Juveniles tried as adults

Some weeks ago I read a headline in the local paper that read something along the lines of "Local Teen to be Tried as Adult." I didn't read the article so I have no idea what this particular case was about, but the headline and the notion of trying children as adults stuck with me.

I've given it some thought, and I am categorically against trying children as adults, at least the way we go about it currently.

Basically, trying children as adults gives them all the responsibility of being an adult, without any of the benefits. We're telling kids as young as 13 or 14, "We consider you to be mentally mature enough to fully appreciate the gravity of what you've done and are going to hold you accountable as such. However, we do not consider you mentally mature enough to vote, make the decision to smoke, consume pornography, live on your own, manage your financial affairs, purchase lottery tickets, drive a car and all the other rights and privileges of being a full member of society."

It's absurd. Surely if a child was cognizant enough to understand the full ramifications of committing assault, robbery, murder (intentional or otherwise) and all the other big ticket crimes that land juveniles in adult court, they can understand the ramifications of a cigarette? Or a ballot box. Or a credit card. But, if they can't be trusted with all those other things that full members of society are trusted with, under what logic can they stand trial as an adult?

I propose that, for a prosecutor to even bring charges against a minor as an adult, that child must first be fully and permanently emancipated by the state. For all legal intents and purposes, they will be 18, regardless of what their chronological age might be. If it seems silly, dangerous or outrageous to give a child all the power and freedom of adulthood, then it must be equally silly and dangerous to make them shoulder all the responsibility of one as well.

Why aren't more people

capitalizing on the endless mirth that can be had by referring to General Petraeus as "The Surge Protector?"

Behold the Burqini (tm)!

This is pretty cool. While marketed towards conservative Muslim women, it has growing appeal with other groups, such as conservative Christians, people with various ailments that make them sensitive to sunlight, as well as women who are just plain uncomfortable in a more modern 1 or 2 piece swimsuit.

Some of the reactions have been interesting as well. One in particular that caught my eye was this comment from Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of Equality Now, the international women's-rights watchdog:

"Clearly you're not considered a full human being if you're mandated to cover yourself head to toe in this tent"

That got me thinking, and I came to two conclusions: First, I think it's pretty clear that you're not considered a full human being if you're mandated to expose as much flesh as possible without actually violating obscenity laws. Now, it's true that women's dress isn't mandated in our secular Western society in the same manner certain Muslim countries , but I'm sure that all women will agree with me that the societal pressure to be a size 00 (yes, size 4 or even size 2 is too big these days) is inescapable. Just look through.... well look through just about anything: magazines, billboards, network TV ads, cable ads, banners on the internet. Everywhere you turn it is made abundantly clear that the standard of beauty in America is a slim woman with perky boobs, small waist and a tight butt. Fat people who get skinny are applauded, skinny people who get fat are ridiculed. So, while I would not say it's mandated, everyone, Taina Bien-Aimé included, would say there is unbelievable social pressure to bare it all on the beach.

Second, why do we choose to cover those small parts of the female form? I mean, very, very little is left to the imagination on certain beaches in this country; some bikini designs have less fabric than bras and panties, so why bother? Why not just let people go to the beach nude?

It must be because there's something different, something special about these areas. These body parts, the breasts, the butt and pelvic area must be more private, more intimate then the rest of the body put together. These most sensual things must never be seen in public; they are only to be shared within the confines of loving relationship. I know that that is not remotely the case in reality; (you can see enough nipples to last a lifetime, for free, in five minutes, on the net) what I'm trying to get at here is the Cultural Ideal. If that's the reason we keep certain areas of the body sacred, might not Muslim standards of decency be for the same reason? To keep certain sensuous, intimate, even erotic parts of the body out of the public arena? If that's so, then a Burqini is a significant upgrade to the worth and value of the feminine form, far above and beyond the value we generally place on it.

Chinglish Sighting

(Chinglish?)

We got Chinese take-out on Sunday, and the following was printed on my chopsticks.

On the front:

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant.
Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks
the traditional and typical glonous history
and cultual.

And the back

Learn how to use your chopsticks

Tuk under thurnb
and held firmly

Add second chopstick
hold it as you hold
a pencil

Hold first chopstick
in originai position
move the second'
one up and down
Now you can pick
up anything:

I got to thinking

that if Jesus came back this tomorrow and started doing whatever it is that he needs to do during his second coming, that the vast majority of the people today would be just like the vast majority during his first go round in that we would simply not understand what he was up to.

The things that hold his attention, the places he goes, the people he talks with and the stuff he does would completely confuse us. Nearly every person's understanding of him would probably be utterly shattered.

Today I received the following email:

[Hundreds of Email addresses in the header had to be edited out because people don't listen to me]

Subject: DON'T PUMP YOUR GAS ON MAY 15TH 2007

MARK YOUR CALENDERS AND DON'T PUMP YOUR GAS ON MAY 15TH 2007

Don't pump gas on May 15th
In April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.

On May 15th 2007, all AMERICANS are asked not to go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.

If all Americans did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,200,000,000.00 (that's BILLION) out of the oil companys [sic] pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and lets try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day.

If you agree (which I cant see why you wouldnt, [sic] don't you want cheap gas?)
Email to all of your contacts!!

This notion is, of course, ludicrous. I don't usually reply to this sort of thing, but this time did:

Subject: Re: DON'T PUMP YOUR GAS ON MAY 15TH 2007

This sort of action, while well intentioned, will never work. Here's why:

First of all, OPEC does not make any money off what you spend at the pump. OPEC's profit happens when they export crude oil from one of their member countries to the US. This is bought by a refinery, who processes it into various petroleum products including kerosene, motor oil, diesel and regular gasoline. These are then sold to wholesalers who sell them to individual retailers. So, by the time you're swiping your card at the pump, the product is well removed from OPEC's revenue streams, and not buying on any given day will not affect them at all.

Second, gasoline is only the tip of petroleum iceberg. Take a look around where you're sitting and you'll see dozens, maybe hundreds of petroleum based products at your desk. If you were to go through your entire house, it would take hours to find the literally thousands of petroleum based products we use every day. Everything that is plastic, rubber or made of synthetic fibers like nylon, rayon or polyester has petroleum in it. I'll bet nearly every piece of clothing you're wearing right now is either a cotton blend or has an elastic band in it that is petroleum based. Many types of cleaners and detergents, including shampoo, laundry soap and dish detergent have petroleum products in them. Many paints and dyes have petroleum derivatives in them, as do many medicines such as antihistamines and aspirin. Many types of makeup, especially lipsticks and lip balms have petrochemicals in them as well. Oil derivatives are everywhere. You simply would not be able to live life as you are accustomed to without them. For a fun experiment, see how long you can go without touching or using something plastic. If your fingers did not immediately leave the keyboard and mouse, you've already failed.

The next two points are the most important.

Third: a quick lesson in economics. Basic economic theory says that supply, demand and price are all related. If demand increases while supply stays the same, prices will rise. If demand falls while supply remains the same prices will fall. This is known as flexible demand and what this gas boycott is hoping to accomplish. The demand for gasoline, however, is what's known to economists as inflexible. This means that demand does not fluctuate much with changes in price or supply because gas is a necessity for which there is no readily available substitute. Lots of things have inflexible demand: milk for instance. As the price of milk has risen, people have not started drinking less. Nor do they drink more when milk is cheap. Gas is the same way. I'm only 24 and I can clearly remember buying gas for .99 a gallon back in high school. The price of gas has basically tripled in the last 10 years or so, but it hasn't changed my (or anyone else I know, for that matter) driving habits at all. Regardless of the price of gas, I still need to do about the same amount of driving from week to week, year to year. Because of this fact, everybody who doesn't buy gas on the 15th, is going to on the 14th, or the 16th or some time the next week. Even if nobody on the planet bought a drop of gas for 24 hours, the very next day it would be back to business as usual. This boycott has exactly zero potential to move the price of gas one penny.

Finally, and this is closely related to my previous point, no one is changing their habits because of this boycott. Let's pretend you commit to this one day boycott. You wake up on Tuesday the 15th and when you get about halfway to work (or school, or whatever) notice that your tank is almost empty; you're not sure you have enough gas to make it home. Will you honestly allow your commitment to this silly exercise risk stranding your car on the freeway? No, you're going to pull over and fill up (at least a little) as soon as you can. If you are all truly interested in lowering the price of gas, you will have to take much more drastic action. Sell your gas guzzler and buy a hybrid, or better yet, a fully electric car (they do exist) or at least the most fuel efficient car you can afford. Ride your bike every to work every day, not just when it's nice outside. Buy fewer petrochemical products (good luck with that). Buy a car that runs on biodiesel. Simply make a pledge to drive less, consistently, year in and year out. Carpool constantly. If enough people take steps like these, then we stand a real chance of bringing the price of gas down, mostly because we won't be using as much of it. Thinking this one day boycott will accomplish anything is pure fantasy. Boycotts need to be sustained over a long period time to be effective. If change is what you're after, it can happen, but will take more effort and sacrifice than a single day.

Send this to everyone who sent you the original boycott email.

I welcome comments, discussion and rebuttals on my blog
naznarreb.blogspot.com

To this I would like to add Snopes' excellent page on the subject. I did not think to check them out before sending off my reply. Similar hoaxes here.

Ziggurat Con

is probably the only con in existence where everybody involved (and most people who aren't, including me) hope that it doesn't happen again next year. That being said, it sounds cool and I hope everybody who attends has a good time. Check it out here.

Feel free to rage against the machine;

the machine doesn't care if you're angry with it.

RE: Don Imus

In the interest of broader race relations, we must allow for the fact that people will make the occasional bone-headed remark that will upset others. When this happens, the offender should be allowed to offer an apology and, more importantly, that apology should be accepted.

Philip The Wise's Theory of Prejudice

I like this better than my eariler thoughts. This is along the same lines, but much clearer and more robust than the other post.

Racist, prejudiced thinking comes very easy to people all over the world. I would venture to say that most, if not all, cultures around the world have at some point in their history engaged in stereotyping "Them" as generally negative, if not outright evil. A possible evolutionary reason for is that individuals do not evolve, groups and populations do. So, while I have a specific interest in making sure that me and my children survive, I also have a more general interest in making sure my group survives, even if it's at the expense of another group of the same species. In order to make myself OK with the slow (or rapid) extermination of another group of humans, I develop prejudices and hatreds for them. If I am able to see them as something other than human, I'm fine with succeeding at their expense.

It's a bad sign when

the foreign press compares your country's foreign policy to an an episode of Seinfeld.

It's a worse sign when they appear to have a point.

Some Thoughts on Cinematic Portrayals of Christianity

Wow, that's a pompous title.

Anyway, just got back from seeing 300 (it rocks, highly recommended) and there were two references to Catholicism in the previews (300 itself predates Catholicism by a fair bit). First, there was a Catholic priest, recognizable by his collar in a trailer for The Reaping and, evidently, Eddie Brock in Spiderman 3 is a Catholic too (he was shown crossing himself with holy water as he entered a cathedral to ask God to kill Peter Parker.

I'm Catholic, too, and these two things got me thinking about how movies portray Christianity. These are just a few things that came to mind; they're not particularly well thought out.

When a character in a movie needs to be established as "religious", they are portrayed almost always as Catholic. I wondered why that was, and came up with a few ideas. First, it is usually considered to be the largest single Christian denomination, with something around 1 billion baptized members, so it's easily accessible to many people. More than that, I think, the Catholic Church has number symbols like the collar, the rosary, confession (reconciliation), and the Vatican that make it easy to characterize someone as being "Catholic." It's an economy of narration; You paint a few broad strokes and let the audience fill in the rest. Most other Christian faiths lack such readily identifiable symbols, or may lack denomination-specific symbols entirely.

The one major exception to this (in movies, mind you) is black people, who are usually portrayed as belonging to some indeterminant protestant sect, understood by the audience to be baptist. This is especially true is the character is a minister or preacher; you never see black priests in the movies.

Catholics are urban/suburban, and protestants, when portrayed, are rural or southern.

The Catholic faithful seem to come in two flavors: the fairly devout (going to Confession, receiving Communion) or just-making-the-motions type, a la Bethany in the beginning of Dogma.

Protestant faithful (bear in mind, I'm using protestant in a very broad sense; in Hollywood, protestant is essentially defined as "non-Catholic") either have a very down home, simple faith, or are seen to be crazy bible-thumpers.

When deviance is portrayed in a Catholic community in the movies, it always seems to be priestly deviance. The members of the church are fairly average people, but the priest (deacon, bishop) is a lech or actually worshiping Satan or involved in some super-secret but uber-powerful cabal within the church.

When deviance is portrayed in protestant communities, usually the whole community is in on the weirdness; everybody thinks it's perfectly normal to share your wife with your brother and sacrifice a live lamb every full moon to the evil spirits that live in the woods. This may be because there is less of a hard distinction between clergy and laity in many protestant faiths.

Just some thoughts. Maybe more later.

With Respects To Wm Wordsworth (A Work in Progress)

"The World is too much with us"
Truer now than then
we scramble for purchase, footing
like frightened ants and busy men

"The World is too much with us"
it's never left my side
a constant nuisance, ever-present
as inexorable as a tide

"The World is too much with us"
I'd like to leave awhile
to let my thoughts collect themselves
and gather life more fertile

"The World is too much with us"
Wm Wordsworth once did say
I think the man ahead of his time
his words haunt me still today.

Twice in the recent past

I have come across the phrase "global warming deniers." "Global warming deniers" yields 238k results on Google and searching the exact phrase (" 'global warming deniers' ") yields 133k, so the phrase is in fairly wide usage. It struck me as a very powerful thing to call someone, for several reasons.

The first is the word "deny." To deny, in this sense, is to be contradictory, to refuse acknowledgment or recognition or to refuse to admit the truth or existence of something. So, right off the bat, a 'global warming denier' is a pretty stubborn and obstinate person, certainly no one pleasant.

"Deny" also has a pretty strong connotation of a guilty party trying to protect their ass, as it's most often seen in a legal context: "O.J. Simpson denies the allegations against him;" "Michael Jackson denies any inappropriate contact;" "City accountants deny any knowledge of wrongdoing."

(As a quick aside, doesn't "wrongdoing" have a wonderfully Orwellian feel to it?)

"Deny" coupled with "global" intensifies these meanings. You're accusing someone of refusing to admit to something as large as the Earth itself. Using the two words together makes the scale of someone's denial ludicrous; it's like denying the moon or Africa. What kind of a stubborn ass do have to be to refuse the existence of Africa?

Finally, what makes 'global warming deniers' such a powerful appellation is it's similarity to "holocaust deniers" (451k results. Holocaust denial nets 1.18 million), something so heinous that even holocaust deniers themselves understand it's not something to be known as; they seem to prefer the term 'revisionist.' Weather intentional or not, global warming activists are subtly comparing their opponents to Nazis, and I think the negative connotations associated with 'global warming deniers' are powerful enough that it will be difficult for people to shake the label, once applied. In most debates, playing the Hitler Card, as I call it (comparing Bush to Hitler, comparing abortionists to Nazis, etc.) instantly removes the argument from the realm of rationality and, unless they want to spend a tremendous amount of time and energy repudiating it, all the defender can do is deny it.

Correlation Does Not Equal Causality

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Signs I Don't Think Like a Kid Anymore

We actually had a decent snow here a few weeks ago. Several inches, lasted more than an hour (couple days in fact) all in all a kind of rare treat for us down in the valley.

Anyway, it wasn't until I saw the rain-eaten remains of a snowman yesterday that I realized it never occurred to me to make a snowman. It never occurred to me to go sledding or make snow angels or have a snowball fight or any of the other things that kids think about when they see the first winter snow.

The first and pretty much last thing I thought about the snow was, "Thank God I don't have a car and don't have to drive in this shit."

The Birth of Prejudice

My friend and I have a theory that there may be an evolutionary component to prejudice. Bear in my I do not submit this as means for someone to excuse their prejudice, or to try and make prejudice OK, merely as an attempt to explain why prejudice in humans is pretty much universal, and so easily acquired.

First off, we define prejudice: as a noun, prejudice is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary (online) as "an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts." You can be prejudiced about anything, not just people.

On with the theory:

Early humans roaming their world did not have the time or the resources to approach every single thing they encountered without any bias whatsoever: some things are too dangerous to deal with more than once, and so the next time it's encountered it's simply avoided. Our capacity for language and teaching things to others makes it unnecessary to experience things first hand. I have never been to Italy, but a number of people who have tell me there's a tower in Pisa that leans at a startling angle and I take them at their word.

Imagine this scene: You are lost in the woods and hungry. Seeing some red berries, you eat them, and several hours later throw them back up. Will you taste the next red berries you find? Probably not. This is not prejudice because you have direct experience.

Seeing signs of what you think is a town nearby, you head for it eagerly, but encounter a bruised and bloodied man coming the other way. You explain your situation to him and ask if you might find help in the town. He says he's lost too, and when he tried to get help there, the townsmen beat him and threw him out. You thank him and as he leaves you warn him about the red berries.

Do you still go to the town for help? If not, prejudice is born, not of any desire to see harm come to a particular group, but out of a simple need to survive.

Viewed this way, it's easy to see how prejudices can be so easily formed and passed around. I'm sure you can think of time when someone made a bad first impression and you told all your friends what an ass your new boss is, planting the seed of prejudice in their mind, or times when you gave into prejudice and avoided a business or person because of something someone else had said.