A man was killed by police... again. And people are still "just asking questions"... again.

To all of the people who continue to ask questions about one detail or another detail, who think that something could have happened before the start of the video, or who think that we should all wait so that the police can uncover all the evidence, I really have to ask one small thing:

If the humanity alone doesn't move you to ask what the heck is going on and demand action and accountability from those who killed him, then why are you not asking the questions based on the fundamentals of what makes America what it is: what about this man's day in court in front of a jury of his peers? Why aren't you angry that this guy was - for all intents and purposes - determined to be guilty and was executed by members representing an armed branch of the government? Where is the clamoring for his day in court, to be proven guilty by a jury of his peers?

Yes, there might be something in some alternate version of the video that could have shown something if it started sooner or was taken at a different angle or distance away. But that is beside the point that such evidence should be used by the police to prove the suspect's guilt in a court of law in front of a jury of the man's peers, and not used as an excuse after following what amounts to a summary execution.

And - furthermore - if you are someone who is continuing to ask questions as "isolated incident" after "isolated incident" continues ever onward, how many more "isolated incidents" are needed before you even see a pattern (let alone become angered by the presence of that pattern)?

Or to put it another way, how many more people must die before you choose to change your mind and choose to place fundamental American values of "innocent until proven guilty" and "tried before a jury of your peers" ahead of what amounts to a couch-potato desire to play Monday morning quarterback?

Yet another man died at the hands of the state. The state that is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people." And that should be troubling enough, regardless of what the corpse lying on the ground did in the last seconds of his life, simply on the grounds of basic, fundamental American values.

To non-scientists, science is something that you can believe in

A friend of mind posted the following article to their Facebook wall. 

 

"Cool Catchphrase, Hillary, but Science Isn't About Belief."

 

While I understand that some scientists feel annoyed with the framing of "belief in science," I thought that the author (and many of those scientists) got so many points wrong that it required a lengthy response.

 

Several points. 1. The author states, "Science is not a philosophy." Patently wrong; science is a philosophy. Indeed, for a long time, it went by the name "natural philosophy," since it is a framework of knowing about the natural world.

2. "It is a methodology." If this is all that the author thinks science is, then the author has a dim view of science. Science is far more than either a single methodology or even merely methodology. It is, as I wrote above, a means of knowing the natural world.

3. "[Science] is not something you believe in." Sorry, but this is also false. For non-scientists, who are not involved in the process of collecting, assessing, and interpreting information through the various methodologies of science, there is a belief that the whole institution works; that the whole institution provides reliable answers; that the whole institution is usable for more than the purpose of navel-gazing.

4. "Of course, the word 'science' has come to represent much more than the scientific method." For someone writing an article about what science is and isn't this is so bloody obvious that it's the very first thing taught in many philosophy of science courses (which - apparently - this author never took).

5. "[Belief in science] has also become political shorthand." Yes, this is true. But the way the author addresses this point is irrelevant in terms of the acceptance of different types of science. Hillary likely doesn't really want to "believe" in the science that doesn't fit into the platform of her party, such as the carbon benefits of constructing loads of nuclear power plants. However, the 'science-as-fig-leaf' use of science in politics is neither new nor surprising to anyone who has spent even a modicum of time looking at how science has been used, abused, ignored, or highlighted during the past two decades.

6. "'The idea that you can believe your own facts is an unfortunate consequence of the whole climate denial movement.'" I would argue that both the author and Prof. Russell are right, but speaking irrelevantly, since most people are not in the business of doing science (even once or twice removed). In other words, the point of stating "belief" or "non-belief" in one field of politicized science (be it evolution or climate change) is not about scientific knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, but more an issue of identity (both personal and political). And in that framework, speaking about "belief" is far more accurate and useful than speaking about "knowledge" and "understanding," simply because people can't be bothered to spend the time to get to know the science (just like everyone has some parts of life that they just can't be bothered to learn about to have a working knowledge of, and so merely just presume it to be so, like how a GPS works or how a car operates; unless you know, you are basically just believing that everything is working as it should).

7. "But Republicans could hear her tone as mocking not their candidate, but them." Umm... if the point of stating belief or non-belief in climate science is to present political identity (which the author does acknowledge above), then any tone Hillary takes is going to be seen as mocking them, and not their candidate. This isn't about convincing the people who incorporate climate-change denial into their political identity; this is about convincing the people who are on the fence (yeah, there are people on the fence) or who do believe in/understand climate change science that Trump is not their man.

8. "People who remain unconvinced that humans are a significant contributor to climate change are not necessarily anti-science (whatever that means." True, but when given the choice of a person who supports big government programs, then the type of person the author is talking about is likely going to be highly distrustful of her, anyway. It's like the author is thinking that it's an all-or-nothing gambit.

9. "It changes the practice of science from a method for understanding into a dangerous political weapon." Yeah... it's her fault. I mean science as *never* independently categorized into "good science" and "bad science" under the Bush administration... Oh, yeah, it was. And science has *never* been used for political purposes before 2000... Oh yeah, it was. Hell, even the creation of the NSF was done for the purpose of using science to help the government. Arguably, the use of science in agencies - from NASA to USGS - all are pursued for public policy purposes, and those purposes can be changed due to political winds. (Remember how the Republicans have threatened again and again to stop payments for Earth-monitoring satellites and "reminding" NASA that their mission is not to look at Earth, but to look out at the universe?) And let's not forget about how military science progresses, if *not* for a specific and applied used of political weaponry. So let's not get lulled into this utopian idea that science and politics are two separate worlds that have never and should never mix; they have been bedfellows for decades and decades and decades.

10. "At its best and most objective, science can heal divides, answer questions, solve problems." Let's take those one at a time. If the best science can heal divides, then it *is* being used for political reasons, which the author *just said* was when science would be diminished. Seriously; pick a side here. Next, the point of science is not about answering questions; some scientists would argue that science is about learning to ask better questions. Indeed, in the context of the larger question of "what is science," many scientists (and philosophers of science) would argue that science can never prove something to be true, but only that something is false. As such, we are left with the question of whether answering what something *isn't* is actually positively answering a question, since - in order to get a positive answer out of statements of what something isn't - one must negate the infinite set of what things it isn't in order to show that it is something. Finally, the question of whether science can solve problems depends on what problems you are asking science to solve (and the frameworks of science that you are using to try and solve the problem). Wicked problems (usually those that involve society) generally are not completely amenable to science, while those problems that science is really good at solving (usually those that completely exclude society) are - by their nature - not often relevant to society. In addition, there is the "science-as-the-genie" problem (my own phrase; I can't remember what the "technical term" is for this phenomenon), where science creates a new understanding or leads to a technological breakthrough that creates a whole new paradigm in which existing social norms and laws are no longer applicable or capable of addressing the advance. In such cases, science can be seen as creating a whole host of new problems... which may require science to solve again (a commonly cited example is the splitting of the atom and the ushering in of the nuclear age). So, no: by the factors listed by the author (and also by a myriad of factors the author failed to list), this assertion is just wrong, wrong, and wrong.

In short, it seems that the author is cleaving to a very narrow (and very limited) definition of what science is in order to make a very shallow and limited argument. I would suggest that the author - and people who think much along the lines of the author - read the book Honest Broker. It explains how science is used to support (or not) various political positions by various types of actors. I would also suggest that people pick up Michael Specter's Denialism, which discusses the problems of science denialism and also touches on pseudoscience and the question of "belief" in and of science. Finally, it might help the person who agrees wholeheartedly with the fundamental miscontrual of science to read even a primer on the philosophy of science to discuss what is science (the Oxford press's short introduction to Philosophy of Science is a decent book to pick up); science is - after all - far more than methodology and facts. It is - indeed - a means of knowing of the natural world (i.e., "natural philosophy").

"Drogar" is a word in Spanish, but "evolver" doesn't exist.

One question that occasionally pops into my head is, "Why is that English word made into a Spanish word?" This normally happens when I stumble across a banally common word that is so obviously from English that it makes me wonder, "Why isn't there a word for this in Spanish?" I then check the RAE to see if it is an officially recognized word, and - if it is - I look to see if there are any handy Spanish synonyms that could have also worked. And when there are, then it makes me think the complementary question of, "Why is this English word not made into a Spanish word?"

Case in point with the word drogar. I knew already that there was the noun droga, and that it means "drug." Interestingly, I also knew that the RAE cited a very different origin for the word droga (Hispanic Arabic) than what is cited as the origin for the word "drug" (Middle French). But okay. Whatever, right? Well, not so quick: the word origin for drogar is that it's from English ("to drug"). *sigh*

But the definition for drogar translates to "to administer a drug" (administrar una droga). And this point would be less irksome to me if Spanish would have the verb bicicletear, which would do the job of the phrase andar en bicicleta, which is the most common way to say, "to bike." Well, no; it's the most common way to say, "ride on a bike," since there is no verb for "to bike" (which is what bicicletear would be, much like drogar is the verb of "to drug," which is the shortened form of the phrase administrar una droga).

Breathe....

Okay, so as long as I continue to be a cyclist, I will admit that this will likely remain a pet peeve of mine. But, as an ecologist, I have to find fault with another verb in Spanish, namely evolucionar, which is the verb of "to evolve." There is no verb, evolver, despite the fact that the following verbs that share the same root all exist: volver, revolver, devolver, envolover, desenvolver, and the list almost certainly goes on.

But it does not include evolver.

No, the word for "to evolve" in Spanish is, evolucionar ("to evolutionate"). And when you go to look up the etymology of evolucionar, you get that it's from evolución (which is like a big, "no duh"). But if you go an look up the etymology of evolución, you find that it comes from the Latin, "evolutio, -ōnis," which is basically what you get with the English entry for "evolution." But if you go to look up the English word, "evolve," you get, "equivalent to ē- + volvere to roll, turn." Ah-hah! "Volvere" looks a lotlike volver, and, indeed, if we look up its etymology, we find that it's from the Latin, "volvĕre."

So the Spanish word volver derives from the Latin "volvere."
The English word "evolve" derives from the Latin "e + volvere."

But Spanish doesn't have the word evolver, even though it has the term devolver. No, the term is stuck as an awkward back-tranformation from the English "evolution" to a verb of that Latin-based word.

Argh!

But that's language for you, and I'm not the one to make the rules, so as much as I would love that I could write about how fish evolver and talk about how I bicicletear to work, I have to stick understanding that languages evolucionar and let that sink in while I andar en bicicleta on my way home.

How Bathroom Bills will NORMALIZE the presence of men in women's bathrooms

The so-called bathroom bills that specifically state that transmen and transwomen are required to use the bathroom that matches their sex registered at birth rather than the gender that the individual identifies and presents as. The rhetoric so often seems to be based on the idea that this will protect girls and women from harrassment (often portrayed as sexual harrassment) in women's bathrooms and locker rooms.

Never mind that this never happens.

Never mind that this is the same sort of baseless attack that had been trotted out against homosexuals (almost exclusively gay men) for centuries.

Never mind that the argument tends to be so heavily focused on women and girls that it borders on paternalistic condescention on the one hand and willfull blindness to the analogue happening to boys and men (or perhaps the silence is based around the tacit position that a woman can't sexually harrass boys and men).

Never mind that - unless the room is otherwise empty and the man in question is able to overcome the sole woman in the room - a man entering a women's room will almost certainly be screamed, kicked, hollered, and pushed right back out again.

Never mind and ALL of those points.

Let's focus, instead, on how the argument is so often presented: that there is a male sexual predator that will put on a dress in order to enter a woman's bathroom, and that stopping trans-women from entering women's bathrooms will stop male sexual predators in dresses from entering a woman's bathroom.

One of the problems with hypervigelence for the safety of women from a man-in-a-dress from entering women's restrooms and locker rooms is that it completely FAILS to consider trans-men and the impact that forcing trans men will have on who goes in to women's bathrooms.

The bathroom bills will force trans-men (who can look HYPER-masculine) to use the women's bathrooms. Now, let's stop for a second and think about what this means. Trans-men are people whose birth certificates say "female" but now look really male. If the bathroom bills require people to use the bathroom that matches the sex listed on their birth certificate, then men-who-were-born-female will be using the women's bathroom. And these men can look REALLY masculine, such as Aydian Dowling.

This transman will be forced into women's bathrooms in North Carolina

This guy looks more masculine than I do, since he can apparently grow a far better beard than I can, has more body hair than me, and better muscle development than me. And Aydian Dowling - and all transmen - will be forced to use the women's bathroom, because their birth certificates say "female."

What this means is that people who were born female, but currently look VERY male will be in women's bathrooms, because of the law. Which only serves to INCREASE the presence of masculinity in a women's bathroom, NOT to diminish it.

The imagined male predator is a man-in-a-dress, but what supporters of these bathroom bills ALL seem to forget (or be completely ignorant of) is the simple fact that a trans-man (i.e., a person who was born female and now presents as male and will be forced to use the women's bathroom) will LOOK EXACTY LIKE A MAN.

In other words, bathroom bills will force MORE male-looking individuals into women's bathrooms, thus making it EASIER for a cis-male (i.e., born a man, presents as a man) to enter a women's bathroom, NOT more difficult.

On the flipside, there are a lot of transwomen who look MORE feminine than lots of ciswomen, so if these bills are to stop the "man-in-a-dress" from walking into a women's bathroom (or - supposedly, but never actually stated - a woman-in-slacks from walking into a men's room), then a simple visual assessment is not going to be either enough OR fairly implemented (since a hyperfeminine transwoman is less likely to be stopped at the entrance to the women's bathroom than a comparatively masculine ciswoman).

For example, there are even beauty pageants for transwomen:

Without being told that these were transwomen, I would posit that it would be difficult for most people to say that all have bith certificates that list "male" as the sex.

In (unfortunate) comparison, there have always been women who have been labeled as being "mannish" or (at minimum) "not feminine." And if one were use only visual assessment against a socialized gender norm, then there will definitely be cases in which (A) transwomen (i.e., women born as male) could enter a women's bathroom (in contravention of the law) and (B) ciswomen (i.e., women born as female) would be stoped from entering a women's bathroom (in contravention of the law).

So the only way to competently implement the bill is to require the presentation of one's birth certificate to a gender assessor who will sit at the door to all public bathrooms. In addition, the birth certificates should be notarized in order to ensure legitimacy (since - as we learned from Trump's witchhunt of Obama - almost anyone can create a forged birth certificate). And, to be equally sure, there should be some additional, corroborating, piece of government-issued identification (perhaps something with a photograph and that traces all changes to name, address, and gender that may have taken place since the issuance of the notarized birth certificate) that should be presented.

In other words, in order to fairly execute these bathroom bills and ACTUALLY think about the safety of women and children against imagined sexual predators going into locker rooms and bathrooms under the cover of being trans, one would have to set up a surveillance state to ensure that all the "men-in-dresses" are caught (regardless of how feminine they look) while allowing all women-born-as-female to enter female locker rooms and restrooms (regardless of how unfeminine they look)... which seems to be at terrible odds with the principle of privacy and no "big brother" government surveillance that the GOP so often says that they support...

No, socialism almost certainly isn't what that anecdote on Facebook wants to scare you to think it is

Recently, a friend of mine posted a story about an economics professor failed his class, because the students gave a misguided understanding of a socialist nation that Obama would bring, and because - as you follow the story - of the professor's own complete lack of understanding of what socialism is (beyond an equivalency between socialism in general and a hyperbolic representation of Stalinism and Maoism). When someone pointed out to him that - as a person so serves in the US military - wasn't he a member of a socialist organization, my friend denied it, pointing out how he is graded and promoted based on his merits, and that isn't how socialism works.

But my friend is wrong; his idea of socialism (and that of the anecdotal - and most likely fictional - professor) is not how socialism works. The US military is a socialist organization, because socialism is a political (and economic) system that says that the society owns and regulates production, distribution, and exchange. And, in the case of the military, this is exactly what the US government does. Specifically, the US military:

1. regulated by the government (socialist!)
2. is operated (ostensibly) for the benefit of the society (socialist!)
3. is paid by taxes drawn from society (socialist!)
4. is not permitted to make decisions based on profit motivation (socialist!)

One could also point out that the Commander in Chief is not a part of the military, but a civilian (who could be a veteran) that is voted by popular vote (well, kind of) of all citizens (and - since there are no slaves and very few nationals that aren't citizens - this is also socialist control, albeit a step removed).

In contrast, a private military of mercenaries might be regulated by government (but historically they haven't had such strong regulations, and often the companies that paid for them insisted upon the right to use their militaries as they saw fit, even in the name of the nation the company represented), is often operated for the benefit of those who pay for it (which is not a society at large), the monies may be drawn from private coffers (or - historically - was given as a cut of booty), and they are allowed to make decisions based on profit motive (although this could be curtailed to an extent by contracts of guaranteed monopolies, such as were given to the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies Company).

If one understands that "socialism" means many more things than "Marxism" (let alone "Stalinism" and "Maoism"), one can actually start to understand that Lincoln's "government of the people, for the people, by the people" is actually socialism. You will note that the VA - and all the veteran care programs that preceded it - were socialism. You will note that public roads, bridges, and highways are socialism. Police and fire services are socialism. Sewage treatment and drinking water provision are socialism. Even tax breaks based on having a mortgage is socialism.

It is, therefore, possible to have a highly socialist system that isn't based around the presuppositions of what socialism is that the story above describes. Never mind that such anecdotes completely fail to understand what socialism - let alone Marxist socialism - actually is, how modern democratic socialism actually operates (and how communist socialism along the lines of Stalinism and Maoism preferred political propaganda and party-line politics to the ideals of even Marxist socialism), and how much of the modern United States is built heavily upon socialism. (Indeed, the only thing that such stories tend to highlight is the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action.)

IOW, meritocracy and socialism need not be at odds, despite all the anecdotes and stories like the one above paint socialism as being.

Conversely, one can look at militaries that were not socialist organizations, and if one looks at many militaries across time, one will note that militaries rarely operated on meritocracy, were rarely operated for the benefit of a nation of citizens, and often were associated with private interests that purchased the use of that military to further its own (non civic) ends. Thus were the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies Company operated, not to mention all the funding of mercenary armies that Venice did from medieval times through to the 18th Century.

Furthermore, simply being a republic or a democratic republic does not mean that meritocracy is the general condition. Look at the history of pretty much every European power prior to 1917: they were (for the most part) democratic (or moving in that direction), but still *heavily* class-based and not-at-all meritocratic. As was much of the United States at the same time (although less so than in Europe, and less so in the military).

In sum, if one thinks that socialism is and can only be *Marxist* socialism, then this would be like saying that "the right to bear arms" is and can only be referring to Revolutionary War-era weaponry. It is, in other words, a comparison that is only seen to be not-at-all ridiculous by people who ony have enough knowledge about the subject to make them sound silly when they make such claims.

The Michigan Senate passed an anti sodomy law. WTF?

So apparently the Michigan Senate just passed an animal rights bill. This would prevent people who have being convicted of animal cruelty from owning pets for handling animals for several years as punishment of their animal cruelty and to potentially save the lives and dignity of animals from these people. However, one state senator decided that it would be a great idea to also include in this bill language that would make sodomy act between two humans also illegal. In an animal rights bill. 

Yeah.

So what does animal welfare have to do with anti sodomy? Well either everything or nothing. On the side of everything, we have to go back to the etymology of the word sodomy. Now the word sodomy comes from the name of the mythical town called Sodom, which the Bible said was full of wickedness and licentiousness. One story that supposedly exemplifies the ways in which Sodom was the story of Lot. in the story a pair of Angels show up at lots doorstep and they are pursued by a crowd that wants to rape them Andrew Luck takes the Angels into his house and says no don't drink these angels here, take my to virginal daughters instead. Because for some reason giving your two virginal daughters to be raped by a crowd is better and more moral then just not letting the crowd attack anyone but I digress. Somehow this story is to show that this licentiate wicked behavior was against God I suppose because they wanted to fuck angels in the butt or that was the implied reason. And so we have the word sodomy which encompasses any sexual act that goes against God.

Now for many very conservative Christians this appears to also mean that beastiality and sodomy are the same thing or at least belong in the same category of being against God. We see this in cases like with former senator Rick Santorum who famously compared homosexual marriage to man on dog. When people started to say WTF, he backtracked and made it a general slippery slope argument, but the whole connection between same sex marriage and man on dog sex is a common trope in and amongst conservative Christians. Apparently this is why an amendment that makes consensual sex between two human beings in a non procreative manner is part of an animal rights and welfare bill. Because bestiality and oral and anal sex are all against the conservative Christian God.

On the other side, beastiality and sodomy have nothing to do with each other, and the term sodomy is not used because it carries with it a lot of unclarified and embedded meaning that is just plainly illegal by statute law by constitutional law in Michigan, and constitutional  interpretation at the federal level.

But who cares about that? Apparently for some conservatively Christian minded people, man's laws are subservient to God's laws, even when God's laws are not actually enumerated on points such as these, and even when God's laws specifically go against actual legislation. (Strangely enough, though, human laws in human traditions trump God's laws when the traditions and laws in question are those that conservatively minded Christians believe are good for them.)

So yes, the Michigan Senate passed a bill that in an amendment makes sexual activities that both heterosexual and homosexual people may engage in equivalent to beastiality and place it in a bill that was intended to protect animals against animal cruelty. Because one senator could not understand the difference between man on dog and human on human. Apparently the bill now will go to the Michigan House where they will decide whether they want to strip out this amendment. Hopefully, this amendment will get stripped out without much fuss and the bill that gets passed out of conference committee will also have this amendment stripped out.

Hopefully.

UPDATE: Thanks to a friend of a friend for the specific language of "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal" from the bill. Apart from the legal position that the ACLU is arguing against (which is that this bill should have any language that links it to the actions between people struck due to such language being unconstitional), as a biologist, I have to bring up some points of contention against the other parts of the framing of this part of the bill, specifically the blatant deeply embedded conservative Christian moralizing.

What is really difficult is determining how to define what is and isn't "abominable," "detestable," and a "crime against nature," since these terms are highly subjective. Fifty years ago, a black man having sex with a white woman (even if they were married) would have been both abominable and detestable and likely justified as being a crime against nature. Hell, this is still seen as detestable by many people in the country (just ask Gov. LePaige of Maine about what he thinks about black men having sex with white Maine women). Without any legally defensible definition of "abominable" and "detestable," the perception is left to the witness, many of whom might disagree with what is and isn't "abominable" and "detestable" sexual acts with a consensual sexual partner.

And as to the "crime against nature" part, as the natural sciences have shown time and again, non-procreative sexual activity is practiced throughout nature, often quite vividly in the animal kingdom. So, even the phrase "crime against nature" cannot - by the standard of nature - apply to anal, oral, manual, or tool-assisted sexual activities. Heck, even the use of live animals as a masturbatory aide (bestiality among non-human animals) has been witnessed by scientists as has the use of dead animals, plants, and other inanimate objects (necrophelia among non-human animals).

Does all this evidence from nature about how animals engage in what is characterized as "crimes against nature" that are "abominable" and "detestable" mean that nature is commiting a crime against itself? Obviously not. What it does show is how firmly up his own arse this particular senator was when he was crafting this moralizing legislation based on his own (presumably religiosly based) perception about what kinds of sexual activities consenting human adults do with each other.

Now, none of the above is to say that one cannot legislate against the animal abuse that is bestiality. However, IMO such a law would not be based around a framing of the issue that is "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal." (As the ACLU pointed out, the "with mankind" part of the bill is unconstitutional anyway.) Cut out all of the social norms and religiously motivated language and just write something like, "The use of animals for sexual gratification by any person shall be illegal." There. Done.

Hey Kim Davis, "religious liberty" isn't the freedom to use a governmental office to impose religion

Increasingly embattled Rowan County Clerk, Kim Davis, put out a public statement that sought to explain why she continues to refuse issuing marriage certificates to same-sex marriage, despite the Supreme Court basically refusing to hear her petition to continue to not fulfill her job as a County Clerk, because of her religion.

Here's here statement [along with my assessment of her claim].

"I have worked in the Rowan County Clerk's office for 27 years as a Deputy Clerk and was honored to be elected as the Clerk in November 2014, and took office in January 2015. [Okay...] I love my job and the people of Rowan County. [Okay... Apparently her definition of "loving the people of Rowan County" includes not issuing some of those people marriage certificates because of her personal religious beliefs.] I have never lived any place other than Rowan County. [Irrelevant point to the capacity of someone fulfilling their duties.] Some people have said I should resign, but I have done my job well. [Not doing your job and ignoring a court decision about you not doing your job is not what I would call doing your job well.] This year we are on track to generate a surplus for the county of $1.5 million. [Irrelevant. But consider how much more money you could generate for the county if you issued same-sex marriage certificates!]

In addition to my desire to serve the people of Rowan County, I owe my life to Jesus Christ who loves me and gave His life for me. [Irrelevant. Your job is not to serve Jesus Christ.] Following the death of my godly mother-in-law over four years ago, I went to church to fulfill her dying wish. [Irrelevant. The death of your mother-in-law over four years ago should not affect your capacity to do your job now.] There I heard a message of grace and forgiveness and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. [Irrelevant. The "message of grace and forgiveness" should not affect your capacity to do your job.] I am not perfect. [Irrelevant.] No one is. [Irrelevant.]  But I am forgiven and I love my Lord and must be obedient to Him and to the Word of God. [Irrelevant. Your being forgiven by your deity should not affect your capacity to do your job.]

I never imagined a day like this would come, where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage. [Irrelevant. The job of county clerk could well change to include things that previously weren't part of the job.] To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God's definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. [Irrelevant. If you personally have a problem with fulfilling the new duties of your job, then you have a choice of seeking to delegate that duty to someone else who doesn't have a problem of fulfilling the requirements of the law, or you can choose to resign your job, now that it contains duties that you would not wish to fulfil if you were to choose whether to run for this office now.] It is not a light issue for me. [Irrelevant. The "heaviness" of whether a county clerk is required by law to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples is not yours to question beyond that of whether you wish to keep your job and do your duty or quit your job and keep your conscience.] It is a Heaven or Hell decision.[Irrelevant. Your perception of outcomes in your afterlife are not included as a metric for fulfilling the duties of your job.] For me it is a decision of obedience. [Irrelevant. If you cannot fulfill the duties of your position, then your obedience to your deity should not trump your duty to the law.] I have no animosity toward anyone and harbor no ill will. [Irrelevant. The issuance of marriage licenses requires neither animus toward anyone or harboring good or ill will toward anyone.] To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue.[Irrelevant. Questioning the basis of why the government issues marriage certificates is not the point of your job; your job is to issue marriage certificates.] It is about marriage and God's Word. [Irrelevant. Your job is not about determining how your deity will wish to enforce his will upon others; your job is to fulfill the laws of men.]  It is a matter of religious liberty, which is protected under the First Amendment, the Kentucky Constitution, and in the Kentucky Religious Freedom Restoration Act. [Irrelevant. Religious observance is allowed only to the extent that it does not diminish the personal freedoms and religious liberties of others. This is why religious human sacrifice is not covered by religious liberty, the state constitution, or the various religious freedom restoration acts.] Our history is filled with accommodations for people's religious freedom and conscience. [Irrelevant. Serveral levels of judicial decisions have been specifically clear on the specific issue of same-sex marriage rights, just as judicial decisions have been specifically clear on the specific issue of mixed-race marriage rights. Both of these specifically explain why religious beliefs held by certain people were inhibiting the freedoms of other citizens who didn't share those religious beliefs and why religious freedom and conscience were not adequate arguments to continue to deny equal civic rights to others.] I want to continue to perform my duties, but I also am requesting what our Founders envisioned - that conscience and religious freedom would be protected. [Irrelevant. This is a red-herring argument. "Our Founders" also envisioned a nation that included slavery as a fundamental part of life, but specific amendments to the Constitution and specific Supreme Court decisions have moved the nation away from "what our Founders envisioned" ... which is exactly a system that others of "our Founders envisioned."] That is all I am asking. [You are asking for special rights to impose your religious beliefs and motivated morality upon people who don't share your personal religious beliefs or motivated morality. Just like they are not allowed to use an office of government to foist their beliefs and moral judgments upon you, you don't get to use your governmental office to do it to them.] I never sought to be in this position, and I would much rather not have been placed in this position. [You specifically did seek to be in the position of county clerk. You ran for the position and won an election, so you are lying to say that you didn't seek out the position of county clerk. While the specific duty of issuing marriage certificates to two men or to two women who want to get married was not part of your job when you started, it did become part of your job. And considering how same-sex marriage has been wending its way through the court system well before you even ran for office, it is likely that you had a suspicion that county clerks might well be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. ...but if the possibility never even crossed your mind, then you were either massively naive or horribly uninformed as to the larger socio-political forces in the country. But all that is irrelevant to the question of your capacity to fulfill the duties of your office at the present time, based on the present law to the people you were elected to serve.] I have received death threats from people who do not know me. [That is truly unfortunate, but an irrelevant argument as to why you have not and are not doing your job.] I harbor nothing against them. [Repetitive and still irrelevant.] I was elected by the people to serve as the County Clerk. [You are not serving the people as the county clerk.] I intend to continue to serve the people of Rowan County, but I cannot violate my conscience. [Irrelevant, and you are creating a false choice. You always had the choice to resign from your position, and you still retain that choice.]"

What I get from her statement is that she thinks that failing to do her job and ignoring a court order in so doing is somehow actually doing her job. What I get from her statement is that she doesn't understand that she is not allowed to use her government office to impose her religious beliefs upon other people who don't share her religious beliefs. What I get from her statement is that she wants people to know that she is a "good person" instead of being a good county clerk (and that the two are somehow in opposition to each other). What I get from her statement is that she doesn't consider it to be her job to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, because it wasn't part of her job when she won her election. Finally, what I get from her statement is that she seems to prefer serving her version of her deity more than the people of her county, despite her statements to the contrary.

And to that last point, I actually applaud her. She is completely wrong on every other point, but - at least according to what I see - she is being consistent with her internal logic.

If her office were up for re-election, though, I hope that the citizens of the county choose to vote based on how she fulfilled her role as County Clerk, and not that of religious arbiter.

More inconsistency in thinking about race

I'm almost surely never going to watch Aloha, which stars Emma Stone in the role of a Hapa on Hawai'i. But there is such a great backlash over this film, focusing primarily upon the race of Emma Stone and how it doesn't match the race of the character. However, I noticed something about this coverage: most of the coverage about how badly matched the actress was with the character's race gets the character's race wrong.

Emma Stone's character is supposed to be 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Native Hawaiian, and 1/2 European mutt. But this is how Entertainment Weekly discussed the casting problem:

Accepting Emma Stone as an Asian-American in Aloha requires a certain suspension of disbelief and no small amount of magical thinking. In the Hawaii-set romantic comedy-drama, she portrays Allison Ng: an aggressively peppy Air Force fighter pilot of Chinese-Hawaiian-Swedish decent who falls for an existentially angst-y military contractor played by Bradley Cooper.

But in order to process this idea of Stone as a bi-racial character, as someone whose genetic lineage can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom by way of Polynesia, you must first get past the obvious stumbling blocks: her alabaster skin and strawberry blond hair, her emerald eyes and freckles—past the star’s outwardly unassailable #Caucasity—if only because the movie hammers home her cultural other-ness in just about every other scene.

And EW isn't alone in this, either. Social-justice/femenist website Jezebel doesn't do much better:

Emma Stone Playing a Half-Asian Character in Aloha: Literally Why

NBC News' coverage of the controversy shouts:

Cameron Crowe Apologizes for Casting Emma Stone as Asian American

 The Guardian's news story on this states:

Emma Stone: the whitest Asian person Hollywood could find

You get the idea.

The problem is, of course, that "Asian" in this case means someone of Asian racial ancestry. And in that sense, the character of Allison Ng is "Asian." But the character is also "Hawaiian." And the character is also "European." The mix is even explained - again and again - by the various stories that are breathlessly saying how horrible it was that the actress didn't even come close to matching the ethnicity of the character. But then they all do the easy thing and just label the character "Asian" or "Half-Asian."

Why?

Why not label her "White" or "Half-White"? Indeed, why not label her "Hawaiian" or "Half-Hawaiian"?

The US remains stuck in a discussion and conceptualization of race that revolves primarily around a "White/Black" axis. Sure, there is a recognition that there are more races than "White" and "Black," but the rules of discussing them and assigning someone to them remains effectively the same as the rules that still remain about assigning race within the "White/Black" context: you are either fully White or you are Black. Therefore, we call Barack Obama "the first African American President," despite the fact that he's half-White.

In the same vein, since the character of Allison Ng not 100% White, Allison Ng is not - and cannot be - "White." This then leaves us with determining whether she's "Asian" or "Hawaiian."

I would hazard a guess that most mainland Americans have no idea about what a Native Hawaiian looks like, what Hawaii's culture actually consists of, or even what Hawaii's history entails. I doubt that most mainland Americans can name two Hawaiians from history or even name two Hawaiian traditional dishes. In short, most mainland Americans have next to no idea about anything relating to Hawaii other than (possibly) that it's one of the States of the United States, that it's in the Pacific Ocean, it's where Pearl Harbor is located, and it's got hula dancers. But ask most mainland Americans to describe how a Native Hawaiian is different from an Asian, and I would hazard a guess that most wouldn't be able to give a straight answer (except - perhaps - a circular one, like, "A Native Hawaiian is a native of Hawaii"). Indeed, I would hazard the position that Native Hawaiians are completely absent from the minds of almost all mainland Americans.

Add to this invisibility the comparative visibility of Asian Americans, especially in TV shows that are supposed to take place in Hawaii, such as all the Asians in Hawaii Five-O (which even cast an Asian American as a Native Hawaiian!!!). Add to this the way in which official census forms have the lumped-together category of "Asian Pacific Islander." That lumping effectively extends the geographic range of this "racial category" from Turkey to Hawaii. (As if Turkey to Japan wasn't large enough.)

... and so - for a variety of reasons, her Hawaiian-ness gets completely subsumed, her Whiteness gets disqualified, and she is left as "Asian" (or "half-Asian").

No.

If you're going to write an article excoriating Crowe for casting lily-White, Northern-European-descent Emma Stone in the role of Allison Ng, you must get the race of the character right and you must never get it wrong. The simple truth is that the character of Allison Ng is more White than she is Asian. The character of Allison Ng is as Hawaiian as she is Asian. Referring to her character as "Asian" (or even "half Asian") in these articles is just so stupidly wrongheaded that it beggars belief.

The US (heck, most of the world) needs to get past the idea that 50% White, 50% Black makes you Black. They need to get past the idea that 50% White, 50% Asian makes you Asian. There needs to be a greater recognition that

If you don't like something, don't try to couch your position with self-contradictory statements and self-rationalization

So I saw this:



The logic employed by the second person seems to either contradictory or highly selfish. His position seems to be that: On the one hand, he doesn't get it and he thinks it's offensive (and he thinks that a lot of other people would find it offensive, too), but on the other hand, if it saves the lives of even a couple people, okay, but then to go back to his first position, it's offensive to him, so no.

First, off, let's recognize that his initial position is couched as in the false logic of argumentum ad populum.

"I just find it offensive, and a lot of other people would as well."

First, this is a relative statement. How many - exactly - constitutes "a lot of other people"? A majority of a population? Well, no. After all, if - in a city the size of Sydney (5.6 million) - you gathered 1,000 people to actively congregate in front of the pink-condom-covered pillar, that could easily be considered to be "a lot of people," despite it being a mere 0.00018% of the city's population. Conversely, if you were considering a tiny town of only 100 residents, "a lot of people" might well mean something approaching the majority (which could never approach anything more than a mere 10% of the hypothetical crowd of 1,000 around the condom-covered Sydney statue). So the phrasing, "and a lot of other people would [agree with me] as well," is a false argument in that it doesn't work to designate an objective measure, but merely refers (in a purely arm-waving fashion, since the person makes no attempt to bracket his statement) to an unknown quantity of people (likely merely presumed to exist by the speaker) that is implied to be of significant numbers (but - as we might argue in the case of 1,000 people gathered in a square in Sydney to be - not necessarily anything close to 1% of a city's population).

Second, even while there is truth in the statement that - in a city of 5.6 million people - you will probably find a large number (say >1,000) of people who are against covering a statue with a large pink condom, it does not mean much more than that in a city the size (and with the diversity) of Sydney, there will be many people who support almost any position that you propose. For example, if you did a poll on the number of people who believe that all English tourists should pay a 100 Australian Dollar tourist tax, there would likely be more than 1,000 Sydney residents who would agree with that decision. However, the fact that you can find 1,000 people in a city of 5,600,000 people means next to nothing. This leads us to the next point.

Third, while one might well find "a lot of people" who find a pink-condom-covered column to be offensive, it does not automatically follow that there aren't "a lot of people" who find a pink-condom-covered column to be affirmative. (And the first person in the clip is one who fits this camp; likely she, too, has "a lot of people" who support her position.) Furthermore, it does not automatically follow that there aren't "a lot of people" who don't give two shits either way. (The numbers of voters showing up to vote in elections where voting is not mandatory is an indication of the number of people who can't really be bothered to vote on their own futures - for whatever reason.)

Fourth, this appeal to the people is not what modern democracies are based upon. The tyranny of the majority is something that many Western democracies, including Australia (and the UK, where the second individual appears to be from), have structured their governments to try and avoid. Under modern democracies, the presence of a constitution that provides rights to all citizens cannot (in theory and in principle) be superseded by the mere will of the voting majority. It is from this that we get the rights of women, the rights of children, the rights of minority groups, etc. In this case, the point of covering a column with a pink condom was to promote HIV/AIDS prevention. HIV/AIDS affects a minority of the Australian population, with 85% of transmission occurring being MSM, and 63% of the cases being among those practicing MSM, which makes it roughly 0.001% of the national population who has HIV/AIDS. This population is a diminishingly small minority of the country, and one for whom protections against the tyranny of the majority ought to be considered. In short, to base public decisions that affect minority populations upon the actions deemed appropriate by a voting majority runs counter to one of the fundamental bases of Western democracies, to which (I imagine) this individual would likely state his personal support.

In sum, the mere fact that you have "a lot of people" who agree with you doesn't mean that your group is of significant size (see point one), it doesn't mean that it's representative (see point two), it doesn't mean that other groups aren't as big or bigger (see point three), and it's not the sole form of decision-making in Western democracies, especially when the protections of minorities are in question (see point four). What it does mean is that you've employed a fundamentally flawed argument.

But these are just four points that undercut the first part of his argumentation. The next thing he says is:

"If it stops a couple of people from getting HIV... brilliant."

This seems to contradict his previous point, since it appears that he is saying here that he does support the pink-condom-covered pillar. But in his next statement, he jumps back to stating that he's against it:

"[pointing to statute] No. That is so... wrong."

So, if he is a person who wants to save the lives of others, then his logic is self-contradictory, since his final stance - that he's against it - runs counter to his position that it could save lives. However, the fact that his final position is to be against it because it is offense to his sensibilities - despite his recognition that it could save lives - then he's saying that he places his personal sensitivities ahead of the lives that could be saved.

To me, it seems like he added his apparently self-contradictory statement as a means of saying, "I'm not really that bad of a guy." It's another example of the "But I'm not a bigot" mentality that I wrote about back in 2010 (and also discussed back in 2012):

In their recently published paper "But I'm no Bigot: How Prejudiced White Americans Maintain Unprejudiced Self-Images", Laurie O'Brien, Christian Crandall, April Horstman-Reser, and Ruth Warner delve into the means by which white Americans can harbor racial prejudice while still viewing themselves as "unprejudiced".

That the case here is of an Englishman in Sydney commenting on a monument covered over with a pink condom to raise awareness about a disease that overwhelmingly affects homosexual men, who (as a population of infected individuals) comprise a vanishingly small population within Australia, makes it slightly different in the performance of the individual's rationalization the he's not a bigot, that he's not prejudiced, etc. However, the same processes are effectively taking place. Putting in phrases like, "If it stops a couple of people from getting HIV... brilliant," appears (to me) to be evidence that this man understands that HIV/AIDS primarily is a disease that affects a group of people that are accorded minority protections (and - by many - special consideration), and this man appears (to me) to be using his phrase as stating that he's not there to be a bad guy. Even though his overall position is to remove the item that he finds so offensive that - even "if it stops a couple of people from getting HIV" - he's against it.

So, in sum, the second individual uses two flawed arguments to state his position that he's against a pink-condom-covered column (in a city and country in which he's not a citizen). I don't know whether he understands why his arguments are logically so flawed, but in my opinion, his position would have been far more logically consistent and - at least to me - valid if he had simply stated, "I find it offensive. [pointing to statute] No. That is so... wrong." All the other false justifications and attempts at self-rationalization merely serve to undercut his entire position. At least in my eyes.

Waiting at government offices is stressful and frustrating. Especially when you have to do it twice over.

I hear that sharing frustrations with people can help you diminish your stress level. To that end, I've decided to write about what was a stressful and highly frustrating two days of waiting at government offices.

I spent much of Tuesday standing in a line at one government office, only to find out that I actually had to first stand all day in a different line in a different office before I could stand all day in the line in which I was initially standing. Why? Because I didn't file my paperwork on time, and so I needed to get a piece of paper from that office to give to the person at this office in order for this clerk to process the papers as normal. *Sigh.* It's really hard not to let frustration turn to anger, even though many people might interpret my state of frustration as a state of anger. (Nope: they are not the same; I actively avoid getting angry.) Since it was already past 2pm - and since Chilean government offices (just like Chilean banks) close at 2pm - I would have to try again the next day. On the plus side, she said that I could come directly to her station when I did get the paper, which would (at least) save waiting in line again at this office. (Ah, the small blessings that come from not getting angry at clerks, who can't change the rules that govern their actions, but can either cut you a break if you're nice to them or make things even more difficult for you if they feel like you're being overly bitchy and/or assholey.)

Side note: The need to go to a different government office in order to pay a fine for not doing a particular piece of paperwork in time was due to a misunderstanding and lack of communications due to presumed knowledge and expected actions due to that fundamental misunderstanding of how the Chilean governmental bureaucracy works. Every bureaucracy has its annoyances, but these can be minimized (at least for people like me) if I understand the internal logic of the particular system. Of course, being a foreigner, I don't know the things that I don't know to ask about (and being nationals, the people I talk to don't know that I don't know until it's way too late). Of course, one of the main annoyances about Chilean government is that some offices are grossly understaffed (i.e., the ones I had to go to), of which I had an inkling on this day, but which I would find out when I went to the other government building.

After returning to my apartment (frustrated, fatigued, and trying to figure out explanations to questions that I was pretty sure I was not formulating correctly), I decided that I should probably figure out what my visit would likely entail, and after a lot of figuring and guessing and asking and trying to figure out yet again what the heck is meant by certain legal phrases (because government websites - even those aimed at foreigners - are written by people who implicitly understand the bureaucracy, which means that there's a lot of assumed knowledge that requires additional searching and additional frustration), I finally started to pull together an idea of what I had to do. People - like me - who have to pay a fine to this government agency, need to first wait in line to get a piece of paper from a clerk that says how much is owed. Then I would have to go to the government-run bank and wait in line to pay that amount (I suppose this might be to minimize petty bribes, which is a good thing, I guess, but why you can't just pay directly with a credit card or debit card - which also would minimize petty bribery - is beyond me), from which you will receive a receipt of payment. (Why the automated banking system of the government-run bank couldn't tell the government clerks the same thing as the piece of paper, I don't know; I'm guessing that it's just an anachronism that has remained from pre-cmoputerized banking days.) Then I would have to go back to the same office, and wait in line (again!) in order present the receipt of payment from the government-run bank to the government clerk in order to get the piece of paper that the original government clerk said I needed to have before she could process my paperwork.

Or, to put it more basically, I would need to go to a government office, get a number, wait in line, get a piece of paper from a clerk that says how much I need to pay, go the the bank, get a number, wait in line, pay the amount listed on the paper, get a piece of paper that said I paid, go back to the government office, get a number, wait in line, get piece of paper that confirms that I payed the fine, go back to the original government office (where I was the day before), and go see the clerk I originally saw there in order to get the business done for which I had originally waited in line.

*Sigh* Don't get angry. Don't get angry. Don't get angry. After all, all bureaucracies have really frustrating aspects. The only thing that getting angry would do is to (directly or indirectly) hurt me. Better just wake up early. (Yeah, I suppose this is turning into a mantra.)

Today, I woke up at 6am after a stressful night. *Grogginess.* I left the apartment at 7am, and got to the correct government office at 7:50am. As I pulled up to the main entrance, I noticed that there was no line, and my spirits were buoyed; perhaps this wouldn't take so long after all. But no. When I went in, I was greeted by a line stretching out a side entrance. Following that line, I exited the lobby and found that it literally was already stretched almost to the end of the block. I got in line far closer to the corner of the next street than the entrance to the building and proceeded to wait for the doors to open. Starting at 8:30, the line slowly started to shuffle forward, and at about 9am, I got my waiting-room number: R122 (the monitors were showing R008, alongside three other sets of numbers, against which I would - apparently - be competing). Well, at least I would definitely have enough time to go and get a coffee. This option was far more tempting than waiting in an already-crammed waiting room; so I left in search of an open coffee shop.

Coffee shops in Santiago don't always open early. In fact, many small cafes don't open until 10 or 10:30, but I was able to find one in the main downtown plaza, had a coffee, and forced myself to try and relax. (Forced leisure is difficult, especially when you are in my head space.) During that time, I tried to channel my stress and frustration into something (somewhat) constructive, and I came up with an idea about how to minimize crowding in government waiting rooms that are obviously waaaaay too small to adequately handle the numbers of people waiting in them. I'll talk with the Office of Technology Transfer at the university to see if it might be of use or interest. Fingers crossed.

After stretching out a relatively small and quite expensive coffee for an hour, I went back to the waiting room, only to find that the number had gone up to R018. *Argh!* Well, off again outside I go! I found a couple of Indian textile importers down the street from the government office, some electronics stores, a whole gallery of handbag shops, another gallery of barbers and hairdressers, and yet another gallery of various levels of jewelry. I also noticed scantily dressed women who "just happened" to be standing at regular intervals along the street, doing nothing much more than stand and look at people. Apparently there were many goods and services on sale around the area.

I returned to the waiting room at 11:30 to find that the number had risen to D025. *Sigh.* Well, off again outside I go! Since I was near the old central plaza, the main cathedral, and a couple of old churches, I decided that I'd play tourist for a bit. To that end, I checked out the cathedral (lots of school kids on field trips, very few worshippers, and renovation work going on all around), as well as another stonking big church nearby (a nearly empty mass presided over by a priest who literally mumbled and stumbled through his holy litany) and then decided to get lunch (arroz con pollo at a small eatery tucked between two government buildings and looking out on a fountain).

Back to the waiting room at noon. In the intervening 30-ish minutes (yes, it was a very quick lunch, and a very quick look around the churches), the number had "rapidly" climbed to D055. Well, considering that the offices would close their doors at 2pm, I decided to stay (with the hope that things would continue along at the rate of the previous 1/2 hour, instead of at the rate of the initial 2 hours). However, at the back of my head, I knew that I had to *still* go the bank, wait there and then return to this same waiting room before going back to where I was yesterday.

Arse...

During the next 1/2 hour, I played sudoku, and after one (somewhat) tough game, I looked up to see: D107! Well, I'd best get ready, then! My number was thrown up on the board at 1pm. Forward I stepped, and just as I looked for which clerk I needed to see, the D123 was called, and I was left in the lurch, not knowing where I was supposed to go. Luckily, the guard helped me out and one of the clerks said that I could see her after she was done with the person she was helping at the time. *Phew.* I was already having images of having to wait in line all over again, but luckily that didn't happen.

I then proceeded to wait nervously in front of the withering gaze of the hundreds of people stacked in the waiting room, with me seeming like I jumped the queue. Ah, well, screw 'em. I was supposed to be here, and anyway the clerk was finishing up.

I was called forward, and the clerk went through the papers and told me perhaps the best news of my predicament that I could have heard: there would be no charge for the paperwork I needed. This mean that that she would issue me the paper immediately. I therefore wouldn't need to stand in line at the bank, and I therefore wouldn't need to stand in line again at this same office. However, there was one catch. The paper she would issue me was an extension for only this day, which meant that I needed to go back to the first government office within the next hour (since they would close at 2pm), or else I'd have to come back tomorrow to get another copy of the piece of paper she was handing to me.

Three things went through my mind: "Yay!" "Crap." and "Fuck that." There was no chance that I would stand in line yet again, so back I biked to the offices I was at yesterday, and, there, I skipped the queue and went directly to the clerk who I met with the day before. (Hello, do you remember me? Yeah, I was the guy who did this, and who you told that, and I've come back with all the appropriate papers. Oh, and do you remember that you told me to come to see you directly? Yeah, I'm back. Hello again.) Luckily she did remember me, and after about 10 minutes, I was done.

Yeah, I know that I will likely have to wait at government offices again. But at least it won't be for a while yet.

"Native speaker" and "Perfect speaker" are not synonymous

Yes, it can be really annoying to some people (like me, many of my friends and acquaintances, the Oatmeal, and many others) when people make the mistake of confusing "they're, their, and there" or "your and you're", along with a host of other language issues. However, the following statement fails on its logical basis:

"As a English non native, I don't understand how English natives can make mistakes with there, their, and they're."


As vomitous as the "their, there, and they're" error may be to some like me, the above statement itself is based on the fundamentally flawed premise that increased fluency in a language is directly related language to perfection. For that flawed logic, this statement is itself a facepalm statement of "logic-fail". I mean, am I to expect that native speakers of the kvetcher's language don't regularly make a class of error that learners of selfsame language almost never make? Sorry, but I don't buy it, and here's why:

I believe that the major reason why native speakers are likely to make the "there, their, they're" class of error and non-native speakers aren't is the same reason why native speakers of English write "... I would of done it": they're sounding out the sentence in their head, and (apparently) they have such a horrible mental accent (or an inability to distinguish different words in their mental accent) that they make otherwise simple errors. (Plus, being surrounded by people who don't constantly harp on their mistaken spellings doesn't help with fixing such errors before they become ingrained.)

In addition, there is the problem that - as a language that has a really convoluted history of hybridization of multiple languages (and grammars) and (heavily salient here) highly varied preferences in spelling (and transliteration) over time, it's not surprising that spelling errors are one of the more common errors in written English by native speakers (whereas improper grammar is the more common error in non-native speakers of English). I mean, how many different ways can you pronounce -ough? (Apparently ten ways: enough, cough, drought, though, thought, through, thorough, hiccough, hough, and lough; sometimes, different pronunciations are mixed together, as in Loughborough, and sometimes one word as different meanings, depending on how it's pronounced, as in slough.) How many of the words using ough actually sound like the letters that make the word? (Arguably none.) And yet (and yet!) so many people (children and adults alike) are told to, "Sound out the word." Yeah... in English, it's not as useful a piece of advice as in languages whose orthography better matches its pronunciation.

On the other hand, non-native speakers of English often consciously cogitate creating concordant sentences systematically supporting some sense of grammar that seeks to enshrine a unity between spoken and written forms. Therefore, this type of mistake is less common for non-native speakers of English than errors of fundamental grammar (i.e., those parts of grammar that come so unconsciously fluently to native speakers that they often cannot explain the simple rules of them to non-native speakers beyond the next-to-completely-useless, "It just *sounds* right").

You'd expect a native English speaker to (relatively easily) make the "homophonous" mistake of "they're, their, and there" (or "its and it's" or "pique, peak, and peek" or "site, sight, and cite" or "complement and compliment" or "cavalry and Calvary" or "she and sidhe"), but (almost) never forget to correctly and unconsciously present every single noun as plural, singular or uncountable and either definite or indefinite. With people whose native language doesn't have (or uses different sorts of) concepts of countability, plurality, or definiteness intimately associated with every single noun one utters, making the distinction between, "a cat," and "the cat" (either as a real object in a room or as a conceptual object) really quite difficult.

In other words, each language has its own quirks that create "non-native speaker problems" and "native speaker problems," and I'd wager that - on the whole - the class(es) of problems faced by proficient non-native speakers are more related to grammar than those of native speakers. ... but I guess anyone who worked with non-native English speakers (or have spent time as an adult learning another language) already knew that...

Still, my original bit of pique was that the fundamental logic of the statement is flawed (regardless of the level of personal annoyance I find with people who commit the "there, their, and they're" error), and the statement is thus worthy of it's own, independent, facepalm due to inherent logic-fail.

No, private property ownership does not grant you the right to do whatever you want with your private property

Over at MLive.com the other day, there was a story about an anti-idling campaign in Ann Arbor. This brought out a whole bunch of people who are (apparently) convinced that anything that stops them from running their cars while parked is approaching tyranny, liberal no-goodness/nanny-state-mindedness, or the heights of hypocrisy (since - as many note - police and service vehicles are likely to be exempted in any future anti-idling ordinances and regional traffic planning creates conditions in which people are left waiting for up to five minutes in order to move through an intersection). After scrolling through many comments that seemed knee-jerk reactionary to me, I saw this pile of paragraphs:

It is my choice to drive and idle my car as I see fit. If I want to sit in the car with the AC on while I am doing work during the summer I will. If you don't like the fact my car, which I paid for and that I pay the gas for is idling, I'm sorry, but that is your problem, not mine. The same thing in the winter where I often have to do paperwork for my work. I am not going to turn my car off to spend 15 minutes doing paperwork when I can leave the car running and stay warm.

The problem is too many people are proposing that we do what is best for everyone, and unfortunately that often means we give up our right to do what is best for us personally.

If someone doesn't like my car idling, tough, it is my car and I will do what I want to do with my car (as long as it is within the law of course).

Ahh... well, someone is apparently of the "I paid for it, so I can do what I want with it, and screw everyone who tells me differently" school of thought. Sorry, but no; society and law don't operate in exactly that manner, regardless of what you might think or want. Of all the comments on that story, this was the one that really made me want to write a response. So, in my longer-than-necessary manner, this is what I wrote:

Waitasec, you say that it's your choice to drive and idle your car as you see fit, because you purchased gasoline and the car. Hmm... did you also purchase the air quality we all breathe and the right to pollute it? Strange, but I don't see that as part of the bundle of goods you purchase when you buy gas or a car...

You ironically state, "The problem is too many people are proposing that we do what is best for everyone, and unfortunately that often means we give up our right to do what is best for us personally." I say that it's ironic, since you *seem* to recognize that you live in a society in which people have chosen to come together to live and operate in proximity (i.e., live in a city), but you then choose to disentangle yourself from that system of relatively close interactions and interdependencies to separate your *personal* actions as somehow more important than (or at least independent from) the curtailed set of actions that one can make (legally, socially, and morally) within the context of a city without a whit of recognition that the two concepts are - themselves - in conflict.

Indeed, you base your argument within a private-property and personal rights framework. However, you (apparently) fail to recognize that your argument from a private property perspective is perfectly well and dandy right up until your private property impinges upon *my* private property and *my* personal rights, which is exactly what you (falsely) say you have a right to do. If you really want to read why, to wit:

Presumably, you do not advocate a right to drive across my lawn in your car, just because you purchased your car and purchased your gasoline. Similarly, you likely don't advocate a right to drive your car into my hose, my car, me, or my family. In short, owning a car and purchasing gasoline for it does not allow you to affect other people's private property or to affect other people. Why? Because it's against the law, and (from a private property perspective) you don't own the property that your car is damaging.

So, too, you likely do not advocate the blaring of your stereo or the constant sounding of your horn (or car alarm) as a right that is inherently a part of what you purchase when you buy a car and the fuel that powers the engine that charges the battery that runs the stereo and car horn (and alarm). Indeed, this is what noise ordinances attempt to curtail. Ergo, owning a car and purchasing gasoline for it does not allow you to seriously and negatively impact the quality of life of society, merely because you own that vehicle. Furthermore, this is - in places - against local ordinances (i.e., the law), but even from a personal rights perspective, such actions are imposing yourself upon others without their consent, much like if you were throwing a raucous house party without the consent of your neighbors; not always illegal, but definitely not respecting other people's equal rights.

Furthermore, you likely do not advocate for lowering the pollutant profile of what comes out of the tailpipe of cars in general. Even if you live in a state (like Michigan) that doesn't have a mandatory car exhaust test at time of re-registering a vehicle, you likely recognize the social nuisance that having a smoke-gushing clunker would have on the standing in your neighborhood (let alone your wallet) and take measures to diminish the obvious costs. Therefore, owning a car and purchasing gasoline for does not give you the social freedom to be a nuisance for the wider community, merely because you own that vehicle. Again, from a personal rights perspective, this is much like the previous case, and from a private property perspective, you are now effectively taking, impairing, or destroying a good or service that you did not actually purchase. That it is something owned publicly does not change the fact that you are affecting more than *your* share of the public good.

The anti-idling movement is merely extending this recognition of tail-pipe emissions as noxious and an unnecessary nuisance that is - in many cases throughout the year - the relatively selfish preferences of the driver imposing costs upon society; and these are costs **that the driver has not paid for.**

In short, using your argument of private property is wrong on its premises, because private property ownership of a vehicle does *not* mean that you can do whatever you want with it. Using a private property argument actually shows that you have a *greater* responsibility for the actions you take, since the negative actions are things that you **have definitely not** paid for, and so - from a private property perspective - you have no inherent rights in taking those actions.

I also noted something strange in the wording of the last paragraph of the comment, which brought about this response:

You state, "...I will do what I want to do with my car (as long as it is within the law of course)," which effectively scuttles the entire argument you laid out previously, since you concede that *if* anti-idling measures *were* made law, you actually *would* follow the law and not idle your car.

This brings to question what your entire point was to begin with.

Presumably, *if* there law that says that you cannot idle your vehicle, and since you state that you *will* follow the law, then your whole preceding argument is rendered moot.

However, if you actually passionately believe what you wrote in your argument (flawed though I personally think it is), then I question the veracity of your statement that you *would* follow an anti-idling law (*if* one were to be implemented).

... or would you decide - based on your own - that such laws can be broken if you don't feel like following them? You know, just like - if you are like any human driver - you don't use your turn lights *every single time* you are going to turn, or you don't always come to an absolute and complete stop *every single time* you come to a stop sign, or that you don't always stop at crosswalks to let pedestrians cross *every single time* you see a pedestrian crossing at a crosswalk, or that you don't drive at the posted speed limit *ever single time* you are out driving, etc. In other words, are you merely *rhetorically* saying "I'll follow the law," but *actually* are going to choose to break the law when it's convenient (just like every single human driver does from time to time)? If the latter, then it raises the question of exactly *which* sets of laws you actually feel you are bound by, and which sets of laws you feel you are allowed to break at your own convenience.

It makes me wonder whether people put such rhetorical devices into their arguments to merely sound reasonable without actually being reasonable, since - when you actually look at their statements rationally - they could not actually be stating truth in both parts of their commentary. In this case, this person cannot be telling the whole truth, since there are times that s/he has undoubtedly chosen to break some part of the law regarding the operation of his/her vehicle (unless this person is absolutely perfect in their driving record since they first started driving). Maybe it was to drive at 80mph on the highway instead of the posted 70mph (since effectively everyone drives at 80mph, and it's safer to drive with the average traffic speed, regardless of it being against the law). Maybe it is to choose not to make a complete and absolute stop at every stop sign or blinking red light, since - in many places - it can be absolutely obvious that the intersection is completely clear and safe to traverse without having to come to a complete stop, but rolling stops are (at least in Michigan) against the law. Maybe it is to choose to be lazy with the use of a turn signal on a back-country road, even though its use is required by law. Maybe it's something else, yet again, but - presuming that this commentator is human - there are undoubtedly many instances in which this person - who states, "I will do what I want to do with my car (as long as it is within the law of course)," is factually lying.

Which then raises the question of what they actually mean when they say that they'll follow the law "of course," especially given the almost certainty that they do not actually follow all the laws. Presumably they mean that they won't drive intoxicated (but how intoxicated?) or drive recklessly (but what constitutes "recklessly"?) or drive in the wrong lane (but what if it's just to go from one driveway to the next, because you mistakenly drove in the wrong one?) or go through a red light (but what if it's in the middle of the night in the country and you can see that no one is coming?) or this (but except when that), or that (but except when this), etc.

Yeah... just seems like a purely rhetorical and almost certainly nonfactual statement.