Am I a transgressive provocateur?
On Justice, Fairness, & Finances
There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has. —Hugo L. Black, Griffin v. Illinois
Such Things Are Bound to Happen
Well, it looks like my database maintenance resulted in the loss of some content last Sunday. Fortunately I am an inveterate archivist and I had exported a database backup just before starting. That said, I’ve now lost one post from Sunday evening and two updates to existing posts. But all said and done….I’d rather be certain of recovering lost content that I might never identify than losing edits that I would probably overwrite in a few months anyway. C’est la vie.
Go F*** Yourself
To all those closed minds who cannot examine their own thoughts and to those who judge others and to those who spit hypocrisy…
It is so gratifying to say “let me leave you my business card” and then hand this off. Show more ›
First Amendment Right to Be “Weird”
It occurs to me today that Americans do have a Constitutional right to be “weird” by virtue of the First Amendment’s freedom of expression.Show more ›
Adam and Eve
According to the Genesis (chapter 2) account in which Eve was “extracted” from Adam, that means Adam was the biological sum of man and woman. So Adam became man simultaneously with Eve becoming woman. Man and woman were thus created simultaneously, not sequentially. Man is not preeminent over woman.
On Righteous Causes
A Brief History of Unisex Fashion
According to The Atlantic, “gender-neutral clothing is back in vogue, but the craze in many ways has mirrored broader social changes throughout the 20th century.”
Nymphomania and Satyriasis
I was cogitating on the perceptive societal dissimilarities of sexuality while turning the use of “nymphomania” over in my head. The “nymphomania” label (to say nothing of “nympho”) carries an implicit connotation of abnormality and even a subtext of whoredom that is not commensurately accorded to males (the implication being that males are whorish dogs whose sexuality is valueless while the sexuality of women is valuable). There is so, so much to unpack here, but for now I want to mention a particularly interesting preliminary finding. It turns out that there is a male analogue called “satyriasis.” That said, the fact that no one ever hears this word is itself a statement on society’s dissimilar treatment of female and male sexuality, ignoring the male conduct and stigmatizing the female conduct.
More Double Standards
Some time back I came across this image and I later scolded myself for not saving it. Then as serendipity would have it, I found it again. Show more ›
Android, Apple, and iTunes 12
When it comes to cell phones, Android and iPhone are like capitalism and communism or democracy and dictatorship. The iPhone is a great product that delivers a reliable user experience. On the other hand, iPhone innovation is unbearably handicapped and stifled by Apple’s authoritarian control over developers. Yes, this does ensure a reliable user experience, but it also prevents good (but imperfect) ideas from reaching users where consumption will give rise to free-market improvement. But for all of Apple’s focus on user experience, it really fucked up on iTunes 12.10.x.Show more ›
Skirts, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5
Cognitively-challenged Christians are eager to invoke Deuteronomy 22:5—in judgment of women as well as of men—that “woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD.” Some denominations read this as requiring women to wear dresses (or, in the contrapositive, as prohibiting women from wearing pants). Likewise, Deuteronomy 22:5 has been invoked to condemn and deny skirts as menswear. This was certainly my experience when I “saw the light” and “converted” to skirts in 2016, but it has taken me three years to get around to publishing this formal rebuttal.Show more ›