conuly

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/us/guantanamo-prison-revolt-driven-by-inmates-despair.html

The comments are frightening. I wouldn't bother with them.

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Somebody, presumably the person who killed her, left a note saying she should "go back to her own country" because she was a "terrorist".

And since then, every article I've seen on the subject starts by asking if this is a hate crime.

Just like that!

Unless they're seriously suggesting that she was murdered by someone known to her who left the note to throw others off the trail - possible, but not very probable - I fail to see how anybody can even ask this question. Leaving people threatening notes because of their ethnicity and/or religion is pretty damn hateful, even before you proceed to beat them to death.

I frankly wonder what is going wrong in this country when an obvious hate crime is followed up by questions as though the nature of the murder is at all in doubt!

Well, she's my mom.

Interestingly, during the same talk it came up about a few months earlier when my high school had found out that I DO NOT say the Pledge of Allegiance. And they called my mom, and then basically told me that she's not backing me up, and we came up with this lame-ass compromise where I was just late to third period every day.

Apparently what actually happened is my mother told them they were stupid, said she had no interest in fixing a problem caused by THEIR ignorance of MY rights, and said they should deal with it. Which they did... by lying to me about what my mother said.

I had thought this was remarkably inconsistent with my family, but it never occurred to me that the dean would just lie to my face. (Then again, after I had the guy for health the next term it should've. I seriously disliked him. Fortunately, the feeling was mutual and I ended up doing independent study. Nice when things work out, right?) OMFG! I should've sued!

Man, I am NEVER compromising my principles again just because my mother doesn't back me up, especially when she actually does. (No, I don't know why I didn't discuss it with her later that day. Maybe because it didn't occur to me there was anything to discuss? Who knew I was lied to? OMG!)

I'm seriously tempted to write the school a note about this. That was SO not right.

Coincidentally, here is an article about a group wanting to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from their local schools. Contrary to what people say, this would NOT prevent small children who wish to say the Pledge from saying it. Really, there's nothing stopping you from making your children say whatever silly things you like at home.

But going through the comments, here's the thing that I just don't get. Every time any issue regarding free speech comes up that can even tangentially be connected to atheism, hordes of people come out of the woodwork to go "Well, what about money? LOL, do you not use money because of in god we trust? LOL!!!!"

Aside from the fact that they think they're clever when they're really not, I don't understand why "in God we trust" is okay with Christians! Isn't there some kind of commandment about taking the Lord's name in vain? Doesn't it sort of cheapen your religion to have cheesy signs up in stores saying "In God's name we trust, all others pay cash"? Isn't it wrong to (to borrow some religious phrasing here) yoke God and mammon together? Isn't there something about moneylenders and camels and needs which I am SURE can somehow be applied to putting God's name (more or less) on cash???

It just doesn't make sense. Forget about whether or not it offends atheists, am I missing something? Why doesn't this offend Christians? I just. Don't. Get it.

Which is now several situations and counting.

Evangeline was somewhat interested in it because a classmate of hers moved to Egypt a few months into the school year. Ana mostly rolled her eyes, to which I said that although I know she doesn't think it's interesting now (or maybe she does - she can be SUCH a teenager sometimes about letting us know she's interested in ANYthing!) she'll be glad when she's a grown-up to be able to say she knew about this as it was happening. She doesn't believe me when I say this is a very exciting time to be alive, but I think she'll understand when she's older. (She doesn't have a friend in Egypt, after all, unlike her sister. Evangeline is torn between hoping her friend saw all the excitement and worrying that he and his family aren't safe.)

We talked about it, and we went over to our free Doctors Without Borders map on the wall to see where all these countries are, and it occurs to me that because I read my news online Ana is missing out on something important. She's not reading the newspaper. Doesn't watch TV news much either.

My father was a history and current events geek. I mean seriously. There is a reason I know more world capitals than is quite reasonable. (I can assure you, I have never in my life needed to know that the capital of Suriname is Parimaribo. For crying out loud, spellcheck doesn't even recognize it! I have found memorizing 7! to be more useful*, you know!)

So he read the paper every day, and we talked about it a lot, and he was always well-versed on what was going on in the world. If we ever had a question about the political situation or recent events in some small country nobody else had even heard of, he would be able to answer it.

But I read my news online, and Jenn does too I guess (saving trees, of course), and we haven't been talking about this at dinner, much less incessantly. Their education is lacking, and I need to find time for it. It's probably not that useful to know more capitals than you can count, but it *is* useful to have a basic understanding of current events. It's not something you do once a week on Friday.

*My sixth (or maybe seventh) grade math teacher believed in reviewing old material on every single test. This meant that after we learned how to do factorials, we got tested on them every few weeks, one question per test. For some reason she picked 7! several times in a row. This caused me to do two things. First, I figured out that my calculator had a factorial button and it wasn't necessary to work it out step by step. I'm not sure anybody else noticed this. And second, I learned that 7! is 5040. I'll know that to the day I die, and it has come in handy exactly once, in college, where I used that fact to accidentally make a professor (in Classics) think I was some sort of math genius. I'm not. The number is simply emblazoned upon my mind, and when he mentioned that one or another thinker thought 5040 was the ideal population, the phrase "Why, that's seven factorial!" popped out before I could stop it. Sure, it's only once that this random factoid has been useful, but as I never expected it could be useful to have that memorized I think I've beaten the odds there. Even once means it's come in handy far more often than I ever would have anticipated.

Did you know that up until 1815 the US, along with most other nations, paid tribute to pirates? Deep down, though I know this is a serious issue, I can't help thinking it's slightly cool to see the first president since Andrew Jackson vow to fight piracy.

Only slightly, because the reality isn't as amusing as it is in cartoons, of course. And the conditions leading up to piracy, though they're not really being talked about in the news as far as I can see, are also... not really that amusing.

The USA Emergency Supply Website

They're sure there's no rice shortage anywhere in the US, and I'm sure they would know, but...

Meanwhile, just last Friday I happened to walk past a corner store that was hysterically full of rice. Piled from floor to ceiling (literally) in the window, and on every shelf, and on the floor where people didn't HAVE to walk.

Not even all the best rice - a lot of it was "parboiled" or "instant" or what-have-you.

Clearly, the proprietors of the shop read the news, saw that there might be a profit to be made on rice (a fair bet in an area where just about everybody's national cuisine features the grain), and just decided to run with it.

Hoo-boy that was a lot of rice!

Canada's PM says Dalai Lama "not a call girl"

In his defense, he's not actually bucking for the Captain Obvious awards this year. What he meant to say is that the Dalai Lama is "a respected international spiritual leader" whom he has every right to meet wherever the heck he wants without being criticized for his "disgusting conduct", but his mouth apparently decided to move before he remembered he was being recorded.

So, you're 14. And you shove a hall monitor. Nobody's hurt, and you don't have a record, so you get....

What? Detention? Suspended? A note in your permanent record?

Or, maybe, seven years in prison. Because we've just got to crack down on that violent behaviour. Or something. The news article says "up to seven years", but even if she gets out now, it's clearly too long. The girl has already been imprisoned a year.

For... what again?

I... I don't even know what to say. There aren't enough words to express how pissed the fuck off I am at hearing this.

1. Outrage fatigue is all well and good (in that it's not well and good at all), but is there any way to counteract that? I find I get more overwhelmed the more helpless I feel. I need simple, concrete steps I can take to stop feeling overwhelmed - and no, voting isn't going to help much. Things that don't rely on other people (huge protest marches, for example) are good, as are things that *feel* productive. Writing a letter doesn't feel productive if I'm not sure it's going to be heeded.

2. Regardless of whether or not the act is enforceable, it's still troubling. But I guess we shall see what we shall see, sometime after the elections.

Now, I'm off to watch something decidedly non-current-eventsy, aka Veronica Mars. I've already seen it, but it'll keep me from having to think about real things for a while.

Been a while since I've done this!

On the probably rebuilding of New Orleans

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About a Hasidic area in Orange County, and its growth

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And, finally, one on designing secure places that aren't scarily so.

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Or are people having entirely too much fun over the Pluto debacle?

This will not impact my life, or yours, not one little bit. Not a single iota. They won't even change the textbooks for elementary school, so all the old mnemonics will go on being used. (I said this before, but that was a segue into another subject, so I'm saying it again.)

Really.

NY1 is now giving Seven Day Forecasts instead of five. I'm a bit intimidated.