Calling a Thug a Thug

Posted on February 26, 2011 by ErgoOne

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy (a blog about the law, mostly inhabited by libertarian and conservative bloggers) today condemned a court ruling whose effect was to vindicate threats of violence by a group of thugs in Seattle against Seattle’s Metro regional transit system.

Here’s a synopsis of the case.  The thugs in question, a group of (mostly) anonymous individuals, disagreed with an advertising campaign that condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.   So they sent threats to the King County Department of Transportation to block Metro buses, deface ads, and commit other unspecified acts of violence.  The Department of Transportation then canceled the ad campaign, citing established policy against ads that were extremely objectionable, violated community standards, etc. etc. etc.  (You get the idea.)

Naturally, the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, whose ad campaign this was, objected to the ads being canceled because of anonymous threats.  The whole messy thing ended up in court, and on Friday the court ruled for the Department of Transportation.

Volokh takes exception to this ruling on the perfectly reasonable grounds that “behavior that gets rewarded — here, the making of threats — gets repeated”.  This is despite his sympathy with Israel (I believe that he’s Jewish), despite his decided lack of sympathy with most things left of center, and despite his expressed sympathy with the poor Department of Transportation, whose main concern was to prevent violence directed against its buses and passengers. He wasn’t afraid to call people who make threats of violence intended to inhibit freedom of speech, “thugs”.

We need more people who are willing to condemn all thugs, regardless of where they stand politically, and more people who are willing to uphold freedom of speech, regardless of whether they agree with what is being said or not.

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The ACLU Gets It

Posted on February 26, 2011 by ErgoOne

Today Sam Ritchie of the ACLU posted a truly wonderful blog on the ACLU’s Blog of Rights.  Apparently some nitwits fine upstanding state legislators in Iowa object vehemently to a display in the State Historical Building in honor of the ACLU’s 90th anniversary.  These legislators are proposing a law that requires that all opinions be represented in any display hosted by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, which runs the museums and historical sites in the state.

Instead of whining about persecution, as so many do when opponents criticize them these days, Ritchie challenged the ACLU’s opponents to put up their own display showing just why they object to the ACLU.   To quote him, “As we’ve long said, the answer to speech with which you disagree is MORE speech, not less.” Continue reading →

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A Married, Non-Celibate, *Nun*?

Posted on February 23, 2011 by ErgoOne

Today’s Washington Post has an article about a married German man who was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.  Although rare, that isn’t unheard of; it usually happens when a married man who was an Anglican or Orthodox priest, or (more rarely) a minister in another Christian church, converts to Catholicism.  I opened the story to read it because I have a mild interest in events in other Christian churches and try to keep up.

That’s when I found out that this man is married to a NUN?  And they’re not required to be celibate? Married priests have a long history in Christianity; they are the rule rather than the exception in many Christian traditions, although not usually allowed by the Roman Catholic Church.

However, there is no allowance anywhere in Christian Tradition for non-celibate monks or nuns.  The whole point of monastacism is that you are celibate and completely focused on prayer and service to God.  Married people can become monks or nuns, but a married person who enters monastacism ceases to live with their spouse at that point.  The usual practice in my own church (the Russian Orthodox church) would be for both the man and woman to agree to enter monastacism, usually after raising their children.  I understand that this was also a known (if not common) practice in the Catholic Church.   A nun who remains with her husband and is sexually active, however, is not only not normal — as best I know it has never happened before.

How is it that a reporter assigned to report on this story by the Washington Post knew so little about Christianity that she simply did not realize how unprecedented this was?   She missed the real story.

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Fun New Blog, *Mostly* About Archaeology

Posted on February 22, 2011 by ErgoOne

A new blog went live yesterday: Square Holes.  The blogger, Joe Jefferson, plans to write mostly about archaeology, but I would expect to see the occasional blog about trains (he’s a fanatic), other science subjects, and politics, with the occasional snarky aside about some notable bit of nonsense or kookery.  (He does snark very well; John Scalzi, look out!)

I can’t claim that this is an unbiased recommendation.  Joe Jefferson is my husband and the guy I see every morning when I wake up. ;)   However, he’s interesting, opinionated, and I think will take to blogging like a duck to swimming in the Truckee river.

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Libya: The Scoop (HT Mother Jones)

Posted on February 22, 2011 by ErgoOne

Yet another excellent roundup from Mother Jones Magazine:  “What’s happening in Libya Explained”.  If you want the background and timeline for the unrest (and, God willing, impending revolution) in Libya, this is a great place to get it.

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Earthquake in New Zealand

Posted on February 22, 2011 by ErgoOne

New Zealand’s capital city, Christchurch, was hit by an earthquake Tuesday at around noon local time.  Various media sources report that a number of buildings collapsed.  Over sixty are known dead, and others are missing and likely trapped beneath the rubble.  The city’s airport and main hospital are closed and being evacuated.  The steeple of Christchurch cathedral is down.

I lived in California for over twenty years, and experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area.  Although it was overall a more massive quake than this one, it also was farther from the city.  From what I can see in video and reports, the effect on people is roughly similar.  Christchurch residents need our help.

While I normally favor donating to small local charities, for a disaster in a different part of the world a donation to a large charity with good connections is often the best choice.   I like Shelterbox, a UK-based disaster relief organization, for most large natural disasters.  They specialize in providing temporary shelter, bedding, portable stoves, and similar equipment in areas where large numbers of dwellings have been destroyed, leaving residents with nowhere to live.  Shelterbox does not yet have anything up on their web site about the quake, but I expect that they are already making plans to go there.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) also does not have any information about New Zealand on their web site, but they are another fairly reliable group of organizations that you can donate to for disaster relief.

Please post other suggestions in the comments! :-)

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The “Nanny State” in College

Posted on February 21, 2011 by ErgoOne

In 1978, I was a high school senior looking at colleges.  Although I was a member of a conservative evangelical Christian church, I turned down a chance to go to a college associated with my church.

The reason?  During a meeting with campus representatives, I read the student code of conduct.  Among the rules was one that female students were not allowed to wear sun dresses with straps less than two inches wide. In disbelief, I asked the student representative and resident assistant who was there answering questions, “How do they enforce this? Do they *measure* them?”  He said yes.

Then and there, I decided that I would pass on attending this school.   I had no desire to dress immodestly.   I had spent much of my childhood watching what alcohol abuse did to my parents: alcohol and drug abuse held no attraction.   I wanted to be part of a community of fellow believers.   However, I also had no desire to be treated by my college as an irresponsible teenager.  So I picked a non-affiliated liberal arts college (Reed College in Portland, Oregon, if you’re interested) instead, and a few months later left home and my childhood behind and began my adult life.

Today I read in an article that a similar liberal arts college, Wesleyan University, has added some new rules to its 2011/2012 Academic Year Student Handbook.  Among them are provisions forbidding participation in any organizations not recognized by the school, even if those are off-campus, make no use of Wesleyan facilities and are not supported by student fees.  :/  I didn’t believe the blog that reported this at first, and so went to the Wesleyan web site and read it for myself.

The rules are outrageous.   I applied for an early decision at Reed, and had already been accepted for enrollment by February 1979.  If Reed had announced similar restrictions in their student handbook in 1979, however, I would have withdrawn my application and gone to a different school.  I can’t imagine that today’s liberal arts students will find an academic nanny state any more acceptable that I would have.

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Restaurant Owner to TSA Agents: Go *Away*!

Posted on February 21, 2011 by ErgoOne

Travel blogger and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott blogs about a restaurant owner near Seattle/Tacoma airport who, after a series of thoroughly unpleasant encounters with the TSA on business trips, in November posted  signs at all doors to his restaurant informing those who work for the TSA that they are not welcome.  If a TSA employee enters the restaurant and the service people recognize a uniform or face, they turn their backs and tell the TSA agent to leave.

I don’t blame rank-and-file employees for the bad behavior of their management, or the bad behavior of a few fellow employees.  In this case, however, those working for the TSA have agreed to take money to take nude pictures of and/or grope innocent travelers under the completely debunked excuse of “security”.  This isn’t one or a few bad TSA agents; every single one of them who is still working for the TSA fits into this category.  :(  This is not work that a decent person would agree to do for any price.   Any TSA agent who is a decent person needs to wake up, quit, and find an honest job.

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John Levine: A Politically Incorrect Guide to IPV6

Posted on February 20, 2011 by ErgoOne

John Levine, author of “The Internet for Dummies” and many other works on technology an the Internet, today posted two superb blog articles on IPV6. Here are links:

Levine understands how to explain networking issues to those who are not network engineers.  You really should bookmark his blog and check it regularly.

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About Mentally Impaired Illegal Immigrants…

Posted on February 20, 2011 by ErgoOne

…and mentally impaired people accused of being illegal immigrants although they are American citizens or nationals.

Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted an article on their blog about a crying scandal in American handling of suspected illegal immigrants: mentally retarded and mentally ill defendants in deportation cases are not provided with attorneys.  This remains true even when the defendant is severely impaired and incapable of understanding the case against them.  This remains true even when deportation would leave them abandoned in a “country of origin” where they lack family ties, social ties, or the means to get any help.

Fortunately the judges in many of these cases recognize that the defendants are incapable of understanding the proceedings or assisting in their own defense, and dismiss the cases.  Defendants often remain in immigration jails for months or years awaiting trial, however.  While in jail, they receive no care for their condition.  The consequences for them are severe.  This is all the more troubling because many of these defendants are American citizens or nationals who have the right to be in, and remain in, the United States.  They simply lack the ability to assert that right, and there is nobody to do it for them.

Illegal immigration is a fraught issue these days, in America and in much of the world.  There is a great deal of hostility towards those who are not legally in the United States, or who are simply suspected of not being here legally.  Many Americans are shamefully willing to see illegal immigrants left to their own resources and abused, even when the immigrant in question is entirely innocent of the decision to come to the United States.  Among these are minor children brought here by their parents, often when too young to remember living anywhere else, and mentally impaired people under the care of others.

We Americans need to quit taking out our legitimate fears of our insecure borders and severe economic problems on the innocent.   Whoever is guilty for allowing the current situation to develop, they are not.

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