A change is as good as a rest...

With that in mind, I've taken pity on my bad leg, and have been sorting out books for the last couple of days. I took all the boxes out of my office, and the basement. (Although there are still some down there.) And I'm going through them - paperbacks go to a local prison, hardcovers to the library.

But the ancient computer books? I think they're worth recycling, but little else. Who needs manuals to AutoCAD 97? Or Asymetrix's Toolbox? (Are they still in business? Apparently they are... How about that.) I also have a ton of books - literally, considering the size of these monsters - on some obsolete Borland C++ compiler. I think it compiled for Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 98. A load of manuals to software I no longer use, or even have. The disks were tossed years ago. And some instructional tomes on such diverse topics as Excel, Developing for MS Office XP, Visual Basic, its cohort VBA, and even a manual for Borland Prolog! The DOS version. (I remember that one being so non-standard it was beyond irritating.) Oh, and a couple of manuals for Borland's ObjectVision database platform/system/thingy. Remember that one? I thought it was wonderful, but it was too arcane for many. I remember my boss being very confused when I showed him an ObjectVision database that contained the details (what we now call "metadata") of the network I managed. People thought it was neat when I turned Excel into a drawing program, and drew conceptual and logical diagrams of all the national and international network connections (what we used to call the "WAN").

There's a lot of good stuff in those books. They'll be by the curb on recycling day. :-)

Carolyn Ann

This is good!

Fake Steve on the Baby Einstein recall. :-)

(Hat-tip to Pixebobo for the link.)

Carolyn Ann

Diluting activists

I've noticed two trends among activists, besides their fondness for shrill clamor. The first is a strange demand to be absolutely inclusive. The sort of thing where a comment has to include every perceived social issue if its to be taken seriously. A failure to mention some ism seems to indicate that the commenter is a closet bigot, and must be seriously taken to task for the failure to include whatever it is they didn't include. All of this dilution necessarily removes from the original point, if there was one.

The other is the lack of thought. Maybe it's symptomatic of being old enough that cops seem to be just out of High School, but I've noticed that the English language gets short thrift among today's activists. Heck, I didn't so much notice it as wonder how come it looked so bludgeoned! Ordinarily, I wouldn't care - if someone is careless with language, it always indicates that they are careless with thought, too. And their mutterings can be safely discarded.

Carelessness with language is nothing new, of course. Philosophers recently debated, mostly online it seems, whether they had to be clear in their written arguments! I think the conclusion was "not necessarily if, and or in, the context and the argument are within such scope and" it's enough to give you a headache. Of course you have to be clear! Some philosophical essays are enough to make a Bable Fish pack up and check into the nearest sanitarium. (Those seem to be ones that develop endless followers; it reminds me of the Bible and Qu'ran and other scripture. To be honest.) What was surprising was that this discussion was held with a century or two of really badly written philosophy as a backdrop.

In that last sentence, I had to carefully avoid saying "against a century or two..." because some idiot would think "Against? In opposition to. Aha! ... I wonder what he means? I don't know... He must be a bigot!"

It is simply a given that if you're not concerned about the language you use, you're not concerned about expressing yourself, and if you're not concerned about that, why be concerned about your thinking? Which seems to be a decent cover when you're either not actually saying anything, or your thinking is so muddy even you can't understand it. What is alarming is the number of people who read such whinges and cheerfully, even eagerly, agree with them. It's always alarming, although it shouldn't be.

One problem with this lack of interest in language is how it distorts thinking. The whole "cis" thing demonstrated that, more than adequately. The basic thought was to avoid "othering" someone, or some group. The concept of "the other" has been around for a little while; it's a stupid concept. It's a false political idea; instead of simply asserting that all people are equal, someone decided that those who were not being treated equally were being "othered". Or something like that. Careless thinking, indeed.

Witless language does include such laziness as mixing up its and it's; there, their, and they're and the invention of words and prefixes. It also includes the immediate justification of elevating a prefix to a word, while decrying the same when it's inconvenient. It definitely includes the attempted banning of a colloquialism simply because some use it in a derogatory fashion. (If we banned words on that principle, I fear we would run out of them!) Witless language does go hand in hand with witless thinking. (Although, to be fair, the occasional its instead of it's can be forgiven; a consistent failure to appreciate the difference, however?)

Witless thinking has, at its core, an inability to extrapolate. Sometimes it comes along because the person doing it is incapable of either critical thinking, or of interpreting a phrase, either in context or because they can't be bothered learning the language they are using. It is different to not understanding something; I can fail to understand your point but not be witless. (No matter what my detractors allege.) Witless thinking can also include the failure to recognize a useful, but generally meaningless, turn of phrase and perceive it as an important statement.

It seems the demand to be all-inclusive might be a different problem to that of careless language and witless thinking. But I can't help think it's a symptom. Sort of like a nasty rash being a major clue to which disease you have. The shrillness of the voice also helps mask the fact that you're not actually saying anything. The Internet has fostered an atmosphere where the shrill voice is the one most people will pay attention to. I point to Fox News as proof of this. They are consistently shrill, and consistently pointless. Like many activists.

When you put these two problems together with a shrill voice, you do seem to get award-winning activist blogs.

Carolyn Ann

Trans-Feminism? Anyone?

It seems feminists, these days, are in a bit of a huff with the tranny trans community. There is a disagreement about the definition of a woman, you see. This has been wrapped, for the most part, in fanciful language and has been turned into a debate about gender, gender roles, gender recognition and the like.

A bit of disagreement is quite healthy for an activist community. It helps everyone remember what they're actually fighting for. In this case, the dispute centers on a pretty important question, one that didn't really exist way back when, when women really were fighting for parity in pay, sexual and political equality, and so on. Now the questions are more esoteric and it seems some of the feminists have forgotten what the battle is actually about. Arch-conservative women such as Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schafly, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, and so on, have not exactly helped matters. Their solipsism started with Margaret Thatcher, I believe. But I think they can be safely ignored; it's not as if they actually add anything to feminist debate.

The newer debate is more about how to define a woman: is a woman born a girl, and becomes a woman. Or is a woman a plastic entity, incapable of firm definition? The diversion hinges on that last point. By asking "what is gender", and coming up with ridiculous constructs such as "gender is a social construct", the debate does not remain in one place; it goes for a very long walk. It becomes a co-opted debate about the plasticity of womanhood. Which surprises a lot of women, who perceive their identity to be fairly concrete. The resulting discussion about women's rights doesn't take Frost's road less traveled - it attempts to carve out a new road, but through the thickest brush it can find.

The discussion becomes one about transwomen's rights.

Small wonder feminists such as Germaine Greer get upset. Here they are, fighting a very real fight against men - and along comes someone who upsets the apple cart, and then demands to be heard as a woman! Simply because the debate has quietened down in the last few weeks doesn't mean it's gone away. It's still simmering, not that far below the surface. When it next shows itself, I expect the backlash to be quite spectacular. You might want to buy your ticket now.

The problem is not that the transwoman community doesn't have some of the same issues as women - it's that transwomen have some radically different concerns. Ones that are particular to them. After all, women don't worry about whether you need to have surgery, or how much surgery and/or fully transition to be counted as a woman. They don't have to deal with the street-level prejudice and dangers transwomen typically have to; although this is not to say that both groups* do share many of the same dangers. And transwomen don't have to deal with pregnancy.

(* Sometimes I feel that unless some inclusion is specifically stated, some non-thinking fool out there will assume that it is not included.)

As always, insisting that you are a woman, and therefore must be allowed access to all women's "spaces" is not exactly helping matters. It basically affirms Germaine Greer's countenance that all you're doing is extending male behavior and authority into a woman's arena. (Yeah, I know. It's an unpopular view. It has validity, which is enough to make worth considering.) By insisting that women's issues become gender issues, all the trans community (and their supporters) are doing is co-opting "the conversation". Instead of fighting for equality, it becomes a battle of who is to be included. That's not a way to fight for equal rights - however, it is a way of ensuring that they are never achieved.

Transwomen and women are not the same. Sorry, it's a simple fact. Nature screwed up and transwomen get to hold the short-straw for the rest of their lives. It's not a happy fact, it's not a sad fact; it's simply a fact. I know some people dismiss and deride this argument, but transwomen simply do not have the history or experience of being a female. Likewise, women do not have the experience of growing up in the wrong gender. Women simply do have a substantially different set of concerns than transwomen, no matter the number of concerns that are shared.

Considering all this, perhaps it is time that transwomen emphasize their own battle against prejudice? Trans-feminism, anyone?

Carolyn Ann

PS Are transmen included in this? I don't know. To a point, probably.

15 lids...

And 5 boxes. That's how many of each I've found in my clean-up efforts. We bought a bunch of plastic shoe boxes, about 3 or 4 years ago, and some of them became repositories for miscellaneous items. In other words: we I put junk in them. I probably needed a box, grabbed a plastic shoe box and my problem was solved. (Not really. I ran out of boxes for my shoes...)

Anyway, I found 15 box lids, but only 5 boxes.

Im beginning to call this the mystery cleanup. So much of what I find is a mystery. No more Chevy cylinder heads, though. Thankfully! :-)

Carolyn Ann

Net neutrality

Another stupidly hot topic...

How is it that the Republicans are crowing about freedom and trying to enable a complete lack of it, at the same time?

This little issue is one that will be with us for some time. It's a little technical, and the need for it seems to evade Fox News and Congressional Republicans alike. The issue is this: should the phone companies, who now control the DSL and Internet markets, be allowed to control the amount of bandwidth they provide to websites?

In other words: the big phone companies currently have a staggering amount of control over which sites can get preferential treatment. And they want to exercise that right. I haven't seen anything saying how, but if it's a phone company and it involves control and "fairness", dollar signs are usually just behind the claims.

In the first few years of the 21st century, there seemed to be a lot of Mom & Pop DSL/Broadband suppliers. The competition was amazing - and fantastic. But they all went away when the Big 3 - AT&T, Southwest Bell and Verizon - got involved. Basically the small shops were driven out of business. As a result, bandwidth is stuck in the lowest possible depths, service is pathetic, and the lack of competition in many areas (like around here) simply show just how bad phone companies are when they're given a chance to be a monopoly.

So now the phone companies (I think there's only two left, AT&T and Verizon) want to control how much bandwidth they give websites. So if you're a big company, like Google, you can pay for preferential bandwidth. If you're a smallish shop, trying to get a start - you probably don't have the money to get anything but desultory service. More sinisterly, once the capability is available - there's nothing to stop the phone company from deciding to stifle the traffic from a site that actively criticizes the phone company. Or its political action committees or its lobbyists. Routers are fast enough, and capable enough, to do more than simply throttle traffic at peak periods - the technology to look inside Internet (IP) packets has been available for over a decade. The models that can be used to throttle traffic dynamically are simple, and are used in some corporate networks. They're also used by Internet Hosts to determine traffic charges for a website; in other words: it's not a difficult technical problem. Even the mass roll-out of such a change is easy for a phone company.

What is not easy is ensuring that the privately held roadways of the Internet are treated for a common good.

We're not talking rocket science. But we are talking about the future economy of this nation.

If the phone company can act as a censor, or a brake, on a popular site - it can wreak havoc on that site. To fix it will require money - it's the only thing phone companies truly understand. How would you like to be in charge of Facebook's traffic and network connectivity? Or Google's? Or IBM's? Fox News could outbid CNN for rights of passage. It's not inconceivable that a local political party could pay (either legitimately, or (more likely) under the counter) to reduce the bandwidth available to an opponent. Neither party would be immune to the temptation!

If we are to avoid the monopoly (or, at best, a duopoly) on the Internet in America, net neutrality has to be implemented. No ifs, ands or buts. The Internet is a common good - it is not a toll road of phone companies.

(While the FCC is at it, they might want to think about restarting that highly competitive DSL/broadband market, too.)

Carolyn Ann

Grow a set, Joe

Joe Lieberman, allegedly Independent of Connecticut, has decided to play high stakes poker with America's health. He's taking on Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and Leader of the Senate, in a what might have started as poker, but has turned into a high-stakes game of chicken. Who will blink first?

What a disgrace. Senator Lieberman says that the high number of insurance companies in Connecticut has nothing to do with his decision to be vague, but scary, about his future plans. He's also a little disingenuous about his future on the Homeland Security Committee.

The point of contention? That infernal public-option thing. It's becoming a flytrap, and it's catching so many idiots, it's weighing down the chance of America ever getting decent, affordable, health care.

Considering that Connecticut voters favor the public option, Lieberman should be supporting it. But with the number of insurance companies based in Connecticut... Who can say who has the Senator's ear? It's certainly not the ordinary folk so beloved of Sarah Palin and her coterie of fools.

When will these allegedly responsible adults stop messing about, grow a pair and start acknowledging that people need help! Ordinary Americans need help - the insurance companies are running roughshod over everyone, right now. Well, everyone except Sean Hannity, and Congress. They've got decent coverage - it's the people like us, who have no options, no competition and a fear that we are one semi-serious illness away from bankruptcy. I wouldn't mind it if the public option was dropped (it won't start until 2013, anyway. Of what use is that?), but give us something you bunch of unthinking partizans, blowhards and well purchased hacks.

Something. Please. We shouldn't have to beg, but if it requires ordinary people getting on their knees, and doing so: I'll be happy to help arrange something.

Carolyn Ann

Flickr sets, etc

I just took a peek at the sets in my Flickr account. Wow. I didn't know that many had been created! Apparently iPhoto 9 creates a set for every upload.

Now, if Flickr had some decent management tools, I'd be a happy camper.

Carolyn Ann

Scalia gets more horrendous

If you doubted that was possible, just look to his recent comment that he wouldn't vote for Brown vs Board of Education.

How he gets from the 14th Amendment to invented rights is beyond me. As an originalist, he should know the slavery compromises were exactly that: compromises. At least one signer predicted problems over the three-fifths bit.

Slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for one purpose only: to get the southern state population numbers up. 3/5 of a person can't vote, so there was no danger of equality coming from that angle. Besides which, the actual issue of human rights and slavery was left to the states, also as a sop to the southern states. (They wouldn't sign unless slavery was a protected system.) The south liked slavery because it gave them a competitive advantage, and also because racism was perfectly reasonable, back then.

The whole thing boiled over in the Civil War; no matter what, slavery became the central reason for the entire thing. Fortunately, the north won. And then came the 14th Amendment, making all men equal. (Whether it covers women is a different debate, and an ongoing one.)

Justice Scalia somehow goes from equal schooling to, well, a literalist interpretation of the Constitution that's scary. He says the Supreme Court has invented some rights. I'm sorry - how? His argument combines the expressly banned and the not mentioned into one outlandish lump. Homosexuality wasn't outlawed in the Constitution because sexual conduct is not going to cause a Constitutional Crisis. He also says, incorrectly, that abortion was illegal at the time of the Constitutional Congress and that, therefore, means its illegal today. Poppycock and rubbish!

The fact is some states allowed abortion, some didn't. There was no practical way to prevent a woman from inducing one, so any laws banning it were generally ignored. To go from that to saying the abortion is unconstitutional is not just a leap, it's a rocket jump across the Grand Canyon, but he forgot the rocket.

The fact is some states allowed abortion, some didn't. There was no practical way to prevent a woman from inducing one, so any laws banning it were generally ignored. To go from that to saying the abortion is unconstitutional is not just a leap, it's a rocket jump across the Grand Canyon, but forgetting to bring the rocket.

What Justice Scalia should know, being an originalist, is that the Framers simply didn't include every perceived right in the Bill of Rights. That's why the 9th Amendment exists: it's not some meaningless, early 21st century, feel-good, mumbo-jumbo. It's a real amendment. It works in conjunction with the 10th. He should know, if he can successfully claim to know what the document really says, is the history of the thing! He should know that the 9th and 10th Amendments were put in there to cover the bits no one could think of. To ask, nay demand, the Framers expressly allow all perceived rights is a bit much! To say that the unmentioned right is forbidden is not a rocket leap across the Grand Canyon without a rocket - it's to try and do it without the rocket and by hopping on one foot! If he wasn't in the position he's in, his views on the Constitution would be dismissed as ludicrous and on the edge of logic and reasonableness. Never mind sanity.

Justice Anton Scalia is, quite simply, one of the most obscure interpreters of the Constitution I've ever come across. Notwithstanding the fact that he's paid to interpret the thing, he seems to be rather reluctant to read any of it. He consistently applies contexts that don't exist, and he seems to hew to an arcane originalist interpretation you have to wonder how he communicates with the female justices. (Does he send them to fetch the tea? After all - women's rights are not addressed in the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights.) I can only conclude that Justice Scalia doesn't so much interpret the Constitution and Bill of Rights as much as imposes a contemporary political view upon the document.

And the conservatives complain about activist judges? There's nothing more judicially activist than fitting the Constitution to your modern ideology.

Carolyn Ann

Republican tizzy

The Republicans really have got themselves into a tizzy. An upstate New York election has devolved into a spitting contest between Republicans and ... Republicans. Well, to be fair, it's between moderate Republicans and hard-line-don't-think-for-yourself Republicans.

The hardliners, who have managed to lose the two elections, are convinced, in that self-deluding way of the fanatic, that allowing any deviation from their "official" party line is the road to ruin, or worse: a Democratically controlled Congress. It doesn't seem to be noticed that most Americans are deeply suspicious of hardliners (or either political orientation), and that might be why they lost in 2006 and 2008. People don't want ideologues in power - they saw what happens when loyalty is valued more than competence, and they don't like it.

Carolyn Ann

Mayan Mask

I was wondering where this chap had got to! It's so nice to see him, again. :-)

Carolyn Ann

PS This replaces the previous post, which I deleted because it looked stupid.

PPS You can see a flash-lit version here...

Normal service will resume. Perhaps.

I'm astoundingly busy with house stuff, and a project (or three) I hope to reveal before I get too much older.

:-)

Carolyn Ann

It gets worse...

Apparently the cops use "automatic number plate recognition" cameras to track their dubious opponents, the domestic extremist. They keep the information about your journeys for 5 years.

And they won't tell you why.

Carolyn Ann

"Everyone who has got a criminal record did not have one once"

So said Anton Setchell, the "national co-ordinator for domestic extremism" for the British Association of Chief Police Officers.

What the hell is "domestic extremism"?

Turns out it's protesting. That's right: protesting. Not just violent protest, but any protest. The cops feels perfectly able to take your picture, track your car (everywhere, not just to and from protests, which is bad enough), and basically build an official dossier on you. But it's okay, really: there's "robust" protections for individual privacy. The first is, apparently, the secret nature of the databases the cops use, and have your details in. Apparently the cops also use "spotter cards", which allow them to keep an eye on potential troublemakers.

The Guardian has the details.

Anyway, the British police have decided that you, Mr or Ms Protestor, are a potential domestic extremist, and they need to keep tabs on you. But if you haven't done anything wrong, it's okay - its only the police keeping an eye on you.

Is it not enough that Britons are monitored pretty much continuously (for their own safety and benefit, of course)? Is it not enough that those damned speed cameras multiply quicker than rabbits? Pretty soon we'll be able to say that Britain is the ideal model of a Police State. The people get to vote their nominal leaders, and as long as no one comes to the attention of the police - they'll still be monitored, just in case the cops might develop an interest in you, and your lawful activities.

Perhaps someone in Parliament will raise questions about this ghastly, unnecessary and odious abuse of official authority. If so, they'd better watch out: the intelligence services might just open a file on them.

Want to know why people shouldn't trust their government?

Carolyn Ann

And the Yankees... WIIINNN!!! :-)

It's gonna be a Turnpike Series - the defending Phillies against the Bronx Bombers!

What a dramatic game to end the series on! 2 errors from the Angels let the Yanks turn a 1 run lead to a 3 run one, and that was, as she wrote, that.

What a tension filled series!

Carolyn Ann

A strange sort of ferris wheel

Sometimes, it feels like a huge, dark cloud is hanging over my every thought. Severe depression can do that - especially, I think, as I refuse and have consistently refused to take any anti-depressents to "manage" my depression.

I understand that the the chemical bits of depression are for life. The emotional aspects aren't, and can be managed quite well. Indeed, the moments where depression rules my very being are getting to be fewer, less intense and shorter in duration. I hazard that I will never be free of the ogre; but what I can do is get better at managing it.

The only time I ever entertained the anti-depressents was when I worked on getting out of that miserable hospital ward; because I was articulate enough, no one forced me to take their damned pills. It was touch and go - I thought the social worker wasn't going to release me because of that. (I often fancied she would do anything to keep the patients in there. It gave her relevance.) The doctors were savvy enough to know that if I didn't want to take the tablets, there was nothing they could legally do to force me to take their poison. One of the conditions of my parole was seeing a psychologist; I booked an appointment ahead of the authorities stating that condition, and, suspecting and fearing, any follow-up from the hospital, I went to see the evil woman. She prescribed enough pellets of incoherent goodness to make a planet happy. I took the scrip and ignored both her and her prescription.

In the intervening few years, I've learned how to manage many of the "triggers"; but sometimes I get it wrong. I'm getting better at it, but I still have a moment, here or there. Tiredness is one of the biggest factors, and, lately, I've not been watching my bedtimes as carefully as I should. Stress is another biggie; I doubt that's a surprise. Our lives have been a bit "stressful" of late; there's great promise in the future, but right now we're figuring out life from week to week.

Ah well. Life is a strange ferris-wheel. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. I try to the ascensions in mind as some part of my mind tries its level best to descend into a known cavern. Right now, life is good.

Carolyn Ann

Bereft of friends

he orders a beer

at the bar

a drunk with a fear

of going home

the married man

chatting up the girl

and she's a little worried

he seems a bit violent

but nice

you know

standing there

in his dapper suit

American Express Gold

in his hand

he lies to her

and she believes his hand

and wants him to lie to her

blond, maybe beautiful

we go to another bar

well, I went alone

and she was there

not for long

her pretty dress

turned foul

with innuendo

her beauty turned to dust

he didn't assault her

he did worse

she probably cried when she got home

(in a cab he paid for)

and then came the moment when

machismo was challenged

and he misunderstood

he landed on the pavement

bereft of friends

the cops

they laughed at him

and so did his friend

the one he counted on

the one he thought

understood

and he lay there

in a pool of his own blood

A sanctioned call

a miserable life

came to an end that night

with a call to his wife. (Sorry)

Call 911 he cried!

She did

He lived

and that was

Ouch. My head hurts.

Leave this pissant alone. He's drunk.

I am bitter

I am drunk

I defeated the other

and

I have no idea what comes next

Are you kidding I can barely type

I barely think

(as some, no doubt, testify)

I am bitter

for the endless dreams

the fear of sleep

you left me with

a night does not go by

without me fearing

its outcome

Thy claim thy art pious?

and being as pious as thou might

lead to salvation?

what if you have no idea what

salvation is?

fuck you, you arrogant sod!

I struck better than thou upon

the nose and regretted it not

in this nation

upon which I have lived

for twenty years gone

I see a virtuous people

a proud people

a rightful soul

and not that of thy fuckin' god!

I am but a servant of my lord

but I am

my lord

so I am a servant of myself?

Lest this be misunderstood: I am

I am

Insert the beautiful language of Bill

and leave this pissant alone

===

Carolyn Ann

National Treasure?

So I'm watching that Nicholas Cage vehicle, National Treasure. I'm at the bit where he steals the Declaration of Independence.

And the thought occurs to me...

I recall that Rick Santorum, an erstwhile Senator of Pennsylvania, saluted the "Christian" flag before the Stars and Stripes.

To all like him - those who put their religion before their nation: are you so ready to commit treason for your god? So eager to put your god before your nation? What is the Christian flag? Is that not an idol? Why is it more important than the Stars and Stripes? (And to those British Evangelists: why is the Union Jack more important? Than some facetious idea of hell and celebration?)

I doubt you can be called a true American if you really salute your god before your nation. You might count yourself as "Christian", but you can't honestly claim to put America before your pastor's interests. Who is your pastor? Is he truly American? Or is he testing your patriotism?

Which is it? America comes first, or your god?

If you count god before America: you are nothing. Nothing.

Think about that. If you can.

Carolyn Ann

And the Yankees.. Lose?

The Yankees are supposed to be have some of strongest pitching in baseball - after so many years (under Torre) with pathetic pitching, it's about time.

So the Yankees lose because of their damnable pitching?

What's with that?

Ah well. They'll be playing in the rain.

Again

Carolyn Ann

What's with the deafening silence?

I checked out a few activist blogs from Britons: nary a word on Nick Griffin's appearance.

What's with that?

Especially the feminist blogs. I thought the latest was that feminism and racism are kindred spirits? Are they not? (They are not, by the way.)

Is everyone leaving it to The Guardian to protest this? To "Comment is free"? Or what?

Carolyn Ann

A point of contention

Some have said that allowing anyone to voice their opinion automatically leads to a demand for the rest of us to listen to that opinion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let's take an opinion at random... Oh, let's pick on Christian Evangelism. The Christian Evangelist movement is told that corporal punishment is good for a child. Every whit of evidence to the contrary is, therefore, wrong. And yet - it's been found that violence, no matter the nature of it, has an adverse affect upon the child. Indeed, the child-parent relationship advocated by the likes of James Dobson is so close to abuse that I, a layperson in such matters, can't distinguish the difference.

The Christian Evangelist is also stymied by intelligent children. I often wonder how an evangelistic parent would cope with someone as willful and precocious, and as insolent, as I was? They'd probably have to beat me into submission. Which isn't that far fetched an idea for many evangelists.

But I was lucky: my parents aren't evangelists. (You should have seen my Mom when she encountered an American Evangelist; I forget of which variety, such distinctions are meaningless, anyway. It was a fireworks show! Her understanding of Christianity surpassed that idiot's by such a margin, he might as well have been a freshman High School student challenging the Pope. It was an educational sight.) I'm not sure Mom and Dad welcomed the results of some of their decisions, but here am I. Insolent to the point of nearly getting myself fired (the only reason I didn't get fired was because the fool was a coward), and with an allergic reaction to any sort of authority.

Anyway, should children be subject to corporal punishment? Is that a question? Of course not. But should the BBC give airtime to someone who advocates, in the face of clearly compelling evidence, that corporal punishment has a retrograde affect on the child? In the early stages of a dispute about the efficacy of corporal punishment - sure. When it has been proven that corporal punishment is adversarial to a child's development, and is socially unacceptable anyway? Not really.

Okay, let's pick on someone else. Should an avowed racist be allowed to fog up his views with his vague words and imprecise definitions and bombastic nationalism? Ooh. Now that's a hard one. I don't consider it the job of society to tell anyone what to believe, or what they can say. Get a milk crate, put it in an open spot on Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner, stand upon the undoubtedly illegally obtained milk or postal crate, and have at it. If you survive the morning, good luck on surviving the afternoon. (There comes a point where the reasonableness of allowing someone to speak whatever offensive nonsense they want is interrupted by the lack of, even negatively trending, distance between a listener's fist and the pontificators nose.)

Nick Griffin falls into that category. He has a right to his views. It gets difficult here... Does he actually have a right to air his views, no matter how shrouded he makes them, on the BBC? It is, after all, a taxpayer supported entity. (The world should be more grateful for the British TV-license payer and the BBC!) Well... He does, and he doesn't. If his BNP party was a major force in British politics, the BBC would be obliged to invite him. It isn't, quite. It is powerful. There's no question about that. Racism and anti-Semitism are not unknown in Great Britain; my wife can testify, ably, to that!

But as a publicly supported entity, is the BBC is obliged to air all views, regardless of their nature? Does the BBC have an obligation to allow on air, the leader of the latest incarnation of the British Fascist Party? cultural relativists might say yes. Fortunately for me, I'm not a relativist. The BNP is a reincarnation of that most vile of British political parties: the National Front.

But there's a little more to it. (Isn't there always?) The BNP, Mr Griffin's party, might be powerful and popular, but it is not yet a political force to be reckoned with. His political "philosophy" is a series of homespun nonsense and stupid outpourings of sentimentality. He himself is a farce, a walking contradiction. A racist in a suit is simply a Klu Klux Klan member wearing different robes. Racists don't want anything but their own fears, they don't want anything but fear and they worship the rule of "puritan", they deny what it is to be human. Like the Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, these racist worship the simplistic and stupid power of the boot, not the subtle power of the mind. The mindful, they will put up against the nearest wall and shoot. Equal rights are an anathema to the racist - they imply the non-white is equal to him, simply because he is. We all bleed red. We are all equal to one another.

I deplore the BBC's decision, and find little comfort in their egregious and evasive justifications for giving Nick Griffin the spotlight.

I defend the right of the racist to be racist. I do not defend his right to a public platform. I do find that the right of all to be equal is more than the right of the racist to force his words upon others. Much more.

He is a racist. He is vile. But society cannot censor him for holding those views. On the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable for vendors to deny him entrance to their business' because they hold his views in such contempt.

Carolyn Ann

Nick Griffin is not a Nazi...

Says he.

Maybe not, but he's so close to being one it makes no difference.

I thought Britain had done with the damn Brown Shirts? They morphed into the National Front and now call themselves the "British Nationalist Party". I suppose they took lessons from that old bigot Enoch Powell.

Bigotry will always be present, and it should have a light kept on it. But I think that's a little different to putting it on the TV!

I'm still trying to figure out what the BBC was doing. Like many others, I think.

Carolyn Ann

And another step in the right direction...

The Senate voted to approve broadening the definition of hate crimes. It also gives the Justice Dept some money to prosecute hate crimes when local law enforcement doesn't do its job.

:-)

Slowly, those in need of legal protection from discrimination, prejudice and bigotry are getting it.

(Which doesn't explain why the BBC felt it needed to put an avowed racist on their Question Time program.)

Carolyn Ann

Powers of observation...

This morning I decided to put on my Yankees t-shirt, to support them in their latest bid for the division championship. It's a grey t, with red and white block lettering.

Which might explain why, when I looked in the mirror, I noticed the t-shirt actually says "Indianapolis Motor Speedway"...

Oh well. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Okay, time to pick a version of Windows...

Okay folks, here's your new parlor game: Which version of Windows do you need?!?

Remember, Microsoft is touting "simplicity", so it shouldn't be difficult! Right?

Right.

Here are you choices:

Home Premium (from $120)

Professional (from $200)

And, wait for it...

Ultimate (from $220)

You can get upgrades as well, which cost $150, ... Oh, hang on.

Here's a table:

Version...............Upgrade Cost..Full Price

==================================================

Home Premium..........$119.99.......$199.99

HP + Standard Office..$239.95.......$399.95..Office only?

HP Family Pack........$149.99................Upgrade 3 PC's only

HP + Office.........................$149.99..Office only

Full Version..........$199.99.......$299.99

FV + Standard Office..$239.95.......$399.95

Ultimate..............$219.99.......$319.99

Ult + Ultimate Office.$539.95.......$679.95

(Dots are because Google removes extra tabs and spaces.)

Got that?

There's no Home Premium Family Pack full version, by the way. And I couldn't find the pricing for the Windows Enterprise edition.

Oh dear. I did find this, though...

Home Premium to Ultimate Upgrade: $139.95

Home Premium to Professional:.....$ 89.95

Home Starter to Home Premium:.....$ 79.95

What's "Home Starter"? Turns out it's the edition that may be installed on that new computer you just ordered. There's also a "Home Basic" edition, but that's only sold in some countries.

You might also want to bear in mind that it's Office 2007 you'd buy if you did the bundled purchase. Considering it's the last quarter of 2009 - I'd say that edition is getting a little old. (Wasn't it released in 2006?) Intuit has had to scramble because its Quicken for Mac is for 2007. Their appeasements are pathetic, but still: MS Office 2007? What's up with that?

Here's Apple's competitive offering:

Version................Cost

=============================

Snow Leopard............$30

Box Set................$169 iLife and iWork included

Family Pack.............$49 5 computers

Family Pack Box Set....$229

They've streamlined it a bit - you are now told to buy the Box Set if you run OS X Tiger. Apple started out by offering a $129 version, but it took the Apple community less time than it took to open the box to discover that the $30 version does the job. Also, Apple's Family Pack covers 5 computers, Microsoft's does only 3. (Large families beware, you've just been penalized by Microsoft!)

Admittedly, some versions of Office include an email program. OS X comes with one as standard. And the higher end editions of Office 2007 come with MS Access. Ah, you got me there. But a copy of Bento, pathetic as it is, is only $49.95. The alternative, MySQL and a few open source goodies, takes a little longer to install and configure but is free. Let's not forget that you need anti-virus protection, a separate backup utility, and (if previous Windows OS upgrades are any indicator) that disk containing the previous version of Windows; it checks to see if you're obeying the license conditions. (I don't know: does 7 do that? XP did, and I heard Vista did, too.)

So, remember: Microsoft's new mantra is simplicity. Their new Windows operating system surely exemplifies that. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Windows 7 Launched...

Today, NASA announced that their new rocket was ready for Windows 7. A spokesman said "We've tested it, and it can take Windows 7 wherever we want to go." A Microsoft spokesman, er, woman, said "It's great to hear that NASA is ready to use Windows 7. We could have built them a special version, but if the retail versions are all they need - that's great!"

The NASA guy looked confused. He said "We're not using Windows 7. We're just taking it where people want us to: outer space! We use Mac OS X Snow Leopard." The Microsoftie replied "We're glad Windows 7 is going into outer space!" And then she said "Ooooohh..." At which point she glared at the NASA guy and left in a huff.

An official announcement from Microsoft stated that "Windows Vista opened new possibilities for millions of Microsoft customers! Never have so many found a new target for their aggressions and frustrations. Despite the many warm and fuzzy reviews Windows 7 has received, we fully expect Windows to continue the invaluable tradition started by Windows Vista. Besides, 7 is a repackaged Vista."

I asked the NASA guy about OS X. He said "OS X just works, you know. You don't get too many errors, and it's got that Grand Central Junction thingie, and lots of other cool bits. We used to use Linux, but every time we wanted to get something to work we'd have to describe it in really itty-bitty detail and it was a bit like asking for the time and getting a detailed description of how a watch is made and it got very very annoying and so we switched to OS X and even though we had to redesign everything to make it look as cool and wonderful as an iMac and a MacBook and as useful and simple as the iPod and we used the iPhone interface a lot and Steve Jobs yelled at us when it didn't look just right or work as a Mac should we didn't mind because in the end it all just worked you know!" At that point, he turned blue and fainted.

Later, I asked Microsoft about Windows 7 and its packaging. They replied "Windows 7 comes in variety of consumer-friendly packages. If you buy it with Microsoft Office (which we didn't update because it's too soon since the last edition) you have approximately 12,561 combinations to pick from! We estimate you have a 1 in 1256 chance of picking the right package, which is a lot better than Apple's miserly 1 in 1 chance of getting what you want!" I felt a little faint. "However", the statement continued, "we expect retailers to stock only the top 7 editions of Windows 7 and the top 5 versions of Microsoft Office!" I asked about the launch parties Microsoft planned. "Well, Fox News had great success astroturfing health care and even greater success astroturfing the deficit, which as you know no one is actually interested in as long as it doesn't affect them, so we hired the same PR firm and they're astroturfing enthusiasm for Windows 7! We expect a lot of parties!" When asked how many parties Microsoft will send technicians to, they wouldn't tell me. "That is confidential information! We have enough technical support party specialists not-assigned, I mean available! that we could host our own party. Wanna come? You'd be the only one not employed by Microsoft. You can meet Steve Balmer! He promised to do his Dick Cheney impression. It's so like Dick Cheney you'd swear they were one and the saamme... Ooh. You don't think they cou....ld b...?" At which point the Microsoft spokesman was carted away by two large men in dark sunglasses and suits, wearing earpieces. Someone from the British law firm Carter-Ruck asked that I sign a "super non-disclosure" that said I'd never heard of Microsoft, or Windows 7, Windows, Steve Balmer, Dick Cheney, myself and the piece of paper I was to sign.

As a(n alleged) reporter, I also asked the Linux people about Windows 7. Last year. Experts say a consensus will be reached within the next few decades, and a press statement will be issued within a couple of years after that.

Carolyn Ann

Unbelievable, but oh so believable

A woman's rape is deemed to be a "pre-existing condition" by the insurance companies!

And people think the market is the best solution for health care? We need a public option!

Carolyn Ann

Another strike for the transgender community!

The New York State Supreme Court just ruled that a transgendered individual is not to be held to a higher standard than anyone else when it comes to changing their name. I don't know if the original judge in the case was confused, or just prejudiced, but it's nice to know that the rule of law applies equally to all.

Eventually the transgendered will be treated as individuals. Eventually.

Carolyn Ann

PS Of course, this ruling does not apply outside of NY state, but it sets a precedent. ... That the conservatives on the Supreme Court will (undoubtedly) hate.

The Bull

Whenever I see that Bull, on the tip of Bowling Green in lower Manhattan, I think "I used to work right there!" :-)

I watched some great ticker tape parades from my office, 25 floors up.

Carolyn Ann

PS The picture of Obama is included because I like him. :-D

In the gutter

I decided to clean the gutters, today. One had some serious debris in it, and a small tree. Seriously! It grew rather quickly.

Anyway, I got the ladder out and started scooping out the debris, a task that took forever because the gutters are deeper than average (I have no idea why), and there was a lot of stuff in them. Then I remembered that I didn't clean them out last year, and this spring I forgot; I as concentrating on my trip. So it's the first time in a over a year they've been done. In a woodland setting. No wonder a small tree was growing in there!

Ah well, it's done for another few months.

The way my shoulders ache, so am I.

Carolyn Ann

Huckleberry Finn strikes again... :-)

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.

A simple and straightforward statement. No wonder it incites so much hatred of its contents!

First things first: how did such a wonder come into existence? Well, the original Constitution didn't have any provisions guarding civil liberties, and the people of America had just gone through a revolution and war against a ruler, a governor and an army, all of whom dispensed and withheld civil liberties at whim.

Also, most of the States (Rhode Island being the exception) had laws that favored one church over another. Atheism was defined as a crime, and Jews were sort of tolerated. (Heck, even Maryland outlawed Catholics from government office!) I think it was Virginia that had a tax that went straight into the church coffers; Thomas Jefferson's declaration of religious liberty in Virginia put paid to that! One or two states had laws that required church attendance; tough tiddlywinks if you believed the Sabbath to be Saturday. Basically, the newer denominations were either outlawed, barred from meeting or faced an impossible job of raising money to meet. So the newer Christian sects began to campaign for fairness; ironically, a few of them are the same ones who now call for less religious tolerance!

Free speech was put in there because everyone remembered the draconian ways the British stopped it. Freedom of the press because the British were prone to shutting down the presses if they printed something nasty about the governor or the monarch. The English Bill of Rights (1689) wasn't thought to apply outside of the UK...

Fast forward to contemporary history, and what you have is a situation where people on the left and the right tell us that certain speech and expressions must be banned. Usually they want to ban whatever to protect, erm, free speech. (Some things never change, by the way.) There always seems to be some idea of protecting something, a bit of culture, someone's sensibilities, a standard of decency, a whatever. You can't wear your pants like that because it's indecent; men can't have long hair, or wear earrings, because it makes them effeminate (here, we're starting to define gender roles), women can't wear pants because it's not feminine, and so on. You can't say that because this group, or that group, will be offended. You can't protest this because to do so is harken back to the days of the KKK. Believers must believe a certain way, any other way is apostasy. Unbelievers are to be penalized, because this interpretation is the one true interpretation. And so on. People want to apply plenty of restrictions.

A corollary that always accompanies restrictions is that some authority must be respected. Not, you note, some individual sensitivity, but some authority. The usual one is the authority of the church, or the father in a "Christian household". We see this in the age-old demand that we respect our elders. Asking "Why?" is deemed, rather simply, not to be a question! An army runs on discipline and respect for authority; a democracy can never do so. A democratic institution might warrant respect (the British Prime Minister, the American President, an MP, a Member of Congress, etc), but the individuals who hold those offices have to earn the respect of their constituents. It is not automatically granted, even in landslide elections. They may gain authority, but that is different to respect. And they do not have the authority to demand you like them!

In a democracy there is always the temptation to curtail what someone can say. In a dictatorship, this is never a problem - you're only allowed to say certain things, anyway. Uttering the wrong thing can be detrimental to your health and not favorable to your continued existence. If you offend the ruling junta, or challenge its authority in any way, you will find yourself in a perilous position. What is the similarity between curtailing speech because it offends and subjugates someone, and the dictatorship?

Social pressures can act quite effectively to prevent certain speech. Two South Carolina Republicans just discovered that mean-spirited syllogisms are offensive; they ended up apologizing for their inane and actually anti-Semitic words. Jan Moir is finding out that public condemnation is quite powerful - as it should be. But officially barring her sentiments would be the wrong thing to do.

Ms Moir's words are despicable; they hold no inherent value whatsoever. But is that enough to preclude them being printed? Another writer, in the US, wrote a story, long ago, about a boy who seriously questions the morality of not returning a slave to his "rightful" owner. Huckleberry Finn never seems to the list of books parents want removed from libraries. No, I am not comparing the literary value of Mark Twain to Jan Moir (she doesn't even warrant being the rag with which other, more worthy writers, can use to shine Mr Twain's shoes), what I am comparing is their ability to offend. Mr Twain offends because people fail to read his story (they seem to skim it and find it offensive; these individuals never seem to think about his story. Nor its timelessness.) Ms Moir offends because her words simply are hateful. Ms Moir's words will be remembered by the staff of the Press Complaints Commission and the Daily Mail solely for the quantity of outrage expressed against them. I repeat: there is no intrinsic value to them.

But we can't ban her from writing whatever she wants.

An example of hate speech was on Dru's blog, it was a comment to another Daily Mail news article:

One of her flock, no doubt. Perverts are like irrepairably broken machines. Can't be fixed. Should be disposed of. Rid the world of their defective genome.
- Ray, Liverpool, 17/10/2009 18:19

Ray of Liverpool was responding to a story about the death of a woman. Apparently the story revealed something about the woman's history: she was a transwoman. Dru wondered if it was legal to publish such information (turns out, the relevant law says nothing about such things, meaning they are legal).

There's two issues at stake, both related to free expression. One is the woman's history - if we are denied to report facts, because they might be inconvenient to an individual, how can we also claim that Trafigura's quashing of a press investigation was immoral, or against the public interest? Society should not be in a position of dictating what can and cannot be published in a newspaper. Which is why the 1st Amendment contains the bit about freedom of the press.

Is the woman's history relevant to the story of her murder? Perhaps, perhaps not. Is its telling important within the framework of story telling? It's actually essential! Do people have a right to know someone's history? The public bits are open for discussion, whether the public has a right to know depends entirely on context. As even the most draconian dictatorship has found out: you simply can't stop gossip, and it's impossible to try. (If her history is unimportant, is the private history of a gay-bashing, virulently homophobic, Congressman to be concealed, as well? How about the raging homophobic pastor's personal history? I'm sure the names of the two hypocrites can't be too far from your mind.)

Now, Britain has a peculiar history with the press. The tabloids have basically abused the idea of freedom of the press; their wild reporting resulted in a desultory "Press Complaints Commission". Clearly, there is a conflict between a free press and this body, but it's not one I'm going to address, here. That is was required indicates something amiss!

The other bit of Ray of Liverpool's words is that it turns out they are hate-speech in the UK. And, as such, can be investigated by the police. (Who, it seems, are doing so.) In the US, as reprehensible as such speech is, the police do not have any jurisdiction. His right to offend is protected by the 1st Amendment. He can be reviled for his words (and should be), but he can't be prosecuted for them. He can't be investigated for them. Ironically, if he was investigated for his hate-filled words, he would likely find the local ACLU chapter providing legal assistance to him! No matter how hateful the words - the right to say them is to be preserved.

That's why the ACLU defended the American Nazi's who wanted to march through Skokie, Illinois. A Jewish lawyer took the case, and the march went ahead. Why Skokie? It turns out quite a few Holocaust camp survivors lived there. This case is often forgotten by those who decry the ACLU. The idea is that only by exposing the putrid ideas to the sunlight of public scrutiny will they be truly defeated. That's why so many closet racists and anti-Semites stay in the closet - they truly don't want to be identified with their own odious beliefs.

In any free society you will find someone who is willing to offend others. This person might be offensive, inane or even ridiculous, but society - through its government - has no right to silence that individual. For a few reasons: because the 1st Amendment gives him the right to be offensive if, because imposing thoughts on another is immoral, and if you silence one line of thought, is the next one so far away as to be untouchable?

That's the more important one, the foundation of the First Amendment. If I hold views you find reprehensible, you might try to pass a law preventing me from stating them. Because bills of attainder are also illegal (and immoral), the resulting law has to be fairly broad. Let's say you author a bill banning speech that may offend or cause mental harm to someone else. You add in a further clause: you don't want the targeted group to be subjugated, so you go on to say "no one can subjugate another". You get the law passed, and I am silenced. I can now use your own law against you. Because your law offends me, causes me mental anguish as I try to resolve my thoughts and bring them into line with yours. You have imposed your views upon me; I am banned from holding mine. Your views assume a grand status, and your thoughts now exceed mine; equality has been discarded in favor of preventing offense to some group.

What if the offending group was a group of slave-owning plantation owners?

They wanted to keep slavery (not for moral reasons, but purely for economic ones) - and some states did pass laws that said you couldn't question slavery. Never mind if slavery is immoral or not - which is more immoral: the idea that you can prevent me from objecting to slavery, or the fact that some find slavery economically beneficial?

How do you, if you deem the offensive to be offensive, address the concerns of someone who sees an entire neighborhood changing, immigrants moving in and changing the nature of the area he or she grew up in? Have spent their entire lives in? Are they racist because they don't like the change? Should they be silenced, lest they offend their new neighbors? (As long as no one stops the new neighbors moving in, I see no issue in the person voicing their concerns, dislikes and so on.)

(Important point: your right to swing your fist in a bout of self expression ends at the tip of my nose. Rhetorically speaking; in my case, try that with me and it's likely to end a little sooner.)

Some men, particularly fundamentalists, deem it offensive to even consider the idea that women are equal to themselves. Some nations have enshrined in law their insistence that it is offensive to criticize the national religion. Are they to be respected, and not judged as immoral, simply because saying that such laws and attitudes are offensive is offensive?

It is not an unimportant, or irrelevant, argument. It is the very essence of free speech: can you utter the offensive? If you say "no", I'll let you decide how you're going to define what is offensive, what to do about satire and irony, and also decide how you're going to handle such wonders as Huckleberry Finn. I'll also let you figure out how you're going to persuade everyone else that what you consider offensive actually is offensive.

So, how do you ban Huckleberry Finn?

Carolyn Ann

The things you learn!

--- This is a slightly altered version of a comment I made on Dru Marland's blog. Ms Marland had written her opinion of Jan Moir's odious bit of nonsense. ---

It was with quite a start that I realized something, yesterday morning. Alas, time did not allow me to think about it, or mention it. I read Chrissie's comments over on Dru Marland's very interesting blog, and suddenly realized that in the UK, free speech is defined substantially differently to how it is in the US.

For some time, I've had a suspicion it was, but I didn't connect the dots until yesterday morning. When the dots pretty much flung themselves together, the boom in my head was heard as far away as the kitchen! (My Mrs thought my muttered "Huh! How about that?!" to be something important; but as it was my first sip of coffee, she decided to wait and see if I recovered. Perhaps the coffee was good?)

How about that? I guess Britain has changed, over the last 20 years, more than I thought it had. I can remember discussing free speech as a wee 'un of about 10 or 11, and my Dad maintained that you don't have to like what someone says, you just can't silence them in saying it. Such thoughtfulness is one reason why I love the 1st Amendment; Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 also made a deep impression on me when I read it in 1979. I still have that paperback; it is one of my most treasured books.

Jenna McWilliams, by coincidence left a comment on my post about Jan Moir's piece (not to tout my mutterings) reiterating my revelation.

I freely admit that I'm a 1st Amendment absolutist. I do not understand why anyone would want to deny the hate-filled a place in the sun, where its true notoriety and obsequiousness can be readily seen, and examined. And perhaps poked with a stick. I have a lot to learn, apparently!

What Jan Moir wrote was horrible, vile even. But while I deplore it, I can't bring myself to defend any silencing of her. My fear is the same one Thomas Paine had: if someone can silence her, when will they get around to silencing me? [More on that in the next post.]

On the other hand, if Ms Moir is willing to write such odious stuff, she has to be ready to accept the linguistic and literary bric-a-bats and cricket bats that get thrown her way. Freedom of expression doesn't mean the odious gets a free ride! (Cultural relativism, on the other hand, does mean the odious not only gets a free ride, some idiot sends a nice taxi for it to take that ride.) I think some many confuse that point.

Thanks, Dru; thanks, Chrissie! I learned something important, yesterday. :-)

Carolyn Ann

PS I will be cross-posting some, perhaps most, of this on my blog. I also need more coffee.

The Yankees ... Win!!! Finally...

Wow, that was some game. 5 hours and 10 minutes, 13 innings. And the Yankees win because the Angels shortstop screwed up. He should have been expecting the ball, even if the logical place to throw it was 1st base. He wasn't, so he missed the ball, allowing the Yankees to win.

What a nail biter!

Carolyn Ann

PS I missed the Formula 1, today! Damn it.

Bento - The amoeba of databases

I need a way to model a database - trying to do it in Numbers (Apple's rather feeble spreadsheet) just wasn't working. "Aha!" I thought, "I'll download the trial version of Bento and see what I can do with that!"

Not a lot, apparently.

Bento, sold by Apple's wholly-owned Filemaker subsidiary, is, I think, Apple's answer to Microsoft Access. It's cheaper, and, well that's about it. MS Access is a fairly sophisticated offering; it can even handle small multi-user setups. Not well, but if that's all you need, it's perfectly fine. It has a really good interface, albeit one based on the Windows paradigm, and it helps get around many of the problems of building a database, especially for those who don't do that for a living. One the important things it does is support multiple table and many-form databases. It's not good at big databases; heck, it starts to have fits if you approach it with a medium sized database! (What's a medium sized database? One that's not a small database... I'd say, something in the region of over a few thousand, and Access is likely to have a problem.)

Well, it turns out that Bento is so simple it's... One table, and one form. I thought they'd gotten away from that? The first version was one table, one form, one database. At least you can now have more than one database, but you're still restricted to a single table, and that is managed through a single form. In other words: it is pathetic.

Apple advertises Bento as a simple database. I suggest they change that. Bento is the amoeba of databases. In fact, I'm still trying to figure out how it got classed as a "database" and not a pathetic excuse for an app.

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

Carolyn Ann

PS I should note that I do like to model a database and then play with it, which is why I like MS Access so much. But I can't do that right now, because I don't have Windows installed on this machine. (Perhaps I should check out Wine? If it supports the version of Windows-based MS Office I have (2003), I might be able to get it all working! :-)

Just an observation...

Venturing out into woodland at night, with merely a flashlight, is not something I'd recommend. You see all sorts of double-reflections shining back at you. Mostly from close to the ground, but not always.

Of course, nothing can quite beat the experience of hearing a bear snuffling around your campsite. Especially when you wake up and realize that the bear is about 3 feet from your head. And there's 18 inches of space between you and the tent wall...

Carolyn Ann

Take me to your leader

I was just thinking about this "following" thing. If a Martian said to me "Take me to your leader", I'm as likely to take them to see Bongo as President Obama. (Gordon Brown? He's a leader? Since when?)

Okay, here's a picture of my leader:

... and ...

(That's Max. She has me wrapped around her cute little paw. :-) )

Okay, leaders. :-)

Carolyn Ann

(The second picture was taken before I had all the glue stains removed. Jeez, they were a "challenge". (If you lay vinyl tile, don't get glue on the tile. It's the very devil to remove!) The first picture, I should explain, was taken when I lived in what is now the dining room. We'd just moved in, and the bedroom was the "dumping ground" for any and all boxes that didn't have a home. Which was all of them. It The dining room was also the only room with heat. My bedside table was an empty cat litter container. Bongo didn't care, and neither did I.)

I lost a follower

I had reason to go to the "Blogger Dashboard", once again. I noticed my "Follower" list had dwindled; being somewhat prone to remembering numbers, I know I once had 6 followers. Now I have 5.

This led me to investigate: what is a follower?

It turns out I actually follow (hang on a minute...) two blogs: Lynn's cleverly named 'Yet Another T-Girl Blog" and Alan's astute "Lost in a world awhirl". I did not know that. I'm sorry to say, I have no idea how I came to actually follow Lynn and Alan. I hope they don't mind.

I saw the "followers" section on T-Central, but thought it was some sort of nirvana meeting. Or something. It does have a lot of people listed; I guess they use Microsoft Windows or antique versions of OS X. The latest versions of OS X freak out with the bludgeoned widgets of T-Central.

Dozily, I have noted some blogs have "followers" sections on their sidebars. I didn't think much of them: "oh, this person must be popular. They must say what people like to hear!" I now know different. Thinking back, I don't know if people like them, or not. Following someone does imply a certain affection for what they say.

Unless you've read Machiavelli. In which case your friends are upset because your enemies have your feigned affection. :-)

Just sowing discourse. What would the world be if we all treated our enemies as such?

So I lost a follower. I can't say I'm upset - the idea of someone following me is quite disconcerting. I never want to be responsible for someone's sense, or lack thereof, of direction. I have no sense of direction. None. In other words: Don't follow me, I have absolutely no idea where I am.

Carolyn Ann

How darest thou?

In another controversy, French Vogue has caused a stir by painting a white model black. In a sort of an extreme version of those old black-face routines comedians did, the fashion magazine has gone beyond the controversial, and straight into... Racism?

(Pictures are on the Jezebel site).

I don't think the creator of the piece, Carine Roitfeld, nor the photographer Steven Klein, thought about the political implications; my guess is they only thought about extending, and challenging, the boundaries of fashion photography.

But there is a problem - the pictures clearly do challenge ideas about beauty and race. There's actually a lot going on in the pictures. In terms of controversial art, there's not a lot of difference between these pictures and Damien Hirst's pieces, or Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary". I once saw a piece that was beautifully lit; the top was a sweet looking rabbit, but the bottom was the bottom half of the same rabbit. The result was repulsive. But it was art.

Art does not have to restrict itself to that which is acceptable. In Straubing, Bavaria, 1,250 gnomes bearing fascist salutes have been placed. Is this meant as a tribute to the Fascists, or as a very profound criticism, not just of Nazi's, but of ourselves? It's the latter, but many people take the piece at its face, and proclaim it as supporting the Nazi's. Art can be provocative. Whether a piece hits its mark or not is actually a different discussion; the social value is inherent in deciding whether the piece is worth our attention or not. The monetary value is irrelevant.

Jezebel, a US based blogging network, is less than ambiguous. "Jenna" (we are denied knowledge of whom this critic is) is less than intelligent honest in her assessment of the photographs. She is so intent upon imposing American mores upon the French that she forgets: American history is not global history.

Jenna asserts that because Klein (the photographer) is American, he must know the history of blackface; as such, he should refrain from anything that could be devolved into racism. What a ridiculous, and stupid, idea. The pictures stand apart from racism - they are challenging, they are beautiful in a disturbing way, and they are art. Indeed, I'd argue they indict racism. I'll go further: anyone perceiving these pictures as racist must be looking at them with a prejudice in mind.

Of course, matters are not helped by French Vogue; they say they are unaware of any controversy. Yeah, right. But that's neither here nor there.

The pictures challenge the viewer. That's all. Do they contain objectionable content? Sure. Is it verboten content? No. Does it challenge us? Yes. Does it make us feel a little uncomfortable? Certainly. Is it deliberately racist? Not for a moment.

Art is not some Thomas Kinkade print, all cheerful light and (allegedly) Christian goodness. Art challenges, explores, upsets, comforts. If that art is commercial: who cares? All art is commercial. Fashion is commercial. The art of bleeding edge fashion is not going to make us comfortable. It's not going to fit with what the general public views as acceptable, decent or reasonable. It exists because it is not those things. It challenges us all - the feminist who views fashion as a misogynist patriarchy, the decently pious and the fashion observer who can't tell her elbow from a statement about society.

Are we to be restricted, even in the forefront, so distantly in front of us we can't see them, are we to be restricted to that which does not challenge? That which does not play with our perceptions, and in doing so challenge and defy us? Are we to be perpetually afraid of each other? Must we be so timid, lest we cause offense, that art becomes a rote, a misery, of Jodi Picoult and Salvador Dali? The genius is to be mixed with the miserable?

How dare we call ourselves enlightened if that is the case. How dare we.

Carolyn Ann

Wow. That was a leap!

Quite a controversy, indeed: Jan Moir, a writer for the Daily Mail in the UK, wrote a piece about a singer's death. He died of natural causes while on vacation in Spain with his "civil partner". In a leap of logic that the likes of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the Reverend Phelps and so on would be proud of, Ms Moir equated the man's death with his homosexuality. If that wasn't enough, she then made an even stranger leap into fantasy by arguing that the man's death showed how civil partnerships are the real problem.

People are, understandably, quite upset about this. They've complained to the Press Complaints Office (an official body that supposedly polices the press), but they're hamstrung until the man's family lodges a complaint.

Jan Moir, in the meanwhile, has not helped her case by confusing a sudden and vigorous protest with an organized effort. Her defense of the odious op-ed starts with "In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign..." I don't think there was anything orchestrated about it.

Ms Moir's leap of logic was not just brazen, it required chutzpah. Not that such leaps haven't been made by the likes of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck (erm...) Sean Hannity, et al. (Glenn Beck is a leap of logic. If logic comes anywhere near his thinking, he fetches a rocket so his leap places the most possible distance between himself and the logic.) American audiences are used to such inanities; indeed, I don't think they'd find anything particularly disturbing in her words. Many of them listen to their preachers making those comparisons every Sunday. Just before they go worship Mammon at the local WalMart.

So, in case you're not clear on this: Gay chap unfortunately dies while on holiday. He's in a civil partnership with another gay chap. Ms Moir goes on to draw the following conclusions: Ergo, his death must be because he was 1, gay and 2, in a civil union. Or is it the other around? I'm sure that doesn't matter. Oh, I forgot: civil unions are bad because, apparently, they aren't the same as "traditional" marriage. (So, where, exactly, is the groundswell of protest against that bastard of a compromise, the "civil union"?)

I like this controversy. It's free speech meets popular anger.

Oh, I don't like Ms Moir's words - her blatant homophobia is hateful, her article reprehensible. She is, apparently, without any shred of decency, nor does she respect anyone who lives their life as they see fit. However, I do like that she could voice her opinion, and I love that she is held accountable for it. We don't have to like what someone says, but we do have to ensure they are not silenced because we don't like what they say. What's the point in allowing only acceptable speech to be uttered? All in all, a wonderful example of how free speech should work.

Carolyn Ann

Execute the guy for different reasons, already!

It seems a jury in Texas consulted the Bible before deciding to sentence a man to execution. His attorneys, as you might expect, are arguing that the verdict should be overturned - the Bible has no place in the jury room. (It doesn't. Think about it: if you're a Jew, and are deliberating whether to execute a Christian? Or you're Christian, deliberating whether to execute a Muslim?And some Baptists don't even need a crime to condemn the gay, the tranny and/or the atheist to a fiery grave.)

Anyway, considering that the guy committed the crime in Texas, and is being executed in Texas, you'd think the Texas appeals courts could find a compromise. Something along the lines of "okay, we'll not execute him because the jury couldn't think for themselves. We'll do it because, well, we like executing murderers!"

While it's not a happy compromise (if you're the murderer), it's one that will satisfy everyone. I think. Perhaps. Well, maybe it won't satisfy the anti-death penalty folks (of whom I am one!). But it will keep the executioner from being foreclosed upon.

(They don't pay the executioner per head anymore? Oh...)

Carolyn Ann

It'll look beautiful... In the landfill!

Contractor and carpenter and "Kitchen Impossible" TV star Marc Bartolomeo says that in an ad for his show. I loved it!

It describes our downstairs bathroom - perfectly. Tomorrow (well, later today), I start the process of renovating that bathroom. I can hardly wait. Indeed, if the Mrs hadn't gone to bed, I'd be starting. (Demolishun while she sleeps is not her idea of a good nights' kipping. Can't think why. :-) ) Over the weekend, I expect to have the bathroom demolished. (What? You thought I couldn't spell dimulishen?) I am so looking forward to that.

My biggest problem right now? I have to move the hot water heater. The Mrs described how she wants the kitchen to look, with windows on the outside corner. Which means I have to move some pipes, so the view is not of exhaust pipes. Which means I have to move the hot water heater. And redo the radon exhaust pipe. Next spring, I'll see about enclosing them, and making a faux chimney. Part of my grand plan to make the house look like it's been here for a few centuries, instead of a little less than 2 decades.

I can hardly wait to see that 1st (UK ground) floor bathroom gone!

Carolyn Ann

Gay marriage - illegal because the Supremes haven't ruled on it?

Okay, let me get this straight.

The supporters of Proposition 8 say that because the Supreme Court hasn't ruled against gay marriage, gays can't marry. Or something like that.

So if gay people haven't asked if they can be married - that is, they haven't requested permission from straight folk - then the answer is "of course they can't be married"! Makes sense. In a weird sort of way.

However, let's try this: because the Supreme Court hasn't been asked to affirm its prejudices, gays are equal to straights. But because the Supremes haven't ruled on something makes it illegal? Wow.

Straight people marry all the time. Why shouldn't gay people be allowed to? For the same reasons?

Because gays don't have the permission of a bunch of clearly bigoted, obviously prejudicial men who sit in judgment over us all. Either that or there's something really icky about gay guys getting married.

I'm not sure which is worse - infantile prejudice, or informed bigotry. Either way, gays and lesbians lose. Which bit of "pursuit of happiness" don't the bigots get?

Carolyn Ann

Chris and I? Harumph.

I think that if I ever agree with the man (on anything political), it's time for my coffin. But his writing is divine.

Carolyn Ann

Ouch?

I have absolutely no idea why I'm writing this.

The Mrs called out that dinner was ready (she cooks; my cooking skills include burning ice cream), and I stood up. And the most unbelievable pain originated in the vicinity of my left hip. I just about passed out.

Ouch.

Carolyn Ann

Don't ask, don't tell

There's a reason I love reading Andrew Sullivan so much. Here's an example of why: Another perspective on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Carolyn Ann

Moans and mutterings

I mentioned in a recent (?) post that I wasn't feeling too well - I'm not. My bad leg has been blazing! A 3-alarm fire last night, and after a blazingly hot bath, it's still bad enough to call out a distant volunteer fire brigade. I wouldn't mind, but the pain is within the bone.

It's at times like this I wonder why we didn't buy a ranch house, as we intended. The fact that there weren't that many for sale might have been a deterrent... We did put an offer in for one, with a new septic system, no less. We put the offer in, and on a weekend away in Rhode Island, we get a phone call asking if we can raise our offer by about $20,000 - and then the seller will put the septic in. My wife took the call.

I returned it.

Net-net, we were asked to honor our original offer and the buyer would see about putting a new septic in. After we'd moved in. (This translates to "we don't have the money to put the required septic system in".) All of which made us question the substantial modifications the owners had made. (Yeah, right. There's the pot calling the kettle black!)

Then we were asked to increase our offer by about twelve grand. We walked away from the deal. Now, in New Jersey this is a big deal. It's a bit like the Scottish housing market - an offer is binding. We lived in New York, and no amount of persuading or cajoling could persuade us otherwise. I noticed that house sold well after we'd moved into this house, and the front lawn was ripped up. I'd estimate about, oh, $20,000 worth of septic had to be done.

With this house we were lucky - it only needed a new septic field. (About $8,000.) The owners hadn't had the system cleaned in about 20 years (for a house that existed for 15? Oh... I see. :-) ) and even on the day of closing, the owner was griping. We were taking his kids college fund. Well, in New Jersey you have to have a certificate of occupancy ready for the new owner - so he was in a bind no matter who bought the house! (It also was not in his favor that his realtor sister-in-law was negotiating with our New York City based attorney. To be perfectly frank.) Fair playing field? Where?

Anyway, I surely wish we had constructed a tick off list. It would have taken me about 3 minutes with a copy of Excel, and a printer. I could have printed a dozen at a time. It would have included things like this:

1. Central heating and air

2. Garage

3. No steps (one floor, except basement)

4. Easy access to the highways (we're a long way from any highway)

5. Not that distant to Philadelphia

6. Not that distant from New York City

7. Not that distant from Washington DC

8. Not that distant from a place that sells the NY Times

9. Perhaps in the NY Times delivery area?

10. Has a working septic

11. Has plumbing that works

12. Feels like home

The only house we looked at that could satisfy #12 had a big, fat, very furry, very happy, purring wildly cat lounging on the bed. It did not have a basement, which was the deal-killer. California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada might do without basements, but they're essential in the North East. We don't use the attic, so the basement doubles in duty. What will be my office does, too.

I wish we'd gotten the second house we bid on. It was a split-level, with an acre of land and a stream. A nice bubbling stream. It was also a foreclosure, and we could have gotten it for a song. But we were 2 hours too late - we know that because it was communicated to us. Apparently we'd bid higher than the people who got it. I drove past it, the other day. They've done a reasonable job; new garage doors, a new deck and some desperately needed new paint. I had architectural fantasies about that place. An aviary in the bathroom, a swimming pool enclosure shaped as bodice; the swimming pool constructed with an aquarium as its walls. Our bedroom was going to be a wonderland of light. (I neglected to see which way the house faced, so maybe the fantasy is better than the reality?)

And... We were two hours too late. The bank accepted the offer made, and that was that.

As for that list? Oh well.

Carolyn Ann