BiddiesInMyBrain

Cyber Bullying by the Memphis Police Department

Check out this article about the Memphis Police Department's attempt to crack down on a website that is critical of the police director, MPD policies and staff. The City has actually joined in on this and filed suit to find out who the anonymous blogger is behind the site, which, while admittedly edgy, does not use data other than what is available through anything but the public record or the rumor mill in the MPD. (the blogger's site can be found here). Can anyone say First Amendment?? Just because Larry Godwin doesn't like what is being said about him and about his force does not mean that he can file suit to shut down a website which is saying things that are legal (though sometimes in bad taste... the Asshole of the Month thing is a little borderline, but I see where it's coming from).

Meanwhile, the main blogger, who posts under the amusing name Dirk Diggler, has retained an attorney, Paul Levy, who is part of a Washington DC-area group called Public Citizen Litigation Group, and he is seeking to quash the attempts by the MPD to obtain the name(s) of the bloggers - and to find the legal basis for the Director Godwin's witchhunt. (read more here and another good one here at the Memphis Flyer)

This is nothing more than another example of how the top administration in this city has collectively gone plumb out of its cotton-pickin' mind. Power plays by Hizzoner the Mayor Willie Herenton over the Superintendency of the School Board, the City Council's petulant move to cut funding for the City Schools, the ongoing fraud investigations (and convictions) within upper echelons, and now this... it really makes me wonder what on earth they think they are doing up there in their marble towers. They aren't living in the real world, and they see threats where there aren't any.

And now they are attempting to shut down a vital section of the internet simply because they can't take the heat from some anonymous blogger who believes a little honesty in public service is a good thing. Larry, you've really gone over the top... I believe our police force - the men and women who patrol our neighborhood - are decent, honest people; I have met many, many of them by stopping them on my street and chatting for a moment while they are on patrol. They are friendly, helpful and kind when needed... and they do their job well in an area where solid policing is a necessity. But I just don't know about the upper echelons. Some of the people I have worked with - Sgts, Lieuts... even a Captain or two - have been overwhelmingly responsive to the needs of the community. But there are clearly some bad eggs... and I am now wondering seriously if that bad policing doesn't start with the top. Certainly this boneheaded move does not speak well of the good judgement we expect from officers... and bespeaks of vendettas and personal feelings getting in the way of being bigger and better than the words on the screen.

This smells like a rat... and bloggers everywhere should be paying close attention to what is happening here in Memphis. Such an unlikely venue... yet the repercussions of the decisions that come out of this case could have a chilling effect on all of us.

I'll try to update as often as I can about it... but in the meantime, please make sure to be vigilant, too. This is nothing to sneeze at. Larry Godwin and the City of Memphis are dead serious in this threat - and we should be dead serious about opposing it.

What a chilling state of affairs for us all.

ADDENDUM: Thanks, Ms. Theologian, for pointing out this website: cyberSLAPP, which deals with frivolous suits of this type that threaten to chill the internet's basis in free speech and the right to anonymity.

::chuckle::

I guess we've been married long enough that anniversaries are a bit passe; the 17th wedding anniversary of our civil ceremony was on Wednesday and we utterly forgot until late last night, in the middle of a trivia game with friends. We were a bit chagrined, to say the least. I mean - I forget these things all the time - I have forgotten my own birthday (though it happens less now that I have a Palm)... but our anniverary? Somehow I missed entering that into Outlook or something and I didn't get a reminder, and the French exam completely flummoxed me. In my defense, I remembered it last Friday. ::chuckle:: I know. That doesn't help one bit! Happy Anniversary, Crash! I love you to pieces! At least we have a second chance in September with the anniversary of our family ceremony... which nobody else remembers, either! We're up against impossible odds! ::heading over to Outlook to do some entering of data::

Crash is practicing, and it is lovely to hear the sounds of his violin - I miss that during the school year, when he practices at school and on campus before and in between teaching and never at home. He has also been SUCH a trooper and has been out in the yard digging up a path for me to brick in (I can do the brick work of laying the path, but I can't dig up the old lava rock and bedding - it throws my back out badly), and pulling weeds in our central garden area. It looks SO MUCH BETTER. Kudos to Crash!

Was watching CNN earlier today and they had a real goof: they were talking about the weather system off the Atlantic coast bringing torrential rains and severe weather to the southern Atlantic states and that they may take quite a battering - really harping on the point that there could be a battering and Bad Things Could Happen... all the while showing Jesse Jackson on the screen with a caption on the screen to the effect of "Bad Tidings" or something like that in relation to his comments on Obama and use of the n-word. I couldn't help but laugh - and their attempt at recovery from the obvious goof was hilarious. OH - and what makes it even funnier is that Jeannie Moos had just parodied John McCain' goof with the Viagara / birth control fiasco of last week and used footage from The Daily Show to highlight the inanity. I really do hope that Jon Stewart picks up this gaffe.

It is really odd to see the DJIA and the NASDAQ so far out of whack with each other - the Dow gained reasonably, but the NASDAQ dropped substantially - by some 30 points or so. Usually they move fairly in tandem. Odd. Yeah, I've been reading Barron's lately, and am paying a little more attention to things like that. It's interesting reading, but as with everything, you've got to take it a bit cynically or you'll go crazy. Alan Abelson's weekly column is pretty good, though, and worth checking out - you can get it free on the Barron's website, if I am not mistaken, at http://online.Barrons.com (if that doesn't work, try www.barrons.com). I know, I know. It's really weird to see me, of all people, talking about the stock market. Go figure.

Played trivia last night with a group of friends - and we won! It was great fun! I was designated driver, so I had sodas and played along, having a ball... I think we missed one, maybe two questions, the whole night, and on the last wager we bet all the remaining 20 points and scored a decisive win over all the other teams in the bar. Rock on! I'm not usually someone who even enters a bar - I don't like smoke at all - but this was fun, and I went willingly. Took a monster bath when we got home and the clothes are in the wash, and all is well with the world. ::grin:: I needed to get out of my shell; I've been hiding at home for nearly a month since we got home from Colorado.

This weekend we may be going to Kaleigh's house for a party (K and her husband were the ones to get us out for trivia)... I hope to continue to be in an outgoing mood; I have been having to force myself to get out and do things lately due to an ongoing depression thing. Summers are tough, and focus is hard to come by sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. We're working on it therapeutically, and I hope to be in a better place in the next couple of weeks. Have to be: school starts in about four, five, weeks.

Wish I had the time to read some "for fun" books - I have a pile a foot high on my bedside table, and another foot-wide shelf full of them in the underside of the bedside table as well. Maybe when I get to the point of doing lesson planning next month I can sneak in a few. That would be such a delight; they've been stacking up for about a year now, and these are the best of the best.

Am getting rid of my library school books. Most of them, anyway, and have offered them to my grandma's library up in Ohio since they just experienced a devastating set of floods that destroyed a huge part of their collection. I am waiting to hear back from their director to see if they want them - they're some terrific books, and I want them to go someplace where they will be appreciated and needed. And, needless to say, I don't have any desire to keep them anymore. That part of my life is closed.

Well, it's time to start considering what's for dinner. I think we are having blue-cheese-stuffed burgers and sauteed carrots... at least that was the plan two hours ago. I'm not hungry, but since I really haven't eaten today I really need to remedy that. The weight is coming off too quickly, and I am a little nervous about that - no appetite and nausea worries me - and I see the gastroenterologist on Friday next week. I have now lost 80 pounds since my highest weight in 2003, and nearly 15 in the past two months alone, after gaining back over the past year what I had lost in the hospital. I'm not trying to lose weight, but it is just falling off me... and while the weight loss is welcome, it does bother me that it is coming off this way, and that I really don't enjoy food anymore for the most part. Every so often Crash is able to tempt me with something I love, but that is few and far between these days. Wish we could come up with some answers.

I'm off!

South Carolina Shows Its Pride

I ran across this article on Gadling via AOL: Gay travel: South Carolina in an uproar over advertising campaign and thought three things:

1. Good on the Brits for getting SC to sign on to this. From the Stars and Bars and the General Lee to the Pride Flag in one fell swoop is a tremendous accomplishment. Gotta love the panache of this ad campaign and the cajones on the account manager at Amro Worldwide; it's not every day you place the whole of South Carolina and Big Gay Fun in the same category, yanno? Kudos!

2. Isn't tourism good for the economy, SC? Europeans with Euro-to-dollar exchanges - and plenty of it - ought to get your attention really quickly, I would think. Money, Money Money!! ALWAYS SUNNY!

3. Whaddya mean, SC, that your "market is families..." and that you seem to think your advertising dollars have been mis-spent. Are you implying, Mr. Smith, that gays and lesbians don't have families? :::pointed look::: I didn't think so. Because that would be bigoted, and I *know* you don't embrace *that* now, do you?

::thinking about a beach visit to South Carolina... just because:: BTW... were I to visit SC, I would let them know I did so *because* of the Amro Worldwide ad campaign. Just sayin'

:::smooches::: to Amro Worldwide on this coup. Y'all are just awesome.

Why Is This Acceptable?

I am in a bloody rage right now.

We lived through the Civil Rights Movement years ago - and, at least in the classes I teach, we celebrate it for what it was - and still is - in our collective memories. Race, color, creed, handicaps, sexuality - all these things are fruits of that Movement that make us both unique and part of a coherent and vibrant whole - I thought we were embracing these issues and moving forward. At least that has been my hope.

But I have recently heard some of the most racist crap I have ever heard in my life.

Take, for instance, the absolutely horrid joke about the White House Rose Garden being pulled up and replaced with a watermelon patch. @@

Or the cover of the New Yorker this week. Satire? I think not.  

Or the Oreo coment of John McLaughlin this weekend. A provocative slip of the tongue? No way.

What the hell is happening to this country that these things are somehow mainstream and acceptable?

The vitriol I see is completely out of whack with the object of its attention. Disagree with policies. Challenge viewpoints. Even argue past issues and records. BUT do not *ever* resort to name-calling, hateful sterotypical jokes and cartoons, and personal attacks of the nature we have been seeing the past several weeks and months.

The misinformation out there is appalling: the idea that Obama is somehow a terrorist; the nastiness that calls him by his race rather than by his deeds and record; the assertions that somehow, some way, Obama's association - however limited or expansive - with Muslims is a horrible thing and will lead this country down a path toward destruction (look around you, folks; we're already in that situation, and gee, it didn't take Obama to do it).

And the thing is, I get these e-mails and statements from people I have loved and cherished and called my dear friends, as well as previously trustworthy news sources. The world has truly gone topsy turvy.

What is it about this election cycle and this day and age that people - embodied in this one man - can be yet again marginalized and reviled with such acrimony and spite? How do people find it within themselves to think such horrors, much less give voice to them? Why are so many onlookers just accepting this situation as "business as usual" in politics and society at large?

It is long past time to speak out and do something about this. Write editorials. Respond directly to e-mails debunking this crap. Refuse to pander to the lowest common denominator in our political spectrum. Speak up regardless of whether your circle finds your view unpopular for the time being. Don't cater to these monstrous affairs.

After all, this is the home of the brave, right? So be brave and do the right thing. Stand up and be counted, even if you are not voting for Obama. Do it because it's the right thing to do. You'll feel better you did - and your country will be a better place for your courage and fortitude.

"A Nation of Whiners"

Oh sure.

We're a nation of whiners, all right. A mental recession?? ::sarcasm::

That's why my property taxes have doubled in ten years, but my real housing value has only gone up by 15%.

That's why my husband's job as a public school teacher is on the line.

That's why we're paying more than $140/barrel for crude.

That's why we're in a bear market (see the current issue of Barron's - it's the cover story).

That's why 443,000 jobs in the private sector have been lost in the first half of the year.

That's why it costs so much more at the grocery to get everyday necessities.

That's why our retirement plans have tanked so much this year.

I could go on and on and on. But I won't, because I know when to pull myself up by my bootstraps, stand tall and move forward as best I can on a limited income, under less-than-ideal circumstances, gathering my resources around me in the most effective way I know how. 

Yeah. We're a nation of whiners. Phil Gramm, you are totally out of touch. Try being middle class sometime and get back with me, 'k?

Broader Subject: Chaplains in the Military

I got this wonderful comment to my last post from Bill, and it has given me a lot of food for thought:

I found Chaplains doing all sorts of useful work in Iraq including reconciliation, conflict resolution, and peace making with Iraqis...teaching many concepts we teach in our Churches. The Iraqi Army has never had Chaplains although they're tightly modeling themselves after the US now and a Chaplain I spoke with thought that concept might be coming to them. I'm guessing most non-Western Armies today have Chaplains... I suspect they'd be better off with them.

I guess what I am thinking is that the spot chaplains fill in the services that have to do with work like this - the real work of rebuilding lives and nations, in my mind, does somehow belong with the people who are trained in compassion and peace, and for that, chaplains are ideal.

However, I also believe that there is an inherent problem with the association of that work with those same chaplains who are performing a dual role - a paid, sanctioned role - in the organization where they are performing religious services for troops. I can see them being there for counseling and pastoral care - but leading services and prayer? Even supposedly non-denomination services and prayer? Perhaps it is not in the nature of most people to realize that to the atheist - to most atheists anyway - that such actions are used by many people as a method of exclusion. What is intended by the chaplain to give succor to many gives pain to some. Is that just? Let the laypeople guide themselves... but don't pay a chaplain to lead the services. In the general population of the country, a pastor or priest is called by his or her congregation or settled by his or her diocese... but that is not the case in the military. Pastor is as pastor does... or doesn't.

Allow me to digress a moment. First of all, we called Rev. Bill to lead our congregation several years ago... it was a choice we made as an independent congregation, not part of a governmental or particularly strong organizational body (the UUA promotes and gives remarkably gentle guidance and guidelines - they are not a top-down organization as a general rule). Secondly, within that congregation, as a secular humanist, it does not usually bother me to be led in congregational meditation - I welcome the time to center - but that is me. Some others *do* chafe and find it hard to settle during that time - they say they find it too close to prayer, though we have all come together to be as a congregation - all of us, from all spectra of the rainbow. Interestingly, our minister, Rev Bill, usually opens the service with the invocation "Holy One"... and I have come to my own interpretation (for me it is the congregation - the one body meeting as the holy). However, many atheists may be unable, unwilling, or feel it an unnecessary burden to be asked to interpret, reinterpret or explain away, and will join a small group within the congregation or choose to form an alliance outside... just as many Christians would find Rev Bill's "Holy One" to be much, much too far from "God" or "Jesus", and will go elsewhere. That is part of the freedom of choice we have in our society to decide where and how we will worship - or respect the earth - or simply be. Soldiers rubbing shoulders do not have that sort of freedom or privacy.

Do you see the differences? Holy wars have been fought over more nuanced differences, and yet, we expect our men and women in uniform to toe the line and accept the status quo as one which *should* be the standard for the next 100 years. That is neither human nor humane to demand, especially not from people doing such physically and mentally demanding work as they are doing. Freedom of religion is one of the core freedoms they hold dear - so why is it that atheists must expect less? Atheists do not as a general rule hold what many would see as religious services, though they may hold discussions, or talks about common subjects that hold deep, essential truths for them. But to be ridiculed at the lunch table, denied promotion because superiors feel that their religion "separates" them from their soldiers, and to be thought of as less than an American soldier is just insane.

Why, in fact, is religion even an issue in the military? Why is it that anyone knows your personal religious preferences? I realize the symbol of your religion is inscribed on your dogtags... but why is it a proper matter for discussion in the workplace of war? Do your job and do it with honesty, integrity, and skill... and leave the rest to your conscience.

Finally, simply out of my own curiosity, why would most armed services be better off with chaplains? If it is for the secular work they are doing, I can understand that... but if it is for leading men and women in prayer and services, I must respectfully disagree. I *do* see that chaplains have always faced a certain moral duality in the armed forces - a tough one that I must admit I could never breach. They are men and women who, on the field of battle, must give solace to the soldier who has the potential to take human life. That is the inherent role of the soldier, and the inherent role of the chaplain as it stands in the private lives of the soldiers. I say, let them deal with that moral duality one on one with the soldiers, but let them use their unique roles - the ones Bill mentioned and I quoted at the beginning of this post - the secular work they are doing. Isn't that enough pastoral work for a serviceman or woman? Why lead services when there is a Constitutional question at stake? But better yet, why lead services when they fly in the face of the polity of the government, the DoD, and servicemen themselves?

It is a question that is sure to continue - and I will be interested in what the Pentagon has to say in its rebuttal tonight. It is due by midnight Eastern, and I suspect it will be a very interesting document, indeed.

I look forward to the continuing conversation.

Atheists in the Military

"There are no atheists in foxholes."

I beg your pardon?

Before I go further, let me put in a disclaimer: in this post I am not ridculing or singling out individual soldiers, nor am I criticizing their mission in 'Iraq or Afghanistan, though I have done so elsewhere. I am specifically focused on the treatment of one man - Pfc. Jeremy Hall - and one belief system - a belief system protected under the Constitution.

There is no doubt that large numbers of our troops - a vast majority - profess faith in a high power. That's fine, and it works well for them. But it is presumptuous to assume that all troops are "of a faith."

That's one reason why I am following, with great interest, this story in the national news (I hope the link works). As a result of the horrors of war, Pfc. Hall became an atheist, and as a result claims he faced extreme discrimination at the hands of his fellow soldiers.

I know that as an atheist in civilian life I face discrimination and ridicule, too - and can only imagine what it is like in an organization that only in 2007 allowed Wiccan symbology on official military tombstones.

Further, there are extra-military groups such as Officers' Christian Fellowship which have as their stated purpose the idea of "Christian officers exercising biblical leadership to raise up a godly military." This is antithetical to the professed missions and statements of the Pentagon and the DoD itself. I have absolutely no doubt Hall found a hostile environment.

However, I believe that the military cannot allow any soldier to face discrimination based on personal beliefs or creeds. Military-sanctioned religious services fly in the face of the Constitution, and encourage the growth of groups such as OCF, and the culture and climate of hostility toward other religions and creeds than Christianity.

I know that the chaplaincy and religion have long been staples of the military. I know that, and acknowledge that. However, I believe the time has come for us to move beyond that military sanctioning of religion in the workplace and come into the 21st century. Private religious observance is one thing... but making it a condition of service in the military, where patriotism and honor should be paramount, is entirely another.

Playing Along

Today is just... a struggle to get through, for some reason.

Woke up with the dog at 5:30 a.m. in what is becoming a (mostly) unwelcome ritual and, after taking the massive morning round of antibiotics, went back to bed. The antibiotics are tearing me apart and I just feel... blah... and really don't have any energy, so bed was pretty much where I stayed until noon.

Got up and puttered and am studying, but really - *all* I want to do is go back to bed. I am yearning for it with every fiber of my being and resisting it as hard as I can. I really need to be up - much to be done - but am not getting much done because I feel so crappy.

French exam is on Wednesday... and I feel *so* unprepared - and utterly unmotivated to try and remedy the situation (see above).

Feeling guilty about hating Jesse Helms with the viscera I do - but I can't help it. I hate very few people, but he has been a long-time target for my anger. I cannot forgive his racism and stupidity, nor is it mine to forgive. We can move forward much more readily with him out of the picture. He stands as a bad example of what parts of this country once were and are, I hope, no more. We *can* overcome... even me. I wish I could be as charitable as the blogger Fausto quoted in my comments - that it's a shame he didn't live to see the 2009 election - but I am just so glad he is gone. Thich Nhat Hahn would have a field day with my anger ... but so be it. I own it, and it is mine. My bad.

Sorry today's entry is such a downer. Maybe I *should* go back to bed and maybe I will awake refreshed in a little while. God, I am just so exhausted I can hardly move.

Jesse Helms Is Dead

I wasn't going to say anything about the damned old coot, but I find myself unable to restrain myself. As we commented to each other earlier, it would not surprise us one bit if the Jesse Helms Foundation conspired to have him on life support until 1:15 this morning JUST to have him die on the Fourth. Yeah, I'm cynical that way, and feeling terribly uncharitable towards a bigot and racist who blocked so much that would have been good for our country.

I will always choose instead to celebrate the holiday which commemorates the idealist founding of our country, and remember the deaths of Presidents Jefferson, Adams and Madison, which also occured on this day.

Don't ask me to remember the originator of these quotes alongside those other men.

Oh, and I like the cartoon on this site. 'Nuff said.

The Saga Continues

Fortunately, so far it's been a great day today. Lunch with Ann - and a long one at that - at Blue Coast Burrito. Happy tummy!

Yesterday? Not so much. Here's what I wrote some friends last night:

I was getting ready to go out to lunch with one of my best friends and her son, in fact - when I noticed the water in my toilet going back and forth. Whaaa? I finished brushing my teeth and went to the front of the house just in time to see two feet of soiled water erupt out of my husband's toilet. TWO FEET. I slammed down the toilet seat and the mess promptly went... sideways... all over my legs. I ran out the front door and yelled at the men who were working on the drain lines and told them to STOP RIGHT NOW... and when they FINALLY did, they basically told me "a little water on the floor was to be expected" and that "this would cause no damage to my sewer line." However, as I found out later, they were evidently running commercial grade psi through residential pipes - somewhere around 250 psi through mostly 60-year-old terra cotta and old cast iron - not a bright idea - in order to "clear a blockage further up." I told them I didn't give a damn where the blockage was, but they had better stop doing what they were doing to my house. I think it's pretty clear that when you have a blockage further up the line, and one really clear line, the pressure on the line is going to go to the really clear line and that one is going to take a beating. That's us.

@@

I called my plumber.

He came out loaded for bear - and has filed a complaint with the city. I have done so from my end as well - with both the sewer department and with the city's legal department. My plumber will be out next Monday to check the lines and we will determine at that time what needs to be done. They've been under the house and have already identified what appear to be two, possibly three cracks in the sewer line. My yard, which I just mowed today for the very first time, may have to be dug up... again.

What a freaking mess. This is the first I have been calm enough to sit still enough to write about it, and I am still just seething. The city crews are out right now checking lines and looking at what kind of a mess they have made, though I am certain they will say it's not their fault. We're going to hold their feet to the fire, though. I just had $14,000 worth of plumbing done, and I am not about to see it screwed up by some yo-yos who don't know what they are doing, acting on behalf of the city.

Now? I am just at a slow burn. We have to wait until Monday to get the results of whether or not they have screwed up the plumbing to the point that it has to be redone... and I am just going to be as zen as I can be until then.

Meanwhile, I am studying like crazy. The sun is too intense for me to be outside during the middle of the day, so I am in here working on French and Directed Readings reading. I plan to get through one of the history books today, and start another one tomorrow (AM-BI-TION!!! AMBITION! -- you're supposed to imagine Topol singing that), and continue reading the history of the US in French. Need to get over to the University at some point this week - perhaps tomorrow. I know they will be having a short week, so I probably had better make it tomorrow, or I may miss the boat entirely.

Wish I could get outside. ::sigh:: What sadness that I can't. Maybe tonight.