There was a genuinely delightful news item a couple weeks ago which came out of Northern California. The story described the worry-filled reaction of the management of the national Starbucks Corp. to the fact that some folks in California have selected Starbucks as a good place to meet and celebrate their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms by, well, keeping and bearing arms in holsters where everyone can see them. These are commonly called the “Open Carry” advocates. (There is even a website, www.opencarry.org.) Essentially, these are people who are in favor of strapping on hog legs and walking down the street. [Note to Carolyn: a “hog leg” is an old slang term for a large revolving pistol.] Since Starbucks is a natural and popular public gathering place, “open carry” advocates have chosen to gather there and celebrate their display of armaments.
After what was apparently a good deal of angst, Starbucks decided to leave the situation alone and ignore the fact that some groups of customers walk in tooled up. (In most states, including West Virginia, a landowner or business premises has a right to exclude people who are carrying firearms, even legally.)
As an aside, let me say that my communication were I the Starbucks president would have been, “Are you sure you people are smart enough to drink coffee without dribbling it all over yourselves?”
Gun rights are an unusually hot topic at the moment. Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court announced a decision in the Heller case which came out of the District of Columbia concerning the ban on firearms within the District. The holding in the Heller was that the Second Amendment did create a personal right to bear arms. Oddly, that was the first time that the Court had interpreted the Second Amendment vis-a-vis citizens. The limitation of Heller was that since it was a District of Columbia case, the ruling did not extend to states and municipalities. Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in the case of McDonald v. Chicago, which addresses the gun ban within the City of Chicago. The Petitioner there seeks to extend Heller to the States through the 14th Amendment Equal Protection guarantee, just as the First Amendment binds the States. The consensus among Court-watchers is that the Supreme Court will extend the Heller doctrine to cover the states, and thereby make it harder for states and municipalities to limit people being armed. (Shortly after Heller, somebody on a District of Columbia city Council proposed that they permit citizens to possess firearms only so long as they were disassembled. I don’t think that would very far.) The workings of the Supreme Court are much more open these days, and a transcript of the argument in McDonald is available online. (www.scotusblog.com) While the Judges talked some about historical context, the argument was mostly on arcane legal concepts.
What, I wonder, are the “open carry” advocates trying to do and trying to say?
While it is couched as some kind of joyous celebration of rights, it is fairly in your face to load up, tool up, and then go walkabout. Whether they admit it or not, these people are indulging in a defiant demonstration that (1) they can carry a pistol and (2) that they in-your-face support gun rights generally, and encourage an armed citizenry for the usual purposes of order, lawfulness and public defense. I find it annoying that many of these people equate themselves with the participants in the Boston Tea Party. (See observations in the not-too-distant future on this subject regarding the odd “tea party movement” in the United States.) Let us be clear at the outset to all open carry advocates: You’re not the Boston Tea Party. You aren't even close. In the locations you are choosing to openly carry weapons, you have a right to do so whether it’s smart or not, and if the representative of the sovereign is standing right there, he or she is not going to arrest you, put you into a prison, try you in a hostile court and then execute you. This was not the case with the actual participants in the Boston Tea Party. Had they been caught, they would have been ended up very publicly stretching a rope. As it was, they did a great deal of economic damage by destroying a very difficult-to-replace commodity. Frankly, strapping on a pistol and taking a walk to Starbucks is pretty weak tea compared to what the Sons of Liberty did. (Aside: They were nearly all Freemasons, and the Boston Tea Party plot was hatched in a Masonic lodge room.)
While the “defiant demonstration” is their best argument, the argument breaks down when you try to determine if it is an effective demonstration, which is not.
Some folks love empty or idiotic yet loud gestures, but I think we should look to the effectiveness of a demonstration. Waving a sign seldom does a whole lot of good, although there are exceptions. The most common misperception by those making demonstrations is that they will be taken seriously in direct proportion to how sincere serious they are. This is rather like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin because he has the Most Sincere Pumpkin Patch.
Credibility and truth are not irrevocably tied together, and so the open carry people are simply barking up the wrong tree. The abortion/abortion limitation protesters who wave coat hangers or gruesome photographs of aborted fetuses are two sides of the same coin. No matter how sincere or emotionally driven an advocate might be, if the demonstration is so extreme that it is perceived as coming from a fringe element, nobody is going to take it seriously. That does not impact the First Amendment right to make the statement. It does make the statement useless, ineffective and silly. You have your First Amendment right to make a statement, so go right ahead. If you don’t care if anyone’s listening, that’s your problem.
The strapping on of the old hog leg does, in my judgment, make two statements loud and clear:
One, I watched a lot of cowboy movies when I was a kid. Look at me I’m a real buckaroo. Yippee-ty-yi-yay. And I’m also a dork.
Two, and this is rather more immediately problematic. If one carries firearms for their lawful purposes, open carry tells the ungodly “Please, Mr. Criminal, shoot me first.” (Yeah, yeah, if you have a gun, you can shoot it out. Wrong. You cannot outdraw someone whose gun is already drawn.)
We don’t have to like it, it is not biblical, and it’s not nice, it is not pleasant to contemplate, but much conflict resolution is resolved in this society with force. Force can take lots of forms, the simplest (and most brutal?) of which is physical force. Implements multiply physical force. Firearms multiply it to the point of being deadly force. For all our so-called gun culture, there is really not a very good understanding of firearms in America. Very few people have seen a gunshot wound. GSW’s are not accurately depicted on TV or in the movies. Even in the “real life” medical programs, the brightness of the blood, the subtle gurgling of lungs filling up, and the mixed odors of a perforated body are lacking. Directly visualizing a heart or a brain is just another breed of experience. On television, it can be “just a flesh wound.” That is rare in the real world. On television, we don’t see instances of permanent disability and nobody ever seems to end up in a nursing home. People who do a casual “study” of firearms bandy about terms like wound channel, projectile expansion, muzzle velocity and so forth, but few have the experience to match that in the effect on the human body.
I enjoy shooting as a sport. Not very many people do. That’s okay with me, because as long as people don’t require me to be interested in what they do that I think is boring, the reverse should apply. But make no mistake: firearms are weapons. They were made to be used against flesh, human or animal. Where handguns are concerned, they have been invented and modified and perfected in the way which is best calculated to create the most effective harm to human beings. Whether you are sipping coffee with your Colt on your hip at Starbucks or have a peashooter in your night table at home, if you cannot accept that it is a weapon aimed primarily at shooting people, you’re an idiot and you need to get rid of the gun before you do something terminally stupid with it.
The people who are most familiar with firearms are not those who are running around wearing them to Starbucks. People most familiar with firearms have a deep respect for firearms and what they can do. As such, they are very unlikely to seek out any confrontation and very likely to go to great lengths to avoid confrontation. Some armed people, for example, carry a money clip with $50 or so to give to a mugger/attacker so that a confrontation has a chance to end without the presentment of a gun.
Also, just as a true automobile connoisseur can “love” a Corvette, so can a gun person “love” some particular type of weapon. And when the gun person touches a weapon, he or she does so with the same degree of professional attention and respect that the competent driver shows when firing up a hot car. Let me point out, this is not a genetic thing. My Y-chromosome does not make me a good shot, a good driver, or the world’s greatest lover. No matter how much practice I have, I doubt if I’m ever in a better than decent in marksmanship, if that. When someone picks up a firearm and thinks that this makes them more powerful than a locomotive and able to shoot bulls-eyes at 100 yards, they are exactly the people who shouldn’t be handling firearms or even sharp implements. If you watch people who are familiar with firearms handling, you will be struck with the concentration and attention and FOCUS they pay to them. Every time such a person picks up a weapon, for example, they will clear it, or determine whether it is loaded, safety on, etc. And then, no matter what the result, they will continue to treat it as if it is loaded. If you are not willing and anxious to be this fanatic about the safety issues, you’re not a gun person and you shouldn’t carry a firearm. If you are not willing to accept that what you know about firearms before you pick one up is wrong and are ready to have an open mind to learn to use weapons from the ground up (i.e., from the point “this is the end the bullet comes out of”), don’t go around armed. That’s not a problem, and that’s certainly not a challenge to anyone. If it’s not your cup of tea, you don’t need to do it.
So why do we have armed society and why do we have a Second Amendment? My little bit of writing is not going to add anything to the lexicon, but I do have a few comments.
One argument that is sticky is that an armed populace will not be overwhelmed by a despotic government. That’s not a popular argument, and perhaps the conditions have changed so much since the Revolution that it no longer has tactical viability. (I briefly made that argument to the West Virginia Supreme Court in a gun rights case several years ago, and got REAL negative feedback from a couple of the justices.)
The valid and continuing argument/condition is that there are bad people out there. There are criminals out there. There are people out there who are at times lacking in control and at those times will hurt or kill their fellow man. There are people out there who are simply amoral or sociopathic and don’t care if their actions harm or kill others. One of our inalienable rights, and a right that does not come from the Constitution but which predates it throughout history, is the right of self-defense. Like it or not, the handgun is the highest current expression of a portable deadly weapon. If an aggressor is armed with a handgun, defense will be difficult and generally unsuccessful without a firearm of one’s own.
The principal common argument against the personal possession of handguns is that we have adequate police protection. This is incorrect, and any honest police officer will tell you that they act as a reactive force rather than a preventive force. They respond to 911 calls, but 911 calls occur after something bad is happening. If what is bad is happening amounts to personal violence, it is most unusual that the police response will be fast enough to intervene and prevent the harm. If the wrongdoers are apprehended, jailed and so forth, that may deter that wrongdoer and others from future offenses, but the victim of that particular offense is just shit out of luck.
That being said, not all voices which resist a universally armed society are liberal pinko nut cases. Most Americans do not own or use guns. We must respect that. There are restrictions on firearms which are supported by reason or by the most generous interpretation of personal rights. I have met few responsible people who have heartburn over the restriction on people who have committed violent felonies with guns possessing firearms. Ditto the incompetent, insane, drunken, and drug addicted. I know few responsible people who chafe too much about restrictions on weapons which push their capacities into places we commonly accepted as military or completely unrelated to defense. I cannot own a fully automatic weapon (note to Carolyn again – that means a machine gun) without a special license which is real hard to get and real expensive. Ditto a silencer or sound suppressor, or explosive projectiles. Nuclear weapons are not related to home defense, sorry.
Beyond that, we step into what few people are prepared to admit is grey territory. There are people who commit suicide who would not do so if a firearm were not present. Yes, they have the ability to do so by other means, but many just would not do so owing to the nature of the various mechanisms of violence. Yes, there are children who are injured and killed in firearms accidents. Almost invariably, this comes from a failure of adults to secure firearms, teach children, and supervise them. These injuries and deaths would not occur if the firearms were not present. You cannot brush those facts away and the most common response by the gun community, that it doesn’t happen too often, is cold comfort to the families where it does happen. On the other hand, it is not the Wild West in states where gun rights are generous, and gun deaths in those areas are less than those where guns are more restricted. Yes, we can argue legitimately about the interpretation of the data, but the data is there. And, importantly, there are something over 2 million instances a year were a citizen uses a firearm for defense. Mostly, that use is simply the presentment of the firearm or making the aggressor aware that the firearm is present. Within all of these situations, we can argue and predict how many bad or good things would occur proportionally if the firearms were or were not present, and there is little valid research to assist us. Fudging the facts is a poor place to start, though.
This is written in my West Virginia hills. Lots and lots of my fellow Mountaineers are armed routinely and perfectly legally at this writing. And you may be certain that damn few of them are carrying weapons openly.
And so a message to the ungodly: you guess which of us are armed, and have a nice day.
Pippa passes.
R
22 March 2010
19 March 2010
Power, Justice and Just Us
The Power of the PA
I’ve read a couple of news stories this week about shocking prejudice in action. It seems that there was an announcement made in a New Jersey Wal-Mart. Someone as yet unidentified came on the public address system and told all black people to leave the store. Pretty quickly, the store manager got on the public address system, told everyone that the announcement was a hoax and apologized.
That cannot, of course, be the end of the story. The store manager now needs to figure out if this was an employee who made the phony announcement and, if so, fire their ass for misconduct. And if it wasn’t an employee, the store manager needs to secure access to the PA. Lots of more immediately harmful things can be done with a PA. (Shouts of "Fire!" in a crowded store come to mind.)
End of story, right? No, not by a long shot. We have victims. We have people who have experienced tons of angst. They are too traumatized to realize that taking this “announcement” seriously is idiotic and that spending more than a few minutes being pissed off about it is a trip to drama queendom.
Where does this desire to be victimized come from? And why do people grasp at the most harebrained things to get all sniffly about? People, it wasn’t Bull Connor on the PA. Remember if you will the folks in Birmingham in the 50's and 60's - Police Chief Theophilus “Bull” Connor used high-pressure fire hoses, vagrancy arrests, holding people incommunicado in jail, attack dogs and even a small tank to express his brand of hate. And the funny thing is, it pissed off and motivated a lot of those real victims to do constructive and effective things to bring about a change rather than prompting them just to bitch and moan.
Well, the bitching and moaning is not enough for 2010 New Jersey, and now government must have a firm and heartfelt public demonstration of deeply caring distress and how public officials, too, are too dumb to realize that morons abound in our society. And so, true to form, some trendy government leader has turned the police loose in an investigation over this hate crime.
No kidding.
People, these were words. If it was done by an employee, their ass gets fired. Their ass would be fired no matter who they told to to leave the store. Mind you, using race is particularly stupid, but the difference between a good employee and a stupid employee is a whole lot greater than that between a stupid employee and a real stupid employee. Even if this was not malicious (improbable if the trickster was other than mega-dumb), there is no room in a public place for the lover of practical jokes who has no sense of proportion.
But are the words harmful? To whom? To sensitive people? Get over it, this is life. To children? Certainly, and that’s why they have parents, to teach them about the idiots in society and how to react to them. Having a grand case of the vapors and calling the police is an asinine lesson to teach young people. That tells them that they are without power, that they are weak, that they are helpless victims, and that only some authority “greater” than themselves can protect them. Poppycock.
Of course, I’m not certain that the manager handled this optimally. This was at the very least a great embarrassment that either an employee acted like a moron or that access to the public address system was unsecured. Management needed to meet everyone leaving the store and apologize for that failure, simply because that was the right thing to do. And then everyone needed to move on.
The fact that we are hearing about this nationally is a sad commentary on the state of the nation.
Sermon on The Common Good versus Individual Justice
Permit me to direct your attention to some superior scholarship and opinion expressed in the form of a sermon by Pastor Joshua Patty of Central Christian Church in Fairmont, West Virginia, on 14 March 2010. [Josh is a great scholar and passionate orator – I’m rather thinking that he will react with sharp criticism of the immediately preceding section, which I welcome. This is the marketplace of ideas, and his ideas are just as good as mine. Respect - Got it?] A recording of the sermon (something under 30 minutes) can be found at www.alongthispilgrimsjourney.blogspot.com, (link to the right, Central Christian Pastor’s Blog), in the widget on the right side of that site. I’ve encouraged Pastor Josh to reduce this one to print as part of his body of work. The subject of this sermon is “The Common Good or Individual Justice,” and is quite a fascinating and erudite discussion of that long controversial dichotomy.
Reading Bits
I am seldom without my Amazon Kindle, just as formerly I was seldom without two or three paper books. I am asked frequently what I am reading, and I read so many things simultaneously, that’s really rather hard to answer.
I am interested in the reading habits of my literate friends, including those in the Shelf Community. How many books do you read at once? How many books can you follow? Usually, I’m reading two or three fiction works (and generally a thriller, a Western, a sci-fi and/or something odd like a Garrison Keillor), some business/self-improvement books (some weighty, some slim), and several books on history, politics, economics and other technical subjects. For some months now, I’ve been rereading The Federalist Papers. With the “Tea Party” and now the “Coffee Party” “movements,” there is a staggering amount of misinformation, disinformation, and rampant ignorance about the history of government in general and the history of American government in particular. For some reason, people seem to equate being a whacker who carries a sign with being a committed patriot who will perform an act of civil disobedience that may get them hung. And I don’t mean hung as in “in trouble,” I mean hung as in the risk taken by the Sons of Liberty (mostly a bunch of pissed-off Freemasons) of the actual Boston Tea Party who, if arrested, could have been stretched by the neck until dead, dead, dead.
Let’s see, I’m also reading Gibbon for the first time and, yes, it is both as highbrow and as dry as it has been represented to be. I have no idea why TR found this such an absolutely fascinating creation. I am finishing Southern Storm by Noah Andre Trudeau, which is a history of the Sherman campaign through Georgia and South Carolina, as well as Through the Brazilian Wilderness, Theodore Roosevelt’s personal account of the 1913 to 1914 River of Doubt expedition. A note to Clank, Flick and my other transoceanic readers, the Sherman campaign came at the end of 1864 when a large Union Force under General William T. Sherman moved from Atlanta, Georgia, to the Atlantic, leaving a 60-mile wide swath of destruction. One hundred fifty years later, there are still some pretty hard feelings in the southern United States about these events.
How Old Can A Lawyer Be?
Over the last year and a half, we have fiddled with our letterhead a bit. I’ve always been interested in something a little bit nonstandard, but past partners have been mostly reticent about that. We have begun using the “Palladin” symbol, the silhouette of the knight or worse piece from a chess set, facing to the right, of course. I remember it being used in the old Richard Boone TV series, Palladin, from which comes the phrase “Have gun, will travel.” (Presumably because we read from left to right, almost all commercial logos face right. The only exception that comes to mind right now is the Greyhound Bus dog.)
Also on the letterhead, we put “Serving West Virginia since 1978.” That is the year I began practice. I was hooded on Saturday, 12 May 1978, graduated on Sunday, drove to Charleston on Monday, was admitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and opened my office on Wednesday. So, I think I’m on pretty solid ground here with the 1978 date. Generally, it is the practice of law firms to put on their letterhead or otherwise advertise how long they’ve been in business. This makes some sense, as there certainly is an institutional identity. Sometimes, though, I do wonder. One law firm which began in 1864 probably has no lawyers who are 160 years old. It is, however, certainly one of the three or four most competent bunch of lawyers in West Virginia. The largest law firm advertises that it began in 1822, but I’m thinking that it has no 210-year-old lawyers.
It makes me wonder about lawyer advertising in general and “puffery.” I’ve had some unpleasant dealings lately with “The Jones Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys,” which is not the real name. This law firm consists of one lawyer and a couple of office people. Because he was previously associated with another lawyer, he maintains the fiction that it’s really a law “firm” in the sense that there are multiple lawyers. And of course, on the other hand, Fairmont has an example which goes just the opposite way. One of the oldest and leading lawyers in Fairmont is Pete Higinbotham, who has a very large personal-injury practice. He advertises heavily on television, and has swept up the majority of the modest value car wreck insurance claims in this area, those from say $10,000 to $100,000 in settlement value. [I’m estimating here - this is not the kind of info that law firms share.] Pete has at least six lawyers and his firm, as well as a number of legal assistants and at least a couple of the lawyers there are damn fine trial lawyers. And yet, in the advertising, generally it’s just Pete, often in dungarees and a flannel shirt, and often with his dog. I’m not sure what the point is, but it certainly works and is certainly the opposite of puffery.
The fact remains that the attorney-client relationship is a highly personal one and should be entered into with recommendations from friends and family, or at the very least with a long and candid talk between prospective lawyer and prospective client before the representation begins.
Coming in future installments:
Beyond Coffee and Tea Parties
Nuclear Weapons and Home Defense
- - Stay Tuned
Pippa passes.
R
13 March 2010
Return of the Blather
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
Yes, I know it has been a month since I last made a blog entry. I have been reminded of this by everyone and their Aunt Tilly. No excuses: when the muse is active, you write, and when the muse is silent, you write anyway, only not as well.
This West Virginia winter of ours has ended and for the first time in many weeks, acres of grass outnumber acres of snow. Given a little bit more time and a little knowledge of modern photography, amazing get a photo of the new iteration of Number 3 Equity Court into “print.”
I’ve also missed just a touch of work this winter, which is exceedingly annoying. A couple of encounters with Mr. Gravity had a little bit to do with that. Mr. gravity never forgets. As a result, I am temporarily sporting a long coup stick which I use as a proto-cane and have a new appreciation for access issues.
Black Wreath
The Charleston Gazette reports tonight that a fireman with the Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department of Kanawha County is missing and presumed killed on duty in flooding in Raleigh County last night.
Greater love hath no man . . .
Strolling
I’m reading, amongst other books, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, by Theodore Roosevelt, his account of the 1913 -14 exploration of Rio Duvida (the River of Doubt, later Rio Teodoro) in the Amazon. I just read a couple of passages, one where he blithely talks about walking off alone “a couple of leagues,” (a league is 3 miles) and another where he took a “stroll a couple of miles up the road.” Even sans-coup stick, I’m the last person qualified to talk about our reluctance to walk anywhere. But this does give me pause.
Santa
I was sitting in a café one morning this week having coffee with my best friend and brother David. Two other brothers were there, and we were having a wonderful and freeflowing conversation about not very vital issues. The Fairmont Fire Department had some sort of call, and within a couple of minutes every fire engine in town came through the intersection as we were sitting there. One of the brothers sitting there was Bill Hawkins, who is well into his 80s and who defines “a hell of a man.” Among the many things he has done in his lifetime is that he was a captain on the Fairmont Fire Department for many years. (Later, he was mayor Fairmont.)
After the fire engines had finally passed, Bill was reminiscing just a bit. He recalled a fire on a Christmas Eve in a big house up on Maple Avenue. When they arrived, the house was full of smoke and a woman was out front screaming that her baby was still in the house. Bill recalled that was in the days of the “smoke eaters” before everyone wore air masks as a routine. He recalled that he went in, searched the upstairs and found the four-year-old child, stuck her under his coat to keep her out of the heat and smoke and took her outside. As he was leaving the house, he looked down inside his coat, and she looked up at him and said “You’re Santa Claus!” Bill said that’s what made those years of hard work worthwhile.
And my mind goes back to the brother killed last night.
Pippa passes.
R
Yes, I know it has been a month since I last made a blog entry. I have been reminded of this by everyone and their Aunt Tilly. No excuses: when the muse is active, you write, and when the muse is silent, you write anyway, only not as well.
This West Virginia winter of ours has ended and for the first time in many weeks, acres of grass outnumber acres of snow. Given a little bit more time and a little knowledge of modern photography, amazing get a photo of the new iteration of Number 3 Equity Court into “print.”
I’ve also missed just a touch of work this winter, which is exceedingly annoying. A couple of encounters with Mr. Gravity had a little bit to do with that. Mr. gravity never forgets. As a result, I am temporarily sporting a long coup stick which I use as a proto-cane and have a new appreciation for access issues.
Black Wreath
The Charleston Gazette reports tonight that a fireman with the Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department of Kanawha County is missing and presumed killed on duty in flooding in Raleigh County last night.
Greater love hath no man . . .
Strolling
I’m reading, amongst other books, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, by Theodore Roosevelt, his account of the 1913 -14 exploration of Rio Duvida (the River of Doubt, later Rio Teodoro) in the Amazon. I just read a couple of passages, one where he blithely talks about walking off alone “a couple of leagues,” (a league is 3 miles) and another where he took a “stroll a couple of miles up the road.” Even sans-coup stick, I’m the last person qualified to talk about our reluctance to walk anywhere. But this does give me pause.
Santa
I was sitting in a café one morning this week having coffee with my best friend and brother David. Two other brothers were there, and we were having a wonderful and freeflowing conversation about not very vital issues. The Fairmont Fire Department had some sort of call, and within a couple of minutes every fire engine in town came through the intersection as we were sitting there. One of the brothers sitting there was Bill Hawkins, who is well into his 80s and who defines “a hell of a man.” Among the many things he has done in his lifetime is that he was a captain on the Fairmont Fire Department for many years. (Later, he was mayor Fairmont.)
After the fire engines had finally passed, Bill was reminiscing just a bit. He recalled a fire on a Christmas Eve in a big house up on Maple Avenue. When they arrived, the house was full of smoke and a woman was out front screaming that her baby was still in the house. Bill recalled that was in the days of the “smoke eaters” before everyone wore air masks as a routine. He recalled that he went in, searched the upstairs and found the four-year-old child, stuck her under his coat to keep her out of the heat and smoke and took her outside. As he was leaving the house, he looked down inside his coat, and she looked up at him and said “You’re Santa Claus!” Bill said that’s what made those years of hard work worthwhile.
And my mind goes back to the brother killed last night.
Pippa passes.
R
04 February 2010
Observations from Oz
Agreeable People
I have a brief and exceedingly pleasant correspondence with a very capable lawyer whom I’ve recently met, and who I’ve come to respect enormously. She was a law clerk for a federal judge who I knew many years ago who was just the most upstanding jurist I’ve known. (Being a law clerk for a federal judge is a big thing, and requires great credentials.) She has been reading your ink-stained scribe and talked about disagreeing with some of what I say. And I say, WONDERFUL. How rare it is that we can have genuine disagreeing thought exchanges which are respectful and cordial and which result in the participants learning from one another and evaluating their own beliefs and fact base in light of the discussions. What passes for discussions on Fox News and so forth is, “Obviously, [Proposition X].” “Well, obviously, you’re a moron, any idiot knows [Proposition Anti-X], but you liberals/conservatives with your hidden agendas . . .”
A Test for Agreeably Disagreeing
I ran across a blog of Jerry Wilson, http://wilstar.com/OverCoffee/blog/, where one post was entitled “The illogical abyss of Christianity.” It’s good writing in the first person, thoughtful and persuasive. (Not real funny, but let’s leave the deft satire to moi, OK?) He likens resistance to the science of evolution, for example, with a belief in the Flat Earth.
Well, why do I, who at least professes to be a Christian, tout such writing? Because it is thoughtful. And if Christians cannot think and analyze, our beliefs must be poor indeed. I conclude from the totality of the New Testament that Jesus wasn’t some intellectual wallflower, and neither should we be.
Wah, Mommy, He Called Me an Asshole!
The news had a video today of an interview by a local TV station somewhere of actor Mel Gibson. Recall that Mel Gibson has been something of a drunk and roue, and when he’s in his cups, he is a loudmouth and when he’s sober, he is rather clumsily sarcastic. So let’s take it as a working assumption that Mel Gibson at least acted like an asshole on some past occasions. The most prominent example is when he was popped for dui and abused the police with a tirade about the Jews and other general idiocy.
In the recent interview, the reporter was asking him about these past incidents with what those reporting the reporter termed "perfectly legitimate questions." They were pointed questions, to be sure, but if you translate them to what was really being asked, they were:
“Have you moved on from being an asshole?
And, “Will the public accept that you’ve moved on from being an asshole?”
Mel Gibson gave a mildly sarcastic (and not too cogent) reply and immediately after the interview ended, he turned back to the camera and commented, “Asshole.”
The undergarments of the press are all in a bunch because one of the brethren has been verbally assaulted. Oh, me, oh, my.
And yet - The reporter was acting like an asshole. So was Mel. Who cares?
State of Emergency
There is a gigantic, enormous, immense, monstrous, planetary, titanic, prodigious snowstorm coming, oh, the humanity. I’ve been around Our Towne today just a bit [slow speed owing to an orthopedic gotcha] and heard such expressions of concern! Oh, movie night at the church is cancelled tomorrow night! And today as I met a friend for lunch, the folks at the next table announced in horror that “they are already talking about a state of emergency!”
Sigh. It is snow. Snow. Just snow. If the forecast is correct, it will inhibit travel, and may interrupt electricity. But let’s get some perspective people. And a “state of emergency”? The declaration of a state of emergency is seldom necessary and it doesn’t depend on traditional notions of disaster. The principal practical effect is that it suspends rules relating to work, so that necessary people will work overtime. At its extreme, it creates a very short heirarchy where the Governor can assume control of government functions as necessary. (The one thing that he cannot do is seize firearms. This is West Virginia.) That has only happened once that I recall, in the 1985 floods. The floods in the eastern mountain counties in 1985 wiped out most of the response assets, i.e., everybody’s vehicles with flashing lights and radios who would have handled the problem, all of the utilities and nearly all of the transportation system. The local response died in hours, and the state office of emergency services response was fouled up. Governor Moore, who was controversial but certainly not a shy guy (he was a friend of my dad) called out all of the National Guard, went to Parsons, took personal control, and drove the entire effort like a wagon boss.
But for a snowstorm? Some years ago, I was deputy director and then director of emergency services for Marion County for around 10 years. During that time, we never “declared a state of emergency,” although we dealt with unusual incidents every few months. There was a large snowstorm that dumped around 3 feet of heavy snow in a day or day and a half. Then the temperature went to about negative 20 or 25. Those are real extreme conditions for West Virginia. We sat in the Communications Center, the director and I, and talked briefly about the state of emergency thing. But we quickly concluded that there was no reason. The power company had lots of assistance from other regions, the fire departments were staffed in house (even volunteer departments) and doing public service calls to help people to shelter, and everything was working fine. And so, the only notable thing was that the occasional friendly bulletins that we faxed to news outlets were picked up by the wire services because, I guess, they were a bit quirky and homespun. In addition to advice like don’t use gas stoves for heat (they are unvented), we would remind people to check on their neighbors, particularly old folks, and that “this too shall pass.”
When you have an emergency, fine, treat it as such and if you are smart, you will have trained or prepared for what you need to do. But don’t go finding crises where they aren’t - - it’s just too nerve-wracking.
I Need an Outlet
I am not a gadget geek. I am not. I need every charger, battery and wire I carry. Oh, I do believe in the concept of redundancy, and it’ll be a cold day in hell when I’m out of charged cell batteries or a way to keep the Kindle going. But laptops are a problem. I haven’t tried the tiny ones that don’t have a fan, but Old Nellie here is good for an hour or two on battery. Restaurants, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and similar establishments would serve me better if they had more outlets.
The Grammys
I do not care what Britney wore to the Grammys, or who was shocked by it.
Shifting the Flag
Today, I shifted the flag to the New Incarnation of No. 3 Equity Court, which is at 1414 Country Club Road, Fairmont, West Virginia. For those of you who need to retarget your ballistic missiles, that's latitude North 39.472965, Longitude West 80.174327, elevation 329.18 meters.
Pippa passes.
R
I have a brief and exceedingly pleasant correspondence with a very capable lawyer whom I’ve recently met, and who I’ve come to respect enormously. She was a law clerk for a federal judge who I knew many years ago who was just the most upstanding jurist I’ve known. (Being a law clerk for a federal judge is a big thing, and requires great credentials.) She has been reading your ink-stained scribe and talked about disagreeing with some of what I say. And I say, WONDERFUL. How rare it is that we can have genuine disagreeing thought exchanges which are respectful and cordial and which result in the participants learning from one another and evaluating their own beliefs and fact base in light of the discussions. What passes for discussions on Fox News and so forth is, “Obviously, [Proposition X].” “Well, obviously, you’re a moron, any idiot knows [Proposition Anti-X], but you liberals/conservatives with your hidden agendas . . .”
A Test for Agreeably Disagreeing
I ran across a blog of Jerry Wilson, http://wilstar.com/OverCoffee/blog/, where one post was entitled “The illogical abyss of Christianity.” It’s good writing in the first person, thoughtful and persuasive. (Not real funny, but let’s leave the deft satire to moi, OK?) He likens resistance to the science of evolution, for example, with a belief in the Flat Earth.
Well, why do I, who at least professes to be a Christian, tout such writing? Because it is thoughtful. And if Christians cannot think and analyze, our beliefs must be poor indeed. I conclude from the totality of the New Testament that Jesus wasn’t some intellectual wallflower, and neither should we be.
Wah, Mommy, He Called Me an Asshole!
The news had a video today of an interview by a local TV station somewhere of actor Mel Gibson. Recall that Mel Gibson has been something of a drunk and roue, and when he’s in his cups, he is a loudmouth and when he’s sober, he is rather clumsily sarcastic. So let’s take it as a working assumption that Mel Gibson at least acted like an asshole on some past occasions. The most prominent example is when he was popped for dui and abused the police with a tirade about the Jews and other general idiocy.
In the recent interview, the reporter was asking him about these past incidents with what those reporting the reporter termed "perfectly legitimate questions." They were pointed questions, to be sure, but if you translate them to what was really being asked, they were:
“Have you moved on from being an asshole?
And, “Will the public accept that you’ve moved on from being an asshole?”
Mel Gibson gave a mildly sarcastic (and not too cogent) reply and immediately after the interview ended, he turned back to the camera and commented, “Asshole.”
The undergarments of the press are all in a bunch because one of the brethren has been verbally assaulted. Oh, me, oh, my.
And yet - The reporter was acting like an asshole. So was Mel. Who cares?
State of Emergency
There is a gigantic, enormous, immense, monstrous, planetary, titanic, prodigious snowstorm coming, oh, the humanity. I’ve been around Our Towne today just a bit [slow speed owing to an orthopedic gotcha] and heard such expressions of concern! Oh, movie night at the church is cancelled tomorrow night! And today as I met a friend for lunch, the folks at the next table announced in horror that “they are already talking about a state of emergency!”
Sigh. It is snow. Snow. Just snow. If the forecast is correct, it will inhibit travel, and may interrupt electricity. But let’s get some perspective people. And a “state of emergency”? The declaration of a state of emergency is seldom necessary and it doesn’t depend on traditional notions of disaster. The principal practical effect is that it suspends rules relating to work, so that necessary people will work overtime. At its extreme, it creates a very short heirarchy where the Governor can assume control of government functions as necessary. (The one thing that he cannot do is seize firearms. This is West Virginia.) That has only happened once that I recall, in the 1985 floods. The floods in the eastern mountain counties in 1985 wiped out most of the response assets, i.e., everybody’s vehicles with flashing lights and radios who would have handled the problem, all of the utilities and nearly all of the transportation system. The local response died in hours, and the state office of emergency services response was fouled up. Governor Moore, who was controversial but certainly not a shy guy (he was a friend of my dad) called out all of the National Guard, went to Parsons, took personal control, and drove the entire effort like a wagon boss.
But for a snowstorm? Some years ago, I was deputy director and then director of emergency services for Marion County for around 10 years. During that time, we never “declared a state of emergency,” although we dealt with unusual incidents every few months. There was a large snowstorm that dumped around 3 feet of heavy snow in a day or day and a half. Then the temperature went to about negative 20 or 25. Those are real extreme conditions for West Virginia. We sat in the Communications Center, the director and I, and talked briefly about the state of emergency thing. But we quickly concluded that there was no reason. The power company had lots of assistance from other regions, the fire departments were staffed in house (even volunteer departments) and doing public service calls to help people to shelter, and everything was working fine. And so, the only notable thing was that the occasional friendly bulletins that we faxed to news outlets were picked up by the wire services because, I guess, they were a bit quirky and homespun. In addition to advice like don’t use gas stoves for heat (they are unvented), we would remind people to check on their neighbors, particularly old folks, and that “this too shall pass.”
When you have an emergency, fine, treat it as such and if you are smart, you will have trained or prepared for what you need to do. But don’t go finding crises where they aren’t - - it’s just too nerve-wracking.
I Need an Outlet
I am not a gadget geek. I am not. I need every charger, battery and wire I carry. Oh, I do believe in the concept of redundancy, and it’ll be a cold day in hell when I’m out of charged cell batteries or a way to keep the Kindle going. But laptops are a problem. I haven’t tried the tiny ones that don’t have a fan, but Old Nellie here is good for an hour or two on battery. Restaurants, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, and similar establishments would serve me better if they had more outlets.
The Grammys
I do not care what Britney wore to the Grammys, or who was shocked by it.
Shifting the Flag
Today, I shifted the flag to the New Incarnation of No. 3 Equity Court, which is at 1414 Country Club Road, Fairmont, West Virginia. For those of you who need to retarget your ballistic missiles, that's latitude North 39.472965, Longitude West 80.174327, elevation 329.18 meters.
Pippa passes.
R
23 January 2010
Impartial Reflections on Particle Physics, Driveway Sealants and Pet Dander
Publication on My Schedule
Flexibility in assisting Matriarch LaG in her illness necessitates publication of all but critical stuff as and when circumstances permit.
The home health ladies are welcome to her home and are doing noble work. Think about it.
A couple of the younger of the home health ladies also find themselves attending LaG’s College of Home Economics. I frequently find them all learning together archanae such as why success in candy-making depends on humidity and the relative merits of differently shaped shears in the trimming of blankets.
Birthdays
Yesterday, Friend Vanessa celebrated her 42nd. She began practice with us, and now has a good “boutique” family law practice.
And today was quite remarkable. “Second Father” Jim Moon turned 80 today. We held a lunch thing at Muriale’s (a first-rate Italian eatery in the Friendly City), well-attended by many friends, and Jim was quite surprised. The Governor had to cancel at the last minute (new grandchild being born!), but sent a staffer to present Jim with the . That Award is the highest award given by the Governor for service to the people of West Virginia. Governor Manchin did call Jim from the hospital during the luncheon.
And we were honored to see a very elite group of men present Jim another recognition. Jim is a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. Jim is truly my second father and yet all I know (or likely ever will know) of that is that he is a combat veteran who was evacuated to Japan for wounds. Some years ago in a move, his Purple Heart was lost. Bro. Jamie Spriggs’ son James, himself a member of the Army 82nd Airborne on medical leave from wounds in Iraq, found out that Jim did not have the medal, and made arrangements that it be reawarded today. Military veterans among the readers will know more than any of the rest of us the significance of this to Jim.
Friend and Bro. Oce Smith attended, and Pastor Josh Patty was fascinated by Oce’s personal recollections of JFK, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Primary Election.
The delectable detritus of pasta and birthday cake will be feeding Rescue Co. 20's crews for the next couple of days.
No. 3 Equity Court Continues to Transcend the Physical World
The ill-informed believe that No. 3 is a place. Piffle. No. 3 is a world, a belief, an attitude, a joy, a dimension, an immersion and a pith touching Newtonian space only incidentally. Nonetheless, the point in space-time loosely identified with No. 3 will shift suddenly in two weeks, as the firm moves to new digs on Country Club Road. Information and photograph will be provided. Partner JC is making this happen effectively and quickly, and Mr. Moon also has labored mightily in the vineyards of this project.
But the Real No. 3 Equity Court? It has always been and always will be in the heart.
No, I don’t know where my blog post titles come from.
Pippa passes. As always. That, I do know.
R
Flexibility in assisting Matriarch LaG in her illness necessitates publication of all but critical stuff as and when circumstances permit.
The home health ladies are welcome to her home and are doing noble work. Think about it.
A couple of the younger of the home health ladies also find themselves attending LaG’s College of Home Economics. I frequently find them all learning together archanae such as why success in candy-making depends on humidity and the relative merits of differently shaped shears in the trimming of blankets.
Birthdays
Yesterday, Friend Vanessa celebrated her 42nd. She began practice with us, and now has a good “boutique” family law practice.
And today was quite remarkable. “Second Father” Jim Moon turned 80 today. We held a lunch thing at Muriale’s (a first-rate Italian eatery in the Friendly City), well-attended by many friends, and Jim was quite surprised. The Governor had to cancel at the last minute (new grandchild being born!), but sent a staffer to present Jim with the . That Award is the highest award given by the Governor for service to the people of West Virginia. Governor Manchin did call Jim from the hospital during the luncheon.
And we were honored to see a very elite group of men present Jim another recognition. Jim is a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War. Jim is truly my second father and yet all I know (or likely ever will know) of that is that he is a combat veteran who was evacuated to Japan for wounds. Some years ago in a move, his Purple Heart was lost. Bro. Jamie Spriggs’ son James, himself a member of the Army 82nd Airborne on medical leave from wounds in Iraq, found out that Jim did not have the medal, and made arrangements that it be reawarded today. Military veterans among the readers will know more than any of the rest of us the significance of this to Jim.
Friend and Bro. Oce Smith attended, and Pastor Josh Patty was fascinated by Oce’s personal recollections of JFK, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Primary Election.
The delectable detritus of pasta and birthday cake will be feeding Rescue Co. 20's crews for the next couple of days.
No. 3 Equity Court Continues to Transcend the Physical World
The ill-informed believe that No. 3 is a place. Piffle. No. 3 is a world, a belief, an attitude, a joy, a dimension, an immersion and a pith touching Newtonian space only incidentally. Nonetheless, the point in space-time loosely identified with No. 3 will shift suddenly in two weeks, as the firm moves to new digs on Country Club Road. Information and photograph will be provided. Partner JC is making this happen effectively and quickly, and Mr. Moon also has labored mightily in the vineyards of this project.
But the Real No. 3 Equity Court? It has always been and always will be in the heart.
No, I don’t know where my blog post titles come from.
Pippa passes. As always. That, I do know.
R
03 January 2010
Hypocrisy in Syncopation
OK, I’m a Hypocrite - Wanna Make Something of It?
At coffee one morning last week, my buddy and brother David described having some fun at my expense over Christmas. Someone in his family received an automobile GPS, and so he recited to the group at large my opinion that there is a downside to GPS. (Actually, the way I’ve phrased it is that it will be a cold day in Hell before I put Tom Tom, Dick Dick or Harry Harry in my car.)
If we become dependent on complicated technology which, by its nature, is subject to breakdown, and we lose skills at low-tech or no-tech options, we may find ourselves unable to navigate at all or do other simple tasks. For example, when is the last time you met a store clerk who could count change? In any event, David then pointed out that I had recommended a book to him that I couldn’t lend him - because I only had it on my Kindle.
(Confession - Tim urged his Auto GPS on me to navigate in downtown Pittsburgh, a place with which I am unfamiliar, and the damn thing worked. Damn. Damn. Damn.)
The Nest
Son Tim is moving from the nest now that he has reached age 21. In a couple of weeks, he will be moving with a buddy to an apartment which, big surprise, is very, very close to the firehouse. There is method here. Emergency service departments live for quick response time. From time to time, departments do little experiments on calls where some apparatus go from point A to point B with lights and siren, and other, less critical, apparatus drive in the normal fashion. Of course, the bright and loud truck will get there first, but you’d be surprised how short the time difference often is. So the big time potential waster is the delay getting apparatus out the door, and for any volunteer department that means the delay for the volunteers to make it to the firehouse. Well, that’s the explanation for this move if you’re looking only at the good of the public. Now let’s look at another good reason for the location of the move: The first qualified driver who gets to the firehouse drives the fire engine. I was trying to explain the feeling of that phenomenon to an old and dear high school friend last week, but words absolutely failed me. I’m sure that the public sees everyone who drives a vehicle with a flashing red or blue light as some kind of modern-day rhinestone cowboy who should be tied up with his/her own lasso and restrained while responsible adults go sedately to cure the problems of the community. Well for those who are of that opinion, from my heart, I say “Screw you.”
There’s a whole lot more to driving a piece of apparatus than getting your heart beating fast, climbing in, starting her up, revving up the siren, and mashing the accelerator. No one gets behind the wheel before they been under the the hood with oil and grease, been wallowing on the floor under the chasis with cleaning solvent, been in the back repacking hose or sanitizing the ambulance, and generally doing every other dirty job you can imagine. And this isn’t some initiation thing - These are the jobs that everybody does which have to be done continually. No one gets behind the wheel on a call until they have been behind the wheel extensively just driving around town and around the area to learn the roads, learn the streets, learn the bridges and their weight limits, and learn the peculiarities of driving emergency apparatus. Even something so apparently ordinary as a police car is way different from your daddy’s Oldsmobile. Ambulances and rescue trucks are top heavy, and the driver has to remember that he or she has people who cannot be wearing seatbelts moving around in the back. Fire engines are extremely heavy, and often have cantilevered tabs, meaning that the driver is sitting in front of the front wheels. And then the drivers began their emergency driving training under the master drivers who are uniformly old, nasty, crotchety, and who live with the fear that one of “their” drivers will make the mistake that kills somebody. Every new person in every job in every department chafes at the constant bitching about safety from the old guys. And then they become old guys, and themselves become the safety crazed apparitions.
So it will be a while before Tim and his buddy are wheeling Company 10's engines on emergency calls, but they’ll be riding and with their mates doing the other dirty and dangerous work. They have a lot to learn in the meantime, but let me tell you I’m proud of Tim, I’m proud of his buddy Shawn, and I’m proud of all of these young people who have the character and the guts to get off their asses, meet some of the worst problems of life head on, and help their fellow man.
Useless, Useless
The small contest, to identify the origin of that phrase, attracted exactly one entrant, the one I expected from Josh Patty. He correctly identified that phrase as the statement made by J. Wilkes Booth as he looked as his hands right before he died. Josh received a copy of Robert Gula's Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows; How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language, which I heartily recommend to people who pretend to use language for more complex things than ordering burgers at McDonalds.
Spotty publication
LaG’s health has been diminishing, so this wretched scribe’s writing has been and will be more irregular. Prayers welcome. And to quote Josh, when you don't know what to pray for, the prayer is "teach me how to pray."
Pippa passes.
R
At coffee one morning last week, my buddy and brother David described having some fun at my expense over Christmas. Someone in his family received an automobile GPS, and so he recited to the group at large my opinion that there is a downside to GPS. (Actually, the way I’ve phrased it is that it will be a cold day in Hell before I put Tom Tom, Dick Dick or Harry Harry in my car.)
If we become dependent on complicated technology which, by its nature, is subject to breakdown, and we lose skills at low-tech or no-tech options, we may find ourselves unable to navigate at all or do other simple tasks. For example, when is the last time you met a store clerk who could count change? In any event, David then pointed out that I had recommended a book to him that I couldn’t lend him - because I only had it on my Kindle.
(Confession - Tim urged his Auto GPS on me to navigate in downtown Pittsburgh, a place with which I am unfamiliar, and the damn thing worked. Damn. Damn. Damn.)
The Nest
Son Tim is moving from the nest now that he has reached age 21. In a couple of weeks, he will be moving with a buddy to an apartment which, big surprise, is very, very close to the firehouse. There is method here. Emergency service departments live for quick response time. From time to time, departments do little experiments on calls where some apparatus go from point A to point B with lights and siren, and other, less critical, apparatus drive in the normal fashion. Of course, the bright and loud truck will get there first, but you’d be surprised how short the time difference often is. So the big time potential waster is the delay getting apparatus out the door, and for any volunteer department that means the delay for the volunteers to make it to the firehouse. Well, that’s the explanation for this move if you’re looking only at the good of the public. Now let’s look at another good reason for the location of the move: The first qualified driver who gets to the firehouse drives the fire engine. I was trying to explain the feeling of that phenomenon to an old and dear high school friend last week, but words absolutely failed me. I’m sure that the public sees everyone who drives a vehicle with a flashing red or blue light as some kind of modern-day rhinestone cowboy who should be tied up with his/her own lasso and restrained while responsible adults go sedately to cure the problems of the community. Well for those who are of that opinion, from my heart, I say “Screw you.”
There’s a whole lot more to driving a piece of apparatus than getting your heart beating fast, climbing in, starting her up, revving up the siren, and mashing the accelerator. No one gets behind the wheel before they been under the the hood with oil and grease, been wallowing on the floor under the chasis with cleaning solvent, been in the back repacking hose or sanitizing the ambulance, and generally doing every other dirty job you can imagine. And this isn’t some initiation thing - These are the jobs that everybody does which have to be done continually. No one gets behind the wheel on a call until they have been behind the wheel extensively just driving around town and around the area to learn the roads, learn the streets, learn the bridges and their weight limits, and learn the peculiarities of driving emergency apparatus. Even something so apparently ordinary as a police car is way different from your daddy’s Oldsmobile. Ambulances and rescue trucks are top heavy, and the driver has to remember that he or she has people who cannot be wearing seatbelts moving around in the back. Fire engines are extremely heavy, and often have cantilevered tabs, meaning that the driver is sitting in front of the front wheels. And then the drivers began their emergency driving training under the master drivers who are uniformly old, nasty, crotchety, and who live with the fear that one of “their” drivers will make the mistake that kills somebody. Every new person in every job in every department chafes at the constant bitching about safety from the old guys. And then they become old guys, and themselves become the safety crazed apparitions.
So it will be a while before Tim and his buddy are wheeling Company 10's engines on emergency calls, but they’ll be riding and with their mates doing the other dirty and dangerous work. They have a lot to learn in the meantime, but let me tell you I’m proud of Tim, I’m proud of his buddy Shawn, and I’m proud of all of these young people who have the character and the guts to get off their asses, meet some of the worst problems of life head on, and help their fellow man.
Useless, Useless
The small contest, to identify the origin of that phrase, attracted exactly one entrant, the one I expected from Josh Patty. He correctly identified that phrase as the statement made by J. Wilkes Booth as he looked as his hands right before he died. Josh received a copy of Robert Gula's Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows; How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language, which I heartily recommend to people who pretend to use language for more complex things than ordering burgers at McDonalds.
Spotty publication
LaG’s health has been diminishing, so this wretched scribe’s writing has been and will be more irregular. Prayers welcome. And to quote Josh, when you don't know what to pray for, the prayer is "teach me how to pray."
Pippa passes.
R
13 December 2009
Merry Christmas, Dancing to The Single Issue Tango, and An Unfortunate Evening in a Rural Tobacco Barn
Personal privilege: LaG (that would be our mother, Opal, undisputed matriarch of the Monongahela Valley) was hospitalized for several days and now is home with home health people present.
Thus, this wretched scribe has been elsewhere for a while. LaG is doing better. Good wishes & prayers are appreciated.
Merry Christmas!
The right wing whine lines are humming with the sounds of Christmas, er, The Holidays. “The Reason for the Season!,” and “Put Christ Back in Christmas!” The theme, you see, is that Christ is being chased from His Own Birthday by those who would chant “Happy Holidays” and especially by people who erect “Holiday” decorations or, worse, “Holiday trees.” When the babble bubble bursts, we should conclude, they say, that we Christians are victims of a dastardly plot to secularize us out of our own faith.
What the Constitution says literally and how it is universally interpreted and accepted is a touch different. The First Amendment states, in full:
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.
Universally, we recognize that the First Amendment does more than limit Congress. It grants citizens the right to freely exercise religion within very wide boundaries. (E.g., The U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the right of members of the Santería faith tradition in their practice of animal sacrifice, over the State of Florida's animal cruelty prosecution. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 1993)
And so, when someone wishes the devout Christian “Happy Holidays!,” the Christian can cringe and cry, run in circles, scream and shout, or he or she can choose not to play "I'm a victim." His or her response can be, “Merry Christmas!,” “Up yours, satanic pig!,” silence, or “Whatever, who cares.” He or she will not be arrested for a sincere expression of Christian faith (unlike the situation if such an expression were made in downtown Mecca, Tehran, Riyadh, or Rangoon) nor, for that matter, subject to anything except what he or she just expressed: disagreement.
Government exercise of religion is proscribed. Government suppression of religion is proscribed, too.
So I hope this clears things up.
Now, I have set forth what amounts to a hypothesis. Let’s test it. So, from No. 3 Equity Court, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
There. See? It worked. Nobody prevented me from doing it. If I don’t get a response from that particular episode of “Merry Christmas!,” I’ll surely get a response from the other occasions where I extend that wish this year. None of the responses will force me to retract the sentiment. None of the responders will shame me for extending the wish to them. If anyone is offended, then they are simpletons. If they do not want to reply with some equivalent Christian greeting because that is not their faith tradition, that’s fine with me. I’m not offended by “Happy Holidays,” “Thanks, you too,” “Here’s mud in your eye,” “Happy Hannukah, too” and even a hearty “Screw you” won’t hurt me. (A Jewish lawyer friend had a well-meaning client wish him "Happy Chaka Khan" one Christmas and he solemnly returned the greeting in kind.)
So lighten up, people. Quit looking at ways to be victimized. Look for ways to spread positive messages and do positive things.
The Single Issue Tango
In the peculiar Rube Goldberg geometry of shuffling offices, there was a rush brought on by the elevation of Delegate Carrie Webster to a Circuit Judge vacancy in Kanawha County. Delegate Webster was Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, one of the two key House of Delegates Committess (Judiciary and Finance), the Chairs of which are big dogs in the Legislature.
The easy and obvious (and proper) answer in such a circumstance is to move the vice-chair into the chair. Any vacancy or, or that matter, any little crack that can be widened or exploited will be attacked by any number of opportunists who, in politics, swarm like platelets looking for a bleeding cut. There is another phenomenon of politics that also comes into play in such situations: In order to achieve their desired results, partisans will (1) make stuff up and (2) look at irrelevant single issues to the exclusion of ability, other issues, honesty, or consequences. That was the buzz for the past couple of weeks. The vice-chair of Judiciary was Delegate Tim Miley from Harrison County. He’s extremely intelligent and effective and has not the hint of improper compromise or taint about him. BUT - shhhhh - he’s against abortion. And Delegate Webster? She’s for abortion.
Abortion sells printer ink, but has little to do with what the legislature actually does from year to year. It is, however, the most powerful, visceral single issue hobby horse in the political stable. So rather than a discussion of how Judiciary would work, we were treated to a week of abortion this and abortion that. The purpose of that discussion had little to do with abortion, though. (Mind you, the people in the trenches stirred up by the manipulators honestly thought it did.) Realpolitik says that the votes aren’t there to do much of anything with abortion this year and that federal action is preempting most lines of action anyway, so it’s all about the power grab.
I’m happy to say that Delegate Miley, who is a good and honorable friend, was named Judiciary chair a few days ago.
Useless, Useless
There is a place in the garden for every flower. For everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Your reach should exceed your grasp, or what’s a Heaven for? La-di-dah.
But grasping at soap bubbles?
The same old patent medicine floggers still flog the same old patent medicine, only in different bottles. Everyone wants a rainbow and usually that means some sort of Easy Living.
In the past few weeks I have been tempted, Lord, oh I have been tempted to the Jimmy-Swaggart-With-Hookers point by mesmerizing emails proposing that I abandon No. 3 and aim high, aim for a Career In Video Game Testing. The emails promise that I will average $750 per week after training. Presumably, the company which sent the email will “train” me (and they’ll have to - after “PacMan,” I pretty much lost interest in video games), and perhaps they will charge some modest fees. Surely they will send me to some willing employer who, despite having video game designers, needs persons trained as testers (but not programmers) to tell them how they’ve done and are willing to pay modest bucks for it. Right? Right?
Sigh - and I still run into teens who are certain that they do not need to take school seriously because they are “sure” to be models or skateboard “professionals.”
This is our fault, you know. We’ve sat on our asses because we have been lazy, stupid and afraid, and let the TV be the babysitter, and bound our youth to a Hannah Montana world which exists between the tube and the retina. Do we have the guts to confront this head on?
(PS - A book from the Three Parsec Bookshelf® for the first person to note the historic reference of the title to this section; and also to the second person if Pastor Josh is the first, since the answer is the old shooting fish in a barrel thing to him.)
Law Blogs
I’ve added several links to Law Blogs to the right. These are from the 2009 ABA Journal “Top 100" list, i.e., the ones I like.
Pippa passes.
Я
Thus, this wretched scribe has been elsewhere for a while. LaG is doing better. Good wishes & prayers are appreciated.
Merry Christmas!
The right wing whine lines are humming with the sounds of Christmas, er, The Holidays. “The Reason for the Season!,” and “Put Christ Back in Christmas!” The theme, you see, is that Christ is being chased from His Own Birthday by those who would chant “Happy Holidays” and especially by people who erect “Holiday” decorations or, worse, “Holiday trees.” When the babble bubble bursts, we should conclude, they say, that we Christians are victims of a dastardly plot to secularize us out of our own faith.
What the Constitution says literally and how it is universally interpreted and accepted is a touch different. The First Amendment states, in full:
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.
Universally, we recognize that the First Amendment does more than limit Congress. It grants citizens the right to freely exercise religion within very wide boundaries. (E.g., The U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the right of members of the Santería faith tradition in their practice of animal sacrifice, over the State of Florida's animal cruelty prosecution. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 1993)
And so, when someone wishes the devout Christian “Happy Holidays!,” the Christian can cringe and cry, run in circles, scream and shout, or he or she can choose not to play "I'm a victim." His or her response can be, “Merry Christmas!,” “Up yours, satanic pig!,” silence, or “Whatever, who cares.” He or she will not be arrested for a sincere expression of Christian faith (unlike the situation if such an expression were made in downtown Mecca, Tehran, Riyadh, or Rangoon) nor, for that matter, subject to anything except what he or she just expressed: disagreement.
Government exercise of religion is proscribed. Government suppression of religion is proscribed, too.
So I hope this clears things up.
Now, I have set forth what amounts to a hypothesis. Let’s test it. So, from No. 3 Equity Court, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
There. See? It worked. Nobody prevented me from doing it. If I don’t get a response from that particular episode of “Merry Christmas!,” I’ll surely get a response from the other occasions where I extend that wish this year. None of the responses will force me to retract the sentiment. None of the responders will shame me for extending the wish to them. If anyone is offended, then they are simpletons. If they do not want to reply with some equivalent Christian greeting because that is not their faith tradition, that’s fine with me. I’m not offended by “Happy Holidays,” “Thanks, you too,” “Here’s mud in your eye,” “Happy Hannukah, too” and even a hearty “Screw you” won’t hurt me. (A Jewish lawyer friend had a well-meaning client wish him "Happy Chaka Khan" one Christmas and he solemnly returned the greeting in kind.)
So lighten up, people. Quit looking at ways to be victimized. Look for ways to spread positive messages and do positive things.
The Single Issue Tango
In the peculiar Rube Goldberg geometry of shuffling offices, there was a rush brought on by the elevation of Delegate Carrie Webster to a Circuit Judge vacancy in Kanawha County. Delegate Webster was Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, one of the two key House of Delegates Committess (Judiciary and Finance), the Chairs of which are big dogs in the Legislature.
The easy and obvious (and proper) answer in such a circumstance is to move the vice-chair into the chair. Any vacancy or, or that matter, any little crack that can be widened or exploited will be attacked by any number of opportunists who, in politics, swarm like platelets looking for a bleeding cut. There is another phenomenon of politics that also comes into play in such situations: In order to achieve their desired results, partisans will (1) make stuff up and (2) look at irrelevant single issues to the exclusion of ability, other issues, honesty, or consequences. That was the buzz for the past couple of weeks. The vice-chair of Judiciary was Delegate Tim Miley from Harrison County. He’s extremely intelligent and effective and has not the hint of improper compromise or taint about him. BUT - shhhhh - he’s against abortion. And Delegate Webster? She’s for abortion.
Abortion sells printer ink, but has little to do with what the legislature actually does from year to year. It is, however, the most powerful, visceral single issue hobby horse in the political stable. So rather than a discussion of how Judiciary would work, we were treated to a week of abortion this and abortion that. The purpose of that discussion had little to do with abortion, though. (Mind you, the people in the trenches stirred up by the manipulators honestly thought it did.) Realpolitik says that the votes aren’t there to do much of anything with abortion this year and that federal action is preempting most lines of action anyway, so it’s all about the power grab.
I’m happy to say that Delegate Miley, who is a good and honorable friend, was named Judiciary chair a few days ago.
Useless, Useless
There is a place in the garden for every flower. For everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Your reach should exceed your grasp, or what’s a Heaven for? La-di-dah.
But grasping at soap bubbles?
The same old patent medicine floggers still flog the same old patent medicine, only in different bottles. Everyone wants a rainbow and usually that means some sort of Easy Living.
In the past few weeks I have been tempted, Lord, oh I have been tempted to the Jimmy-Swaggart-With-Hookers point by mesmerizing emails proposing that I abandon No. 3 and aim high, aim for a Career In Video Game Testing. The emails promise that I will average $750 per week after training. Presumably, the company which sent the email will “train” me (and they’ll have to - after “PacMan,” I pretty much lost interest in video games), and perhaps they will charge some modest fees. Surely they will send me to some willing employer who, despite having video game designers, needs persons trained as testers (but not programmers) to tell them how they’ve done and are willing to pay modest bucks for it. Right? Right?
Sigh - and I still run into teens who are certain that they do not need to take school seriously because they are “sure” to be models or skateboard “professionals.”
This is our fault, you know. We’ve sat on our asses because we have been lazy, stupid and afraid, and let the TV be the babysitter, and bound our youth to a Hannah Montana world which exists between the tube and the retina. Do we have the guts to confront this head on?
(PS - A book from the Three Parsec Bookshelf® for the first person to note the historic reference of the title to this section; and also to the second person if Pastor Josh is the first, since the answer is the old shooting fish in a barrel thing to him.)
Law Blogs
I’ve added several links to Law Blogs to the right. These are from the 2009 ABA Journal “Top 100" list, i.e., the ones I like.
Pippa passes.
Я
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
