Nobody's Business

Analogies

"The [public school] cheerleaders [who habitually display banners with Bible verses urging fans and players to "commit to the Lord"] are not trying to push a religious cause, to shove religion down someone's throat," said local youth minister Brad Scott, who was LFO High's class president in 2004. "The cheerleaders are just using Scripture to show motivation and inspiration to the players and the fans."

I never said to ban certain books from the local library, I just don't ever want anyone to see them there.

I didn't get that woman pregnant, I just ejaculated in her a little.

I didn't beat my elderly neighbor to death, I was just showing him that basebal bats are harder than skulls.

I didn't eat the missing piece of pie, I only took a couple of dozen little bites.

I don't want to encourage people to firebomb abortion clinics, I'm just saying that playing with molotov cocktails in one would be really interesting.

I didn't say that the First Amendment's establishment clause doesn't apply to our public school, I just want students to be able to yell Bible verses through bullhorns at the bake sale.

Why do you have a problem with that?

Not Kissing the Royal Ring

As is his custom, Johann Hari doesn't hold back. Here are the first three sentences of his great little essay about kings and queens (and the not-overly-bright masses who blindly support them):

It must be exhausting to be a monarchist, forever finding ways to pretend a family of cold, talentless snobs are better than the rest of us. They have to make gold out of mud. The system of monarchy — selecting a head of state solely because of the womb they passed through, and surrounding them with sycophants from the moment they emerge — produces warped and dim people and demands that we scrape before them.

This is Hari's delightful way of reintroducing Britain's beloved Queen Mum, by most reliable accounts an icy harpy obsessed with bloodlines and with spending her subjects' money:

By the time she died, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was treating the British Treasury — our tax money — as her personal piggy bank, with her bills running way beyond the millions she was allotted every year. Even the ultra-Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont complained that "she far exceeds her Civil List and the Treasury gets very het up about it". ... Michael Mann, the former Dean of Windsor, who knew her very well, explained: "She feels that Britain is Great Britain and that, therefore, ours must be no banana court. To lower standards [i.e., her spending on champagne, caviar and limos] is to denigrate the country and, insofar as high standards require big spending, so be it."

Of course, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Over the years, I've provided a couple of glimpses of how the future British king is likely to spend without much regard for the rules.

Meanwhile, many of Albion's elected officials satisfy themselves with deviously fighting over the crumbs. "No banana court" (or country) indeed.

On Not Becoming a Lawyer

For about two months, in 1994, I thought I might want to go to law school. Instead, I took up the much more lucrative professions of writing and photographing. (I kid about the dough, of course. But speaking of dough... Q: What's the difference between a pizza and a photographer? A: A pizza can feed a family of four.)

But if I had become an attorney, I would really want to write legal briefs that include phrases such as "Mr. Spock ate my balls" and "You are a homosexual blood elf!" In other words, I would like to be Marc Randazza. [link to pdf of Marc defending the creator of www.glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com]

Bill Safire. Period.

Fuck! William Safire died. Pancreatic cancer. I didn't know him personally, but he has long been a small part of my life. I read a couple of his books — and on most Sundays, his erudite, slightly pedantic, peerless, and often funny New York Times column, "On Language."

His friend Mort Janklow, the literary agent, remembers Safire thusly:

He was funny, self-deprecating and amazingly scholarly. He was a contrarian and passionately liberal on civil rights, human rights, the right of privacy. He constantly came up with columns that surprised people on the right and on the left.

A contrarian-minded, pull-no punches civil libertarian. You can see why I liked the guy (even though I had silent disagreements with him about everything from Nixon's fitness for office to the sinfulness of dangling participles).

His death also saddens me because it drives home the tragedy that conservative thinkers in the vein of Safire and William Buckley and Milton Friedman are literally dying out, supplanted by — well, no one, really. I mean, Jonah Goldberg? Bill Kristol? Ann Coulter? Ha!

Bye, Bill. I will really miss you.

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P.S. Hey, Wall Street Journal: When you publish the obituary of America's foremost language maven, could you maybe run it by a decent copy editor first? The paper's photo caption says that the Medal of Freedom was bestowed to Safire; the correct preposition, of course, is on (or upon). The print version of the article also states that Janklow and Safire were friends for more "then" 60 years. Sigh. It seems we need Bill Safire now more than (then?) ever.

Why I Defend Lots of Sex Offenders, and Why You Should Too

Take a look at these faces. These young boys are convicted U.S. sex offenders. That tells you a lot about our country, about how we view sex, about how we fetishize law-enforcement "solutions," doesn't it?

I'll never play down actual sexual violence, including rape, by teenage boys. But of course, most adolescent sex offenders are guilty of nothing of the sort. Most of them haven't truly victimized anyone. They are guilty, if you can call it that, of being curious, and horny, and possibly confused, as befits their age.

At 13 or 14 or 15, they are trying to figure out what it means to have developing bodies and a case of raging hormones, and sometimes the tentative fumblings that result run afoul of laws that politicians and prosecutors are grimly applying to ever-greater numbers of people, kids included, because American voters love the binary clarity of good versus evil, pure versus perverted, young Becky's innocence versus young Robert's budding immorality.

So this is, more often than not, how teenage sex offenders are made:

A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids “moon” a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders, where they may well learn a lesson or two about rape. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a “child pornographer” for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a “victim.” One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week’s difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.

So again, there are these mugshots, and they speak volumes. Absolute heartbreaking volumes. But louder still speaks this graph, below, and the accompanying realization worded succinctly by the blog Classically Liberal:

When you look at the ages of the offenders you see that 14-year-olds are apparently the most sexually dangerous group in America. The rate declines from there, but throughout adolescence the law is far more likely to deem kids as offenders. You may imagine the dirty old man down the street. But with age people are less likely to “offend”. One reason is that they are more mature. But another reason is clear. Once you reach a certain age, having sex with people your own age is normally not considered a crime. The explosion of “youthful sex offenders” is not the result of our kids becoming perverts. It is the result of the law criminalizing what is a normal part of growing up.

Here is one such case: Here's another (hat tip: the Agitator), of a young man who took nude photos of his then-17-year-old girlfriend. They later married, but because he was an adult at the time the pictures were taken, he was branded a sex offender anyway. When he failed to report his new address, as he was by law required to do, the U.S. justice system decided to put him away for three to six years.

Take one last look at those photos on the top. Those kids, I assure you, are no more wicked than you or me. Most of them, and most of their fellow young offenders, pose zero danger to anyone.

They are not the perverts here. We are, as a society, for tolerating — no, demanding — the willful destruction of children's lives while telling ourselves it's really all about protecting kids.

Mobile Phoneys

Fascinating:

Ahead of the safety summit next week with Secretary Ray LaHood, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) has rallied behind a ban on hand-held texting and cell phone use while driving.

The product in question — mobile phones — has nothing inherently to do with cars, so I'm confused as to why car makers have any legal or moral standing in the matter. It would be about as puzzling if the AAM were to support the FDA if that agency attempted to ban the consumption of prime-beef hamburgers behind the wheel.

So what's going on? Ah:

[AAM] members are developing hands-free and voice recognition systems that will allow drivers to send and receive text messages and phone calls without looking away from the road.

Consumer Reports alleges that that's still far from safe enough, and wants more laws. I have some serious issues with the legislative approach; when it comes to cell phones and driving, increasingly draconian laws are damn near useless.

Free Ride

The last day of the Muslim holiday Ramadan happened to coincide with a car-free day that more than a dozen environmentally-minded Dutch cities had been planning. Various Dutch Muslim groups erupted in protest. Not being allowed to drive anywhere Allah's followers wanted, they said, would hinder customary family visits, and put a crimp in their religious feast. Using public transportation? Too inconvenient. Riding a bike? Too difficult and undignified. Clearly, they were being discriminated against.

The Amsterdam City Council relented, and made a special exception for these believers. No, they still weren't allowed to drive automobiles in the designated car-free areas. Instead, all Muslims in the Dutch capital were offered unlimited free taxi rides that day. [link in Dutch.] Yes, seriously.

Great Americans

Listened to Sean Hannity on my car radio for 20 minutes. Was strangely cheered to hear that his advertisers included (a) a prostate-test company, and (b) the maker of the Jitterbug, a cell phone for the pre-senile crowd.

The Illegal Satyricon?

Out of respect for my friends who've passed the bar exam, whereas I rarely succeed in even passing one bar, no lawyer jokes please.

However...

Look at the new terms and conditions that Marc Randazza of the Legal Satyricon has on his blog. Turns out that you're not allowed to read TLS posts (much less quote them, or link to them) if Randazza — who happens to be a cyberspace friend of mine, as well as a committed free-speech attorney — seriously disagrees with you.

First off, he tells readers:

This Agreement is a legal contract between You and the publisher of a collection of blawgs, listed below.

So just by reading a few words on Randazza's blog, you are entering into a contract. Who knew?

It gets more fascinating. You see, the Legal Satyricon has a blacklist. Randazza's word, not mine. Said list is filled with quite the spectrum of evildoers, from Joe the Plumber to anonymous Klansmen to Judith Reisman. If these (admittedly odious) folks so much as read one of his bloggy utterances, they ought to be prepared for a lawsuit.

c. BLACKLIST:

The following individuals or organizations are "blacklisted" and may NEVER read any posts on our network, nor may they ever use any materials from our network, without prior written permission:

1. Any member of the student body or faculty of Liberty University, Regent University, or Ave Maria University, or any graduate of any one of those three institutions
2. Any member of the ku klux klan
3. Any member of the nazi party
4. Scott Bergthold or any member of the law office of Scott Bergthold
5. Any member of stormfront
6. Any member of any organized “hate group” (If you're not sure if you are a member of an organized "hate group," then presume that you are)
7. Any member of The Liberty Counsel
8. Valentina Kunasz, or any other member of the jury in the Lori Drew case
9. Any person who has ever been a plaintiff in a defamation case
10. Any current employee or agent of the law firm of Jones Day
11. Any state or federal prosecutor or employee of any state or federal prosecutor’s office or any agent thereof (Blevins excepted)
12. Any member of the Bush administration
13. James Dobson, Sarah Palin, Donald E. Wildmon, Catharine MacKinnon, Phil Burress, Judith Reisman, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber"), Gail Dines, and anyone who doesn't think that those people are all complete blithering fucking idiots.
14. Any member or employee of Citizens for Community Values
15. Any member or employee of the American Family Association
16. Andrew Contiguglia — at least not until he pays up on his World Series bet. After that, he may have full privileges.

Just so we're clear, Randazza then explicitly states he is ready to prosecute anyone mentioned above, under "18 U.S.C. Section 1030," ("fraud and related activity in connection with computers") for "unauthorized use." Again, unauthorized use, in his view, includes reading Randazza's blog. I've known and read the guy long enough to suspect that if anyone on the other side of the free-speech debate pulled that one, Marc would be on him like an entire school of piranhas.

Number 16 is humorous, and number 13 might tickle your funny bone if you roll that way. The rest is, far as I can tell, not a joke (if it is some kind of parody: too much ambiguity, not enough har-dee-fucking-hars).

I accept that any blog, including this one, is a private space, to be legitimately controlled by its proprietor (essentially no different from one's home). But I don't think it does the free-speech cause any favors if a First-Amendment blawger start forbidding groups of people from reading his public words, on penalty of prosecution. Quite the opposite: he thus paints himself as having a double standard conflicted.

It's long been the core belief of free-speech activists that the best way to counter bad (hateful or ill-informed) speech is ... with better speech. A selective ban on simply reading web-based material that is freely available to billions of other people seems not just hare-brained; it seems unlikely to hold up in a U.S. court if challenged.

If only I had a wise attorney friend who specializes in free speech, and who could hold forth on the legality of it all.

Do Feminists Truly Think That Fat Women Are Sexy?

Or are they just mouthing the politically correct orthodoxy?

But let's back up a second. I have at times been positively besotted with the Legal Satyricon, a terrific blog started by First-Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza. Marc is a fearless, funny, admirable guy. Everyone who cares about free speech owes him a debt of gratitude.

Today, though, I'm less than heartened by what I've been reading on the site.

I'll start here: Satyricon contributor Tatiana von Tauber, a smart pro-sex, pro-free-speech feminist who's also a very good photographer of the erotic, put up a post that struck me as wrong on several fronts. It's a piece that takes the fashion industry to task for equating thin with beautiful (so far, that's at least a glimmer of a defensible argument). Tatiana believes, she says under the headline "Why Fat Chicks Are Hot," that roly-poly gals are truly sexy as long as they are confident in their sexuality.

To illustrate her point, she puts up a photo of model Crystal Renn in a bikini (right). Renn is a couple of inches wider than Kate Moss. And I don't mean that in a wink-nudge oh-my-god-she's-enormous kind of way. Renn looks pretty svelte. So I wrote to Tatiana:

If Crystal Renn, in that (retouched or not?) photo is supposed to be emblematic of "fat chicks," you're playing with a stacked deck. You haven't seen fat, and you're not showing fat — you're showing a dark-haired and undoubtedly attractive version of Brigitte Bardot, widely seen as one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century. Renn may be a big girl by fucked-up contemporary haute-fashion standards, but I doubt that anyone sane would consider her fat. Hell, she's not even Rubenesque.

In her J'Accuse, Tatiana also gratuitously implicates the porn industry: "The American porn industry is saturated with Barbie dolls," she alleges. Rubbish. There is literally no other field in the entertainment industry — movies, videogames, TV shows, mainstream magazines, and so on — where bodies show as much variety as they do in porn. Most general porn sites even have categories like "amateurs" and "fatties" and "mature" where the average female looks anything but Barbie-like. Or, you know, so I hear…

And also, I said in my note to Tatiana,

I'll believe your exhortations to celebrate fat people's confident sexuality when you can honestly say, and show in your art, that you adore confident fat guys too; somehow I get the impression that your comments are exclusive to sistahs everywhere, and that men with beer bellies need not apply. I'm willing to be proven wrong, of course.

I note again that her article is called "Why Fat Chicks Are Hot." Not a word about portly gentlemen.

So far, Tatiana's response is long on profanity and short on facts and arguments. It includes this:

If you saw Renn on the street in an oversized T-shirt and sweats, hair back in a pony tail, no make up, tugging the kids along with a Wal-Mart shopping cart, you'd ping her as fat so fuck you.

So in one fell swoop, we've gone from (me saying) Crystal Renn may not be a very good example of a fat woman to (Tatiana saying) hey a-hole, you would think she was fat if she dressed in ratty clothes and she wore no makeup and she had stupid-looking hair and she had her kids in tow and you saw her waddling down the ice-cream aisle at the local Wal-Mart.

Actually, I don't think that even then Renn would strike me as fat. Unappealing, maybe. Interesting that Tatiana, not me, seems to conflate those two things. And anyway, under those circumstances, Kate Moss or Heidi Klum probably wouldn't look very hot either.

I think I can safely stand by my assertion that she is playing with a stacked deck here.

There's another reason why the Legal Satyricon got on my nerves a little bit today, but I'll save that for a separate post, later today.

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P.S. It's not a beergut, it's a pillow of delight.