Those we love to hate

These words are often used to demean or otherwise attack someone: “He is probably a card-carrying member of the ACLU.” And that is bad? Conservatives often rail about the constitution and how liberals are undermining the very principles our founders enshrined in it. Principles such as freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion (interestingly, no sane person wanting to be a politician or judge would ever admit to being an atheist, clearly a protected right under the constitution). The American Civil Liberties Union takes on causes that are clearly constitutional issues that affect the rights of all citizens. The cases often involve the bottom feeders of society or issues that are repugnant to most of us, but the constitutional issues are always for all of us. The next time you see the ACLU representing someone you find disgusting, or defending a practice you find repulsive, remember that the issue is not the person or practice, but the constitutional rights involved.
I wrote an essay about the Supreme Court overturning a law that limited the rights of people involved in the “crush” trade and in dog fighting. The law was a bad law. Overbroad. It is being replaced as you read this by a new law that is narrower and targets the offending trades. By overturning the existing law, the Court protected the rights of hunters, fishermen and many others to make, own and watch videos about these things. That’s right. These were illegal under the old law, although not challenged. Now we will have a law that does what the original was supposed to do.
This was a free speech issue, and the Court got it right. Put another way, here is what law professor Jeffery Rosen said on the Diane Rhem show this week: “The First Amendment is always for people we hate.”
Quotation: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010/04/22/126199842/why-did-npr-join-a-suit-to-overturn-the-law-banning-animal-cruelty-images-?sc=nl&cc=omb--20100423
Image: 43.photobucket.com/.../0_24_aclu_081105_1.jpg

GOOD NEWS!!!!!

There must be some good news, she said. Well, there is. This is the most gorgeous spring in a long time. A riot of blooming things: trees, shrubs, bulbs, perennials and the orchids are in bloom or in spike. The weather is near perfect. The world is at peace. Well, so there may be a few issues unresolved but on balance this is a glorious spring. We are looking forward to three graduations: TU, TCC and ISU. Graduation is always a good news time for us academic types. It means closure and you get to see the joy of families as their kids complete one dream and start on another. Then there is the trip to Las Vegas followed by a visit to Portugal (grilled sardines and Vinho Verde here we come), then tear out the bathroom. Then a new term and a bunch of new students (woody) and a bunch of new faculty (sal) and the fun starts all over again.
Let’s not overlook the economy either. Yes, the rebound is slow, but it is there. Signs of recovery everywhere (if you are still unemployed this may be a hard sell). Inflation is practically nonexistent, our industries are slowly but surely increasing output, and we are buying again. General Motors paid 8 billion back to the feds 5 years early for god’s sake. If that isn’t good news I don’t know what is.
Good news? Piles of it. Make your own list and enjoy the summer.
Credit: Thanks Sal
Image: www.masternewmedia.org/news/images/playschool

Remembering the Future

A while ago I wrote an essay about something and mentioned “remembering the future” somewhere. As ‘Woody 7.0” gets close thoughts of a truncated future begin to impinge on consciousness. If you listen to news at all, you will remember hearing phrases that end obituaries: Dead at 83; dead at 76; dead at 91 etc. Well, guess what? The time between 7.0 and 8.3 is only 13 years. Remember how long it seemed to take to get to your 13th birthday? Not bloody long. We are talking 13 summers folks. 13 Decembers, 13 Easters. 13 Chanukahs.
Time is running out. Well, it always was running out, wasn’t it? But it didn’t seem like it when you were 22. There is a neat way to stretch the future a little: Remember it. How exactly do you do that? Fairly easy actually. All you have to do is conjure a scenario of the future, say a trip to Portugal, fill in the details from any source available, and then remember it. After all, when you remember a trip that you have already taken, all you really have are brain images to rely on, right? Well, when you remember the future you have already experienced in your mind, all you really have are brain images. So what’s the difference? Not much.
In this increasingly virtual world, a lot of what we “experience” will be virtual, won’t it? One day I was wandering around in the “Eiffel Tower” in Las Vegas and heard a young woman actually say “Honey, now that we have seen the Eiffel Tower we don’t have to go to Paris”, and she was serious. That is just one step away from imaging the Tower and then remembering the image. You won’t have to go to Paris either. You think this is a load of old cods wallop? Some day when “Virtual Tourism” is a reality, and “You can travel to the ancient pyramids of Egypt from your easy chair” remember you heard it from me first. Why wait? Maybe you can fire up your Wii and bowl your way around Europe.

Image: www.edupics.com/hour-glass-t13661.jpg

Alvin and Pogo Got it RIght

“Unlike most past views of tomorrow, which look hopelessly obsolete (’nothing dates like the future’), the premise of Future Shock can only get stronger since not only progress itself, but the derivative of it, its increasing rate of change, exacerbates the core phenomenon.” (1)
The core phenomenon is the RATE OF CHANGE, which for the last few centuries at lease has been increasing. I got to thinking about Future Shock (2) this morning during a muse about remembering the future (another post coming soon) and in one of those moments of clarity realized that Toffler, 39 years ago, got it so very right. Toffler was talking about the accelerating rate of change of technology and the “progress” being experienced by many societies in the world.

“The premise of Future Shock was that the pace of human progress had achieved a level which would create a pathological reaction, a metaphorical motion sickness caused by the fact that nothing seemed permanent.” (1)

As I recall he did not speculate about the very substance of the earth and climate and the way change would be manifested in the natural world. But that is the reality. THAT climate is changing is nothing new or particularly scary. What is new and scary is the RATE of change that is leading to the compounding of problems. For example: The atmosphere warms and melts snow and ice exposing more land surface which adds warmth to the atmosphere. Positive feedback in which the RATE of change accelerates with each cycle. I ask my students to reflect on the causes of the current climate crisis and after some thought they get it right: Us.
And what about the technology? Well, just consider the penetration of Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, iPhones, texting and the rest. Think push button phones quickly replaced the dial? Ha. Think the weather where you live is a bit strange? Double Ha! You ain’t seen nothing yet.

1. http://smashingtelly.com/2009/05/01/alvin-tofflers-future-shock-presented-by-orson-welles/
2. http://www.amazon.com/Alvin-Toffler/e/B000AP5YBK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1271936114&sr=1-2-ent
Image: http://www.postkiwi.com/images/2005/12/pogo-we-have-met-the-enemy.jpg

The Supreme Court Crushed Laws Banning Nasty Videos:Warning! Graphic Image Below.

Just when you think “It can’t get any more depraved than that”, it does. The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the law making videos of dog fighting illegal is unconstitutional and that these videos are a protected form of “free speech”. The 8 to 1 ruling addressed the “overbroad” language of the law and to their credit suggested that a new, more focused law might pass First Amendment muster.
Included in the discussion were “Crush Videos”. Huh? Now I know that most of you sophisticates will know about these, but it took me by surprise. A sexual fetish where people get their rocks off watching animals of all kinds getting crushed to death. How sick it that? Pretty sick you say? I agree. There are fetishes that include feces, urine, vomit, spit and menstrual flow. There are fetishes that involve eating anything you can imagine. Who cares if someone likes to be pissed on or eat their own hair? What they do in private is their business.
But crushing a live kitten, or a puppy or snake or any other living thing so someone can watch and, well, you know, is way over the top as far as I can see. I have a generally low opinion of the human species when it comes to degrading behavior and have said in the past that I believe that if someone can think something up, someone has probably already done it. (And yes, there are lots of good folks doing good works too, so don’t get up my nose on that one.) Fortunately the depraved are a relative small sub-set of people. But they are out there and they are your neighbors.
Missing a kitten lately? Contacted your congressman about dogfighting videos and crush videos lately? If not, now is the time to write a letter or email. This is really nasty business.

Image: (There is speculation in the blogs that these images are either photoshopped or used a dead kitten. Does it really make a difference? )graphics2.snopes.com/.../graphics/crush06.jpg

Morons in Florida? Heaven Forbid.

Newt Gingrich:
NEW ORLEANS -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday that he thinks Republicans will repeal “virtually everything” the Democrats have done in the 111th Congress.
So the party of “NO” is also the party of “REPEAL”. I am not ready to give up yet, but I am getting close. Look at the latest from Florida: A bill that would remove the 125 year ban on state money being used to support religious organizations. I thought the big constitution had something to say about the separation of church and state. Am I wrong? Could there be a good reason? Can you imagine the State of Florida funding an Islamic school where the kids study the Qur’an, the girls (if girls are allowed to be there in the first place) have to wear scarves or veils or full body cover and everybody learns Arabic?
I can’t either, and then the next step is a lawsuit asking simply: “If you can fund a Christian school and a Jewish school why not an Islamic school? “ Not so easy, huh? And what about a Catholic school where pedophile priests are in charge? Why not? Indeed.
The moron Republican legislators in Florida are totally out of control and it looks like Charlie is the last hope for putting the brakes on. How’s that for irony?
I may be closer to giving up than I thought.

Image: filipinofreethinkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2

The Power of Prayer?

Photo: Adolf Ott, commander of death squads in the Einsatzgruppen (see link below for more on this) that executed (murdered) tens of thousands of Jews and gypsies for the Third Reich. Most of them were probably praying when they died. Ott died too. Eventually. His death sentence was commuted to life in prision and he was released, a free man, in 1958.

Doesn’t anybody besides me get tired of all the unanswered prayers in the world? The latest is the miners deaths in West (By God) Virginia. I don’t know how they “knew” that 4 were possibly still alive, but thousands of hours of prayer were poured out to see that the 4 got found and rescued. They were found. Dead. What happened to the prayer? One Pope or another has been praying for peace for hundreds of years and guess what? No peace. People pray that their children come back from Iraq and Afghanistan alive, but not all do. People pray for gazillions of things that never happen.
And, people pray for recovery AFTER disaster. Wouldn’t it be easier for a god to simply prevent the disaster? Look at Haiti. Two hundred thousand dead, mostly innocent of major transgression so the “god punished them” line won’t work. How about the “god wanted them with him” line? Dying in your sleep seems better to me than being crushed or dehydrated to death in a collapsed building. Couldn’t god have “taken” the trapped and crushed faster?
What is the conclusion? A loving god? I don’t think so. A caring god? I don’t think so. An absent god? Makes more sense than the first two. No god at all? Makes more sense than all the rest.
It seems to me that folks pray for bad things not to happen and then pray for deliverance when they do. They pray for good things to happen too, but when they don’t happen? You guessed it: god’s will.
When somebody gets really hurt, dangerously near death kind of hurt it’s “thank god they didn’t die”. Now pray for recovery. If recovery occurs “thank god for the recovery.” If recovery doesn’t happen it’s “gods will”. Huh? If the dude was going to die, why not quick and easy in the first place? If they are going to recover, why the near death in the first place? “God is testing us” or “god works in mysterious ways” or “we can’t know the mind of god” and other such nonsense.
Pray all you like, and if you believe in the power of prayer you may actually feel better about the world. Personally, I don’t think anyone answers the call at the other end of the line.

Einsatzgruppen link: WARNING!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF MURDER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen

Smooth-billed Ani and perverts.

The Story:

In 1964 or so, my colleague Fred spotted a nesting colony of a recent arrival to the area called the Smooth-billed Ani. A small flock was building a nest in a large date palm on Ponce De Leon Blvd. near the University of Miami. Fred was the preparator for the Zoology department and a good field man. Tireless, long legs and a great attitude.

Anyway, we took his old VW van and parked near the palm tree. Within half an hour we documented several Anis and were watching behavior when a Coral Gables police cruiser glided up behind us, parked, and out walked a large policeman. Slowly and carefully he approached us. (We were dressed in field clothes - grubby- and looked rough.) He wanted to know who we were (please produce ID) and what we were doing. It took him some time to wrap around the idea that we were watching a very unusual bird colony. He finally got to the binoculars and agreed the he had never seen this kind of bird.

The real story:

Across South Dixie Highway was an apartment building. Living there was a very observant woman that reported two perverts with binoculars looking into her apartment (the line of sight was behind and slightly to the right of the palm tree.) Now this building was quite far away, and how she spotted us in the van is a mystery , but she did. Coral Gable's finest cleared us completely and advised that the next time we were birdwatching in the neighborhood, we let them know.

All in a days work for a birdwatcher.

Fred and I had other capers that may surface in later essays.

Photo: - www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/PHOTO/LARGE/bna_B...

Ephebophilia: What the hell is that?

There are only a few basic strong drives in humans: reproduction, eating and surviving are the top three. Let’s see. Hmmm. What if you deny a typical human the achievement of one of these drives? They eventually will do anything to satisfy the drive. People kill when face with a killer. People do almost anything to get food: kill, steal, sell themselves, sell their possessions or their children, lie, cheat. You get the picture. Desperation.
What about reproduction? Well, we call it, ummm, errrr, SEX.
So. We take thousands of normal young males (Wait. Could pedophiles, pederasts, hebephiles and ephebophiles actually be attracted to the life of a priest because of the sanctuary they find?), feed them, secure them from most physical threats and deny them sex. Even with themselves. OMG!!! Spilling your seed outside a woman is a SIN. Just ask Onan. (Ooops, sorry. You can’t because God killed him for doing that.) The result? Some of them go off the deep end and get it where they can. Remember, though, it is considered a shameful sin in the Church. Some go to the weakest they can find. Children.
Why the hell is anyone surprised? I’m not.
But wait. There is more. After discovering decades of abuse of children and teens, the mother church covers it up and reassigns the offenders to other parishes where they continue to abuse. The cover up goes all the way to the Vatican. Surprised? I’m not. The Church has a long history of abusing power at the expense of human suffering. Time for a revolution. The peasants are revolting.
And the Pope says: “Ja, sie sind. “

Image: www.mintmuseum.org/.../coverup_72.jpg

"Life is a Cabaret, Old Chum."

Sal and I were sitting in an “Irish” pub in DC, having a pint of IPA, watching people and chilling. We decided that life is, indeed, a Cabaret. And as such should be enjoyed to the fullest as often as possible. We were also talking about Ann McCaffrey’s dragons and how they “wink” in and out of time. We decided that life is like that: You wink in at birth and wink out at death. From the abyss to life and back to the abyss. If you believe in heaven as a place to go when you die, then where were you before your conception? No where? That is the right answer. And you didn’t mind it or know it. Makes sense that when you die you go right back to nowhere. You see the contradictions, don’t you? If life is everlasting then it must be infinite in both directions. But it isn’t. You wink in at conception, become sentient and wink out at death. So there is no point in waiting for your “Rewards” after you die. If you want “Rewards” get a Visa card. Your rewards are in this life, this window of sentience, this Cabaret. Religion? Boil them down to this: Always strive to do good; Do no harm to anyone or anything; follow your beliefs. That should take care of business without worrying about the “afterlife”. (Have a treat and watch Liza Minnelli sing "Life is a Cabaret" on the link below.)

Image:eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=340941
Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O7H6qDsTe8
Lyrics: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/misscongeniality2/cabaret.htm