one bit.

Let me preface this by explaining that ninety-five percent of my coworkers are female. When you work with people on a daily basis, five days a week, after a while people become comfortable with each other and they let their guard down. They open up and their honesty begins to come forth. This honesty can be both good and bad. In this case, for me, it was both bad and good because while it made me see and hear things that I didn’t want to see or hear, it validated things that I’ve often wondered about. In other words, it’s information that was important to hear and see.

First, I’ve learned that men are viewed as nothing more than paychecks with penises attached. Every conversation that I listened to about men—as told by my female coworkers—always came back to money. How much money could they get? How much money did they get? How can they get more money from their man? In one instance I had a coworker who wanted to fix me up with her niece, but my coworker’s sister-in-law (the niece’s mom) had some concerns before I even met her daughter: (1.) “What does Chase look like?” and (2.) “How much money does Chase make?”

I wish that I were making these questions up, but the mother in question wanted to make sure that her daughter had a boyfriend who was hot and rich. He had to be hot because her daughter deserves hotness; he had to be rich because her daughter likes to go shopping and she shouldn’t have to spend her own money.

Even my coworker’s own daughter was stringing her own boyfriend along to get jewelry out of him. I felt sorry for the poor guy because the girl was telling everyone that she even had a date picked out when she was going to dump the guy in favor of another guy with more money.

A second coworker told me about her wedding day, in which she and her husband were both engaged to other people. They had a hell of a time keeping their affairs hush-hush as to not tip off their other fiancé/fiancée. The wedding was on a Saturday and the following Monday the husband called the other fiancée to say, “Honey, there’s something you need to know. I just got married on Saturday.” Very classy.

But this brings me to what seems to be a big theme in all the stories that I heard this year from women about men: lying is important in a relationship and relationships are basically games that you’re supposed to “play.” Relationships aren’t things that people do; they’re not things that people let happen throughout the course of their daily lives. Relationships are simply interactions whereby people follow an expected pattern: one person does or says one thing, the other person responds with a countering action or comment. This cycle continues because it’s how the relationship is “played.” It’s what is “supposed to” happen.

This stuff might be irrelevant in a few years anyway, because a recent NPR story highlights the increase in twenty-somethings just hooking-up for sex and skipping the whole relationship thing. Even dating is becoming passé. One woman in the story said, “Going out on a date is a sort of ironic, obsolete type of thing. Going out on a date to dinner and a movie? It’s so cliché; isn’t that funny?”

As an aside I thought that this was kind of ironic itself because it legitimizes the idea of men simply viewing women as nothing more than sex objects. We no longer have to be interested in who a woman is. We can just view her as a nothing more than a vagina, pair of tits, and an ass. Women’s liberation indeed.

CONCLUSION
Overall, it’s been educational. I’ve learned what to do, what not to do, and I’ve been given insight into matters that I was ignorant to in years past.

Will I be doing this for 30 years? That’s something that I won’t know until 30 years from now.

ReferenceWilson, Brenda. “Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships.” NPR. 8 Jun. 2009.

Ω

American Idiots

And now I don’t do this to shock you
I don’t do this for spite
You’ve got the choice: don’t buy it, don’t read it
And don’t say your opinion’s right
—Anthrax, “Startin’ Up A Posse”

I have to admit that I’ve never been a fan of Green Day. For me, their pseudo-punk din could never compare to bands like Minor Threat, Verbal Abuse, DRI, TSOL, or even the Misfits. Over the years, though, they proved to be a commercial success, whereas those other bands—with the exception of the Misfits, even though their popularity seemed to take off after former vocalist Glenn Danzig became a solo artist—didn’t see their attitudes measured with dollar signs.

Speaking of attitude, Green Day wants everyone to know that their attitude towards Wal-Mart isn’t a positive one. Unfortunately, their attitude toward a free market isn’t any better.

Wal-Mart has told the pop-rockers that in order to have their new album, 21st Century Breakdown, sold in Wal-Mart stores, Green Day would have to release a “clean” album, free of bad words, adult themes, and parental advisory stickers. Green Day members won’t stand for it, and won’t release such a “clean” version.

Fair enough, since it’s their music and they can do with it what they want, à la Metallica, but comments from bassist Mike Dirnt has me thinking that their knowledge of things like the First Amendment might not only be limited, but might be irrelevant. More over, it even suggests that they want an outside agent to step in and help them out in the name of “art.”

Dirnt remarked that since Wal-Mart was the “biggest record store in America” that “they should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art.”

Um...excuse me? An “obligation” to sell something that you don’t want to sell?

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m admittedly not a regular shopper at Wal-Mart. The last thing that I purchased there was a coffee maker (a year ago), and that was only because my other coffee maker broke and I need my daily coffee, as soon as possible. I’m also not a fan of ignorance or arrogance, which seem to be present in Dirnt’s comment (which is ironic, because the band wanted to be viewed as politically knowledgeable with their American Idiot album).

Wal-Mart has the right to decide what is or what isn’t sold in their stores, as does any other American. For instance, if I run a music store, I can choose to sell nothing but metal or jazz or classical or country or whatever other genre you can think of. That would be my right to sell it; it wouldn’t be up to bands to tell me what to sell and I would certainly have no “obligation” to sell anything that I wouldn’t want to sell.

The First Amendment—and I mention the First Amendment because this story is based upon the concept of censorship, even though the band doesn’t explicitly mention the Constitution—states that the government can’t control what you say, with exceptions like yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. What it doesn’t say, however, is that people have to listen to what you say, have to like what you say, or, in this case, have to sell what you say.

Likewise, Green Day has the right to not like Wal-Mart’s decision and speak out against it. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has no “obligation” to sell anything that they don’t want to sell, no matter whose “art” it is.

Besides: if this is Green Day, I’m not sure how applicable the term “art” really is.

Reference

Moody, Nekesa Mumbi. “Green Day Lashes Out at Wal-Mart Policy.” Sacramento Bee. 21 May 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

Giving Credit

When I applied for and received my credit card many years ago, I obtained it because it had no annual fees. After all, I only used it on occasion, so there wasn’t any reason for me to spend any more than I really needed to.

As of now, however, I’m considering the possibility that I’m going to cancel my card, given the sad fact that the number of irresponsible credit card users far outweighs those of us who pay our bills on time and in full. And, as we know, sheer numbers equal power in terms of voters.

AP writer Anne Flaherty reports:

I once saw a T-shirt that stated “Don’t underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” I guess that we can just change the word stupid to irresponsible and we might have an idea where we’re headed.

Reference

Flaherty, Anne. “Big Changes in Store for US Credit Cardholders.” Yahoo! News / Associated Press. 20 May 2009.

Ω

Just a Thought

Is it possible to be taken seriously in a world in which much is difficult to take seriously?

Ω

Parental Guidance

During my junior year of high school, several of my classmates had been picked up for underage drinking following the bust of party. Instead of their parents punishing the students, most of their parents called the state police barracks to complain. Their argument was that kids like to have fun and the state police were preventing their kids from having fun.

At the time, I had figured that it was an anomaly. Parents with attitudes like these couldn’t possibly be widespread, could they? I was very wrong. As the years went by I began hearing stories about parents drinking with their underage children.

A few years ago parents were irate because a local school district asked a local K-9 unit to stand outside the school doors to prevent any illegal drugs from being brought into the building during a school dance. The parents were upset because their children might have their weed taken away from them.

A few days ago I was told a story that came from a local elementary school, in which a third-grade student was caught with a hit-list. The hit-list was discovered by a faculty member and turned over to the administration, whereby the student was given a punishment. What made this incident shock me more was that the student’s mother is a teacher in that very building, and instead of being upset or angry that her daughter created a list of people who should be shot, the mother was outraged that her daughter was punished for it. Her view was that “everybody does it” and “it’s only a hit-list.” To add insult to injury, the mother bought the daughter new shoes to “soothe” the student’s pain of having to be told that she did something wrong.

Yesterday I had my own experience with parental irresponsibility. I received a phone call bright and early from a mother who wanted me to know that she’s informed her daughter that the daughter does not have to obey any library rules if she doesn’t want to do so. She explained that all rules of the library will be voluntary for her daughter, because she’s a taxpayer, and as a taxpayer her daughter has the right to do anything that she wants to do. From due-dates to overdue fines to anything library-related, the rules are optional for her daughter because Mommy says so.

From what I’ve been told my an administrator, I don’t have anything to fear because my rules are ones that have been school board-approved. That doesn’t mean that I won’t have to prepare a report for the board to offer my side of the story, which could be anything from a few paragraphs to a few pages.

What has me more worried is knowing that this isn’t an isolated incident. I’m seeing and hearing more and more stories of parents telling their children that they don’t have to follow any rules. They’re telling them to stand up to all forms of authority. They’re telling them that it’s okay to do whatever they want to do.

Is this parenting in 2009?

Ω

Forcible Entry

(© United States Air Force)

___________________________

While I’m awaiting the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling involving affirmative action as it applies to the occupation of professional firefighting, I’m finding it scary to see how some people have turned emergency services into a field that, for them, is a way to play politics instead of a way to pick the best people to save lives.

In case you haven’t heard of the case from New Haven, Connecticut, the Christian Science Monitor reports:

At issue in Ricci v. DeStefano is whether city officials in New Haven, Conn., acted legally when they threw out the results of a promotion exam because no black candidates scored high enough to be considered for a management job.

Officials said they were worried that black applicants might file a discrimination lawsuit against the city if they went ahead and promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters who scored well on the exam.

Instead, the test results for all candidates were thrown out. As a result, in 2004, the high-scoring white and Hispanic firefighters sued for discrimination, claiming they would have been promoted to lieutenant and captain positions if they were African-American.

Last night I caught Hardball with Chris Matthews, in which Matthews engaged in a discussion on the topic with Pat Buchanan and Salon’s Joan Walsh. Walsh stated:

There’s a reason that we have these ugly cases and that’s the failure of our politics to really resolve some of these ugly conflicts. We have fire departments all over this country, God bless them, that are still disproportionately not just white, but Irish Catholic. You know, my home of San Francisco is that way, and here in New York today its majority of New Yorkers are black or Latino, and only ten percent are firefighters. What’s happened in a lot of these cases, Chris, is that these Irish Catholic dominated unions have really fought efforts to make the tests more fair.

Obviously for Walsh, her use of the phrase “make the test more fair”—which should probably be “fairer”—is a way of saying that you need to administer the test until the candidates whom you want to pass, do pass.

Matthews went on to say that if try-outs are held for a basketball team, and the best players all happen to be from the same ethnic group, that the try-outs aren’t flawed—it’s just that the people who won at the try-outs were the best and beat everyone else. To that Walsh responded by saying, “Public sector jobs are a very different animal from a sports team.”

How Ms. Walsh has arrived at this idea has me puzzled. Both a sports team and a fire department/rescue squad are expected to deliver results. Athletes are expected to help their team win; firefighters are expected to accomplish things that can’t be accomplished by anyone and everyone—and in most cases, peoples’ lives hang in the balance. Just because one has a payroll derived from the private sector while the other comes from tax dollars does not make the rewarding of the jobs different. In both you must perform; you’re not “better” because of your skin color.

It’s absolutely preposterous that Joan Walsh would view a field like emergency services as one in which political correctness is more important than clear-cut ability. Suppose Walsh is in a house fire or car crash; is she going to refuse rescue and treatment from the fire-rescue squad and paramedics if their skin isn’t a certain color?

It’s sad that Walsh has taken something like a life-saving occupation and turned it into something superficial in which we should push an ideological agenda.

I can promise that if I ever need the help from a firefighter, paramedic, or police officer that I won’t stop him/her from saving me if I’m burning, bleeding, or being shot at just because they might not be from a particular ethnic group.

References

Hardball with Chris Matthews. MSNBC / YouTube. 5 May 2009.

Richey, Warren. “Supreme Court to Hear Reverse-Discrimination Case.” Christian Science Monitor. 21 Apr. 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

Juvenile Court

To those of us who grew up in Pennsylvania’s “coal region,” we came to know the Schuylkill County town of Shenandoah as being the town in which every block had one church and one bar—and no, this wasn’t an exaggeration.

When I was a kid, my father worked with a guy from Shenandoah whose name was Harry, but because his beard was as long as it was, I often found myself wondering if I was hearing the name incorrectly, with the chance that people were really calling him “Hairy.”

My father eventually changed jobs and I hadn’t heard much of Harry or Shenandoah, other than the times when I went to Canada with my family for annual fishing vacations. The only reason that his name even came up was because my dad would take my brother and I to a spot on the lake where Harry was said to have lost “The Big One”—an almost-mythical large-mouth bass that was said to be the size of a cat. The Big One, the story went, gave Harry a fight of epic proportions, and when it looked as if Harry was about to win the battle, the fish jumped out of the water, spit the lure out of his mouth, looked at Harry, and sent some kind of mental signal to Harry in which the fish let Harry know that he and all of his off-spring would eternally curse Harry and all of Harry’s off-spring.

Since my family had not been cursed, the theory went, we would be able to catch The Big One and successfully bring him to our skillet.

In the end, we never hooked The Big One; we lost track of Harry; I only thought about Shenandoah when I would occasionally see the town on a weather map.

••••

Fast-forward to several months ago and Shenandoah appeared in the news—on the front page of all the local newspapers. This time, however, it had nothing to do with fish, churches, bars, or the weather; it had to do with a killing.

But instead of being a clear-cut potential homicide case, it turned into a massive circus, complete with accusations of incompetence and racism. As if that were not enough, the victim in the case was an illegal immigrant. In essence, everything that could be wrong in the case, was wrong.

• the victim was an illegal immigrant from Mexico

• the defendants were white, popular football players from an historically white town where high school football is almost as popular as drinking and attending church

• the jury was all-white

• proponents of illegal immigration—not to be confused with legal immigration—turned out in droves to get their message to the masses that illegal immigration should be just as acceptable as legal immigration

• supporters of the defendants were interviewed on television news channels and instead of simply saying, “The kids didn’t do it,” the supporters said that the victim was here illegally and as such it wouldn’t have happened had he not been here (as if it somehow validates the killing)

• the victim was said to be the one who initiated the fight, willing to take on all comers

• the defendants were said to be drunk, racist punks who were looking to assault a non-Caucasion

• the Schuylkill County District Attorney said that there were “many problems with the evidence,” but wouldn’t elaborate

In the end, one person was dead and the teens who were charged with third-degree murder, aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation were acquitted of all serious charges, ultimately being found guilty of nothing more than simple assault and alcohol-related crimes.

Supporters of the defendants are calling the verdict “justice”; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund calls it “a complete outrage.” Residents of Shenandoah are fearing some kind of retribution.

••••

I wasn’t there that night when the victim, Luis Ramirez, was beaten to death. As such, I have no idea what happened. I wasn’t on the jury, so I have no idea what they saw, heard, or discussed.

What I do know are these two points: (1.) a person is dead and two different, extremist viewpoints have taken the forefront in a case that should have been otherwise routine; and (2.) eastern Pennsylvania—where we find both Shenandoah and Hazleton—might be the United States’ largest breeding ground for potential Ku Klux Klan members.

References

Moser, John J. “Hispanic Group: Verdict is ‘Outrage.’” The Morning Call. 3 May 2009. <screenshot>

Rubinkam, Michael. “Pa. Teens Cleared of Serious Charges in Beating.” Google News / Associated Press. 2 May 2009. <screenshot>

“Teens Cleared of Serious Charges in Beating Death.” WFMZ. 1 May 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

Permission Slip

When we got rid of George W. Bush, it was a bit refreshing because I had thought that perhaps the dictator vibe would no longer exist in the White House. I may have been incorrect.

In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Barack Obama says that “Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy” but it “won’t be half of our economy.” The comment that struck me, however, was this one:

That means that more talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.

When the fuck did Obama become the all-powerful, all-knowing god who decides which student goes into which field?

As for the remark about Wall Street, Obama seems to be pandering nicely to the segment of Americans who view our economy—essentially a free market with regulations—as something that the government simply “creates” and then changes at will. If Wall Street became a big part of the economy, it did so due to the free-market aspect of the economy. In turn, we can’t just wave a magic wand and decide that Wall Street will be a certain percentage of the economy because we want it to be that percentage.

This is, however, a belief that many people no doubt have. For example, I work with a few people who view employment in these terms: companies give people jobs because that’s what they’re supposed to do; when a company lays people off, the government should order them to give people their jobs back; supply and demand are foreign concepts that are just theories talked about by university professors.

It pains me to say it, but I had to explain to a few adults that businesses, banks, and government are not separate entities in our economy—each affects the other. A few months ago I had one colleague who became angry when the banks received bailout money before General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Her view was that banks already “have” money, since that’s what banks “have.” While common-sense would tell us that the main reason that banks got bailout funds first was because the financial sector are big campaign donors to Washington, another reason that banks were first in line was because they can affect businesses—in this case, car manufacturers.

I explained that if banks had money, they could provide customers loans. If customers have a loan, they can buy a car. If they buy a car, it keeps the car manufacturers afloat. When I told my colleague about this action-reaction-action-reaction order of our economy, she gave me a look that was either an “I don’t get it” look or an “I never thought of that” look. Maybe it was neither; maybe it was a mixture of both. It was difficult to discern.

Either way, hopefully Obama will let me keep my little percentage of the World Wide Web via this blog and he—or his followers—won’t decide that I should be focusing my talent elsewhere.

Reference

“Obama: Wall Street Will Play Less Dominant Role.” ABC News. 2 May 2009.

Ω

The Land of Cheese and Fascism

A city council in West Bend, Wisconsin, has recently dismissed several library board members because they didn’t share the board’s “ideology” toward “[affirming] traditional heterosexual perspectives.”

___________________________

When we think of Wisconsin, we usually think of cheese. Unfortunately, we can also think of censorship and abuse by way of political power.

According to Lynn Andriani of Publishers Weekly:

Four members of a library board in West Bend, Wis., were dismissed last week for refusing to remove controversial books from the library’s young adult section—and yesterday, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Association of American Publishers and PEN American Center criticized the firings.

[...]

The controversy began in February when two patrons complained that the library’s YA section included fiction and nonfiction books about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. The patrons accused the library of promoting “the overt indoctrination of the gay agenda in our community” and demanded that the library add books “affirming traditional heterosexual perspectives.” They also insisted that the library remove books from the YA section including Brent Hartinger’s Geography Club (HarperCollins), Stephan Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Esther Drill’s Deal With It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a gURL (both Simon & Schuster).

The National Coalition Against Censorship and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression sent the West Bend Common Council a letter to oppose the dismissals. The letter states:

According to newspaper reports, the Common Council voted not to approve the Mayor’s recommendation to reappoint volunteers Tom Fitz, Mary Reilly-Kliss, James Pouros and Alderman Nick Dobberstein to the Library Board because the majority of Council members disagreed with library board members’ viewpoints. According to The West Bend Daily News, Alderman Terry Vrana said he voted to remove four members of the Library Board because he “disagree[s] with them” and objects to “their ideology.” The role of a public library and its board is to serve the entire community and to evaluate books and other library materials on the basis of objective criteria. By removing half of the members of the library board, the Common Council is imposing its opinions on the rest of the community, threatening free speech in West Bend.

In addition, we understand that members of the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries, led by Ginny and Jim Maziarka, have objected to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Geography Club, and other young adult novels, as well as non-fiction books for teens on sexuality and sexual health, such as Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a gURL because they are “pornography.” The group has also objected to a portion of the library’s website that recommends books about homosexuality that are written for young adults.

[...]

None of the challenged books is legally obscene. To be obscene, material must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The critical acclaim the books have received testifies to their educational value, and anybody who has read them is aware that they explore a range of important issues. The books include both educational guides to sex and sexuality written for a young adult audience and novels like The Perks of Being a Wallflower that address the serious issues that adolescents face, including friendship, teen pregnancy and suicide. Library Journal gave “high marks for comprehensiveness and attention to detail” to Deal with It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a gURL. Its main message concerns “accepting diversity in bodies and lifestyles, taking responsibility, and finding help when you need it.” These books are plainly not obscene and are fully protected under the First Amendment.

Sadly, the First Amendment isn’t as important to many governmental bodies as it should be. Just a few months ago I opined on a public school district in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, which had a (still unnamed) book pulled from its school library after a parent complained about it. What struck me more than anything else were the comments made by the district’s school board members and superintendent. The board president remarked that the pulled book shouldn’t have been on the school library’s shelves because it didn’t support the town’s values. Even though it was reported that the book in question had received several awards, the president of Tamaqua School District’s school board, Larry A. Wittig, felt that what might be good nationally might not be good for his quaint little burned-out coal town. He was reported as saying: “The people delivering these books could be totally off the reservation.”

In the cases of both West Bend, Wisconsin, and Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, we can see that the town council and school board, respectively, have helped to show that their “reservation” is more like an insulated bubble in which they live, cut off from the rest of the world, the United States Constitution, and reality.

The truly sad irony of stories like these is this: They’ll most likely defend their censorship by telling themselves that they’re “protecting” their citizens from the evil influences from outside forces like pornography, homosexuality, Satanism, and communism. In so doing, they actually violate the First Amendment.

This is the same First Amendment that is part of the Bill of Rights. This is the same Bill of Rights that is part of our United States Constitution. This is the same United States Constitution to which we turn when we want to know if a law can stand or not.

They actually commit an un-American act in order to defend their “American” traditions.

So who’s the real enemy here?

References

Andriani, Lynn. “Free Speech Groups Criticize Dismissal of Wisconsin Library Board Members.” Publishers Weekly. 29 April 2009. <screenshot>

Cooper, Chase Edwards. “Sealed for Your Protection.” The American Philosophy Company. 17 Jan. 2009.

National Coalition Against Censorship, et al. Letter to West Bend Common Council. 28 Apr. 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

Sweet Child O' Mine

Throughout the presidential campaign of 2008—the one in which John McCain offered us a military record, Sarah Palin offered us a low IQ, Barack Obama offered us everything, and Joe Biden offered us...um...uh...anyway—I noticed quite early that Obama fans were, indeed, fans. Mr. Obama had a rock star persona, whereby he could walk into a room and generate a response akin to those of Britney Spears, Elton John, or Metallica. Moreover, it had become rather apparent that right-wingers had God and Jesus; left-wingers had Barack.

Being one who is not a fan of either organized religion or the two-party political machine that we have in the United States, I watched the game—and yes, I believe that game is the most appropriate term available—from the dugout, almost like a pitching coach who might be keeping tabs on which pitcher is delivering which pitch to which batter during which inning. Even though I was attending the game, I wasn’t actually in the game.

While I readily accept such a position, since it’s self-imposed, one thing that was tough to accept was seeing free passes issued to Obama for things that were previously considered evils that were perpetrated by George W. Bush. For instance, when it was revealed that Obama’s then-nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, endorsed an extension of the PATRIOT Act that allows federal agents to obtain Americans’ library book sign-out records and bookstore purchase records whenever they might want to. The records could be obtained after a secret court authorized the search and the person who might be the target of the search doesn’t even have to be a terrorism suspect. Any law-abiding American was fair game.

Under George W. Bush, such a provision could have—and should have—been considered morally and ethically wrong; under Obama it would be okay. A comment left by one of my (few) readers affirmed such a situation. “[W]hat’s the big deal about people finding out what books you read?” the comment asked. Even one of my coworkers took the double-standard approach to it, whereby she was outraged that Sarah Palin had been involved in a library book censorship scandal but didn’t seem to mind when her favorite candidate—Obama—had a cabinet nominee who was going to support a fascist tactic, too.

Obama and his crew had become rock stars and you have to give your favorite rock star a little leeway, after all.

With this in mind I read a news article yesterday that didn’t shock me: Obama might appear on American Idol. According to Access Hollywood, President Obama has been invited to appear on the popular prime-time karaoke show by judge du décennie, Simon Cowell. “He’s a rock star!” Cowell said of Obama.

Maybe if he’s willing to show up on The Bachelor or Dancing with the Stars he’ll become the greatest president ever.

Reference

“President Obama to Visit ‘American Idol’?” NBC Washington / Access Hollywood. 1 May 2009.

Ω

Designated Whiners

Is it tee-ball or just a training tool for designated hitters?
________________________

The recent injury to St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Chris Carpenter has moved a Chicago Tribune blogger to suggest that the National League adopt the designated hitter rule, as he figures that baseball teams might avoid paying money to injured pitchers by using the DH rule, since Carpenter’s injury was caused by swinging a bat. But before I analyze the asininity of this viewpoint, let’s take a look at the designated hitter rule.

••••

The 1970s are known for a few questionable things: polyester clothing, disco, and the designated hitter rule.

Yes, it might come as a surprise to people who were born after the 1970s, but baseball was able to flourish and become the national pastime long before any leisure suit-wearing players’ union head had even thought of inventing a position on a baseball team that was designed to remove strategy from a sport that was built on...well...strategy.

For those unaware of the designated hitter rule, the concept is simple but ridiculous: a substitute player is used in a baseball team’s line-up in place of the pitcher in an effort to score more runs. The concept was first used in the minor International League in 1969 and was liked by Major League Baseball’s commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn. He pushed the idea to both the National League and the American League, but only the American League was willing to incorporate the idea in 1973.

For the last 36 years, the feeble-minded among baseball fans have routinely supported the idea and hoped that the National League would adopt the rule—or even have it forced upon them (kind of like a crack addict hoping that the rest of the world smokes crack, too, to make himself feel better).

Arguments in favor of the rule have been either silly or even illogical: fans like hits and pitchers can’t hit well; the DH rule gives more guys jobs; the DH rule extends careers; the DH rule makes baseball showier; the DH rule is a nice way to save money. Let’s take a look at these:

Fans do like hits. There can’t be much debate about that. Hits create runs; runs win games. But the truth of the matter is that not all fans want to see nothing but doubles, triples, and home-runs when those doubles, triples, and home-runs have come by way of artificial means (the DH rule). The sport of baseball was able to work well without the DH rule for roughly 100 years with pitchers batting for themselves.

When you remove the pitcher and add a substitute batter (a full-time pinch hitter), you also remove any reason to consider bunting strategies and pitcher-versus-batter match-ups that are currently present in National League games.

For instance, if a pitcher’s spot comes up late in a game for Team A, Team B’s manager must consider who Team A has available if Team A chooses to pinch hit and later replace with a new relief pitcher. Team B’s manager must also consider what might happen if Team A’s pitcher won’t be pinch-hit for and ultimately bats for himself. Will he bunt? Will he hit? It would depend upon the situation.

With the DH rule, that strategy is irrelevant; the DH just goes to bat to hit the ball. Then the next guy comes to bat.

The next two arguments—that it gives more guys jobs and that it extends careers—have been pushed by the players’ union off-and-on since the DH rule was adopted. There are only two problems with these arguments:

First, it can’t possibly give more guys jobs because both American League teams and National League teams are limited to 25 men on their rosters. That means 25 men on American League teams with a designated hitter and 25 men on National League teams without a DH. If both have 25 men, how can 25 on an AL team be “more”? I admit that math was always my weakest subject, but I’m not that weak.

The second argument—that it “extends” careers—is only half correct. Yes, many DH positions have been filled by older guys who can’t field a ball anymore, but this argument does not take into consideration two things: (1.) today’s DH position isn’t dedicated to one guy the way that it used to be, but is being used more and more as a spot to give some players days off from playing the field; and (2.) a player—DH or otherwise—will last only as long as they’re productive. If they can’t hit, they’ll find themselves out of a job whether they’re 25-years-old or 40-years-old.

Finally, the superficial aspect to the DH and the money-saving aspect of the rule can basically go hand-in-hand, because neither are concerned with quality of play or strategy. For example, in 1969, Broadway producer David Merrick said: “There’s not enough showmanship in baseball. It is show business, isn’t it?” Merrick lamented that “in baseball they’re unmindful of the audience” but that in the theater they’re “always thinking of the audience.” (I’ll take a baseball game over a play any day, thank you.)

As for saving money on pitchers who have been hurt batting or running, which is why our Chicago Tribune blogger argued for an MLB-wide DH rule, this would no doubt be true. Hank Steinbrenner, the senior vice-president of the New York Yankees and heir-to-the-throne to the Yankee empire by way of his father, George, once said that the National League needs to “grow up and join the twenty-first century” by adopting the DH rule. (Remember what I said earlier about crack addicts who might complain when others aren’t smoking crack, too?)

My only complaint about this argument is this: If you have a high-paid designated hitter hurt himself while swinging a bat, is that injury more acceptable than a pitcher doing the same thing? What if the pitcher injures himself while pitching instead of hitting? Is that injury more acceptable?

••••

That brings us back to our Chicago Tribune blogger, who wants the National League to adopt the DH rule to keep high-paid pitchers from getting hurt while batting. Well, if we do that, why stop there?

Why not make designated fielders, too? That way, we can field nine guys whose job it is to never swing a bat, thus preventing any batting injuries whatsoever. It’ll let us add nine more players to the 25-man rosters. We might be able to “extend” a few more careers!

But wait. What about batting-related injuries to all those designated hitters? In that case, maybe we can remove batting from the game, too. That’ll save us from batting-related injuries. But wait—what will do if we have fielding-related injuries? And what about pitching-related injuries? Shouldn’t we just end all of it?!

You can see where I’m going with these absurdities.

Much to the chagrin of Hank Steinbrenner, the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers and crack smokers everywhere, not everyone is interested in doing ridiculous things. Some of us enjoy the strategy that comes with pitchers who have to bat for themselves. Some of us get bored with the football mentality that comes with American League baseball.

While I’m no fan of Mark McGwire after watching his pathetic responses during the Congressional hearings on steroid use, I’ll always remember his remarks in which he compared the National League and American League:

It’s amazing how many one-two-three innings you see over here [in the National League]. Those innings never seem to happen in the American League. There is also so much more standing around in the American League. Here you always feel into the game. It’s just a better way to play the game.

References

“Charlton’s Baseball Chronology.” BaseballLibrary.com. 2006. <screenshot>

Davids, L. Robert. Great Hitting Pitchers. Cooperstown: Society for American Baseball Research, 1979. <screenshot>

“Foot Injury Expected to Sideline Wang Until at Least September.” Associated Press / ESPN. 17 June 2008. <screenshot>

“Mark McGwire.” BaseballLibrary.com. 2006. <screenshot>

Rogers, Phil. “Chris Carpenter Shouldn’t Bat, Joe Mauer Could Be Back Soon and Other Mid-Week Thoughts.” Chicago Tribune. 15 Apr. 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

Fly By Night

Keeping with the commonplace theme of corruption that has plagued Pennsylvania politics for years, Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) has added to his record of unethical behavior by securing $800,000 of stimulus money for a hardly-used airport that bears his name in his district. But since he disliked Bush, his behavior must be okay, right?

_____________________________

It’s been said that Pennsylvania is the second-most corrupt state in the union, with Louisiana being number one. A few years ago, the Pennsylvania legislature voted themselves an illegal pay raise during a secret vote at two o’clock in the morning. Last year 12 members of the legislature were indicted as well as two aides after they illegally received $4 million of taxpayer money for doing campaign work in what became known as “Bonusgate.” A few months ago two judges from Luzerne County—Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan—pleaded guilty after accepting more than $2.6 million to send juveniles to youth detention camps for minor offenses.

But what’s even better than breaking the law? How about ripping off taxpayers legally?

Representative John Murtha proves that you can screw taxpayers—even during a recession—and keep everything legal. As ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

The John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport has an impressive $18 million runway made of reinforced concrete that’s big enough to land any airplane in North America. The airport also has a $7 million air traffic control tower, a $14 million hanger and $8 million radar. Most of the time, the only thing the airport doesn't have is airplanes.

An average of just 20 people a day flew out of the Murtha Airport last year. But, the airport was just awarded more federal money—$800,000 in stimulus funds to repave an alternate runway.

Located in Johnston, Pa., 56 miles from Pittsburgh, the Murtha Airport is a monument to the power of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who has steered some $150 million in taxpayer dollars to the airport over the last decade.

On one side of the airport’s main entrance, a large photograph of Murtha adorns the wall; on the other side, there's a bronze plaque with his name. The airport isn't always deserted. There are three flights a day—all of them to Washington’s Dulles International Airport.

[...]

The federal government provides a subsidy for every flight into the Murtha Airport of about $100 dollars per passenger, but even with the subsidy, there are plenty of empty seats.

On a visit to the airport, ABC News found it virtually deserted, with an empty restaurant, vacant lounges and empty runways. An air traffic controller was twiddling his thumbs.

Thanks to Murtha, there is a Pennsylvania National Guard training facility located at the airport, but its personnel fly helicopters, not airplanes.

The article went on to say that Murtha’s constituents love him, which doesn’t surprise me. Let’s do a quick run-down on what Murtha’s supporters were willing to turn the other cheek to:

• his being caught on video in 1980 saying that he might be willing to accept bribes if he does business with the briber for a period of time

• his being listed as one of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, after it was revealed that Murtha sent tax dollars to a “consulting” group that just happened to employ his brother

• his being named one of the 10 worst members of Congress by Esquire magazine due to his reluctance to support ethics reform

• his being listed as one of 104 representatives to send $38.1 million to a lobbying group called the PMA Group, which just happened to donate money to his campaigns—but it also had its offices raided by the FBI
  

• his having ties to a “research center” which just happened to receive $250 million in earmarks that Murtha secured

Then again, maybe he’s liked by his constituents because he was recently quoted as saying, “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.”

What angers me more than knowing that Murtha is corrupt is knowing that voters and fellow party members like him for two reasons: (1.) he brings money into his district in an unethical way, and (2.) his political views. While George W. Bush was in office, he was one of Bush’s biggest critics—and rightfully so—but sadly for Murtha fans that quickly became a get-out-of-jail-free card because they had the philosophy that “my enemy’s enemy must be my friend.”

When you’re friends with someone who supports corruption, pork, and graft, what can we call you?

References

Allen, Jonathan and Alex Knott. “Firm with Murtha Ties Got Earmarks From Nearly One-Fourth of House.” CQ. 19 Feb. 2009. <screenshot>

Attkisson, Sharyl. “Murtha’s Defense Earmarks Draw Questions.” CBS Evening News. 20 Apr. 2009. <screenshot>

“Full Video of Murtha’s Abscam Meeting with the FBI.” The American Spectator via Google Video. 7 Jan. 1980 / 28 Sept. 2006.

Grezlak, Hank. “High Court Handed a Royal Mess in Pay-Raise Issue.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly. 5 Apr. 2006. <screenshot>

Karl, Jonathan. “Welcome to the Airport for Nobody.” ABC News. 23 Apr. 2009. <screenshot>

Leonnig, Carol D. “Research Center’s Role Faces Scrutiny.” Washington Post. 17 Mar. 2009. <screenshot>

“Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA).” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 2009. <screenshot>

Roarty, Alex. “Reformers ‘Stunned by Width and Breadth’ of Revelations.” PolitickerPA.com. 10 July 2008. <screenshot>

“Supreme Court Orders Juvenile Convictions Vacated.” The Times Leader. 26 Mar. 2009. <screenshot>

“The 10 Worst Members of Congress.” Esquire. 15 Oct. 2008. <screenshot>

Yost, Pete. “Murtha Fundraiser Missed Donor Pal.” Washington Times. 24 Mar. 2009. <screenshot>

Ω

God Bless the USSA

The only thing worse than a pseudo-patriot is a pseudo-patriot who might also happen to be a New York Yankees fan.

Before I get to the pseudo-patriot part, I’ll begin by saying that I’ve met many Yankees fans over the years and only two of them have left a positive impression on me. One of them was a former colleague in a volunteer organization of which I was a member several years ago and the other is a current coworker. The others have, sadly, been whiny, self-absorbed, arrogant pricks.

In 2006, I became accustomed to listening to Yankees fans lament about how Major League Baseball was somehow “broken” because my beloved St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series and the Yankees were eliminated from World Series contention by the Detroit Tigers three games to one. New York fans seemed to reason that since the Yankees were...well...um...the Yankees, it was simply their divine right to be handed the Commissioner’s Trophy year after year.

As for pseudo-patriots, it’s a term that I use to refer to people whose idea of being a “true” American is little more than measuring the size of their American flag against that of the next person—even if that flag was manufactured in China.

Their superficial Americanism can be illustrated through their insistence that everyone in the country should be Christian because the founding fathers were Christian; their CD collection is chock-full of every known I-love-America-and-I’ll-kick-your-ass-if-you-don’t country song; they wear certain colors on certain days to signify their patriotism and question others’ patriotism if those same colors are not worn on certain days. If we were to get right down to it, however, their true love of their country is little more than image with a little religious zealotry tossed in for flavor.

When you mix the two, you might get the mindset which would create something like the policy that has—unbeknownst to me until now—been in place at Yankee Stadium for quite some time.

It turns out that Yankee management has a rule which states that fans must stay in their seats while the song “God Bless America” plays on the loudspeakers. If you challenge the policy, you can be ejected from the stadium. One fan happened to challenge it, was ejected, and he’s now suing.

Bloomberg’s Thom Weidlich reports:

A New York City man who roots for the Boston Red Sox sued the New York Yankees and the city’s police department saying he was ejected from the old Yankee Stadium in August because he tried to use the restroom during the singing of “God Bless America.”

Bradford Campeau-Laurion, a 30-year-old resident of Astoria, Queens, said he was the victim of religious and political discrimination. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued today on his behalf in federal court in Manhattan.

“New York’s finest have no business arresting someone for trying to go to the bathroom at a politically incorrect moment,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil-liberties group, said in a statement.

Campeau-Laurion said he was stopped by an officer on his way to the restroom during the seventh-inning stretch and was thrown out of the stadium when he tried to keep walking.

[...]

“As he walked toward the tunnel leading to the concourse, a uniformed New York City police officer put up his hands and mumbled something to Mr. Campeau-Laurion,” according to the complaint.

He understood the policeman as indicating he couldn’t leave during “God Bless America.” When he tried to move past the officer, the policeman grabbed his arm and said, “He’s out” to another officer, who twisted Campeau-Laurion’s left arm behind his back, he said. They ejected him from the stadium, according to the complaint.

[...]

Unlike most other Major League Baseball teams, the Yankees seek to prevent fans from moving during the playing of “God Bless America,” according to the complaint. The lawsuit also challenges that policy. Off-duty uniformed police officers at the games are paid by the Yankees, according to the complaint and Browne.

[...]

“It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts,” he said. “It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place.”

“I consider myself to be a good American citizen,” Campeau-Laurion said.

••••

Since I’m not a lawyer, I won’t attempt to analyze the possible legal outcome of this suit. Fortunately, in 2007, law professor Howard M. Wasserman did. On his blog, Professor Wasserman explains that “[t]here are two separate constitutional issues[:] The first is whether the Yankees, by virtue of controlling a publicly owned stadium, are somehow state actors in dictating what fans can and cannot do in the stadium.” Professor Wasserman also explains that this point is important because “the First Amendment only limits government, not private entities; the Yankees, as an ostensibly private organization, can exercise total control over what fans can say.”

So, are the Yankees really that “private”? It depends on how things are viewed and what precedent is used. Cases such as Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority and Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association will come into play. For example, Professor Wasserman says that, if we use Brentwood, “this test might look at features such as who owns the ballpark, the terms on which the team is using the ballpark, and who is making and enforcing the relevant rules. For example, it may be relevant that Yankee Stadium is owned by the City of New York but used and controlled exclusively by the team. It also might be important that the Yankees contract with the City to use off-duty police officers as security guards, who help in blocking off the exits.” He also mentioned that—as of his 2007 writing—the survival of that opinion would be important. As of this writing (April 2009), I haven’t been able to find any reversal.

The second issue that Professor Wasserman discusses is the First Amendment “violation”: Does keeping a fan in his/her seat during “God Bless America” violate their First Amendment rights? Wasserman writes:

One form of symbolic counter-speech is nonparticipation in a ritual or ceremony that honors and affirms a symbol. By leaving the seating area, a fan declines to participate in the ceremony or ritual (the singing of the GBA), thereby expressing his dissent from that symbol. The Yankees policy of keeping fans in place thus eliminates one form of symbolic counter-speech.

The key to the free speech argument is that forcing fans to stay put arguably coerces their participation in the ritual, in violation of the First Amendment protection against compelled expression recognized in Barnette v. W. Va. Bd. of Educ. (1943)...The do-not-leave policy is content-neutral and likely valid as a restriction on the time, place, and manner of speech. The Yankees are not trying to keep fans in place out of disagreement with or dislike for the message fans send by leaving their seats; they only are trying to keep non-particiating fans from disrupting those who do want to participate in the ritual.

Two thoughts on this. First, there are many ways to decline to participate in a ceremony or ritual that should be protected beyond simply not singing while remaining in place. Not singing sends one message; leaving sends a somewhat different (or more overt) message of dissent; turning my back to the flag my send a different (and even more overt) message of dissent. All of them should be protected under Barnette unless the government/Yankees can show that one form affects its interests differently.

There’s a major problem with the Yankees’ argument that a “disruption” is caused by those leaving their sections (yes, I said section—not seat), according to Wasserman:

In general, it is hard to see how one (or even a few individuals) walking out “disrupts” a stadium of 55,000 people who want to stand at attention and sing...The chains are up in the main corridor, by the exit tunnel, and some fans can be seen standing in the corridor waiting for the song to end. This means that I can get up from my seat, walk out of my row (climbing across my neighbors, if I have to), and walk up the aisle, presumably while talking with my companion—all pretty disruptive, I would guess. I can do everything but walk out the tunnel to the kosher hot dog stand, away from (and out of the line of sight of) those who remain in their seats. Of course, walking completely away from the seating area ought to be least disruptive to those remaining by their seats and singing. So the argument that “fans who want to sing have rights, too” strikes me as a straw man; my leaving does not interfere with the ability of anyone else to sing and otherwise participate in this patriotic ritual.

The point is that the Yankees are not really trying to prevent disruption of others fans caused by my moving around during the song, because such disruption is, realistically, non-existent. The Yankees are trying to prevent disruption caused by the message I send by leaving during the song. The policy now is no longer content-neutral, because it is tied to dislike for the message a fan wants to send by his nonparticipation.

••••

Now that the legal side of this policy has been presented, I’ll attempt to analyze the cultural side of it.

I’ll start by stating the obvious: there’s a sick irony in this story, given that the Yankees’ management has resorted to implementing a Stalinist policy under the guise of loving one’s country. When you force patriotism, how patriotic is it?

The argument will no doubt be made that many men and women have died for the freedoms that we have in the United States and that we should honor them. That is true; we should honor them. Are we really honoring them by enforcing rules that would otherwise be commonplace in authoritarian countries which these brave men and women originally fought against? Are we showing our love of freedom by adopting the very totalitarian beliefs that were previously considered worth standing up to?

If these people died for freedom, it should be just that: freedom. In this case, the Yankees are taking a noble idea—love for a “free” country—and bastardizing it so that it’s actually counter to what the concept is.

We can call those who would walk out during “God Bless America” many things: ungrateful; ignorant; impolite; clueless; and yes, even unpatriotic. Calling them that is our right as Americans because we have the freedom to do so. When we attempt to force others to see things our way or like the things that we like, we’re no longer supporting freedom.

If anything, we’re showing that we’re more unpatriotic than those who would have the nerve to walk out during a song like “God Bless America.”

References

Wasserman, Howard. “Yankee Stadium, God Bless America, and the First Amendment.” Sports Law Blog. 18 May 2007.

Weidlich, Thom. “New York Man Sues Over Ejection From Yankees Game.” Bloomberg. 15 Apr. 2009.

Ω

Teaching Without Class

ABC News wants to grab your attention by announcing that a teacher was arrested for murder, but they don’t tell you what kind of teacher she was until you read the story.

________________________________________

Upon entering the field of education, one thing that I had to grow accustomed to is having people dislike me simply because of my job. That’s not to say that everyone dislikes me because of my title, but rather that it’s become acceptable—at least where I live—to be negative just for the sake of being negative.

The justification for it is one that many people who receive their paychecks from tax dollars can relate to: the “I-pay-your-salary” mentality.

The idea is that if one person pays another person’s salary, the element of human decency can be suspended. In lay terms, you can treat the other person like an asshole if you choose to, since you’re paying their salary.

I’ve also had to grow accustomed to how the media waits with bated breath to report on any and all indiscretions that might be perpetrated by those in the field of education. In some cases, as I’ll show, the term “teacher” is stretched to make the situation all the more eye-catching.

A year ago I was scanning the headlines of my local news Website and my eye caught the headline “Teacher Arrested for DUI.” The article was actually a list of 10 people who had court hearings at my local courthouse, but what stuck out for me was that the other nine defendants—whose offenses ranged from other DUIs to drug possession to trespassing to receiving stolen property—did not have their occupations listed. The only one who had an occupation listed was the teacher.

Were the other defendants construction workers? Were they mechanics? Were they cashiers? Were they newspaper reporters? I’m not sure because only one had an occupation listed: the teacher.

The judge in the case rightfully excoriated the woman, whose blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit. The report did not, however, say if he excoriated any of the other criminals. Does that mean that he did and it wasn’t reported or does it mean that he didn’t and his view was the “boys will be boys” view? I’m not sure because it wasn’t reported.

With that as a preface, it brings me to the way that ABC News has recently set up the presentation of the recent story of eight-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found in a suitcase in a pond.

ABC News lists a headline of “Teacher Booked in Sandra Cantu Murder” under their “Top Stories” column on their homepage. It’s not until one clicks on it and reads the actual article that one discovers the “teacher” is really a Sunday school teacher (and that’s not to say that it makes the murder more acceptable—it’s still evil). That’s not exactly the “teacher” that one would think of upon reading the homepage headline, is it?

While I love doing what I do, it has taken me some time to grow accustomed to knowing that people are always going to be waiting for me—and not just me in particular, but everyone in education on some level—to make some kind of mistake in an effort to pounce on it. Will I be caught watching a bad movie? Will I be caught reading a controversial book? Will I be caught listening to unpopular music? Will I be caught using a dirty word off school grounds? Will I be caught wearing a tie that doesn’t match the rest of my wardrobe? It might sound absurd but after I was hired I was told to be ready for any possible criticism no matter how silly it might seem.

What I’m still trying to grow accustomed to is the notion that I need to be as close to moral and ethical purity as possible, but I’m supposed to simultaneously feel guilty if I get a raise in salary.

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Associated Repress

This screenshot shows the Associated Press’s attempt to charge for the educational and nonprofit use of excerpts from AP news stories, even though the use of both are protected under the Fair Use clause of the United States Copyright Law. The AP is now going a step further and proclaiming that laws should not apply to them.

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In 2008, the Associated Press (and I’m hoping that they don’t sue me for using their name without a license) made headlines—no pun intended—when they created their “price list” for quoting five words or more from any AP story.

They’re now going to go after anyone who uses their content—no matter the purpose—in an effort to make up for a loss of revenue that has come about due to the Internet.

Now don’t get me wrong—I have no objection to standing up to Websites that simply copy-and-paste entire stories with no purpose other than to copy-and-paste news stories. My concern is a comment that was made by Dean Singleton, the AP’s chairman. In what appears to be his view of things like the Fair Use clause of the United States Copyright Law, he says: “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories.”

Misguided legal theory? Is he serious? The Fair Use clause was included in the law and reads as follows:

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

Now, if we follow the law, we can see that if a blogger or any other outlet uses a particular news article for non-commercial purposes we would be falling within the guidelines of the law. For instance, if I use an excerpt from an article, and then analyze it for intellectual purposes, I should be able to do so without fear of legal action because my use is for a nonprofit educational purpose. In addition, the effect of using the article would not affect the market for it or the value of it.

The AP, however, has now publicly said that they’re not interested in adhering to the law. The Fair Use clause, they say, is a “misguided legal theory.”

At first, my solution was going to be that from now on I’ll be sure to avoid any and all AP stories on my blog. But then I realized that there’s another approach to this story.

If the AP can say that the law does not apply to anything related to them or their content, I shall now announce that anything that the AP says will simply not apply to me—no matter what the law says (the AP has already said that the law is irrelevant). In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that if the AP even attempts to criticize me, I’ll charge them a “criticism fee”:

• 5-25 criticisms: $12.50

• 26-50 criticisms: $17.50

• 51-100 criticisms: $25

• 101-250 criticisms: $50

• 251 criticisms and up: $100

These fees will only apply to the Associated Press. Everyone else can criticize me for free—just as long as everyone else is willing to adhere to the law that the AP has decided to ignore.

References

MacMillan, Robert. “AP Cuts Newspaper Rates, Moves to Protect Web News.” Reuters/Yahoo! News. 6 Apr. 2009.

Masnick, Mike. “Associated Press: Fair Use Limits You to Four Words; Five Words Costs $12.50.” Techdirt. 17 June 2008.

Sanchez, Julian. “AP Launches Campaign Against Internet ‘Misappropriation.’” Ars Technica. 6 Apr. 2009.

United States. United States Copyright Office. “Fair Use.” July 2006.

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No Balls & Too Many Strikes

The Catholic Church has its pre-pubescent-semen-stained panties in a bunch because the Detroit Tigers have scheduled their home opener during “holy hours” on Good Friday. Father Ed Vilkauskas of Detroit’s St. Mary’s Church said, “Nobody is saying baseball isn’t big, but Good Friday is really big—it’s 2,000 years old.”

Since years seem to be important to the Catholic Church, let’s review the ages of some of the children who were raped by their priests: nine; ten; eleven; twelve; thirteen; fourteen; fifteen.

Oh, and this is the same institution which recently excommunicated a doctor who performed an abortion on a raped nine-year-old Brazilian girl who became pregnant with twins from her rapist. Did I mention that her rapist was her own stepfather? And did I mention that the Catholic Church also excommunicated every family member who supported the abortion, which saved the little girl’s life?

From Time:

Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well. “God’s laws,” said the archbishop, dictate that abortion is a sin and that transgressors are no longer welcome in the Roman Catholic Church. “They took the life of an innocent,” Sobrinho told TIME in a telephone interview.

[...]

The case has caused a furor. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger, both of which apply in this case. (The girl’s immature hips would have made labor dangerous; the Catholic opinion was that she could have had a cesarean section.)

Organized religion in general has helped to keep people in line—and help hold on to their power—by discouraging questions and intellectual inquiry. Even worse, the Catholic Church has gone a step further and turned into what might be the world’s largest collection of member-supported child molesters with values that are as immoral as those of any criminal.

Now they’re worried about when a baseball game is going to be played.

References

Associated Press. “Good Friday Opener Draws Criticism.” ESPN. 25 Mar. 2009.

Downie, Andrew. “Nine-Year-Old’s Abortion Outrages Brazil’s Catholic Church.” Time. 6 Mar. 2009.

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Fault Lines

If you screw up in life, just blame someone else. You’re perfect no matter what you do. When things go wrong, it’s never your fault.

This is the new mantra for parenting in the United States. Just this morning I had a seventh grade gifted student—and I use the term “gifted” only because the student has been identified as such by the school psychologist—return her library books four months beyond their due dates. The gifted student thought that it was rather funny that she had them out this long, but she wasn’t laughing when she was informed that she now has a $12 overdue fee to pay.

Later in the day, the gifted student’s mother stopped in the school library, as she works in the building, and she was informed of her gifted daughter’s inability to return books on time and the subsequent overdue fee (and I can assure you that she was informed of the fee in a professional manner). Unfortunately, Mommy was more upset with both me and my assistant as opposed to her being concerned with her gifted daughter’s ability to rack up higher overdue fees than any of the mainstream (non-gifted, that is) students.

She was more offended at the idea that we weren’t constantly reminding her gifted daughter to bring her books back. Mommy didn’t once seem concerned that her gifted daughter was unable to follow basic due-date policies that have been mastered by even the special education students in the building.

Then I came across a story which only made my blood boil a little more. It was, again, a story of parents who want to blame others for their children’s—as well as their own—failures in life. It comes to us from the Cincinnati Enquirer and states:

Jessica Logan’s nude cell-phone photo—meant for her boyfriend’s eyes only—was sent to hundreds of teenagers last year in at least seven Greater Cincinnati high schools.

The 18-year-old Sycamore High School senior was then bombarded with taunts: slut, porn queen, whore.

On July 3, Jessie hanged herself in her bedroom.

She was Albert and Cynthia Logan’s only child.

“My only baby that I will never be able to touch again,” Cynthia Logan said through tears. “I will never have grandchildren. I will never be able to hand down my heirlooms. I’m just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want.”

Now, Jessie’s parents are attempting to launch a national campaign seeking laws to address “sexting”—the practice of forwarding and posting sexually explicit cell-phone photos online. The Logans also want to warn teens of the harassment, humiliation and bullying that can occur when that photo gets forwarded.

Cynthia Logan and Parry Aftab, an attorney and one of the leading authorities on Internet security and cyberbullying, plan to attach Jessie’s name to a national campaign to educate teens about the dangers of sexting.

[...]

After the cell-phone photo was disseminated, Jessie’s outgoing personality turned inward.

The Logans blame a circle of five friends from three other high schools for forwarding the photo.

According to Cynthia Logan, Jessie took the photo and sent it to the boy she had been dating for one to two months. He, in turn, forwarded it to four girls, she said. Efforts to reach the former boyfriend were unsuccessful.

[...]

The Logans said Sycamore High School and the school resource officer didn’t do enough to help Jessie. Sycamore sent truancy notices, Cynthia Logan said, but no calls or letters about what was happening to her daughter in school and no notices to other parents about explicit cell-phone photos. And no charges were filed by the resource officer, she said.

[...]

Montgomery Officer Paul Payne, the school resource officer, said he confronted some of the girls who forwarded Jessie’s photo, even though they attend another school. He asked them to delete the photo from their phones.

“Could she have pressed charges? No, because she’s 18,” Payne said, adding that there were some areas that could have been explored. “The investigation stopped at her wish, because she basically didn’t want this to go any further. ... You respect the wishes of an 18-year-old. In the eyes of the law, she can make her own decision.”

Payne said he supports the Logans' efforts to change laws. “Let’s face it. The law hasn’t caught up to what the original law was designed for.”

[...]

Albert and Cynthia Logan have gone public with Jessie’s story, hoping to change vague state laws that don’t hold anyone accountable for sexting. They also want to warn kids about what can happen when nude cell-phone photos are shared.

“We want a bill passed,” Cynthia Logan said.

“It’s a national epidemic. Nobody is doing anything—no schools, no police officers, no adults, no attorneys, no one.”

I wasn’t sure where to begin by addressing the sheer stupidity and irresponsibility put forth by Mrs. Logan, so I’ll take it point-by-point:

• “I’m just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want.”
I’m glad that this comment appeared first in the story because it’s no doubt the biggest pile of horseshit to come out of this woman’s mouth. This comment is being said by someone who “allowed” her daughter to send nude photos of herself to other people, in this case a boyfriend. If we apply Mrs. Logan’s train of thought (i.e., if a son/daughter does something, it must be the parents’ fault), we must immediately blame her for her daughter’s act—the very act which caused this incident in the first place.

You’ll notice, however, that Mrs. Logan avoids blaming either her daughter or herself. How convenient.

• “The Logans blame a circle of five friends from three other high schools for forwarding the photo.”
Of course they blame everyone else. That became apparent with the first comment. But let’s see—if the photo didn’t exist in the first place, we wouldn’t have had any photo to disseminate, would we, Mrs. Logan? Who took the photo again? Oh, that’s right: your daughter.

• “[N]o charges were filed by the resource officer, [Mrs. Logan] said.”
I’m no lawyer, but I’ll bet that this has something to do with the fact that—obviously unbeknownst to Mrs. Logan—people in the United States who are 18 and older are no longer minors. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s why the school’s resource officer said: “Could she have pressed charges? No, because she’s 18. The investigation stopped at her wish, because she basically didn’t want this to go any further...You respect the wishes of an 18-year-old. In the eyes of the law, she can make her own decision.”

Yes, you read that correctly: the investigation stopped at her request and she was 18 years of age, meaning that charges for possessing child pornography never came into play.

But that small point brings us to...

• “We want a bill passed,” Cynthia Logan said.
Of course you do. You want a bill passed that makes it illegal to...um...uh...wait a minute. Just what would this bill be making illegal, anyway? We have an 18-year-old girl sending a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend. Do you want the age of being considered an “adult” changed to something higher than 18?

We also have people sending the photo around to other people. Do you want that banned? Do you want a law making it illegal to send photos of consenting adults to other adults?

We also have people engaging in name-calling. Do you want that outlawed, Mrs. Logan? I mean, should it be illegal for us to refer to you as simple-minded and irresponsible? Is that what you’re referring to? Would that fall under your proposed law?

While it’s sad that a family lost a daughter, it’s even sadder to see the family pointing fingers at everyone but themselves and then hiding behind a call for knee-jerk legislation for their daughter’s shortsightedness and inability to cope with the consequences of sending nude photos.

Reference

Kranz, Cindy. “Family Wants Tougher Laws.” Cincinnati Enquirer. 22 Mar. 2009.

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I'm Typing...I'm Tweeting...I'm in Love with Myself...

I usually try to stay abreast of new technology, even though I don’t always use technology that everyone else does. Admittedly, I have no cell phone and I refuse to buy an MP3 player (good music is a form of art—not something that you compress, package, market, and sell en masse like a Big Mac).

Another technological fad that is currently taking off is Twitter: a narcissistic blurb-making application which lets users tell the rest of the world what they’re doing, no matter how mundane it might be.

In fact, this self-centered real-time log program has become so popular that doctors are now “tweeting” from the operating room. ABC News reports:

As doctors Steven Kalkanis and Kost Elisevich performed brain surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, a watchful medical team looked on. So did more than 1,900 others, who subscribe to the microblogging social network site Twitter—and had decided to “follow” Henry Ford Hospital.

[...]

Henry Ford Hospital has launched an unusual marriage of medicine and new media. The hospital began “twittering” some of its more groundbreaking surgical cases.

Doctors will post real-time “tweets” from the operating room, while a technician uploads video of the surgery to YouTube.

A technician installs a computer in a corner of the operating room. As surgeons scrub out of the surgery, they spend time answering questions “tweeted” in from around the country.

One reader asked, “I have a question: shouldn’t these surgeons be operating rather than tweeting?” The doctor who was interviewed for the story insists that “patient safety comes first,” which is good. I mean, I’d hate to hear something like, “Hold that clamp on the artery while I tweet about this.”

There’s no doubt that the argument could be made that blogs are also narcissistic. After all, we can use them to tell the world what we’re doing, what we’re thinking, why we believe what we believe, or anything else about which we wish to write. Twitter has become much more instant and much more mundane. A few weeks ago I saw one “tweet” from a guy who told the world about what kind of soy milk he was using on his cereal. Seriously, does this shit matter in the grand scheme of things?

If we’re tweeting from the operating room, maybe it does. I should just take a Valium and tune in to American Idol, The Bachelor, and Dancing with the Stars and everything will be okay. Then I can tweet about it.

Reference

Pinto, Barbara. “Using Twitter to Teach.” ABC News. 22 Mar. 2009.

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How Did That Get in My Mouth?!

Courtesy of Men’s Health

Over the years, one of the (many) things that I’ve lamented about is the idea that people have a habit of viewing similar situations differently when comparing their own situations to those of others. Too many times, I’ve thought, people have resorted to double-standards.

In the new issue of Men’s Health, they report that both men and women have different views of what the definition of “sex” is, especially when comparing their own acts to those of their partners. My particular favorite was that only 41% of men viewed their oral contact with someone’s genitals and only 36% of women viewed it as sex.

I’m not really sure what the 64% of the women who said that it isn’t sex think that it should be called when someone’s penis or vagina ends up in their mouth.

All that I can say for myself is that if I’m going to end up with someone’s genitals in my mouth, you better damn well call it “sex,” otherwise I’ll be a little pissed off. It’s not like I’m sitting around watching TV or something.

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Being Old Enough to Vote is Just too Old

A few months ago a friend asked me why both of us were single, and why both of us seemed to have such difficulty in even attracting women. I began wondering about what makes me unappealing: Is it my career? Is it my thinning hair? Is it my refusal to use contact lenses, opting for glasses instead? Is it—as one woman told me a few months ago—my apparent “femininity” because I care about my health (real men, she explained, have a devil-may-care attitude and aren’t concerned with their health)?

I pondered these, but came to no single conclusion—although all of these together could have been the problem.

Then I realized that my problem, as well as my friend’s, probably isn’t any of these. Our problem is our ages; women like 13-year-old boys.

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That's How People Grow Up

As I get older, I continue to see that being an “adult” means being expected to preach the virtues of creativity, diverse viewpoints, and individuality to children while simultaneously preaching the virtues of conformity, uniformity, and collectivist thought to your peers.

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Does That Carbon Dioxide Come With That Shake?

A little over a year and a half ago, I began to cut out as many animal products as possible from my diet. It wasn’t difficult, given that I’ve never really been too carnivorous to start, so going from the occasional piece of chicken or turkey to something vegetable-based wasn’t an extreme jump. Today, a periodic glass of skim milk is the extent of my close-but-not-really-vegetarian diet.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and I’ve come to accept my status as a local novelty, considering that the locals eat any and all things processed, refined, hydrogenated, instant, and drenched with high fructose corn syrup. Red meat, pork, and poultry are things that are “supposed to” be eaten at lunch and dinner; breakfast—if one chooses to eat it—should be purchased at McDonald’s and be some version of a McMuffin.

Fortunately, to date I have yet to have my patriotism called into question, but I won’t be shocked if it happens. (I say this having heard a comment made on a television show—which escapes me at the moment—in which a man said, “People who don’t eat meat ain’t American.” I’m not sure if that implies that having a low IQ makes one more American, but it got my attention. A few months later I heard yet another person bring national pride into the topic of diet when he proclaimed that “real” Americans eat fast-food because fast-food is “American.” Seriously, people, what the hell does “American” even mean anymore?)

This morning I came across a news story that makes me wonder if people will soon begin to eat like me, not because they want to, but rather because they’ll be forced to.

Is this in the name of health? One might think so, given the number of studies suggesting that vast amounts of red meat aren’t healthy. But this might actually happen in an effort to help curb global warming.

The news article, which refers to hamburgers as “the Hummers of food,” states:

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That’s because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That’s because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said.

Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to.

“Meat once was a luxury in our diet,” Pelletier said. “We used to eat it once a week. Now we eat it every day.”

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90 kilograms a year to the recommended level of 53 kilograms a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44 percent.

“Given the projected doubling of (global) meat production by 2050, we’re going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels,” Pelletier said.

“Technical improvements are not going to get us there.”

That’s why changing the kinds of food people eat is so important, said Chris Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Food is the third largest contributor to the average US household's carbon footprint after driving and utilities, and in Europe - where people drive less and have smaller homes - it has an even greater impact.

“Food is of particular importance to a consumer’s impact because it's a daily choice that is, at least in theory, easy to change,” Weber said.

“You make your choice every day about what to eat, but once you have a house and a car you’re locked into that for a while.”

The average US household contributes about five tons of carbon dioxide a year by driving and about 3.5 tons of equivalent emissions with what they eat, he said.

“Switching to no red meat and no dairy products is the equivalent of (cutting out) 8,100 miles driven in a car...that gets 25 miles to the gallon,” Weber said in an interview following the symposium.

Buying local meat and produce will not have nearly the same effect, he cautioned.

That’s because only five percent of the emissions related to food come from transporting food to market.

“You can have a much bigger impact by shifting just one day a week from meat and dairy to anything else than going local every day of the year,” Weber said.

Call me Orwellian, but several things that were brought up in this article lead me to think that this is opening the door for something as extreme as rationed and federally-regulated meat consumption in the name of saving the planet. Consider:

• Just switching from meat to salad would help the planet. If people don’t do it voluntarily, though, what might the other solutions be?

• People are eating more meat than they need to. This is something with which I’ll no doubt agree, and to be honest, I think that people eat more food in general than they need to. But, since they’re eating more than necessary, perhaps it’s time that we consider more regulation of how much food—red meat or otherwise—that is consumed.

• If red meat consumption dropped from 90 kilograms a year to 53 kilograms, emissions would fall by 44 percent. Lowering emissions is very important, isn’t it? We might need more oversight on who eats what.

• Meat production is projected to double by 2050, and “we’re going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels.” But what if we don’t do it voluntarily? The only way to deal with it would be for a crackdown on eating habits.

• “Technical improvements are not going to get us there.” If this is the case, we’ll need to look beyond technology and go right for legislation.

• Professor Chris Weber says that changing the kinds of food people eat is important. What happens if they don’t want to change those foods? Hmm...we might have no choice but to look at laws which say that we must change what we eat.

My concern isn’t with what would be eaten, but with how we might go about dealing with these “Hummers of food.” Since I was a teenager I routinely had comments made about what I ate, and in particular how my eating habits were “wrong” or “unhealthy” because I didn’t eat red meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I grew tired of the authoritarian attitudes of my carnivorous peers very quickly.

Because of this, I couldn’t imagine resorting to shoving my own eating habits down the throats of others while defending it by saying that I’m doing it for the planet.

Obviously it doesn’t say that this would happen in the news story, but given our penchant for legislation of this, that, and everything else—not to mention regulation coming by way of an incremental approach—I can easily see people making the argument for increased federal monitoring of what we eat, how we eat it, and how much we eat.

But maybe if we put the regulation in a nice package and call it a “value meal,” we’ll have people lining up in droves.

Reference

“Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming.” Breitbart.com. 16 Feb. 2009.

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152

Author’s note: All names have been changed in this post to protect the innocent, the misguided, the unknowing, and the attractive.

Regardless of which blog I’ve ever written on, I’ve always been very careful to not go into depth too much with information that could make me easily identifiable to Internet users. I figured that if I ever said anything that might rub my boss(es) the wrong way, I wouldn’t want to come up with some silly excuse like, “Huh? I had no idea that the World Wide Web was worldwide!”

But, given what happened to me at work last week, I’ve come to the realization that it doesn’t really matter after all. Why? Well, because people at work know less about me than anyone else anyway. Moreover, they’ve filled in all information gaps with their own thoughts about me, whether those thoughts are accurate or not.

What makes it tough to swallow is the idea that perception is reality. However one person perceives another, the other person thus becomes that perception. For instance, if Person A thinks that Person B is a drug-using alcoholic who spends all his/her time looking for the next high, Person B thus becomes that person to Person A whether Person B is really a drug-using alcoholic looking for the next high or not. If Person C views Person D as a loving, caring parent, Person D thus becomes that image whether he/she really is.

What is upsetting is that situations like these have—and might continue to—affect all kinds of relationships, whether they’re platonic or romantic.

Just before the summer break in 2008, I had two coworkers tell me that they knew of another coworker who was “perfect” for me to start dating. At first I was caught off-guard, because at that time I really hadn’t discussed too much personal information with either of them. When I asked, “Who is my perfect match?” they quickly told me about Jamie: a down-home, traditional, ultra-conservative, devoutly religious, red-white-and-blue, meat-and-potatoes, baseball-and-apple pie, all-American girl. (Okay, I do love baseball, but you get my drift.)

With the look of bewilderment still on my face, I inquired, “Why exactly would the two of us be ‘perfect’?” I was then told that we’d “look cute” together. I inquired again with, “Cute how? What do we have in common?” After a moment of hesitation, I was told, “You’d look cute together. She’s nice.” I was thinking, So is my brother, but I’d never date him.

I later learned that one of my relatives previously worked with Jamie, and I asked, “What can you tell me about Jamie? I have two coworkers who insist that we’d be perfect together.” Fortunately, my relative didn’t have food in her mouth at the time, otherwise it would have ended up all over me, given that the relative laughed so hard. She answered, “I love Jamie, but you two aren’t right for each other.” I had already thought so.

As the months went by, Jamie’s name wasn’t brought up very much. Then, a few days ago, it was brought to my attention that Jamie is “interested” in me. Interested, I thought; that’s a bit odd because I don’t see her very often. And I’ll admit that I’m the type of person who thinks that it takes more than briefly saying “hello” to spark “interest.” Sure, you can have people who are physically interested in each other, but I wasn’t getting that vibe from this remark.

Here’s where my frustration with the concept of perception becoming reality enters the picture.

Since the last discussion of Jamie, which was several months ago, two more coworkers have jumped on board the Chase-would-be-perfect-for-Jamie bandwagon. Yes, four coworkers took to viewing me as a clean-cut, straight-laced, ultra-conservative, devoutly religious, red-white-and-blue, meat-and-potatoes, baseball-and-apple pie, all-American boy.

What the fuck? I thought. Where did this shit come from? And then I realized that this has probably been ongoing for many years and will continue to happen.

I still remember a classmate being shocked when he learned that I listened to Slayer while in high school. “I always figured you for nothing heavier than classical music,” he said.

Just before school started for this school year, I had a new aide walk into my library as she was getting a tour of the building from another teacher. Upon looking at me sitting at the circulation desk wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, she quickly remarked, “You don’t look like a librarian.” I responded, “I try to break life’s stereotypes.”

But what happens if many people want the stereotypes to continue? What happens if stereotypes make it easier for people to view the world around them? What if stereotypes are a nice way to pigeonhole folks to fit into a nice package that is safe for intellectual consumption, thus removing any need to actually analyze each person for whom they really are?

Oh, wait—that is why we have them.

What becomes more frustrating is when people refuse to look beyond the stereotypes, even if the truth hits them square in the face. The following conversation actually took place recently between myself and my coworkers, Yvonne and Samantha.

Yvonne: You two would make a cute couple.
Me: Because she’s a nice girl?
Yvonne: She’s so nice.
Me: I’ve never said that she wasn’t.
Yvonne: Even if sparks don’t fly, you can still end up with a great friendship. Dinner won’t kill you.
Me: I’m willing to be her friend already.
Yvonne: We need to come up with a few places where you two could go for a date.
Me: I’m really not interested.
Yvonne: [Restaurant name] is a nice place and if you go during the week, there aren’t too many people in the dining area. You’d have privacy and no one would gossip.
Me: I’m not worried about the gossip. I’m not interested in dating her.
Yvonne: They have salads, too, so you wouldn’t have to order anything with meat.
Me: I’m not interested.
Samantha: She’s looking for a husband and she wants to have children. (Seriously, was this comment supposed to make me change my mind?)
Me: If I had been interested in Jamie, I would have been running around months ago asking people to find out if Jamie liked me.
Yvonne: But she does like you. (I won’t comment on this remark but I really want to.)
Me: I know that she likes me, but I keep telling you that I’m not interested in her.
Yvonne: How can you know that if you don’t start seeing each other?
Me: I’m not interested. I don’t have that desire to get to know her through dating.
Samantha: You’re not too interested, are you?

I’m not making this shit up. I wish I were, though. This is classic sitcom material.

The day, however, got even better.

Several weeks ago I participated in a personality matching questionnaire, which wasn’t designed to be romantic matches as much as it was supposed to be designed to let everyone know if someone else in our building has similar interests. The questions were rather basic, some with funny possible responses, some all serious. Two of the four coworkers who had already decided that Jamie and I were perfect for each other were happy to hear that the results of the personality match were in. They “knew” that Jamie would be in my #1 spot because—as I mentioned earlier—they had already made up their minds that we were two peas in a pod.

Upon opening the results, Samantha and Yvonne were in disbelief.

Yvonne: Jamie is your number one, isn’t she?
Me: No. Meagan is.
Yvonne: Meagan?
Me: Yes.
Samantha: That can’t be. Meagan is married.
Me: It has nothing to do with marital status; it’s strictly personality matching. They list both men and women. Just because they list men doesn’t mean that they want me to be gay.
Samantha: Why would they list married women?
Yvonne: Let me see that sheet.
Samantha: Almost all of these women are married. This can’t be right.

This is where Yvonne and Samantha read the sheet not once but three times to verify that Jamie’s name was nowhere to be found.

Samantha: She’s not even in his top-10.
Me: I told you that we had nothing in common. You didn’t believe me.
Samantha: Well...you never know...opposites attract.

I should have seen that last remark coming.

What has me worried is that if four of my coworkers have made me out to be this way, how many others have, too? How many past relationships never happened (platonic or otherwise) because someone perceived me as being something that I wasn’t?

Just recently I’ve noticed that another coworker—whom I’ll call Amanda—is going out of her way to avoid me after learning that I’m a librarian. It started with a question of, “Are you the librarian?” which was posed in a rather odd way (and it was a bit unnerving coming from an apparently otherwise intelligent, physically attractive, and supposedly single woman). As the weeks have gone by I’ve noticed Amanda turning down my attempts to help her in the media center, and when she searches the OPAC she now uses the computer that is farthest from the circulation desk. I can imagine her thinking, Please don’t flirt with me. Please don’t flirt with me. I don’t want to hear about your Star Trek DVD collection or your comic book action figure collection or what fun you have playing World of Warcraft.

Relax, Amanda. I don’t like Star Trek, I don’t have a comic book action figure collection, and I’ve never played World of Warcraft. I also don’t like knowing that I’ve essentially stereotyped my own career just now.

Now my perception has become my reality.

Ω

No Flak Jacket Required

When this story first broke, I was too busy with work-related stuff to opine on it, but it’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

George W. Bush’s former chief-of-staff Andy Card was recently fuming over Barack Obama’s penchant for taking his suit coat off in the Oval Office. The former penis holder said:

There should be a dress code of respect. I wish that he would wear a suit coat and tie. The Oval Office symbolizes...the Constitution, the hopes and dreams and, I’m going to say, democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it’s appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the president.

Not only are we going through a recession, but Card’s boss took the United States into a war in Iraq under false pretenses and now Card’s biggest concern is what the current occupant of the White House is wearing in the Oval Office.

The Bush legacy keeps getting better and better.

By the way: Are the Republicans still trying to figure out why they lost big in the elections from 2006 to 2008? I think that I might have an idea why.

Reference

Silva, Mark. “Former Bush Aide Andy Card Says Barack Obama Should Be More Formally Clad in Oval Office.” Chicago Tribune. 9 Feb. 2009.

Ω

One Cheesesteak with a Side of Bullshit

One thing that I’ve come to realize about my neighbors—and by that I mean fellow Pennsylvanians and fellow Americans as a whole—is that if you feed them a plateful of shit, they’ll happily eat it as long as you tell them that it’s caviar.

It recently happened in the Keystone State, and the chef was none other than Governor Ed Rendell (or “Fast Eddie,” as we lovingly call him). Rendell recently announced that he wants to eliminate eighty percent of the commonwealth’s public school districts by consolidating them into 101 districts. He claims that such a move would save tax dollars by cutting down on administrative costs.

The account of the claim is as follows:

“We just don't need that many school districts, and more importantly, in today’s economy we cannot afford them,” Rendell said in his budget address Wednesday before a joint session of the state House and Senate. He also proposed increasing basic education funding by an average 5.7 percent to an estimated $5.9 billion.

The governor said he would set aside money in the 2009-10 budget so the General Assembly could form and fund a legislative commission.

The 12-member commission would be charged with coming up with two consolidation plans. If lawmakers vote down both proposals, Rendell said, the state Board of Education could move ahead with a consolidation plan anyway.

Rendell said consolidating school districts would save on local real estate taxes and trim administrative costs while putting needed money into classrooms. More than 40 percent of the state’s school districts enroll fewer than 2,000 students each, and more than 80 percent enroll fewer than 5,000.

Rendell gave no statistics to back up his claim. But in June 2007, Standard & Poor’s released a school merger study it conducted for the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.

While not as sweeping as Rendell’s proposal, the study concentrated on 88 school districts with enrollments below 3,000 that had higher than average per-pupil spending. Among them was the Weatherly Area School District in Carbon County.

The study concluded that a merger between Weatherly and the nearby Jim Thorpe Area School District could save as much as $2.5 million a year, based on their 2004 spending levels. Pairing 34 districts could save $81 million, it said.

Rendell’s plan received a mixed reaction from lawmakers and educators, who have watched the governor both succeed and fail with sometimes drastic educational reforms.

Fast Eddie is going to give the lawmakers an opportunity to vote “yes” on his plan, but if they don’t he’ll just have the state Department of Education push it through anyway. How convenient.

But is this going to really save money? This is from a story from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Leechburg Area Superintendent James Budzilek wrote his doctoral dissertation on small school consolidations. Reducing the number of districts is easier said than done, he said.

“There are numerous variables that have to be worked through for any merger to occur,” he said. “There is no firm research either that merging school districts saves taxpayer money. It is difficult to create a comparison of the cost savings structure of a new district versus if the districts were left independently.

“Additionally, merging districts does not only affect tradition rich school systems; research shows that local communities suffer when schools merge or consolidate into bigger districts.”

Tim Allwein, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said he was not surprised the issue came up, but was surprised by the scope—an 80 percent reduction.

“Whenever you have a downturn in the economy, one of the first things folks want to talk about when it comes to education is consolidating and merging districts,” Allwein said. “The preconception is there is a lot of money to be saved.”

Allwein said research by the association “says if you look at other states that have gone through forced consolidation there's really no evidence to suggest there are savings, number one, or that there’s any improvement or change in the quality of education for the students.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that actual research doesn’t matter to the average voter. If a politician tells them that they’ll save money by sacrificing their first-born child, they’ll be willing to do it in a heartbeat. (And yes, they really would save on food and clothing if they did.)

In all seriousness, however, I’ll use an example of how easy it is to package bullshit and sell it as something else: the Child Online Protection Act. COPA was a piece of legislation that was passed in 1998 and was said to be designed to protect kids from online porn. While the authors of the legislation gave it a nice, warm, and fuzzy name to garner support from the public at large, the actual text of the bill was not only deliberately vague (meaning that “porn” could possibly be anything from legitimate X-rated videos to illustrations showing women how to give self-exams for breast lumps) but was an unconstitutional law because less-intrusive forms of protection (e.g., parent-installed filters on home computers to block the porn) already exist.

COPA was finally laid to rest by the Supreme Court on January 21, 2009, much to the chagrin of those who oppose parental responsibility and those who think that a nude human body is the work of Satan. When the legislation was struck down last year, one of my coworkers—who routinely judges legislative bills by their names—was outraged that a judge didn’t want to “protect children.” She wasn’t interested in reading the actual text; it had a nice name and that was good enough for her.

Similarly, in the case of district consolidation, many Pennsylvanians who might favor the plan because Fast Eddie proclaimed it a way to save money might want to consider these points before bending over for Rendell:

• Administrators do make quite a bit of money, but their jobs are also bigger than those who aren’t doing those jobs. For instance, I’m not a school administrator and I don’t have to deal with the same problems. I rarely have parents calling me to complain about things (although it has happened, and they weren’t very pleasant to deal with), and I don’t have other teachers coming to me to complain about problems in the schools.

• Even if you consolidate districts, you’ll still have the same number of students, meaning that you’ll probably have to keep all the buildings open. That means that each building will still need an administrator of some sort. Even if you change that person’s title from “principal” to something more bureaucratic like “assistant superintendent,” they’re still going to need a salary. Moreover, how many “deputy assistant superintendents” do you suppose will be hired by the Department of Education? They’ll need a salary, too.

• Have any of the consolidation supporters considered the cost of renaming the schools and in particular, their respective sports teams? All of a sudden we just might find ourselves with a county that currently has five different districts suddenly needing one name. Folks, the taxpayers are the ones who will be paying for new building names, new signage, and new sports uniforms—not to mention all the paperwork that currently has the current district name printed on it.

• Parents like to complain to administrators whom they know, whether we’re talking about principals, superintendents, or school directors. In my school district, many parents enjoy knowing that their school board members live in their hometown. How many of these parents—the same ones who might currently support the idea of consolidation—will quickly be outraged when they have to contact another town or even Harrisburg to file a complaint? Maybe they’ll then complain about that, too.

• Renegotiating multiple salary contracts will be a nightmare, and will most likely cost tens of thousands of dollars (between labor negotiators and the new boards of education) to hammer out one, unified contract for these newly created districts. Imagine having five districts in a county which are slated to become one: one district has a high pay scale with five years on the contract; one has one year left with a low pay scale; the others are in between but all over the place in terms of dollar amounts. Instead of having just one district in one town (meaning one negotiating headache), all of a sudden we have a massive restructuring and renegotiating problem that will have to be solved as soon as possible.

My guess is that this “plan” is nothing more than Rendell’s attempt to take from the financially stable districts and give to the inner-city districts. Not only that, he could hire a few of his friends to become the new county-district administrators. All the while, he can sell it to the voters as being a money-saving measure.

Real solutions might not matter, though, as was illustrated in the Crestwood School District just a few days ago. The district’s middle/high school is currently at 114 percent capacity (for anyone in Crestwood who might be reading this, that means that your classrooms are really fucking overcrowded), and officials have said that an expansion is needed to deal with the overcrowding. In a vote of 4,576 to 827, voters turned down an expansion plan but didn’t have any solutions to the crowding problem. Well, that is, all but one voter.

Mountain Top resident Tanya Kapustensky said, “They could make it two times a day.”

Um...yeah. We’ll have the kids in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade do the 8 to 3 shift and the kids in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades can do the 4 to 11 shift.

References

Buynovsky, Sarah. “Voters Reject Expansion Plan.” WNEP. 4 Feb. 2009.

Esack, Steve, Genevieve Marshall and Scott Kraus. “State Budget Plan Calls for Elimination of Most School Districts.” The Morning Call. 5 Feb. 2009.

Nichols, Scott. “COPA Child-Porn Law Killed.” PC World. 22 Jan. 2009.

Palumbo, Andy. “Residents Reject School Proposal.” WNEP. 4 Feb. 2009.

Yerace, Tom and Brian C. Rittmeyer. “Rendell’s Massive School Merger Plan Has Its Critics.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. 6 Feb. 2009.

Ω

The Dentist World Will See You Now

At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to comment on this, since I was, in a sense, helping spread something that I’m about to suggest isn’t good: putting children on the Internet for the whole world to see.

It’s happened on MySpace quite a bit, and now a video on YouTube has become a hit in only one week of being online. It’s entitled “David After Dentist” and has—as of this writing—almost five million views.

The video’s star is a seven-year-old boy who had a tooth removed at the dentist’s office, and his post-operation, drug-induced results have been put online for all the world to see.

I must be in the minority, because many of the comments that I’ve read on both the YouTube page and other Websites talking about the video are predominantly the “Ha ha! This is cool! LOL” kind, and few seem to take into account any repercussions. (For the record, a blog on Slate by Nina Shen Rastogi points out that this video could stay with little David forever, into his teen years and adult years, whether he likes it or not.)

I can’t help but think that David’s father has helped to show the juvenile mentality of many parents today. The “this-is-gonna-be-cool” and “this-has-to-go-on-the-Internet-right-away” states of mind appeal to many, but the permanence of the video—not to mention the fact that David is now quite the star among pedophiles the globe over—is something that David will have to somehow deal with.

References

booba1234. “David After Dentist.” YouTube. 30 Jan. 2009.

Jardin, Xeni. “Kid on Drugs.” Boing Boing. 3 Feb. 2009.

Rastogi, Nina Shen. “After ‘David After Dentist.’” Slate. 5 Feb. 2009.

Ω

General Population

First I came across this story:

A man from Union County who was seriously hurt by a hit-and-run driver last year has died.

“I’m just living from day to day,” said Jessica Lordeon. She was engaged to Todd Miller who died Friday.

“He’s the first person to show me what love is, my complete other half and without him (I’m) incomplete,” Lordeon added.

She added Miller had been in a coma for the past year after being struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking along JPM Road in Union County.

Tracy Webb, who pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the crash, was sentenced to nine to 23 months in prison in December of 2008.

Then I came across this story:

A federal judge sentenced Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton to 18 months in prison on moonshining and weapons charges Monday, rejecting arguments that Sutton deserved a sentence of probation because he had reformed and was too ill to serve prison time.

[...]

Sutton, who has had several felony convictions dating back to the 1970s, was arrested in March at his home in Parrottsville, Tenn., and accused of running a moonshining operation that produced hundreds of gallons of liquor.

He pleaded guilty in April to charges of illegal production of distilled spirits and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.

Sutton was sentenced to 18 months in prison on each charge, with the sentences to be served concurrently. He will receive credit for the time he has served under house arrest since March, and he will be allowed to remain at his home until notified to report to prison.

I live in a nation where killing a person in a hit-and-run will get you less time behind bars than making moonshine will.

I need a good, stiff drink.

References

Essig, Mark. “Moonshine Maestro Gets 18 Months.” Citizen-Times.com. 27 Jan. 2009.

Vernon, Kena. “Hit and Run Victim Dies in Union County.” WNEP. 26 Jan. 2009.

Ω

The Status Quo? Yes, We Can!

During a recent NARAL luncheon, actress Ashley Judd practically had an orgasm in front of the mic as she thought about having Barack Obama in the White House. She remarked, “It’s so nice to live in America again.”

I’m not sure if she’s back in her America or if she ever really even left, given a San Francisco Chronicle story that came across my desk this morning at work (the bold emphasis is mine):

President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general has endorsed an extension of the law that allows federal agents to demand Americans’ library and bookstore records as part of terrorism probes, dismaying a national group of independent booksellers.

Eric Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he supports renewing a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows FBI agents investigating international terrorism or espionage to seek records from businesses, libraries and bookstores. If not renewed by Congress, the provision will expire at the end of 2009.

The searches must be authorized by a court that meets secretly and has approved the government’s requests in nearly all cases, according to congressional reports. The target of the search does not have to be suspected of terrorism or any other crime. A permanent gag order that accompanies each search prohibits the business or library from telling anyone about it.

Before the election even took place I remember reading several reports about Sarah Palin inquiring about how to get books pulled from library shelves in Alaska. I was worried about the possibility that someone like that could end up as second-in-command in the United States of America.

I also remember hearing about how Obama was going to bring much-needed change to the country. He was going to be the antithesis of George W. Bush. Now it appears that he might be embracing a few of Bush’s PATRIOT Act concepts.

What bothers me just as much is that apologists have already taken to the Internet to defend the decision. On Library Journal’s blog, which discusses the issue, one reader wrote:

Our economy is in the toilet thanks to the last rascal and we’re fighting two wars, also thanks to the last rascal and this is what you gripe about...You should be coming up with ways to embrace the new administration in hopes that they will make some kind of segway as fars funding for libraries and schools across this great country. Do yourself a favor and take your pessimism on vacation for the next four years, we surely don’t need it!

I left the spelling and punctuation errors in the excerpt to highlight the reader’s intellectual prowess.

Isn’t this what we were griping about while Bush was in control? Many of us were outraged over the idea that people in the government could arbitrarily check to see what we’re reading, even without probable cause. People called for change and voted for a person who represented change. Now that person isn’t too quick to change and his supporters are quickly offering a defense.

I have to say that I’ve noticed when people dislike a politician they might call him/her “stubborn”; if they like him/her they will call him/her “steadfast.” If a person dislikes him/her, they might call him/her a “warmonger” if they invade a foreign country; if they like him/her, they say that he/she is fighting for a good cause, or even “spreading democracy.”

Think about someone whom you might know. If they’ve had many sexual partners and you like him/her, you might call them “sexually adventurous”; if you dislike them, they’re “slutty.” If he/she happens to be skinny, you might call them “thin” if you like them or “scrawny” if you dislike them.

Have we reached this point only a few days into the new administration in Washington? Have we decided that similar policies are okay as long as we give them a new face?

I hope not because I’m not ready to give fascism a more delicate name.

References

Annoyed Librarian. “Obama Wants Your Library Records.” Library Journal Blog. 21 Jan. 2009.

Dufour, Jeff and Patrick Gavin. “Ashley Judd: Breathless.” DC Examiner. 27 Jan. 2009.

Egelko, Bob. “Under Obama, Feds May Still Snoop Library Files.” San Francisco Chronicle. 17 Jan. 2009.

Ω

Sealed for Your Protection

•••

Having spent most of my formative years in eastern Pennsylvania—a region known for having been built upon anthracite coal mining and Bethlehem Steel—I came to notice a recurring theme among people who were best described as “the locals” (those who had several generations of their family living in the area): they want life to live in a bubble.

From the 1940s through the 1970s, eastern Pennsylvania was, for all intents and purposes, the poster town for what a wholesome, hometown America was “supposed” to be: lots of blue-collar jobs, lots of mom-and-pop stores, kids who spent their time hunting and playing football, and lots of red, white, and blue. The area hadn’t been “tainted” with all the “ills” that were permeating the rest of the country: non-Caucasions, homosexuals, vegetarians—you get the idea.

As the years went by, however, the rest of the planet was changing—much to the chagrin of the locals. As the area, which became known as the “coal region” of Pennsylvania, saw its economy affected by the outside world (e.g., anthracite coal mines closing, Bethlehem Steel shutting down), the locals developed a mentality which pushed the notion that ignorance really could be bliss. If you just ignored the outside world, they seemed to think, time and life as you knew it could simply stand still.

The coal mines wouldn’t have to be a slave to supply and demand, they thought. The local stores wouldn’t have to close down just because fewer people were shopping there, they thought. Bethlehem Steel wouldn’t have to close up shop just because cheaper Japanese steel hit the market, they thought. Howdy Doody and Bonanza wouldn’t go off the air, they thought. Happy Days wasn’t a sitcom; it was a documentary, they thought.

Meanwhile, the outside world was changing. Technology-based jobs were increasing due to technological advancements; blue-collar manufacturing jobs weren’t needed as much. People—Americans and foreigners alike—were beginning to realize that the world was becoming smaller and more dependent upon everyone else. Gone were the days when your life would be affected by only your fellow townsmen and perhaps a few people from the nearby hamlets. A global economy was developing and it threatened to burst the bubble that had been built with Bethlehem Steel and fueled by anthracite coal.

Some of the small towns throughout eastern Pennsylvania have tried diligently to keep that bubble from bursting, including the burned-out coal town of Tamaqua.

•••

In mid-November, I was informed of a story that initially piqued my interest, but after some consideration I didn’t bother to write a blog post about it. Now that a second story has come my way about it—a story that adds additional, more disturbing information about the issue—I couldn’t imagine not commenting on it.

The original story at first appeared to be a classic tale of a school yanking a book off one of its shelves because a parent didn’t like it. I say this because the story didn’t offer much detail about the situation—not because the reporter didn’t do his job, but because the school board didn’t want to divulge any information to the public about it. The story, which appeared in a newspaper called The Times News, said this:

The Tamaqua Area School District has pulled a book from its middle school library following a complaint by a parent that it contains sexually explicit material.

Joyce Minehan, Still Creek, addressed the district’s board of education Tuesday evening and expressed concern about the reading material brought home from the school by her 12-year-old daughter.

“I was distraught with what was on a page,” said Minehan. “I feel this is not for this school population.”

Minehan did not mention the book in question and neither did the school board members. A copy of a passage from the book was circulated among the board members.

Minehan said there were explicit sexual references in the book.

[...]

[School board president Larry A. Wittig] said the book had received several literary awards and was purchased with the approval of middle school librarian Sally LeMasters. When LeMasters was approached about the offending passages in the book, however, she agreed that it shouldn’t be in circulation in the middle school library.

[...]

While the book is now out of school circulation students have read it and Wittig said he would like to see to it that offensive material doesn’t slip through the cracks.

“In my opinion the district should be sensitive to the most sensitive parent’s concerns,” said Wittig. “Graphic sexual or violent content does not enhance anyone’s educational horizon.”

“This book has six awards but the people making those recommendations may not have a 12-year-old daughter.”

The reason that I didn’t comment on this story at the time was because of one thing: the librarian made the ultimate decision to pull the book from the shelf. If I were to sit here and say that the librarian in question should or shouldn’t keep something on her shelf, I’d be suggesting that she shouldn’t be given any power over the titles in her collection. I refuse to do that; she’s the librarian and she deserves to have a say just as other librarians do. Even though we can read between the lines, the story didn’t say that the librarian was threatened or forced to remove the book. In this case, she made the final decision and she has the power to do so.

With that said, the story made me very uncomfortable. First, the school board refused to name the book. This had me suspicious immediately because it prevents readers from finding out for themselves if this book was or wasn’t appropriate for a middle school student. We can’t determine if the passages in question were as “explicit” as they claim. Even if the passages were explicit, we can’t tell if the purpose of the explicitness was to show how evil the act was. For instance, was it a violent act and the perpetrator was punished severely for it? If so, the book shouldn’t be pulled because, if anything, it would show the reader that such an act is wrong and should be socially unacceptable. Unfortunately, because the board chose to keep quiet, we’ll never know. They want to keep the title hush-hush.

Second, it’s asinine to think that a passage or two could be used to justify the value of an entire book. If the book is 200 pages long (but remember that we’re not sure how long it really is because the board refuses to name it), but has one or two violent scenes in it, and those scenes play a major role in the overall theme, does the entire book suddenly become offensive? If so, such a decision is sheer lunacy. At the same time, the article didn’t say that the decision was definitely made based solely upon the passages (a follow-up story clarified this point, and I’ll get to that in the next section).

Third, and this one might have me angrier than the first two, the board president has illustrated the mentality that I described in my opening section of this post: the idea that what might be good for the rest of the country isn’t necessarily good for the little, insulated town of Tamaqua.

Read his comment: “This book has six awards but the people making those recommendations may not have a 12-year-old daughter.” Yes, but they may have a 12-year-old daughter, too. We won’t know because we don’t know what awards the book received. We don’t know that because the school board in question refused to name the book.

Within a few weeks, I hadn’t heard of anything related to the story and I thought that the issue was over. I was wrong.

•••

On Friday, January 16, I was given an article from the same newspaper that was a follow-up to this issue. The follow-up article reported that the Tamaqua Area School District was “not recommending any change in its policy regarding library materials.” I initially chuckled because it didn’t seem as if an actual policy was followed in mid-November: a parent complained, the librarian pulled the book, the school board president vowed to protect the children from the evil outside world. It seemed to be pretty open-and-shut.

Then I read more:

The district has a policy regarding library research materials that allows a parent who objects to a book to contest the title in writing and have the objection considered by the administration. If there is a disagreement on the decision, it is then referred to a committee of the school board.

At the November meeting, it was mentioned the offending book has been pulled from circulation at the middle school.

Superintendent Carol Makuta followed up with an administrative review of the district’s library policies.

At Tuesday’s education committee meeting, Makuta, who reviewed library policies provided through the Pennsylvania School Board Association, said Tamaqua Area’s policy is stricter than ones used by other districts, but it could have been utilized better in this case.

“I am not making any recommendation,” said Makuta. “It would have been more successful if we followed the policy to begin with.”

School Board President Larry A. Wittig felt the district should strive to have more control over the library materials it uses.

“The problem is, [the policy] is reactive, not proactive,” said Wittig. “It doesn’t prevent us from getting a book we don’t want.”

[...]

RuthAnn A. Gardiner, Tamaqua Area High School Principal, indicated that while she had served as middle school principal, there were two books that were deemed offensive, but neither of them had been challenged by parents.

Gardiner said the books selected for the library include national award winners, but Wittig suggested those standards might not necessarily agree with those of the district and school board.

“The people delivering these books could be totally off the reservation,” said Wittig. “As a district, we have to err on the side of decency.”

“This was just a rotten book,” said Makuta.

[...]

Gardiner stressed that there were just two pages in the offending book that were questionable. “You can’t even do it by scanning,” she remarked.

Where can I even begin after reading this? I thought that the first story from mid-November was worrisome, but now that more information—and comments that still have my jaw on the floor—have come to light, this issue has become much scarier.

First, the district’s library policy wasn’t “utilized better,” in their own words. Why not? If you have a policy for something, it’s there to follow, step by step. Policies are written and adopted in order to have a clear-cut procedures, as to avoid a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach. Policies allow for consistency, thus preventing double-standards if similar situations arise.

Second, the comments by Wittig have solidified my earlier evaluation: Do any guidelines even exist that are being used to determine what books the district “doesn’t want”? Does it want only books that are curriculum-related? Does it want a mixture of books that are both curriculum-related and recreational? Does it want only books that support its definition of “patriotic” (if a definition exists)? Does it want to avoid anything that mentions sex whatsoever? Do clear-cut rules even exist, or is this some kind of veiled reference to the idea that books on the shelves in Tamaqua’s schools must only discuss pure and innocent aspects of Americana and keep students in the dark to what might go on outside Tamaqua’s town limits?

That question is quickly answered in Wittig’s next remark: “The people delivering these books could be totally off the reservation.” Off the reservation? I’m getting flashbacks to old westerns that my dad used to watch when I was a kid. The Native Americans were on the warpath, looking to scalp the white man and rape the white woman; John Wayne rode in with the cavalry and quickly saved the day. The Natives were exterminated, the cowboys were victorious, and Howdy Doody had a reason to keep smiling.

I’m also trying to figure out to whom he’s referring when he said “the people delivering these books.” Does he mean the publishers? Does he mean the vendors who sell them? Does he mean FedEx and UPS? This is a minor point, but I was still confused. Maybe it’s supposed to just be “those people,” and “those people” are whomever you want them to be.

Wittig also reaffirms the idea that what’s good for the rest of the country isn’t necessarily good for Tamaqua when he mentions his view on the legitimacy of literary awards. Just because the rest of the United States likes it, doesn’t mean that it’s good for this particular school district. After all, Tamaqua is probably still a pure and innocent baseball-and-apple-pie small town that has yet to be tainted by the outside world. The streets of America might be dangerous, but the streets of Tamaqua are crime-free and bathed in red, white, and blue.

Third, the administration in this story were repeatedly discussing “decency” and “offensiveness.” Makuta referred to the book as “rotten.” How are they determining this? How are they defining this? Is it the idea that “you just know it when you see it,” as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said? We don’t know because they don’t say how these terms are defined and we still don’t know what the title of this book is.

Is “indecent” something that mentions sex? Is it violence? Is it profanity? Is it something politically-oriented? Is it racial? Is it whatever they want it to be? Is it supposed to remain ambiguous like “the people who deliver the books”? We don’t know. Likewise, how “rotten” is this book if it received as many awards as they say that it did? Doesn’t this suggest that what Tamaqua Area School District deems “rotten” might be the polar opposite of what the rest of the country deems as “rotten”? Is this a “good” book everywhere else? We don’t know.

Fourth, the high school principal not only answered my question from mid-November, but she “stressed” it: two pages in the book were used to judge the value of the entire book. Can you believe that we’re in the year 2009 and this country has a school board that is willing to determine a book’s worth based upon two pages?

As I had asked before, how were these two “offensive,” “indecent,” and “rotten” scenes described? Why were they in the book in the first place? Was the author describing the scenes to show how vile they were? Was the author encouraging them? Was the perpetrator punished? Was the perpetrator being lauded? We have no idea. The board refuses to name the book.

Such is the case in the land of purity, decency, baseball, apple pie, and all things good.

•••

My fear is that this is going to lead to a witch-hunt in neighboring school districts and public libraries. Let’s be honest: in the United States today, people are copy-cats. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about crime, fashion, or looking for “indecent” books in our local library. When people hear about something being done, too many other people want to do the same thing.

In this case, how many parents or members of the general public are going to go to their local public and school libraries just looking to be offended with something? How many hardcore Christians are going to bring back the anti-Harry Potter hysteria? How many atheists are going to hit shelves in search of the word God? How many people are going to demand that health books be pulled because they have clinical diagrams of penises and vaginas?

Hopefully libraries have detailed policies for dealing with such challenges and hopefully—unlike in Tamaqua School District—the policies will be followed.

In the meantime, I’m officially declaring this blog as being “indecent” and “offensive,” as defined by me, since I’ve posed too many thought-provoking questions. If you’re offended, click here and feel good.

References

Plasko, Joe. “Book Pulled from School Library Shelf.” The Times News. 19 Nov. 2008. p. 1.

Plasko, Joe. “Tamaqua Area District Reviews Library Policy.” The Times News. 15 Jan. 2009. p. 3.

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Virtual Stupidity

The next time that you play a game of Monopoly, and the next time that you pass Go, thus collecting $200, you might want to set some of that $200 aside because there’s a possibility that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will ask you to send it to them.

If you think that I’m joking, consider a new report that was issued by the IRS entitled the National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2008 Annual Report to Congress (yes, the irony is that it’s called a “taxpayer advocate’s report” but after looking through it, it advocates the IRS and not the taxpayer). The report proclaims that a lack of regulation of “economies” in “virtual worlds” on the Internet is a “problem” for the IRS, and must be fixed. Two primary examples of these virtual worlds, as named by the IRS, are Second Life and World of Warcraft. Both of these computer-generated environments have “virtual economies” that are worth tapping, in the IRS’s view. (Scroll to page 213 of the report for the information on virtual world economies.)

According to World of Warcraft’s site, it “enables thousands of players from across the globe to come together online—undertaking grad quests and heroic exploits in a land of fantastic adventure.” These quests “provide material rewards, such as cash, potions, food, magic items, armor, and weapons.”

As for Second Life, its creators, Linden Labs, calls it “a 3-D virtual world created by its residents” which “supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions” via Linden dollars, which “can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden dollar exchanges.” In other words, the Linden dollar is kind of like a casino poker chip in which you can cash it in and get a real US dollar amount. It’s been reported that people have made significant amounts of real money off their Second Life transactions, included one millionaire.

At this point you might be thinking, “But Chase, if you can make real money off these virtual economies, they should be taxed.” There’s only one major problem with this argument: any real-life money that is made off these virtual economies is already taxed if it pushes a person’s real-life income into the bracket of taxable income. If they don’t make any real-life money, then there’s nothing to tax. This is where the IRS’s concern enters the world of stupidity.

If virtual money is converted to real-life money and then is taxed, there would be no reason for the IRS to even worry about the virtual aspect of the money, since any converted virtual money is already taken care of under current tax code in real-life, using real-life US dollars. That means that only one thing is possible: they’re pondering the idea of “regulating” virtual money. Yes, the fake money that is known as “Linden dollars” in Second Life and fake gold that can be found in World of Warcraft.

How in hell are you going to regulate and tax fake money?! And since the IRS would only be able to regulate and tax US citizens only, how are they going to do this? Will they scan the accounts of every SL and WoW user? Are they going to check every IP address to make sure that one person is in New York and the next person is in Ottawa?

Now, let’s consider the next step of fake money taxation: where and how do you send fake money? Moreover, what good comes from it? Do we get government services from this taxation? Does the IRS set up shop in Second Life along with the rest of the United States federal government to redistribute this “wealth”? Do they give out welfare checks to “unemployed” in-world residents and help to “build” virtual infrastructure?

Let’s use World of Warcraft, for example. Does the IRS plan on “taxing” portions of virtual gold, virtual potions, and virtual armor? Do WoW users have to send the IRS little bottles of virtual potion?

In Second Life, does a user have to send a percentage of their Linden dollar balance to an in-world IRS office or face punishment?

And what kind of punishment might a person face if they wouldn’t send their virtual money to a virtual IRS office? One person left the following comment on Ars Technica’s Website, which published the story about this asinine possibility:

If they wish to impose a tax on transactions in a vitural economy, then I will pay the tax in the currency of that economy, vitual dollars. If they choose to prosecute me, then they will have to do [it] in the vitural world and imprison my avatar.

This comment best illustrates the imbecilic mentality of the IRS.

If you’re still not convinced that the IRS would do something this ludicrous, I’ll offer a few quotes from the report in relation to virtual world economies:

• “Income, broadly defined, is subject to tax.” (“Earning” virtual money or gold would be a broadly defined income.)
• “[A] person is generally taxed immediately upon ‘all income from whatever source derived.’” (Notice the use of the word “whatever.”)
• “[A] person is generally subject to tax upon finding or earning money or treasure, winning a lottery, prize or award, stealing property, or trading one piece of property for another, potentially leading some to conclude that transactions involving virtual property are or should be subject to tax.” (This is clearly spelled out: virtual money, treasure, prizes, “stolen” property, or traded property can be taxed.)
• “The receipt of prizes, winnings, and barter exchange ‘trade credits’ are all subject to tax, information reporting, and withholding.” (In Second Life, you can win Linden dollars for things like trivia questions and costume contests. These are now potentially “taxable” winnings—even though they’re in fake dollars.)
  

With these said, the IRS does admit that taxing fake money and fake transactions would be “difficult.” They state:

• “Since the exchange rate at that time was about 265 to 266 Linden Dollars to the U.S. dollar, these statistics suggest that most transactions on Second Life are for less than $1 and would not be subject to information reporting, even if the IRS treated Second Life as a barter exchange. Thus, residents and the IRS might need to track and document millions of small transactions without the benefit of information reporting.”
• “A related and potentially more serious problem would be valuing each of the virtual transactions.”
• “[T]he value of a virtual currency on any given day could be very difficult for the IRS or a taxpayer to reconstruct years later in connection with an IRS audit.”
  

As I had said earlier, if the IRS were interested in real-life dollars only, I find it hard to believe that they’d even bother to write about virtual money or virtual transactions of any sort. If the virtual money were converted to real-life money, it would already be taxable under currently-existing tax laws. That’s what makes me think that the IRS is looking to embark on a pursuit of regulating something about which they know so little that they don’t even realize that it’s not even real at the outset.

Take note, Grand Theft Auto players: the next time that you enter a cheat code for more money, more health, more armor, or more ammunition, you might have to send some of it to the IRS.

References

Blizzard Entertainment. “World of Warcraft Guide.” 12 Jan. 2009.

Cheng, Jacqui. “The Taxman Cometh? IRS Urged to Tax Virtual Worlds, Economies.” Ars Technica. 12 Jan. 2009.

Linden Labs. “What is Second Life?” 12 Jan. 2009.

United States. Internal Revenue Service. National Taxpayer Advocate 2008 Annual Report to Congress. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: 31 Dec. 2008.

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You Ain't Fat! You Ain't Nothin'!

While at work yesterday, my coworkers and I briefly discussed affirmative action, and at one point the concept of “minority” status arose. While minority used to mean a smaller number of whatever it is that we’re talking about, it now simply means people of a certain skin color and/or ethnic background. Even the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary affirms such: “a part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment” is listed as the third definition of minority.

This status can remain even if the person—or group as a whole—is in the majority. “But how can a majority still be a minority?” you might ask. Logic does not apply here; this is politics about which we’re speaking.

Keeping this idea in mind, this morning I came across a story that has me wondering what the definition of “normal” might soon be. Moreover, what might the definition of “healthy” become?

A recent Reuters story reports the following:

The number of obese American adults outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight, according to the latest statistics from the federal government.

Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are “extremely” obese.

More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report.

The numbers are based on a survey of 4,356 adults over the age of 20 who take part in a regular government survey of health, said the NCHS, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The article also states that while “overweight” numbers have remained steady since 1980, the number of “obese” cases has more than doubled.

Now you might make the argument that definitions of overweight and obese have changed, as determined by looking at body mass index (BMI). This is a legitimate argument because understanding health issues changes over time through scientific study. We know things today that we didn’t know 20 or 30 years ago.

My concern is one that is rooted more in the aforementioned affirmative action discussion: What happens if overweight is the new healthy?

Consider the possibility that more and more Americans become overweight and obese. The concept of “normal” or even “healthy” gradually takes a shift to the fat end of the scale. If the majority of people are overweight or obese (using today’s definitions), do people who are currently thin or healthy gradually become malnourished or scrawny? If more and more people get fatter and fatter, does that suddenly become the acceptable size? Doesn’t the majority define things? Don’t the spoils of war go to the victors?

Look at what used to be considered a desirable soldier for the United States Army at the outset of World War II. In his book D-Day, Stephen E. Ambrose writes:

The American Selective Service System was just that, selective. One-third of the men called to service were rejected after physical examinations, making the average draftee brighter, healthier, and better educated than the average American. He was twenty-six years old, five feet eight inches tall, weighed 144 pounds, had a thirty-three-and-a-half-inch chest, and a thirty-one-inch waist. After thirteen weeks of basic training, he’d gained seven pounds (and converted many of his original pounds from fat to muscle) and added at least an inch to his chest. Nearly half the draftees were high-school graduates; one in ten had some college. As Geoffrey Perret puts it in his history of the US Army in World War II, “These were the best-educated enlisted men of any army in history.”

Can you imagine if a man who was 5’8” and 144 pounds tried to join the military today? He’d be forced to eat more and lift weights more. This excerpt even touches upon something else that applies to this possible shifting definition of average or normal: education levels. A higher percentage of our population today has graduated from college than 50 years ago. Does that mean that we’re more intelligent? Does it mean that a college degree has gone down in value if they’re almost as ubiquitous as a high school diploma? Does it simply mean that the idea of average American has shifted to that of college-educated and nothing more?

According to the United States Census Bureau, in 1940 the percentage of the population with a high school diploma was 24.5 percent; in 2000 it was 80.4 percent. In 1940, 4.6 percent of the US population had a bachelor’s degree or higher; in 2000 24.4 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Does this mean that we are more intelligent today or does it mean that we are just seeing bachelor’s degrees becoming the new high school diploma? Will we eventually see Ph.D.s become the new bachelor’s degree?

Let’s carry this back to the fat thing once again. If more and more people become obese, doesn’t today’s “overweight” population become the “average” group? I’m currently five-feet-nine-inches tall and 147 pounds. In terms of health, I feel better than I ever did. Unfortunately I’m on my way to being at the far end of the spectrum only because the population which defines the spectrum is apparently moving the other way. Thus, I might be deemed “unhealthy” or “abnormal” in a few years. I might also be called a sell-out, à la Weird Al’s “Fat” video where the fat guy asks, “What it is wit’ you? You on some kind of diet?” and, “The question is: Are you fat or what?” (If I’m not “abnormal” already; a few weeks ago I had a woman tell me that “real” men don’t care about their health—but that’s a blog post for another time.)

I’m going to go grab a bowl of vegetable soup and mull this over.

References

Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Fox, Maggie. “Obese Americans Now Outweigh the Merely Overweight.” Reuters. 9 Jan. 2009.

“Minority.” The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

United States. Bureau of the Census. “A Half-Century of Learning: Historical Statistics on Educational Attainment in the United States, 1940 to 2000.” 23 Feb. 2007. 10 Jan. 2009.

Yankovic, Al. “Fat.” Volcano Entertainment III, LLC, 1988.

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Being Different—Just Like Everyone Else

Photo © Associated Press

I rarely discuss traditional Democrat-versus-Republican politics because, for me, issues are bigger than party politics. The issue itself, no matter the issue, should be discussed, evaluated, and debated as an individual concept. Whether it’s an idea that has been adopted by the Democrats or the Republicans, the party association should not matter.

Because of this, I don’t refer to myself as a member of either of the two parties. Actually, I’m not registered with any party. While many of my ideas might push me to be placed in the “libertarian” folder, it would be libertarian with a lower-case L. I support the Second Amendment but also support drug legalization. I’m against No Child Left Behind legislation, but I’m also opposed to mandatory Social Security donations. I support tax dollars going toward public education, but not for the National Endowment for the Arts. I support anti-pollution laws, but haven’t become one of the global-warming-must-be-manmade sheep.

In November I actually voted, having abstained from the last few elections because I didn’t like any of the candidates. I refuse to vote unless there’s someone on the ballot that I actually support. For me, the act of voting for voting’s sake is more detrimental to the nation than abstaining is.

You might think that I voted in 2008 because I wanted to rise up with many of the voters to press a button for Barack Obama on my county’s security-flawed Diebold voting machines. Instead I wrote in Ron Paul’s name, since he was—in my opinion—one of the few who was actually offering legitimate change (along with Ralph Nader, but ideologically I don’t agree with him). And yes, I’m fully aware that he wasn’t actually running anymore.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I liked Obama’s overall message of hope, growth, and bringing an end to the Bush era. I like the idea of the citizenry feeling good and hopeful because when the population is looking up, there’s a really good chance that the economy and everything else will start looking up. What I didn’t like was a lack of specifics and the idea that he’s still part of the two-party system which has put us where we are today. (And no, even though I despise George W. Bush, I’m not going to simply blame him for all the world’s ills as many simpletons have.)

Just recently I’ve heard two news stories that make me think that a Ron Paul protest vote wasn’t such a bad idea after all. It also reinforces my view that neither of the two major political parties is any different from the other.

A few days ago, Obama’s pick for Commerce Secretary, Governor Bill Richardson, removed himself from consideration because he’s involved in a federal investigation for possible pay-to-play deals with a California business that donated a significant amount of money to Richardson. The company, CDR Financial Products, gave over $110,000 to three political committees formed by Richardson and they were then paid $1.48 million in 2004 and 2005 for transportation work.

CDR’s CEO David Rubin also gave over $30,000 to Obama’s campaign.

Neither the Democratic National Committee nor the Obama camp want to comment on it.

This morning I was perusing news headlines and came across a second piece of news that makes me wonder if we might see a few Bushian ideas left over at the Justice Department, even after the Bush cronies are out.

On Monday, Obama announced that his number three man at the Justice Department is going to be a lawyer who gets rave reviews from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which, according to their site, is “the trade group that represents the US recording industry” whose mission “is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes [their] members’ creative and financial vitality.”

In theory, this is wonderful. In fact, in theory this is something that I support 100 percent. I support creativity, financial vitality, ownership rights, private property rights, intellectual property rights, and copyright laws. Whenever I can, I make sure that both news articles and photographs are given full credit on my blog. I use material for educational and research purposes only and I don’t get paid squat to do any of this.

What I find hard to support, however, is the RIAA and their Bushian tactics. In 2005, the RIAA became famous for attempting to sue a West Virginian grandmother for sharing over 700 songs online. There were just a few problems with their accusations: not only was the woman dead, but it was discovered that even when she was living, she never owned a computer.

A few weeks ago the RIAA’s arrogance was noticed by ISPs when the RIAA told them that they want the ISPs to enforce copyright laws. The problem is that it’s not the ISPs’ job to enforce copyright laws and it costs a significant amount of money to even do such enforcement—money that the RIAA isn’t willing to pay. Thus, ISPs have begun sending the RIAA bills for doing any enforcement. Sadly, the RIAA’s attitude seems to be that of “Don’t you know who we are? You do what we say.”

Throughout the campaign, Obama delivered a message of hope, growth, change, and reform. Questionable campaign donations and corrupt politicians became commonplace when Republicans ran Congress and had Bush in the White House. Now we’re about to begin a Democrat-Democrat era in Washington and we’re already beginning to see ghosts of the 2001-2006 time period.

What will be interesting to see is how these things pan out and how they’re handled in terms of spin-control. It’s also going to be interesting to see if diehard Obama supporters will take a “throw the bums out” attitude toward things, or if they’ll take an “everyone does it” approach.

I certainly hope that it’s not the latter because Obama ran on the idea that not everyone does it. Unfortunately my realistic side thinks that when you see either an R or a D behind a person’s name, there’s a good chance that whatever it is, they will do it. They’ll also get the full support of those who voted for them.

References

Evans, Mark. “Donor to Commerce Nominee Being Probed.” ABC News. 16 Dec. 2008.

McCullagh, Declan. “Obama Picks RIAA’s Favorite Lawyer for a Top Justice Post.” CNET News. 6 Jan. 2009.

Mook, Nate. “RIAA Sues Deceased Grandmother.” Beta News. 4 Feb. 2005.

Rood, Justin. “Funds Tie Obama to Richardson Probe Figure.” ABC News. 6 Jan. 2009.

Sandoval, Greg. “One ISP Says RIAA Must Pay for Piracy Protection.” CNET News. 22 Dec. 2008.

RIAA. “Who We Are.”

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Mr. Shtick Goes to Washington

Photo © Matt Klaber

Yesterday a Minnesota board certified election results showing that comedian Al Franken beat Norm Coleman for one of Minnesota’s US Senate seats. Coleman’s lawyers have vowed to fight the results, saying that some funny business was going on throughout the recount process.

I find this hard to believe because I don’t remember anything funny ever coming from Al Franken.

Reference

Bakst, Brian. “Franken on Top in Minnesota Recount; Coleman to Sue.” My Way News. 6 Jan. 2009.

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Don't Hold Your Breath

“You’re either with us or against us.”

Is this philosophy that of George W. Bush and his fellow supporters of the PATRIOT Act, or that of the human-beings-must-be-behind-global-temperature-increases-and-must-pay-dearly crowd? You can decide for yourself, but while you’re evaluating your level of right-wing or left-wing patriotism, you can add this piece of news to your next Happy Meal:

The [Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would include livestock.

The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month.

“The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.”

The theory behind this is simple: When cows fart, they release methane. Methane is listed as a greenhouse gas. To thwart global warming, cows must be heavily taxed.

Um...wait a minute. What’s another widespread greenhouse gas? Did you say “carbon dioxide”? If you did, you’re correct. What gives off carbon dioxide every second? Did you answer “human beings when they exhale”? If you did, you’re correct.

So if we can have a push to heavily tax cows because they fart methane, why couldn’t we easily make the argument that all humans must be heavily taxed with an “exhalation tax” because they breathe out carbon dioxide? Hmm...I think that we could. I think that I just did.

In 2006 I saw a show on the Discovery Channel entitled Global Warming: What You Need to Know. In it, one scientist was asked how he would respond to those who question humans’ involvement in the Earth’s increasing temperatures. His response? He explained that there wasn’t enough time to find a link between human activity and temperature increases.

Really? A scientist not wanting to find a major scientific link?

While you’re trying to figure out how much you might end up paying if an “exhalation tax” is enacted, consider this excerpt from PBS’s NOVA Online (yes, PBS—the network that is routinely called liberal, left-wing, communist, and socialist):

Between 52 and 57 million years ago, the Earth was relatively warm. Tropical conditions actually extended all the way into the mid-latitudes (around northern Spain or the central United States for example), polar regions experienced temperate climates, and the difference in temperature between the equator and pole was much smaller than it is today. Indeed it was so warm that trees grew in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and alligators lived in Ellesmere Island at 78 degrees North.

But this warm period, called the Eocene, was followed by a long cooling trend. Between 52 and 36 million years ago, ice caps developed in East Antarctica, reaching down to sea level in some places. Close to Antarctica, the temperature of the water near the surface dropped to between 5 and 8 degrees Celsius. Between 36 and 20 million years ago the earth experienced the first of three major cooling steps. At this time a continental-scale temperate ice sheet emerged in East Antarctica. Meanwhile, in North America, the mean annual air temperature dropped by approximately 12 degrees Celsius.

Between 20 and 16 million years ago, there was a brief respite from the big chill, but this was followed by a second major cooling period so intense that by 7 million years ago southeastern Greenland was completely covered with glaciers, and by 5-6 million years ago, the glaciers were creeping into Scandinavia and the northern Pacific region. The Earth was once more released from the grip of the big chill between 5 and 3 million years ago, when the sea was much warmer around North America and the Antarctic than it is today. Warm-weather plants grew in Northern Europe where today they cannot survive, and trees grew in Iceland, Greenland, and Canada as far north as 82 degrees North.

We are still in the midst of the third major cooling period that began around 3 million years ago, and its effect can be seen around the world, perhaps even in the development of our own species. Around 2 and a half million years ago, tundra-like conditions took over north-central Europe. Soon thereafter, the once-humid environment of Central China was replaced by harsh continental steppe. And in sub-Saharan Africa, arid and open grasslands expanded, replacing more wooded, wetter environments. Many paleontologists believe that this environmental change is linked to the evolution of humankind.

So, if trees were growing in what is now the Arctic and Antarctic, and alligators (which live in warm climates) were found to have lived at 78° North 55 million years ago, does that mean that humans played a role in the warm temperature? I guess that there’s not enough time to find a link.

I’ll conclude with this quote, which is bandied about by many people nowadays, and which might describe my aforementioned view on the current global “crisis”:

“Dissent is patriotic.”

We might have to update this to say “Dissent is patriotic—as long as you don’t disagree with me.”

References

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). United States Environmental Protection Agency. 30 July 2008. Vol. 73, No. 147, p. 44354-44520.

Hopwood, Nick, and Jordan Cohen. “Greenhouse Gases and Society.” University of Michigan.

Maasch, Kirk A. “The Big Chill.” NOVA Online.

Poor, Jeff. “EPA ‘Cow Tax’ Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases.” Business & Media Institute. 5 Jan. 2009.

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I Wuk Fo Fox Nooz

This afternoon, while doing my daily news checking during my lunch break, I caught a story about actress Jenna Fischer, who says that wearing skimpy attire on a movie set is better than doing it at home.

What caught my eye was that the word “then” was used in place of the word “than” not once but twice. Oh, and the article itself is entitled “The Office Star Jenna Fischer Tells the Naked Turth.” Turth?

I knew that the reporting at Fox was half-assed, but there’s not much to say when you have reporters who can’t even write above a third-grade level.

Reference

McKay, Hollie. “The Office Star Jenna Fischer Tells the Naked Turth.” Fox News. 2 Jan. 2009.

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You (S)News, You Lose

Photo by John Vachon, 1942

Conspiracies come in many forms: the attack on Pearl Harbor; the JFK assassination; the 9/11 attacks. Apparently we can add one more thing to this: the concept of supply and demand.

On a personal level, I’ve noticed it quite a bit by having conversations with my coworkers, one of whom is married to a General Motors employee. For them, a bailout for the three American automakers is a no-brainer because people need jobs, and the automakers need money to pay the employees. They’re not really interested in why the automakers need money, because that—in their view—has nothing to do with the immediate issue, that being possible layoffs. For them, businesses—whether they’re multinational corporations or struggling mom-and-pop businesses—exist for one reason: to give people jobs. When money begins to dry up, the simplistic view is not one of asking why things are failing; the simplistic view is to say that the government can just—and should—give out money. The issue of supply and demand never enters the picture.

I also hear a lot of discussion of “creating” manufacturing and industrial jobs, no matter if anyone would buy what was being manufactured or not. “Why should that matter?” they seem to wonder. After all, it’s important to “put people ahead of profits.”

The thing is, profits are what provide people with a paycheck. When there’s a demand for a product or a service, there is then an opportunity to create a supply for it. If that product or service sells well, that provides money to pay for more equipment and/or employees. If the service or product doesn’t sell—such as a General Motors vehicle, for example—and is coupled with poor management, we then have a situation of massive debt.

And now we can add one more hand that might be getting a piece of the bailout pie, regardless of supply and demand: the newspaper industry.

It’s not news (no pun intended) that print newspapers are hurting economically. More and more people are turning to the Internet for news and fewer people are subscribing to print publications. Because of this, advertisers are spending less for exposure in print publications. This has resulted in cost-cutting by the