I'm An Asshole . . . And I'm Proud of It!

(Story Linked in title.)

To begin with, Sarah E. Muller of Summerfield, Florida, is an idiot. She should be aware that as a general rule it cannot help your cause to refer to a judge in his own courtroom as an "asshole". Just as it can't be considered very good practice to refer to the officer who has just pulled you over for driving eighty in a school zone in less than flattering terms while he's asking for your license, registration, and current location of your common sense.

However, upon reading the tale as recounted online at ocala.com from the Star-Banner it would seem that Ms. Muller's assessment of Judge R. James McCune Jr. (what exactly is it with those people who feel compelled to be known as "First Initial Middle Name" anyway?) is completely accurate if somewhat less than politically correct.

After initially expressing herself, Judge R. James asked her to clarify her remark. Perfectly following the instructions given, Sarah repeated her character assessment of the jurist.

For doing exactly as instructed the judge charged her with "direct criminal contempt of the court".

Applying logic like that, anyone who is pulled over on the highway and asked to exit the vehicle is in a tough spot. Comply, and you stand to be charged with being a pedestrian on the highway. Refuse, and your stuck with failure to obey an officer. Certainly seems like an opportunity for less than fully scrupulous jurisdictions to engage in a bit of revenue enhancement if nothing else.

Back to our friend the judge though. Clearly no one enjoys being referred to as a solid waste transfer orifice. Particularly if they are one. That aside, the offense is so trivial that at most is merits no more than a stern admonishment about how one should properly comport oneself in public venue. Certainly three days in jail and $233 in fines, fees, and court costs (not to mention the theoretical maximum of six months in jail and a $500 fine!) is beyond excessive.

Any person with the authority to mete out such punishments should be a big enough person that they don't actually need to do so.

There are only two possible messages the actions of the Right Honorable Judge R. James McCune Jr. sends to Ms. Muller and to the community at large. Neither of those messages is positive.

The first is that good ol' R. Jimmie is an outwardly pretentious self important snob who feels nothing but contempt for the little people, while inwardly he is a craven, insecure little twit who has no business holding the bench he sits upon.

The second possible message is that he stands in front of the shaving mirror every morning singing Dennis Leary's paean "I'm An Asshole". I suspect I'm right, Jimmy, in thinking that Carly Simon would be dead on in accusing you of thinking this song is about you.

And you're proud of it.

Hey, I'm Just Asking Here . . .

World Net Daily on Sunday posted a report that an Israeli Jew had been arrested for taking part in a failed rocket attack on a Palestinian village.

The question is, will Israel act honorably and equitably in this matter or will a double standard be applied in the case of Mr. Gilad Herman? Whenever a Palestinian is arrested for acts of terrorism against any Israeli interest, that individual's home is destroyed. Sometimes on top of aged parents and others who may or may not have had anything to do with or even been aware of the incident. The arrest itself is generally used as proof of the terrorist act and thus justification for the destruction.

Will Mr. Herman's home also be destroyed after an exhaustive thirty second investigation? Or is it impossible for an Israeli Jew to be a terrorist, just as no minority in this country is capable of committing racist acts?

Double standards do not make very effective moral shields.

An Impossible Standard

Today's glimpse of insanity is linked from the Orlando Sentinel. The outrage this time surrounds a 1930's era photograph hanging on the wall at a public golf course.

As can be seen in the picture at left, a white golfer is lining up a putt while the barefoot black caddy grasps the flag.

Daisy W. Lyman is a commissioner on the Orlando, Florida, City Council. The Orlando Sentinel story does not mention her heritage, but at the risk of perpetuating racial stereotypes a quick review of her image at the City Council web site suggests that Ms. Lynum may be of African-American ancestry. As images may apparently misrepresent fact (just ask Rodney King, among others) I do not claim as fact that my interpretation of her racial background is accurate. That belief could simply be an unfortunate result of my white middle class upbringing.

Commissioner Lynum does not believe the photograph belongs at a city-owned golf course where many blacks might find it degrading. She claims not to object to the fact that the black youth is a caddy, but rather that he is shoeless - that being a factor that "harkened [sic] back to more discriminatory times".

Yes commissioner, denying history has always been an effective means of making the unpleasantness of the past go away and never repeat itself.

Lynum is quoted in the article:

"There are different types of black folks, just like white folks. What offends one might not offend another," she said. "I still feel that if anyone finds it offensive, it should not be displayed."

It is the last sentence in that quote that addresses the huge problem that Political Correctness run amok has thrust upon this country. Indeed, a casual reading of the global headlines suggests this is a problem that threatens the entire western world.

If the standard is to be that if anyone finds it (whatever "it" might be) offensive, what then can possibly be displayed anywhere? For virtually any image or narrative you can conceive, there is someone who can claim grounds for being offended by it.

Ground beef at $1.99 a pound? Setting aside how offensive the price alone is to most of us, there are those justifiably disturbed that their scared cows are being defiled.

Pork chops on sale? Same story, different religions.

How about the bikini ad in the weekly sales circular that displays more flesh than can be commonly found on the cover of the average men's magazine? Certainly many groups can claim the right to be offended by that.

You see that woman driving the city bus? Shameful!

The list goes on and on and on, and some examples could even start edging towards slightly ridiculous.

There needs to be a return to the common sense standard that prevailed until fairly recent times. If you don't like it, don't look at it/read it/promulgate it. Accept that what is important to you and held dear may disturb others, and grant them the courtesy of pursuing their interests unrestrained just as you want the opportunity to follow your own preferences without restriction. Disagreement is fine, and can and should be addressed by civilized discourse. Trying to convince you to see my point of view is not a hate crime, regardless of how far beyond the bounds of reality that particular pendulum has swung of late.

Are there some restrictions that a moral and functioning society need to impose for the general well being? Certainly. Some are obvious, while others are a bit more difficult to pin down. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 neatly summarized the difficulty of objectively defining pornography while stating a nearly universal truth - "I know it when I see it". Yes, there is going to be some audience somewhere for almost anything the human mind can conceive. When that audience can only be measured in minute fractions of one percent of a given population, it can be reasonably argued that that particular material is not suitable for or in concordance with the best interests and prevailing sentiments of the society at large.

For the most part, we need to live and let live. Denying history, or going out of the way to find that one individual who didn't take their meds this morning and so is offended by the sun rising in the east is not a functional way to manage any society.

Everything Is Bigger In Texas - Including Idiocy

I first came across the story linked in the title from the "SciGuy" column in the Houston Chronicle (http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2008/07/is_black_hole_a.html).

Quoting the article on a Dallas County Commissioners meeting about traffic ticket collections:

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

The author of the "Go Play In The Street" blog you are now reading, who is white, is sick of the overwhelming effort by many in this country to go out of their way to find or, if necessary, manufacture out of whole cloth racial or other insensitivities where they do not exist.

Memo to Commissioner Price and Judge Jones: Anyone who has successfully escaped the first half of a public school education in this country is more than passingly familiar with the concept of a "black hole". Not just the term itself, but the properties of the phenomenon. Anyone who does not comprehend the meaning of the term, nor its vernacular usage in common American English is not competent to wander the streets unsupervised, let alone hold public office.

Many terms in our language employ color, and while with tremendous effort could be construed as doing so do not actually posses any racial overtones whatsoever. "Red tape" is not a slur against Native Americans. "Brown out" does not implicate Hispanics. "Yellow anything" is not intended as denigration of all things Asian. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a color is just a color.

In 2007, Bo and Luke Duke (John Schneider and Tom Wopat) from the "Dukes of Hazzard" television series had their participation in a Cincinnati Pops Orchestra presentation canceled. Indeed, the entire concert was canceled over their proposed participation. Why? Because a local NAACP representative opined that the actors' participation in the series thirty years ago, in which the General Lee had a Confederate flag boldly emblazoned upon it, might indicate tacit support of the racism that flag promotes in the minds of some by the Cincinnati Pops.

Yes, the most dedicated practitioner of mental yoga can find insult in almost anything if they try hard enough. Wouldn't it be better though to assume insult is not intended until the one giving insult makes it inescapably clear that insult is indeed intended?

Approaching most of life with a positive mindset just might make much of the bovine fertilizer medium we find ourselves compelled to trudge through daily disappear forever down a black hole of common sense.

Memorial Day, May 26, 2008

Thank You.