the edge of the First Ammendment

Recently heard on the news of a muslim woman who was granted a new trial in small-claims court after her previous case was dismissed because she wore a scarf and veil in court, only revealing her eyes.

I'm all for religious freedoms. More specifically, I'm more for freedom FROM religion, but that's another post. However if a person can't be identified as a matter of course of their religious beliefs, how can the state/court provide justice for the offenses against them? The state/court needs to know WHOM it's serving. There are some technical issues to this argument which I'll overlook for the moment (she could be identified by fingerprints I'd assume, if that's not a modesty issue). There's the potential solution that the case be tried by a female judge, but that would prevent men from being in attendance in the court, which would put court operations in secret, violating the rights of more people in the public by inducing gender discrimination... right?

Of course, now I'm really curious about other photo-ID based issues surrounding muslim women that wear the niqab or burqa... Can one get a driver's license? What's the point of photo ID when your face is covered? And even if driving is not an issue because the woman is not allowed to drive (due to familial or religious restrictions), what about writing a check? Or getting on a plane or train? (I'm of course ignoring some other important issues here in that the woman in the news was in court contesting damages to a rental car - how did she rent the car without showing her face?)

There's lots of issues here with women's rights in what may (or may not) be perceived as oppressive religious lifestyles. Those issues may (or may not) be relieved by the women, in their religious beliefs, giving up control of their lives by their own consent (which brings up even more issues about whether a sound-body-and-mind adult citizen can legally reliquish consent i.e. the Spanner case).

I suspect you can't actually buy TPE on ebay, but it's kind of funny that it was a sponsored link when searching for a link to the UK court case.

But really what I mean to throw out there is: We live in a world where photos of people's faces are the de-facto standard for identification and person-to-person authentication. Can an individual expect all of the rights and privileges afforded others while not revealing their face? Must an alternate means of identification become available and pervasive, like ADA provisions, to serve citizens with specific religious beliefs?

I'm kind of curious about both Muslim religious leaders as well as what the courts have to say, I'm sure that this has come up before...

Random Rants and Revelations (the 3 R's)

A bunch of stuff: notions, thoughts, remarks, complaints - that haven't been big enough for their own posts... finally a critical mass of their own. The "tired of hearing..." section:

- I didn't watch/listen to the State of the Union address the other night, but have heard enough excerpts on the radio. I'm fairly tired of hearing the phrase "the way forward". It wasn't that insiprational when Bill Ford, Jr. used it to describe the re-structuring at Ford to try to get out of their death spiral, and it sure isn't that inspirational when Dubya says it. (side note: Ford just announced a record-breaking $12.7 Billion annual loss for 2006. Nice "way forward". Foreshadowing, anyone?)

- Fairly tired of hearing the phrase "...and just let the market sort it out" as an idea of conservatives to federal funding legislation/social programs. If you really and truly want the market to be the solution to problems, then admit to what kind of "sorting out" the "market" would do: it would never rebuild New Orleans - it would let it rot, and with the exception of oil derricks and entry to the Mississippi River, would be abandoned. "The market" would also ignore notions of standard weights and measures, and wouldn't give a hoot about truth in advertising. You think drug companies go willy-nilly these days? Think back to the days of snake-oil salesmen back before things like the USDA/FDA. The grocer with his finger on the scale would be the least of your worries when grandma is taking a mercury-laced emetic to help with 'the vapors'. Not to mention "the market" wouldn't give a shit about justice, other than to protect the banks and trading places. You think "the market" would have sorted out that slave trade back in the 1800's? Think about that next time you hear about what "the market" will or will not sort out.

- I'm definitely tired of hearing "we can't ____ our way out of ____". Whether it's "drill our way out of the looming energy crisis" (i.e. ANWAR, etc.), or "pave our way out of urban gridlock"

Quotable nugget from the occasionally fun/occasionally tedious Terry Pratchett:

It was not anger AT anything. It was just pure, platonic anger from somewhere in the reptilian depths of the soul, a fountain of never-ending red-hot grudge; Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench. For Mr. Tulip, anger was the ground state of being."

Toast. It's the new black.

Everywhere I seem to turn, Toast has developed immense power. No, I'm not talking about raising a glass during a meal, or the software product, or the metaphor for kinky sex. It's not code for anything. We're talking bread, heated for a short period of time and thusly crispy.

Suddenly, everyone is REALLY into toast. It comes up in conversation for no apparent reason. To some, toast is comforting. To others, it's just for mornings. For the few and the proud, it's a late-night snack at 4am after a full night of multi-functional exhilaration.

I never knew it was so... [mmnh]... pivotal. All this time I've had a toaster and not known it's power to transform lives.

fire & pancakes

Last night I went to see a couple shows with G, and while it's been a pretty good run so far for bands seen over the past few weeks, I'll have to say that last night was... well, they just didn't have that spark that would last 'til the lights came on. Could've been cool. There was Hullabaloo (ska) at TC's a couple doors down from Fire Fabulon (fire performance art?) at The Elbow Room.

As far as Fire Fabulon goes, I'll just pat myself on the back for my prediction... either it'll be incredibly cool and well done, or it'll be over-hyped and pretentious, reminding us all of bad melodramatic poetry we wrote and then performed in high school at open mic night while wearing a beret and smoking Gauloises only days after our minds "like, were blown wide open, man" by reading Kafka. (hint: it was the latter) So yeah, I'm not a Burner, but apparently Fire Fabulon is. If it's typical of Burners, then I'm not missing much. The me-and-all-my-friends-are-so-freakish-and-cool-I-could-shit-myself Lollapalooza-esque mastubation fest. Don't get me wrong, I'm fond of freakish and masturbation, but play-freakish doesn't do much for me. And masturbation? When the only thing being stroked on stage is the group ego and if it cost money to get in the door, that kind of ego masturbation doesn't do much for me either. Add two things to that: The Elbow Room last night was one of the smokiest bars I've been to in a really long time. Add to that the fire performance, and the smoke/fumes coming off the diesel (or kerosene, or whatever), and my eyes started burning right after I walked past the doorman. Burnin' somethin' powerful.

Moseyed back to Hullabaloo after a while, which was far better. Unfortunately, they weren't as fun as Back Forty last week (which, though I've never been interested by bluegrass/funkgrass before, is my favorite new band). For some reason, the tired/sleepy impulse became powerful, and the fresh air/snacks impulse became even more powerful. Onward to home, and I really meant to make late night snacks (even went so far as to put a pita in the microwave to warm up)... but I got distracted. Needless to say I woke up this morning with a powerful hunger, so I made myself some pancakes. 9 of 'em. Talk about hittin' the spot with a pancake...

the trouble and dangerous

I just love translations of user manuals... There's always primo examples coming across the Pacific, but I still say that mid-90's Italian translations (yes, Campagnolo) were frickin' hiLARious.

Lord of the Perfumer (Tykwer movie)

I thought it was going so well... until it went and fucked itself. (and I'll try not to spoil any ending details)

I went to see Perfume: The Story of a Murderer at the Michigan Theater tonight. You may remember Tom Tykwer from the remarkable Run Lola Run a couple years back, and this one is as remarkable to begin with. Starts slow, with a little bit of that fairy-tale story narration background and development. The visuals are great. The journey and obsession of the perfumer is compelling. And the transition from victim to hero to villain to messiah to __?__ is slow and smooth. Credit to be given for that.

But Tykwer sharply and directly screwed the pooch when he brought on the whole-village orgy scene (I bet you're wondering "now how could that be a bad thing?" Trust me, bad acting, even by 1000 naked extras, is still bad acting). This would be the point where the movie became a hackneyed cross between Jitterbug Perfume (the quest for the ultimate scent "something the ancients knew but was lost in modern history") Lord of the Rings ("one perfume to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them") The Pied Piper, and Jack the Ripper.

One thing about Grenouille not having his own bodily smell, yet collecting and preserving the smells of others - a little too heavy handed with the smell-as-metaphor-for-soul. It's fairly clear that Grenouille is essentially a sociopath and has no understanding or empathy for other human beings. If he did, he wouldn't be killing. Maybe it's his lack of scent that makes his sense of smell so powerful?

Hell, maybe you'll like it if you see it. If you do, do let me know what you think of the turn it takes right at the orgy/public execution (which isn't the ending, by the way).

the world is purty today

I'm sure it comes as no consolation to the 35,000 people in SE Michigan that woke up to a power outage this morning, but it sure is pretty out in the world today. At the Arb all the trees are all silvery, the rhododendrons are all twisty and swirly.

new installment on "Eveything I Really Need to Know"

OK, I'm not really going to write a book any time soon, but I'm sticking with my opinion that Everything I Really Need To Know I Learned In A Pool Hall. A verbose, yet new installment...

You're standing over a pool table, the balls are broken up, there's no obstructions to clear, it's just you and these 8 balls. Contemplating the shot and the subsequent shots, building in your mind the path that runs the table. There's risky ways to run out, and there's safe ways to run out. The thing is, the risky way might also be the easy way too. If you just shoot this, then that, quick easy stop shots, it's no problem and victory is easy - except that this choice of runout means you have to leave the cue ball out in the table in a position that's also useful to your opponent. If you miss and leave it out in the open, they have an easy run too.

OR, do you try to half-run? Putting together a run from the break to the victory in one turn at the table doesn't happen just will-nilly, and there's the possibility that you might miss. So do you construct the run with a pause at the middle? Sink 4 balls and then play a safe shot, to come after the next 4 in the next inning when your opponent misses getting out of the safety? Or take that to the extreme in deliberation - 1 ball, then play safe. opponent kicks out of safety. 1 ball, then safety... until it's an easy 2-3 ball out. A tedious "defense only" option.

The right answer is: You must play offensively and defensively at the same time. Risks need to be taken to make any balls at all (duh), but choose a strategy that doesn't expose yourself unless you absolutely have to, and in those cases, be Extra Sure To Get It Right.

I say this because of something Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Peter Pace said in testimony :

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified, “You're asking a Marine who's focused on winning whether he has a plan in case he doesn't win.”

Heck, Mr. General, sir... surely they teach things like a defendable offense in Marine Corps war college, don't they? If they don't, just come on down for a couple games of 8-ball or one-pocket and I'll show you what I mean. Sometimes having something to demonstrate with really helps you work out a problem in your head... I'll even pay for the table time.

reflections on AA city council NoMo Plan hearing

Tonight's Ann Arbor City Council meeting included a public hearing on the finalized Non-Motorized Transportation Plan (get it here in all of it's 200-page glory. yes, it's long, but if you're at all even recreationally curious about things like urban traffic planning, for peds/cyclists/motorists or otherwise, it's got lots of detail, but reads quickly). A couple of observations/comments:
- It seems like city council members like to tout their cyclist cred by making sure they mention that they're cyclists at some point when they're speaking. Gotta wonder what percentage of their daily transportation is bike/walk and what percentage is drive. And if, say, sailing or animals were the topic of the evening, would they suddenly discover their nautical heritage or pull out pictures of family pets for display?
- After the public comments section, many of the public in attendance got up and left (after they had said their bit). I realize that not everyone has love for the minutia of city council meetings, but the mass exodus brought one thought quickly to mind: Do the people speaking actually care about what goes on in the city council meeting? Or are they there just because they want to rant? (I have my doubts about whether they had some excuse like having to catch the last bus or get home to let the dog out... and that as responsible citizens are going to catch the re-broadcast on CTN.) To one who sees this "speechify and bail" technique, I can tell you this - If you can't even sit through the rest of the meeting, how much credit do you think people give to what you said when they watch you bail? (it's not like you have to stand during the whole meeting) If you can't respect the forum with your presence, how much respect do you think the forum has for you? I say this about both the Non-Motorized part as well as the podium-ey rants about Israel/Palestine that seem to take place every meeting. The funny thing about it is that after the public comments section, there was some more talk about the NoMo plan. Nothing the public could comment on, but the folks that left missed it.
- It was pretty clear that, regardless of progress in making AA a more bikeable/walkable city, there's an excessive amount of animosity between cyclists and motorists. You only need to see the flame wars on craigslist (rants and raves section) or encounter sometimes-raging-asshole/sometimes-peacemaker people like me to get a sample of it. Apparently, motorists don't go to city council meetings, since almost all of the folks that spoke were pro-Non-Motorized. Two of the people that got up to speak (Doug and Marianne? afterward they seemed to be a couple) made their points, and presented them well. Marianne: she has lived here 5 months and been pushed to the curb on her bike once, threatened by a motorist, and almost run over while on foot at crosswalk where she had the green light, and that she doesn't really feel safe riding OR walking in Ann Arbor. Out in the hallway, she suggested that she very well may be moving out of the city for this reason. Doug: Palo Alto, CA has just as many, if not more, cars on the road, but not nearly as much conflict with pedestrians/cyclists. He also made a good point about Palo Alto's success in increasing pedestrian/cyclist awareness by having plainclothes officers/sting operations handing out tickets to motorists when they fail to yield to pedestrains or other "light" offenses that are nevertheless a danger to anyone on the street that's not in a car.
- The City of Ann Arbor is apparently just GUSHING over the Google thing. Really, just falling all over themselves, as if they asked the head cheerleader to the prom and "she said yes! SHE REALLY REALLY SAID YES! And later, at the after-party... she's gonna let us sniff her panties! OMG, that is, like, sooooo kewl...." I know that there's a tradition of conflict over downtown parking availability, but the amount of time spent thrashing over the city giving Google "up to" 400 free parking spaces as part of the deal to move in downtown... I mean really. If the $150 million in tax revenue is so important that the city/state gives them $38M in tax credits, then the least we can do is just build Google a stupid parking garage.

two, too, too.... and to

Two weekends... of significance.

Too much overthinking.
Too much time on any one thing.
Too little variety.
Too few outlets to vent bad air properly/safely.
Too much overanalysis and navel-gazing.

Maybe simple is the easier path through complexity. Trying to watch how all the dozens of other plates are spinning leads to disaster. Focusing on what I want/need/can get, is plenty... to just keep my own couple of plates spinning.

Probably goes against my curious nature, but something to try. A toast: to trying on a cloak of simplicity and wearing it around for a while.


(Yes, I'm probably cryptic here. Don't take it the wrong way, it's just that not all things share well in every medium.)

yet another reason to love Wikipedia, especially when it has entries on just about everything:

of spaceships and chariots

Can't *not* post a link - how apt it is. Regardless of how contorted you might think the reason for something is, it's not necessarily whimsy, even if it has roots in ruts.

I love the idea that it's essentially an average-actual rut width essentially based on the mean of all wagon traffic, with the distribution biased by, but not controlled by, the influence of a "standards organization" like the Roman Empire

humbly impressed

While I'm mucking about with The Stop Sign Project (yes, it is a foolish amusement, but it's MY foolish amusement, thank you very much), I have some data points that I recorded with pen and paper. Since I'm getting the Garmin GPS (while I'm gushing about them, might as well put in a shameless plug for the unit and the software) into the mix these days, I'm trying to record routes, and discovered that I could manually create tracks/routes and thus merge the paper data into the electronic data.

How cool is it that you can not only turn on "autorouting" which between Point A and Point B will confine the route to established roads, but that you can specify the level of autorouting... are you going by car, bike, walking... need an emergency route or one that is appropriate to truck traffic? A map that takes into account one-way streets, low bridges, and load limits, and lets you pick which one you want, is "A+" super-fine for me. Good job, Garmin people.

some of the things I like about the town I live in

I don't know who put this up, but I know I like living in the same city where people do things like this.

Subtle, yet permanent. Nothing you would notice unless your eyes were open, head up, and you are able to walk without having to compulsively talk on the phone.

And for Ann Arborites who might bemoan the loss of ash trees (the City is euthanizing trees in order to try to control the spead of the Emerald Ash Borer)...

In case you didn't know, there seems to be something of a project to create public sculpture from the trunks of dead trees. It's sad to see in The Arb that part of protecting trees involves cutting some down to save others, but at least it's not a total loss.

On the other hand, I'm a little concerned about the sculpture carving in progress near my neighborhood... it kind of looks like something with wings, and I surely hope that it's an eagle or bird of some sort.


PLEASE let it not be some sort of cheesy angel crap. There's enough pseudo-sentiment for supernatural bullshit, I don't need a totem of it shoved in my face any more than it already is. Makes me wonder whether it's city-sponsored activity and whether I can make a state-church seperation argument... And if not, can make an "aesthetically offensive to me with its cheesiness" argument?

just a thing or two I like

... that I happen to have photos of.

When buildings touch and flow into each other. So close, but so different. With nary an inch between, all the way up to the top. Neighbors leaning on each other, the mating surface making them stand stronger than either would be by itself. Neighbors for as long as they live, so they had better be good neighbors to each other. Seamless, but not. Is this wall yours, or is it mine?


And I don't know why this strikes me, but over the holidays I noticed that my parents have in their bathroom cabinet dental floss from... 1965? It puzzles and intrigues me. It's not like they're keeping an archive of floss... but there's another one in the cabinet, and from maybe 10 years later than this one.

It hearkens from that era when phones were made of bakelite and the notion of "Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a phone" was possible. Can you imagine a murder mystery where someone got bashed to death with a modern cell phone? OK, maybe not by being bashed with it, but maybe by death by accidental inhalation.

Anyway, I don't want to tell them or ask them about this, 'cause I think it's kind of cute that they have 30-40 year old dental floss in their cabinet. Sure, there are fresher rolls of floss in there, and I do hope they are using those instead. But aside from the weirdness of displaying it as a museum piece out on a shelf, why else would they keep these in the cabinet if they didn't mean to use it on their teeth?

House of Sand and Fog

Fan of movies of visceral personal tragedy? If you haven't seen House of Sand and Fog, with Sir Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly... go rent it. The quiet struggle, the descent into despair, the agony of the compound tragedy, all of it. Talking about it seems so weak in comparison. They didn't get an Oscar for it (Lord of the Rings got it that year, so I don't begrudge the academy) but... damn.

(see also: 21 Grams - another emotional-spin-cycle-rip-your-guts-out human struggle)

a big weekend

It was a big weekend, in ways large and small. Sure, the turning of the calendar, and the holiday residue and all that, but more than that. Nothing typical that you can point a finger at in a traditional sense like "whoa dude, that was a killer party man...", but it's like that overlarge bite of food or meal that kind of sticks at the top of your stomach and you know it's going to go down, and it's going to be healthy and nutritious eventually, but you can't force it. In it's own time it will do it's thing, but in the meantime, you know it will take a while to process.

Had some significant conversations and non-conversations with friend(s) that, after the proper application of context and history, seem newly formative. Understanding boundaries of what current events are shared safely and what is not safe to trust and to share. Don't misunderstand me, it's not that I'm feeling overly vulnerable or fragile, but more that it's important that it's two-way, and a conversation is a dialog (not the mono- version). When what you have to say seems to just hit a featureless surface and then thud, with echoes of non-understanding or non-acceptance or intolerance, what's really the point of it? It's like pulling teeth, and why take the time to explain yourself when a disapproving response has no meaningful details other than to be disapproving? "It is what it is. Fuck it... and move on. Spend your energy where it won't feel like a total waste of time trying to push a rope." He says to himself... I'm getting angrier with every sentence, so I'll just stop right.... there.

lobsession

A typo that creates a word notion that's fun to play with... I was describing someone's unnatural obsession with user interfaces when I mis-typed it as "lobsession". It conjures an image in my mind - the lobbing of one's thoughts into a public space. Like brainstorming, but with slightly more connection to the idea - in traditional brainstorming, people are encouraged to not prejudge their thoughts before voicing them.

I'd propose that in a lobsession (Lob Session) one would have some ownership of an idea, and presumably it would be more developed than just something that just popped into your head. Thoughts can be outlandish in a lobsession, but they have to be Supportably Outlandish. They have to have backstory or be internally consistent or have continuity.