Author: Aaron Weber

Hyperbole

Nick Kristof’s May 9 article No Time to Get Squeamish describes what I hope are somewhat exaggerated situations in the N.I.H. Still, I don’t doubt that any ant-AIDS education that mentions using rubbers instead of fearing Satan is going to be squelched. Which is a shame, because speaking in tongues often means not speaking the language of the people you’re trying to help.

Most AIDS scientists are terrified these days. They describe witch hunts by neo-Puritans in and out of the Bush administration, and many are so nervous that in e-mail and research abstracts they avoid using words like ”gays,” ”homosexuals,” ”anal sex” or ”sex workers.”

‘”I would recommend avoiding all electronic communication to any N.I.H. office,” one scientist warned in one of many e-mail notes buzzing among AIDS researchers. “Phone communication does not appear tapped at this time. Even so, I am advising staff to speak `in code’ unless an N.I.H. staff member indicates you can speak freely. In short, assume you are living in Stalinist Russia when communicating with the United States government.”

Ironic Things

Apparently people come to this site looking for irony. That’s not ironic. The Guardian has a great article about other things that irony is, or isn’t.

Also not ironic is the fact that Africa is all messed up.. Meanwhile, arguably imortant peopple actually defend nepotism. The defended features of “positive nepotism” are really mere brakes on an otherwise corrosive practice. Note that the word comes from the Latin for “nephew,” and described the favored sons (disguised as nephews) of priests and especially popes during one of the more celebrated periods of corruption in the rennaisance Church.

Requisite Political Crap following Independence Day: I have decided that I disagree with Dean on everything but war and sodomy.

  • I am in favor of expanded trade (and migration/immigration); he wants NAFTA repealed. I fail to see how cutting trade with our neighbors will improve our economy.
  • He more prone to taking a hawkish side in the Palestine/Israel thing, which is better than nothing, but still not the unbiased stance I’d like.
  • He’s anti-drug. I favor deregulation.

This leaves me with Kucinich, who’s even less electable, and the undifferentiated mass of moderates. What annoys me is that my only influence on the process is primary-picking, since MA is going to go for the Dems no matter what. Well, I guess that says “Kerry,” really, although Edwards would be probably have a wider appeal if he had the cash to pull it off.

Slogans:

  • Howard Dean, the McGovern of 2004.
  • Lieberman: Conservative enough for a Republican; pH Balanced for a Democrat.

Risk, Faux News, and yet more Sodomy

Spiked covers risk and why we’re so risk-averse lately.

Fox News sues a parodist thereby making him famous and keeping him in business. “Faux News” is a great idea– but I prefer “We distort, you deride” to their slogan. Note: ask politely, then ignore unless it’s a real threat. Stupid lawyers.

Michael Kinsley has taken up my idea about deregulating marriage.

BusyBusyBusy has been doing the “very very short summaries” theme recently. For example, the George Will article Lap Dancing on the Constitution is summarized as: “By my logic, private consensual sex is indistinguishable from public sex acts, commercial sex transactions or marriage contracts, so if one is constitutionally protected then all must be outside the purview of the state.”

I should note, in response to Will’s article that commercial sex transactions may be regulated as they are commerce, that public sex acts may be regulated as they affect the view, and that private sex acts cannot be regulated as they are nobody’s business.

On the other hand, that would be feeding the trolls, which of course I do all too much already. And as they say, arguing on the internet is like being in the Special Olympics: even if you win, you’re still retarded.)

NYT

I sent a letter today and got a quick response, but it leaves me with more questions.

Dear Ethicist:
     I am confused by the recent supreme court ruling on sodomy. I understand that laws like the one in Texas have been ruled unconstitutional– so any ban on gay sex is out. But are generalized sodomy laws still constitutional, provided that they don’t discriminate based on gender? In other words, is oral sex still illegal in Pennsylvania? Where does this ruling leave mixed-gender sodomites?

Yours,
Verbal
Secretly Ironic Industries

Verbal:
    I think you need to contact “The Legalist;” I’m just “The Ethicist.” But as I, a non-lawyer understand it, you’ve read the decision too narrowly. Justice O’Connor made the equal protection case, arguing that what’s illegal sauce for the goose must be illegal sauce for the gander. But the court ruled more broadly, based on the right to privacy, arguing that the government has no business prying into people’s consensual sex lives. So this decision seems to me to disallow all of the sort of laws you describe with putative humor.
Yours,
RC

My questions are, where can I find a legalist? And does it seem to me that putative is an insult in this context?

Me Me Me

So I have a half dozen author’s comp copies of Linux in a Nutshell, 4th ed. by Siever, Figgins, and Weber. What do I do with them? I’ve given one to everyone I know who wants one, and I guess my family will get one or two as well.

Maybe I’ll hawk them outside the Sox games: Get yah hawt salty Linux in a Nutshell! Hawt n salty, right heah!”

Huge Post of Backlogged Stuff

Booksellers are not happy about a trend in people not buying their books at bookstores. Megadiscounters, it seems, are beating the bookstores just like they did with toy stores, drug stores, grocery stores, auto parts stores, clothing stores… some book stores are actually going to Costco and buying carloads of Harry Potter– the Costco price is as good as what a bookstore gets from a wholesaler, and the actual bookstores can’t get enough while Costco has a surplus. Not good.

Another guy cut off his own arm. Meanwhile, Economists editorialized about interest rates and monetary policy.

Question: if I get a big fat check from the government, how should I best use it to stimulate the economy? I could invest it all on Wall Street, or stick it in a savings account, or give it to charity. I could buy a bunch of little things– gum and newspapers, say, or a big-ticket item like a TV or a a used motorcycle. I could send it into the underground economy, buying off-the-books labor or contraband. I could start a business– a small one, obviously, with little start-up capital. Like maybe a street-side carwash or a lemonade stand or a cigarette smuggling ring.

Probably some combination of these would be best, like buying shares in a company that hires illegal immigrants to sell drug-related t-shirts and uses the profits to launder money earned smuggling cigarettes from Virginia into Canada.

Friedman’s Active Wear has come to my rescue as a good source of American Apparel clothing at good prices. Secretly Ironic custom t-shirts will soon be available; place your orders now.

Derivation, inspiration, perspiration…

No one wants to put words in J. K. Rowling’s mouth, but it’s safe to assume that when she hails her readers’ creativity, she has in mind something other than tales wherein Professor Snape is fellated by the Sorting Hat.

I suppose Rowling didn’t really intend to delve into behavior which was, until recently, a crime in many parts of Our Great Nation. On the other hand, authorial intent, as they say in academe, is something of a fiction itself. Or that’s what Andy Berman said when he got caught forging Kostabi paintings.