Captain Grant Manley fidgeted uncomfortably. He much preferred the stark utilitarian halls of the USS Victory to this plush, sybaritic Plutonian palace, and he'd rather feel the tug of his skintight pressure suit than the chafe of these loose class-A dress clothes. He still had his Q-Ray blaster, though, and no funny-talking Plutonian Baron was going to get him to hand it over.
"Remind me why we're here, would you?" Manley whispered to his trusty cabin boy, Teddy Courage, as he eyed the gray-hued, three-armed Plutonian diplomat mere steps away.
"The Earth Council sent us to ensure the delivery of heavy hydrogen," Teddy replied as he tugged on the Captain's tunic and brushed his lapels. "So be nice."
"But they're funny-looking," Manley grumbled. "And it stinks here. No place with funny-looking aliens and stinky scenery is worth the Earth Council's attention."
"All our space cruisers run on heavy hydrogen." Estelle Sparks entered, her lithe buxom form concealed by layers of sheer fabrics that draped and hung in alluring folds. Only the two Q-Ray blasters on her hips let an onlooker know she meant business. Earth business.
"What in the name of Einstein are you wearing?" Manley erupted, earning him a stern scowl from one of the Plutonian diplomats.
"It's the traditional Plutonian dress for their females," Estelle purred. "It's diplomatic that I wear it."
"I think it's disgraceful," Manley spat, "women should wear their standard-issue pressure suits, with the top unzipped a few inches for comfort. Not this... this..."
"Abomination," Teddy Courage offered. "It leaves everything to the imagination."
"Shhh..." Estelle admonished as the Plutonians took notice, "... we need them and their heavy hydrogen."
"Aren't they a repressive theocracy?" Teddy whispered, kneading his captain's iron-hard shoulders. "And isn't the Earth Council opposed to repressive theocracies? And don't we mine our own heavy hydrogen?"
"Yes, yes, and yes," Estelle replied, "but Pluto has the solar system's largest reserves of heavy hydrogen, more than we ever could find on our own. And if we want them to continue selling it to us, we have to make nice."
Grant Manley put a hand to his chin and rubbed slowly, his thinking pose, while the other rested on his Q-Ray blaster.
"They're wrapping up their mumbo-jumbo," Teddy said, stroking his Captain's face as he pointed across the grand palace ballroom where the Plutonians had just finished sacrificing a gray, three-limbed animal to their ice god. "Let me check your inseam to make sure nothing's riding up."
"I have a better idea," Manley said, batting Teddy's hand away, "why don't we refuse to buy heavy hydrogen from the Plutonians until they stop their nonsense? You know, quit it with the crazy religion and let their women read and vote?"
Teddy Courage and Estelle exchanged a panicked look.
"We don't want to rock the boat," Estelle said.
"And besides, someone else will just buy their heavy hydrogen," Teddy answered, "and we'll have none for ourselves."
"We could find another source of space cruiser fuel," Manley suggested, still in his thinking pose. "I mean, the Earth Council has a bunch of smarty-pants eggheads, right? They can figure it out. Heavy hydrogen can't be the only way to make the USS Victory go."
"Well, that could work," Estelle replied, "except that the Earth Council is full of representatives who are in the pockets of the heavy hydrogen lobby. And the aristocracy of the Earth Council has a long history with the Barons of Pluto. They're friends. Good friends."
"Ah, I understand," Manley said, stroking his chin, "graft, bribery, and corruption, eh?"
"You always see things so crystal clear," Teddy gushed, hugging tight to his Captain's rippling chest.
"Nothing else to do, then," Manley barked as he drew his Q-Ray blaster. It felt good in his hand. Right. Earth Council right. "We'll kill 'em all and let God sort it out. The proper God, the Earth God. Whoever wins gets all the heavy hydrogen."
Friday, May 11, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Blue-Skyin' It...
I'm renting a house, and it's a nice place, relatively new, open floor plan, good flow, huge back porch which is great in the Summer. All in all I think I got a good deal.
But there are a few things I'd want to change.
Like, say, a roof that doesn't drain right onto the front steps. Sliding doors on the back that open the other way instead of the way they do right now. A for-real two-car garage, not just a big one-car you can squeeze two into. Etc. etc. etc.
So I got to thinking... if I were going to make a list, why stop with relatively mundane stuff? If you're going to want, want big. The sky's the limit. So here's a short list of cool stuff I think every house should have. I'm gonna try to get these into any house I build for myself.
Tear-off carpets. You know, like paper towels. After a while carpets get worn, no matter how well you take care of them. When the carpet is looking a little shabby, just pull and tear, and voila! brand new carpeting.
Welcome-mat trap door. Like in the Addams Family. Unwanted visitors ring the bell and the trap door releases dropping them into the alligator pit.
Guess I'm gonna need an alligator pit, too. And alligators to go in it.
Helipad. For my kick-ass helicopter. Which I'll be too chicken to learn how to fly, so it'll just sit up there on the helipad looking cool and pissing off the neighbors.
Anti-wind chime artillery. My neighbors over the back fence are the local 'wind chime family.' One is not enough for them, they have a scrap yard of wind chimes. They must be stopped.
Sensors that know when you're up in the middle of the night and turn on floor-level lighting so you don't stub your little toe on your stupid couch. Again.
An underground lair, complete with fireman's pole and a secret exit for your car, so no one follows you to your house. Hey, if it's good enough for Batman it's good enough for me.
Peel-off paint. Inside and outside. So when you got tired of the paint scheme it would take you five minutes to get a blank canvas to start all over.
But there are a few things I'd want to change.
Like, say, a roof that doesn't drain right onto the front steps. Sliding doors on the back that open the other way instead of the way they do right now. A for-real two-car garage, not just a big one-car you can squeeze two into. Etc. etc. etc.
So I got to thinking... if I were going to make a list, why stop with relatively mundane stuff? If you're going to want, want big. The sky's the limit. So here's a short list of cool stuff I think every house should have. I'm gonna try to get these into any house I build for myself.
Tear-off carpets. You know, like paper towels. After a while carpets get worn, no matter how well you take care of them. When the carpet is looking a little shabby, just pull and tear, and voila! brand new carpeting.
Welcome-mat trap door. Like in the Addams Family. Unwanted visitors ring the bell and the trap door releases dropping them into the alligator pit.
Guess I'm gonna need an alligator pit, too. And alligators to go in it.
Helipad. For my kick-ass helicopter. Which I'll be too chicken to learn how to fly, so it'll just sit up there on the helipad looking cool and pissing off the neighbors.
Anti-wind chime artillery. My neighbors over the back fence are the local 'wind chime family.' One is not enough for them, they have a scrap yard of wind chimes. They must be stopped.
Sensors that know when you're up in the middle of the night and turn on floor-level lighting so you don't stub your little toe on your stupid couch. Again.
An underground lair, complete with fireman's pole and a secret exit for your car, so no one follows you to your house. Hey, if it's good enough for Batman it's good enough for me.
Peel-off paint. Inside and outside. So when you got tired of the paint scheme it would take you five minutes to get a blank canvas to start all over.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
What Are We Missing?
The Romans had steam power.
It's true. Not during Julius Caesar's time, but later in the Empire. They didn't have a true steam engine, not like the one developed in the 18th Century, but they did have a furnace that used the pressure produced from boiling water into steam to open temple doors, to make music like a calliope, to make statues move, that kind of thing. Disney-style animatronics. And that's as far as it went. Steam power was, for them, a novelty and an oddity, not a scientific or technological achievement. I'm not even certain they knew science or technology as we do now; they were human beings as much as you and I are, but their culture was very, very different.
There could be any number of reasons steam power never caught on in Rome - lack of effective long-distance communications, cheap slave labor, lack of efficient materials science, lack of scientific method at all, general apathy by people with the power and money to make things happen. Maybe all of those. But the fact remains the Romans knew about steam power and did nothing useful with it. Not a damn thing. They just missed it.
The Romans couldn't see what they couldn't see* if you catch my drift. They were blind to the application of steam power. It took 1400 years from the decline of the Empire, to the Dark Ages, to the Renaissance, and through Enlightenment for the idea of using steam to do work to catch on. The Romans were nothing but funny writing on marble monuments by the time some smart cookies used steam to run a locomotive about 200 years ago. That's a big gap.
Which makes me wonder what we're missing. What's right in front of us at this very moment that we can't see the value of? What amazing invention is some lonely researcher creating that we're going to ignore, that will prove to be a giant leap forward 1400 years from now? Nikola Tesla - who turned out to be right about everything he ever put his mind to - imagined some pretty wacky stuff in addition to things like radio, AC power, and wireless energy transfer. What if that wacky stuff is the next steam engine? What cultural or societal blinders do we have on that hide what could be a breakthrough that will change the world again?**
But, more to the point, how do we avoid being caught unprepared, like the Romans with steam power? We now have a worldwide scientific community, a competitive business environment, and plenty of monetary incentive for good people to bring their inventions forward. But isn't that just another kind of cultural prison? Aren't there ideas that don't conform to corporate expectations? Ideas that aren't destined to increase profits and grow the bottom line? And aren't those ideas almost certain to be the best?
I don't know... trying to see what you're culturally programmed to ignore sounds to me like trying to tickle yourself, just can't be done. But there is that one in a million person who can tickle themselves, so maybe there's a chance. I'm going to keep my eye open, and hope I recognize innovation when it smacks me in the face.
* I apologize for the Rumsfelidan circular reference
** I don't mean something like Soylent Green, I'm not advocating cannibalism. Not just yet.
It's true. Not during Julius Caesar's time, but later in the Empire. They didn't have a true steam engine, not like the one developed in the 18th Century, but they did have a furnace that used the pressure produced from boiling water into steam to open temple doors, to make music like a calliope, to make statues move, that kind of thing. Disney-style animatronics. And that's as far as it went. Steam power was, for them, a novelty and an oddity, not a scientific or technological achievement. I'm not even certain they knew science or technology as we do now; they were human beings as much as you and I are, but their culture was very, very different.
There could be any number of reasons steam power never caught on in Rome - lack of effective long-distance communications, cheap slave labor, lack of efficient materials science, lack of scientific method at all, general apathy by people with the power and money to make things happen. Maybe all of those. But the fact remains the Romans knew about steam power and did nothing useful with it. Not a damn thing. They just missed it.
The Romans couldn't see what they couldn't see* if you catch my drift. They were blind to the application of steam power. It took 1400 years from the decline of the Empire, to the Dark Ages, to the Renaissance, and through Enlightenment for the idea of using steam to do work to catch on. The Romans were nothing but funny writing on marble monuments by the time some smart cookies used steam to run a locomotive about 200 years ago. That's a big gap.
Which makes me wonder what we're missing. What's right in front of us at this very moment that we can't see the value of? What amazing invention is some lonely researcher creating that we're going to ignore, that will prove to be a giant leap forward 1400 years from now? Nikola Tesla - who turned out to be right about everything he ever put his mind to - imagined some pretty wacky stuff in addition to things like radio, AC power, and wireless energy transfer. What if that wacky stuff is the next steam engine? What cultural or societal blinders do we have on that hide what could be a breakthrough that will change the world again?**
But, more to the point, how do we avoid being caught unprepared, like the Romans with steam power? We now have a worldwide scientific community, a competitive business environment, and plenty of monetary incentive for good people to bring their inventions forward. But isn't that just another kind of cultural prison? Aren't there ideas that don't conform to corporate expectations? Ideas that aren't destined to increase profits and grow the bottom line? And aren't those ideas almost certain to be the best?
I don't know... trying to see what you're culturally programmed to ignore sounds to me like trying to tickle yourself, just can't be done. But there is that one in a million person who can tickle themselves, so maybe there's a chance. I'm going to keep my eye open, and hope I recognize innovation when it smacks me in the face.
* I apologize for the Rumsfelidan circular reference
** I don't mean something like Soylent Green, I'm not advocating cannibalism. Not just yet.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Lessons In Salt
So the other night I was making myself dinner, a simple, cheap dish: cook ground beef, add brown gravy to the cooked beef, make rice, make peas, dish out rice, dish out peas on rice, dish out brown gravy beef over peas and rice. Eat. All tolled, about $5 to make the whole thing, which gives me three (generous) servings. Sometimes I just can't shake the starving bachelor I used to be.
But... as I took the first bite I realized that I had forgotten to put salt in the ground beef. Since there's no salt in rice or peas, and very little in the brown gravy mix, the meat has to carry the entire seasoning palate. I put in pepper and onion powder and garlic, but no salt. Forgot completely. The entire thing was just bland. Objectionably so, I almost threw it all out.
Now, I used to be a cook - as in I got a check every two weeks for cooking in a restaurant - and I know better. Almost everything needs just a tiny bit of salt. Not too much, because a little bit of salt works like MSG, it enhances the flavor of things. Of everything. For me to forget the salt was not only embarrassing, it was unforgivable. I tried to repair things by adding salt afterwards but that never works. And to top it all off, I undercooked the rice. Not my best night at the stove.
But it got me thinking. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. A little salt makes things better. You can apply this to, say, our current political discourse. There seems to be a huge emphasis placed on toeing the line, on staying 'on message,' where that message is determined by polls and deep-pocket, often creepy donors. A candidate can't think independently, they can't take a position either to the right or to the left of the carefully-crafted 'official' position. They're locked in, unable to add their own spice to the mix. Bland.
I think we need salt again. We need candidates and politicians who will think about things, negotiate, talk things over, be willing to abandon the official party line when the see they can get something done. Or when they're wrong, which they often are. We need people with spice.
But... as I took the first bite I realized that I had forgotten to put salt in the ground beef. Since there's no salt in rice or peas, and very little in the brown gravy mix, the meat has to carry the entire seasoning palate. I put in pepper and onion powder and garlic, but no salt. Forgot completely. The entire thing was just bland. Objectionably so, I almost threw it all out.
Now, I used to be a cook - as in I got a check every two weeks for cooking in a restaurant - and I know better. Almost everything needs just a tiny bit of salt. Not too much, because a little bit of salt works like MSG, it enhances the flavor of things. Of everything. For me to forget the salt was not only embarrassing, it was unforgivable. I tried to repair things by adding salt afterwards but that never works. And to top it all off, I undercooked the rice. Not my best night at the stove.
But it got me thinking. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. A little salt makes things better. You can apply this to, say, our current political discourse. There seems to be a huge emphasis placed on toeing the line, on staying 'on message,' where that message is determined by polls and deep-pocket, often creepy donors. A candidate can't think independently, they can't take a position either to the right or to the left of the carefully-crafted 'official' position. They're locked in, unable to add their own spice to the mix. Bland.
I think we need salt again. We need candidates and politicians who will think about things, negotiate, talk things over, be willing to abandon the official party line when the see they can get something done. Or when they're wrong, which they often are. We need people with spice.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Fart Musings
And now for something completely different. A subject near and dear to my heart... farts.
As I've tried to explain to my female relatives, girlfriends, female co-workers, and so on, farts are funny. They have always been funny, they're funny right now, and they're always going to be funny. Timeless humor. It's genetic. The best way to break the ice among a group of guys is to the cut the cheese. Not so much when women are in the room. And it starts early, when we're just kids. My nieces didn't find farts particularly funny, but my nephew came out of the womb grinning at every flatulent sound. He now announces them, as you should - 'I tooted.' It's a guy thing, you chicks just don't understand.
But I think I do. The way I see it, farts are funny to men - ALL men, straight, gay, or what have you - because men's farts are funny. It's all in the presentation, and when the finish drives your friends from the room... you win. You ladies didn't know it was a contest, but with guys everything's a contest. Did you know you can light your farts? If you're a woman you probably said 'no,' but if you're a guy you've either seen it done or done it yourself. Many times. Probably first in Boy Scouts and next at a frat party. I don't know how many bridal showers end in fart-lighting but I'm guessing not many. It's even money that a bachelor party involves an open flame and your best friend's jeans-covered butthole. You have to wear jeans, it's a safety thing.
Women don't think farts are funny because women's farts aren't funny. They're tragic. If men's farts are the SS Minnow of passing gas, women's farts are the Titanic. The aftermath of a man's fart is a pleasant sitcom laugh, the aftermath of a woman's fart is paint-peeling destruction of Biblical proportions. Men's farts are designed to be shared far and wide, women's farts should be concealed, locked away forever like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders.
But, for every rule there is the exception. It's true that women's farts aren't funny... unless you're a very old woman. Something about farting grannies just makes me smile like nothing else. I think it's the juxtaposition of grandmotherly care and propriety with skirt-lifting breaking of wind. Makes me laugh every time.
Well, I've been talking about it long enough, time for me to get some practice in. I wonder if I have any matches in the house...
As I've tried to explain to my female relatives, girlfriends, female co-workers, and so on, farts are funny. They have always been funny, they're funny right now, and they're always going to be funny. Timeless humor. It's genetic. The best way to break the ice among a group of guys is to the cut the cheese. Not so much when women are in the room. And it starts early, when we're just kids. My nieces didn't find farts particularly funny, but my nephew came out of the womb grinning at every flatulent sound. He now announces them, as you should - 'I tooted.' It's a guy thing, you chicks just don't understand.
But I think I do. The way I see it, farts are funny to men - ALL men, straight, gay, or what have you - because men's farts are funny. It's all in the presentation, and when the finish drives your friends from the room... you win. You ladies didn't know it was a contest, but with guys everything's a contest. Did you know you can light your farts? If you're a woman you probably said 'no,' but if you're a guy you've either seen it done or done it yourself. Many times. Probably first in Boy Scouts and next at a frat party. I don't know how many bridal showers end in fart-lighting but I'm guessing not many. It's even money that a bachelor party involves an open flame and your best friend's jeans-covered butthole. You have to wear jeans, it's a safety thing.
Women don't think farts are funny because women's farts aren't funny. They're tragic. If men's farts are the SS Minnow of passing gas, women's farts are the Titanic. The aftermath of a man's fart is a pleasant sitcom laugh, the aftermath of a woman's fart is paint-peeling destruction of Biblical proportions. Men's farts are designed to be shared far and wide, women's farts should be concealed, locked away forever like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders.
But, for every rule there is the exception. It's true that women's farts aren't funny... unless you're a very old woman. Something about farting grannies just makes me smile like nothing else. I think it's the juxtaposition of grandmotherly care and propriety with skirt-lifting breaking of wind. Makes me laugh every time.
Well, I've been talking about it long enough, time for me to get some practice in. I wonder if I have any matches in the house...
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Duck-Beaver Duality
I think I have a problem with authority. At least I have a problem with authority when I'm not the authority, which I'm pretty sure is the same thing. For instance, I have a problem with the climate change cultists. Specifically, I have a problem with the way the concept of climate change went from a scientific proposition to a popular-culture mandate in the space of a year or so. 'Time' magazine doesn't get to dictate science, and scientists who use fear and alarmist rhetoric to make their point aren't really scientists who deserve the title.
But that's not my topic today.
I have a problem with the basic assumption behind quantum physics, and that is the wave-particle duality. This is the experimentally-proved assertion that any elementary particle, an electron, for example, behaves like a particle when subjected to an experiment measuring for particles, and behaves like a wave when subjected to an experiment measuring for waves. This leads to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, and, essentially, the entirety of quantum physics. The idea is that you can't know a particle's velocity and position at the same time, that the act of observation changes the thing you're observing, etc. etc. etc.
I think it's based on a fallacy. One that I can demonstrate with a simple thought experiment. Well, two.
There's an old story about three blind men, none of whom has ever seen anything, let alone an elephant. When they're asked to describe an elephant one blind man is placed at the trunk, one at the leg, and one at the tail. The first blind man feels the trunk and says 'an elephant is like a snake.' The second blind man at the elephant's leg says 'an elephant is like a tree.' The last blind man is at the elephant's tail and he says 'an elephant is like a brush.'
Now... all three men are right, according to the measurements they could make, an elephant is indeed like a snake, a tree, and a brush. But an elephant is in reality none of those things. It's an elephant. So all three blind men are - technically, according to their experiments - correct, yet in the face of observable fact, they're wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
It astonishes me that scientists who claim to adhere to the Occam's Razor principle of simplicity would profess that an electron is either a wave or a particle, depending on how you measure it. Doesn't that seem like an overly complicated explanation? One that leads down all sorts of wrong paths?
If an electron behaves as either a particle or a wave, that means it is neither a particle nor a wave, but a third thing entirely. Just like an elephant is not a snake or a tree or a brush, but an elephant.
I think the ephemeral nature of atoms and the extremely tiny scales involved make this oversight very easy. There's nothing you can actually touch, hear or smell. And because physics is described with mathematics, it's also easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
So let's scale up the example, make it macro. Suppose you're a zoologist, and someone brings you a brand new animal. But they tell you, 'if you classify this animal one way, it's a duck. But if you classify it another way, it's a beaver.' And they can prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the measurements they took when they were looking for a duck meant this animal was a duck, and yet the measurements they took when they were looking for a beaver showed the animal was - absolutely - a beaver. It was two different animals, and which animal you saw depended on the observation you happened to be making at the time. What would you do?
Well, if you were a physicist you'd say 'this is just the duck-beaver duality, nothing we can do about it, accept the paradox and move on.' As a zoologist, however, you'd know something can't be two different things at once, and you'd know a duality is impossible. You'd probably also realize that you don't have either a duck or a beaver, you have a platypus.
So come on, physicists, give up the duck-beaver duality theory, and find the platypus in the Standard Model. Just give me a footnote in the paper that earns you the Nobel Prize.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Three Worst Words
They got to me, they wore me down, they broke my spirit.
You see, I had resolved to fight the good fight, I told myself that even though it was like pushing the sea back with a broom I was going to do my part to help maintain a reasonable discourse. But I was tilting at windmills. I set myself an impossible task, and it beat me.
I was going to do my own tiny part to fight the rampant, willful ignorance I see every day. Astonishing misinformation coupled with vile language leads otherwise rational people to become caricatures of themselves, and like a virus that kind of vitriol takes on a life of its own and spreads from person to person, even infecting those who don't agree with the rhetoric. It breaks us all down, it ruins the discourse. Maybe that's the point of it.
While there's no way I can change the world, I thought I could change people close to me. Friends, people who I know - for a fact - are not really ignorant, racist, redneck idiots, yet who inexplicably seem to love to repeat that kind of poison. I tried, really I did. And I gave it a good go, for a time I thought I was making a dent. But I was wrong. The tide of ignorance has become a tsunami, and it's only going to get worse. So, please forgive me, but I have to utter the three worst words one person can say to another:
I don't care.
What a horrible thing. You'd think the opposite of 'I love you' would be 'I hate you,' but as anyone who's been in a relationship can tell you, it's a short walk from love to hate and back again. They're both strong emotions. The opposite of either of those things would actually be apathy. And that's where I am right now. I don't care. I have friends who gleefully spew all sorts of intolerant, ignorant garbage and I'm just going to turn my back. If they want to let someone else set their agenda, if they're comfortable with being crassly manipulated by people and organizations that absolutely don't care about them, fine. Have at it. Wallow in your terrible situation, make the wrong choices, blame anyone but the people responsible - or yourself - for what's happening to you. Behave like a five-year-old. Whatever.
I don't care.
You see, I had resolved to fight the good fight, I told myself that even though it was like pushing the sea back with a broom I was going to do my part to help maintain a reasonable discourse. But I was tilting at windmills. I set myself an impossible task, and it beat me.
I was going to do my own tiny part to fight the rampant, willful ignorance I see every day. Astonishing misinformation coupled with vile language leads otherwise rational people to become caricatures of themselves, and like a virus that kind of vitriol takes on a life of its own and spreads from person to person, even infecting those who don't agree with the rhetoric. It breaks us all down, it ruins the discourse. Maybe that's the point of it.
While there's no way I can change the world, I thought I could change people close to me. Friends, people who I know - for a fact - are not really ignorant, racist, redneck idiots, yet who inexplicably seem to love to repeat that kind of poison. I tried, really I did. And I gave it a good go, for a time I thought I was making a dent. But I was wrong. The tide of ignorance has become a tsunami, and it's only going to get worse. So, please forgive me, but I have to utter the three worst words one person can say to another:
I don't care.
What a horrible thing. You'd think the opposite of 'I love you' would be 'I hate you,' but as anyone who's been in a relationship can tell you, it's a short walk from love to hate and back again. They're both strong emotions. The opposite of either of those things would actually be apathy. And that's where I am right now. I don't care. I have friends who gleefully spew all sorts of intolerant, ignorant garbage and I'm just going to turn my back. If they want to let someone else set their agenda, if they're comfortable with being crassly manipulated by people and organizations that absolutely don't care about them, fine. Have at it. Wallow in your terrible situation, make the wrong choices, blame anyone but the people responsible - or yourself - for what's happening to you. Behave like a five-year-old. Whatever.
I don't care.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Rush To Judgement
Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. Anyone with common sense and the tiniest portion of decency knows this; he's a loudmouth jackass who pretends to serve his audience when he's just serving himself and lining his pockets with advertisers' money.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm about to defend him.
More accurately, I'm going to defend the Constitutional principle that allows blowhard losers like Rush Limbaugh to have his say, no matter how stupid what he says is. The First Amendment to the US Constitution.
It's easy to defend someone's right to speak freely when you agree with them. Somebody says they love puppies? Who doesn't? Someone says they wish the government wouldn't tax them so much? We all wish that. Someone says Americans should eat more vegetables and less sugar? Well, duh, of course we should, we're all fat bastards.
When we don't agree with what someone says, though, our hackles go up. 'They shouldn't be allowed to say that...' But the fact of the matter is that the First Amendment was created to protect speech we don't agree with. You may not like hearing a sweating, drug-addicted walrus call a young woman a slut just because she advocates birth control, but that walrus has as much a right to say terrible things as you do. He just has a larger audience.
There are limits to free speech, of course. The famous 'fire in a crowded theater' limitation, for example. You can't incite murder, you can't libel someone, you can't start a fight, your words can't create a clear and present danger to the community. Aside from that, you can say any damn fool thing you want. I can too. And that's the beauty of the First Amendment. It applies to all of us.
It is in the speech that we find most objectionable that we also find the greatest application of the First Amendment. It is the price of liberty that we must endure listening to things we would rather not, and indeed that we must celebrate the fact that someone said those things, because the moment we restrict free speech only to those things we agree with we're stumbling down a slippery slope to State censorship of every idea. Our openness makes our society great, and with great openness comes great responsibility.
So let's raise a glass to Rush Limbaugh, the big fat idiot. His continued exercise of his First Amendment rights reminds us all that we need to be diligent in exercising our own liberties. And raise the glass to Larry Flynt, and to Pat Robertson, and even to those vile, sorry excuses of human beings in the Westboro Baptist Church. It's in protecting the speech we find most reprehensible that we prove we're worthy of the same freedom ourselves.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm about to defend him.
More accurately, I'm going to defend the Constitutional principle that allows blowhard losers like Rush Limbaugh to have his say, no matter how stupid what he says is. The First Amendment to the US Constitution.
It's easy to defend someone's right to speak freely when you agree with them. Somebody says they love puppies? Who doesn't? Someone says they wish the government wouldn't tax them so much? We all wish that. Someone says Americans should eat more vegetables and less sugar? Well, duh, of course we should, we're all fat bastards.
When we don't agree with what someone says, though, our hackles go up. 'They shouldn't be allowed to say that...' But the fact of the matter is that the First Amendment was created to protect speech we don't agree with. You may not like hearing a sweating, drug-addicted walrus call a young woman a slut just because she advocates birth control, but that walrus has as much a right to say terrible things as you do. He just has a larger audience.
There are limits to free speech, of course. The famous 'fire in a crowded theater' limitation, for example. You can't incite murder, you can't libel someone, you can't start a fight, your words can't create a clear and present danger to the community. Aside from that, you can say any damn fool thing you want. I can too. And that's the beauty of the First Amendment. It applies to all of us.
It is in the speech that we find most objectionable that we also find the greatest application of the First Amendment. It is the price of liberty that we must endure listening to things we would rather not, and indeed that we must celebrate the fact that someone said those things, because the moment we restrict free speech only to those things we agree with we're stumbling down a slippery slope to State censorship of every idea. Our openness makes our society great, and with great openness comes great responsibility.
So let's raise a glass to Rush Limbaugh, the big fat idiot. His continued exercise of his First Amendment rights reminds us all that we need to be diligent in exercising our own liberties. And raise the glass to Larry Flynt, and to Pat Robertson, and even to those vile, sorry excuses of human beings in the Westboro Baptist Church. It's in protecting the speech we find most reprehensible that we prove we're worthy of the same freedom ourselves.
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