Good Looking Attorney General

Having now read Barack Obama's complete comment on Kamala Harris, I acquit him of sexism - it was always an unreasonable accusation, he's never shown any sign of sexism.  Just to remind everyone, here's his exact quote, from a CNN opinion piece by Roxanne Jones (the first full quote I could find):

"You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you'd want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country — Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It's true. Come on. (Laughter.) And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years."

This is clearly innocuous, clearly a friendly remark.  And yet he apologized.  Why?

I haven't read all the articles about this - but I've seen the "it was just a compliment, why can't we compliment people?" complaints, and I found Eric Golub of the Washington Times saying this:

Until every woman is reduced to an asexual character resembling Bebe Neuwirth’s “Cheers” character Lilith Crane, feminists will keep complaining.

Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/tygrrrr-express/2013/apr/5/obama-apologizes-complimenting-kamala-harris/#ixzz2PkN2ihIy

Both those positions are extremes; of course we can compliment people, and no, we don't want to reduce women to asexuality.  But I have to admit, when I first heard the out-of-context phrase, "the best-looking attorney general in the country," my hackles went up - and I like Obama. 

I think reaction to this remark depends not only on your gender but your age.  I predate the feminist revolution; Barack Obama doesn't.   When I was a teenager, women weren't lawyers - ask Sandra Day O'Connor.  In fact when I was in college, considering careers, I had a very small number of options:  teacher, nurse, secretary, librarian.  Lawyer wasn't on the list; neither was attorney general, or any elected position.  The degree a lot of women expected to get when I was in college was the "Mrs."

I also remember when women began to get into those jobs, and other jobs that society in the Fifties regarded as "men's work."  At that time a compliment on her looks to a professional woman, especially from a powerful man, carried a sting - if you're that attractive, you can't be any good.  You must have slept your way there.  The women who got those jobs early were tough pioneers, and these were among the arrows in their backs.

When you say this flatly in the 21st century it's absurd, but in the middle of the 20th century society seriously believed that only a homely woman could be competent or intelligent, and a beautiful woman in a position of power must have used sex to get there.  And the mere implication was the best option.  In the worst cases the compliment was followed by a more-or-less active attempt to force attentions on the woman.  I have worked with an attractive woman, a secretary, who told me she had turned down a job because the boss made it clear that he expected sexual favors.

For background on this, read a good biography of Hedy Lamarr - the woman who helped invent frequency-hopping spread-spectrum communication techniques, the basis of Bluetooth and WiFi.  Her intelligence is supported by the patent in her name, US Patent 2,292,387.  But most people thought of her as a "pin-up girl."  And I don't watch TV, so I don't watch Mad Men, but I'll bet you see this attitude there, if you look.

As I said, Barack Obama didn't experience the pre-feminist world.  But he's bright enough to know it existed; that's why he gave the compliment that elaborate wind-up.  (Which is all quite true.)  And that's also why, when the out-of-context remark hit the media, he apologized.  Because the sting has largely been drawn; but the memory of it lingers, like a bad smell in the corner of the room.  You're too good looking to be that smart.  It's only been 50 years or so; we've come a long way, but not yet quite far enough.

Fallacious Reasoning

I just read one too many arguments by the pro-gun maniacs in this country that gun control laws "will not solve gun violence" because criminals don't obey gun control laws, therefore we should never pass any gun control laws.  I call this the "only outlaws will have guns" argument, you've heard it.  The current version goes, more or less, we shouldn't ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines because criminals will still be able to get them from illegal sources, and banning them would inconvenience law-abiding gun owners who need to defend themselves.

This is ridiculous.  It is a logical fallacy known as a straw man.  If we assume this generally, then we should eliminate, for instance, all rules governing the owning, insuring and driving of automobiles, because people will drive illegally and without insurance anyway (they sure do here), and the laws will just inconvenience honest people who need to get around.  Cars are dangerous and can cause expensive damage, therefore we pass laws requiring people to be trained how to use them, and to carry insurance to cover any damage they might accidentally do; and we penalize people who drive cars without these.  I have never understood why the same argument shouldn't apply to guns:  they are dangerous, they can cause expensive damage, and all you really need to buy one in some states is a credit card and a pulse.  In, say, Nevada I'm not even sure about the pulse.

I actually just read a letter to the editor arguing that guns are different from automobiles because the Constitution doesn't guarantee the right to drive a car, therefore the analogy about guns and cars (which I am not the only one to make) is invalid, because the Constitution does guarantee the right to own guns.  Right.  The guns the Constitution was talking about were muzzle loaders which took about 10-15 seconds for even an expert to load and for which you had to make your own bullets and carry the gunpowder in a flask on your belt. 

We should ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines because they have no harmless function.  They are killing machines.  They are not sporting rifles; they are not target guns; they are not defensive weapons (look at the size of them!) - they are weapons of war.  They exist only to kill people (and anything else that gets in the way).  The arguments I hear against banning them have, to my mind, a strong flavor of "they're going to take away my toys."  There's a certain (mainly male) attitude that feels status in the possession of the biggest, meanest, baddest gadgets, and by banning these big bad gadgets we will take away their nicest toys and reduce their status.

I'm not convinced by this argument.  Rather, I am convinced by it:  convinced that we should ban the damn things.  Banning them won't eliminate shootings, but it will make the situation better.  If there are fewer of them around, there will be fewer opportunities for a deranged young man to get his hands on them, and if he can't get his hands on them he may try to kill people in a way that will be easier to stop.  I don't want to eliminate guns; but I want to make it hard enough to get a gun that the buyer may stop and think about what he's doing (or she, but usually he) - and maybe even decide that bullets are not the right solution.

And before you accuse me of hating on men, take a look at the mass shootings over the last few years.  How many done by women?  Right.

True, banning automatic guns may endanger some jobs in the gun manufacturing trade.  (May - they can always sell this stuff to Syria, since it's a dead cert that the Senate will not ratify the U.N. Arms Treaty we just signed.)  Not banning them endangers lives.  I live in California, with some of the strongest gun control laws in the country.  The streets of Oakland, where I live, are a guerrilla war zone, because of illegal assault and other weapons that come in from Arizona and Nevada, which have no controls at all and are less than a day away by road. That's why we need national controls.

I continually read arguments from (mainly) the NRA, which boil down to this:  we can't allow any regulation of gun possession and use at any level of government, because any regulation at all will ultimately and inevitably lead to the confiscation of all guns.  This is the "Obama's going to take away your guns" argument.  This is another logical fallacy known as begging the question:  we're terrified that someone will confiscate our guns, therefore we assume that any regulation is the first step toward confiscation. 

Nobody, starting with President Obama, wants to take away all the guns.  I doubt it's even possible, there are too many of them; it's like saying you're going to deport 12 million illegal aliens all at once, it's just not gonna happen.  The conviction that "they're going to take away our guns" is crazy.  Tinfoil hat crazy, up there with all the other conspiracy theories.  I want to reduce the availability of the most destructive weapons of war and try to ensure, through background checks, that people who are known to be violent, who have a history of violence or mental illness, should not be allowed to buy any weapons.  If you are not one of those people and you want to keep an arsenal of non-automatic weapons in your den, go for it.

Women and Islam

This post began with a link on Facebook to www.avaaz.org, to the petition called Horror in Paradise,  about a 15-year-old girl in the Maldives who was reportedly raped repeatedly by her father, who also murdered the baby she bore.  She has now been sentenced to 100 lashes, for having "sex outside marriage."  I don't sign every petition that comes by, because signing petitions invariably leads to more spam and more requests for funds.  I decided I would sign this one.

But the petition didn't have the entire story. An article in the International Business Times explains that the girl was not sentenced to 100 lashes because her father raped her; her father is still awaiting trial on charges of rape and infanticide.  She was sentenced because of another act of consensual premarital sex which she is said to have admitted to.  Also, the sentence won't be imposed until she turns 18, unless she chooses otherwise.  Finally, the Maldives President's office is already arguing with the court about the sentence.  So we can all back off on the horror, except insofar as 100 lashes, in the 21st century, is an absurd punishment for anything.  And bear in mind that sex with a 15-year-old is a crime in every western country I can think of - but the girl is almost never prosecuted.

I began wondering what Sharia law actually does say about rape, and relations between men and women.  Is it really true that Sharia law requires 4 male witnesses to prove rape?  Is a woman's testimony really only worth half a man's in Sharia courts? What about marital rape? I don't claim to understand all of Islamic law based on a few web articles, but I was curious to see what a quick survey would find.

I found 3 web sites with articles on rape and Islam which I thought would give a broad perspective:

• ReligionofPeace, which claims to give "the politically incorrect truth about Islam, one really messed up religion"
•  MuslimAccess, written by Muslims for Muslims
• BismikaAllahuma.org, Muslim responses to anti-Islam polemics

ReligionofPeace is clearly anti-Muslim, but their links to Qur'an citations were very useful.  The most detailed explanations of how Muslims think about the law were on MuslimAccess.  The article about rape and incest begins with an extended discussion of Islam's emphasis on the value of all human life, and the various ways this is addressed.  Islam prohibits harm, prohibits cruelty, and states that "a woman has to be respected and protected under all circumstances."  Islam prohibits rape (of course!).  The site lists numerous examples of women complaining of rape to the Prophet, and to judges in the time after the Prophet, whose rapists were punished and the women were not. 

ReligionofPeace says flatly, "Under Islamic law, rape can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if there are four male witnesses."  If you actually look at the citations to the Qur'an they give, though, the 4 male witnesses are required to prove adultery:

Qur'an (24:4) - "And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses (to adultery), flog them..."  

Qur'an (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah."

ReligionofPeace admits this but insists "it is a part of the theological underpinning of the Sharia rule."  MuslimAccess is very clear that rape and adultery are different crimes under Sharia.  The crime of rape (hiraba) is considered on a par with highway robbery and assault: 

In ‘Fiqh-us-Sunnah’, hiraba is described as: ‘a single person or group of people causing public disruption, killing, forcibly taking property or money, attacking or raping women (hatk al ‘arad), killing cattle, or disrupting agriculture.’

BismikaAllahuma also lists numerous historical examples of rape victims who were not punished, although their rapists were.  The only case listed on BismikaAllahuma where a raped woman was punished was one where "the girl [was stoned to death] because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city."  She was therefore presumed to have consented - and the penalty for adultery was death.

I'm inclined to conclude that in Islamic law, a rape victim should be treated as a victim and not punished, and that the requirement for 4 male witnesses applies to proving consensual adultery, not rape.  There's still a deep chasm between this and modern Western law, where adultery is considered the business of the parties involved.

So, what about marital rape?  The Qur'an contains the following suggestive quote, which two different sites used as examples of two different opinions:

Sûrah al Baqarah 2.223
'Your wives are your tilth; go then unto your tilth as you may desire, but first provide something for your souls*, and remain conscious of God, and know that your are destined to meet Him...'

The ReligionofPeace site assumes this means there is no such concept as rape in marriage in Islam.

The MuslimAccess site says, "The Qur'an is very clear that the basis of a marital relationship is love and affection between the spouses, not power or control. Rape is unacceptable in such a relationship." To the quote above it adds a footnote, "* Note in Muhammad Asad's translation: 'a spiritual relationship between man and woman is postulated as the indispensable basis of sexual relations.'"  It also gives several examples of Islamic scholarship suggesting a much more equal relationship between men and women than some modern critics suggest, or than we see today in some of the more conservative Muslim countries. 

As for the value of a woman's testimony in court, here is the exact text relating to women's testimony in court, from 002.282 (Yu Sufali), in the context of  "transactions involving future obligations in a fixed period of time":

If they [sic] party liable is mentally deficient, or weak, or unable Himself to dictate, Let his guardian dictate faithfully, and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.

There is no suggestion that the man might need to be reminded if he errs.



So, how explain the way women are treated under Sharia law in some Muslim countries, given that the examples of Islamic law turned up by my search seem more, well, reasonable than I expected?  I believe the explanations are as much cultural as religious.  The cultures in which women seem to especially badly treated are strongly patriarchal, and regard women as property, not citizens:  Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia.  I didn't know enough about the Maldives to include them in that list until now; and after reading the IBT article, I'm not sure I should include them. The Qur'an statement that "your wives are your tilth" seems to support this attitude.


So we have a religion which forbids rape (and murder, and all the other things everybody forbids), and which says it regards women as very important and to be protected and cherished; and the modern advocates forbid women from going out in public without a male family member as escort, refuse to let them go out at all, refuse them education, cause them to wear full-coverage veils, murder them for sometimes incomprehensible failures of "honor" - you've seen the news stories. In fact, from some other stories I've read about the Prophet Mohammed, he sounds like a more rational man than some of his modern followers.

I think the problem with Islam is the same as the problem with Christianity - it isn't necessarily the religion itself.  It's the people who practice it, and the way they've convinced themselves that only their interpretation of the faith is correct, and everyone who disagrees with them is a hopeless heretic.  It's also, frankly, the Pareto principle, also called the 80/20 rule:   80% of the trouble in the world is caused by 20% of the people.  The squeaky wheels get the news reports, and the people who make the news can be pretty scary.  Consider what your opinion of Christians would be if the only Christian you ever heard or read about was Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, or that guy in Florida (I refuse to look up his name) who amused himself by burning Qurans.  I try to remind myself that for every frothing jihadi in the news, there are at least 4 other Muslims going quietly about their lives, being nice to their wives and daughters, and trying to pay the rent.

Raptors

I don't normally read Tom Stienstra's column in the San Francisco Chronicle, since it's in the sports section; but Jim does, since he's a hiker and backpacker.  At his suggestion I read it today (March 24), and I recommend you check back at http://sfgate.com during the week until it turns up - I hope it does, I think they just delay the Sunday columns a day or so.

Stienstra was fishing on Lake Shasta, and while he was there, he saw a golden eagle and a bald eagle going after the same fish, which was sunning itself on or near the top of the water.  His description of the incident (the fish lost) is one of the finest descriptions of a raptor encounter I've ever read, and well worth your effort to go find the column online.  Or dig the Sunday sports section out of the recycle bin.

Life in a City

I don't normally go out to breakfast, but today I had to do one of those fasting blood tests.  Since it was also the day the house cleaners were coming, I went out to breakfast after my little stint in the lab.  I chose a little cafe in the hospital neighborhood, which does basic breakfast and lunch, and sat down at half of a table for 4 in the back.  The joint was jumping; when I walked in that was the only empty table, and as I ate, the tables stayed full.

So I wasn't surprised to be joined.  But the whole incident was odd. A stocky middle-aged Asian woman stood next to my table for several minutes, then finally sat down.  She was talking under her breath almost continually.  She never spoke to me or made eye contact, and never asked if I minded sharing the table.  I didn't mind. I did sort of expect to be asked, but not enough to make a fuss over it. 

The whole time she sat at the table, she continued her sotto voce conversation - she was looking across the table as if there were someone there.  I couldn't hear what she was saying except for an occasional word - and the word I caught was "crazy".  I still wonder what was going on.

This is why I like living in cities.  If that had been in a small town, I'd probably have known everyone in the place and all their business.  In the city, you're never quite sure what's going on.

Women in Combat

I've been listening all day on NPR to various people expressing their opinions on the Defense Department's recent decision to allow women to serve in front-line combat positions.  My, has it been interesting. 

I heard a woman, on BBC's World Have Your Say, opine that the fact that Canada has had women in combat positions for years doesn't mean anything, because their military doesn't fight "real wars" like ours does.  (No, really, that's a good paraphrase of what she said.)

I just heard the (male) head of a veterans group, on PBS NewsHour, say that women aren't fit for front-line combat positions because a woman can't do a fireman's carry of a 225 lb. man, and she can't carry an infantryman's gear.  (He should see some of the iron pumpers at the women's gym I used to go to.  I once saw a woman about 5' 3" dead lift 300 pounds.)  He admitted that the wars we're fighting these days are guerrilla wars that don't have that kind of front lines, but he's convinced that sometime in the next 50 years, we'll be back in the trenches, just like we were in Korea and WWII.

The only one who's actually mentioned that elephant in the room, menstruation, is the blogger at Angry Black Lady Chronicles, who said,

Prepare for the incoming jokes about women being issued Hello Kitty uniforms and pink guns, while conservatives wax nostalgic for the days when strapping young men didn’t have to serve in a foxhole with women who bleed every month and refuse to die.

(I have to read that blog more often.)

Now, personally, I have no idea why any rational woman would want to serve in front-line combat.  But I know a lot of women have chosen a military career, and obviously if they can't serve in combat, their promotion options are limited.  For them this is the right decision, and about damn time.  Ask Sen. Tammy Duckworth, among many others, about women serving in combat.

As for the front lines that we'll "probably have" in the next 50 years:  none of us knows what's coming.  But as I look at all the wars in the last 300 years, I see that every new war (including Iraq and Afghanistan) has required things of its soldiers that no one had ever believed soldiers would have to deal with.  Rifled barrels and accurate fire.  Mustard gas, and machine guns.  Panzer tanks and blitzkrieg.  Urban guerrilla warfare and COIN.  And yet the soldiers adapted to the new ways, and coped; and their brains were usually more important than their physical strength.  In fact, with the new armed drones, soldiers don't even have to be physically on a battlefield; in which case there is no gender difference.

So, ladies, have at it, and God bless.

Gun Control and the Possible

Now that President Obama has revealed the list of changes he wants to make to the way we manage gun ownership in this country, the flap has begun.  A number of very loud people are screaming that "they're going to take away our guns."  I wish. But in fact, his major proposals are very simple:

• Background checks every time a gun changes hands
• No more semi-automatic rifles, aka assault weapons, sold
• No more high-capacity magazines sold

The second and third items have just given gun sellers their biggest month ever, as people line up to buy guns "while we still can."  The paranoia is overwhelming, despite the fact that nothing in any of this suggests any plan on the government's part to "take away our guns," in fact, no action on any guns anyone currently owns.  

But I'm seeing a very interesting consensus building on universal background checks.  The link won't be up until tomorrow, but in today's San Francisco Chronicle, the editorial "Real gun laws at last" quotes an Associated Press poll that showed 86% of respondents in favor of background checks at gun shows.  If you review the general coverage of the SHOT show in Las Vegas this week (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show), you'll see that even the attendees (largely gun dealers) are generally in favor of more and better background checks.

So I have a recommendation for Mr. Obama.  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Far more people are in favor of expanding background checks (over 80%) than favor banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines (just over 50%, which is still amazing).  Push the background checks separately, as a single bill that does nothing else.  Then you have a sporting chance of getting it passed.  If you bundle all the changes together in a single bill, as everyone in Washington loves to do, you give anyone with any objection to any small section the excuse to vote against it.

And it would help.  I regularly hear gun supporters argue that because these measures won't "solve the problem" - and they won't, if "solve" means "make it stop entirely" - we shouldn't even bother.  That's a straw man.  No law will "solve" any problem of human behavior.  But regular background checks will make things better. California has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, but Oakland, California is drowning in illegal assault weapons trucked in from Reno, Nevada, where you can  buy any weapon you want - especially at that gun show this week.  Background checks would reduce the flow of guns from Nevada to California, and that would help.  A lot.  Let's do it.