Today is not only New Year's Eve, it's also the birthday of Civil War General George Gordon Meade, which was celebrated with full Civil War military regalia by reenactors at Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery. Representatives from today's Army, Navy and Marines were all present, and the ceremony included speeches, wreath-laying, and a twenty one gun salute with Springfield and Enfield rifles.

It was cold and rainy but I managed to take some pictures. Hope you like them.

Um, I took all of them except this first one, as there was no way to photograph General Meade (who'd be 190 years old today):

To go with the above, here's Robert E. Lee's assessment of him:

"Meade, in my judgment, had the greatest ability. I feared him more than any man I ever met upon the field of battle."

I think General Meade's birthday is as good an occasion as any to mark the end of the year, by remembering the past (and those who've gone before), as we think about the future. In a letter to his daughter in 1862, General Meade expresses a timeless sentiment:

Duty, however, requires me to be here, to do the little I can to defend our old flag, and whatever duty requires us to do, we should all, old and young, do cheerfully, however disagreeable it may be.

And with that, Happy New Year everyone!

Dennis's last post reminded me of certain extremely stubborn pieces of primary source historical evidence which won't go away, because they're made of metal.

C-O-I-N-S.

I've discussed ancient Roman coins in several posts, particularly the ones which were struck to commemorate victories over the Jews in a place called "Judea" -- which of course was named on the coin. A bound, captive Jew is proudly displayed on the reverse of one of the better known of these coins:

The coin celebrates the military exploits of emperor Vespasian who, as a Roman general, was sent in to destroy and occupy Judea in 66 A.D. (Vespasian became emperor in 69 A.D., and the coin dates from his reign.)

Likewise, the Romans also built triumphal arches showing the destruction and plundering of the great Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. Like this:

It seems self evident to me than no sane person would question what is part of history -- and staring at us on the plain face of these coins and monuments (that the Romans put down the Jewish rebellion and destroyed the Temple). So the contention of so many governments in the Mideast hold that the Jews were never there, that these coins must be "forgeries," why, that strikes me as so laughable as to be pathetic.

But now, thanks to Dennis, I see that the Roman presence in Judea, their military victory, the destruction of the Temple, is only my "reading" of history. What would my reading be called?

Pro Roman? Or pro Zionist?

According to the professor Dennis quotes, "each of us had a different but equally valid view of history." (As I wisecracked earlier, "Denial of reality is, of course, a 'view.'") That must mean that it is equally valid to declare coins and monuments "modern Jewish forgeries" as it is to see them for what they are.

It might just be my "reading," but I think the lunatics are trying to run the asylum. (Well, they already are running certain asylums -- a fact which reflects poorly on people dumb enough to imagine that they're being "educated" in them.)

I'm left wondering whether they actually believe their nonsense, or whether it's a tactic. Because, if they really can't recognize the plain meaning of primary source material like what's on the face of a coin, how can they be expected to do things like drive a car? Or vote? (The former requires "reading" street signs, while the latter requires "reading" ballots.) And how would you read a compass? If I say it points North, is that just my "reading?"

Is it all as absurdly directionless as it seems? Or is there a hidden direction of which I'm unaware?

(I try to use logic, but I'm told that too is a reading -- and a "masculinist" one.....) BTW, "masculist" is gaining in usage, but the former still wins the Google memefest.

Isn't it time to look at the bigger picture? Shouldn't we ask what it is that we call "reading," and whether it has any value at all? Or why, say, should what we judgmentally call "mathematics" be considered culturally superior to drinking blood?

It's going to be a long day, and I might not have time for any more posts. I think I'll take a "reading" from my watch, then go outside and try to "read" the weather. It's supposed to rain, but whether it rains or not depends on our "views."

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

(But can I really say that? I mean, isn't that just my "reading" of a Western, Judeo-Christian-centric calendar?)

I was just thinking the other day about the politicization of scholarship and how people who inject their work with an agenda create enemies in the process. For example, I know of a 'feminist reading' of a poem by Catullus, published in a major classics journal, the stated goal of which (right there in the introduction) is to help modern man to become more sensitive and more fully human. This sort of thing willfully ignores the author's intent and the work's peculiar cultural context while serving the critic's political goals. That article was partly responsible for deepening a rift between a feminist bloc that kept silent but seethed, and a number of independent voices (myself included) who openly attacked the article in a seminar discussion. The feminists took it personally, and we were thus enemies of feminism, and were in turn misogynists.

If we did not accept the feminist reading, we must have had an anti-feminist reading.

You see, in this crazy, mixed-up, po-mo world, texts don't matter -- just readings. We 'read' everything from history to film, and expose the ideology of our enemies through their 'readings' as defined in contrast to our own. It's not what happened, but how you 'read' it. It says something about YOU. And YOUR KIND.

Creepy, isn't it?

If you reject a given reading, then you've made yourself an enemy of that reading's interest group. The group doesn't need to adhere to it, by the way. It's enough to make something a 'women's reading' that a 'feminist' critic has made it. To deny the critique is to attack women, to be a misogynist. To deny a 'queer reading' is to be a homophobe.

If you're gay, you're a self-hating homosexual. If you're a woman, we might as well call you Suzy Homemaker (and that's supposed to sting).

I stopped by a used book store this morning and found amid the stacks of new arrivals Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. The book is a rational response to a politically motivated reconstruction of ancient history called Afrocentrism, whose proponents necessarily charge their detractors with 'Eurocentrism.' (I think Afrocentrist's fail to recognize that what they see as their enemies' vice is the mirror of their own virtue.) This is the same thing that was discussed above: by creating your own subjective reading, you can charge those who challenge you with having their own subjective reading, which is often characterized as the perpetuation of a long-standing cultural hegemony or a reactionary attack.

The familiar themes crop up: Lefkowitz was called a white racist, and the member of a 'Jewish onslaught.' It's funny how Jews are so often linked to white racism on the fringes of the political left. (I suspect sometimes that the ultimate target is really the Judeo-Christian heritage of the West.)

In 1993 Professor Lefkowitz attended a talk by Afrocentrist author Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan, who had been invited to deliver the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial lecture, and who has claimed in print that Aristotle robbed the library of Alexandria:

After Dr. ben-Jochannan made these same assertions once again in his lecture, I asked him during the question and answer period why he said that Aristotle had come to Egypt with Alexander and had stolen his philosophy from the library at Alexandria, when that library had only been built after his death. Dr. ben-Jochannan was unable to answer the question, and said that he resented the tone of the inquiry. Several students came up to me after the lecture and accused me of racism, suggesting that I had been brainwashed by white historians. ...

A lecture at which serious questions could not be asked, and in fact were greeted with hostility--the occasion seemed more like a political rally than an academic event (2-3).

Professor Lefkowitz describes the silence of her colleagues, one of whom later called the lecture 'hopeless,' thus requiring no discussion. Charges of racism, she suspects, kept them quiet. Her dean tried to pacify her by claiming that 'each of us had a different but equally valid view of history.'

This last claim, common enough, negates the value of history. If any of us actually believed it we'd have no reason to make one or another reading of history. Except of course were it politically advantageous.

This brings me to the point of this post, namely that there really are things knowable with a degree of certainty, that history, like science (though judged on very different evidential grounds), should not lie within the provenance of rhetoric and politics.

Afrocentrism and various other agenda-driven 'readings' of history and culture that manufacture enemies are no different in this respect from Intelligent Design, that bastard child of Creationism which pits evolutionary theory against god and makes those who deny politically advantageous 'readings' of nature the enemies of Christianity.

But this line of thought matters little. It will doubtless be 'read' as a racist, Zionist, anti-Christian, misogynistic, homophobic attack in support of the Western capitalist hegemony.

WARNING! This post has been called a "spoiler." People who don't want to read about certain details in "Brokeback Mountain" might not want to read any further.

Someone at the Childress, Texas Chamber of Commerce isn't doing a very good job. For a shrinking town of some 6500 people, it seems to be the capital of far more mayhem and murder than it should.

You'd never know Childress was a terrible place merely by Googling the name. What you get are interesting facts like these:

The community was named after George Campbell Childress, who wrote the Texas Declaration of Independence

Former and merged community names include:
· Henry

Crime: The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in 2003 was 19. The number of murders and homicides was 0. The violent crime rate was 2.8 per 1,000 people.

Well-known residents have included:
· Walter P. Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Motor Corp.

And now, from "Brokeback Mountain," we know that homosexuals get beaten to death in Childress.

Which means the above statistics can't be right, can they?

Should it matter that "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Brokeback Mountain" are actually fictional? That no such murders actually took place near Childress?

Is it fair to ask whether Childress is a victim of unfair stereotyping? Might it have been better to pick another town?

Another state, perhaps?

The reason for my concern about Childress is that I saw "Brokeback Mountain" last night, and the night before that I rented and watched the umpteenth version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." (A must for all fans of Full Metal Jacket's R. Lee Ermey, BTW....) What I'm troubled by is the logic of stereotyping a small town I've never visited and probably never will. Am I supposed to be more afraid of cannibals with chainsaws? Or homophobes with tire irons?

Somehow, the latter seems intended as the more truthful stereotype of the two. Perhaps evocative of the death of Matthew Shepard?

No, that can't be right, because his name aside, Matthew Shepard never herded sheep, and he wasn't what you'd call a man's man. He was tiny and effeminate, and it is doubtful he could have put up much of a fight -- either on the night the thugs beat him to death or any time.

But the "Brokeback Mountain" guy who was murdered in Childress, well, he was tough enough to ride bulls in rodeos, physically threaten his bullying father-in-law into submission, and duke it out with his violent boyfriend. He was also smart enough to carry on a gay relationship behind his wife's back, as well as score with guys in Mexico (where such things can be more dangerous than here). He just didn't strike me as the type who'd get himself beaten to death by fag bashers.

I don't mean to engage in stereotypical thinking, but the few cases of fag bashing I've personally known about took place not at the hands of cowboys, but in urban areas, at the hands of minority youths offended by gay men who ventured too close to "their" neighborhoods (and who were too open for their liking). This is not to say that small town Texans wouldn't do the same thing, but seeing stuff like that on a big screen always makes me wonder whether there's a message being sent. ("GAY MEN BEWARE! Texas towns are dangerous places.") In reality, I think most gay men would be more likely to be attacked in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, or even tolerant San Francisco than in Childress, Texas.

But again, is Childress really the issue?

Or is there a bigger stereotype meant to include Texas, Wyoming, and other flyover states? The red-state/blue-state cultural stereotypes, perhaps?

Anyway, there was just something about portraying a Texas small town that way that struck me as a bit unfair. I can see past the stereotypes (assuming that is what they are), but are there clueless people out there who won't?

And am I supposed to care about clueless people?

As it is, the clueless hordes drive me to utter distraction, because while I don't know where they are or what they think, they are always invoked by communitarian proponents of the National Kindergarten mindset which so infuriates me. From what the ideologues on both sides say, they -- the little people -- are victims of bad leadership and propaganda aimed at manipulating them and leading them astray. The evil Red State Neocons make them think Saddam Hussein personally directed the 9/11 attacks, fill their minds with homophobia, and trick them into voting for antigay marriage ordinances. Clearly, they don't know what they should think. This justifies the people on the other (blue state) side in telling them how bigoted, insensitive, and murderous they are, and of course what they should think.

It's almost as if American ideologues on both sides believe that non-ideological Americans are sheep to be led. But it's insulting to tell people they're sheep. It can backfire. So, instead of telling them that directly, they're told that they're acting like sheep if they follow the evil ideologues on the other side.

I tire of this, mainly because I dislike the idea that Americans are sheep. In fact, I hate the very idea of human sheep. I do my best to deny the existence of a class of people who want to be led, and I defend individuality to the best of my ability, because I don't think it is natural for human beings to be led, much less Americans, who are a proud, independent, individualistic people.

On some deep subconscious level, I hated the endless images of sheep in "Brokeback Mountain." I'm not sure why, but I'm now finding myself wondering whether I saw them as a symbol of the imaginary mindless Americans who think what they're told to think, and whose existence I deny, but who fill me with fear and loathing. For, if we are a nation of sheep, then libertarianism is wrong, and the communitarians, the fascists, and the Communists are right. So, I refuse to believe in sheep. The catch is that it makes me sheepophobic. (Would that be oviphobic?) I hate and fear the sheep I deny, because they threaten my view of a proud, free, independent America.

Is it an accident that the cowboys in "Brokeback Mountain" were portrayed as neglecting the sheep while they were screwing, or am I just being paranoid?

Author (and non-Texan, non-Wyomingite) Annie Proulx doesn't say much about the sheep, but the way she talks about her characters might be seen as a tad condescending:

I had to imagine my way into the minds of two uneducated, rough-spoken, uninformed young men, and that takes some doing if you happen to be an elderly female person. I spent a great deal of time thinking about each character and the balance of the story, working it out, trying to do it in a fair kind of way.

But then, neither did "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and I never complained about that.

So what the hell is my problem with unfair stereotypes and sheep?

(I think I should conclude by reassuring myself that these movies are all fiction and we are not a nation of sheep.....)

UPDATE: A reader who wishes to remain nameless has sent an email titled "Stereotypes are sometimes real" in which he argues that in his experience, small towns are more dangerous for gays:

My partner and I have lived in rural northern California together for 27 years. Our experience in many ways mirrors that of what is portrayed in "Brokeback Mountain" (We haven't seen the movie yet, but have read the reviews - so I'm kind of flying loose here.)

Anyway, you say that gays are far more likely to get mugged or beat in cities than in small towns.

Not in our experience.

In 1999 two closeted friends of ours were brutally murdered in bed in Redding, California. Gary Matson & Winfield Mouder were their names. They befriended the Williams brothers, Identity Christians, who also burned a couple of synagogues in Sacramento and had a list on them of well known Jews they intended to murder when they were captured.

Some 25 years ago a close friend of mine was bludgeoned to death in Red Bluff, California. He was gay in a cowboy town. Ever heard of the "Red Bluff Round Up"? His name was Russ Baldwin.

And finally my own experience:

My partner & I have tried to live a quiet existence in a small rural community. But like all small towns, everyone knows.

So, a few years ago the 20 acres next door to us was sold to a couple in their 70's. They just happened to be former occupants of Mt. Carmel, Texas. In fact they were some of the original Dividians. And without trying to sound paranoid, I believe they have brought other followers with them. To the point that this tiny Sierra foothill community now has quite a group of 7th Day Adventists with intent of building a church, a food processing center, and a school.

A year ago last Labor Day, one of the flock living on another adjoining piece of property to ours, started a fire that burned up through our 5 acres destroying everything in its path except the house. We were BBQing on the deck when the fire storm approached, and escaped with our lives. Only because of a large water-filled Live Oak tree in the front yard that deflected the fire around the house, did we survive.

Ever read in the Bible about "and they shall be consumed in fire"?

I sleep with a 12 gauge by the head of the bed, and we are getting ready to move.

This is no joke.

It's life for gays in small town USA. (And Canada is looking better by the day.)

I do remember reading about the Matson-Mowder murders described in the email. Yet California as a state was never implicated in the same way that Wyoming was for the Matthew Shepard murder.

(If I lived in Wyoming, I might consider that a double standard.)

UPDATE (1/02/06): The Philadelphia Inquirer's Faye Flam rounds out the discussion of "Brokeback Mountain" with a quasi-scientific piece on gay sheep:

....in his book Biological Exuberance, author Bruce Bagemihl details gay behavior in a huge variety of wild animals. Here's an excerpt from his section on bighorn mountain rams: "Typically the larger male rears up on his hind legs and mounts the smaller male... the mountee assumes a characteristic posture known as lordosis, in which he arches his back to facilitiate copulation."

"Usually the mounting male has an erect penis and achieves full anal penetration," the book goes on to say - apparently the anatomy of wild sheep is suited for it, unlike that of domesticated sheep.

This anatomical coincidence is shared by various other living things, including, it would seem, sheep-herding cowboys.

Via Samizdata, I found the perfect sign for my house:

Haven't run it past Coco yet, and it might take a little explaining. But how many dogs devote themselves to fighting coverups, promoting products, and writing in the snow?

Or hiding in a trunk?

How about hiding behind designer jeans?

I'll let Coco think this over...

La Shawn Barber's observations about blogger responsibility are well worth reading:

....[U]nrestrained power coupled with little to no accountability is a dangerous thing. As a blogger who’s been the subject of nasty and false statements made by bloggers and in comment sections by anonymous cowards, I know what people are capable of saying when they get caught up in online anonymity. When you’re not man or woman enough to stand behind your words using your own name, high ideals like accountability and responsibility are mere afterthoughts.

While this came up during La Shawn's response to Kathleen Parker's attack on bloggers (we're like the uncontrolled children in Lord of the Flies, claims Parker), I do think that there are probably a lot of bloggers who do behave precisely like undisciplined brats, and who are unaccountable. I'd rather avoid reading them if possible, but I think it's fair to criticize unaccountability and condemn "Lord of the Flies" antics whenever they are found.

Which is not to say that bloggers in general behave that way, because they don't. These days, there are so many bloggers that there isn't any generalization which could apply to all of them -- save the fact that they all write web logs. (Well, a spammer or a bot is not a blogger. Nor do I consider certain vast conglomerates to be the same as individual blogs, but that's another issue.)

Because I realize bloggers will disagree on issues like accountability (as they do on nearly everything), I can only speak for myself, and by way of definition of accountability, I can only offer the standard I apply to myself, and it's pretty close to La Shawn's. As I have said before, I have to be ready to defend anything and everything I have written in this blog, at any time. That's a pretty tall order for anyone writing opinions every day, as it is impossible to do this and be right all the time. Accountability means knowing the difference between fact and opinion, being willing to admit and correct errors and (at least for me), always being open to the possibility that I might be wrong about nearly everything.

Even my most deeply held beliefs.

For example, it is always possible that there really does exist the God so many people want to see as the angry bearded legend who sends people to hell for things like using their genitalia for purposes he's said to dislike. It is therefore possible that I might face eternal damnation. Although I have to be just as willing to acknowledge and answer for everything I have done in my life as I am to defend the thoughts in this blog, I live with that possibility, and the only bright side is that I'd probably be going where most of my friends have gone. I might not believe in such a God, but I know it's just my opinion and belief, and other people have other opinions and beliefs. Similarly, I don't believe in Communism, socialism, or other forms of communitarianism, but I must acknowledge that my beliefs may be wrong. I hesitate to attack people simply because their opinions differ from mine, and I try to limit my disagreements to the ideas rather than the people who hold them. But I'm human, and I'm always tempted to return fire when differences of opinion are coupled with ad hominem attacks.

If only the world of opinion consisted of verifiable facts! But it doesn't. Even the distinction between fact and opinion can be tricky. Many people believe what they want to believe despite evidence to the contrary. This leads to assertions of being wrong, of lying, and of being stupid or evil. In general, people who are willing to acknowledge that they have said what they said and are willing to defend it in a sincere manner are less likely to resort to insulting ad hominem attacks, they are more accountable, and less like the kids in Lord of the Flies.

I think the flaw in the Lords of the Flies analogy is that in the novel, a bunch of ordinary kids found themselves on an island where they reverted to natural savagery which resulted in mob tyranny by bigger and stronger boys. While some bloggers might voluntarily submit to systems which could be characterized as mob rule, there is no way for them to rule over other bloggers. If, in the blogosphere, a blogger doesn't want to join an online mob, there's no way to make him do anything, and there is no way to destroy his blog. Unlike "Ralph" (or poor "Piggy"), he can't have his glasses broken or be speared to death by other bloggers for speaking up. There might be people who'd want to do that, but they're ultimately powerless because the Internet more resembles a universe than a small island.

The only spears to be thrown are verbal.

And here's the problem and paradox for would-be tyrants (whether of the MSM or blogger variety): the stronger and sharper their verbal spear thrusts, the stronger their "victims" become.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Obviously, if we see "The Lord of the Flies" in blogospheric terms, a compelling argument can be made that the "Piggy" character (a voice for reason who argued against mob thinking) represents the best of the blogosphere. (Saying the blogosphere resembles his killers reduces him to their level, and IMHO, rather misses the point.)

That last story (about an innocent girl whose imprisonment on phony drug charges resulted from an airport search) highlights a longtime concern I've had about the war on terror, and that is that the "War on Drugs" may be its Achilles heel.

The problem with giving authorities extraordinary powers to search citizens for bombs is that there's no clear line limiting their jurisdiction. That's because once an officer has the right to search you for things including, say, a "white powder," (which might be TATP), any other white powder he finds becomes admissible as evidence.

It doesn't take much imagination to see how this can pave the way for a hellish future in which all citizens are subject to search at all times.

Arguably, we may be there right now. To fight terrorism, many citizens are willing to be searched, whether on planes, trains, or buses. It wouldn't take more than one or two suicide car bombers to cause people to willingly allow searches of their cars, too. And with geiger counters pointed at homes, how much more difficult would it be to add computerized drug sniffing devices?

Would Americans tolerate what would be totalitarian police tactics in the fight against terrorism? It depends. I think many of them would.

But throw in the damned "War on Drugs," and limited, quasi-totalitarian tactics can lead to a nexus in which our constitutional freedoms are lost -- a scenario which I think may be a bit too intolerable for most people.

While there may be practical ways to exclude drug law enforcement from the war on terror, I don't see much discussion of it.

In fact, I see precisely the opposite.

From a recent piece in the Christian Science Monitor titled "Terror War Aiding Drug War":

As Congress and President Bush wrangle over the USA Patriot Act, the Border Security bill, and other tools of the war on terror, they may want to keep another law-enforcement group in mind – the nation's drug-fighters.

That's because the war on terror is proving to be a boon to the war on drugs. Drug seizures are up all along the US-Mexico border. Nowhere is the trend clearer than along a desolate 118-mile patch of Arizona desert across the border from the Mexican state of Sonora.

In what is rapidly becoming one of the highest drug-trafficking and people-smuggling sectors along the border, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers there have seized 13,000 pounds of marijuana since Oct. 1, triple the amount captured in the same period last year. That year, fiscal 2005, also set a record. The reasons for the success? Better intelligence-sharing, increased manpower, and improved technology that border officials have received in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

For the record, I strongly support the War on Terror, and I strongly oppose the "Drug War."

I wish that certain totalitarian-minded bureaucrats wouldn't keep trying to blur the distinction, as I'd hate to have to change my mind.

UPDATE: This policy briefing makes a good case that the Drug War is actually impeding the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

As I've argued before, the Drug War is also a great way to turn former allies into enemies.

The main reason I thought the Little Red Book hoax was so laughable was that I couldn't believe that federal officers would seriously waste their time on innocuous, universally-available, tacky Communist kitsch.

A story in this morning's Inquirer, however, would be even more laughable if it wasn't true, which it appears to be. Amazing as it sounds, a Bryn Mawr college student was arrested not for a silly book, but for flour in condoms:

She was a freshman on an academic scholarship at Bryn Mawr College, preparing to fly home to California for Christmas, sleep-deprived, with questions from a calculus exam still racing through her head.

In the space of a few hours on Dec. 21, 2003, Janet Lee landed in a Philadelphia jail cell, where she would remain for three weeks, held on $500,000 bail and facing 20 years in prison on drug charges.

All over flour found in her luggage.

Obviously it was not a busy day for terrorism, as the authorities we normally trust to keep us safe from Osama bin Laden devoted themselves assiduously to putting this girl in jail on trumped up charges:

....[S]creeners at Philadelphia International Airport inspecting her checked luggage found three condoms filled with white powder. Lee laughed and told city police they were filled with flour. It was just part of a phallic gag at a women's college, she told them, a stress-reliever, something to squeeze while studying for exams.

The police didn't find it funny. They told her a field test showed that the powder contained opium and cocaine.

A lab test later proved the substance was flour - and no one now disputes that Lee is innocent, including the prosecutor.

Capt. Benjamin Naish, a spokesman for the Police Department, declined to comment, noting that the department rarely comments on litigation. Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, also declined to comment.

Lee's lawsuit seeks to answer a central question: Why did the police field test initially conclude that the white powder contained drugs?

Her lawyers, former prosecutors David Oh and Jeremy Ibrahim, say there are two possibilities: Either the field test was faulty or someone fixed the results.

Ellen Green-Ceisler, who directed the Police Department's Office of Integrity and Accountability from 1997 to 2005, called Lee's case highly unusual. Field tests are rarely wrong.

'Almost never happens'

"I've looked at thousands of these cases, and in the context of trained narcotics officers, it almost never happens," she said. "The whole issue will come down to the field test. Was the officer trained? Was the test contaminated?"

Ibrahim said he waited to file the lawsuit until last week, on the eve of the end of the two-year statute of limitations, because Lee needed time to process what happened.

"She was devastated emotionally," Ibrahim said, noting that the event became a minor scandal among her Korean American family and friends. "She lost significant face with this event."

Many records in the case are still confidential, not yet accessible even to Lee's lawyers. What is undisputed is that she was detained at the airport shortly before she was to board a plane to Los Angeles. Court records confirm her arrest and three-week detention on drug charges. Records also confirm why prosecutors dropped the charges.

I don't blame this woman for suing! I note that her lawyer (former White House appointee Jeremy Ibrahim) is no slouch, and I honestly hope she ends up owning the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Airport so she can fire everyone responsible and tell the rest to devote themselves to fighting terrorism.

While I find the story hard to believe, the Inquirer is not some college newspaper, and I don't think they'd have run this story without checking the facts.

I have a brief observation and a question.

First of all, airport authorities have no business abusing the extraordinary powers granted them during war on terrorism to shake down people for drug offenses -- real or (as in this case) imaginary.

Second of all, what the hell kind of "drug field tests" are being used in this country? If they can't determine the difference between flour and cocaine and opium, why, it makes me afraid to get on a plane.

(Especially if I'm carrying well-known methamphetamine precursors like sudafed and lithium.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: My gut reaction to this is that the police probably never did a field test. It's just a guess on my part, but my common sense tells me that they just made up the test results to "teach her a lesson." If so, I hope she teaches them a lesson. I wish it didn't have to be at the taxpayers' expense, but maybe if things like this happen more often, people will start asking tough questions about the growing totalitarianism inherent in that damnable human rights atrocity so euphemistically called the "Drug War."

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Michael Totten looks at airport security in Libya (a "total-surveillance police state" in which "one person in six works for the secret police"):

A bored official glanced at my visa, rubbed his face, stamped my passport and pointed me toward my first Libyan checkpoint. A man in an untucked button-up shirt, with a cigarette jutting out the side of his mouth, waved me toward a metal detector. He hadn’t shaved in two days. I walked through. The alarm screamed and I braced for a pat-down. He just stood there, took a long drag on his cigarette and stared bleary-eyed into space over my shoulder. I guessed that meant I could go. So I did.

In what appears to have been a gang-related dispute in Toronto yesterday, a girl was killed and six people were injured in a shootout in a crowded shopping center. Rather than blaming the individuals who did the shooting (or even gang violence), Toronto's mayor blames guns. And above all, he blames the United States:

Mayor David Miller said almost every other type of crime is down in Toronto, but the supply of guns has increased and half come from the United States.

"The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence," he said.

However, Mayor Miller is right there on the scene, so obviously he knows more than I do about United States exports. If in fact we are exporting what he says we are, why not simply impose a huge tariff? Whenever guns or violence appear at the border, just tax them!

No, that wouldn't work for guns, because they're already subject to considerable regulation.

As the U.S. State Department points out, importing most firearms into Canada is severely restricted:

Prohibited Firearms

You cannot import prohibited firearms, or any prohibited weapons or devices, including silencers and replica firearms. A prohibited firearm is:

* a handgun with a barrel length of 105 mm (4.1 inches) or less;
* a handgun designed or adapted to discharge 25 or 32 caliber ammunition

To be able to bring a restricted firearm to Canada in person, you will need to obtain an Authorization to Transport (ATT) from the CFO of the province where you will be entering Canada. If you are bringing firearms with you and declaring them with a Non-Resident Firearm Declaration, you will need to wait until your declaration has been confirmed, before you call the CFO to request an ATT.

What I'd like to know is how we manage to "export violence" to a country with which we're not even at war.

Well, more prominent minds than mine have argued that the United States exported homosexuality into a country we invaded.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that "Brokeback Mountain" was unveiled to wide critical acclaim at the Toronto Film Festival last September.

Wow. I also see it was set for "wide release in Canada in December." (The same month as the shooting!)

Case closed, I'd say.

History is written by the victors.

-- Churchill

And so is morality.

In another reminder of the principle I touched on in the last post (that moral debates are won by those who yell the loudest), Jeff Jarvis links to a very tedious "Culture War" skirmish between the American Family Association and NBC. The AFA has decided that a television program ("The Book of Daniel") -- featuring a minister with a substance abuse problem -- is an attack on Christianity and Christians.

Why would that necessarily be the case? Didn't Jesus go out of his way and endure great criticism to befriend and hang out with disreputable people like drunks, tax collectors, and sinners of various stripes? Wasn't Jesus the guy who Christianity was named for? I haven't seen the series (it hasn't aired yet), but in theory, why can't a guy with a substance abuse problem be one of his ministers as long as he beliefs are sincere (which according to the website they apparently are)?

Can't they at least watch the show before jumping to the conclusion that it's against Christianity?

A major reason the AFA gives for opposing the show is that it's written by a "practicing homosexual." I'm assuming their argument is that this is bad on it's face, because no Christian could possibly be a homosexual, because homosexuality is condemned as a sin in the Bible. But isn't there someplace else where it says all Christians are sinners? Aren't there also adulterous Christians, lying Christians, covetous Christians, and Christians who don't always strictly obey the Sabbath? Is the AFA arguing that Jesus would want a background check run on all writers to see whether they're free from sin? Furthermore, where do they get the idea that homosexuality was one of Jesus Christ's primary concerns?

Is the AFA free from sin? If not, then who put them in charge?

One thing is sure: they'll try to yell louder than anyone else.

That's because they hope that their yelling will be seen as the only "Christian" voice. Loud, cacophonous, and unreasonable. Isn't that how the godless secular atheist heathens want to portray all Christians?

Back to Jeff Jarvis, who raises an interesting point about fairness.

Change the channel. Go watch the 700 Club, which offends me, though I’m not trying to keep you from watching it.

Again, assuming there is some right to not be offended, isn't it possible that some Christians might find the 700 Club just as offensive as other Christians might find "The Book of Daniel"? Don't they have just as much right to complain that the 700 Club presents Christianity in an unfavorable light, and does great damage to the cause of Jesus Christ? Legally speaking, they do, but they're just not as loud in presenting their moral argument.

Whether it be a left wing or right wing variety, it's because morality is often confused with volume that the loudest voices win.

What is art? What is speech? What is offensive speech?

Such questions leaped from the front page of today's Philadelphia Inquirer in an article about Sony's "Playstation kid" graffiti advertising campaign. Local activists who favor political murals but hate corporate ones are in a dither:

Sony has conceded that the graffiti ads are not spontaneous art, but contrived marketing for the handheld games.

That annoys Mary Tracy, a local watchdog against illegal billboards through her group, SCRUB - the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight.

"It's not mural art," Tracy said. "This is someone trying to sell a product. This is commercialism. You have a multi-conglomerate operation coming into the city and breaking our laws."

She added that if it is art, why not put it everywhere?

"They're not putting this on walls in Gladwyne or Ardmore," Tracy said. "These are poor neighborhoods. The whole notion that 'if it's urban, it's OK' is very arrogant and very disrespectful."

Philadelphia has strict billboard regulations. Companies have to get a permit from the city's Licenses and Inspections Department before putting up an advertisement.

Sony did not get permission ahead of time for its graffiti ads, the L&I office confirmed yesterday.

L&I intended to issue a violation to the property owner and inform Sony that such advertising required a permit, said a department official who asked not to be identified.

Is the current uproar over the fact that someone wants to make money, and that's bad? Unlike the case of regular graffiti art, Sony is paying the owners of buildings to allow the art, and some of them like it. (A fact which appears not to matter at all.)

It strikes me that there is a serious philosophical question somewhere in all of this.

Dare I ask whether this question involves morality? Commercial graffiti is more immoral than graffiti glorifying murderers?

New York blogger (and "street-art aficionado") Jake Dobkin does not like Sony's Playstation graffiti (to say the least):

I've written about this so many times on Gothamist that I'm worried about sounding like a broken record-- but apparently the big corporations have not gotten the message. This week, Sony Playstation graffiti pieces have been popping up like cancer all over Manhattan. The pieces are sometimes drawn by hand-- others are wheat pasted to walls all over SoHo and NoLIta. It's clearly a large campaign, and deserves a thoughtful, measured response. Here's mine: corporate graffiti sucks. Sucks! Sucks! Sucks! It sucks for a variety of specific reasons....

He also provides a photo of Sony's sucky-ass art:

I have to admit, I don't especially like Sony's graffiti art, but I think there's a huge double standard which isn't being acknowledged. Forgetting for a moment First Amendment concerns, I'd like to ask why there should be more of a moral right to deface buildings with pictures of a communist murderer than with pictures of the Playstation kids.

For example, Mr. Dobkin links to some of his own art, which features a picture of Che Guevara surrounded by BB King, Ernest Hemingway, and others. Many people wouldn't mind seeing Che Guevara, but many would. (I know it's just my own personal opinion, but may I be so bold as to venture that Communism sucks?)

While I'm not especially offended by Dobkin's work (because he's at least kind enough to also feature images of people I do like), here's an example (by another artist) which typifies the type of mural I don't like:

Again, why does the fact that this is not commercial make the above morally superior? Is it less offensive because it doesn't advertise a product? Isn't it advertising Communism and murder? Aren't Communism and murder at least as offensive as high tech toys?

Well, no!

That's because making money is immoral. Committing murder in the name of "social justice" is not. Whether anyone likes it or not, moral questions are won by those who scream the loudest.

(What, you're expecting I should scream more loudly? On behalf of the DRM-virus-spreading Sony?)

UPDATE (12/29/05): Yahoo has picked up the story, and links to a photo of Sony's actual Philadelphia, um, art.

The owner likes it, but the City says he has to get a license because he violates "zoning" or something.

(And of course, commies get to advertise free.)

Go figure.

Via Pajamas Media, here's a tale of road mob psychosis:

MILWAUKEE, Dec. 27, 2005 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- At least 15 young people dragged a motorist out of his car and kicked and punched him, causing severe head trauma, after he honked his horn to get them to move out of a street, police said.

It was the latest in a series of mob beatings in the city.

The 50-year-old man was in critical condition Tuesday and it was unclear whether he would survive, police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said.

Schwartz said the man was driving alone on the city's north side late Monday when he honked at the group of young people in the middle of a road.

"Instead of moving they surrounded the vehicle," and kicked and beat him, she said.

"They left him for dead and when we showed up he was lying in the street," she said.

Officers hadn't made any arrests Tuesday, she said.

But that is no excuse for what may well have been rudeness on the part of the driver. Being in a car does not entitle a driver to behave any differently than he would were he walking down the street. I'm reminded of an incident in New Jersey in which a driver who'd been cut off in traffic followed another driver all the way home, ran him down with his car, whereupon the injured driver struck back with his fists and killed the other driver. He'd have been equally justified in shooting back, and that is true notwithstanding his initial rudeness.

Cases like this make me wonder whether armed drivers might not be a bit slower to anger in situations that provoke confrontations. There's truth to that old saying -- "An armed society is a polite society."

Most of the people I've known who carry guns also understand the consequences of escalation, and consequently, they're slower to do things like flip people the bird.

MORE: According to this organization working to change the laws, Wisconsin is "one of only four states that prohibits anyone other than police officers from carrying concealed weapons."

I'd say it's a good place to be a criminal.

UPDATE (12/30/05): Five uveniles may soon be charged with the mob beating:

Two are 17 years old, two are 16 and one is 14, according to a police statement that did not give the genders of the suspects in the attack on Samuel McClain, a 50-year-old father of 12. Police continue to seek more suspects, the release said.

"We're talking to a lot of people to try to get to the bottom of what happened," said police department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.

"We're getting some tips," she added, but declined to be specific.

Thomas Potter, a Milwaukee County assistant district attorney, was handling the case.

"I'm going to be talking to a lot of people over the next day and a half," Potter said, estimating he would likely interview more than a dozen witnesses.

A group of as many as 15 youths punched, kicked and jumped on McClain after he honked for them to move out of the street Monday night, witnesses said.

AND MORE: According to this report, three teens have already been arrested.

CNN has another report of the arrests, as well as pictures.

In my haste to complain about the crackdown on sudafed sales to Americans with colds, I forgot about something that a lot of people seem to have forgotten about: a substance called phenyl 2 propanone (also known by the abbreviation P2P).

Back in the 70s and 80s (a period I remember well) there was at least as much methampetamine abuse as there is now, but instead of using sudafed as a precursor, the meth labs used P2P. This triggered a crackdown on P2P, which led to the shift to sudafed.

It's been so long that I'd forgotten. But the lab operators don't forget.

In the 1960s and ’70s, biker gangs made meth using phenyl-2-propanone, a dark brown syrupy chemical that eventually was regulated by the government. Methamphetamine made in “mom-and-pop labs” is chemically different than its 1960s counterpart, making it extremely addictive, police say.

P2P is not an especially profound substance. It's not mind altering, and cannot get anyone high. Yet it's regulated as a Schedule III narcotic -- something which caused the lab operators to switch to the less regulated pseudoephedrine. Here's one underground chemist shooting off his mouth:

The major problem with methedrine synthesis is procuring the precursors. Phenyl-2-propanone is the most direct precursor to my knowledge and is (unfortunately?) at Schedule III controlled substance. It has no pharmacological activity and yet the DEA saw fit to regulate it around 1975. The first synthesis I will give uses this in as a starting material. Actually it is still possible to find this substance tucked away in store rooms in many universities that presumably purchased the compound before it was controlled. A friend of mine came across 500 mls made by Eastman Kodak in the stock room at Princeton. I purchased 100 mls when I lived in England many years ago and did my first run using it. The reaction can be completed in about 6 hours giving about 60% yield; I am a biologist, not a chemist so someone who knew what they were doing could probably improve on that.

Are history and chemistry being forgotten in the latest bout of hysteria? An MSN piece by Jack Shafer debunked current hysteria with much-needed historical perspective, and it's worth reading if you marvel over the cyclical nature of hysteria (or enjoy reading about drug addiction in the White House):

One well-known and avid consumer of legal amphetamines was President John Kennedy. When users (and dealers) couldn't obtain a doctor's prescription, they would divert the drugs from legal channels—stealing them, forging prescriptions, setting up fraudulent companies and ordering them from the source, or smuggling them across the border. Use was so prevalent that a 1964 study in Oklahoma City (population 300,000) identified 5,000 individuals who got amphetamines and barbiturates (downers) through illegal sources.

In 1965, the federal government tried to reduce the flow of legal amphetamines into the black market by passing the Federal Drug Abuse Control Amendments, but the law had an unintended effect. At the time, the legal amphetamines wholesaled for as little as 14 tablets a penny, writes Edward M. Brecher in his landmark 1972 study, Licit and Illicit Drugs. "Kitchen chemists" had been producing amphetamines in clandestine labs since the early 1950s, but they couldn't compete with the licit producers on price. When the government restricted the legal supply, the street price for the diverted amphetamines logically went up. This opened the door "for profitable illicit manufacture on a far larger scale" for the first time, notes Brecher.

In 1988, the federal government attempted to curtail the production of illicit methamphetamine by severely restricting access to the P2P precursor compound. Some chemists switched to ephedrine, which could be found in cold remedies, and when the government suppressed ephedrine, some moved on to pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in Sudafed and other decongestants. Now, the government strictly limits even the sale of over-the-counter preparations containing pseudoephedrine. According to Newsweek (which I should be reluctant to present as a reliable source), the precursor clampdown helped drive half of all U.S. methamphetamine production to Mexico, where there are few controls.

Large amounts of the drugs were diverted into the black market, which swelled in the 1960s as speed use escalated, prompting Congress to enact laws to stem illicit sales in 1965. It was then that clandestine labs really started to proliferate, many of them large-scale. The region between Dallas and Oklahoma City, with its ready access to interstate highways and its miles of unpatrolled farm and ranch lands, became home to more than its share of "P2P" labs, named after one of the precursor chemicals, phenyl-2-propanone. Back then the manufacturing process required some chemical savvy, it smelled much worse than the Nazi method, and it took a few days; speed cooks would go out into the country and come back with a pound or two. In North Texas it was, in part, a kind of oilfield supply business: Roughnecks commonly took speed to get through their shifts of 12 hours and longer.

"Up through the early '90s North Texas was the methamphetamine capital of the world, back when they made the 'good meth,'" says Bill Coombs, the chemical dependency counselor. "Then the precursors were made illegal, and so the supply of methamphetamine almost dried up. It was fairly expensive until this new method came about." (The changes in speed manufacturing techniques over the years are a textbook case of regulation-inspired evolution. Each time the government manages to clamp down on one version of the drug, an easier manufacturing method emerges, often resulting in a more potent product.) The new method has affected not just the drug's availability, but its palpability, the sense of its presence in small communities. Because the method is easier, faster, and not quite as smelly, the drug is more likely to be made in town than in the past. And because there are more manufacturers, there are more manufacturing cases moving through the courts.

Regarding "Nazi Meth," it's not my purpose to get into underground chemistry, but the recipes are readily available online. This anti-meth website's summary of the ingredients highlights the drug cookers' ingenuity (and in my view, the futility of criminalizing the human appetite):

Once the ephedrine has been extracted, the cook will manufacture “Nazi” or “Red P” meth. Both “recipes” utilize heat and chemical reactions to manufacture the finished product, Methamphetamine Hydrochloride. The process is essentially the same with the exception of the agents used in the reaction. In Nazi meth, the cook will add lithium strips, usually extracted from batteries, and anhydrous ammonia to the reduced ephedrine to start the chemical reaction. In the Red P recipe, red phosphorous, usually extracted from match tips, and iodine are used in lieu of lithium and anhydrous. Most of the ingredients used in ephedrine reduction can be purchased legally, thus contributing to its popularity. Common household items used in the production of meth include denatured alcohol, ether, salt, drain cleaner, camping fuel, paint thinner and lye. Obviously, most of us would be reluctant to ingest ingredients. However, most of these precursor ingredients are destroyed or consumed in the manufacturing process and the finished product does not contain the poisons used in the process. The availability of these items and the simplicity of the process contribute to meth’s growing popularity.

Why, I'm almost ashamed to admit that my very own Nikon Coolpix 7900 has a lithium battery! I already knew I had the deadly sudafed in the house, but had no idea how guilty I truly was.

So I might as well confess, folks.

For the past week, I suffered from an awful cold, but I've had many social commitments. This situation has required me to take sudafed regularly, while running around with my camera, and until now I hadn't realized that I've been a walking speed lab. (And a Nazi one at that! Have I no shame?)

Making me get rid of my camera would be a small price to pay if it would save just one life....

Satire aside, there's a serious irony in all of this. When I was a kid, amphetamines could be easily obtained from any doctor, and the "speed problem" was a medical problem.

And a much less dangerous one.

There's a lot of talk about medicalizing a host of social problems, including such things as bias, and even guns. But here, an actual medical problem has been de-medicalized, and instead of people going to the doctor for a prescription, they're polluting veins and sinuses with foul stuff like the (new and improved) "Nazi meth."

Can anyone tell me how this is an improvement?

Not quite through the Christmas social ramble, so I'm not back to regular posting.

But here are couple of pictures I took today.

This was near the railroad tracks:

And here's something more festive:

(At least, I guess that's festive.....)

In an earlier post I objected to the medicalization of bias, because I see this as leading towards classfying dissent as disease.

However, some of the top minds in the psychiatric community not only continue to insist that bias is a mental illness, but they do so in language revealing such contempt for the distinction between the sanity and insanity that I wonder whether they believe everyone is insane (or want them to be). Fortunately, there are still mental health practitioners with enough common sense to object:

Advocates have circulated draft guidelines and have begun to conduct systematic studies. While the proposal is gaining traction, it is still in the early stages of being considered by the professionals who decide on new diagnoses.

If it succeeds, it could have huge ramifications on clinical practice, employment disputes, and the criminal justice system. Perpetrators of hate crimes could become candidates for treatment, and physicians would become arbiters of how to distinguish "ordinary prejudice" from pathological bias.

Several experts say they are unsure whether bias can be pathological. Solomon, for instance, is uncomfortable with the idea. But they agree that psychiatry has been inattentive to the effects of prejudice on mental health and illness.

"Has anyone done a word search for 'racism' " in psychiatry's manual of mental disorders, asked Carl C. Bell, a Chicago psychiatrist. "It doesn't exist. Has anyone asked, 'If you have paranoia, do you project your hostility toward other groups?' The answer is 'Hell, no!' "

The proposed guidelines that California psychologist Edward Dunbar created describe people whose daily functioning is paralyzed by persistent fears and worries about other groups. The guidelines have not been endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); advocates are mostly seeking support for systematic study.

Darrel A. Regier, director of research at the psychiatric association, said he supported research into whether pathological bias is a disorder. But he said the jury was out on whether a diagnostic classification would add anything useful, given that clinicians already know about disorders in which people rigidly hold onto false beliefs.

"If you are going to put racism into the next edition of DSM, you would have enormous criticism," Regier said. Critics would ask, " 'Are you pathologizing all of life?' You better be prepared to defend that classification."

Might as well just diagnose them as "homeless" and tell them they're victims of capitalism while they run around yelling at people who aren't there.

But never mind that. It all comes down to social, um "context":

Psychiatrists who advocate a new diagnosis, such as Gary Belkin, deputy chief of psychiatry at New York's Bellevue Hospital, said social norms play a central role in how all psychiatric disorders are defined. Pedophilia is considered a disorder by psychiatrists, Belkin noted, but that does not keep child molesters from being prosecuted.

"Psychiatrists who are uneasy with including something like this in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual need to get used to the fact that the whole manual reflects social context," said Belkin, who is planning to launch a study on pathological bias among patients at his hospital. "That is true of depression on down. Pathological bias is no more or less scientific than major depression."

I don't even know how to begin to analyze a statement like that. I'd almost swear the man believes science stands in opposition to common sense.

(Perhaps common sense itself will soon be declared a delusion, and therefore worthy of DSM inclusion as a disease.)

I'm sorry, but the story about the Little Red Book hoax (and the now disappearing "student") continues to not make sense:

Mr. Hoey, the university spokesman, said the university had been unable to substantiate any of the facts of the story since it first was reported in The Standard-Times on Dec. 17.

As to any possible repercussions against the student, Mr. Hoey said, "We consider this to be an issue to be handled faculty member to student. We wouldn't discuss publicly any other action. Student discipline is a private matter."

Dr. Williams said the whole affair has had one bright point: The question of whether it is safe for students to do research has been answered.

"I can now tell my students that it is safe to do research without being monitored," he said. "With that hanging in the air like before, I couldn't say that to them."

The student's motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse.

"When I came back, like wow, there's this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls," he said. "Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that's about it, and I usually pick them up."

How do we know he even exists? We have only the word of the same reporter who broke the story (Aaron Nicodemus), plus the professors who were supposedly conned, and "university spokesman John Hoey," who seems overly eager to provide official cover for both the student and his professors.

The tale was so laughably unbelievable that at this point I can't believe anyone in this group ever believed it.

I'm wondering whether they ever did. Naturally, this makes me wonder about the "source."

(Considering his statement that he received "75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls," his identity shouldn't be too tough to track down.)

MORE: The Boston Globe claims that someone from the Globe spoke to the student, but won't say who, nor will they identify him:

The student was not identified in any reports. The Globe interviewed him Thursday but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity. The student could not be reached yesterday.

Williams said the student gave no explanation. But Williams, who praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.

''I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why," said Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history. He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ''disturbed me tremendously."

Regarding the hoaxster's professor, his website shows that he's a sophisticated international traveler, and not someone who'd be expected to be taken in so lightly.

The story just doesn't make sense. What's going on now more resembles political damage control than reporting.

MORE: Because he asks such a good question, Glenn Reynolds' comment is well worth repeating:

I'm disturbed tremendously that such a suspicious story was accepted so uncritically by alleged critical thinkers -- and I'm a bit surprised that the student's identity is still being protected. Why shouldn't we know who's behind this?

If I may be permitted to speculate, I'll offer an answer.

Because, if it were discovered that the identity of the person claiming to be protected was fictitious, that might shed too much light on who's behind this!

If, on the other hand, there really is an unnamed student whose identity is being protected, it would behoove the professor(s) to speak up.

Otherwise speculation like this is fair game.

MORE: Regarding motivation, I want to return to the apparent claim by original reporter Aaron Nicodemus that the student wanted attention ("Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that's about it, and I usually pick them up.")

I think it's very odd that a student who enjoys a circus atmosphere would not want more. (And I agree with commenter Swen Swenson that it's even odder that "one of those [87] callers wouldn't like call the press just to like claim their 15 minutes.")

Unless, of course there is no student. And no 87 calls.

AND MORE: There's a reason I'm dwelling on this at such length, and that's because if the student did not exist, the hoax becomes much larger (and infinitely more perfidious) than if he did.

I think the people who pushed this story now have a duty of full disclosure.

MORE: I'm also intrigued by Professor Pontbriand's statement that the alleged student is in need of care and attention:

"It was a disastrous thing for him to do. He needs attention, he needs care. I feel for the kid. We have great concern for this student's health and welfare."

If Professor Pontbriand knows that this student has health problems, when and how did he discover that? Is additional information being withheld?

Or is the professor assuming that lying is a form of illness?

(If it is, the world is a much sicker place than I thought . . .)

MORE: It is possible that the student could be half-fake. That is, there might have been no student with the initial story, but as the pressure built, the professor found someone willing to impersonate the alleged lying student, safe in thne assurance that he would simply disappear and his identity would never be known. That way, people could honestly claim that they'd seen and talked to him. But this is all pure speculation, based on the mysterious failure to identify a "confidential liar."

AND MORE: Michelle Malkin discusses campus hoaxes. (The "Little Red hoax" isn't the first one...)

Lots of running around today, so blogging will probably be light.

But Coco and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

MORE: "Brokeback Mountain" update here.

Whether I agree with them or not, within certain limits I try to respect everyone's beliefs. This respect might even extend to beliefs I consider childish or ridiculous, depending on the context.

Such as the age of the, um, believer, perhaps?

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve and I found myself intrigued and irritated by this story about a teacher apparently unable resist debunking Santa Claus for six year old children:

Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.

“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”

Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.

Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.

“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth. “‘Why didn’t you tell me Santa Claus died?’”

Elizabeth Schaeffer said she was appalled by Farrisi’s bluntness.

“I had to call the school,” said Schaeffer, a part-time custodial employee for the school district who is on temporary leave after complications from her last child’s birth. “I had to do something.”

Meanwhile, Farrisi, who is well versed on the history of “Santa Claus” — the traditional and literary figure — clarified her comments.

“I did not tell the students Santa Claus was dead,” she explained. “I said there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth (is based).”

On Monday night, Jamey started to recite Moore’s famous poem while sitting on a couch next to a freshly cut tree, trimmed in tinsel and topped with a golden star: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. No creatures stirred.”

She paused, looked up, and said that’s when the teacher interjected, just a few lines before the verse that announces the arrival of “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

“The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.”

"Mommy, why did you lie to me?"

Good question, damn it! It's high time six year olds when home and confronted their parents about these and other very harmful lies.

My immediate reaction was to assume that this teacher was probably one of those "godless secular atheists" we've been hearing about. But I should never assume, because after a minimum of digging, I found an additional report, which reveals possible religious bias by Ms. Farrisi:

....erecting a sign along the eastbound side of I-78, between the Bethel and Grimes exits, Leonard H. Martin has taken it upon himself to shatter the myth of Santa Claus for any youngster able to read the message from the back seat of a car as their parents drive by.

It marks the second consecutive year that Martin has posted what he termed a spiritual message on his land adjacent to I-78.

Last year, the sign stated, “Santa is a myth, lying to our children brings moral decay.”

For this season, Martin toned it down slightly. The sign now reads, “Worship God, who is all knowing & all seeing, Santa is a Myth.”

Martin, who operates a dairy farm at 250 Legion Drive, Bethel Township, is also a deacon with Harmony Christian Fellowship.

“We wanted to bring out the point that (Americans) are making Santa out to be what God actually is,” Martin said Tuesday. “We’re making Santa a god. I believe that is idol worship.”

Last week, Theresa Farrisi was working as a substitute music teacher at Lickdale Elementary School when she told a first-grade class that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Farrisi is a former member of Martin’s church.

“The practice of Santa Claus, as it’s taught today, is a religious practice,” Farrisi said yesterday. “It’s a secular religion, but it’s not Christian.” (Emphasis added.)

Next she'll be telling the kids that Halloween is evil and Satanic.

What I want to know is, can Ms. Farrisi prove there's no Santa Claus?

As I proved two years ago today, science, religion, and logic are all very close to agreement that Santa Claus does in fact exist, which means Ms. Farrisi is promoting junk science, bogus religion, and bad logic.

She has 24 hours to repent or else she's getting coal in her you-know-whats!

Let me begin with a disclaimer: I consider myself a non-practicing atheist. (i.e., I don't believe in gods, but I'm not evangelical about.) What follows is only logical.

A british artist has pulled one over on the Jesuits at America (a Catholic weekly magazine), buying an ad for a sculpture of the Virgin Mary in a condom (described as a 'latex veil'). Many will consider the artist's motive just, as he clearly does:

The artist, British-based Steve Rosenthal, said in a media e-mail on Thursday, "The primary aim of the work is to highlight the Vatican's continuance of non-advocation regarding the use of condoms and I conceived America magazine to be the most suitable place to contextualize the work outside of the gallery space and produce a dialogue."

Let me parse part of what Rosenthal said. 'Continuance of non-advocation regarding the use of condoms' is, stated another way, 'failure to advocate condom use.' The complaint appears to be that the Catholic Church doesn't actively take an advocacy position on the promotion of condom use.

But is that really what the Catholic Church should be doing? Isn't that asking the Church to cease being the Church?

Marriage ('Holy Matrimony') is one of the seven sacraments which Catholics believe were instituted by Christ as the basis of the New Law. They believe that Jesus writes the the New Law 'on the hearts' of the faithful, as he said in the Sermon on the Mount. It, and its sacraments, are thus part and parcel of Catholic faith.

Why do I bring this up? Because Catholics also believe that sex has no place outside of 'Holy Matrimony,' the greater purpose of which is the salvation of others (i.e., one's family). The purpose of sex within the context of Catholic marriage, then, is to make more Catholics.

Incidentally, the sacrament of marriage is believed to restore the natural union of man of woman as found before 'the fall.' Catholics believe that sin introduced lust. You might as well lobby the Church to promote masturbating to internet porn: while most of us see the difference, Catholocism doesn't.

And so it is completely out of the realm of possibility for the Catholic Church to advocate any kind of sexual activity beyond that outlined in one of its core sacraments. To do so would be to deny the importance of its own beliefs. It would tell the fold 'aim high, but don't sweat it if you miss.'

That's why we in the West don't allow religious law to write the state's laws (i.e., there is no equivalent to the Muslim application of Sharia). The rest of us don't accept the Catholic sacraments, and we don't need the help of those who do in order to address issues outside their highly restrictive moral code. Our answer is condoms; their answer is not to have sex, and they can't have any other.

Which explains the title of this post: the imagery of the condom on the Virgin Mary was meant to convey something quite different, but I think it's best interpreted as symbolizing an attempt by non-Catholics (or even Catholics who defy or misunderstand the sacraments) to suffocate the Church by removing its most sacred beliefs.

What goes for 'offensive' TV goes also for churches: 'If you don't like it, change the channel.' If you don't accept a church's beliefs, don't join it.

None of this, however, addresses what might be a legitimate issue, and that's whether the Church contributes to the spread of disease by actively opposing those who advocate condom use, particularly in the developing world.

Is that the case, and if so what do you do about it?

Reflecting on the "all-gays-must-see-this" hype surrounding the release of "Brokeback Mountain," Sean Kinsell demonstrates why he's one of the most honest voices in the blogosphere:

...those of us who don't see our story in it have to be allowed to appreciate it on our own terms and to our own degree, and that's where I find the implication that it's our homosexual duty to rally around Brokeback Mountain, the pop culture phenomenon, annoying. Gays deserve as much liberty to decide whom to identify with as anyone else does. Sometimes we'll sympathize with people without necessarily seeing them as reflections of ourselves, even if gay advocates deem it politically expedient to do so. We have to be as free to choose for ourselves as we are to speak for ourselves.

A good example is "Gone With The Wind" -- a great film, but I just couldn't relate to either Rhett Butler or<