Good Reason

It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.

Page 62 of 126

Proposition 8: Un-American?

24 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

Did Tom Hanks say something wrong when he called Mormon Prop 8 supporters ‘un-American’? Hanks has released a statement apologising for the remark, and while at first I wished he hadn’t, I find myself agreeing with his reasoning.

“Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California’s Proposition 8 as ‘un-American,'” the actor said in a statement through his publicist. “I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination.”

“But everyone has a right to vote their conscience; nothing could be more American,” the statement continues. “To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are ‘un-American’ creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use ‘un-American’ lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have.”

Hanks strikes a nice balance in his remark. He reaffirms the wrongness of writing bigotry into law, but takes care to focus on the offending word. Prop 8 represents a form of bigotry which is indeed counter to values Americans like to claim, like equality, fair play, and so on. But leave the word ‘un-American’ back in the McCarthy days, where it belongs.

So I’ll say that Mormon supporters of Prop 8 are hateful, intolerant, unfair, mean-spirited, bigoted, and pathologically ignorant. Not un-American.

PS: Did anyone near you donate? It’s a matter of public record. Check it out on Prop 8 Maps. Name and shame, people.

Nashville again smacks down ‘English only’ law

24 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

A shout out to the good citizens of Nashville, who voted down an English-only proposal that would have prevented the use of other languages by government workers and publications.

The proposal was introduced by Eric Crafton, a metropolitan councilman. It was opposed by a broad coalition including the mayor, civil rights groups, business leaders, ministers and the heads of nine institutions of higher education.

“The results of this special election reaffirm Nashville’s identity as a welcoming and friendly city,” Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement.

As I’ve argued before, people advance these proposals claiming to want to save money and encourage English use, but they’re really just a more acceptable way of punishing immigrants.

Critics said the proposal would tarnish Nashville’s reputation as a cultural mixing pot and drive away immigrants and international businesses. They also accused Mr. Crafton of worsening anti-immigrant sentiment and wasting at least $350,000 of taxpayer’s money on a special election.

Nice to see it fail. Well done, Nashville.

Inauguration liveblogging

20 January 2009 / / 4 Comments

It’s 1.30 am in Perth, but I’m up watching. The Inauguration is on all channels.

1.30 Everyone looks great in their solid colours. Yellow is hard to pull off, though. Not thinking of anyone in particular. Ahem.

1.39 I can’t even be mad at Bush today. His characteristic smirk looks tempered.

1.49 A corpulent fellow is talking to an invisible supernatural being. Some people are cheering, which I don’t think you’re supposed to do during a prayer.

1.54 You have to love Aretha. How cool is it that she’s singing? I think her hit ‘Respect’ came out the year I was born, and here she is still. I want to turn the sound up, but I don’t want to wake Ms Perfect.

1.57 Biden’s up. I hope he and Obama do support the Constitution — by prosecuting everyone in the Bush administration. So help me.

1.59 Shut up, Australian announcer. I want to hear the music. Must be cold. Not optimal for string players.

2.04 The Moment.

2.10 One of the things I like about Obama’s speeches is that he seems to require us to be our best. He speaks to our intelligence and not our primal urges like fear or dominance.

2.14 What must Bush/Cheney et al. be thinking as Obama lists the dire circumstances facing America?

2.16 ‘Common good’? ‘Rule of law’? What is he talking about? I haven’t heard these words in a presidential speech for a long time. It feels strange and new in my ears.

2.19 Hey, non-believers got a mention. I think I may have just forgiven him for Rick Warren. Almost. But I’m too easily influenced about that kind of thing.

2.27 I liked how his speech was a mixture of general policy direction (in the form of challenges we face), and encouragement.

2.52 Dick Cheney looks like no one more than old Mr Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. An apt comparison, I think.

2.54 George W. Bush waves from the helicopter. Goodbye to all that. Now we can get on with the work.

2.56 I bet the pilot of that helicopter isn’t some ideological crony plucked from Liberty University.

3.07 They’re starting to show commercials again, so it must be time to wrap it up and go back to bed. I’m glad I got up for this. A lot has been made of the history of this occasion, especially the race aspect, and that’s a really big deal. But for me, race is just one way to look at it. I’m proud that Obama’s the president, not because he’s black, but because he’s intelligent and hard-working. We’ve had eight years of a lazy and stupid president, and the nation has suffered from it in lots of ways: the national discourse, education, military, internationally. Today marks the Return of the Smart People — people who see reality as having some authority in decision-making. It’s a relief.

Mmm… jelly filling… UV DETH

18 January 2009 / / 4 Comments

Via Jeffrey: You know what would be good right now? Some pro-abortion donuts.

KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS

“The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama’s radical support for abortion on demand – including his sweeping promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he steps in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

The doughnut giant released the following statement yesterday:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American’s sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies — just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet “free” can be.

Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that “choice” is synonymous with abortion access and celebration of ‘freedom of choice’ is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

We all love donuts, but they take the relationship in a direction that’s eerily close to stalking.

Think about it, you political lefties out there. When you first saw this ad:

…did you immediately think ‘boycott’? Did you throw your DVD player out the window, and organise a protest? Probably not, because you have a functioning mind and aren’t always trying to be outraged over manufactured controversy. People at the ALL don’t have the benefit of this.

There are two lessons here.

One, if you are a donut maker, do not capitulate to crazy people. Remember the flap over Rachel Ray’s scarf? She wore one in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, and the wingnut-o-sphere went berzerk, and decided that the ad was a coded message of support for Palestine and terrorism or something. Incredibly, Dunkin’ Donuts pulled the ad. But the Religious Right weren’t satisfied. Now, they have decided to attack donuts — again.

Two, the Christian Right has the collective brain power of a ten-dollar Mixmaster. And it’s always stuck on high.

Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

17 January 2009 / / Comments Off on Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

The University of Utah is offering a fellowship in Mormon Studies.

“It’s a matter of academic justice,” said Bob Goldberg, the center’s director. “There would not be a question if we were in New York City and wanted to establish a course in Jewish studies, or in Chicago, Baltimore or Boston and wanted to start a course in Catholic studies. This is a perfect place to do research on Mormonism. To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

The U.’s is the first such fellowship in the nation, but joins a growing list of colleges that offer some coursework in Mormon studies, including Claremont College in southern California, Utah State University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina, to name a few.

Sounds interesting, but what’s even more interesting is that you can’t do a degree in Mormon Studies in the one place you’d think you could: BYU.

Why not? Well, perhaps a few ideas. There’s a certain distrust of learning in the LDS Church, unless it’s specifically dedicated to meeting the needs of the organisation instead of, you know, facts. This suspicion was written into the Book of Mormon, and it’s worked its way into General Conference. Dallin Oaks, an LDS apostle, famously warned of the dangers of ‘symposia’ (meaning those clever Sunstone rascals). Here’s the money quote.

I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined.

He doesn’t say what the ‘outcome’ is, but it can’t be good. So Oaks is implying that trying to understand the Church using reason instead of — what? whisperings of a spirit being? some guy telling you? — will cause you to reject religious doctrine. An interesting admission, and a huge warning sign that you’re dealing with an enemy of reason.

Church leaders have periodically slagged off Mormons who research into the church’s history. One leader, Neal Maxwell, trivialised the scholarly efforts of thinking Latter-day Saints as “intellectual bungee jumping“. (A prominent Mormon apologetics institute was subsequently renamed in his honour.)

So it’s not likely that the LDS Church (via its official university) will make a place for scholarly Mormon research anytime soon. They don’t seem to think their faith can stand scrutiny, and with that I fully agree.

John Morley said it well:

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

No attempt to find the god that ordered the hit

16 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

It’s hard to find good minions anymore.

The Chestermere man charged with attempted murder in Minnesota says it was God that made him stab another truck driver.

According to documents filed in the Clay County Court, Harmit Singh Bhangu, 32 of Chestermere, told an officer who was interviewing him that God orders him to do things.

How the mighty have fallen. God used to have henchmen like Moses and Joshua, and now he’s reduced to working with crazy people.

I don’t want to pick on the poor guy, even though he’s a very very scary poor guy who’s just about killed another poor guy. Mr Bhangu has got some serious problems, and maybe some medication might have helped him.

But the Brain Teaser of the Day is: On what basis would a religious believer claim that God didn’t really order him to kill a man?

Is it because God would never tell someone to kill someone else? That’s a hard view to defend from the Bible. Try reading Joshua 13, where Yahweh appears as some kind of evil familiar, impelling the aged Joshua to yet more slaughter.

Is it because Mr Bhangu is doing obviously crazy things? Ezekiel lay on his side for over a year. He also ate bread cooked over a cow pat. All perfectly biblical, and extremely loopy.

As a Mormon, the question of how to evaluate other people’s revelations used to be a tough one. Now as an atheist, it’s easy. Anyone who says that a god is speaking to them is wrong. But I don’t care so much as long as they’re keeping their delusion to themselves, keeping it away from children, not harming anyone with it, and not trying to legislate on the basis of it. When they overstep these bounds, they move from deluded to dangerous, like Mr Bhangu.

Now here’s a part from the article that caught my attention:

“(The) defendant stated that he knew it was wrong to kill people in this country but that God had ordered him to do it,” say the documents filed by police.

And if God orders you to do something, you don’t worry about a trifling thing like law. All my life, I heard people in church telling me that God came first. God’s law was higher than man’s law. Little did I realise that they were implanting a meme that would justify my breaking any law that the church considered wrong.

And I see that it’s not just Mormons that are getting the treatment. Here’s a Christian columnist asking kids the musical question:

What Would You Do If Arrested For Talking About God?

“If they threatened to hurt me if I didn’t stop talking about God, I wouldn’t listen to them because I know that I am pleasing God,” says Megan, 9.

Megan would be following the example of the Apostles Peter and John upon their release from jail.
…
Ask this question: If police were told to arrest all Christians in your area, would they come to your house?

Hurt them? Arrest them? Who’s advocating this? Or is this a bit of galvanisation through paranoia?

This article delivers two memes at once: ‘Religious Dogma Over Secular Law’, and ‘They’re Coming to Get Us’. But fancy putting either one before a child. At best, you make them fearful for the safety of their family, and at worst you raise a generation of Law-Breakers for Jesus.

Italian atheist buses are slightly more edgy

15 January 2009 / / 2 Comments

Italian atheists are launching their own bus ads.

Translation: “The bad news is that God doesn’t exist. The good news is that you don’t need him.”

Nice. But is it bad news that there’s no god? At least you don’t have to spend eternity worshipping someone who created you for that purpose.

Dang it, I’m envious! Australian bus ads have been blocked, so everybody else is getting all the fun.

UPDATE: Kibosh-ëd! Oh the infamy…

Thought for the Afternoon from Ariane Sherine

12 January 2009 / / 3 Comments

Via Snowqueen: A very nice Thought for the Afternoon from atheist bus organiser Ariane Sherine. The Thoughts are usually religious, but non-believers are sometimes asked to speak. This clip aired on BBC Radio last week. I’ve captured it and placed it here because the broadcasts disappear from the site after a while.

If you can’t get the recording to work, I’ll summarise it for you: We all have a lot in common, even though we come from different backgrounds and have different beliefs. As for us atheists, we believe in enjoying things, taking care of our children, and living happy and safe lives. Could you muckheads please not spoil it for the rest of us by arguing over your beliefs, even though you like them? kthxbai

All right, she’s a lot more positive than I would be. Note to the BBC: Never ask me to give the Thought for the Afternoon.

Portuguese spelling changes

12 January 2009 / / 16 Comments

I’m late on this story, but I’m going with it anyway, just because as an American-Australian I think it’s nice to remember that anglophones aren’t the only ones with transnational spelling issues.

This time it’s lusophones. That is, speakers of Portuguese.

Brazilians start 2009 facing the task of learning new spelling rules that have just come into effect.

The spelling reforms have been agreed by Portuguese-speaking nations, but the language seems set to have different written forms for some time to come.

In Portugal, there has been fierce resistance in some quarters to the changes because many of the changes are to spell words the Brazilian way.

Isn’t that always the way? The European colonisers get alarmed by these American upstarts taking over the language.

Any language with an alphabetic writing system will eventually have this kind of trouble because every language undergoes sound change, making old spellings archaic. And when dialects of a language diverge, there are bound to be struggles over whose dialect gets represented in the writing system.

So what are the changes?

  • Silent consonants are getting dropped, like the silent ‘c’ in ‘actualmente’ (actually) or the ‘p’ in ‘optimo’ (great). A tip: if you’re a Portuguese consonant, don’t hang out before ‘t’. There’s no future in it.
  • Some accent marks are being discontinued — diphthongs ‘éi’ and ‘ói’ will lose their accents
  • Letters k, y, and w are being officially added, though they’ve been in use unofficially.

As a linguist, I usually think of language change as slow, like two tectonic plates sliding past each other. And usually it is. But, as with land masses, when the language gets locked into place in the form of writing, we can expect periodic earthquakes. This is one of those cases.

UPDATE: If you’re curious about this issue, here’s a nutty little article about it, written in ‘Simplified Spelling’ English. It’s cute. You can imagine yourself as a citizen of Parallel England, or you can imagine that you’re hanging out with Simplified English advocates like George Bernard Shaw and Mark Twain. And here’s a challenge — try reading it aloud without unconsciously affecting a dopey overbite accent, like Cousin Floyd from the country. It’s harder than you’d think.

The War on Writing Systems suffers a setback

9 January 2009 / / 8 Comments

How are we going to defend ourselves against terrorism if we’re not allowed to discriminate against different-looking people with weird writing on their shirts?

An air passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded a payout of $240,000 (£163,000), his lawyers say.

Two Transportation Security Authority officials and JetBlue Airways will be forced to make the payout.

Raed Jarrar, a US resident, had accused them of illegally discriminating against him based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his T-shirt.

The payout is the largest of its kind since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Here’s the shirt.


Okay, I have to admit that this is not the least threatening t-shirt I have ever seen in an airport. Vaguely militant slogan plus Arabic script. I would probably think twice about wearing that for a flight.

And yet, isn’t that the lesson of this whole thing? These officials are in the business of creating a security state. It’s hard to monitor everyone all the time, so it’s useful to them if they can get individuals to do a lot of self-monitoring — to make lots of little decisions not to wear this, or not to say that, to censor themselves in a hundred ways just so they won’t fall afoul of some arbitrary and unwritten code of conduct.

And so Raed’s question that day was very appropriate:

I once again asked the three of them : “How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn’t this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?”

No, there is not. The good guys won this time.

« Older posts Newer posts »

Meta

© 2026 Good Reason

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑