In Talking Points Memo, there was an article about gun vs. non-gun culture. It touched on a story about a couple of 22-year-old men who decided to “educate” people in a neighborhood in Portland, Oregon unused to seeing guns by openly carrying assault weapons through the town. The sight of two young men carrying assault weapons down peaceful suburban streets generated a rash of 911 calls from frightened residents, and sent at least one school into lockdown—this coming less than a month after the Newtown incident. Neither man was arrested because they had “concealed handgun licenses,” though how this covered the open display of assault rifles escapes me. Their purpose was, purportedly, to demonstrate their Second Amendment rights, and seemed unconcerned that they were upsetting people.

Josh Marshall wrote a piece on the incident, naturally not painting the two young men in the best light. Someone wrote to Marshall about how his story on the incident rankled them; they felt it was a slanted piece that demonized gun owners:

My point is that regardless of how we feel about the law, that it was legal for them to do what they did but the tone I read was illustrating criminal behavior. I liken it to people obnoxiously purposely coughing and giving the stink eye to others who are smoking outside, well away from a door, in an allowed smoking area. Obviously less severe but an example of frankly, being pissy about others’ non criminal choices.

To say that Marshall’s story is like a non-smoker finding people smoking in their designated area and coughing obnoxiously as a means of objection is pretty far off the mark. In this case in particular, the two young Oregonians were not like smokers enjoying a drag outside and away from doors. That would be like gun owners shooting at a gun range, not 22-year-olds walking down residential streets with assault rifles. They were the ones going out of their way to be pissy about other’s attitudes about guns. Smokers in a designated smoking area are not “educating” others about smoking rights, or anything else.

This brought to mind a rather interesting comparison, because I do see similarities in attitudes between the two cultures, pro-gun and pro-smoking: the sense that smokers and gun owners can assert their freedoms without regard for the rights or concerns of others; the sense that people who object to this are being unreasonable; and a cultural sense of resentment at being persecuted, marked by a conflation of rash impositions and reasonable objections. A great deal of this has to do with perceptions, as well as with what one considers a normal or neutral state of affairs—what I call the “neutral space.”

The reaction of the pro-gun reader to Marshall’s objections to the Oregon story was starkly indicative of the difference in perception: what is the natural or neutral state of things? For smokers and gun owners, it seems to be, “I get to do my thing wherever I want and you just have to be cool with that.” The more militant smokers are like this; they do not see a space where no one is doing anything as a fair and neutral starting point; they see a room where they are smoking as a fair and neutral starting point, from which any objection you make is an imposition upon them which crosses the line of fairness. Secondhand smoke, to them, is little different from clear air, at least in the context of what one can fairly expect and have no objection to. To them, secondhand smoke is a non-issue; to the non-smoker, it is the entire issue.

The more militant gun owners, in this sense, are the same way: a fair and neutral starting point is that I get to have guns and carry them around, and you just have to be cool with that. Anything less free than that concerning gun “keeping and bearing” is an unfair imposition on them. For these people, your rights and concerns about safety are a non-issue; they may as well simply not exist. The non-gun person, however, has this threat to their safety, and the safety of their children and others around them, suddenly thrust upon them in the form of seeing an unknown person bearing a weapon designed to kill people entering their space. They may not react well to being told that there is nothing they can do about this.

The second similarity, stemming from this, is the perception of who is being unreasonable when there is a conflict. The concept of the neutral space is at the root of this. In smoking culture, since “doing what you want” is considered the neutral space, someone who demands to breathe clean air is being unreasonable. The smoker does not see their act as an invasive one, so when they are told to stop smoking, they see that as the invasive act. You are butting into my business.

I may be biased about this myself, but I cannot see how that attitude is reasonable. If you and I are in a confined space, the social norm is that we do not carry out any act which imposes on the other. Or perhaps stated more pertinently, we do not carry out the initial act of imposition. If we are in a doctor’s waiting room, and I start making annoying noises and you ask me to stop, who is imposing upon whom first? If we are sitting in adjacent seats on an airplane, and I keep shifting around so my arms and side keep nudging and brushing against you and you ask me to stop, who is being unreasonable? If we are in an elevator and I let rip a particularly gruesome fart and you give me a dirty look, do I have the right to be offended?

In the smoking context, smokers—at least the militant ones—do not see what they do as the initial act of imposition; they see their actions as a natural right which others are required to accept as the normal state of affairs. They ignore the initial neutral space, they disregard the fact that they are imposing an unpleasantness on others first, and are annoyed when they are asked to stop.

So it is with the militant gun owners. They ignore the clear context of militia in regards to the entire Second Amendment “keep and bear arms” right, and literally read it as a right to not just possess weapons, but to carry them wherever they damn well please. Thus we have two men in Oregon who believe that they are doing a public service when, just weeks after the entire nation is horrified by a young man bearing an assault rifle killing 20 young children, they themselves bear the same or similar weapons and walk past residential homes and schools. They felt that they were making an important statement about their freedoms; they did not see the context or viewpoints of others as being relevant.

The neutral space—one which assumes a right to keep and bear arms—is one where arms are normally kept safe and locked up at home or other establishments, and used in specific contexts in designated areas. Not to walk around scaring the living crap out of parents soon after a severe national trauma.

The third similarity is a perception of resentment and sense of persecution from within the “using” cultures, who focus, often markedly, how put-upon they are. There is the tendency to superimpose the most egregious of objections made by critics onto every instance of criticism, no matter how subdued or polite.

As an example of this in smoking culture, I recall one job I had at a language school in Japan where the common teaching area was smoke-free, but the common teachers’ preparation area was not smoke-free. Between every lesson I was constantly subjected to 10 or 20 minutes of heavy cigarette smoke. Appealing to management was unproductive: they were all smokers as well. I didn’t even want to ban smoking; all I wanted was one table within the room where smokers would not puff away so we non-smokers could at least have a mild refuge from the worst of the smoke. The boss unhelpfully told me I could get this, but only if every smoker in the office agreed. I started by asking one of the smokers this, someone I had never confronted or complained to. I sat down and explained to him that the smoke was a difficulty professionally for me, as I had to speak all day, and between lessons, the smoke was making my throat raw. I asked politely (and those who know me in an office context know that my default mode is to be deferential and polite) if he would agree, and that he would decide himself which table could be smoke-free, just one of five or six tables in the room. He smiled, exhaled a long, leisurely stream of smoke, and said, “Fuck off.” It was pretty clear that he was enjoying retribution, not against me, but against everyone who he felt had annoyed him about his habit or had kept him from enjoying it where he pleased.

Gun owners seem to have the same sense of persecution, and indulge in the same general reaction to any objections from others. I see it when I debate guns with them, in which I support the right to keep and bear arms but debate whether the right stems from the second or the ninth amendment, and they react as if I think there is no right to keep and bear arms at all; or when I suggest gun control measures, making clear that under such measures, people could still have houses filled with guns, but they instantly assume I am promoting gun bans and confiscation—no matter how clearly I state otherwise. I sense they are not confronting my arguments, that in fact, they may not even be paying much attention to what I am saying at all, but instead feel that they are debating everyone who they felt had infringed on their rights; that whomever suggests any restrictions on guns may as well be the same person who wants to ban guns. The conflation in the Talking Points Memo story of the Oregon men (armed with assault rifles walking by homes and schools in the wake of a mass school shooting) with smokers (trying to get a brief break in a remote and restricted area and yet still being accosted by asinine non-smokers) is an excellent example of this.

It might even be that the gun “enthusiasts,” who now possess incredible freedoms compared to cigarette smokers, see similarities between smoking and guns as well—in that they fear guns will be treated as smoking is treated, where the practice in question will be demonized, those indulging will be seen as pariahs, and the enjoyment of their favorite pastime will be restricted to spaces away from others.

Before Obama announced his plan, New York already passed a tightening of gun laws. Predictably, people with little sense acted irrationally:

“It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely — how to put it nicely — it’s Prince Andrew Cuomo’s bid for the White House,” said Jim Hanley, who was waiting to buy another handgun. “I want to do it before the right is taken away. Andrew Cuomo and Barack Hussein Obama are two best gun salesmen in the history of the world.”

So, what provisions prompted Hanley to buy another handgun?

Signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, the New York legislation tightens a ban on assault-style rifles, calls for background checks on ammunition purchases, outlaws large-capacity magazines and tries to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people deemed to be a threat.

Therefore he believes his right to own a handgun will be stripped from him. Okeydokey.

This disconnect between fact and reality is somewhat emblematic of the gun “enthusiasts.” Fight for decades to win an inch, finally gain a centimeter, and the gun crowd starts shouting about how you’ve taken a mile and are quickly approaching infinity.

I’ve gotten the same reaction countless times when I have discussed guns on the Internet. I can start my statement with a whole paragraph about how I believe there is an individual right to keep and bear arms, how I would never suggest a gun ban, and how the measures I wish to introduce would allow any law-abiding citizen to own a large number of guns. Then I lay down a set of reasonable gun control proposals with rationales for each.

Inevitably, the response from gun advocates begins, “You should never ban guns because….”

Chris Thiel of North Tonawanda has a pistol permit and belongs to a pistol league but doesn’t own a pistol. He described himself as a hobbyist and said he’s been thinking about buying an AR-15.

“Say this goes through and another tragedy happens and in New York state,” he said. “You’ve got to do more then? When does it end?”

Hopefully it ends with your having to go to a gun range to enjoy your hobby rather than 20 more children being slaughtered. Or is going to a club too high a price to pay for other people’s lives?

Here’s one way to see it: a person owns a car, but feels that it is unreasonable to force them to do any maintenance on it. They ignore many warning signs, a lot of minor problems, and let things accumulate. Finally, they are driving through a school zone and their brakes fail because they didn’t check the brake fluid and a leak drained it. The car goes out of control and runs down a crowd of schoolchildren. You may feel that just punishing the cretin is OK, but I would think that the parents of the dead children might not be so comforted by the late action.

The people, stunned by the horrible incident, approve passing a law that requires car owners to undergo regular brake maintenance to find such problems before such an incident happens again. However, car enthusiasts are livid. “It’s ridiculous,” they complain. “How long before the right to drive my car is taken away?” one driver asks.

“Say this goes through and another tragedy happens because of some other aspect of car maintenance,” another driver says. “You’ve got to do more then? When does it end?”

Seen in any other context, the arguments of the gun crowd would appear as ludicrous even to them as it does to the rest of us. Nor is it any comfort that the people furiously buying weapons are paranoid and stupid.

Just as a law requiring brake maintenance is not a harbinger of a total ban on driving cars, neither are New York’s laws—nor laws that go a great deal further—a harbinger of the loss of the right to keep and bear arms.

Face it: if you think you need a Bushmaster, and if you live in the United states and are not on duty in Afghanistan, you’re an ass. Your losing your ability to wield your toy and only be forced to register it is not a violation of your rights. It is, in fact, a violation of the rights to those around you, because your freedoms do not extend to actions that put your neighbors’ safety and even their lives at stake for an unnecessary bang-bang toy.

And that’s at the heart of this issue: virtually right we have is limited if it potentially infringes on the safety of others. You have the right to free speech, but not if it wrongly harms others, as in slander or reckless endangerment. You have the right to be protected from search and seizure, except where a court finds reason to void that right for public safety.

The gun advocates, however, seem to believe that they are exempt. We make everyone go through a long and difficult process to get a driver’s license, but a shorter and easier process to certify a person to use a gun—a tool specifically designed to kill people—somehow is an unbearable price to pay and must be stopped. How would you feel about an 18-year-old driving a car around your neighborhood without a day of training?

And the assault rifle? Well, why stop there? Why not allow hand grenades? Nerve gas? Or, if you want to weasel about how it’s only projectile weapons in question, then how about RPGs? Howitzers? The assault rifle belongs in the same category: it’s a military weapon, and has no place in our neighborhoods.

It’s time for people who own guns to stop being whiny, selfish pricks and start cooperating with completely reasonable public safety measures.

Bernard Harcourt at the University of Chicago Law School makes an excellent point in the culture wars on the ownership of guns. He notes that the NRA, along with many pro-gun advocates, stand on the idea that guns are not the problem because “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

If this is true, then so is this statement: Gun control doesn’t kill people; people kill people.

The pro-gun argument about guns not killing people is that guns are “instrumentalities,” and as such, “are not to be blamed for what people do wrongly with them.”

The pro-gun argument is that gun control is dangerous, that it will lead to deaths and even exterminations, and as such, should be banned—but that guns themselves, although dangerous, should not be banned because people, not what the do or do not wield, are the core problem. You can see the inconsistency.

That said, the pro-gun crowd, like many of their conservative brethren, has not always been factually or logically oriented.

Ever since I started debating gun control on Usenet forums in the early 90’s, one argument has been standard: Hitler took away his people’s guns, like all dictators take away their people’s guns. Gun bans open the door to dictators like Hitler taking over the country. In part of his insanely angry explosion at Piers Morgan, Alex Jones nearly screamed, “Hitler took the guns!”

Umm, no. Actually, He gave them back.

After the end of World War I, guns were heavily restricted. In 1938, Hitler changed gun laws in Germany to relax gun control laws—dropping restrictions on long guns and ammunition, expanding the number of people who needed no permits, lowering the minimum age for ownership, and extending permit periods. The same law prohibited Jews from owning firearms—the one point gun advocates focus on—but the law in general, contrary to how it is painted by people like Jones, made guns more freely available. Nor would have things been any significantly different had Jews not been excluded.

Not to mention the fact that Hitler came to power politically, and that personal firearm ownership was not even remotely an issue in his ascension. Had the Germans been fully armed during that period, Hitler would not have been stopped.

And while the gun nuts talk about Stalin taking the guns, the fact remains that when the Bolsheviks took power, they were armed. In fact, unlike many successful modern revolutions, many of the dictators came to power by way of armed force. Meaning that the presence of guns does not prevent dictators from taking power, which is the central theme in the gun advocates’ rants.

Nor does any of this necessarily translate into our current situation. The fact of the matter is, if America does fall into a dictatorship, it will likely be with the full-fledged support of people who own guns. Witness the Bush administration, in which many civil liberties were rolled back in a manner far more concomitant to dictatorships than any gun control. A national warrantless wiretapping program? Curtailment of legal safeguards whenever any claim, however bogus, of “national security” was invoked? “Rendition” of people to foreign countries to be tortured? Little of this set off alarm bells in the gun crowd; in fact, since Bush was considered no threat to gun ownership, gun advocates tended to be perfectly fine with, even enthusiastic about such measures.

The fact is, an American dictator would not fret about arms much. Tyrants worry far less about guns than they do communications and freedom of movement. Controlling communications is the number one priority—and yet you see none of these gun nuts worrying about communications much. Nor do they fret about car ownership, despite that being heavily regulated and controlled by the government.

Which brings us to what should be obvious: this is not about fear of incipient dictatorship. It’s a ruse, or at most a deluded fantasy. The one thing it is not is a relevant issue.

People across the nation reacted in horror when 20 young children died after being shot by a gunman at their elementary school.

People across the nation react not at all when four times as many children under 5, some of them toddlers, are shot by gunfire in the home.

Brennan Nowell, all of two years old, somehow was able to get and play with a handgun in his house. It seems clear that the gun was loaded and in a place where a 2-year-old could access it. Brennan died in the hospital Thursday night.

Sadly, he was not alone in that town:

This year alone, four Chattanooga-area children under the age of 14 have died because of accidental gunfire.

One boy was accidentally shot in a bathroom when a shotgun slipped, his family reported. An 11-year-old was shot in the face by her brother. A 3-year-old shot herself in the face with her grandfather’s handgun.

According to the CDC, 304 children under the age of 14 were killed by accidental gunfire in the U.S. between 2005 and 2009. That’s only accidental gunfire. Between 80 and 90 children a year under the age of 5 die from gunshot wounds, according to a different report. I could not find numbers on how many of those were accidental. Certainly a good number of them are bound to be.

Nor is Chattanooga the only place this happens:

On Saturday afternoon, a 3-year-old in Guthrie, Okla., died after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a gun he found inside his aunt and uncle’s house. His uncle is an Oklahoma state trooper.

Many states have “CAP” (Child Access Prevention) laws, but most states only treat them as misdemeanors. The Tennessee article reports that 6.6% of all gun owners in the state keep their weapons loaded and unlocked—a bad idea even without children, especially since guns stolen from homes (more than 300,000 per year) are a common source of firearms for criminals. People foolishly think that guns will make their homes safe, but criminals by nature rob homes that are empty, and will take guns when they find them.

As I have stated before, training, testing, and licensing should be mandatory for all gun possession, just as it is with automobile possession. I additionally believe that keeping guns locked away should also be mandatory, and emphasized as part of the training. Not keeping them locked should be a federal felony, whether or not they result in injury or death—though sadly, those will be the most common means by which violations will be discovered. Many people will stupidly believe that they are immune from having their unlocked guns taken by family or outsiders and will ignore the laws, but saving the life of even a few toddlers a year (more likely a few dozen, as well as probably hundreds of teens) is worth the effort, and then some.

Massacres such as the one in Newtown grab the headlines as well as national attention; however, the slow massacre of children is even more horrific, but is largely ignored.

Being here in America gives me an excellent opportunity to see Fox News (absent in Japan) in action.

After the Newtown massacre, Fox was uncharacteristically restrained. They even praised Obama for his handling of the situation, for the speeches that he made. Like the NRA, I’m pretty sure they sensed that then was not the time to go into Obama derangement mode.

That didn’t last long. Actually, that very night, Huckabee appeared on Cavuto and said that the children were killed because we had driven God out of the schools. Some of my family were outraged at this, and felt that Huckabee would suffer badly for it, that it crossed a line into a whole new dimension of slime that would certainly blow up. I pointed out that this kind of statement is not new, that conservatives have said this kind of thing before, and that usually the press just ignores it. Sadly, I was proven right—virtually no one outside of a few major blogs paid attention. A day or two later, Huckabee, undoubtedly informed of what an ass he made of himself, walked it back with a mealy-mouthed rewrite.

Still, Fox remained relatively muted, perhaps in part also because Murdoch is pro gun-control.

Well, things are slowly changing back. Wayne LaPierre gave a “news conference” (it was actually, at best, a “live press release,” as the press were not allowed to ask questions) in which he (1) placed the blame squarely on video games, movies, and music videos, as well as the media, who, according to LaPierre, “demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws, and fill the national media with misinformation and dishonest thinking”; and (2) released the NRA’s answer to the problem: put armed guards in every school in America. He says that we already put armed guards at banks, airports, office buildings, power plants, court houses, and sports stadiums, as well as having Capitol Police for the Congress and the secret service for the president.

How did Fox News handle it? Gently, but positively. They called no criticisms at all; they reported the highlights of the speech in terms that made it sound reasonable and respectable, and noted that “critics are attacking” and “lashing out” against the NRA. They noted the NRA’s strength and influence, and rather graciously presented the NRA’s ideas as if they were not ludicrous.

This is the Fox News which is much more dangerous than the clips I usually see, which are of their most outrageous and stupid moments. This is a very subtle and guided approach, one that seems reasonable and considered, but is very powerfully advocating a very specific point of view, and then calling it “fair and balanced” (using those specific words, still) “journalism.”

As I write this, they are airing a segment which could conceivably be titled “LaPierre Talking Points,” blaming movies and other media violence for what is happening; they aired their favorite punching bag, Nancy Pelosi, following it with the suggestion that Hollywood bribes to Democrats are also to blame, but pushing hard on the media-violence-is-to-blame angle, completely ignoring the NRA lobbying and the weapons industry. Their “fair and balanced” panel discussion with pro-gun and pro-gun-control people has not yet aired as promised (I’m waiting to see if they are putting in a Colmesian patsy for the pro-control side).

Something else worthy of comment is LaPierre’s own asinine ideas. Seriously, arm schools like we do Congress or the White House? That would only cost a trillion dollars a year. Airports and power plants? OK, hundreds of billions. Even if the security is just at the levels of court houses and banks, we’re talking huge expenses. Security would likely be more at the level of Los Angeles’ one uniformed cop per school, which itself would cost billions.

Not that I would be against the expense if it would work; however, expense is not even the central issue here. The central issue is whether or not you want your kids to go to schools where men in combat gear holding semiautomatic rifles patrol the halls.

Then there is the fact that it is more than questionable as to whether a cop armed with a handgun could reasonably defend against someone in armor bearing a semi-automatic rifle with a 30-round magazine. If you recall, the Fort Hood, Texas shooter killed 13 people before he was stopped—and his target was the Soldier Readiness Center of a military installation. And the shooter was even then taken down only as he fumbled to reload.

If LaPierre were to think for a moment, he would realize that several of the security operations he mentioned would fall easily to a man with a semi-automatic rifle. Office buildings, sports stadiums, office buildings, and probably banks would all have little defense against someone trying to kill everyone in sight. As we saw with Fort Hood, even military installations cannot stop someone easily if their goal is simply to commit mayhem without regard to their own survivability. Even the president is not immune, as we have seen.

What was significant about LaPierre’s statement was that he gave absolutely no ground whatsoever. Many were expecting him to at least throw a bone to current sensitivity, maybe coming out for even limited restrictions to high-capacity magazines, or a partial ban on semi-automatic rifles of the worst variety. I thought he would at least offer something that looked like it would limit or ban the worst of the weaponry while actually leaving wide, gaping loopholes and eventually changing nothing. He did not even do that.

My father told me a joke recently: a man asks a woman, “If a billionaire offered you a hundred million dollars to go to bed with him, would you consider it?” “Maybe,” the woman answered, “I guess I might.” “How about having sex for twenty bucks?” the man forwards. The woman is offended, and replies, “God, no! What do you think, am I a whore or something?” The man replies, “We’ve already established that; now we’re just negotiating.” The point being, sometimes absolute principles matter.

I have said before that the NRA is essentially the ACLU for a single constitutional amendment rather than the whole Constitution, though they are much more money- and business-oriented than the ACLU. But they are similar in that they (a) take absolute stands on certain rights, and (b) do not shy away even if the things they defend are the most horrific examples of scum imaginable.

And that is what the NRA is doing here: standing by an absolute principle. You could almost admire them for it, were it not such a deranged principle and such an appallingly harmful one.

Many of the people who usually argue against gun control have been relatively quiet recently, in the wake of the Newtown massacre. They probably understand that this is not the time to make their argument. Certainly, at this time, making the argument that they have the “right” to bear semi-automatic assault rifles with high-capacity magazines so they can enjoy target shooting would not be welcomed. In fact, they are not even making their usual argument that “this is not the right time to talk about gun control,” which is saying something. Right now, anyone who says that would likely be shouted down, for understandably good reasons.

When they do start making their argument, we should not give them credence for no other reason that they’re being made and we have to respect alternative opinions. If those opinions are built upon nonsense or lies, we should call that out and not allow the argument to gain credence or sway people.

For example:

Gun control opponents have kept their criticism mostly reserved in the wake of the Connecticut shooting, but they are sure to pipe up should legislation hit the floor next year.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, on “Fox News Sunday,” noted that stricter gun control does not necessarily mean crime rates will go down.

“Washington, D.C., around us ought to be the safest place in America, and it’s not. Chicago ought to be safe. It’s not, because their gun laws don’t work,” Gohmert said.

He said lawmakers should “look at the facts.”

Gohmert’s argument is flawed; it is one that has been made as long as I have been participating in online debates in the early 90’s. It is that places with strict gun control laws still have problems with gun crime; therefore, gun control does not work.

It’s a persuasive argument only if you don’t look at it too hard. After all, if gun control works, then why is there still gun crime in places like Chicago, New York, or D.C.?

The answer is actually not too hard to understand: it is called the “patchwork quilt” effect, one that gun advocates have long cultured and taken advantage of.

Take New York, for example; the state has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, and yet gun crimes still happen there. One key point of information is that between 70 and 85% of all guns used to commit crimes in New York come from out of state. Imported guns will invariably be more expensive and harder to get; that criminals resort to them is evidence that New York’s gun laws are working fine; the problem is that one can buy guns easily and virtually without any checks from gun shows in states like Virginia.

The patchwork quilt means that gun control in any one location, even a whole state, is relatively meaningless if someone can simply cross a city or state border and buy as many guns as they like with little or no regulation or accountability.

Gohmert’s example of D.C. is particularly on the spot, as a criminal there need only drive half an hour out of town to a regular gun show at the Dulles Expo Center outside the airport.

This is why gun laws have passed at the national level only a few times in the past half century (usually when assassination attempts are made on presidents); the NRA and other advocates fight any national laws tooth-and-nail. They fight hard at the state level, and only a certain amount at the local level.

What we get, then, are the fabled “20,000 gun control laws” in the country, in response to which gun advocates then smarmily assert, “even 20,000 gun control laws do no good!” Even clueless gun control advocates buy into it; I remember Rosie O’Donnell embarrassingly say that we need “40,000 gun control laws.”

We have to get rid of those 20,000 laws. And replace them with one law. Nationwide, thorough, complete.

The patchwork quilt helps nobody but criminals. And the NRA. Two groups that have always been awkward bedfellows, but in bed with each other they have been.

What we need to do is make gun laws like those in New York or Washington, D.C. apply everywhere in the country. That’s one way to patch up the holes.

That’s not the only set of holes in the patchwork quilt, however. Take Adam Lanza, for example. He tried to buy a gun at a local shop, but was turned away by a 14-day waiting period, as well as a background check that may have also prevented him from purchasing the weapon. In that respect, gun control laws worked.

Obviously, Lanza circumvented them. How? Because his mother apparently either kept her guns out in the open or gave Adam the ability to access them. If this is true, one may ask what would have happened if Ms. Lanza had been more responsible and kept her guns securely locked in a gun safe? This lack of proper storage is a serious cause of children’s’ deaths; around 3000 children and teens each year die from accidental or self-harm gun incidents. Three thousand. Each year. That’s a 9/11 each year, with every single victim being a minor. And yet we have accepted this without question. Of that number, 80-90 are under the age of 5—the equivalent of 4 or more Newtown massacres every year.

One clear solution is to require someone who purchases a gun to first prove that they possess a gun safe, and make punishment for gun owners who fail to use one as powerful as we can.

Next, assault rifles. Ban them. Ban them all. Ban any ammunition cartridge with a capacity higher than 10 rounds. Across the board. No exceptions. There is no legitimate reason for these weapons and for large-capacity cartridges to be used.

Please do not tell me about heavily-armed drug lords breaking into your living room. Do not tell me about armed resistance to a new Hitler who has taken over the nation. These ludicrously absurd arguments no longer have a place in our discourse. If you hunt, you can damn well pause to reload.

Naturally, much else needs to be done. Mental health issues of course: to better understand mental illness and disabilities; to discard certain stigmas that keep family members from admitting certain realities, keeping them from accessing treatment; and to make mental health treatment available, perhaps beginning a nationally subsidized social health care system dedicated to this problem, so that neither cost nor availability ever be a reason people do not avail themselves of help.

After that, there is still much to address: parenting issues, for example, and issues regarding even basic civility and compassion may be relevant. Less tolerance for the culture of violence. And more.

Let us not allow ourselves, however, to be distracted from one area where we absolutely need to begin cleaning up. It will take time. There may not even be noticeable results for some time; do not allow this to sway your resolve.

Remember, this is not just Newtown, nor Aurora, nor Columbine. It’s not just mentally unstable young people who go on shooting sprees. It is the thousands of children who die each year, and the thousand more adults who perish as well. So even as we are motivated to do the right thing by one specific event, do not allow the arguments focusing on any one specific incident to blind us from the necessity of dealing with all the problems facing us.

Wow. My father and I watched Obama’s speech at the vigil in Newtown tonight, and noted along with everyone else how he made an unmistakable reference to gun control. Making that reference in his announcement the day of the shooting was one thing; his mention of it tonight was extraordinary.

I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change. Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.

And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and in big cities all across America, victims whose — much of the time their only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.

We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

If there’s even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief that’s visited Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.

In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.

Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?

Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

It’s rather unmistakable that he’s referring to gun violence. References to shootings, to specific killings and massacres in Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek, Newtown, Columbine, and Blacksburg.

Most notable is his reference at the end, that we cannot continue to believe that the victims of gun crimes are the price for our freedom.

Obama did mention mental health professionals and educators, so it’s not just gun control he’s talking about. And that seems like a smart way to present the issue, as a package with gun control wrapped up with other measures.

What was remarkable was that Fox did not, at least initially, react violently against this. The talking heads on FNC even sounded open to new gun control legislation. Whether this is just them knowing when not to fight back, or if it is the talking heads taking marching orders from Murdoch, who approves of gun control, is not yet clear.

Whatever the case, we might actually get reasonable gun control.

It is just unbearably sad that it took something like this to finally set that into motion.

Huckabee has the whole answer to the school shootings. I knew some loon would come up with this, but did not expect it to come from Huckabee:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee attributed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in part to restrictions on school prayer and religious materials in the classroom.

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools,” Huckabee said on Fox News, discussing the murder spree that took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults in Newtown, CT that morning. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”

Yes, that’s right. If only had those children been praying, that man would not have murdered them.

This statement is rather demented, in a couple of ways. Aside from his apparent lack of understanding that the attack came from outside the school, not from within it, he is essentially concluding that “removing God from our schools” resulted in horrific violence being done. Because religious people are all non-violent pacifists, of course. Unlike those mass-murdering atheists.

Huckabee then went into detail about his reasoning:

“[W]e’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability — that we’re not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment,” Huckabee said. “If we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that.”

This statement seems to move Huckabee more towards the rationale that acts like this happen because we aren’t a religious enough society, which, in my opinion, is not much better. It makes the old, conceited presumption that if you don’t fear God’s wrath, you are more likely just to do any damned thing you want, thus we have a violent society. You can’t be good without God.

That’s essentially what other fundie notables are saying, like Eric Hovind:

Are you happy now that the shooter grew up in a school without God?

Christian talk show personality Bryan Fischer had this even more twisted point of view:

The question’s gonna come up, where was God? I thought that God cared about the little children? God protected the little children? Where was God when all this went down? And here’s the bottom line: God is not going to go where he’s not wanted.

He elaborates, saying essentially that God would have stopped the shootings if only we had not forsaken him in public schools. This is particularly reprehensible; he is saying, directly, that if we do not make our public schools religious, God is going to allow anyone to enter these schools and massacre the children.

Wow.

OK, first, let’s set a few things straight. At the top of that list, prayer is not forbidden in schools. Only prayers led by school representatives is banned. But prayer is not. Kids can pray anywhere and everywhere they like, so long as it does not interrupt class proceedings. They can (and do) pray outside the school (e.g., around flagpoles), they can pray in clubs on school property, they can pray in the hallways, the schoolyards, the cafeteria, whatever. Personally, to themselves, they can pray practically all day long. The only prohibition is one that prevents religious discrimination.

Second: There is no evidence I have ever heard of that correlates religious education with lower crime rates or greater ethical behavior, even if one ignores the vast oversimplification concerning such a statement. As I pointed out above, this belief is simply a conceit by religious people who see their morality and behavior as superior, often helped along by the belief that only religious people can be truly moral. Many in fact believe that if you do not have religion, and in particular fear of judgment by your creator, then there is nothing holding you back from doing anything immoral. Millions upon millions of atheists beg to differ.

Third: Even if there were some pacifying effect given by a specific sort of religious study, why assume that public education is the vital missing factor? If children are raised to be religious at home, and if they attend church, and if they pray privately in school, then why do they not have these morals instilled from all that exposure to religion and religious teaching? This is similar to the Wall Street Journal editorial which assumed that so long as one small corner of society is not expressly 100% religious, then things fall apart.

In fact, you may have heard that the guns—several handguns and rifles—belonged to Adam Lanza’s mother. So the first thing you ask is, why was this woman so heavily armed, with not just handguns but semi-automatic rifles as well? Some reports now have that she was a survivalist, a “prepper,” and that her son was home-schooled—meaning that there is a likelihood that the family was religious, in which case Adam had received that education.

Lastly, and most important: are these people—Huckabee, Hovind, Fischer, and likely many others—not aware of how sickeningly offensive their statements are? Do they imagine that the parents of the slaughtered children will not be horrifically enraged by the suggestion that God killed their children as a punishment for secular schools?

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So, what is the solution? How do we fix this?

Naturally, the sad truth is, there are no easy or sure-fire fixes. In this particular case, gun control probably would not have made a difference. Lanza was turned away by a background check and waiting period—but he instead simply took his mother’s guns, which were legally purchased. If Lanza took a semi-automatic rifle into the school, that may have contributed, but in all likelihood, the other guns he had would probably have been enough to do the same damage. Certainly, not having a semi-automatic assault rifle in an elementary school is better than having one. Better mental health treatment probably could have done some good, but recognition and intercession are less than perfect. We supposedly became more sensitive to this after Columbine—but little seems to have changed.

We will find out more as time goes on, but it is likely that the details of this case will show us how hard it would have been to screen in any and all ways to prevent it.

That said, something is obviously happening in our society, as is evidenced by the alarming increase in gun massacres.

There is no magic solution, no silver bullet that will fix everything. However, there are steps we can take that will alleviate problems in specific areas that will help society in general, and hopefully at least slow cases such as the one we are now witnessing.

Gun control is one of them. Our gun laws are stupid, as is the paranoia of those who rush to gun stores when a tragedy occurs or if Obama is elected. Currently, we have very little in the way of comprehensive gun control. Background checks and waiting periods have helped, but there are too many loopholes, too many places where these things make no difference. We need to eliminate all loopholes like those at gun shows. All gun sales, public and private, must be subject to the same scrutiny. It is insane that an 80-year-old grandmother should be forced to go through intense scrutiny when she buys Sudafed, but a convicted felon can easily buy dozens of weapons at a gun show. We need limits on the number of guns people can buy per month/year; we need bans on weapons and features designed to kill but which have no relationship to self-defense; we need laws concerning the storage of guns; we need better training and licensing; we need universal registration of both weapons and ammunition. There is so much that can be done, such as all of the above, and still allow every law-abiding citizen to be armed more than sufficiently for home defense and sports usage. And yet people wet their pants if any of the above are even suggested at a serious level.

Better mental illness diagnosis and treatment is needed. I know little about this, so I cannot go into detail. But I think few would argue with this point. Nevertheless, much needs to be done—not just talked about and then nothing happens.

There is much more than even that, however. To a certain extent, we as a nation have to change our attitudes. Our attitudes about a broad range of things, from basic civility to the way we value life. This cannot be legislated; it must be decided. We cannot be a nation which passionately shouts in approval when it is suggested that a poor man be allowed to die in the street before his community raises even a finger to help him. We cannot be a nation which is so strongly opposed to basic humanity. It has now become popular among the right to refuse to give a shit about others, to dismiss and reject others, to treat them as less than human. We can no longer afford this selfish disregard.

There’s a conference in Dubai which is only now breaking out in the news. It’s a conference to discuss a 25-year-old international treaty on how the Internet works worldwide.

These people talk about how they only want to increase access to people in the third world, and make the Internet better for everyone:

“The brutal truth is that the internet remains largely [the] rich world’s privilege, ” said Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, ahead of the meeting.

“ITU wants to change that.”

The people running the show claim they’re not doing any harm:

Gary Fowlie, head of ITU liaison Office to the United Nations, insisted in a phone interview that his organization’s effort to revise outdated telecom rules is not an attempt to change the way the Internet is governed.

“This whole idea there would be some kind of restriction on freedom of expression, it just doesn’t fly with what the ITU has stood for,” he said, stressing that as a U.N. entity, the ITU is bound to uphold Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to free expression through any media.

Sounds great, until you realize that “ITU” stands for “International Telecommunication Union.” That right away should be a giveaway. The next hint:

But the [ITU] said action was needed to ensure investment in infrastructure to help more people access the net.

Red flag time! Hear those alarm bells and sirens going off? Any of this sound familiar? “We want to help people get access to the Internet. That requires infrastructure.” This is the inevitable preface to the next statement: “We need money to do that. Let’s talk about how we can make more money.” And thus we arrive at the actual motive behind the lobbying, and upon closer inspection, find the justifications to be specious.

Yep. It’s just like when the U.S. Telecoms tried to gang up and buy their way to Internet ownership in the U.S. Virtually nothing is different: the telecoms are whining about how they’re losing so much money because of the big, bad Internet:

Some telecommunications companies are looking at WCIT as an opportunity to address the business reality that new technologies are severely eroding traditional revenues from old-style voice calls. Customers are no longer making phone calls as they once did, and are instead using an application layer on the Internet to carry voice and video. Landline services are increasingly being replaced with mobile communications services that are themselves increasingly being used to provide data connectivity. Beyond voice, the companies argue that large content providers are making revenue from customers’ access to those services over their Internet connections.

So these companies see this treaty as a way to “re-balance” revenue streams between carriers and “over-the-top” providers. Claiming that regulatory help is needed to ensure the ongoing investment in the Internet’s infrastructure, they have dusted off an old concept known in telecom circles as “sending network pays.” On its face, the idea is simple: The network or ISP of the sending party should pay for the delivery of their traffic (just as with cross-border telephone calls).

That’s the same bullshit argument made by the U.S. telecoms, the billionaire’s cry of poverty. “We’re losing revenue from people using Skype instead of making international phone calls, so we need to make up the money somewhere else.”

What a complete load of crap. As if these people are not making huge profits on all-new revenue streams in several different areas, many of which derive specifically from the Internet usage they now claim cannibalizes their revenues.

Let’s see. I pay for my Internet connection—a monthly fee which easily exceeds, by quite a bit, what I used to pay for my traditional land line. I also pay for cell phone use—in fact, I pay, in a way, for no fewer than three different Internet connections, one the aforementioned home connection, and two more times for the data plans for my wife’s and my own cell phone plans. Each of which costs about the same.

Repeat this throughout the entire world, and you begin to understand that the telecoms have never had it better. If they want to cry poverty, I demand they first cough up their balance sheets for close inspection. Because I will bet you quite a bit that their profit line is probably not very far behind Big Oil and Big Pharma.

Once again, they try to make it all sound more palatable by saying they are going after big corporations:

One of the other concerns raised is that the conference could result in popular websites having to pay a fee to send data along telecom operators’ networks.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (Etno) – which represents companies such as Orange, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom – has been lobbying governments to introduce what it calls a “quality based” model.

This would see firms face charges if they wanted to ensure streamed video and other quality-critical content download without the risk of problems such as jerky images.

Etno says a new business model is needed to provide service providers with the “incentive to invest in network infrastructure”.

Again, the same bullshit argument they made in the U.S. 6 years ago. And it’s still full of crap. They already have all the incentive they need to expand infrastructure. They already have huge profits. The content providers who send bandwidth-intensive content already pay for sending this data, as do the users who consume it. And we have seen before when Telecoms make promises to expand infrastructure in exchange for the ability to charge more, and they never do what they promise.

What they really want here is virtual ownership of the Internet. They want to be able to wring every last penny, yen, pound, and deutschmark that they possibly can by charging for something, then charging for it again, and then charging someone else for the same thing as many times as they can manage.

Piggybacking this wave are governments scared shitless over the freedom of expression the Internet represents and the threat this is to their control over their populaces, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by people who know the Internet better than anyone—like Vint Cerf, co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol and regarded as one of the “fathers of the Internet,” who wrote this message of warning:

Today, this free and open net is under threat. Some 42 countries filter and censor content out of the 72 studied by the Open Net Initiative. This doesn’t even count serial offenders such as North Korea and Cuba. Over the past two years, Freedom House says governments have enacted 19 new laws threatening online free expression.

Some of these governments are trying to use a closed-door meeting of The International Telecommunication Union that opens on December 3 in Dubai to further their repressive agendas. Accustomed to media control, these governments fear losing it to the open internet. They worry about the spread of unwanted ideas. They are angry that people might use the internet to criticize their governments.

The ITU is bringing together regulators from around the world to renegotiate a decades-old treaty that was focused on basic telecommunications, not the internet. Some proposals leaked to the WICITLeaks website from participating states could permit governments to justify censorship of legitimate speech — or even justify cutting off internet access by reference to amendments to the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs).

Cerf then urges us to remain vigilant against those in power corrupting one of the most invaluable advances in communications and freedom of expression in human history:

A state-controlled system of regulation is not only unnecessary, it would almost invariably raise costs and prices and interfere with the rapid and organic growth of the internet we have seen since its commercial emergence in the 1990s.

The net’s future is far from assured and history offers much warning. Within a few decades of Gutenberg’s creation, princes and priests moved to restrict the right to print books.

History is rife with examples of governments taking actions to “protect” their citizens from harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We must make sure, collectively, that the internet avoids a similar fate.

Indeed.

Let me reiterate something I feel is very important: the Internet is the single most important advancement in communications technology in the history of the human race. More important than the printing press, more important than radio and television.

Why? Because the Internet is the first human technology which allows worldwide dissemination of speech and ideas which is not controlled by the wealthy.

Before the Internet, if you wanted to speak beyond the reach of your own voice, if you wanted to deliver an idea beyond just the few people you have contact with, if you wanted to speak to more people than you could gather in a local public place—you had to beg at the feet of the Gatekeepers.

The Gatekeepers are the ones who used to control communication. They are the publishers and the regulators. They are the wealthy and empowered who controlled all means of publishing content. Want to write a book? Not unless we say so, and thanks, we’ll keep almost all the profits for ourselves. Want to speak over a network? Not unless you can make us big profits, or lend a popular or sympathetic face and voice to opinions we wish to propagate.

Much of this was justified by the expense of said networks. Publishing books and building broadcasting networks isn’t cheap, and the available resources were few. So there was not much complaint about the lack of freedom to communicate.

However, the Internet changed all that. This blog can be accessed worldwide—and I don’t have to pay much to publish it. I can write almost anything I want, within reasonable law, and within seconds, people in Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Israel can read it. I pay about $10 a year for the domain name, and maybe $100 a year for hosting; I could get cheaper pricing than that, or I could pay nothing and instead have a blog hosted by WordPress or some other blogging service.

This ability to speak to the world has never before existed.

That is a greatly unappreciated fact of the Internet: how it has opened the doors to potentially anyone in the world communicating with a large portion of humanity, openly, freely, instantly, and (usually) cheaply.

A freedom and availability that would be threatened if the ITU got what they wanted.

So pay no mind to the weeping billionaires and multinationals, or the angry dictators fearful of losing control. Disregard the claims of the super-rich telecoms crying poverty and claiming they only want to give fiber-optic to children in Africa. Ignore the claims of sock puppets for dictators that no one is trying to squelch freedom of expression. Recognize these for the obfuscation, distortions, and lies that they are.

And whenever possible, write to your legislatures: give the Internet to the Telecoms, we will vote you out. Threaten free speech over the Internet, and we will overthrow you. We have only just received this freedom, and we refuse to surrender it.

Sullivan quotes Philip Maugham:

[T]here is good reason, argues Philip Hensher, for such a paradoxical evaluation of our handwritten style: “We have surrendered our handwriting for something more mechanical, less distinctively human, less telling about ourselves and less present in our moments of the highest happiness and the deepest emotion,” he writes, while simultaneously recognising that “if someone we knew died, I think most of us would still write our letters of condolences on paper, with a pen.” Hensher’s new book The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting (And Why it Still Matters), rests on the argument that “ink runs in our veins, and tells the world what we are like”. Handwriting “registers our individuality, and the mark which our culture has made on us. It has been seen as the unknowing key to our souls and our innermost nature. It has been regarded as a sign of our health as a society, of our intelligence, and as an object of simplicity, grace, fantasy and beauty in its own right.”

I beg to differ. Handwriting is given status primarily because it was used for such a long time, and that was out of necessity, not preference. In that sense, it is like people preferring paper books over electronic media. As the modern alternatives push aside the old, those who prefer what they grew up with have a tendency to create ornate rationales as to why their outdated ways are superior, and bemoan their passing. I recall one person making similar claims about ebooks, saying that they lacked the “permanence” of books, in that electronic media is alterable. As if people often go about altering ebooks they read, or that it is impossible to alter printed material by reprinting it.

The fact is, handwriting is much more a chore than it is an art for most people. It can take years to learn and perfect, and many people never master it. And what art it may possess only exists because human beings have so imbued it. However, this art can be instilled far more effectively by the choice of phrasing than by the fact that it comes a little more directly from your hand.

Handwriting discriminates. It can be brilliant, artistic, illuminating— but only if you are skilled at it. Those who cannot master it as well are severely set back if handwriting is the only means of written communication. Their words, with value by themselves, are muddied by a discriminatory medium. Yes, the mastery of language use can also be discriminating—however, language use is at least necessary to communication. Handwriting is not.

Handwriting can also be a barrier to communication; no doubt you have encountered undecipherable scribbles, and have heard the almost clichéd stories of doctors’ unreadable scrawls. Instead of demanding that doctors learn penmanship, I would rather they spend more time learning how to be doctors, and use a keyboard to enter prescriptions.

Handwriting is the fashion industry of written communication: it is a superfluous and superficial art which can be expressive, but takes itself way too seriously. Just as the person who inhabits the outfit is far more important than the clothes themselves, the words and their meaning are what truly matter, the handwriting in which they are expressed being nothing but a decoration in comparison. And beneath the words, our feelings, choices and intent. Hensher’s conceit about expressing emotion is ill-considered, with the use of language itself towering over a lilt or a flourish of the pen. The worst handwriting in the world could be possessed by the most compassionate heart, articulating the most poignant or noble message. Handwriting can add a flair, but it can also rob us of expressiveness.

What it comes down to is the fact that the words, and the meanings they convey, constitute the soul of writing. Handwriting, in contrast, is almost frivolous. It is, in a sense, skin deep. Handwriting can add beauty, but barely any meaning. The great deal of time learning it can be better spent in other endeavors. Such as learning how to use words to express yourself—something that schools, ironically, have sometimes spent less time teaching kids than they have teaching them penmanship.

And what meaning it does add can be matched by fonts—perhaps even outmatched. Presidents and marketers alike choose fonts with great care to express their messages. Obama chose “Gotham,” a font reminiscent of city buildings, to express a sense of civil service, of community, of utility. Gotham is also sans-serif, a font category that implies a message of importance. His opponent in 2008, John McCain, chose Optima, a font associated with military service via its use in the Vietnam Memorial; this font was coupled with the use of a beveled nautical star, also with military connotations. Ironically—or perhaps not so—Optima is a “centrist” font, a sans-serif typeface which has hints of serifs. Romney, in the meantime, seems to have chosen a muddle of fonts which do not appear to have meaning directly relevant to his campaign—something telling to a designer. (Mitt’s team also seem to have forgotten that many fonts are not public domain.)

Each font has its meanings and associations. For example, I have done a good deal of hiring, and have found, in hindsight, that people who interviewed and later performed very well often had used Garamond as the primary typeface for their resumes. A humble yet elegant font, most people have it but almost never use it, and are unaware of how beautiful it can make a document look when used correctly.

Here’s the thing, though: with fonts, one can express a broad variety of associated meanings. With handwriting, you are more or less stuck with one style. While fonts can be easily learned and applied, handwriting takes great effort and practice, and yet is more limited in its ability to express specific messages.

Fonts are a great equalizer. They allow anyone to express through written language what only some can achieve by hand. Hensher’s implication that typography is “less human” is nothing but self-important hogwash. It’s like suggesting that one’s appearance is mechanistic and inhuman simply because you did not spend years learning how to make your own clothes. It’s like suggesting that it’s more human to make your own home or else you’re a soulless ant in a hive-like artifact, disregarding the fact that what happens within the home and what it represents to the people residing there has far more significance than the personalized shape of the moldings.

And signatures? Hah. I’ll be glad when they disappear. We’ll be far better off with biometric identification. In my job, I sometimes have to sign stacks of documents. I’m lucky if I can get a few signatures that really look the same. As a security measure, it sucks. I was at my bank a week or so ago, and had to sign a form. What followed was so absurd as to be almost comical: they told me the signature didn’t match well enough, so could I please add a little more to my first name? Oh, we need a dot above that “i.” And there should be a little hook at the bottom of that “P.”

Seriously. They spent about 5 minutes telling me how to forge my own signature.

No, handwriting is not some thing of unmatched beauty which is being crushed by robotic printouts robbing us of our humanity. Hensher says it is less mechanical, as if there is some inherent magic with piercingly specific meaning in slight variations in writing the letter “k.” He says typing is “less human”; well, so is driving a car over walking, and yet I bet Hensher thinks nothing of driving to the supermarket—also less “human” than a local family-run grocer. Or maybe I’m wrong, and the guy is Amish.

I will actually agree with him on one point: the use of handwriting in letters of condolence. But even that is more traditional than inherent, the current favor for such personal attention in crafting the letter being appreciated less for its intrinsic value than for its conventional meaning. When you think about it, such letters are actually less human than someone coming to you and delivering such a message in person. For those who desire permanence, electronic messages can be regarded as just as human, just as touching—for, as I stated earlier, the soul of a message is in the words chosen and their expression of human feelings and intent.

The only advantage I can see in handwriting is not from the art itself but from a by-product: the feeling of physical connection to the user. This paper with this message which I am holding right now was written by that person; it is a physical link which we, as humans, tend to appreciate.

But even that can be met almost fully with print—by printing the damned thing out. Sign it if you must, but still the paper comes from that person no less, was held in their hands and traveled to yours. Not as attractive for the traditionalists, perhaps—but this advantage, as far as I am concerned, pales before the advantages of “mechanical” text.

Tell me—were this blog post written by hand and scanned for display, would it be more meaningful? Or would you be just as likely to think, “Jeez, I’d rather not spend the extra effort to read his handwriting. Why didn’t he just type it?”

And if you think that print is less enthralling, then explain to me why literature is not considered some lifeless, inhuman art as a result of the fact that it is printed?

Handwriting, whether art or chore, is departing, and as far as I am concerned, mostly for the better.

A reader at Sullivan’s blog put it very succinctly:

The Ryan Medicare plan absolutely will effect people currently on Medicare. If you establish that in 10 years the Medicare risk pool will stop growing and start shrinking, you do damage to how the program works. First, you increase the risk in the pool and drive up cost by stopping younger healthier seniors from entering the plan. Second, as the pool shrinks Medicare looses [sic] power to dictate reimbursement rates. Doctors will begin not to accept Medicare patients because not only will the volume of patients no longer justify the low reimbursement rates, but those left in the pool will be older, sicker and more expensive to treat. The program that they say will be in place will not only become much more expensive to maintain then projected, but it will collapse on itself.

Let there be no doubt: that is their ultimate goal. Republicans have made it agonizingly clear over the years: they want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. Not reform, not preserve, not save. They want to fully eliminate these programs, preferably phasing them out by transitioning to private “programs” which will essentially be equal to people buying private-market pension and health care plans by themselves, with private industry skimming a 10 ~ 30% profit (which currently goes to benefits for the payer) right off the top, whilst being mostly unregulated and therefore much more easily able to raid the remaining investments.

The result will be that in the short run, seniors slowly notice their benefits collapsing, costing more and giving less. In the end, we’ll be back where we were 80 years ago: if you’re not wealthy, you’re going to get inferior health care–and even if you were able somehow to save money your entire life after well-paying jobs got shipped overseas and the conservatives lowered your salary to below-poverty levels by abolishing or neglecting the minimum wage, you are liable to lose whatever retirement savings you do have to financial skullduggery of one form or another by rich bankers.

Welcome to the 19th century, folks. Didn’t you know that conservatism is all about driving us backwards? It is right there on the label, after all.

ThinkProgress has this:

One of the principal weapons used by James Eagan Holmes in the horrific Dark Knight Rises shooting would have been subject to a series of sharp restrictions under the now-expired federal Assault Weapons ban. The AR-15 rife carried by Holmes, a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16, would have been defined as a “semiautomatic assault weapon” under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. If the law was still in force, semiautomatic assault weapons would have been outright banned…

I would like any schmuck who thinks it necessary to have such features as semi-automatic firing along with high-capacity magazines for “home defense” or “hunting” to go to each of the victims’ families and explain exactly why their loved ones had to die to protect the “fundamental right” for features such as those. Not that anyone should go bother those people literally, of course. But just compose, in your head, exactly how you would explain it. Then switch roles and see how you might think it would sound from the other end.

Sorry, but I just believe that reasonable limitations for public safety are not only necessary, but that striking them down or keeping them out of legislation in the first place is criminally irresponsible. I support the individual right to keep and bear arms, but not without the same type of limitations covering other rights: exceptions and requirements to protect the public safety. The old “your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins” rule is exercised everywhere else, but with guns there is some magical exception. Buying more than one gun a month, or more than two a year, for that matter, is not necessary to exercise your right to be armed. Buying semi-automatic rifles with 100-round magazines is not necessary to exercise your right to protect your home or to go hunting. Training, licensing, and registration would no more limit the right to keep and bear arms than it does the freedom to drive an automobile–and look at how many people drive. Just to name a few.

These and other reasonable restrictions would save lives. They would hamper criminals, and stop more than a few. And they would not stop any law-abiding citizen from arming themselves reasonably for home defense, hunting, or any other legitimate use for a firearm.

You want the right, you take on the responsibilities. This is human lives being taken, not to help protect your home, but to let people who get their jollies from extreme weaponry get their rocks off, and for companies who make and sell these weapons to rake in the profits. Forgive me, but this royally pisses me off. The debate on responsible and reasonable gun control has been all but ceded to the far right. This is simply part of what happens as a result.

In an asinine move, the gun-rights lobbies are even suggesting that we wait several weeks before discussing the gun control question publicly:

“When something like this happens, the anti-gun groups jump on this right away, immediately, and make all sorts of claims and statements,” said Tom King, president of the state Rifle and Pistol Association.

“This is a time for finding out what really happened and healing and dealing with this psychologically. The time for debate can come in two weeks, three weeks.”

Oh, thank you, Mr. King, for so kindly considering my psychological state. Ironic that they approve of a cooling-off period for talking, isn’t it? Not ironic at all, of course–they want people to forget about that reason why responsible gun control should exist. Now, however, is the perfect time to discuss the issue. And if the facts are not fully known regarding the current tragedy, we’ll do just fine reliving the many gun massacres from recent years.

Oh, and for any genius who might suggest that an armed audience would have been the right answer, just consider two things: the specter of dozens of panicking people firing away within a packed crowd in the darkness, and the fact that the killer was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Yeah, that would have turned out real well. Not to mention the fact that, even under normal conditions, I don’t like the idea that the asshole sitting right behind me kicking my seat from behind for two hours is also carrying a firearm.

For those who believe that after-the-fact punitive laws are sufficient enough for public safety, I think you have some funerals to attend. Not just soon, but continuously.

And one more thing: the first imbecile to bring up the “gun ban” straw man, either purposefully or because they didn’t read beyond the first few paragraphs, gets a healthy dose of richly-deserved invective. I promise.

A Tumblr page called “Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” run by someone calling herself “Rebecca,” asserts that it is “Taking down Baby Murderers with Logic!” It is, actually, a fairly representative look at the level of “logic” used by many, if not a majority, in the fundie pro-life community. This person seems to have, at the very least, a very shaky understanding of what exactly is involved in “logic” (not to mention an equally shaky understanding of color schemes in web design); her points are mostly emotional in nature, and when not, are, well, laughable. Here are some examples, from the most recent:

Pro-lifers care about ALL WOMEN, not just the born ones.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

A simple statement to a certain effect is not a fact, and the details of “caring” can include harsh treatment “for their own good.” In such cases, “caring” treatment may be something you would definitely want to avoid. Case in point: mandatory vaginal ultrasounds using a manually-operated wand. While an objective observer might call it a form of state-mandated rape, a pro-lifer may rationalize that it saves a woman from making a choice that could scar her emotionally, and since it saves the life of the fetus, it prevents her from becoming a murderer and going to hell. See how much we care? You’re welcome!

It’s funny that “women’s rights” suddenly end when sex-selective abortion comes into play.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

An assertion which only makes sense if one assumes that a fetus is a “woman,” which essentially means that for a pro-lifer, the debate on whether abortion is murder begins with the assumption that human life begins at conception.

Beyond that, this asserts that pro-choicers don’t care about whether abortion is used as a form of sex selection, which is also untrue. It is seen as a terrible abuse of the procedure, and is very worrisome to those concerned with women’s rights. While it is not seen as a women’s rights abuse against the fetus, it is seen as a greater abuse against the gender itself. It is possibly one of the only criteria under which pro-choicers would agree to restrict abortion–save for the fact that it would rely on people getting abortions to truthfully state their intended purpose, which they would not do if it prevented them from doing as they wished.

One may suppose that pro-lifers would then say that this is a reason to outlaw abortion in general, to prevent the minority abuse, but that is incorrect. Many parents value and treat daughters far worse than sons without resorting to physical abuse, also an affront to women’s rights–but we cannot legislate and end to that, and it would not make sense to make parenting in general illegal in order to stop it.

If your mothers had aborted you, there would be no abortion movement at all.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

This ignores the name of the movement: Pro-Choice, not Pro-Abortion. Ergo, change the assertion to “If your mothers had been given a choice whether or not to abort you, …” and it falls apart, as they obviously did choose not to abort. If the argument is saying that abortion would be 100% amongst people who believed in pro-choice, it would not keep children of pro-lifers from being pro-choice. If the argument is against every mother having an abortion (which is the assertion made in an earlier post), then there would be no pro-life movement, either–the race would end after a generation. This demonstrates another incorrect assumption by pro-lifers: that people who are pro-choice want every woman to have an abortion every time they get pregnant.

If you cared so much about women, where were your Pre-Roe Crisis Pregnancy Centers?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Since the term “Crisis Pregnancy Center” refers to a pro-life organization trying to persuade, trick, cajole, or frighten women into not having an abortion (usually presenting false information as a means to do so), this question bizarrely seems to be an attack against pro-lifers, not pro-choicers. Indeed, if you cared so much about women, pro-lifers, where were your Crisis Pregnancy Centers before Roe v. Wade?

Casey Anthony was just making a choice about her family and her life. She just wasn’t ready to be a mother, and she made a mistake. Oh wait, she’s in jail for that.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Again, it assumes an equivalency between abortion and child murder, in effect that a pre-requisite for any debate is to first accept the pro-life assertions as inarguable fact.

If you have time to have sex, then you have time to get a job and support your new baby.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Really? Fifteen minutes a day (assuming daily sex of moderate length) is enough time to work and support a child? These people must be organizational geniuses. Either that, or they think that pro-choicers spend ten to twelve hours a day having sex.

I don’t hear you complaining about Christian principles making the murder of teenagers illegal.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

First of all, exactly which Christian principles would specifically refer to teenagers? At the very least, this is oddly worded. But, once again, it starts from the assumption that abortion and the murder of born human beings is equivalent. From here, I’ll ignore all “arguments” based on this fallacy (which is a good number of the total posts).

If abortion is as normal and acceptable as you claim, why are there so few movies and TV shows that show it?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Same reason why there are so few TV shows which display live birth in detail. Unless the contention is why more TV shows and movies don’t deal with the general idea of abortion, in which case it is because mainstream entertainment tends to shy away from issues that would normally receive vehement protest from any significant segment of society, whether it is a minority or not. Which is one reason why not many TV shows depict the Prophet Muhammed. This question may as well ask, “If abortion is as normal and acceptable as you claim, why are there so few pro-lifers which accept it?”

Mary was a 12-year-old single mother who didn’t decide to have sex. She chose life.
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

First of all, I am beginning to wonder if this person actually understands what the word “checkmate” means.

Presumably, this refers to the biblical Mary, mother of Jesus. I’m sure that in this person’s mind, this somehow argues for the pro-life side. Ironically, however, it makes the case for choice. Mary, after all, chose to give birth, right? That’s what this person is saying. Possibly, this person does not even understand the meaning of the word “choose.”

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They go on and on like this. “We used to think it was okay to burn people at the stake. We learned our lesson. Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” Hunh?

One of my favorites: “Steve Jobs’ mom didn’t want him, but he invented computers. Checkmate, Pro-Choicers!” Yeah, Steve Jobs invented computers.

As every single assertion this person makes has at least one glaring logical flaw and/or false assertion, and most of them betray a breathtaking misunderstanding of what “winning an argument” means, this could end up being a very long post. Suffice it to say that they’re pretty much all like this.

I’ll just end with this one, because it speaks to the heart of the whole debate:

If a “zygote” is not a person at conception, but a baby is at birth, when does the magic Personhood Fairy come along?
Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

Indeed. That is the very question at the heart of the debate, and one which cannot be objectively answered. Conception is just as “magic” a delineation as any other.

And this is what, ironically, makes abortion, at its core, a First Amendment issue–not one of privacy (though that also applies), but of religious choice. Deciding when human life begins before the fetus is fully developed is, in a very real way, a matter of faith. One has the personal freedom to choose what one believes; since whether abortion is murder or not is a matter of personal belief, it must be a choice made by the individual, as a matter of religious freedom.

People like this want to impose their own religious beliefs on everyone, a direct violation of religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. But for people like this, “religious freedom” means “the freedom to believe what we tell you to believe.”

Hans Rosling on how birth rates are connected not to religion, but to economic status–and that we have achieved “Peak Baby,” and the world’s population will peak at 10 billion people and not more. A fantastic lecture, a great animated chart. Well worth watching.

Also really good: author and creator of the Rhapsody music service Rob Reid shows up the ludicrously insane “copyright math” which media industries dream up to show how they are robbed of far more value than they actually have. I love the part about how, according to the industry’s numbers, minus 58,000 people work in the entertainment industries as a result of piracy. This is alarming indeed.

With all the “furor” over breastfeeding, I figured it would be appropriate to re-post this image from 2006:

Frankly, I think people freak out over this way too much. Seriously, we can send troops overseas, have them fight and kill and die, but we can’t handle moms feeding their kids. For crying out loud, get a grip.

New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp recently took the brunt of another political hit job by the tastelessly liberal Hustler magazine, which criticized her politics and suggested “shutting her up” with male genitalia, and provided photoshopped artwork to that effect.

There is now a big fuss about it, mostly driven by the conservative media, which has been making a larger charge against both the mainstream media and against society at large: why is there only outrage against misogyny when it is directed against liberal women, but not when conservative women are the target?

That’s because incidents like this happen with such frequency and casualness that it’s clear people think there won’t be any pushback if they attack a conservative woman. Back in 2008, when some idiot hecklers shouted “Iron My Shirt” to Hillary Clinton, we talked about sexism for three days. But, like Weigel pointed out, no one at the AFL-CIO even thought twice about not only GETTING a piñata with Nikki Haley’s face on it or hitting said piñata, but similarly had no problem recording the event and UPLOADING IT TO YOUTUBE. If you do something sexist against a liberal, expect a firestorm. If you do something sexist (or pseudo-violent) against a conservative, well, they had it coming.

Right off the bat, this particular argument falls apart: the piñata incident, while tasteless, had nothing to do with gender. The target could just as easily have been a man.

This is either a blind spot with conservatives or it’s a hypocritical oversight: sexism and racism are not when you attack an individual for a reason unrelated to gender or race. Right-wingers seem to think that just opposing a female candidate on her politics is sexist, or blocking a judge on his rulings when he is Hispanic is racist–if said target is conservative, of course.

They apparently do not understand that sexism is when you attack someone because of their gender, or the attack is against the gender itself.

The “Iron My Shirt” incident, for that reason, was sexist: it was a reaction to a woman running for the presidency, and was essentially a symbolic slap in the face against women in general. If the sign had said, “Cut My Taxes,” or even, “Go Home, Idiot” it would not be sexism, as there would be no apparent relation to gender. People have expressed hatred and even symbolic violence against Hillary in the past without it being linked to sexism.

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So, why is there no outcry against the Cupp photo?

Well, first of all, there is outcry against the image, especially in the conservative media. Why not from the left? Um… actually, people on the left are decrying the image. Even Rachael Larimore, who wrote the piece quoted above, took note that Planned Parenthood, the Women’s Media Center, and Sandra Fluke have all condemned the photo. So, what do they want? Every last liberal to shout it from the rooftops? They condemn the lack of coverage–but that charge falls short since all the coverage they provide itself ignores the left-wing outcry.

Second, the source is laughable: it’s Hustler magazine. If they published a similar image of a left-wing female politician, there probably wouldn’t be much outcry there, either. Not every act of misogyny creates a national public debate, only ones that come across as significant. Larry Flynt being an ass doesn’t rate that, any more than do countless right-wing imbeciles in the yahoo gallery doing crap which is just as vile and idiotic.

Which leads to point number three: the visibility of the target. After all, who is S.E. Cupp? If I have seen her before on some news show as a commentator, I don’t remember it. It’s not exactly realistic to expect the media to erupt in a furor every time a second-tier talking head gets snarked by a porno rag.

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However, none of that is the central point here. In fact, misogyny is the issue, but not misogyny against conservative women. The fact is, conservatives in general don’t give a crap about misogyny. How do we know? Imagine the Hustler thing was about Hillary instead of Cupp. Would they be outraged? Hardly. They would probably chuckle over it, and stand ready to castigate any liberal or feminist group that complained. Which means they don’t care about the misogyny, they are instead complaining about the political outcome of misogyny.

But it goes much further than that: it stark opportunism, pure and simple. The recent stir regarding contraception has given Republicans a black eye and made them look bad to women. Republicans in Congress tried to deny coverage of contraception; they refused to hear from women, and instead held a women’s health hearing with an all-male panel, which appeared condescending and dismissive. After Fluke spoke later, Rush Limbaugh called her a slut and a whore, repeatedly. All kinds of other stuff happened on periphery, like the aspirin-between-the-knees remarks.

So now, right-wingers are smarting from that, and they need a way to fight back. They cannot actually come out for women on any substantial issues, of course. So this is their answer.

The Cupp story works for them well: they get to play the victim. They get false equivalency, creating the impression that sexism is equally bad on the left and the right (as if Larry Flynt were equal to Congressional Republicans, Rush Limbaugh, and many other representatives of conservatism). They get to act like misogyny happens against them even more by suggesting that it is simply dismissed and under-reported. They get to paint liberals as hypocrites.

But mostly, they get to act like the whole contraception thing never happened. Like Dan Rather’s error in reporting on a bogus memo meant that George W. Bush got excused for having gone AWOL.

In truth, most of these people probably don’t give a crap about what happened to Cupp–but it’s too good as a political weapon to pass up.

Nor is it just this case; most right-wing cries about sexism are similarly opportunistic. Remember the furor about Sarah Palin and the jogging-suit photos on Newsweek? That did get a lot of coverage, in part because women’s groups did not jump to Palin’s defense. But then again, they had good reason not to: the charge of sexism was petty and weak. Palin had intentionally posed for the photos ; she had chosen the outfit and the setting herself, but expressed outrage when the photos were used. It made no sense. Had Newsweek done something that was actually sexist regarding Palin, NOW and other groups probably would have come out on her side. As it was, the whole incident was more of an attempt to attack groups like NOW, so no wonder they did not chime in.

However, the Newsweek story shows that the whole claim by the right wing is false: the media does pay attention to sexism when it is levied against conservatives; the Slate piece by Rachael Larimore quoted at the top is poorly reasoned, providing poor support and a lack of objectivity. Outrage over “Iron My Shirt” is not equal to the Haley incident, it is more akin to incidents involving Palin. Neither is the Cupp incident equivalent to Fluke.

And yet, despite the rampant opportunism displayed by conservatives in regard to these kinds of stories, the media and the public at large still does treat misogyny against conservative women with equal regard. It’s just that significant acts of misogyny usually go the other way.

The media is atwitter again, this time over a newly released photo reportedly showing blood and a wound on the back of George Zimmerman’s head just minutes after he shot Trayvon Martin.

Many of the stories, especially from the conservative media, call the photo a “game changer” and suggest that it could help Zimmerman’s case. A few more responsible reports cautiously remind people that the photos might not mean what people think, and no reports I have seen take any note that the photos may not even be genuine.

An observer who does not think very long or deeply may jump to the conclusion: hey, Zimmerman was telling the truth, so these photos exonerate him. He’s innocent.

However, there are several problems, the last one being the clincher.

Problem #1: where did the photo come from? ABC News, which released it, says that the source wishes to remain anonymous and was very reluctant to release it. That a source may wish to remain anonymous is understandable for that person in a case like this. However, if this photo is to be treated as evidence, the identity of the source is crucial.

ABC claims that the image came from a witness who heard the incident but did not see it, and arrived at the scene just after the shots were fired. Reportedly, there are other photos ABC did not acquire or release. Lacking a specific identification of the source, however, verification of the photo is problematic at best.

Amusingly, conservative sites which, just a few days ago, were treating ABC as completely unreliable, are now taking their claims as rock-solid evidence.

Problem #2: how do we know the photo is genuine? ABC News said that they checked the “embedded” data, meaning the EXIF data. EXIF data is information attached to a digital image file which specifies most if not all of the information available about the image and the device which produced it. EXIF data includes a time stamp, GPS coordinates, identification of the camera and its settings for the photos, and technical information about the image. It is assumed that if the EXIF data shows that the photo was taken at the scene of the killing at the time one would expect, then that would assure us of the image’s veracity.

The problem is that, like any digital information, EXIF data can be altered and falsified. It is not a smoking gun, so to speak. Instead, a critical question is, when, if ever, did police take possession of the image? If they took the cell phone (reportedly an iPhone) at the scene on that night and checked it into evidence, then the data would be more trustworthy. If the police did not take possession of the device immediately, then grave questions arise over the data’s authenticity.

In this case, it seems apparent, though not specified, that the police did not take possession of the device. For one thing, the source, presumably a private individual, had possession of the images; if police had taken the device at the scene, the owner may have received it back, but almost certainly would not have received the images back with it. Second, when the prosecution filed its case, they cited that “Zimmerman’s wounds are not apparent,” which indicates they did not have this photo even as recently as a week or two ago. Other reports have the prosecution saying they have “seen the photo,” but did not specify if it was before or after the charges were filed; if before, then their affidavit claiming no visible wounds would be very problematic to their case.

That means that the owner of the image did not submit the image to the police, or that the police did not accept or log the information. Worse, it means that the chain of evidence is broken, and that the image was “in the wild” for more than a month–more than long enough for the image to be very cleverly faked. For example, Zimmerman could have posed somewhere with the exact same jacket and had the blood applied, then the EXIF data altered. It is not likely, but it is possible. If the data was not handed over quickly, this could raise serious doubts.

Problem #3: pieces that don’t fit. Certainly Zimmerman must have known the photos existed. Over all that time that people were claiming no images existed, why not mention that someone at the scene snapped the photos? Zimmerman probably consented to the photo being taken, and may even have requested it, which might mean he knew or came to know the photographer. Almost certainly he knew they had been taken. Why not get the images and release them himself?

For that matter, although the photographer’s desire for anonymity is understandable, why on earth would s/he be reluctant to release the photos? Any responsible person would have at least tried to hand them over to police. A very responsible person would have done so at the scene, a slightly less responsible one later, probably after they had downloaded copies for themselves. But to keep them until this late date? For what reason?

The witness also reportedly claimed to have seen gunpowder burns on Trayvon Martin’s hoodie. This seems oddly specific–an unusual thing to notice and comment on. Most laymen would not necessarily recognize such a thing, and may not even be qualified to make that conclusion. Was the person trying to say more about this and ABC truncated the statement? Not to mention, would not have blood around the wound occluded any such marks to a casual observer, or even if photographic evidence existed? Is Trayvon’s hoodie still in evidence? Examination would, of course, be revealing as to distance and so forth.

Next comes the photo itself. It would appear to show a wound on the right side of the head, apparently the source of the lower and rightmost of the two evident blood streams.

However, there is another blood stream to the left of that with no apparent source. Even stranger, the blood in this area appears cut off in what seems to be a void, as if something had been covering Zimmerman’s head. The line appears too sharp for it to have been cleaned off, and there is no visible wound to explain where the blood came from. This would suggest that the blood came from an outside source, most likely Trayvon. This would seem to confirm that Martin was on top of Zimmerman when the shooting occurred. However, this puts into question the source of the other blood stream as well.

Additionally, the void is strangely located, near the crown of the head; a hat would not explain this, unless it was moved forward so as almost to cover the face. What created the void, if that’s what it is?

Then there is the question of how the blood is arranged, and if it is consistent with having one’s head slammed into the concrete several times. A blood expert would certainly have to examine the patterns and all other evidence to suggest how this whole pattern came to be.

Finally, ABC did not release the actual image file; no one aside from them and the authorities are able to examine the image clearly. What is apparent from ABC screen grabs is not enough to thoroughly check for telltale signs of manipulation or other possible distortions.

Problem #4: and this is the clincher–the image is not relevant to Zimmerman’s innocence or guilt. This is the major misconception going around, mainly due to the fact that evidence of Zimmerman’s wounds has been a central point of argument concerning the case. People make the mistaken assumption that evidence of a struggle is the key to the whole case, and if this photo is genuine, that exonerates Zimmerman.

What people fail to realize is that the evidence of wounds was a question, not a key point, concerning Zimmerman’s story. He claimed to have been beaten half to death, yet did not show the signs of it. It was only an inconsistency, however–it was never the crux of the case, never the piece of evidence upon which his innocence or guilt hinged.

If the image is authentic and we find that Trayvon did indeed injure Zimmerman, it only dismisses the supposition that Zimmerman lied about that detail only.

The key elements in the case remain: (1) who instigated the altercation, being relevant to the “stand your ground” defense; and (2) did Zimmerman have justification to use deadly force? Head wounds or not, a bloody scuffle is not justification for shooting someone to death.

The photo answers neither of these questions. If authentic, it may help Zimmerman in his case before the general public and the media, but not in a court of law.

The recent case of Trayvon Martin brought an interesting parallel to my attention: that of Yoshi Hattori, the young Japanese exchange student shot and killed by a Baton Rouge homeowner who mistook him for an intruder. In both cases, the victim was an innocent young man. In both cases, there was a state law on the books giving ordinary gun owners permission to shoot people they believed to be criminals. In both cases, there was a media firestorm which failed to give fully accurate descriptions of the events in question.

However, in both cases, the most significant factor, at least to my reckoning, was that the men who wielded the guns failed to act responsibly. Neither did what they were supposed to do. Rodney Peairs, the man who shot Yoshi Hattori, had a right to defend his home–but he violated that precept when he unnecessarily stepped outside his home to actively confront the “intruders.” No matter how it played out in terms of specifics, George Zimmerman made the same error: instead of holding back and allowing trained professionals to do their job, he pursued Martin, and Martin is now dead as a result. In both cases, the men with guns felt the necessity to confront the people they felt threatened by, no doubt emboldened by the possession of their weapons.

Every right comes with a responsibility. We have a grave misperception about the “right” to bear arms, that this right comes with little or no obligation to that responsibility, save for after the fact. Even for something as mundane as driving a car, we require a person to be well-trained and to pass a specified test. After being licensed, the driver must register their vehicles, and maintain the licensing and registration for as long as they own and operate them. The right to travel freely is held even more sacredly than that of the right to own and carry a gun, and yet no one seems to mind the trouble we are required to go to with car ownership.

Suggest that the same level of training and registration be necessary for firearms–devices inherently far more dangerous, devices designed to kill people–and gun advocates start acting like you’re some kind of fascist or something.

Peairs and Zimmerman both owned guns, and they both assumed a right to step beyond their own bounds and confront people they believed to be criminals. That is an explosive combination that will result in the deaths of innocent people. Peairs required no training to be armed in his home; Zimmerman only needed to take a few hours of gun safety courses before he was allowed to walk the streets armed. If either received training which firmly emphasized that they retreat from confrontation instead of seek it out, it certainly did not take.

In my mind, Zimmerman is guilty. Not because I know how the specifics played out, that Martin did not assault him, or anything else. Instead, it was because Zimmerman was the one holding a gun, he did not need to pursue Martin (the 911 call made that clear), and so he bore responsibility.

I blogged extensively on the Yoshi Hattori case back in 2003 because I felt that it had been wildly misrepresented in the media. Some commenters took issue with me because they assumed that I did not hold Peairs responsible for the shooting death of Hattori. This is because I represented the case realistically, and in detail, from Peairs’ point of view, making it clear how he believed that he and his family were actually in jeopardy, and even out in the carport, how he believed that he had given fair warning and had reason to believe the person approaching him was criminal in nature. Nevertheless, I made the strong point that Peairs was fully responsible, and that responsibility stemmed from his decision to open his door, step outside, and confront people he thought were criminals. The moment he did so, he sealed his fate, and bore responsibility for what ensued. The right thing to do would have been to make sure the doors and windows were locked, maintain vigil within the house, and wait for trained professionals to arrive.

There are reasons why they are trained: it is not a trivial matter to confront possible suspects with arms. Police train quite seriously to make that decision responsibly; ordinary citizens cannot be expected to act with the same level of judgment, no matter what they believe themselves capable of. By taking a minimal NRA gun course (which may have had little more than target practice and instruction in safe handling and cleaning of firearms), Zimmerman gained the ability to carry a concealed weapon. As for being a “neighborhood watch captain,” it was only because he was the only one to volunteer. However, his “neighborhood watch” was not one of the thousands of official watch groups or police-trained watch organizations which require background checks, interviews, and 60 hours of training–all of which require strict adherence to rules. Zimmerman, with an apparent checkered past in terms of his temper and work in security, was apparently just waved in to that position by a certain number of neighbors.

This is fully legal, though. And that’s a big part of the problem: as a society which venerates gun rights over safety, we allow and even encourage this idiocy.

We have states where legislatures pass laws which allow people to be armed in bars. I mean, really, how stupid can you get? Pass a law which specifically says that you can go to an establishment which sells an intoxicant which impairs your judgment, and carry a lethal weapon while you’re at it? What, was there are shortage of armed drunks somewhere? What possible reason could there be for such idiocy? The same bars are probably required to take measures to make sure that you do not go out and drive drunk–but the lawmakers thought it wise to encourage the same people to go armed?

This is indicative of a culture which believes that gun possession and use are sacrosanct, and believe there should be no barriers whatsoever to that right.

There is a legal right to keep and bear arms. I strongly hold that this right is not enshrined in the Second Amendment, as is widely believed, but in the Ninth Amendment. However, where the right is written matters little. What matters is that no right comes without responsibility. You may wield rights, but not to the point where they infringe upon the rights of others. And to let a virtually untrained random citizen go on the streets armed thinking he’s some kind of vigilante cop is, almost by definition, a violation of the rights of all people who walk those streets, as their lives are in danger–far more than if an unlicensed driver got behind the wheel of an SUV and drove around your neighborhood. You would feel extremely nervous if you knew that were happening–why not the same with untrained people carrying arms around? Especially when the person carrying the gun is more likely than usual to have a sense of vigilantism and an inflated perception of his judgment in using his firearm.

Anyone who wants to buy a gun for home protection should be required to take at the very least a gun safety course, to store the weapon safely, and keep licensed and registered all weapons in their possession (spare me the “what if a new Hitler rises” bullshit). Anyone wishing to leave their home armed should be required to take extensive training and testing designed specifically for that purpose (not minimal generic safety courses), at the very least as much as is done with cars.

As for Zimmerman, he bore responsibility the moment he walked out with a gun and decided to confront the stranger he saw. He claims that he did not confront, but was blindsided by Martin–an incredible unlikelihood considering what we know, and a story that sounds like it was suggested by a family attorney familiar with the stand-your-ground law more than it was an accurate and truthful telling of how events unfolded that night.

Like Peairs, Zimmerman armed himself and then went out to find bad guys despite having no training qualifying him to do so. In my mind, that is what makes him guilty in the most general sense.

If you carry a weapon, then you must answer to a higher level of responsibility.

I’ll get to the new iPad review soon, but before that, I just wanted to say a few things about Apple and Foxconn.

It turns out, according to new reports today, that most of the outrageous abuses people have believed about Apple have been largely fabricated.

Now, over the past several months, there has been a great deal of attention focused on Foxconn, a contractor for many electronics firms, including Apple. It started with what was reported to be a cluster of suicides a few years ago. People were outraged; surely this was a result of oppressive conditions at the plant, an impression fueled by the general image of Asian factories being inhumane sweatshops with workplace conditions right out of the industrial-revolution era.

Added to that was a case of “Apple Outrage,” generally resentment from detractors of Apple, who, annoyed by the computer giant’s good press, enjoy jumping on any of its faults. The story was further driven by a media which loved the ironic contrast of the popular consumer-friendly company, run by a supposedly spiritually-tuned Steve Jobs, hiding potentially dark, cruel secrets.

In short, it got attention. At the time, the suicide “cluster” was more easily explained; on the story, I wrote:

Since then, there has been a lot of focus on Foxconn and suicides. Many are reporting a “cluster” of suicides, insinuating that Apple’s secretive nature is somehow linked to an oppressive work environment at the contractor. Note this Huffington Post article titled “Apple Supplier Foxconn Reports Eighth Suicide THIS YEAR,” with “THIS YEAR” in all caps, as if it is a shocking number. That sets the tone for the article, which, typical for articles like this, otherwise insinuates a shadowy, oppressive, iron-fisted horror chamber with Apple somehow tied in.

Terrible, right? Apple’s policies are killing these poor, oppressed workers, we’re led to believe. Except that, as stated above, Apple is just one of their clients; why put “Apple Supplier” at the start of the headline? And in fact, instead of the suicides being a sign of terrible stress, the opposite may actually be true. A few more responsible writers actually looked at the larger context and applied the Chinese national suicide rate–13.0 per 100,000 for men, 14.9 for women–and found that for the 300,000 workers at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant, there should be between 39 and 43 suicides per year. So by now, by mid-year, we should have seen about 20 suicides at the plant so far. Instead there have been 8. In that context, one can hardly make an argument about workers being horribly oppressed.

So the attention is not new–but it did flare recently. One thing that made it flare up were visuals–Foxconn installed nets to deter people from jumping off the tops of buildings, adding to the false impression that it was practically raining employees. More irony, with art this time–the media loved it.

But another thing that made people irate were the reports of horrible abuses. There’s a guy named Mike Daisey who does a stage show called The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, who re-ignited the controversy by reporting on his trip to China, where he claims to have met with workers and saw first-hand the crippling effects of employer abuse–this is from Ed Schultz’s show:

SCHULTZ: We are joined tonight Mike Daisey. Great to have you with us. His monologue called “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” And it’s performed at the public theater in New York City. For 18 months you have been doing this, 19 cities across the world. First of all, I’m intrigued, congratulations. I have not seen your performance, but you come to us tonight with absolute rave reviews. I’ve talked to people who have seen you. And you just sit down at the desk and you tell it like it is about what you saw in China. And I’m intrigued what motivated you to do that?

DAISEY: I have always loved technology. I have loved Apple, actually. I loved the devices. And I knew a lot about them, because I’m kind of a tech geek that way. I realized on day that I didn’t actually know — I knew how to take my computer apart, but I didn’t know how it had actually been made. And I started researching it. And a lot of these stories that are coming out now, human rights groups have been reporting on them for the better part of a decade. So none of this is actually controversial. This is actually how things are done across the electronics industry. So I felt compelled to go to China and actually dig in the story.

SCHULTZ: And you went there in 2010, correct?

DAISEY: Yes.

SCHULTZ: OK. What did you see?

DAISEY: I saw all the things that everyone has been reporting on. I saw under-age workers. I talked to workers who were 13, 14, 15 years old. I met people whose hands have been destroyed from doing the same motion again and again on the line, carpal tunnel on a scale we can hardly imagine.

SCHULTZ: Making Apple products?

DAISEY: Yes. And making products across the electronics industry. All our electronics are made in this fashion.

…

SCHULTZ: What do these people get paid in China to do this? What does Apple pay them? I mean, this is all about cheap labor, isn’t it?

DAISEY: It is. Cheap labor is the engine that fuels this entire enterprise. It should be said that there is a different standard of living. And it’s one of the reasons that all this industry goes to the area. That said, it’s still true that the amount people are being paid is low enough that they feel like they need to work that incredibly excessive amount of overtime. And then they’re practically required to do it until they drive themselves into the ground.

Daisey went all over the media, spreading this story. Telling people about how workers were being crippled regularly because of the unsafe conditions, driven into the ground by forced shifts lasting more than a day. He told of one worker who, while Daisey was in China, worked a 34 hour shift until he died. He painted a picture where people were being driven to kill themselves over the horrific conditions.

This created a furor, sparking protests against Apple. However, it didn’t exactly ring true to me, mostly for the same reason the suicide story did not. I not only remembered that, but I also remember two times in my own experience where there were union actions against different places where I worked, and the claims made by disgruntled workers were, for the most part, a concoction of wild accusations, specious rumors, and speculation based upon the worst imagined conditions, but then expressed as the gospel truth. The kernel of truth tends to get buried beneath all of the hyperbole. So I know that things can get distorted even more than Steve Jobs himself was capable of.

In addition, Apple has not been–contrary to rumor–either complicit in nor apathetic about such matters. For years, Apple has performed their own checks on contractors to make sure they are not committing worker abuses, and they have made these reports public, even though they are often used to unfairly vilify Apple.

This also irritated me about Daisey’s claims–he said that he was glad that Apple is “actually starting to react,” when it had been working to stem any such abuses for years, a fact Daisey either didn’t know about or didn’t care to look up.

When a co-worker brought up these issues with me and asked my opinion (knowing my affinity for Apple products), I said what I felt: that probably Apple was taking advantage of cheap labor and that the workload and conditions would be ones we ourselves would not enjoy… but that most of the accusations being made were likely not true. I figured that this guy Daisey was predisposed to believe the worst, took at face value everything that he was told–and then exaggerated further for effect, being so passionate about it.

What I did not know is what was just revealed by a journalist, who, with the producer of This American Life, confronted Daisey on his reports. The show that broadcast Daisey’s account has now retracted their episode because Daisey was making most of this crap up:

Cathy Lee, Daisey’s translator in Shenzhen, was with Daisey at this meeting in Shenzhen. I met her in the exact place she took Daisey—the gates of Foxconn. So I asked her: “Did you meet people who fit this description?”

“No,” she said.

“So there was nobody who said they were poisoned by hexane?” I continued.

Lee’s answer was the same: “No. Nobody mentioned the Hexane.”

I pressed Cathy to confirm other key details that Daisey reported. Did the guards have guns when you came here with Mike Daisey? With each question I got the same answer from Lee. “No,” or “This is not true.”

Daisey claims he met underage workers at Foxconn. He says he talked to a man whose hand was twisted into a claw from making iPads. He describes visiting factory dorm rooms with beds stacked to the ceiling. But Cathy says none of this happened.

When confronted with all of this, Daisey pulled a Limbaugh, claiming to be an entertainer and not a journalist:

“Look. I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard. But I stand behind the work,” Daisey said. “My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism. And it’s not journalism. It’s theater.”

Yes, I am sure that he regrets it now that he is completely disgraced. I am sure that he did not make the rather cold calculation that if he presented it as “theater,” then he would not have received a millionth of the attention that he did.

And I am sure we can take him at his word now, when he tells us that he “stands behind his work.” A galling claim, considering how much he lied, and in the midst of that lying, he accused Apple of dishonestly influencing a labor group who were investigating the Foxconn plant.

Worse, calling it “theater” when he made the direct claim, on news shows, not at all “in character,” after having been introduced as “telling it like it is,” as a factual report of what he personally saw… that’s not theater, that is out-and-out fraud.

How did he defend that? Like this:

Rob Schmitz: Cathy says you did not talk to workers who were poisoned with hexane.

Mike Daisey: That’s correct.

RS: So you lied about that? That wasn’t what you saw?

MD: I wouldn’t express it that way.

RS: How would you express it?

MD: I would say that I wanted to tell a story that captured the totality of my trip.

Ira Glass: Did you meet workers like that? Or did you just read about the issue?

MD: I met workers in, um, Hong Kong, going to Apple protests who had not been poisoned by hexane but had known people who had been, and it was a constant conversation among those workers.

IG: So you didn’t meet an actual worker who’d been poisoned by hexane.

MD: That’s correct.

So he meets some disgruntled workers who tell second-hand tales about people they heard about who were poisoned by chemicals, and believes that it is OK to represent this by telling that he himself saw these people firsthand.

Frankly, Apple should sue the crap out of this liar and give every penny he dishonestly earned spreading those lies to Foxconn employees.

Because, in the end, this is not about Apple using Foxconn workers for they enrichment–it was Daisey who was doing exactly that. He used them to sell his one-man show, to gain fame and fortune.

Once again, this does not mean that there are none or never have been any abuses. There may be–but we don’t know. Apple may be bullshitting us as badly as Daisey was–but we have no evidence to support that. Workers at Foxconn may be abused and oppressed–but we have nothing but rumors, mostly now discredited thanks to Daisey, to back up that suspicion.

Foxconn could just as well be what they present themselves as being–an above-average workplace for China, treating its workers as well as can be expected, in conditions that the workers find appealing enough to apply for jobs in massive numbers. Again, we just don’t know for sure. There’s no convincing evidence either way.

So take it for what you will.