Ranting – Page 25 – Rolling Doughnut

The view is better than an ocean sunset

Compare these two pictures:

I snapped the first picture from my seat in row 13 at yesterday’s Phillies/Nationals game. I snapped the second picture from the seat in front of me in row 12. Notice how much larger the Toyota, Budweiser, and Geico signs are in the second picture. Isn’t the viewer so much sweeter? I was so stunned at the difference that I begged the guys in front of me to switch seats with me, but my begging amounted to nothing. They knew how much better their seats were than mine, so why would they switch. That extra view was worth the $10 premium they paid for their seats. So worth it. I was jealous. (Still am, in fact.)

I enjoyed paying $25 for row 13 instead of $35 for row 12 (and pleased by the disparity), but I’ve never encountered a dumber pricing scheme than changing the price in the middle of a section. Someday, maybe the Nationals will realize they’re in the Major Leagues. Maybe.

File under “D” for Duh.

This seems self-explanatory:

“The federal budget deficit is on an unsustainable path, in which large deficits result in rising interest rates and ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years,” Greenspan said in his prepared testimony. “But most important, deficits as a percentage of [gross domestic product] in these simulations rise without limit. Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse.”

Too bad Congress and President Bush don’t get it.

Luckily, I have ninjalike reflexes

Before I go into this mini-rant, I qualify what I’m about to write with this basic fact: even when I’m bashing Sirius, it’s still much better than XM. I first tried XM more than two years ago but cancelled it because the music channels began playing more commercials, quickly approaching the level of terrestrial radio. If I wanted terrestrial radio, I’d turn it on. I didn’t, which is why I subscribed to satellite radio. Also, the diversity of music became, shall we say, eclectic. More and more songs crept into the playlists that I didn’t know. I don’t mind hearing new songs; I’ve found some of my favorite artists and songs through accidental wandering across the (satellite) radio dial and browsing through music stores. But I don’t want a plethora of songs that are closer to cats copulating than actual music. I want to want to listen again. XM didn’t stopped providing that, so I stopped provided my credit card number.

Last year, I subscribed to Sirius, which was inevitable because I’ve been a shareholder for more than 18 months. I immediately loved it. There are songs I actually know on the mainstream channels and songs I enjoy discovering on the non-mainstream channels. Plus, I get to listen to Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, and Alan Hunter. I needed nothing else and completely abandoned terrestrial radio, except for Don and Mike and Howard Stern. I enjoy the change.

A few months ago, though, I decided I needed to give XM another try. I did this knowing that my subscription to Sirius would remain. I wanted XM for the baseball coverage. The additional music choices would be a bonus. Except they turned out to be junk. The problem of having a terrible playlist has gotten worse. After the first few weeks, I stopped scanning other music stations on XM. Now, when if I’m not listening to the baseball coverage on XM, I’m not listening to XM.

But baseball was enough to break the barrier to my wallet. Except it’s not any more. XM can’t even get the baseball coverage correct. It hooked me from the beginning because wall-to-wall baseball is excellent. Yet, my urgency to listen to anything other than the Phillies broadcasts and “The Show with Rob Dibble and Kevin Kennedy” died. I do not enjoy the morning baseball show, not because of content but because of the deejays. It’s baseball, not music, so I didn’t expect deejays. I don’t want deejays. Mark Patrick is a deejay from beginning to end. His “act” wore thin within days. His vocal inflection is pure large-market, focus-group-tested deejay babble. I hate it. Yet, he sounds like heaven when compared to Buck Martinez. I don’t know where Martinez learned to do radio but he needs to ask for his money back. He has the worst up-and-down, wobbly, half-drunk, half-stroke inflected voice ever broadcast on radio. I can’t listen. So I don’t. When I’m paying ~~$9.95~~ $12.95 for the service, I have to question why I’m paying.

The decisive factor, though, is much simpler. It’s very simple to broadcast a baseball game that another radio station is covering. The only requirement for XM is to flip the switch. They can’t even do that right. I know there are technical issues, blah, blah, blah, but that’s not an excuse. The marketing ~~literature~~ lies promised me every game. Showing up near the end of the first inning is not every game. If you’re not giving me every pitch, they’re lying to me. And by lying to me, they’re stealing from me.

Sirius hasn’t lied to me. I get what they promise. At work, I used to listen to my mp3 player, but now I just listen to Sirius all day. (An actual benefit from having my desk in an atrium, to go along with the sunburn, is that I get excellent satellite radio reception.) That I haven’t tired of it even though I listen almost eight hours every work day is proof of concept. I abandoned terrestrial radio for something new. More often than not, Sirius satisfies that. Even when it fails, it fails less often and on a smaller scale than XM. So I stick with Sirius.

When it fails, though, it annoys me. Which is the point of my mini-rant, which seemed to have started a few paragraphs ago but is really just beginning now. Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, and Alan Hunter are the only deejays on Sirius who I enjoy. I enjoy them because of nostalgia (they’re on the Big ’80s) and because they don’t act like the normal moron deejays. They don’t give ridiculous inflections. I normally hate deejay stories, but when those three offer them, they’re usually relevant to something. There’s a theme. It’s acceptable.

Some of the other stations, though, pester lilsteners with deejays who think they work at the local Lite-FM station. Ugh. I don’t want dull stories about their dogs or their friends or their neighbors. Unless it’s me, I don’t care. Their mothers are the only ones who care and I’m not convinced about that. If they want to tell personal stories, they should get a blog and type with weird spelling and no punctuation like every pre-teen who might be interested. Otherwise, shut up and ~~drop the needle onto the record~~ push play on the computer. It’s not complicated. Sometimes, it’s so over the top that it makes me mad.

Listening to Jim Kerr this morning, the deejay on Sirius 31 New Country, provided me with a specific example of why I hate deejays with a passion. I will offer it to you now.

Because he can’t just shut up, he must “talk up” the record, giving an introduction until the moment before singing starts. The witty Mr. Kerr offered this wonderful transition.

That was “There Goes My Life” by Kenny Chesney. I’m looking forward to seeing the second episode of “Revelations” on NBC tonight. Here’s SHeDAISY with “Little Good-byes”.

Not only is that the most ADD scatter-brained transition ever, it’s also flat-out wrong. Revelations is on at 9pm on NBC. Everyone knows that the only show on television tonight worth looking forward to is Alias. That it’s on at 9pm only makes the argument for Revelations more useless. Duh.

You want a revelation, Mr. Kerr, I’ll give you one. Just wait for the amazing way Jack Bristow evades his latest hurdle, a nuclear radiation-induced genetic mutation.

Twelve reasons why I hate the Florida Marlins

The Phillies freeze up against them and forget how to play baseball.
Nobody in Miami goes to Marlins games. This team is good. Seriously, where are all the fair-weather Miami Hurricanes fans? Can’t they latch on to the Marlins for a few months until college football returns? Hell, the Marlins are giving away two-for-one tickets and still no one shows up. Embarrassing.
Their announcers are journalism school rejects. How many more idiosyncratic, nonsensical pronunciations can they make? Pat Burrell is not hitting “four-hundred-twenty-four” on the season, he’s hitting .424. See the difference? Ugh. They all want to be disc jockeys, but don’t seem to have enough talent for even that.
The Phillies freeze up against them and forget how to play baseball.
Their broadcast network runs commercials for shows on other stations that DURING THE CURRENT TELECAST. I know Santa Claus told the little kids to go to Gimbles when Macy’s didn’t have the right toy, but that was a movie. This is real. Maybe McDonald’s will start sending customers to Burger King when there aren’t enough hot french fries. I’m stunned the Marlins aren’t broadcasting from the basement of the science building.
Their players can do no wrong. Even an error is someone else’s fault because their superhero players could never do anything that didn’t result in perfection. Oh, and they always touch home, even when they don’t.
They play in a stadium named for the local NFL franchise. At least fans don’t show up for that team, either. Seriously, folks, Miami has had a Major League franchise for a dozen years now. Why did it take so long to get baseball back in Washington? Give me a solid reason. Just one.
Have I mentioned that the Phillies freeze up against them and forget how to play baseball?
They’ve won two World Series championships in the last eight years and no one cares. Not even the owners.
Juan Pierre.
The current owner used to own the Expos. He didn’t like that deal, so he sold the Expos and bought the Marlins. How does this make sense?
That whole “the Phillies can’t beat them” thing again. When did the Marlins become the Dallas Cowboys to my Washington Redskins? When, damnit?

Different gunman, same gun

Just in case anyone is thinking that I’ve gone soft with all the tender posts lately, know that I haven’t completely thawed my soul. Politics still matter to me and within politics, I have a few pet issues that seem to never attract common sense from our elected representatives. Today’s lunacy is brought to us by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who stated this about indecency and obscenity on our public airwaves:

“People who are in flagrant disregard should face a criminal process rather than a regulatory process,” the Wisconsin Republican said at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association annual convention.

“That way you aim the cannon specifically at the people who are committing the offenses,” and not at everyone, he said. “The people who are trying to do the right thing end up being penalized the same way the people who are doing the wrong thing.”

Good plan, Congressman. To be fair, he doesn’t support expanding current regulation to cable and satellite broadcasts, though I suspect he’d vote for it if it came up in Congress. And he does have a brief glimmer of rational thought about the easiest, least intrusive solution, which I will point out before analyzing his new idea. Consider:

“The first thing we need is education has got to get better, he said. “You can’t expect the government to replace parental responsibility.”

He said it was “far better” for consumers to press a button on their remote control to lock out programs or channels than for the government to set the standard.

This sounds remarkably like some other comments from the convention:

Glenn Britt, chairman of Time Warner Cable, agreed that the industry needs to do more to educate customers about parental controls but added that the industry can only do so much.

“What we can’t do is … make parents take responsibility,” Britt said. “But if parents do take the responsibility to be concerned about what their children are seeing, this industry provides all the tools they need.”

Imagine that. Technology is so good that parents can actually solve the problem. Let’s see, what can they do? They can sell their television. They can pick up the phone, dial between seven and ten numbers, speak with a representative of their cable company, and cancel their subscription. They can use the little buttons on the television/cable box/remote that reads “Power”. They can use the v-chip embedded in their television, assuming it’s there, of course. They can even set the parental lock on their cable box to block certain channels. No need to be a luddite, folks. Technology kicks ~~ass~~ buttocks.

But what about Rep. Sensenbrenner’s plan? Could it work? After all, indecency and obscenity are already criminal offenses; the government merely enforces them with a regulatory agency. It’s certainly possible that our government has made a mistake in the past and could reverse course and prosecute indecency and obscenity with criminal penalties. I wrote about this on another blog (hat tip: Jeff Jarvis for the story), but realized, I shouldn’t leave some of my better writing elsewhere. It’s mine, all mine, so I’m going to use it here, expanding and editing where necessary. Here is my simple thought experiment that began with a simple question: “Diminishing the FCC’s power is the goal of my protests, for Constitutional reasons. Is the solution to transfer the FCC’s power to a district attorney, and by extension, a jury of citizens?”

I agree that having it decided by citizens instead of the FCC is a good idea, but probably only in theory. The United States is a republic to legislate and lead through calm, rational reasoning, not the mass hysteria that seems to pass for democracy. The FCC is made up of lawyers who refuse to follow the Constitution, seemingly unable to understand that “Congress shall make no law…” isn’t a suggestion. Should we have confidence in lay people who don’t have a legal education? And it still doesn’t resolve the issue of the definition of obscenity. I don’t see legislatures defining it any time soon. So we’d have 12 citizens deciding the traditional “community standards” for everyone. Are we confident that that’s the best place to legislate for everyone?

Of course, if indecency/obscenity enforcement becomes a criminal matter instead of a regulatory action, that puts it in the hands of prosecutors and defense attorneys. I bet the defense attorneys will be better funded than the prosecution and able to convince the juries of what the Constitution means, right?

I don’t think so. In criminal cases, the facts are the facts. If someone commits murder, there are facts. There was a living person, now there is a dead person. The suspect’s fingerprints were on the gun. Simple. (I simplify for the purpose of my point.)

Ok, now apply that logic to indecency/obscenity. Let’s consider a hypothetical situation. The producer of Fox’s latest reality show airs a segment that contains the phrase “He’s an ass.” A TV viewer in Peoria, IL decides that she doesn’t like that and complains to her local district attorney. The local DA files criminal charges. The jury of twelve peers decides for the city of Peoria that “He’s an ass,” violates their standards. The jury deliberation is closed, so we don’t know how they specifically came to this conclusion. Either way, “He’s an ass,” is no longer acceptable on television in Peoria.

At the same time, a viewer in Clearwater, FL also disapproves of the phrase “He’s an ass.” He complains to his local DA and the case goes to trial. Now the producer must stand trial in two districts. Of course, in this case, the producer is acquitted, so the phrase “He’s an ass,” is still acceptable on television in Clearwater, FL.

See any problems yet? I count at least two. So what do we do? To (hopefully) eliminate the need to defend himself in every jurisdiction and to have conflicting standards for national broadcasts in local markets, Congress passes legislation that makes indecency/obscenity a federal offense. Community standards (Federalism?) are no longer relevant. It’s national standards now, but so as not to offend anyone, we set that standard at the lowest level possible rather than the reasonable person standard supposedly in place today. Sound familiar yet?

Of course, with this idea, federal prosecutors are now the clearing house for criminal complaints. The PTC continues to catalog every possible offense occurring on television. They send lists on a daily/weekly basis to the federal prosecutor’s office. There are too many requests, so the federal prosecutor hires more attorneys to handle the case load, to review what should and shouldn’t warrant criminal charges. Eventually Congress decides that the case load is too much and creates the, oh, I don’t know, the Federal Department of Homeland Decency to handle these cases. Problem solved.

That scenario seems plausible to me. Likely? Probably not, but nothing else about the last fifteen months of indecency nonsense was probable. Congress certainly seems gung-ho to deal with everything through an expansion of federal powers and control. Is my scenario really so far-fetched?

Our criminal system deals with complexities every day, but in
those cases, the crime is determined prior to the crime. With obscenity, the crime only occurs if the wrong person is watching or listening and the material offends his individual standards. Do we really want a jury to decide if someone has harmed nothing more than a community’s sensibilities? Criminalizing indecency/obscenity doesn’t change the situation; it just moves disregard for the Constitution from one location to another. The true solution is to understand that the Constitution is the law of the land and no amount of moralizing is going to change that. Personal responsibility still matters and is the easiest, most immediate solution.

Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate.

Who among us is perfect? What about omniscient? I don’t imagine there are many nods right now, but somehow I missed the notice informing me that I am. Being unaware of this, I clearly violated that honor this morning. For that I am so very, very ashamed.

I’ve mentioned before that I ride the Metro rather than drive to work. I did the same today, which led me to believe that this would be any other day. I should’ve known when I walked onto the platform that this day would be bad.

When I arrived at the station, the platform was more crowded than normal, even though I’d arrived at my usual time. The weather was fine, with no rain to slow the system down. But there they stood, more people than the average day. I assumed some sort of train delay. That’s a safe assumption because Metro suffers delays almost as often as the sun rises. I hate Metro.

A few minutes after I arrived, the train pulled into the station. The train inched forward after stopping because it’s easier for the train operator than knowing when to stop the first time. The doors opened and the herd charged for the seats. No one wants to stand because there can be delays or the train operator can be incompetent with the brakes. So many debacles can occur, so a seat is priceless. Like every other morning, I got a seat. I’m not so lazy that I won’t stand up, but I like to read in the morning. It’s almost impossible to turn pages when standing up; holding on to something, anything, is a requirement.

At the second stop, another herd piled on, filling every available space with bodies. I had a little girl stepping on my toes. Granted, I think she was doing this for entertainment, but still. She was stepping on my toes. And tapping my legs with her hands. Repeatedly. Should I have gotten up at this point? Possibly. In my defense, trading spots with anyone else on the train would’ve required a gymnastic move with a minimum degree of difficulty of 8.4. Getting up was an option, but it wasn’t realistic.

The journey continued with a packed car. I suppose some passengers disembarked, but if they did, they only relinquished their empty spots to someone else. Did I mention that the train was full?

A couple stops before Metro Center, which is where a majority of passengers transfer to another train, the doors opened and a few passengers filed out of the station. Unable to see the station markers through the windows, I looked up to see which station we were at. As I did a woman gave me a dirty look and directed a comment at me. Unbeknownst to me, although, remember, I’ve been given skills of omniscience, so I’m a bastard, there was an elderly woman standing close by me to whom I had, with obvious malice, refused to offer my seat. Being the good samaritan that she was, the woman exiting the train made sure that I knew how much better she was than me.

I have a problem with this woman’s attitude. I truly didn’t know that there was an elderly woman next to me. I mentioned that I was reading, but I was also listening to my mp3 player. I was in my own little world specifically to avoid people like that woman. For some reason, they like to chat about their leg tumors and whatever else unpleasant is going on in their lives. They, for some reason, think I care. So they talk to me. I don’t want to talk to them, so I avoid the situation. That doesn’t mean I ignore prodding, just that I’m not really aware of my surroundings. If she wanted the seat, she could’ve asked, or someone else who was feeling indignant could’ve tapped me and politely asked me to offer the woman my seat. Just because I didn’t offer my seat didn’t mean it wasn’t available. (Why I’m the only one who should be expected to give up my seat is for another discussion.)

I’ve had disabled people ask for my seat, which I’ve happily offered. I’ve had disabled people stare at me and tell me to move. I didn’t enjoy their social skills, but I still moved. I’m not immune to social graces, but I don’t make it my responsibility to plan for everyone else’s contingencies. It’s possible to have a rational conversation with me. I can be polite. I have had enough of being judged, though; I despise it with every part of my being. Judging obscures thinking. Life is easier when viewed through a pre-defined lens, but it is not better. The woman this morning had so much courage that she waited until she was leaving the train to say something. If she’d taken one moment to assess our situation, she would’ve seen that she couldn’t ask me to move earlier because she was nowhere near me, with no way to approach me through all of the people.

When I noticed the elderly woman, I got up and offered my seat. Through the remaining stations before Metro Center, my seat remained empty. The elderly woman didn’t want it.

But I was the rude one this morning.

The pen is mightier than hatred?

The issue everyone loves most is back, this time in California.

Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco County’s trial-level Superior Court likened the ban to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be “no rational purpose” for denying marriage to gay couples.

I’m not going to go into any details because I’ve written many times about this subject. My opinion is clear. This ruling only confirms my belief that same-sex marriage will be legal in the United States. There will be bumps and setbacks along the way, but this movement isn’t turning around.

What I do want to point out, though, is this press release from Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver after Judge Kramer announced his ruling. Consider:

“This ruling is not the end of the battle. It is just the beginning. Marriage should not be undermined by the stroke of a pen from a single judge. Marriage is a fundamental policy issue that must be decided by the people. To rule that there is no rational purpose to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman is ludicrous. This ruling, which flies in the face of common sense and millennia of human history, will pour gasoline on the fire ignited by the pro-marriage movement. Californians and the rest of the country will react to this decision by passing constitutional amendments to preserve marriage on the state and federal levels. No society has created a buffet-like arrangement of human relationships from which anyone may pick and choose and call it marriage. Marriage is and must remain the union of one man and one woman.”

The pro-marriage movement? It seems to me that expanding marriage is pro-marriage and limiting marriage is anti-marriage. Liberty Counsel is self-delusional in thinking that it’s pro-marriage. And “no society has created buffet-like arrangement”? That statement is explicitly not true, and I have no doubt that Mr. Staver knows that. The Netherlands, among others, recognizes same-sex marriage. And I can only assume that Mr. Staver intends for that statement to lead into the inevitable argument that marriage between a man and his dog or a woman and her desk won’t be far behind. That sentiment is ridiculous and it’s not going to happen, so I’m not going to refute it.

Really, I’m bored with the fear that surrounds this issue. There is nothing more traditional than two people wanting to pair up and commit to each other. How is that anti-family? Why the fear? At least with my boredom I know that this mass hysteria will pass, civilization will not crumble, and the planet will continue to spin. The only question left is whether to look forward to the expansion of freedom or backward to the safety of tradition.

SIDEBAR: For an in-depth understanding of the legal aspects of the same-sex marriage issue, read A Stitch in Haste. Kip has an excellent array of posts about the various dimensions of the issue. His blog is worth reading to become better informed.

If you don’t like it, well, just don’t tell me.

I’ve stated many times that Alias is The Greatest Television Show Ever&#153, so it’s no surprise that I rave about it and watch it every week. I haven’t missed an episode in the show’s history. I’ve scheduled vacations and flights and holiday plans around Alias’ time slot. It required more effort when ABC aired it on Sunday nights, but even in its much more agreeable Wednesday time slot, my entire world stops for sixty joyous minutes. Alias defines “Appointment TV”.

That’s why this season, Alias’ fourth, has been so frustrating. Through the first seven episodes, I’ve waited for the Alias magic to appear, but it’s appeared only a few times. The last few episodes have been better, building into some of the pleasures of the first sixty-six episodes. They haven’t been quite right, though. I want the mystery, the chaos, the suspense, the intrigue, the confusion, the action, and the cool. I want Alias.

At its core, Alias is a giant comic book. The show doesn’t ask us to suspend disbelief as much as it grabs us by the scruff of our necks and smacks us around a few times before injecting us with some high-tech serum of cool from the lab of Marshall J. Flinkman. The show exudes a commitment to its storyline, no matter how ridiculous or improbable, and demands that the viewer hang on for the ride. Alias is proof that a television show can trust its audience to understand intricate plot turns and long-running character dynamics. That it hasn’t trusted its audience through the first seven episodes created my frustration.

Placing the blame for that lack of trust is irrelevant. Having witnessed the same respect of its audience in J.J. Abrams’ other show, Lost, I doubt that the changes in Alias are exclusively his fault, if he holds any blame. Again, that is irrelevant for me. I just wanted the real Alias back.

There is a purpose to the complexity of the Alias world. Viewers experience the ~~anger~~ ~~dismay~~ appreciation as each new twist is revealed. We understand that each twist is a piece in the larger canvas of the story. What looks like a Red Herring now will be critical in the future. Knowing that Alias contains nothing unintentional, we must remain attentive. When the episodes became self-contained mini-plots in the middle of the third season, the show lost ~~some~~ much of this feel. The loss became more pronounced through the first seven episodes of season four. The only connection between each episode was the actors portraying the characters. The story had no continuity. There were no moments where I knew that I’d be lost if I hadn’t seen the first 66 episodes. The “Appointment TV” factor was fading. Until last night’s episode, when Alias rediscovered itself.

For the first time this season, Alias was perfect. The characters demonstrated their personality traits and conflicts. Sydney’s brawl with Anna Espinosa in the clothing boutique was brilliant. There was no reason for them to fight; they were in a public place, making an illicit transaction. Sydney’s sister’s life was in jeopardy, but her hatred of Anna led to a mutual beating in the middle of the clothing racks. It was unprofessional, counter-productive and dangerous on Sydney’s part, but the fight embraced the history of the characters. Anna hasn’t been around for several years, but her return and her antagonistic showdown with Sydney made sense.

The re-emergence of Sark was equally as important. He’d been sitting in a prison cell since his capture at the end of last season. Sark’s a scary dude made scarier because he isn’t a psychopath. He is intelligent, amoral and greedy, which makes him the perfect villainous foil for Sydney (and Vaughn). Even confined to a penitentiary cell, his mind is intact. In last night’s episode, even when threatened and drugged, he’s aware enough to screw Vaughn’s plans, guaranteeing that his own motives are met before anything else. Vaughn and Sydney don’t know his motives, thus driving the tension. We don’t know his motives, either, so we enjoy the delicious anticipation of Sark’s next dick move. We’re committed to knowing. We can’t wait to find out what happens next. We’re hooked.

As last night’s episode careened towards 10pm, I sensed that something was ~~different~~ back to normal. There was no way the story was going to wrap before the episode ran out of time. There were too many loose ends, too many details in play to put the petite bow on the finished package as the show had done throughout the season. Would Nadia live or die? We know the answer, of course, but that’s not the point. It’s not if, but how. The closing credits rolled with hanging plot points and unanswered questions. It finally left me asking the right question: what’s going to happen next? When I don’t know the answer and I can’t wait until 9pm next Wednesday to find out, the show is back.

Self-contained, non-Rambaldi, non-spook paranoia episodes, you’re gone so soon, we hardly knew ye. Now keep it that way.

2,831 Words

President Bush:

It’s been eight days since your State of the Union speech, but this is still relevant because your intolerance of freedom is still resonating throughout the country. Given the ridiculous direction that my own state is heading, this isn’t going away. You’re happy about that, I’m sure, but I’m not going away, either. Please take heed of what I’m about to tell you.

I don’t understand why someone has to explain the same issues to you repeatedly, but since you seem unwilling to grasp them, I’ll try again. That I am able to do this amuses me because I’m just a guy with a state school education, while you, the President of the United States, have an Ivy League education. To help you, I’m going to aim for the simplest language I can. You might have learned some of these words in the past, but for any you don’t understand, there’s probably a book called a “dictionary” somewhere in the White House. To really make it helpful, it probably even has “Dictionary” on the front. On the slim chance that there isn’t a dictionary, you go ahead and use the internets to look these words up. (But be sure to use the anti-sex filter. I don’t want you to see any naked boobies, because then you might not be able to continue doing your job. Oh, wait, you aren’t doing your job correctly, so forget that. Maybe some naked boobies will cheer you up. You look at those all you want. And if you look around, I bet you’ll find some pictures of naked boobies left over from the last occupant of your office.)

On to the lesson.

Many, many years ago, a bunch of old men wrote this short document called the Declaration of Independence. That document set the basis for this country we live in. After writing the Declaration of Independence, our infant nation went to war to achieve its principles.

When you look that last word up in the dictionary, don’t be fooled. There will be a word before it that’s pronounced the same, but it’s spelled differently. Notice that “principle” has an “e” in it. If you find the word that sounds like it and it has an “a”, that’s the wrong word. Keep looking through the “P” section, I promise you’ll find it. It’ll be useful for you to understand this word for the rest of this letter. Not because you don’t have them, because you do. You just don’t understand the context of American liberty that you’re supposed to apply to them.

Alright, now that you know what “principle” means, we can continue. Those men many years ago fought what’s known as a Just War. That means that, even though war is bad, sometimes it’s good because it’s necessary to achieve a bigger goal of peace and freedom. You’re in the middle of one of those now. I hear conflicting reports about your success, but I think you’re on the right path. You keep that up, but make sure you apply that word we just learned a few minutes ago. It’s a good word because there is a principle that you’re fighting for in that war. It’s called freedom. It has a lot of possible meanings and I could be more precise, but freedom is a good word so I’m going to let the big, broad meaning stand for the little details until I get to the deep meaning.

Back to my story. Those men who fought that war a long time ago, they won the greatest prize of all when they won that war. Do you know what that prize was? I bet you do. Come on, I think you can figure it out. What’s that? That’s right, they won their freedom and the official birth of our nation. Good job. See you do know what you’re talking about here.

That’s a good foundation. But that’s not the end of the story. See, other stuff happened after that victory. Those men were very smart. They knew that they’d just defeated tyranny to win their freedom. They knew that they didn’t want to give their freedom away to a new tyrant. (A tyrant is a very bad person.) To protect themselves, they wrote another document. I know it seems like hard work to write another whole document, but they were smart, so they wrote it because they knew they would need it. Do you know what document that is? No, I didn’t think so. I’ll tell you so that you know. That document is the Constitution of the United States of America. It’s the greatest document ever written in America. It’s so good, it’s still relevant and useful today. It has a lot of words in it, so I won’t reprint it here, but you can find it on the internets by clicking on this link. If you don’t feel like clicking that link (It’s possible you found the naked boobies and they scared you away from the internets. That’s ok.), there is a building in Washington, DC, not too far from where you live that has an original copy of the Constitution. That building is called the National Archives. I bet with your status as president, they’ll probably let you see it any time you want. I’ve seen it and it’s pretty awesome. I’m a big fan of it, as I hope you’ll be by the time I’m done with this letter. As I said, it’s a great document.

Do you know what that document does? Let me tell you, it does a lot. That principle we spoke of earlier, freedom? The Constitution guarantees it to the people by explaining the idea that the federal government is run by the people. That means that no branch of the government is entitled to dictate (stop snickering) what free citizens can do. This, of course, has some limitations because we don’t want everyone to have the right to beat people up just because they feel like it. The way we get around that is that we pass laws against stuff like that. When I say “we”, I mean our elected representatives in Congress since the United States is actually a republic, but the basic idea is the same.

As you might guess, sometimes the Congress goes too far, which is what your job is for. When they try to take power that they shouldn’t, you get to veto their laws. A veto is the same thing as you saying “NO!”. It really works. Naturally, you don’t know that it works because you have little experience with the veto, but you still have almost four years to learn. And even though you don’t know how that works, we still have another safe guard after you, a little bit of genius known as the judicial system. This is where we challenge laws that we think are bad. It’s a very good idea because it lets us stop reckless laws and questionable public values. If a law is bad, the courts can strike that law from our legal system. It’s really cool. We’ve made great strides through the court system, strides that society wasn’t ready to take and was very upset about when the court ruled. Today, though, we take those for granted and see how true those decisions were. And there’s a reason why they were true. It comes back to freedom and how the courts can protect it for the people.

Freedom marches forward because our Constitution is so great. When the Constitution was drafted, many people believed that it didn’t do enough to secure
the citizenry’s freedom from its government. This caused great debates among the smartest men of that time. After a lot of thinking, they decided that they needed to amend the Constitution. To do this, they wrote many amendments to the Constitution to specify certain rights that the government could not take away. Some of those amendments were combined and some of them were ignored, but they ultimately got the Constitution improved with ten additional amendments, which they called the Bill of Rights. I won’t reprint them here because I gave you the link to the Constitution. You should definitely read it soon.

There’s a funny little point about the Constitution which you seem to know. I don’t think you know everything about it, though, which is why I’m going to say this part clearly. Please pay attention, because this is where you lack the most knowledge. The Constitution has been working hard for 215 years. By virtue of its use, it’s stronger than it was when those wise old men wrote it. It guarantees all sorts of rights to the people that the original men didn’t know about. This is good and shows how smart those original men were. The Constitution they wrote has proven flexible and adaptable to every new situation that Americans devise to test against it. It’s really amazing.

You don’t seem to know that, though. The strength of the Constitution is its ability to protect citizens from the government when elected representatives become overzealous in their effort to “lead” America. That means they try to take too much power, which you understand without understanding. Today’s elected officials are being overzealous and you’re leading the charge. The Constitution is the method by which we the people are ultimately able to curtail your efforts.

There are different ways for the Constitution to protect we the people. One of them is through the balance of power between the legislative branch, the executive branch (that’s you), and the judicial branch. As I said earlier, the legislature passes laws, which you then accept or reject (veto). If a person or persons believes his rights have been restricted against the intent of the Constitution by one of these laws, the impacted person(s) can request that the law be voided by the legislature. This rarely happens, so the judicial system becomes involved. Usually that means the court interpreting the Constitution to protect everyone. It’s the easiest and most common method for the Constitution to work. It’s helped that we’ve had some very good judges throughout our history who believe in limiting the government and protecting the rights of all Americans, no matter how small the minority.

This works especially well as our country grows and improves its definition of freedom, but you don’t seem to understand that. You have decided that you don’t like freedom as much as you claim. You don’t want our country to lose its morals, you say, about which you’ve decided you know best because yours come from your interpretation of a book that you like rather than our Constitution. It’s a good book, no doubt, but it’s not the basis for our laws. So you’re fighting against the judiciary. But you can’t openly do this and overturn the court’s decisions as easily as you’d like.

To fix this, you and your friends have come up with a three-pronged tactic for accomplishing a change in the judicial system. First, you and your friends throw around the term “activist judges” to decry any decision you don’t like. You understand that if you control the language, many people will adopt it and embrace it. You’ll have won their minds to your viewpoint, even if your supporters are wrong in proclaiming the foundation of our laws.

You hoped that your first tactic would be enough, but you realize that there is opposition to this, even among your political compatriots. Consider this quote from United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist:

Let us hope that the Supreme Court and all of our courts will continue to command sufficient public respect to enable them to survive basic attacks on the judicial independence that has made our judicial system a model for much of the world.

He wrote this based on the accusation of “judicial activism” levied against the judicial branch. He makes a strong argument against that unwise label, no? Deep down, I hope you agree, but I’m not sure. You realized that controlling the language was insufficient, which is why you added tactic number two. When realizing that you might not get your morals legislation, you and your friends in Congress stripped the federal judiciary of its ability to hear federal challenges to your morals legislation. This is essential for you because you know that you’ll achieve a higher acceptance of your morals legislation if you fight many little battles within the states than one large battle within the country. This proved very effective for you last year, which is actually bad because it will encourage you and others to use this power against the people in the future. You’ve even used the term for this scenario, slippery slope, so I know you’ve heard of it. I suspect that you seek power more than persuasion, so the obvious negatives don’t matter as long as you’re the one who decides what gets thrown down the slippery slope.

You also know something else, which influences your final tactic. You know that American tradition favors ever-expanding freedom. If you just stick with the state battles, you understand that you’ll eventually lose, just as all previous attempts to hinder freedom have ultimately failed. You haven’t let that stop you. You are again asking for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. I suspect that our founding fathers would’ve agreed with your abhorrence of same-sex marriage, but they were also extraordinary thinkers. They knew that knee-jerk reactions to quell new ideas wouldn’t be wise, so they built a strict process into the Constitution by which amendments could be added. The Constitution requires a super-majority in Congress and among the states rather than just a simple majority in Congress. They instilled this wise burden in the Constitution to protect the people. It’s been so effective that, despite thousands of attempts to amend the Constitution, the process has succeeded only twenty-seven times. As I noted earlier, ten of those passed three years after the states ratified the Constitution, so there have only been seventeen amendmnets in the last 212 years.

I don’t think you have the votes to surpass that high hurdle, but another point matters more. Every citizen has the right to not be physically harmed by another. The role of the government in passing laws that limit rights is to protect citizens from physical harm. No citizen has the right to not be offended by someone else’s life. The power of the government must not be used to allow one group of citizens to control another group of citizens. Remember, the majority rules but not at the expense of the minority’s basic rights.

The path you’re leading our nation is not wise. The Constitution has been amended to limit rights of the citizenry only once, when the 18th amendment passed, prohibiting the sale or consumption of alcohol within the United States. You’re probably aware that this led to significant crime around the sale and consumption of alcohol within the United States. And yet, freedom marched forward. The prohibition of 18th amendment was such a disaster that it was later repealed with the 21st amendment. Common sense prevailed but history preserved the assesment of the 18th amendment as a blemish on our Constitution.

There is a simple lesson in all of this. History is full of examples of government, in conjunction with a moral majority, siphoning rights away from the citizenry as a whole. Even if I know I will never exercise that right, it is still mine. Removing it because a majority will never use it mocks the principle of freedom.

T
he Constitution was designed to adapt to changing times and when the hysteria of fear and anger and righteousness fade, the Constitution is still the same, governing the government for the people. The oppressed will rarely change their minds. The oppressors don’t have to change their minds. The march of freedom always continues. It comes from the people who did nothing aafter they realize that they’ve allowed something awful to occur. This has always happened and will always happen. Freedom always prevails. The only question surrounding this issue is your place in history.

Take a moment, step back from your politics of division and your thirst for power long enough to imagine how history will judge you. You needn’t look far, for history holds the examples easily. Our nation was divided into black and white, male and female, young and old for no purpose other than the power of the majority. While remnants of those divisions remain, most of them have faded into their rightful place in the history of human mistakes. The nation waits to see your true character. Will you allow yourself to be a president responsible for discrimination or will you stand for the rights of everyone, whether you agree with their lives or not? Which is it, Mr. President? History is waiting.

Thank you,
Tony

I’m way cool Beavis, but I cannot change the future.

I drove to the metro today, happier than most days. I got up early, so I would be early for work, which is great because I’d be able to settle in early at home to watch a little Jeopardy!, some American Idol, and then behold the joy that is The Amazing Race finale. All that and I was listening to Howard Stern discuss cops using the taser on uncooperative people. I love me some taser, so it was a great morning.

Like every morning, I pulled into my metered parking spot and incorrectly aligned my car with the rear end further away from the curb than the front end. I don’t bother to park my car more parallel to the curb if my car is within the bounds of the painted lines. I was today, so I turned off my car and got out to put quarters in the meter. And this is where the morning slipped into ~~suck-ass~~ interesting.

I looked ahead of me and saw a dog walking in the primary street that passes through the metro parking lot. He was walking back-and-forth across the street, slowing down the occasional car. He loped towards the random people walking on the sidewalk before walking away from them. I hoped someone would stop and get him out of the street, but everyone kept walking. He ran to the parking lot entrance ramp that feeds from the highway. I imagined a dead dog in the street very soon, but he moved away from the cars and onto the sidewalk.

I dropped my quarters into the meter and walked to the metro about twenty yards behind the dog. I still hoped that someone would help the dog, but no one stopped. The few people who looked at the dog looked only long enough to lock eyes before he’d run away. He ran back in my direction before stopping to linger in some bushes.

I normally would act like everyone else, but as I approached the dog, I had one simple thought in mind. WWDD? What would Danielle do? That, of course, would’ve involved slamming on the brakes in my car, blocking traffic to protect the dog’s path, jumping out of my car in the middle of the street, scooping up the dog and depositing him in the backseat of my car. I would’ve then driven around the surrounding county until I found his home. That wouldn’t work, so I judged the next best possibility. None of the other passersby were going to do anything, so I had to fix this situation.

Since he was lingering in the bushes, I quickly gained on his position. I walked up to him and stood still. I reached out my hand and he bent his head down for me to scratch his head. I scratched his head while grabbing his collar to read his tags. Seeing that he had tags, I called the number. No answer. I pondered what to do next before ~~the dog~~ Laser leapt from my grasp and ran away. Time to find out how committed I was to this situation.

I walked after him, quickly cornering him against a patch of trees. When I reached him, I tucked my hand under his collar and calmed him down. I was now involved, like it or not, so I walked him to the station. I had to hunch over to keep my grip on his collar so that he wouldn’t run away again. Laser was cooperative, but anxious to explore. We struggled our way to the station.

At the station, I saw my ~~savior~~ anti-Christ in the form of a metro security guard. I explained that I’d found this dog running loose through the streets of the metro. Without rolling the window of his jeep down, he explained that he wasn’t going to do anything about it, that he “wasn’t going to touch the dog.” I tried to reason with him, pointing out the obvious possibility that the dog would either get hit by a car or cause an accident. He suggested I call 911 and ask for a number to call.

Allow me to repeat that last part: he suggested I call 911 and ask for a number. How is that helpful? He should’ve just gotten out of his jeep and clubbed me in the knee. I asked him if he was serious and he said yes, he couldn’t do anything for me. He then said I could either deal with the dog or let the dog go. I gave him a look and walked away.

I stood on the sidewalk with the dog and called the owner again. I didn’t get an answer again, so I called the veterinarian’s number on one of his tags. The receptionist called the owner’s numbers but received no answer. A woman on her way into the metro walked up to me and asked what was going on. I explained the situation to her. She mentioned that she had a leash in her car if I wanted it. Absolutely. She retrieved the leash from her car. While I locked Laser into the leash, the woman searched through her phone and found the non-emergency number for the local police. I swear that part is true. I don’t know why she had that programmed into her phone, but she did. I waited through the automated system until I finally got a live voice. I explained everything to the officer, so he dispatched animal control.

I hung up with the police and thanked the woman for her help. I asked her about the leash. She said she would pick it up from the animal shelter later in the day so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it. She left to catch the train while I waited.

Did I mention that I had a meeting this morning? No? Guess what? I had a meeting this morning. I still had time to make it to work on time, but that quickly faded. Thirty minutes later, the animal control officer arrived. He gently picked up Laser and put him in the cage in the back of the van, then thanked me for waiting with the dog until he arrived. We shook hands before I left to catch my train. I caught the train, which only made me five minutes late for my train.

Anyone care to guess what the security guard did the entire time I waited for the police to arrive? You can have multiple guesses, but you’ll only need more than one if you’ve never dealt with the lovely beast that is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The correct answer? He sat in his jeep and watched the world pass him by. It’s a good thing there was nothing else for him to do or he might have tired himself out.