Today's Supreme Court Ruling--Wow!

From the Christian Science Monitor:

There is a lot more to this case than meets the eye; it's all about the age of responsibility. First, from the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy:

What most interested me was Scalia's rebuttal of the above statements in the dissenting opinion. He made a very convincing argument, but not for executing minors:

He has a good point. Isn't it a bit contradictory to allow minors to decide something as important as whether to have an abortion, but then say they are unable to take moral responsibility for their actions if they stab someone to death? I completely support a woman's right to decide if she wants an abortion. Key word woman, not girl. The real problem comes with incest. If a father has been raping his daughter, obviously he's not the one to ask for permission to have an abortion. But then, if he's been raping his daughter, he should go to jail, and then the girl would have a different guardian (who ought to insist that the girl abort the inbred fetus.) I think it would make more sense to do what is done now in some places--allow a minor to petition the court to get an abortion without parental permission. But I do think girls should have to go to court for an abortion if they are under 18 and don't have a parent's permission, for the same reason that clinics require counseling for a woman before she has an abortion, to discuss the psychological ramifications of having one.

Ideally, a girl's parents would be nurturing and approachable, but that certainly can't be assumed. So if the girl doesn't want to tell her parents she wants an abortion, she'd better have a good reason for not telling them, one she can defend before the court. Otherwise, well, at what age do you draw the line? If a fourteen-year-old high school freshman cheerleader sleeps with someone on the football team and gets pregnant, should she be able to get an abortion without ever telling her parents? That seems unfair to the parents, to me. This country needs be more consistent in its treatment of minors. Are they responsible, or not? Why is the driving age 16, the voting age 18, the drinking age 21, and the car-renting age 25? If the government doesn't actively restrict those under 25 from renting a car, why are rental agencies able to discriminate against them?

People ought to think long and hard about all of the big decisions they make. I honestly wouldn't mind a "cooling-off" waiting period for buying a firearm, if there were an anonymous way to do so. It's a shame you can get married even while drunk in Vegas. Realistically you can't legislate common sense, so the law should only regulate people's life-or-death decisions. I think abortion does fit in that category. Notice I said "life-or-death," not "murder-or-not-murder." The end result is either baby, or no baby, and it's a big deal either way.

Goddamn buzzwords

There is a class of language that I cannot stand. It makes me cringe to hear people using certain words, but not because those words are profane in the normal sense. They ought to be considered obscenity, and anyone caught using them could stand to be re-educated, in the 1984 sense. There would be an exception for satire / parody. Of course, I'm talking about buzzwords. Execu-speak. Often very similar to Newspeak. People who go to business school spend there time learning how to say a lot of words without saying anything. Remarkably, some suckers actually fall for the bullshit--or at least tolerate it. There is really only one good thing about buzzwords: they flag the speaker as either a clown or a moron. It lets you know, "okay, I can just ignore the braying coming from this jackass's mouth." You can't tell from appearance alone whether someone is a moron, so it can be very helpful to have a clear marker to make the judgement easier.

These days, there are three big buzzwords at the top of my shitlist: Synergy, Proactive, and Leverage. And I can tell you exactly why I hate each one of them:

Synergy is the bastardization of a scientific word, synergism, which means "interaction of discrete agencies (as industrial firms), agents (as drugs), or conditions such that the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual effects" according to Merriam Webster. You can understand why the slimy business types would want to co-opt that word. Someone probably said, "A merger between our companies would have a synergistic effect. Together, we would be more than the sum of our parts," and the idea spread from there. But if you ever step back, reexamine the context in which the person said "synergy," you will find that the word is either meaningless or propaganda. Ask yourself if the word "cooperation" would have fit. If the answer is yes, it's propaganda; if the answer is no, it's meaningless.

Proactive doesn't bastardize a scientific word, because its buzzword meaning is totally unrelated to the scientific (from psychology) word. The buzzword definition is now, unfortunately, in the dictionary, meaning, acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes. Don't we already have enough words with that meaning? Instead of saying "he is proactive," you could say "he has foresight," or "he anticipates future needs." Instead of "being proactive," say "thinking ahead," or "looking to the future." With so many idioms available, why use this ridiculous word? It's the Boy Scouts motto: Be Prepared. Proactiveness = preparation / preparedness.

Leverage is not so bad when used as a noun, but as a verb, it stinks.
Acceptable: "If you loan her the car, you'll have some leverage the next time you want to borrow her Tupperware."
Fucking Stupid: "I would leverage the fact that you let her borrow the car, so she'll loan you her Tupperware." Most often I hear the word used like "We can leverage product X sales to meet Wall Street's predictions."

Wikipedia lists a bunch of buzzwords. (I had repressed all memory of the word "empowerment." Yuck!) People have been bitching about buzzwords for years, now. "Dilbert" is a good example. Consequently, some people might say it's passe to complain about buzzwords. But people continue to use them! There are plenty of battles that can't be won, plenty of lost causes; I prefer to think that the war against buzzwords is not yet lost. We can be, ahem, proactive in the fight against buzzwords. Writing that last sentence about made me vomit--I apologize if reading it had the same effect on any readers.

The True Origin of Napoleon Dynamite

I'm not talking about the movie, but about the name itself. It's not a secret, but I just found out recently that Elvis Costello, in his 1986 album Blood & Chocolate, credited himself as Napoleon Dynamite. And the album cover is a painting of the same name.

Elvis Costello is such a prolific musician, it has been hard for me to decide which album of his to get next. Many years ago, I got a Rhino Records box set of his first three albums (My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, and Armed Forces, each album with about as many bonus tracks as original tracks. God bless Rhino.), but I had never bought another since, merely because of this inability to decide. Anyway, my choice was made easier when Blender magazine recently had a whole section on Elvis Costello that classified his albums on a five-star basis. So I got Blood & Chocolate. It comes from Rhino with an entire bonus disc of songs. I'll see if they're any good. Sometimes bonus materials are thrown in haphazardly, but Rhino has a good track record, in my experience.

Recently a friend introduced me to del.icio.us, which is much more than a bookmark manager. You can see how many other people have the same bookmarks, and you can explore bookmarks by topic, etc. Check out my page of bookmarks at del.icio.us/bodrell.

Music is so therapeutic for me. If I haven't already mentioned that, it should be obvious from the amount of time I spend writing about different bands or song lyrics. Right now I'm listening to a Stereolab single off of their latest album. The single is titled Instant O In the Universe. Listening to it puts me in a better state of mind. On the back of the CD it says, "Mary, thinking about you" with reference to Mary Hansen, their bandmate who was recently killed by a car while riding her bike. The latest album, Margerine Eclipse, is a memorial to Mary. And it's all very upbeat and happy-- not a dirge to be found. I suspect music is therapeutic for Stereolab, too.

Later today I am going to get lunch at my favorite Thai restaurant (in Eugene), Chao Pra Ya. Then, continuing with the East Asian theme, I'm going to see House of Flying Daggers at the Eugene Discount Cinema. That's the side of the mall where the po' folks congregate. Who am I kidding? I'm still in a blurry financial status; I could be considered one of the po' folks.

But at least I have a job. Every time one of the executives talks about proactively leveraging synergy, and I despair in how much my job is beginning to imitate Dilbert, I try to remember that I'm lucky to have a job, and when I'm not wasting time dealing with messes created by upper management, I'm doing something that I like. Not many people can say that. But I pay for doing something I like. Or, I should say, I pay out of pocket for doing something I like. Still, I don't covet the life of a doctor or businessman. The price they pay is much worse.

I badly need a haircut, but I'm not sure what to do. Usually I do it myself, but I get help trimming the back. I'm thinking of just shaving it all off. Hell, it's spring. Okay, my mind's made up. Sometimes it helps to think through the keyboard. I'm off to shave my head.

Revenge On the Smallest Scale

I just read a kick-ass article in the NY Times about the ways people cope with everyday annoyances. I strongly identified with many of the behaviors described. A couple of people refused to succumb to linguistic marketing trickery--and by that I mean that they say "small, medium, large" instead of "medium, large, x-large" (in the case of Domino's) or "tall, grande, venti" (in the case of Starbucks). One guy sends pieces of sheet metal in junk mail return envelopes. They talked about TV-B-Gone, which I've mentioned previously. The funniest parts concerned Polish resistance. Apparently, it was considered patriotic to show up to work drunk because people hated the bosses so much. Another Polish act of defiance involved wearing hats backwards. You'll have to read it. What I found particularly ironic, and I think I'm using the word correctly, is that the NY Times linked to bugmenot.com, which allows people to circumvent registration for online newspapers such as the NY Times.

We all want to stick it to the man. The stress from everyday annoyances continues to build, if there is no release. I personally like to be disruptive in the movie theatre while I am being blasted with ads for Coke and for Ax "Hot Bod" spray. Recently, a friend and I saw The Grudge at the Eugene Discount Cinema, and we were the only ones in the theatre. It was great! I got to shout at the screen with impunity. Very cathartic. I have seen the NASCAR / Coke animated ad waaay too many times now. Most enjoyable was mocking the Coke "I want to be free" ad, where the people are dancing in the supermarket and throwing confetti like it's New Year's Eve. "Oh, how I want to be free! Oh, how I want to drink Coke!"

On the road is where almost everyone plays these games. My favorite is the Blue Angels game, which I learned from reading an Orson Scott Card short story called Road Games. Maybe it was called Freeway Games. Something like that. The idea is that your car is in a formation like the Blue Angels fighter pilots. When I can see some insane asshole in my mirror, who is weaving back and forth, passing on the right when the passing lane is open, etc., I try to pull alongside two slow-moving vehicles and form a barrier. It's easier with two lanes, but two cars isn't much of a formation, is it?

What's the statute of limitations on vandalism? Aw, fuck it. I have taken out my aggression on people's cars before. I used to live across the street from an Asian fraternity. They were shitty neighbors, but the real problem was their friends, who would park in our precious spaces. There was a Mustang that made that mistake, and I threw a cup of methylene chloride a. k. a. dichloromethane (DCM) on the roof of the car, which took the paint right off. The funniest part is that the idiot actually parked there again. There was rust on the roof where the DCM had been. Other times, I have keyed new cars that had the nerve to park diagonally across two spaces in an overcrowded lot. Hey you, in the shiny black truck--don't you realize that the damage of a door ding is nothing compared to that inflicted by whoever gets pissed off when they can't find a space because of your selfishness? I guess you're too busy using chrome and rims to compensate for your microphallus.

To each his own. Whatever your method of revenge against the machine, don't get caught. Because remember: It's Only Wrong If You Get Caught.

Individual vs. Herd

The other day I observed something interesting about myself: I will give almost anyone the benefit of the doubt when I am interacting with them one-on-one, but people lose their humanity in my eyes when they're in a pack. In a herd. In a mob. One perfect example is fraternities. I can't stand them. And I can't stand frat boys, as a collective. They're obnoxious, inconsiderate, loud, and often much worse. But I have had friends who were in fraternities; as individuals, they embody few of the characteristics I associate with the group as a whole.

A friend of mine gave me an interesting way to look at it: people are entering into a sort of social contract via their affiliations. If you decide to become a cheerleader, that role comes with certain expectations. Some people love and admire cheerleaders, and others don't, but any group you join opens you to public judgment. It's a lot like being a public figure, but a degree removed. Whereas a nobody has some expectation of privacy, a celebrity does not. Joining a club does not make you a celebrity, but it does mean you have to tolerate criticism you wouldn't have to deal with normally.

This past week there have been speculations about motivations for the latest school shootings in Minnesota. Everybody says the kid was a loner, but I heard he associated with neo-nazi types over the internet. That confuses me a bit, because I thought neo-nazis hated all non-white people (including American Indians), but whatever. The point is that the kid is judged by his affiliations. If he had been in chess club, they would have mentioned that. And people would have made assumptions about him based on that. If he had been in the Islamic Students Association, you can be damn sure we would have heard about that. Everybody knows postal workers have a tendency to become disgruntled and go on killing rampage (hence the phrase "go postal" and the notorious videogame "Postal"). Your affiliations open you up to public scrutiny.

I don't think it's so bad to be judgmental, to scrutinize others. People who aren't judgmental cannot, by definition, make good judgments. I'm a live-and-let-live person, but I do have a ethical code that I follow, and I judge other people according to that code. That doesn't mean I rub it in their face (usually), or call them sinners, or try to pass laws to make them do what I think is moral, but it certainly factors into my opinion of them. So what do people really mean when they say not to be judgmental? Do they mean you shouldn't voice your opinions? Or perhaps that you shouldn't try to legislate your opinions? When morality is legislated, it ceases to become moral and instead becomes a matter of avoiding punishment.

A relevant quote just came to mind, apparently said by a woman named Rita Mae Brown: Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. Neither good judgment nor bad judgment are possible without some sort of judging.

On a completely different subject, I've been listening to some good music, lately. I've rediscovered Fear of Music by Talking Heads. So catchy. I'm also a big fan of Volume I of Sand in the Vaseline (a two-disc set of their greatest hits, and one of the most disturbing titles I've heard). Also from before my birth, I've enjoyed 1970s albums by Gal Costa (Legal, and India) and Gilberto Gil (Refazenda). Finally, there's Cafe Tacuba. After years of procrastination, I got their 1994 album, Re, and I should have bought it ten years ago. I wish I could say you'd love it even if you don't speak Spanish, but since I do speak Spanish, I really don't know that. If you like Latin music, or just like interesting music, then check it out. I will say the singer is no Frank Sinatra, but his voice has its own charm.

On another unrelated subject, I've had no choice lately but to think about the religious nutjobs trying to turn the US into a full-blown theocracy, with autos da fe just around the corner. The morons in Florida are like attention-seeking actors, unwilling to let someone else in the spotlight. First they stage that election, then they arrange for all those hurricanes to hit them, and now The Vegetable That Wouldn't Die starring Terri Schiavo in the title role. Okay, so maybe the hurricanes weren't their idea. That doesn't disprove anything. See, I'm as agnostic as it gets. Some people think that's cowardly, and that you "have to " decide, but it seems pretty dumb to me to make a decision without knowing all the facts. I'm not saying the religious nuts are definitely wrong, but I would feel comfortable betting my life against them. Especially this notion of "heaven." It's too optimistic. But I can understand why the idea is so appealing. It's a bit sad, for me, that I've lost my ability to believe in a pie-in-the-sky afterlife, where you get to retain your ego and personality. There's a song by The Shins that says it very nicely:

If you don't want the "marionettes on weakening cables" to turn the United States into a theocracy like Iran, well, it may be too late. The president has already issued fatwahs, imposed religious law on the country, and jailed dissidents without allowing them counsel. But join the ACLU anyway. It certainly couldn't make things any worse, unless Ayatollah George Suleyman bin Bush makes membership in the ACLU criminal. Jeez, I hope I don't give him any ideas . . .

When Tragedy Falls Upon People With Funny Names

Just a minute ago, I read the following in an Associated Press article:

Lost causes seem to be in vogue, these days. I mentioned Terri Schiavo, earlier. Here in Oregon, we are inundated in a deluge of "Find Brooke" posters, wristbands, and billboards. The girl disappeared last May. Give it up. Some people call it "keeping hope alive," but to me it seems like self-delusion. This does raise an interesting question, though: How long should you keep hope alive for an abducted person? I guess it ought to depend some on their age and disposition. People sometimes kidnap younger children to raise them, but Brooke Wilberger was 19 when she disappeared. I think we all know what happened to her, even if not the details.

But back to the girl in Iowa. I don't know how to pronounce two of her three names. Jetseta? Is that like "jet-set" plus "a?" Or is it pronounced like "jet-SEET-ah?" It's an absolutely ridiculous name, from any persepective. And "Marrie?" Is that a bastardization of "Mary" and "Marie" smushed together? And I may be pronouncing "Gage" wrong, come to think of it. What happens when the newscasters get the message over the wire? How does an Amber Alert work if no one can pronounce the girl's name? What if someone saw her and wanted to call out her name? That's the tragedy. This poor 10-year-old girl got killed by some perv, and the only thing memorable about her life is a silly name. I'm sure her family will remember a lot more about her, but not me. I have an ancestor named Marmaduke. Until I discovered that fact, I didn't realize that was a real name. I only knew of the cartoon dog. And that's all I know about my great-great-great-uncle (?) Marmaduke.

This reminds me of a particularly funny episode of News Radio, which someone ought to release on DVD. (Why are episodes of "The O. C." already out on DVD, but not News Radio?) In the episode, Bill McNeal (played by Phil Hartman) accidentally instigated a series of violent attacks. Well, I'll quote from someone who also enjoyed that episode. The original page is fried, but here's the link to the domain where it once was:

On an unrelated subject, I wanted to mention Lipstick & Dynamite, a documentary about the earliest ladies of pro-wrestling. Well, I read a review of the movie in Blender magazine, and recently two of the stars were on Conan (The Fabulous Moolah and The Great Mae Young) and they were nuts! Especially Mae Young. Moolah said about Mae (who was really old, by the way) "I can't take her anywhere-- she just wants to get drunk and take her clothes off." Later, Conan asked the women if they ever wore padding, like football players do, for protection in wrestling matches. Mae pulled out a fake breast from her shirt and rubbed it in Conan's face. Earlier, she had challenged Conan to a match, and Moolah had to hold her back. It totally reaffirmed my belief that people don't become wise just from hanging around on this planet a certain number of years. Elderly people can be just as foolish, self-destructive, and cavalier as teenagers. Although in this case, it may have been the effects of senility more than anything. And Mae Young might well have been even crazier in her youth . . . Here's a direct link to the Blender review.

Happy Easter, for those of you that celebrate the holiday. I was wondering about the etymology for the word "Easter," since it is nothing like the words in Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian. I leave you with an explanation I found interesting, which I got from a site called Take Our Word. Yet another example of pagan influence on our culture, to join the Fertility Bunny / eggs and the Winter Solstice Tree.