When I see stuff like this, it makes me want to throw my hands up in despair and change my party's registration.
Not just the "Democrat Socialist Party" resolution, although that is at once profoundly silly, unnecessarily offensive, and ultimately misguided and counterproductive. But also the idea that the party, having just chosen a new administrative leader, feels the need to hamstring him. If he's doing such a bad job, why not remove him from his position altogether and get a replacement? There is no shortage of available candidates.
Now, when I see stuff like this, I'm heartened and want to stay. Congressman Toomey is not someone on whom I expect to agree on a lot of social issues. But he seems to be reaching out to moderate Republicans like me to tell me that I too have a place at the table (or in the tent, to use the metaphor). I get the opposite message from a guy like Chris Rubio in Florida. And from Dick Cheney -- by the way, Mr. Cheney, attacking Colin Powell is not a good way to make friends and influence people in the middle part of the political spectrum.
Congressman Toomey is playing it smart -- he isn't compromising his own socially conservatives positions, but he is reaching out to consolidate different kinds of Republicans around his candidacy. If he can pull it off, he'll be doing his part to keep the party's coalition together rather than, say, Senator Jim DeMint's avowed preference for ideological purity at the expense of legislative impotence. (DeMint is wrong; it would be better to have 60 Republicans in the Senate than 30, even if -- particularly if -- that majority were squishy on the issues.) That's what people in this corner of the party can reasonably hope for from people in his corner of the party. It's a shame that more conservatives in the GOP aren't following his example.
May 13, 2009
Waffles
The Wife and I will celebrate our anniversary a few days early this year because the weekend promises to be very busy with other stuff. I asked what she wanted for her anniversary dinner and she said waffles.
Waffles for dinner is a fine thing, but I had been hoping for something a little bit more challenging. Well, it's what she wants.
Waffles for dinner is a fine thing, but I had been hoping for something a little bit more challenging. Well, it's what she wants.
This Is Why You Need To Clean Out The Fridge In The Office
Because your leftover lunches from last October might become so toxic the building needs to be evacuated and seven people get hospitalized. Yucko.
Labels:
Unimportant but Mildly Amusing
May 12, 2009
At What Point Does It Become Child Abuse?
Originally, I read this article looking for a church-state separation angle, and the fact that it happened in my collegiate stomping grounds, Santa Barbara, was another interesting side to it. After all, how do you convince a kid who already lives in paradise that there's something better waiting for him when he dies? So I figured the story would be "Religious group uses public school facilities for Bible study." What I read disturbed me a little bit more deeply. It fit in with a story I'd heard concerning what happens when religious instruction gets laid on the very young from another source too.
Well, the church-state angle is certainly interesting -- no one can seem to identify the teacher, student, or parent who invited this evangelist group to the campus of this small public school. But it does seem that they are targeting kindergartners and first graders with their ministry. And that's what got me on a more ethical level than the Constitutional side of the matter.
Reading in the first several paragraphs below the lede of the story from the Santa Barbara Independent, the bias of the reporter against the evangelists couldn't be more obvious. Presumably, the reporter's contempt for the Christians ministering to the children at Cold Springs School was so powerful she could not conceal it. So I thought to go to the sponsoring group's website and see what they have to say for themselves directly, so as to view the subject matter with a different lens.
At the website of the Child Evangelism Fellowship, the first thing I noticed was that the site loads up with an auto-play video that has some very slick graphics that appear to have been done by the same people who put together bumpers for cable news shows. Watching the video, it's very clear that these folks are convinced that they are doing good work, that it is inherently morally good to spread Jesus' message and gain converts to (their style of) Christianity. Well, that's their right, but from my point of view that Christianity has no particular claim either for or against its moral worth -- which is to say I consider religion to be a matter of moral neutrality -- the other dimension of the evangelism is unsettling, at the least.
This is because the group does specifically target young children, just like the critical reporter said. The group's founder (who has long since died) is quoted on the front page as saying, "I was told that a child at five, if properly instructed, can as truly believe as anyone." How does this work in practice? Bribery and peer pressure:
On the CEF video, the spokesman says, "One thing we know for sure is that children are receptive to God's message." Of course they are. A five-year-old has not yet developed any semblance of critical thinking skills. Five-year-olds accept and believe whatever adults tell them to, simply because it's an adult doing it. At minimum, what CEF is trying to do is to pre-condition these kids to believe that Christianity is somehow special or good. I tell you that it is not; I'm not saying it's bad by any means, but it's a religion like any other -- being Christian doesn't make you morally good and not being Christian doesn't make you morally bad.
And that is where things become pernicious, particularly when childen are involved. In addition to lacking critical thinking skills, children also lack the social graces that come with tolerance and self-confidence. Kids use peer pressure to make one another conform -- they do it in ways adults would never tolerate with one another.
Which brings me back to the very local story I heard. My interlocutor told the story of a six-year-old girl. She's bright and her parents want her to get a good education (what parent doesn't feel that way) and they can afford to send her to a private school. Although the parents are themselves not particularly religious, they believe that the best school in the region is the local Protestant private school. And their little girl comes home from school saying things like "Mommy, do you believe in God? That's good, because if you don't, you're going to hell. If you don't believe in God, you're a bad person who should go to hell." The parents are understandably taken aback to hear their six-year-old spout off with stuff like this.
However, it is to be expected. All religions, and indeed, all denominations within all religions, carry within their doctrines a sense of specialness. "This is the one true faith," most religions proclaim, "You must have it in order to be saved." All evangelical denominations carry some degree of a monopoly on the Truth, too: "Accept the Word of God and be saved; those who do not will be condemned." This is a message that some adults have a hard time thinking critically about; it is, after all, essentially the same message a Mafioso delivers to the victim of a protection racket. To a child, it is a compelling bargain indeed.
What's more, children are hungry for ways in which to distinguish themselves as special and therefore worthy of the attention and approval of adults. And when they're told that they are special becasue Jesus loves them and they're going to heaven when other kids are not, well, that's actually sort of a complex concept that a small child is not ready to hear or understand fully on all but the most simplistic of levels -- "I'm good because I'm a Christian. Little Johnny here isn't a Christian, so he must be bad. He's going to hell!" And thus the teasing and the bullying begins.
And the CEF minister isn't there to stop it -- if she even can or, I must darkly intone, if she even wants to since this peer pressure is exactly the sort of dynamic that CEF admits that it wants to create. A secular teacher or a parent is the one who has to step in. And as we've seen, the school is deathly afraid of lawsuits because the line of separation of church and state is unclear, so the adminsitrators of the school don't know what to do other than keep a hands-off attitude towards anything that is religious at all. And the parents -- well, plenty of them may not see the less pleasant side of their children getting religion and they, too, may beleive that the religious instruction is inherently good and can only help make their children grow up to be moral and ethical.
Now, maybe it can do exactly that. But if so, it's going to be a process, not a sudden transformation. Any Christian with an ounce of honesty will tell you that they have had moral stumbles along their journey through life and that they, too, have had to learn hard ethical lessons the hard way despite the assistance of the Bible and their faith and the intervention of God and a community of well-meaning, moral people to support them. That's because learning about ethics from a book and in a classroom is, at best, incomplete instruction. We don't know until we've been put in a difficult situation personally, and had the experience of having had to make a moral choice, what it is to actually be morally good. And if there's one thing I know for sure about little kids, it's that they lack years of life experience -- the exact sort of thing that makes ethics real and important.
Trying to be as charitable as possible to the CEF, I nevertheless find the idea of evangelizing to five-year-olds to be disturbing. These folks may honestly believe they are doing good work, saving souls, making kids morally good. But that's not what should be expected to happen. Nor is it meaningful evangelism. These kids will believe what they're told to believe for no reason other than it's an adult telling them to do it. And they aren't even close to developing the kinds of intellectual skills to make their so-called "acceptance" of this religion meaningful.
If you have difficulty accepting this, it's probably because you can't get around your own thought that the Gospel is good and therefore spreading it is good. There's no reason, you might think, that age-appropriate religious education has to be considered a bad thing. If this is your protest, take a look at this video:
If your child's friend was doing this, you'd be a little bit creeped out, wouldn't you? The girl obviously has no idea what she's saying; she has simply memorized a list of responses to questions which please her father because, like all small children, what she really wants is to please her father. Imagine, then, how it looks for a young child to be doing the Christian equivalent of exactly this. Indeed, the only thing CEF could object to about the video above is that the father has chosen the incorrect "One True Faith." But given, at minimum, that we live in a pluralistic society where people of different faiths are supposed to tolerate one another, evangelizing to very young children will create the opposite effect of what is desired -- a shallow, incomplete, and chauvanistic adherence to a poorly-understood religion that will be used to tease and exclude other kids. That is why this CEF stuff is creepy and why I have to raise my voice in objection to it.
Well, the church-state angle is certainly interesting -- no one can seem to identify the teacher, student, or parent who invited this evangelist group to the campus of this small public school. But it does seem that they are targeting kindergartners and first graders with their ministry. And that's what got me on a more ethical level than the Constitutional side of the matter.
Reading in the first several paragraphs below the lede of the story from the Santa Barbara Independent, the bias of the reporter against the evangelists couldn't be more obvious. Presumably, the reporter's contempt for the Christians ministering to the children at Cold Springs School was so powerful she could not conceal it. So I thought to go to the sponsoring group's website and see what they have to say for themselves directly, so as to view the subject matter with a different lens.
At the website of the Child Evangelism Fellowship, the first thing I noticed was that the site loads up with an auto-play video that has some very slick graphics that appear to have been done by the same people who put together bumpers for cable news shows. Watching the video, it's very clear that these folks are convinced that they are doing good work, that it is inherently morally good to spread Jesus' message and gain converts to (their style of) Christianity. Well, that's their right, but from my point of view that Christianity has no particular claim either for or against its moral worth -- which is to say I consider religion to be a matter of moral neutrality -- the other dimension of the evangelism is unsettling, at the least.
This is because the group does specifically target young children, just like the critical reporter said. The group's founder (who has long since died) is quoted on the front page as saying, "I was told that a child at five, if properly instructed, can as truly believe as anyone." How does this work in practice? Bribery and peer pressure:
In one school, cheerful flyers announcing Good News Club-sponsored “parties” were posted three feet from the floor, at children’s eye-level. “There was a tremendous feeling of peer pressure to attend … and parents get that,” said a Wisconsin father. At Santa Barbara’s Foothill Elementary School, an administrator said, the Good News instructor was found approaching students and distributing leaflets just outside school grounds.If any other adult who was not a parent of a child at school and not a teacher or other school staffer were hanging around outside a school with candy and balloons waiting for the end-of-the-day bell to ring, they'd be arrested -- and with good reason. But if they're there to evangelize, the school, timorously afraid of a lawsuit, allows them to evangelize to kids who lack the skills necessary to tie their own shoelaces.
Often, instructors arrive on campus before the bell rings. When young children exit their regular classrooms, they find the instructor outside the door bearing treats and trailing balloons. In Valencia, California, a parent of a kindergartener reported that the Good News Club actually started 15 minutes prior to the end of her child’s school day. The instructor, she said, would enter the classroom as kindergarten was winding down and perform a roll call — effectively segregating the children by religious affiliation.
On the CEF video, the spokesman says, "One thing we know for sure is that children are receptive to God's message." Of course they are. A five-year-old has not yet developed any semblance of critical thinking skills. Five-year-olds accept and believe whatever adults tell them to, simply because it's an adult doing it. At minimum, what CEF is trying to do is to pre-condition these kids to believe that Christianity is somehow special or good. I tell you that it is not; I'm not saying it's bad by any means, but it's a religion like any other -- being Christian doesn't make you morally good and not being Christian doesn't make you morally bad.
And that is where things become pernicious, particularly when childen are involved. In addition to lacking critical thinking skills, children also lack the social graces that come with tolerance and self-confidence. Kids use peer pressure to make one another conform -- they do it in ways adults would never tolerate with one another.
Which brings me back to the very local story I heard. My interlocutor told the story of a six-year-old girl. She's bright and her parents want her to get a good education (what parent doesn't feel that way) and they can afford to send her to a private school. Although the parents are themselves not particularly religious, they believe that the best school in the region is the local Protestant private school. And their little girl comes home from school saying things like "Mommy, do you believe in God? That's good, because if you don't, you're going to hell. If you don't believe in God, you're a bad person who should go to hell." The parents are understandably taken aback to hear their six-year-old spout off with stuff like this.
However, it is to be expected. All religions, and indeed, all denominations within all religions, carry within their doctrines a sense of specialness. "This is the one true faith," most religions proclaim, "You must have it in order to be saved." All evangelical denominations carry some degree of a monopoly on the Truth, too: "Accept the Word of God and be saved; those who do not will be condemned." This is a message that some adults have a hard time thinking critically about; it is, after all, essentially the same message a Mafioso delivers to the victim of a protection racket. To a child, it is a compelling bargain indeed.
What's more, children are hungry for ways in which to distinguish themselves as special and therefore worthy of the attention and approval of adults. And when they're told that they are special becasue Jesus loves them and they're going to heaven when other kids are not, well, that's actually sort of a complex concept that a small child is not ready to hear or understand fully on all but the most simplistic of levels -- "I'm good because I'm a Christian. Little Johnny here isn't a Christian, so he must be bad. He's going to hell!" And thus the teasing and the bullying begins.
And the CEF minister isn't there to stop it -- if she even can or, I must darkly intone, if she even wants to since this peer pressure is exactly the sort of dynamic that CEF admits that it wants to create. A secular teacher or a parent is the one who has to step in. And as we've seen, the school is deathly afraid of lawsuits because the line of separation of church and state is unclear, so the adminsitrators of the school don't know what to do other than keep a hands-off attitude towards anything that is religious at all. And the parents -- well, plenty of them may not see the less pleasant side of their children getting religion and they, too, may beleive that the religious instruction is inherently good and can only help make their children grow up to be moral and ethical.
Now, maybe it can do exactly that. But if so, it's going to be a process, not a sudden transformation. Any Christian with an ounce of honesty will tell you that they have had moral stumbles along their journey through life and that they, too, have had to learn hard ethical lessons the hard way despite the assistance of the Bible and their faith and the intervention of God and a community of well-meaning, moral people to support them. That's because learning about ethics from a book and in a classroom is, at best, incomplete instruction. We don't know until we've been put in a difficult situation personally, and had the experience of having had to make a moral choice, what it is to actually be morally good. And if there's one thing I know for sure about little kids, it's that they lack years of life experience -- the exact sort of thing that makes ethics real and important.
Trying to be as charitable as possible to the CEF, I nevertheless find the idea of evangelizing to five-year-olds to be disturbing. These folks may honestly believe they are doing good work, saving souls, making kids morally good. But that's not what should be expected to happen. Nor is it meaningful evangelism. These kids will believe what they're told to believe for no reason other than it's an adult telling them to do it. And they aren't even close to developing the kinds of intellectual skills to make their so-called "acceptance" of this religion meaningful.
If you have difficulty accepting this, it's probably because you can't get around your own thought that the Gospel is good and therefore spreading it is good. There's no reason, you might think, that age-appropriate religious education has to be considered a bad thing. If this is your protest, take a look at this video:
If your child's friend was doing this, you'd be a little bit creeped out, wouldn't you? The girl obviously has no idea what she's saying; she has simply memorized a list of responses to questions which please her father because, like all small children, what she really wants is to please her father. Imagine, then, how it looks for a young child to be doing the Christian equivalent of exactly this. Indeed, the only thing CEF could object to about the video above is that the father has chosen the incorrect "One True Faith." But given, at minimum, that we live in a pluralistic society where people of different faiths are supposed to tolerate one another, evangelizing to very young children will create the opposite effect of what is desired -- a shallow, incomplete, and chauvanistic adherence to a poorly-understood religion that will be used to tease and exclude other kids. That is why this CEF stuff is creepy and why I have to raise my voice in objection to it.
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
News,
Religion
Amazing Who Comes Out Smelling Good
Despite her apparent corruptibility, at least Jane Harman had the cojones to object to torture when she learned about it in 2003. Nancy Pelosi and her aides cannot make the same claim. Instead, they were worried about observing "legislative formalities" and observing proper protocol, and besides, they knew that Congresswoman Harman was objecting so that apparently meant that Congresswoman Pelosi didn't have to.
What this means, of course, is that torture, approval of torture, and condemnation of torture, are not things that are defined by party. So can we please get the troglodyte wing of the GOP to stop endorsing torture as a matter of reflexive party discipline now? You're advocating actions espoused by Nancy Pelosi.
I also view this as something of a vindication. I've consistently objected to torture, and many Republicans like me have as well, for many years before President Obama issued memos confirming that torture really happened. I gave the interrogators every benefit of the doubt along the way as to whether they actually did it before those memos were released. And now we know there are Democrats who failed to object to torture despite knowing, as we in the general public did not, that torture really was happening.
So torture is not a partisan issue. It is an ethical issue which should inspire ethical people to make ethical choices. It is a political issue, which like corruption transcends party. This may not be what people meant when they talked about things transcending party, but there you go. Meanwhile, brace for another release of memos coming up soon.
What this means, of course, is that torture, approval of torture, and condemnation of torture, are not things that are defined by party. So can we please get the troglodyte wing of the GOP to stop endorsing torture as a matter of reflexive party discipline now? You're advocating actions espoused by Nancy Pelosi.
I also view this as something of a vindication. I've consistently objected to torture, and many Republicans like me have as well, for many years before President Obama issued memos confirming that torture really happened. I gave the interrogators every benefit of the doubt along the way as to whether they actually did it before those memos were released. And now we know there are Democrats who failed to object to torture despite knowing, as we in the general public did not, that torture really was happening.
So torture is not a partisan issue. It is an ethical issue which should inspire ethical people to make ethical choices. It is a political issue, which like corruption transcends party. This may not be what people meant when they talked about things transcending party, but there you go. Meanwhile, brace for another release of memos coming up soon.
Labels:
Domestic Politics,
Ethics and Morality,
News
May 11, 2009
Movie Review: Star Trek XI
The Star Trek reboot movie is a fun ride and of course you should go see it. Non-science fiction fans will enjoy it because it is centered on character development at least as much as on its space-cowboy storyline. Science fiction fans, of course, have likely seen it already.Story: We get to meet the members of the crew of the USS Enterprise as very young people, before they assume the roles which they held during the TV series and the earlier movies. But -- things are different. A time-traveling Romulan named Nero changes things in the movie's opening scene, shifting this movie away from the entire canon of Star Trek mythology even as the classic characters are being born. Their experiences and careers are altered, some more subtly than others, and by the time they are graduating or shortly graduated from Starfleet Academy, they are entirely their own characters and not the ones played by Shatner, Nimoy, et. al. Classic Star Trek fans ought not to fear this; new fans should embrace it because frankly, these characters are more complex and interesting. But at the end of the day, it is a "reboot" story, so it is burdened by the need to introduce us to the characters and set the stage for future adventures. This burden is carried, successfully although not lightly. Indeed, the most cumbersome parts of the script are those dealing with the time-travel dilemma and one hopes that this will not be a plot device used frequently in the future.
Script: The fun of the script is the way it realizes its new vision for the various characters. Spock is the central role of the movie, even more so than Kirk, and this is a fine thing to do because Spock's role standing between two very different cultures and societies is underlined repeatedly and very much to his conflict and our interest. Kirk is still an incorrigable skirt-chaser, but he is not universally successful in his seduction skills (Uhura blows him off, diverting her attentions elsewhere) and he is still cocky beyond his innate skills, but clearly lacks the polish that comes with actual experience. Still, there are a few holes in the story. Winona Ryder's character, for instance, is somewhere that it is not (excuse the pun) logical that she be, and this is jarring. The time-travel plot device that gets the whole ball rolling takes away some of the initial sting out of the bad actions of the antagonist and it takes a while before you realize what the writers are going to do with that part of the story. And it is something of a disappointment that we may not get to see very much of Captain Christopher Pike in future movies; he seems like an interesting figure from the moment he tries to recruit Kirk into Starfleet.
Cast: The young actors cast to play these various roles were all fantastic. Zachary Quinto was utterly believable as Spock. Zoe Saldana was luscious, intelligent, and a deeper and more useful character than the space-secretary of Uhura from the TV show. And as I noted above, I wanted more of Bruce Greenwood's Captain Christopher Pike. Karl Urban captures the sarcasm of "Bones" McCoy perhaps a bit too much; he comes across as bitter. John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and Simon Pegg as Scotty are also nicely-portrayed although they are somewhat reduced to being caricatures (except for one fight scene in which Sulu gets to pull out his sword and show what he can do). But Star Trek is all about command and the way it is held and used, so the focus is very much on Kirk. Chris Pine is instantly and consistently Kirk, somehow embodying the essence of the role without once trying to imitate William Shatner's trademark stattaco delivery. After less than three minutes of film time, he manages to utterly convince the audience that he is Jim Kirk, that he is destined for command of a starship, and that he is the guy you would want at your back in a scrape.
Cinematography: The sets of the movie are modern, sleek, and well-imagined. No expense was spared to put them together. This is actually something of a problem. The Enterprise is not supposed to be a huge ship, but it seems positively luxurious in terms of its accomodations for engine facilities, work stations on the bridge, and width of its hallways. It does not seem like a spaceship at all. There is one nice bit of camera and effects work, though, in which the camera follows Spock into and out of an elevator and the scene changes from one deck of the ship to another, very smoothly and quickly, and there is no sense of how this is done (probably by swiveling rather than lifting the elevator) but it is very well-played and leaves the viewer with the impression that this is indeed a technologically advanced craft. But the look and feel of the Enterprise from the TV series -- which, logically, ought to be the same ship -- is entirely gone.
Costumes: The basic look of the classic TV series uniforms -- pullover shirts and black pants for the men, miniskirted suis for the women, with color varying based on duty assignment -- are kept once the characters get deployed. They look a little bit more intense in their coloring. Starfleet cadets wear uniforms reminiscent of the first few Star Trek movies from the 1980's. Civilians wear clothing that looks decidedly twentieth-century, and bad guys get to wear cool black leather.
Effects: No expense was spared here. The spaceship battle scenes are credible and have the same look that we've come to expect from movies and TV series of this nature -- a combination of models and CGI that is more than good enough to get the story told. The transporters no longer look like they are turning the characters into white noise and that's a welcome development. There are some space monsters who, while well-executed, are still more than a little bit silly.
Music: The classic theme of the TV show is not used until the very end; before that, new orchestral scores are used. But Star Trek has never been subtle with its use of music and this movie is no exception, as for the most part the brassy background music associated with these stories stays in place despite the composer's efforts to make it more lush with richer, deep strings. This score is mostly loud and direct, although at a few moments, the music becomes subdued to emphasize the tension felt by characters in difficult circumtances. This is a very effective technique when used sparingly, as it was in this movie.
Comments: The movie is better than a journeyman effort, but not a landmark piece of filmmaking. It's hard to see how it could be, given nearly half a century of accumulated writing and mythology to pressure the script. J.J. Abrams was a good pick to direct this film; he has a nice feel for mixing action and characters developing in spite of their dysfunctions. Given the "new" flaws and wrinkles seen in Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Scotty, it will be very interesting to see where the series goes next -- as there will surely be a Star Trek XII using this remarkable cast of interesting young actors.
Labels:
Movies
Good Strawberries From Bad
So last week I drove up to Stinking Bakersfield and, as is my custom, I stopped at a fruit stand on the way back to get some fresh produce so as to salvage some value for the time spent on the road. Unfortunately, The Wife and I only managed to eat one of the three pints of strawberries I brought back, and the other two were looking a little bit dark and mushy.
So, I destemmed and trimmed out the fruit and pureed it. Then I plopped them in a simple syrup and a splash of lemon juice, and gave it a 50% reduction. One of the fortunate things about this treatment is that the initial boil made the majority of the seeds rise to the surface for relatively easy removal. The resulting sauce (I won't call it jelly because the only pectin was the very small amount from the lemon juice) was sweet, had an intense strawberry taste and a striking red color.
About two-thirds of it went into frosting and filling used in margarita cupcakes. The Wife doesn't seem very proud of these babies. I guess it's because the frosting didn't set up well and allow for a pretty topping. But she should because they taste great. The rest of the strawberry sauce went into an actual margarita. None survived to be spread on toast this morning.
Two lessons here. The first is that food that is on the verge of going bad is not yet bad and can be usefully employed. To experienced restaurateurs, this is not news at all -- to at-home enthusiasts, it can take an episode like this to drive the point home. The second is that when the time is available to use them properly, real ingredients produce strong flavors and good results.
So, I destemmed and trimmed out the fruit and pureed it. Then I plopped them in a simple syrup and a splash of lemon juice, and gave it a 50% reduction. One of the fortunate things about this treatment is that the initial boil made the majority of the seeds rise to the surface for relatively easy removal. The resulting sauce (I won't call it jelly because the only pectin was the very small amount from the lemon juice) was sweet, had an intense strawberry taste and a striking red color.
About two-thirds of it went into frosting and filling used in margarita cupcakes. The Wife doesn't seem very proud of these babies. I guess it's because the frosting didn't set up well and allow for a pretty topping. But she should because they taste great. The rest of the strawberry sauce went into an actual margarita. None survived to be spread on toast this morning.
Two lessons here. The first is that food that is on the verge of going bad is not yet bad and can be usefully employed. To experienced restaurateurs, this is not news at all -- to at-home enthusiasts, it can take an episode like this to drive the point home. The second is that when the time is available to use them properly, real ingredients produce strong flavors and good results.
May 9, 2009
Everybody Involved Insists On Proving Themselves To Be Jackholes, Part XIV
Working in the legal industry often exposes me to situations where I am listening to a client convey a tale of woe and suffering, one in which everybody involved (except my interlocutor) has gone out of their way to be a gigantic, inconsiderate, and arrogant jerk. And almost inevitably, as soon as I've finished gathering information and possibly a settlement offer from this aggrieved victim, I have to turn around and talk to a different person involved in the dispute, who tells me that no, they are the innocent victim who always acted in good faith and with good moral intent, and the person I was just speaking to is in fact the architect of both the specific misfortune at issue in the lawsuit as well as a fairly substantial amount of the generalized suffering of the civilized world.
My response to this situation is generally to tell everyone involved that if we're going to settle the dispute, we need to adopt a "no bad guys" attitude, one in which we set aside the moral or dignitary slights of the other parties and just try and go forward without assigning ethical worth to whatever it is that they are complaining about. But in fact, nearly every time I say this, what I'm really thinking is that it's a "no good guys" situation, one in which everyone's an asshole.
So then I'm enjoying a mild morning in my back yard, drinking some coffee, eating a nice ripe pear, watching my dogs spar, and catching up on my blogging. And I come across a lead to this press release from a right-wing public interest law firm, the Pacific Justice Institute. Here's the story.
Castro Valley is a suburban city, located on the southeaster part of the Bay Area. The Castro Valley Unified School District runs the public schools there. The District invited a lesbian minister to come and speak to its math and science classes. She gave a talk to the classes entitled "Out for Good."
Some parents got bugs up their butts about this and apparently wanted to sue the District for having a lesbian in the same room as their precious little snowflakes. I have to infer that the issue here is homosexuality from a line in the press release which indicates that "According to students, the minister spoke about her lesbian wedding and similar events under the heading 'Out for Good.'" The author of the press release went out of his or her way to indicate that the speaker was a lesbian, that she had a "lesbian" wedding, and also spoke of "similar events." Presumably, had a heterosexual minister spoken to these math and science classes, these complainants would not have objected.
Of course, even a cursory look at the law would reveal that they get zero (meaning zilch, nada, zippo, donut-hole, goose-egg, aught, scratch, no-love-here) say in what kinds of activities the District gets to pursue under the rubric of providing education to its students. I can only presume that their lawyers possessed a modicum of responsibility and have told them this. So they had to content themselves with presenting a Public Records Act request to find all correspondence, contracts, and other documents relating to the minister's activities at the District.
And the District has complied with this spoiling-for-a-fight attitude by refusing to cough up the records.
So here's my "jerks all around" take on things.
First, the minister. I'll assume for purposes of this post that her presentation was appropriate for the ages of the children to whom it was delivered, and if that is the case, she is the least culpable of all of the parties involved here. I also don't know (because the District won't produce documents) whether she demanded, was offered, or accepted a speaking fee. It seems fair to assume that yes, she was paid for her time. Which is okay, but still she should understand that being a religious minister, going in to a public school, and making a presentation about homosexuality, is pulling a pin on a live grenade and rolling it into a crowd. She's instigating this sort of a fight. I have little love for instigators as a general rule.
Second, the parents. Okay, so a speaker came and spoke to your kids and you have some moral qualms about the subject matter of her speech. Fine. The solution is to teach your kids the things you want them to learn. Teach your kids how to question what this authority figure told them, how to draw their own conclusions, and what principles they should use to guide their thoughts. The solution is not to run to court, the solution is not to hire lawyers, the solution is not to get a bug up your butt about the whole thing and thereby draw attention to it in front of your kids. She isn't going to make your daughters into lesbians, and the fact that she is a lesbian does not make her inherently evil. Relax.
Third, the District. What are they thinking? They hired a religious minister to speak to public school kids. What's more, they hired this minister to speak to science and math classes about a social issue. This isn't science, it isn't math. And then, when they got a public records act demand, they stonewalled. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Further, they did it to bring forth a speaker about a highly controversial political subject, same-sex marriages, and apparently expected that this would be hunky-dory with everyone. Just because they can use their power this way does not mean that it is wise for them to do so. A little discretion and thought should have gone into this decision. A public agency is going to lose that sort of a battle, every time. Cough up the documents, and don't draw a lawsuit you're certain to lose. I can only assume that the District either ignored its attorneys' advice or instructed its attorneys to search for any reason to not comply with the law that they could think of, which would be at least on the edge of bad faith legal conduct.
And finally, the Pacific Justice Institute itself. This is not a pot that needs stirring. This needs to settle down and die, it needs to become a non-controversy and go away. No one will benefit from this legal fight, the public will not be served or benefitted in any fashion either from the controversy or from any of the possible outcomes of this dispute. The only thing that will result from this is a consumption of scarce judicial resources, the expenditure of attorney time that could have been spent solving real problems, and debatably, increased demands on an already-overburdened public purse. And they seem to be really pushing on this whole lesbian angle which strongly suggests to me that lesbians and gays are being demonized for the political and financial gain of the PJI. Having been involved in this game early in my career, I know that the point of the lawsuit is the ability to issue press releases whenever they do anything and the ability of the PJI to brag to its supporters about the work they're doing in fundraising letters. By using the legal system to go after anything that can be slapped with the label "gay," they'll get increased fundraising, or at least they think they will. And it's doubtful that anyone at PJI has bothered to think through just how awful that state of affairs really is.
So I'd like to thank the Castro Valley Unified School District, the Pacific Justice Institute, a short-sighted and politically-motivated minister, and some bigoted parents in the East Bay for completely ruining my otherwise-enjoyable morning.
My response to this situation is generally to tell everyone involved that if we're going to settle the dispute, we need to adopt a "no bad guys" attitude, one in which we set aside the moral or dignitary slights of the other parties and just try and go forward without assigning ethical worth to whatever it is that they are complaining about. But in fact, nearly every time I say this, what I'm really thinking is that it's a "no good guys" situation, one in which everyone's an asshole.
So then I'm enjoying a mild morning in my back yard, drinking some coffee, eating a nice ripe pear, watching my dogs spar, and catching up on my blogging. And I come across a lead to this press release from a right-wing public interest law firm, the Pacific Justice Institute. Here's the story.
Castro Valley is a suburban city, located on the southeaster part of the Bay Area. The Castro Valley Unified School District runs the public schools there. The District invited a lesbian minister to come and speak to its math and science classes. She gave a talk to the classes entitled "Out for Good."
Some parents got bugs up their butts about this and apparently wanted to sue the District for having a lesbian in the same room as their precious little snowflakes. I have to infer that the issue here is homosexuality from a line in the press release which indicates that "According to students, the minister spoke about her lesbian wedding and similar events under the heading 'Out for Good.'" The author of the press release went out of his or her way to indicate that the speaker was a lesbian, that she had a "lesbian" wedding, and also spoke of "similar events." Presumably, had a heterosexual minister spoken to these math and science classes, these complainants would not have objected.
Of course, even a cursory look at the law would reveal that they get zero (meaning zilch, nada, zippo, donut-hole, goose-egg, aught, scratch, no-love-here) say in what kinds of activities the District gets to pursue under the rubric of providing education to its students. I can only presume that their lawyers possessed a modicum of responsibility and have told them this. So they had to content themselves with presenting a Public Records Act request to find all correspondence, contracts, and other documents relating to the minister's activities at the District.
And the District has complied with this spoiling-for-a-fight attitude by refusing to cough up the records.
So here's my "jerks all around" take on things.
First, the minister. I'll assume for purposes of this post that her presentation was appropriate for the ages of the children to whom it was delivered, and if that is the case, she is the least culpable of all of the parties involved here. I also don't know (because the District won't produce documents) whether she demanded, was offered, or accepted a speaking fee. It seems fair to assume that yes, she was paid for her time. Which is okay, but still she should understand that being a religious minister, going in to a public school, and making a presentation about homosexuality, is pulling a pin on a live grenade and rolling it into a crowd. She's instigating this sort of a fight. I have little love for instigators as a general rule.
Second, the parents. Okay, so a speaker came and spoke to your kids and you have some moral qualms about the subject matter of her speech. Fine. The solution is to teach your kids the things you want them to learn. Teach your kids how to question what this authority figure told them, how to draw their own conclusions, and what principles they should use to guide their thoughts. The solution is not to run to court, the solution is not to hire lawyers, the solution is not to get a bug up your butt about the whole thing and thereby draw attention to it in front of your kids. She isn't going to make your daughters into lesbians, and the fact that she is a lesbian does not make her inherently evil. Relax.
Third, the District. What are they thinking? They hired a religious minister to speak to public school kids. What's more, they hired this minister to speak to science and math classes about a social issue. This isn't science, it isn't math. And then, when they got a public records act demand, they stonewalled. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Further, they did it to bring forth a speaker about a highly controversial political subject, same-sex marriages, and apparently expected that this would be hunky-dory with everyone. Just because they can use their power this way does not mean that it is wise for them to do so. A little discretion and thought should have gone into this decision. A public agency is going to lose that sort of a battle, every time. Cough up the documents, and don't draw a lawsuit you're certain to lose. I can only assume that the District either ignored its attorneys' advice or instructed its attorneys to search for any reason to not comply with the law that they could think of, which would be at least on the edge of bad faith legal conduct.
And finally, the Pacific Justice Institute itself. This is not a pot that needs stirring. This needs to settle down and die, it needs to become a non-controversy and go away. No one will benefit from this legal fight, the public will not be served or benefitted in any fashion either from the controversy or from any of the possible outcomes of this dispute. The only thing that will result from this is a consumption of scarce judicial resources, the expenditure of attorney time that could have been spent solving real problems, and debatably, increased demands on an already-overburdened public purse. And they seem to be really pushing on this whole lesbian angle which strongly suggests to me that lesbians and gays are being demonized for the political and financial gain of the PJI. Having been involved in this game early in my career, I know that the point of the lawsuit is the ability to issue press releases whenever they do anything and the ability of the PJI to brag to its supporters about the work they're doing in fundraising letters. By using the legal system to go after anything that can be slapped with the label "gay," they'll get increased fundraising, or at least they think they will. And it's doubtful that anyone at PJI has bothered to think through just how awful that state of affairs really is.
So I'd like to thank the Castro Valley Unified School District, the Pacific Justice Institute, a short-sighted and politically-motivated minister, and some bigoted parents in the East Bay for completely ruining my otherwise-enjoyable morning.
May 8, 2009
Skunk Smell In The Desert
In all the years I've lived in this part of California, I don't think I've ever smelled or seen a skunk out on the desert floor. Up in the mountains, I've smelled skunks but I don't know if I've ever seen any or not. But down here with the juniper bushes and Joshua trees and tumbleweeds? No skunks. About the only skunk I've ever seen in these parts has been the logo up on the sides of buildings where certain aircraft are built and maintained.Well, this morning at the office I stepped out of my car and there was the very distinct smell of skunk. Maybe even dead skunk. I lived in Florida as a kid and there were skunks there. And in Wisconsin. And in Tennessee -- lots of skunks in Tennessee. Dead skunk on the road is a smell all its own, one you know instantly when you smell it. And that's what was at the office today -- skunk musk. One of the most pungent odors I can think of.
Looking at the geographic range of skunks, it seems they live pretty much everywhere in the continental U.S.A., except for the western bank of the Colorado River and the southeastern quadrant of Nevada.
It's really kind of amazing how many wild animals live, nearly invisibly, in the middle of human civilization. They learn the rules, find hiding places, and eat our garbage. Human garbage is a pretty reasonable source of sustenance for a lot of these animals. And they're smarter than we give them credit for being, as anyone who has had to deal with critters like possums or raccoons can attest. I bet the skunk is a pretty quick study, too.
Some skunk trivia: They can eat nearly anything, subsisting on leaves and grasses when food is scarce to berries and vegetables and even meat -- their most plentiful food source in the wild are insects and earthworms. They tend to scavenge for meat from mammals and birds rather than hunting it.
They are one of the few animals that predates on honeybees; it's difficult for a bee's sting to penetrate through the skunk's thick fur. The skunk will just walk right up to a beehive and scratch at the side of it, lets the bees try to sting him through his fur, and then eats them up.
Skunks are territorial, with females keeping a territory of about 500 acres, and males of nearly ten times that much. Male and female territories overlap, but skunks of the same sex will shun one another except in winter, when they will hibernate together in a burrow. Females tend to only have one mate but males will typically mate with every female in his territory.
They are not afraid of water but are poor swimmers.
Skunks have terrible eyesight and can only see things clearly about ten to twelve feet away from their faces. This is why nearly half of all skunk deaths are caused by collisions with motor vehicles -- they can't see the vehicles coming to protect themselves. They are, however, plentiful in number. For skunks as a species, the dangers of individuals being run over by cars from time to time seems to be more than compensated for by the benefits of having access to human garbage as a food source. They navigate the world by hearing and smell.
The name for a group of skunks is a "huddle." (Cf., "herd" of cattle, "flock" of seagulls, or "murder" of crows.) A baby skunk is called a "kit." There seems to be no special name for males and females the way, for instance, cattle are "cows" and "bulls," or horses are "stallions" and "mares." Male skunks are bigger than females, but not by much.
Skunks enjoy substantial immunity from snake venom. They are vulnerable to other kinds of venom, though, such as from a scorpion.
If you get blasted by the musk at close range, it's a lot like getting hit with tear gas -- the overpowering smell is disabling, and the musk can painfully blind you. Stay away from a wild skunk's ass -- although I'm sure that you already knew that much. Bears fear skunks, and bears are generally not afraid of anything. Wild skunks should be avoided not only for the musk but also because the skunk can carry any of a number of diseases transmittable to humans. Like most furry mammals, they also can gather fleas, which can carry a different constellation of diseases, including plague.
The skunk will spray reluctantly and only when it feels very threatened. The typical animal carries only enough musk for five or six sprays, and it can take up to ten days before the skunk secretes enough fluid in its anal glands to replenish a spray. A mother protecting her clutch of kits is much more likely to spray than any other skunk.
One of the reasons that skunks have their distinctive black-and-white coloring is so that predators will quickly learn what a skunk looks like and leave future skunks alone without needing to be sprayed again. But some skunks are colored tan or off-white and like all animals, there are occasionally instances of albinism. Pretty much the only animal that predates off of skunks are great horned owls -- owls have almost no sense of smell and retractable carapaces for their eyes that reflexively close when the owl strikes its prey, so the owl is almost perfectly suited for hunting skunk.
Charles Darwin encountered skunks in Uruguay, while serving as naturalist on the HMS Beagle. He wrote:
We saw also a couple of Zorrillos, or skunks—odious animals, which are far from uncommon. In general appearance the Zorrillo resembles a polecat, but it is rather larger, and much thicker in proportion. Conscious of its power, it roams by day about the open plain, and fears neither dog nor man. If a dog is urged to the attack, its courage is instantly checked by a few drops of the fetid oil, which brings on violent sickness and running at the nose. Whatever is once polluted by it, is for ever useless. Azara says the smell can be perceived at a league distant; more than once, when entering the harbour of Monte Video, the wind being off shore, we have perceived the odour on board the Beagle. Certain it is, that every animal most willingly makes room for the Zorrillo.
People actually keep skunks as pets; they domesticate reasonably well. It's legal in some states, but I don't think they are in California. Domesticated skunks can live up to twenty years as a pet in a loving home -- they don't tend to make it past three or four years on their own, either in the wild or scavenging human garbage for a living. They dig instinctively, so you'd have to be careful letting your pet skunk out in your back yard unsupervised for very long. The skunk is kind of cute, and you can have its anal scent glands removed without harming it.
Not that I would want a pet skunk, even a de-odorized one. I bet clipping the skunk's claws is not a pleasant task, and since they're so hairy, they would shed all over the place. It would be tough to find a groomer willing to take on the task of washing such a beast. I'm pretty sure a shaved skunk would not be nearly as cute as a furry one, and if a shaved skunk got out of the home, he would be in danger since would have an instinct to locate a beehive and harass the bees inside, but lack his natural protection of long fur.
Labels:
California,
Critters,
Trivia
Oklahoma's Establishment Gambit
The thing that got me interested in the separation of church and state project was the apparent dichotomy between two Establishment Clause cases in 2005 -- Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU. In both cases, a display of the Decalogue on government grounds was challenged as an Establishment. In Van Orden, a rather good-looking ten-foot high granite statue with the full text of the Decalogue, placed on the grounds of the Texas state capitol, was upheld as not an Establishment. In McCreary County, a somewhat dreary-looking copy of the Decalogue on a framed 8½" by 11" sheet of paper was struck down as an Establishment. In both cases, the claim was made that the display of the Decalogue was a part of exhibiting it as part of law in a broader historical and cultural tradition.
The difference in outcome was the switched vote of Stephen Breyer. Breyer did not want to be hostile to religion, believing (correctly) that the First Amendment requires that the government neither encourage nor discourage religious activity, that the government be neither hostile to, nor fostering of, the religiosity of any individual, any particular religion, or religion in general. The government should be neutral with regards to promoting or inhibiting religion. From this principle, he then made the leap to saying that the government has to be allowed to sometimes, but not always, display an injunction to worship Jehovah.
Breyer based his switch on his examination of the intent of the artists and sponsors of the respective display -- for instance, in the McCreary County display, the Declaration of Independence displayed near the Decalogue had emphasis put on the words "Creator" and "nature's God," and from this Justice Breyer inferred that the overall intent of the display was to draw attention to the role of religion rather than the role of law. But in Van Orden, Breyer was moved by the fact that the Texas monument had been erected in 1961, and no one had challenged it until very recently. The McCreary County display had been challenged almost immediately after it was put on display in 2001.
So, Breyer looked at a) artistic intent and b) longevity as indicators of whether a display of the Decalogue is an unconstitutional Establishment or a permissible display of the Decalogue as part of the historical, legal, and cultural traditions of the United States. I think Breyer is full of it. Judges are not hired to be art critics, and Breyer's analysis of these two cases demonstrates that he personally is not a very good art critic anyway. And the Constitution says what it says. Whether a practice is of long standing or recent vintage is of no moment in determining whether it violates the Constitution.
Now, those Readers who advocate only a weak degree of separation of church and state (including those who do not believe that the Constitution includes any such concept, because it does not use those literal words) need to understand that I completely agree that the Decalogue is indeed a part of our historical, legal, and cultural traditions. But I can imagine no instance of its display by any organ of the government at any level -- including on the pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States -- that does not convey a governmental endorsement. This is inherently a promotion of the Decalogue and therefore a promotion of religion, and not a neutral display.
I also reject categorically the concept of "ceremonial deism." This is the idea that certain actions that invoke or refer to religion have, through rote repetition, lost all religious significance. Things like the phrase "In God We Trust" as the national motto and emblazoned on currency, the 1954 addition of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the invocations used to open legislative sessions, have all been identified as "ceremonial deism." But if these are things that lack religious significance, then removing them ought not to be hostile to religion. And even the suggestion that we do such a thing draws howls of protest from religious people. The simple fact that they care indicates that there is, indeed, religious significance to these things.
So this morning I'm intrigued, although not really pleased, to see a story about the Oklahoma legislature pass a law in which it will attempt to replicate, as exactly as possible, the Decalogue monument that passed Constitutional muster in Van Orden. Just as in Texas, only private funds will be used to create and place the monument, which will be donated to the state, and the display will go amongst several other monuments. This will highlight one part of Justice Breyer's differential analysis, which was based on the longevity of the display. The Oklahoma display will be brand new, and therefore under Breyer's analysis, more subject to attack despite being functionally identical. I completely agree that this is just plain silly, and silliness of this nature has no place in our Constitutional jurisprudence.
But, there is still the issue of artistic intent -- the intent here is pretty obviously an intent to display the Decalogue for its own sake. It's an intent to promote the Decalogue itself. And I'm earnestly trying to be fair when I say that I cannot conceive of a way for Oklahoma to do this without intending to promote and endorse the Decalogue itself. This appears to fail Breyer's "artistic intent" analysis, and if I'm right, that means that the content of the display is also irrelevant. Which is also deeply silly.
Of course, the real problem is that certain politicians feel the need to push the limits here in the first place. They cannot content themselves to leave well enough alone. I suppose on one level, that's good for me, a man who intends to write a book about this. There will be no shortage of fresh material for my project. But what, if not a desire to promote religion, could possibly motivate this seemingly irresistible impulse of certain politicians (who seem to always be deeply religious individuals) to authorize, commission, and place on government property very large, heavy, imposing, and difficult-to-relocate religiously explicit monuments? Of course they're trying to promote religion.
Look at it the other way. If Oklahoma didn't put up the monument, would that be an Establishment of secularism as Oklahoma's official religion? Of course not. The state would simply be silent on the issue (as it should be). The government's failure to take an action which promotes religion is not the same thing as the government doing something which inhibits religion. Strict neutrality requires that the government do neither of those things.
The difference in outcome was the switched vote of Stephen Breyer. Breyer did not want to be hostile to religion, believing (correctly) that the First Amendment requires that the government neither encourage nor discourage religious activity, that the government be neither hostile to, nor fostering of, the religiosity of any individual, any particular religion, or religion in general. The government should be neutral with regards to promoting or inhibiting religion. From this principle, he then made the leap to saying that the government has to be allowed to sometimes, but not always, display an injunction to worship Jehovah.
Breyer based his switch on his examination of the intent of the artists and sponsors of the respective display -- for instance, in the McCreary County display, the Declaration of Independence displayed near the Decalogue had emphasis put on the words "Creator" and "nature's God," and from this Justice Breyer inferred that the overall intent of the display was to draw attention to the role of religion rather than the role of law. But in Van Orden, Breyer was moved by the fact that the Texas monument had been erected in 1961, and no one had challenged it until very recently. The McCreary County display had been challenged almost immediately after it was put on display in 2001.
So, Breyer looked at a) artistic intent and b) longevity as indicators of whether a display of the Decalogue is an unconstitutional Establishment or a permissible display of the Decalogue as part of the historical, legal, and cultural traditions of the United States. I think Breyer is full of it. Judges are not hired to be art critics, and Breyer's analysis of these two cases demonstrates that he personally is not a very good art critic anyway. And the Constitution says what it says. Whether a practice is of long standing or recent vintage is of no moment in determining whether it violates the Constitution.
Now, those Readers who advocate only a weak degree of separation of church and state (including those who do not believe that the Constitution includes any such concept, because it does not use those literal words) need to understand that I completely agree that the Decalogue is indeed a part of our historical, legal, and cultural traditions. But I can imagine no instance of its display by any organ of the government at any level -- including on the pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States -- that does not convey a governmental endorsement. This is inherently a promotion of the Decalogue and therefore a promotion of religion, and not a neutral display.
I also reject categorically the concept of "ceremonial deism." This is the idea that certain actions that invoke or refer to religion have, through rote repetition, lost all religious significance. Things like the phrase "In God We Trust" as the national motto and emblazoned on currency, the 1954 addition of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the invocations used to open legislative sessions, have all been identified as "ceremonial deism." But if these are things that lack religious significance, then removing them ought not to be hostile to religion. And even the suggestion that we do such a thing draws howls of protest from religious people. The simple fact that they care indicates that there is, indeed, religious significance to these things.
So this morning I'm intrigued, although not really pleased, to see a story about the Oklahoma legislature pass a law in which it will attempt to replicate, as exactly as possible, the Decalogue monument that passed Constitutional muster in Van Orden. Just as in Texas, only private funds will be used to create and place the monument, which will be donated to the state, and the display will go amongst several other monuments. This will highlight one part of Justice Breyer's differential analysis, which was based on the longevity of the display. The Oklahoma display will be brand new, and therefore under Breyer's analysis, more subject to attack despite being functionally identical. I completely agree that this is just plain silly, and silliness of this nature has no place in our Constitutional jurisprudence.
But, there is still the issue of artistic intent -- the intent here is pretty obviously an intent to display the Decalogue for its own sake. It's an intent to promote the Decalogue itself. And I'm earnestly trying to be fair when I say that I cannot conceive of a way for Oklahoma to do this without intending to promote and endorse the Decalogue itself. This appears to fail Breyer's "artistic intent" analysis, and if I'm right, that means that the content of the display is also irrelevant. Which is also deeply silly.
Of course, the real problem is that certain politicians feel the need to push the limits here in the first place. They cannot content themselves to leave well enough alone. I suppose on one level, that's good for me, a man who intends to write a book about this. There will be no shortage of fresh material for my project. But what, if not a desire to promote religion, could possibly motivate this seemingly irresistible impulse of certain politicians (who seem to always be deeply religious individuals) to authorize, commission, and place on government property very large, heavy, imposing, and difficult-to-relocate religiously explicit monuments? Of course they're trying to promote religion.
Look at it the other way. If Oklahoma didn't put up the monument, would that be an Establishment of secularism as Oklahoma's official religion? Of course not. The state would simply be silent on the issue (as it should be). The government's failure to take an action which promotes religion is not the same thing as the government doing something which inhibits religion. Strict neutrality requires that the government do neither of those things.
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
Government,
News,
Religion
The Rate Of Economic Decline Is Declining
Since when was it good news when 539,000 jobs were lost in one month? Since September, that's when. The U.S. Department of Labor had projected a 620,000 job loss rate for April. But it's still 8.9% unemployment and even if the downward curve is a little shallower (and job loss is only one of several factors to consider in that equation) it's still headed downwards.
Labels:
Government,
Money,
News
Confirmed: Pelosi Knew About Torture In 2002
Dick Cheney at least has the intellectual honesty to say, "Yeah, I knew about torture, and I'm glad we did it." Not that I excuse that -- it's a morally reprehensible position.
Nancy Pelosi, though, was briefed about the torture in September of 2002. She didn't say anything about it then -- and then later, she lied about her knowledge to try and use the torturing of prisoners as a political football.
Shame on you, Madam Speaker. Yes, you were in the minority party in 2002, and yes, memories of 9/11 were still fresh then. Neither excuses you for saying nothing then, and neither excuses you for trying to use this issue for advantage now.
Your objection could have done some good despite your minority status -- it could have made some other people stop and think about what they were doing after they heard an objection.
To torture our prisoners was wrong. It was wrong in 2002, it would be wrong now. The people in power who ordered it are the most blameworthy. But this puts you in a not-very-distant second.
Nancy Pelosi, though, was briefed about the torture in September of 2002. She didn't say anything about it then -- and then later, she lied about her knowledge to try and use the torturing of prisoners as a political football.
Shame on you, Madam Speaker. Yes, you were in the minority party in 2002, and yes, memories of 9/11 were still fresh then. Neither excuses you for saying nothing then, and neither excuses you for trying to use this issue for advantage now.
Your objection could have done some good despite your minority status -- it could have made some other people stop and think about what they were doing after they heard an objection.
To torture our prisoners was wrong. It was wrong in 2002, it would be wrong now. The people in power who ordered it are the most blameworthy. But this puts you in a not-very-distant second.
Labels:
Crime and Punishment,
Domestic Politics,
Ethics and Morality,
Law,
News,
Scandal,
Terrorism
May 7, 2009
Get Your Mustard News Elsewhere
What. The. Hell.
I check the news before leaving the office to have some drinks with some of the other lawyers and our friends. The big story is all about how Tom Ridge isn't going to run for Senate in Pennsylvania against Democrat Arlen Specter. Oh. Wasn't that Toomey guy going to run anyway?
So we have our drinks. We talk about movies. And sports. And traffic tickets. And the Supreme Court nomination. And one anothers' lives. It's a fine, fun, relaxing night. And I come home, put the animals to bed, try and not make too much noise because The Wife is already sleeping, and turn on the computer to check up on sports scores and see if anything interesting has happened in the news.
And the intertubes are full. I mean jam-packed. With a) outrage at, b) analysis of the outrage at, c) apologies for, and d) analysis of the apologies for, the fact that President Obama ordered Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger when he and Vice President Biden went to Ray's Hell Burger the other day. There doesn't seem to be a political or news site based in the USA that isn't leading with this story. It's the top banner on memeorandum.
Well, it ends here. This is just plain silly. I mean, we're not talking about arugula on the burger here. It's spicy mustard, people. Yes, he wanted the brown stuff, not the yellow stuff. Mustard. On a burger. That the President ate. Ooooh.
There's plenty of things to criticize about President Obama and the course he's taking with our government. He dumped huge money into Chrysler and we're damn sure never getting it back and it's doubtful GM will pay us back, either.* Billions of dollars flushed down the drain to prop up banks that should have, and could still, be bought up by their competitors.* Questionable foreign policy maneuvers.* Transparently fictitious tax cuts.* Transparently fictitious spending cuts.* Inept appointments to Cabinet positions.* Factually sparse budget proposals.* Questionable handling of nationals security and terrorism issues.* Pandering to religious groups.* It is, as Goose said to Maverick, a target-rich environment.
This isn't newsworthy, it isn't particularly interesting, it barely rises to the level of trivia. I'm not going to support it by linking to any article referencing Obama's mustard problem. Instead, I'm going to chastise all you silly internet people who concerned yourselves with this.
* It is not a defense to say that President Bush did this first. We wanted "change," remember?
I check the news before leaving the office to have some drinks with some of the other lawyers and our friends. The big story is all about how Tom Ridge isn't going to run for Senate in Pennsylvania against Democrat Arlen Specter. Oh. Wasn't that Toomey guy going to run anyway?
So we have our drinks. We talk about movies. And sports. And traffic tickets. And the Supreme Court nomination. And one anothers' lives. It's a fine, fun, relaxing night. And I come home, put the animals to bed, try and not make too much noise because The Wife is already sleeping, and turn on the computer to check up on sports scores and see if anything interesting has happened in the news.
And the intertubes are full. I mean jam-packed. With a) outrage at, b) analysis of the outrage at, c) apologies for, and d) analysis of the apologies for, the fact that President Obama ordered Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger when he and Vice President Biden went to Ray's Hell Burger the other day. There doesn't seem to be a political or news site based in the USA that isn't leading with this story. It's the top banner on memeorandum.
Well, it ends here. This is just plain silly. I mean, we're not talking about arugula on the burger here. It's spicy mustard, people. Yes, he wanted the brown stuff, not the yellow stuff. Mustard. On a burger. That the President ate. Ooooh.
There's plenty of things to criticize about President Obama and the course he's taking with our government. He dumped huge money into Chrysler and we're damn sure never getting it back and it's doubtful GM will pay us back, either.* Billions of dollars flushed down the drain to prop up banks that should have, and could still, be bought up by their competitors.* Questionable foreign policy maneuvers.* Transparently fictitious tax cuts.* Transparently fictitious spending cuts.* Inept appointments to Cabinet positions.* Factually sparse budget proposals.* Questionable handling of nationals security and terrorism issues.* Pandering to religious groups.* It is, as Goose said to Maverick, a target-rich environment.
This isn't newsworthy, it isn't particularly interesting, it barely rises to the level of trivia. I'm not going to support it by linking to any article referencing Obama's mustard problem. Instead, I'm going to chastise all you silly internet people who concerned yourselves with this.
* It is not a defense to say that President Bush did this first. We wanted "change," remember?
Labels:
Barack Obama,
Food,
Trivia
How Could You, Manny?
The Dodgers are off to a superb start. They often start strong, but this is different. They've been absolutely dominating. They're 21-8, far and away the best record in baseball, and they've broken the record for most consecutive home wins to start the season at 13. They could go 14 tonight against the might-as-well-be-AAA-league Washington Nationals.
And now this. Manny Ramirez suspended for fifty games because of a positive urine test for steroids in spring trainings. That's more than a third of the season. Ouch. He's leading the team in at the plate, batting .348 with six homers and twenty RBI. There's only maybe five guys playing ball right now as well as him, guys like Pujols and Youkilis and Cabrera.
Fantasy players, take note, because behind Ramirez in the depth chart is Juan Pierre. Pierre is a career .300 hitter, which is nothing to sneeze at, although he doesn't bring the same kind of power that Manny does (Ramirez has .641 slugging versus Pierre's .387). He is a little bit faster out there on the bases. Fortunately, 1) Joe Torre has a head for small ball as well as the swagger-stick version we've been seeing so far this year, and 2) Andre Either (.558) and Orlando Hudson (.538) are capable of extra-base hits.
But it's a huge setback to lose Manny for fifty games.
And now this. Manny Ramirez suspended for fifty games because of a positive urine test for steroids in spring trainings. That's more than a third of the season. Ouch. He's leading the team in at the plate, batting .348 with six homers and twenty RBI. There's only maybe five guys playing ball right now as well as him, guys like Pujols and Youkilis and Cabrera.
Fantasy players, take note, because behind Ramirez in the depth chart is Juan Pierre. Pierre is a career .300 hitter, which is nothing to sneeze at, although he doesn't bring the same kind of power that Manny does (Ramirez has .641 slugging versus Pierre's .387). He is a little bit faster out there on the bases. Fortunately, 1) Joe Torre has a head for small ball as well as the swagger-stick version we've been seeing so far this year, and 2) Andre Either (.558) and Orlando Hudson (.538) are capable of extra-base hits.
But it's a huge setback to lose Manny for fifty games.
Labels:
Sports
National Day Of Hypocrisy
Today is the National Day of Reason. This is getting almost no publicity. Rationalism, logic, and secularism do not sell.
It is also the National Day of Prayer. This gets a Presidential Proclamation. But unlike the previous Administration, that's all it gets. There will be no prayer breakfast in the White House and the President is not participating in any additional activities related to this purported holy day manufactured from whole cloth.* Nor will he participate in its Catholic counterpart. The promoters of the National Day of Prayer, Shirley Dobson (whose socially reactionary husband recently retired from his post as chairman of Focus on the Family, declaring the culture war "lost") are therefore holding their tear-down-the-wall-of-separation services near the Capitol building.
They are also issuing press releases, which has turned the event into a political football. Activist groups will use this ostensibly religious event to promote and support passage of H. Res. 397, the Congressional religion resolution to which I wrote a counter yesterday. Others will issue broadside swipes intended to encourage Christians to withdraw or weaken their political support for the President based on his failure to participate -- or excuse me, pretend to participate -- in their prefabricated display of public piety:
Instead, they are upset that President Obama doesn't publicly participate in their particular brand of religious behavior. Obama is no enemy of religion -- his political machinery was built in no small part on urban churches, he's expanded funding for the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (formerly the Office of Faith-Based and Charitable Initiatives) and he has prayers said before every public event he gives -- prayers that his aides edit with the clerics who deliver them.
Nor are they going to concern themselves with the fact that prayer turns out not to work particularly well at all. In a now-famous double-blind study, patients who were given the benefit of intercessory prayers experienced increased rates of medical complications as opposed to patients who did not receive the prayers. Now, the differential was not great -- almost as though the effect of the prayer were the same as pure, random chance. A reminder to you all -- if I ever get into cardiovascular trouble, I appreciate your good wishes, but don't pray for me. And if you want the country to get better, your prayers aren't going to do a thing one way or the other. They are not, however,"harmless" in that they divert your attention, time, and energy from more productive ways that those limited and evanescent resources could be used.
Finally, I'd like to point out that the promoters of the National Day of Attacking the President on Religiosity are hypocrites. These are the ones who want the government to promote a strict Biblical view of Christianity on the theory that the United States is somehow a "Christian nation." The merits of a government-sponsored National Day of Prayer were opined on two thousand years ago by a guy who it seems to me ought to be viewed as an authority on the subject of what good Christians should do:
Hat tips for links to Doug Mataconis and Howard Friedman.
* When you think about it, aren't all holy days just made up out of whole cloth?
It is also the National Day of Prayer. This gets a Presidential Proclamation. But unlike the previous Administration, that's all it gets. There will be no prayer breakfast in the White House and the President is not participating in any additional activities related to this purported holy day manufactured from whole cloth.* Nor will he participate in its Catholic counterpart. The promoters of the National Day of Prayer, Shirley Dobson (whose socially reactionary husband recently retired from his post as chairman of Focus on the Family, declaring the culture war "lost") are therefore holding their tear-down-the-wall-of-separation services near the Capitol building.
They are also issuing press releases, which has turned the event into a political football. Activist groups will use this ostensibly religious event to promote and support passage of H. Res. 397, the Congressional religion resolution to which I wrote a counter yesterday. Others will issue broadside swipes intended to encourage Christians to withdraw or weaken their political support for the President based on his failure to participate -- or excuse me, pretend to participate -- in their prefabricated display of public piety:
"At this time in our country's history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer," said Mrs. Dobson, who occupied a prominent seat in the front row for the ceremonies during the Bush administration. ... Some evangelicals said they were not surprised by Mr. Obama's decision. "For those of us who have our doubts about Obama's faith, no, we did not expect him to have the service," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. "But as president, he should put his own lack of faith aside and live up to the office." Referencing a remark the president made at a recent press conference in Turkey that Americans "do not consider ourselves a Christian nation," she added: "That was projecting his own beliefs, but not reflecting what the majority of Americans feel. It's almost like Obama is trying to remake America into his own image. This is not a rejection of Shirley Dobson; it's a rejection of the concept that America is a spiritual nation and its foundation is Judeo-Christian."Thus, the National Day of Prayer appears to actually be a National Day of Attacking the President on Religiosity. They seem to forget that President Obama actually addressed a prayer breakfasts only a few months ago, with no small amount of his trademark eloquence. Or that the President hosted a Passover Seder, despite not being Jewish. They also forget that what President Obama is doing now is exactly what was done for this "holy day" under Presidents Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton.
Instead, they are upset that President Obama doesn't publicly participate in their particular brand of religious behavior. Obama is no enemy of religion -- his political machinery was built in no small part on urban churches, he's expanded funding for the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (formerly the Office of Faith-Based and Charitable Initiatives) and he has prayers said before every public event he gives -- prayers that his aides edit with the clerics who deliver them.
Nor are they going to concern themselves with the fact that prayer turns out not to work particularly well at all. In a now-famous double-blind study, patients who were given the benefit of intercessory prayers experienced increased rates of medical complications as opposed to patients who did not receive the prayers. Now, the differential was not great -- almost as though the effect of the prayer were the same as pure, random chance. A reminder to you all -- if I ever get into cardiovascular trouble, I appreciate your good wishes, but don't pray for me. And if you want the country to get better, your prayers aren't going to do a thing one way or the other. They are not, however,"harmless" in that they divert your attention, time, and energy from more productive ways that those limited and evanescent resources could be used.
Finally, I'd like to point out that the promoters of the National Day of Attacking the President on Religiosity are hypocrites. These are the ones who want the government to promote a strict Biblical view of Christianity on the theory that the United States is somehow a "Christian nation." The merits of a government-sponsored National Day of Prayer were opined on two thousand years ago by a guy who it seems to me ought to be viewed as an authority on the subject of what good Christians should do:
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. The Gospel of Matthew, 6:5-6.Or, for that matter, what good Americans should think about their government officials telling them to pray:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The United States Constitution, Amendment I.But, there I go again, trying to be reasonable and logical about the whole thing. Praying earnestly but in private rather than making a hypocritical spectacle of yourself for political advantage wouldn't be very much fun, now, would it?
Hat tips for links to Doug Mataconis and Howard Friedman.
* When you think about it, aren't all holy days just made up out of whole cloth?
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
Domestic Politics,
News,
Religion
May 6, 2009
Some Sentiments On Global Warming I Can Get Behind
From Alan Stewart Carl at Donkelphant:
But, really, the skeptics’ fixation on proving the science false is just a symptom of the greater issue — namely that a lot of people are concerned that action to reduce CO2 emissions will drastically harm our economy without any serious benefit to the climate. [¶] If those who support combating global warming could drop the moralizing and adopt a “how can we do this without harming business” attitude, we might find more common ground.And that's really kind of getting to the heart of the real issue. Things that reduce CO2 emissions are likely going to be good for the environment in other ways, too. The focus needs to be finding a business-friendly way to help the environment because it's not written in stone anywhere that these two concerns are diametrically opposed. It is the case, though, that harmonizing these interests will be difficult and require creative thinking from multiple perspectives -- scientists, politicians, and businesspeople should be working together rather than at loggerheads if what they want is to find a real solution to our problems. But that something is difficult does not mean that it is impossible.
Labels:
Industry and Commerce,
Link Love,
Science,
Technology
Reprint Of My Resolution
Friendly Atheist has a post suggesting that you contact your Congressional representatives and urge them to oppose H. Res. 397. Well, if Congressman J. Randy Forbes can waste everybody's time with a toothless piece of propaganda about religion, so can I. My comment was to propose an alternative resolution:
What do you think, party people?
Whereas, the Americas were colonized by people seeking freedom from a government imposing religious choices upon them rather than allowing them to exercise their natural rights to follow the dictates of their own consciences, AND
Whereas, Baptist Christianity in America was founded by Rev. Roger Williams, who advocated the building of a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world” to protect the ability of religion to guide men’s souls to salvation, AND
Whereas, upon the founding of the colony that later became the state of Rhode Island, Roger Williams set the example of religious tolerance in the social sphere and civic government untainted by the influence of clergy in the political sphere, AND
Whereas, William Penn, the founder of the colony that later became the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, decreed as Governor of that colony that “perfect religious tolerance of all” be extended even to atheists, AND
Whereas, the Declaration of Independence makes no reference to the Christian diety, AND
Whereas, Thomas Jefferson authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which enacted as law the decree that “…no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities,” AND
Whereas, our political forefathers including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and John Hancock all went to great pains to obscure from posterity and history their personal religious beliefs in the interest of promoting national unity and individual freedom with repsect to matters of religion, AND
Whereas, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall make no law respecting the Establishment of a religion, thereby prohibiting Congress or any branch thereof from adopting H. Res. 397, AND
Whereas, James Madison, the author of the First Amendment, stated that “I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together,” and “Religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid of government,” and “The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State,” AND
Whereas, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently stricken down government subsidies for religious institutions, prayer in schools, the teaching of Biblically-inspired “alternatives” to science in public schools, and the use of religion as a shield against laws of general application,
THEREFORE LET IT BE RESOLVED that we here today condemn crass and craven attempts of certain politicians to use the power and majesty of the United States Government to curry political favor as contrary to the letter, spirit, and intent of the cumulated weight of three hundred and fifty years of American history and Constitutional law, AND
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we affirm our belief that the religious convictions and institutions of theistic Americans are surely strong and worthwhile enough to survive on their own merits, without the needless efforts of certain politicians to “support” the same, AND
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we affirm, respect, and urge Americans of all religious beliefs, including a lack of religious belief, to resolve issues of faith and divinity for themselves on an individual basis using their reason, life experiences, and personal consciences, and thus exercise their rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as intended by our Founding Fathers.
What do you think, party people?
Labels:
Constitutional Law,
Government,
Religion
Forty-Five To Go
The Governor of Maine today signed a bill authorizing same-sex marriages in that state. As with Vermont, this was a law initiated within the Legislature, not the courts, and which gained majority support in the political branches of the state's government.
Five out of the fifty states in this nation (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa are the others) now recognize same-sex marriages. Incremental progress is better than none.
Five out of the fifty states in this nation (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa are the others) now recognize same-sex marriages. Incremental progress is better than none.
Labels:
Same-Sex Marriage
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