When men come to god's defense

We live in such godawful times of a President tweeting and uttering incoherent rants that we have forgotten how much we used to adore, revere, and quote presidential observations and rhetoric.

Oh, don't worry; this post is not to vent about the horrible human being in the Oval Office nor about his 63 million bootlickers.  Nope. It is about the maniacal goings-on in the old country.

We used to quote Presidents.  Like Abraham Lincoln, who said,  "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."  If I were a believer, then that would be my position too--a true believer knows that god doesn't need us mortals to defend her honor.  Instead, it is us mortals who need god to protect us. This simple logic is apparently lost on most fanatical faithful!

And thus the Hindu fanatics--almost always men, across all the religions--continue to fight to keep menstruating girls and women away from a temple where the god is believed to be a bachelor.  I blogged about this issue back in February 2016, when tRump was looming as a threat, and when even those who hated him but later turned around and voted for him used to comment at this blog.

I wrote there that in India, the government oversees the functioning of temples.  As a result, of course, the judicial arm of the government has a say in whether menstruating women should be barred from entering temples.  Such is the theatre of the absurd!

That was in 2016 as the lawsuit was filed.  Two years later came the verdict: "In 2018, while lifting the ban on women's entry into the shrine, the Supreme Court had said that everyone had the right to practice religion and that the ban was a form of "untouchability"."

Last December in India, protests and counter-protests I saw and read about.  Intellectuals and leaders wrote commentaries.  Women were turned away from the temple.  The fight continues:

India's Supreme Court said Thursday it will set law on women’s entry into temples and mosques after being asked to review its decision lifting a ban on some women entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala state.

Back to square one:

A temple official welcomed the ruling and appealed to women to stay away.
Women trying to enter the temple after the verdict last year were attacked by mobs blocking the way.
Many checked vehicles heading towards the temple to see if any women of a "menstruating age" - deemed to be those aged between 10 and 50 years - were trying to enter.

It is a disgrace that quite a few men are so obsessed with the reproductive system of women.  And these men so firmly believe that they are doing god's work?

The (mis)rule of law

Perhaps it is the teenage rebel who continues to live within me, or perhaps because I am always pissed off about something or the other.  Yet, despite the anger within, I am a wuss who obeys the law.  I simply do not have the backbone to openly question the law and its enforcers.

I do have the greatest admiration for the courage and determination that people demonstrate when they question the law, fully knowing that they could be imprisoned for months or even years, should the law find them guilty.

Imagine if MLK and others had respected the rule of law and not protested against the existing system that treated a population as less than equal.

A geography colleague--in the larger community--is one of those courageous and determined people who are willing to risk it all in order to do the morally correct thing.  He--Scott Warren--writes in his recent update:

By now most of you know the story. In January 2018 I received misdemeanor charges for doing humanitarian work in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Days later, I was arrested and then indicted by federal grand jury in a three-count felony harboring charge for giving "food, water, clean clothes and beds" to two undocumented individuals in my hometown of Ajo, Arizona (http://kjzz.org/content/10966/arizona-aid-worker-arrested-accused-harboring-undocumented-immigrants). The judge released me on my own recognizance, but the two undocumented individuals were held in detention for weeks, deposed as material witnesses in the government's case against me, then deported to the countries from which they had fled for their safety.
Trials for both the misdemeanor and felony are coming up, May 6 and May 28, respectively.

Warren is fighting the US government.  One can easily imagine what a challenge this is.  If he fails in this fight?  Warren can be locked away for years!!! :(

Despite that, Warren fights on.  He writes:

My future is most directly at stake in these cases. But I am well situated to weather a felony charge. In the future, there may be others who will not be so well resourced. Regardless, the government may continue to expand its interpretation of the harboring and smuggling laws to target not only humanitarian aid workers on the border, but possibly family members, friends, churches, lawyers, doctors, charities, and all those in the interior of the country who support undocumented people. Even if that support is in the form of the most basic of human needs for "food, water, clean clothes, and beds." 
I encourage you to use this moment in ways that you can, to shine a light not just on the border, but on the people and places in your own communities most affected by these issues.

Warren joins a long line of people who have courageously stood up against the forces, who defend their actions by using a legal argument: Necessity defense/doctrine.

This legal argument has deep roots: History is full of situations in which breaking the law was morally justified, and a critical means of changing unjust laws. The abolition movement, the women's suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s all included protests, sit-ins, and other acts of non-violent civil disobedience. Each of these movements saw activists jailed and prosecuted for challenging laws that were changed as a result. While controversial at the time, these struggles are now understood as heroic efforts that led to major milestones in human rights.
What many people don't realize is that, in such situations, breaking the law can be legally, as well as morally, permissible, and our legal system recognizes that breaking the law is sometimes justified.

Our collective progress is thanks to the courageous few who act according to their conscience, and then lead us also towards a better society.

History proves that strict adherence to immoral laws can be foolhardy and destructive. Laws are not perfect. They evolve over time to reflect society's changing values. Our ability to act rationally and prioritize morality in the face of these contradictions is what moves us toward a more just world.

In the case of Scott Warren, and others who are battling the immoral acts of the US government, there are a few ways that you too can help.  Warren provides that information also in his email:

For those who want to support with a financial contribution, please consider a donation to Armadillos Busqueda y Rescate (Armadillos Search and Rescue). This volunteer, civilian organization searches for migrants lost in the Arizona desert and regularly recovers the bodies and bones of those who have died. Many volunteers are immigrants themselves and I consider them all friends. Donate at https://www.gofundme.com/armadillos-busqueda-y-rescate1, offer a message of support, and help them surpass their fundraising goal.
Feel free to distribute this email message widely, post to social media, and share within your own social circles. 

The rule of law, my ass!

I agree with the idea of rule of law.  But, I don't believe in the rule of law as it is.  What if, as Dickens described it, the law is an ass?

Think about this: Slavery was legal for a long time.  Yes, slavery was legal.  The Constitution as it was framed did not even consider blacks to be fully human!  Will we be happy with the rule of law as it was?

The rule of law also requires a constant critical examination of what is wrong with the law.  We humans are imperfect, and the laws we craft will be imperfect.  It is up to us to make laws less imperfect.

Last spring, we watched a documentary that taught us about yet another imperfection, which remained the law for a long time.  It was about the Chinese Exclusion Act.  The details in that completely floored me.  The law not only made it illegal for Chinese to come to America, it even denied the citizenship of those who were already in America.

The rule of law is not sacrosanct because the laws can be awful.

The challenge to the law went all the way to the US Supreme Court.  In 1889, the Court upheld this law.  And was the law for six decades.

Remind me again why the rule of law is sacrosanct!

In the recently concluded hearings at the Senate regarding the nomination of brett kavanugh to the Supreme Court, Kamala Harris asked the nominee about what he meant as settled law, which kavanaugh touted often.

In the 1889 Chinese Exclusion case, the Supreme Court permitted a ban on Chinese people entering the United States. The court said Chinese people are "impossible to assimilate with our people" and said they were immigrating in numbers "approaching an invasion." This case has never been explicitly overruled. Can you tell me was the United States Supreme Court correct in holding that Chinese people could be banned from entering our country,” Harris asked.

Even to a non-law person like me, it was obvious that the question was not really about the Chinese Exclusion Act per se. So what was the question really about?

It was about trump's Muslim Ban.

Go back to that Kamala Harris question, and make the following substitutions: Muslims in place of Chinese, and 2017 in place of 1889.  It becomes deja vu all over again, right?

Should such a case go up to the Supreme Court, what would kavanaugh do?

So, what was kavanaugh's response about the 1889 ruling?

It was pathetic. Awful. Disgusting.

Watch for yourself.

Were Adam and Eve the first ever to fuck?

I doubt that I knew anything about homosexuality when I was a kid.  I was drawn to girls from a very early age, though the feelings were forcefully repressed and buried deep down thanks to the screwed up social mores of those days.

As I got older, I have always wondered whether the love for the other sex does not preclude satisfying physical relations with the same gender.  Not having tested this out myself, I can only rely on what scientists and commentators have written about, and it seems like sexual fluidity is for real.

Whether or not straight people have sex--or fall in love--with others of the same sex, the more I have walked away from the old traditions of the old country, the more I have wondered what place law has in who people love, or who they have sex with.  I can even understand the religious orthodoxy issuing decrees on what makes something a sin.  If people do not like those religious decrees, then they can always shed that religious cloak.  But, the law?  One cannot simply walk away from one country to another, right?

In the old country, homosexuality as a crime was leftover from the years of the bastard empire's rules. A free India merely replaced the white masters with home-grown brown masters.

The criminalisation of homosexuality or what is popularly referred to as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dates back to 1860 when the British introduced it as sexual activities against the “order of nature.” ... The roots of the legality, however, can be found in European culture which for a long time had influenced Indian ways and thoughts.

We then have to ask ourselves where the white colonizers got the idea that homosexuality is not the “order of nature.”

Britain was Christian, though Catholics and Protestants killed each other in the name of Christ!  In the narratives that developed a couple of centuries after the death of Jesus, Saint Augustine invented the story of sex:

He needed to understand the peculiar intensity of arousal, compulsive urgency, pleasure, and pain that characterizes the human fulfillment of desire. He was not looking back on these feelings from the safe perch of a diminished libido, or deluding himself that they were abnormal. As a young man who had already fathered a child, he knew that, for the entire human species, reproduction entailed precisely the sexual intercourse that he was bent on renouncing. How could the highest Christian religious vocation reject something so obviously natural? In the course of answering this question, Augustine came to articulate a profoundly influential and still controversial vision of sexuality, one that he reached not only by plumbing his deepest experiences but also by projecting himself back into the remotest human past.

Or, to put it in simple words, Augustine had a penis problem!

How weird it is, Augustine thought, that we cannot simply command this crucial part of the body. We become aroused, and the arousal is within us—it is in this sense fully ours—and yet it is not within the executive power of our will. Obviously, the model here is the male body, but he was certain that women must have some equivalent experience, not visible but essentially identical.

So, what did Augustine do?

Augustine’s tortured recognition that involuntary arousal was an inescapable presence—not only in conjugal lovemaking but also in what he calls the “very movements which it causes, to our sorrow, even in sleep, and even in the bodies of chaste men”—shaped his most influential idea, one that transformed the story of Adam and Eve and weighed down the centuries that followed: originale peccatum, original sin.
This idea became one of the cornerstones of Christian orthodoxy

Augustine blamed his own penis problem on Adam and Eve's sexual relations!

That whopper of an explanation from 1,700 years ago bled into Catholic, and later Protestant, doctrines, which the white settlers brought to the United States too.

In his deeply researched new book, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century, Geoffrey R. Stone gives his answer to these and other questions about our country’s regulation of sex, with a special emphasis on same-sex activity. According to Stone, a scholar of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Christianity has exerted the biggest influence on how we have addressed the issue from colonial times to today. The “central theme” of Sex and the Constitution “is that American attitudes about sex have been shaped over the centuries by religious beliefs—more particularly, by early Christian beliefs—about sex, sin, and shame.”

Stone reminds us that life was different in the pre-Christian, pre-Augustine Europe:

In a brief survey of sexual attitudes in the ancient world, he blames the early Christians for having taken all the fun out of sex. In pre-Christian times sex was considered “a natural and positive part of human experience” and not “predominantly bound up with questions of sin, shame, or religion.” He echoes previous scholars in finding that “classical Greek morality and law focused not on sexual sin, but on whether an individual’s conduct was harmful to others.”

The missing link between Augustine and the British sodomy laws?

If Stone holds Augustine responsible for promoting the idea of sex as an evil force, he presents Saint Thomas Aquinas as “the man most responsible for the hardening of the Church’s attitude toward same-sex sex.” Aquinas “systematized and expanded upon Augustine’s thinking.” His Summa Theologica (1265–1275) “rewrote the whole of Christian moral theology” and pronounced same-sex activity, which could not be for procreation, “especially contemptible in the sight of God.” Aquinas distinguished sinful acts carried out by opposite-sex couples from the sexual activity of same-sex couples. The latter activity was per se the “more grievous sin.” The church conferred formal authority on Aquinas’s views on these and other matters at the Council of Trent in 1563.

At some point in time, the sooner the better, we better develop for ourselves an understanding of what it means to be human, which will then provide clear answers to questions such as who the fuck cares what Adam and Eve did!

Ignorance and the law

A few years ago, when a local organization filed a lawsuit against the federal government and the fossil fuel industry under the public trust doctrine, I didn't think that anything will be accomplished.  But, much to my surprise, the courts are siding with them.  Their claim, on behalf of a few named children plaintiffs, and on behalf of all children, is that the public trust doctrine "requires our government to protect and maintain survival resources for future generations."

The Oregon approach is now not the only one.  I didn't know, until I read this, that February 7th, the court heard "Juliana, et al v. United States of America, et al — a case a group of kids, young adults and environmentalists brought in 2015 against the U.S. government."  It is not the merits of the case that this post is about; there is no way I am going to pretend that I know the law.  I firmly believe in Charles Dickens's description that the law is an ass!

What caught my attention is this:

The lead attorney for U.S. manufacturers and oil and gas companies on a climate change lawsuit didn't know the answer to a measurement fact when asked in court two weeks ago, court papers show.

And what was that measurement fact?

Frank Volpe said he didn't know whether carbon dioxide levels had reached 400 parts per million, a measurement of atmospheric concentration.

A simple measurement fact.  About CO2 in the atmosphere.  The lead attorney defending the industry said he didn't know.

Of course Volpe knows.  Volpe is "representing the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and National Association of Manufacturers in the case."  Of course the industry knows.  They just do not want to admit that they know.

The judge didn't let him off the hook:

Asked by Judge Thomas Coffin whether the groups he represents “acknowledge that the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are currently at 400 ppm,” Volpe did not answer.
“Do you deny that, or do you not know?” Coffin asked, according to a transcript.
“I would say that as we said in our answer, we don't know,” Volpe said.
“You don't know,” Coffin replied. Volpe said that determination would be up to an expert witness.

If we watched such an exchange on Saturday Night Live, we might laugh our asses off.  But, this is for real, in a real courtroom.

The judge tried again.

“So as we sit here today, do you have an expert witness that the intervenors intend to call that you can identify that will opine that the CO2 levels are not 400 ppm, but are something other than that and, if so, what?” he asked.
“I don't know, your honor,” Volpe responded.

How screwed up are the fossil fuel industry and their attorneys!

Neither Volpe nor C. Marie Eckert, another attorney for the trade groups, responded to requests for comment about their clients' views on carbon dioxide concentrations.

Why would they!

You ask scientists the same question, and they will give you the answer even when they are piss-drunk at the unholy 3:00 am when this president starts tweeting.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracks CO2 levels measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The monthly averages for January this year and last were both greater than 400 ppm, according to the agency.
Reached by phone and asked of the possibility that CO2 levels aren't at 400, a spokesman for the agency laughed.

63 million Americans have voted for a man who denies climate change, and who has appointed to the EPA a man who would rather dismantle the EPA.  How messed up are these 63 million voters?  What a disaster!

I don't get paid for writing. I should sue somebody. Anybody!

I understood early on that it won't be easy, if even possible, to monetize my professional interests and expertise (if any.)  At dinner table conversations, I freely share my "asset" but will have to pay for the consultation with an attorney or physician at the same table.  That is how the world operates.

Thus, when I started writing op-eds, I knew I was giving it away for nothing.  After spending my time, and a little bit of my money, in formally educating myself, I was then spending 45 to 60 minutes to write an op-ed for which I would not get paid anything.  Yet, that is exactly what I chose to do.  Which is why it was one heck of a pleasant surprise when a few years ago the editor at the Register Guard offered to compensate me with a honorarium that might just about pay for dinner for two.  A huge bonus!

There are plenty of reasons why we engage in such writing that does not pay.  At least, in my case, I have a day job that takes care of my expenses.  What about those who like to engage in interests similar to mine, are even more qualified and able than I am, but do not have a regular job?  The web is simply killing their abilities to sell words, leading to this NY Times op-ed with a catchy lead of "Slaves of the internet, unite!"  While it was never easy to have a lucrative career as a professional writer, the internet has certainly made it even tougher for writers to sell their work when so much is being written for free.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes recalling his own experiences and notes this about the "exposure" element:

ask yourself how often you've seen writers/thinkers/historians/intellectuals etc. in online "conversation." Ask yourself how often you've seen guest-bloggers at sites like The Daily Dish. Do you believe these people to be paid? Do you believe them to not actually be doing work? Tomorrow I will go on television, a prospect that I try (lately unsuccessfully) to avoid. I try to avoid it because it is work. I have to prepare information that I hope to provide. I have to think about what I'm saying. I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I have to tell my nervous self to shut up. No one pays me--or any other guests--for these contributions. We work "for exposure."

One simply cannot buy this "exposure" but has to earn it.  Tongue-in-cheek, a colleague commented that I might just about be the most well known academic up and down the Willamette Valley--because of this "exposure" for which I have worked for free.

In a way, it is also this working for free, for exposure, that is behind the idea of internships.  Students provide their time and work for free, or at best for low compensation, knowing that the exposure would pay off.  When I worked as a planner, our agency routinely hired interns.  Private companies hired interns.  Everybody did that.  Some even paid their interns.

Of course, as with anything, here too there were organizations that abused this system--they sucked the energy out of their interns, by essentially treating them like full-time staff without paying them like full-time staff.  Which then led to a law on internships.

As Charles Dickens expressed via the Mr. Bumble character in Oliver Twist, "the law is a ass, a idiot."  It generates all kinds of unintended consequences.  Internship opportunities quickly evaporated.  At public and private agencies alike.  After all, it is easy to comply with the law by not offering internships at all, than it is to make sure that the internship program conforms to the letter of the law.

The latest in this:

Condé Nast, the globally renowned media publisher that produces magazines like Glamour, The New Yorker, and Wired, announced late last month that it will no longer offer its internship program.

Why?

The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by two former interns, Lauren Ballinger and Matthew Leib; in June, the interns sued Condé Nast for months of backpay, alleging that the publisher violated federal and state labor laws.

Reason adds this:

Condé Nast is the first major firm to eliminate its internship program since the flurry of unpaid intern lawsuits sprung up this summer. However, lawyers and employers are predicting that many firms may start to cut their programs - or offer just a few paid positions instead of many unpaid ones. So despite advocates' desire to open doors for struggling students, it seems the "Great Unpaid-Intern Uprising" may result in employers closing off opportunities altogether. 

Again, "the law is a ass, a idiot."

Meanwhile, this essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that academics should not write for free.  Ahem, the author has not read Chekov's Uncle Vanya, which I quoted in my essay on academics and research--more than a decade ago--in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  If they know what they are getting, people will not part with their money in order to buy an academic's writings!

I will continue on with my writing for which I don't get paid.  But, hey, if you want to pay me, I am all for it ;)

Can transgender men go topless?

When is a breast not a breast?

Rehoboth Beach in Delaware isn't a topless beach -- but a few transgender men caused a stir by treating it like one. Police say passers-by complained after the men removed their tops and revealed their surgically enhanced breasts overMemorial Day weekend. A lifeguard asked them to put their tops back on. The men initially refused, but covered up before police arrived.

Even if they hadn't, though, Police Chief Keith Banks notes the men were doing nothing illegal. Since they have male genitalia, they can't be charged with indecent exposure for showing their breasts. 

Reading this news item reminded me of a similar issue, from a different perspective: can a woman whose breasts have been surgically removed go topless?  A couple of years ago, a friend underwent a double-mastectomy, because of breast cancer.  Typical of her jokester persona, she said that perhaps from then on she could go topless when mowing the lawn, for instance, and be comfy and soak up the sun.  Her partner did not think it would be a good idea, particularly from a legal perspective.

All these got me thinking about a set of photographs of cleavages (ht) like the one below.  Can you figure out what the deal is?

Click on the photo for explanations :)

Islamic (Sharia) law in the UK?

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. ...
... Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.” Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

That is an excerpt from a Times report. These issues will not go away anytime soon. In fact, we can expect such issues to pop up more and more in continental Europe too. India and many other countries have had a tough time figuring out how Sharia might coexist along with a uniform legal system for all citizens. Before you jump into conclusions, this is neither the clash of civilizations, nor the trigger for THE clash.