Flaming bagpipes

Over the last couple of months I've seen two short videos posted on Facebook, in which bagpipe players, playing their instruments, caused bursts of flame to come out of the drones.  Drones are the pipes which stick out of the bags and produce a single tone each.  The two videos I saw were:

Unicycling Darth Vader Upgrades to Flaming Bagpipes
The Badpiper Thunderstruck

You can find more videos, if you're interested, by searching for "flaming bagpipes" on YouTube.

Now, I like bagpipes, a taste I inherited from my mother; not everyone does.  But to the best of my knowledge, the chanter (the one the piper fingers) and the drones are made of wood, although Wikipedia doesn't confirm this directly.  And I definitely learned from Wikipedia that bagpipe drones are either reed instruments (like a clarinet) or double-reed instruments (like an oboe).  This explains a lot about the way bagpipes sound, actually.

This leaves a huge question in my mind:  how the devil do you blow a huge blast of flame through a wooden reed or double reed instrument without incinerating the whole boiling, and the bagpiper too?  And yet both of these bagpipers continued to play while intermittently shooting bursts of flame out of the drones.

I spent part of last weekend at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, California. Mini Maker Faires usually have flame-throwers somewhere; this one had a guy (from Sheet Metal Alchemist) with a tower of flamethrowers; you could set them off by swinging a mallet at a lever, just like the old "ring the bell" carny act, except this one produces a huge burst of flame in the air above you.  I asked the guy about the bagpipes, but he said no, he didn't know anything about flaming bagpipes.  He sounded interested, though. 

Now, one group which is always at the Mini Maker Faire is The Crucible, an Oakland non-profit specializing in art production involving fire.  I dropped in at their booth and posed my question, and learned some very interesting things from a man there.  I regret that I didn't think to ask his name; he was an older man with a white beard, wearing a hat, sitting next to the booth.

We both agreed that anyone doing this has to put some kind of gas source (The Crucible uses propane) inside the bag.  It would have to have a jet poking up inside the drone, and some kind of spark arrangement on the jet to light it; finally it would have to have either one or two switches the player could use to control the gas flow and the spark (separately or together).  My consultant pointed out that the flow of gas up the tube, before ignition, would cool the area somewhat.  Also, if the flame only lasts for a second or two (and I didn't see any that lasted much longer than that), it probably won't affect the wood of the drone at all; and, of course, the flame will go away the instant the gas flow stops. 

Now, what about the reed or double reed?  Reeds are usually at the end of the instrument where the air is blown in; in a bagpipe drone, that's inside the bag.  If you tapped the gas source into the drone above the reed, it wouldn't be affected by the flame at all.  The gas doesn't have to pass through the reed, although the air from the bag does.

Without talking to someone who's actually created one of these things, this is all pure speculation.  But at least I'm no longer wondering why the whole megillah doesn't burst into flame.

Is This Normal?

The U.S. is back in business for the moment, paying its debts as usual.  At least in the S.F. Bay Area, public attention is now focused on the BART strike, which began conveniently the day after the government shutdown ended.  Wouldn't want to confuse our crises, now, would we?  But the government funding mess isn't over.

The bargain that everyone in Washington was so relieved to achieve only lasts until February.  According to AlJazeera, the government is funded until January 15 (and still at the ridiculous, arbitrary sequester levels), and the debt ceiling has been raised until February 7.  How appropriate.  We get Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's off, then Groundhog Day will come around on February 2, and we'll go through the whole brouhaha again.  Just like the movie.

Convince me it's not true.  Why wouldn't it happen again?  The people who created this snafu are all still in office.  Sen. Ted Cruz still thinks he's God's gift to someone (I'm not sure whom), and certainly still thinks he can parlay this into a run at the presidency in 2016.  I was relieved to see that, pushed to the wall, Speaker Boehner was capable of calling an open vote on a straight bill to put the government back in business.  My confidence that he'll do it again is limited.

The Senate and the House, as they now appear, seem to be ungovernable, and unable to govern.  Their hallowed rules allow a single senator to put any action on hold, indefinitely, and without even revealing a name.  I do know that the structure of the Senate was designed to amplify the power of smaller states against larger states, but this is ridiculous.  The surreptitious last minute rule change in the House, which allowed only the Majority Leader to ask to bring a "clean bill" to a vote - which is normal procedure in the House for any member - was a blatant abandonment, not only of normal House procedure, but of democracy itself.  Without this rule the government would not have shut down.  This was just sleazy.

I heard one promising item among all the mess, and I'm still not sure I believe it.  The chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees (Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray) met for breakfast and will convene a committee to develop - wait for this - an Actual Budget.  Congress hasn't passed an Actual Budget since 2009 (or maybe since 1997 depending on the definition).  My confidence that they will actually negotiate and agree on something that would be good for the country is very small.  But they're saying all the right things.  They've given themselves a deadline of December 13.  If they can come up with an actual, bipartisan budget and get it through both houses of Congress, maybe we can relax and just run the country - at least until next October 1...

We can't keep doing this.  We made fools of ourselves in front of the entire world. Is this really what we want to become?

What really infuriated me is the way Congress callously threw tens of thousands of federal workers out of a job, for an unspecified period that lasted (in fact) for three weeks, while being paid themselves the entire time.  The days of the solid middle class are gone.  Very few working families can go for 3 weeks on their financial reserves these days (if they have any), especially when the safety net programs (welfare, food stamps) were also shut down.  Sure, they'll get back pay; but how does that help if they've already been evicted?  Not to mention all the unfortunate small businesses, in small towns around the national parks, whose entire livelihood depends on tourist traffic which was shut down on a moment's notice.  Congress has totally lost contact with the people they are collectively supposed to serve, and it is a national disgrace.

Boehner's Impossible Dream

Everyone involved in the Federal government shutdown, starting with John Boehner, knows that he could end the stalemate in a microsecond.  All he has to do is ignore the Tea Party and call a vote on the "clean" continuing resolution already passed by the Senate.  It's pretty evident that, between the Republicans who are very nervous about the Tea Party stance and the Democrats, the CR would pass.

Boom. The government's back in business.  But it doesn't happen.

I've read in multiple places that Boehner is afraid that, if he ignores the radicals and passes the CR, he'll lose the House Speakership.  Could be.  But he doesn't seem to realize that he's already lost it - he can't control his caucus.  A small but very loud section of his caucus is controlling him.  In fact, as far as I can tell, the person really driving this melodrama is Senator Ted Cruz, who isn't even a member of the House of Representatives!  Meanwhile Boehner cowers behind the podium, making bold but meaningless statements about not wanting to see the government shut down.

The title Speaker of the House used to carry real weight.  It meant a man who could get things done.  The current Speaker of the House cherishes the title so much that he has abdicated all the power to a small group of radicals from gerrymandered districts, just so he can continue to be addressed as "Mr. Speaker."

If he were to act to pass the CR and put the federal government back to work, he might leave the Speakership with some of his honor (that old concept) restored.  As it is, if you listen carefully, you may hear the sound of real Congressional leaders of the past - Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson (a Senate Majority Leader before he was VP), Tip O'Neill and their kin - giving Boehner the razzberry from the heavenly ramparts.

Understanding Egypt

Anyone who is keeping an eye on the situation in Egypt needs to read an article that appeared a couple of days ago in the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Fortunately, it isn't behind their new paywall.  The author is Frank Viviano, a career Egypt correspondent.  The article is:

How social media led U.S. astray in Egypt

Speaking from his 30 years of experience as a regular Egypt correspondent, Mr. Viviano makes points about Egypt, and about the coverage of the "revolution," that I haven't read anywhere else, including in the Economist; and they're important points.  The situation in Egypt isn't what we think it is; it may be much worse than we think it is.  Read the article.

For that matter, there isn't much the U.S. can do about Egypt, any more than we can "do anything" about Syria.  What would we do, send in the 101st Airborne?  I fully support President Obama's hesitation to take "firm action" there - what firm action? 

P.S. A Letter to the Editor in today's Chronicle, also supporting Obama's Egypt stance, read, "Since when is the United States policeman to the world?"  I read that and thought, since about 1947, as a matter of fact.  (Do these people actually not understand 20th century history??)

Anyone else remember "namephreaks"??

Reading the news this morning I saw an astonishing namephreak in this story about San Diego mayor Bob Filner.  This has nothing to do with him personally, but I was hornswoggled when I read the name of his lawyers.

Mr. Filner is represented by - wait for it - Payne and Fears, LLC.

Is that a wonderful name for a law firm, or what?  Would you use that name for your law firm?

Too Soon to Celebrate

In the wake of the SCOTUS decisions yesterday on same-sex marriage, everybody is jumping for joy.  Stop, people, and look at what they actually said.  In the DOMA case, the court threw the entire business of regulating same-sex marriage back to the states.  The majority opinion said:

The federal government, throughout our history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations.

Now count:  how many states do we have?  Fifty.  How many states consider a same-sex marriage legal?  Twelve (thirteen once the appellate court stay is lifted in California).  How many states actively ban same-sex marriage in some way?  I counted thirty-three on the Wikipedia list, but your count may vary by 1 or 2; and a lot of these (I didn't count) don't even allow domestic partnerships.  Plus 5 states with no opinion.  Just take a look at the map in the Wikipedia article:

Same-sex marriage status in the United States by state

Come on, people.  This is good news for the federal benefits etc. of the residents of the few states that allow same-sex marriage.  If you live, however, anywhere in the South, or on the Great Plains, or anywhere except California, Washington, and the New England states, your gay marriage is toast unless you can convince your local legislators to rule otherwise.  Best of British luck on that.

Because the flip side of a decision that the states can decide about same-sex marriage is that any Congressional action to approve it nationally (assuming you could get such a thing through the current House, which is crazy thinking) would also be unconstitutional, because it's a states' rights issue.

Keep raising money for the campaign, folks.  You still have a long row to hoe.

The IRS and the Tea Party

KQED broadcast a segment today about the Congressional hearings currently in progress on the IRS's "persecution" of various "Tea Party" and "patriotic" organizations which tried to get tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4).  I've already expressed my opinion on 501(c)(4) groups (see Fix the Damn Tax Code, posted on May 21).  I don't believe that tax code section should even exist, because it gives tax exempt status, under cover of "social welfare," to organizations that wouldn't know an actual social welfare project if they fell over it in the street.

A blog post from the Washington Post suggests that the primary groups 501(c)(4) is intended for are volunteer fire departments and civic leagues; I concede that those groups do indeed contribute to social welfare.  I don't see the San Fernando Valley Patriots (see below) under that rubric; but the definition of what is allowed is frankly fuzzy (another reason to get rid of this).  To see just how fuzzy, read the official IRS definition:

Types of Organizations Exempt under Section 501(c)(4)

Pay particular attention to the link  Organizations that engage in substantial lobbying activities, to see how fuzzy.

But section 501(c)(4) does exist, and these groups tried to get the status, and the IRS had the nerve - the gall - to ask them questions about how they operate!  I can still hear the sweet, can-you-believe-this tones of Ms. Karen Kenny, of the San Fernando Valley Patriots, complaining that they had asked her organization (I summarize, but read the KQED text) if it had ever broken the law during protests, and whether they ever planned actions that would break the law.  "We're the San Fernando Valley Patriots," she said offendedly, "not Occupy Oakland."

I have news for you, lady.  Part of the IRS' job is to find out if applicants for a 501(c)(4) exemption are doing more political organizing than the law allows (however much that is).  This may come as a surprise, but the San Fernando Valley Patriots are not above the law.  Neither are organizations that have the words "Tea Party" in their name.  If you want this tax exemption you still have to comply with the existing laws and rules, and the IRS is entirely within its mission to ask you this stuff.

I still think that 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations are political organizers in sheep's clothing, and they should be treated like political organizations and forced to disclose their donors.  But as the law stands, they're entitled to tax exemption if political activity is not their primary focus.  And that means that when the IRS asks them what they do and how they do it, it is merely doing the job we pay it to do.

Real Men Don't Type

I was just listening to a segment of NPR's Science Friday on teaching seniors how to deal with computers, and a man named Andy called in with a story about his 80 year old father, who is an accountant, and who has for thirty years refused to learn to use computers.  He still does accounts on paper.  Andy complained that his father is underemployed for that reason, and he couldn't understand why all their efforts to convince him to change had failed.

In the late 1970s I worked for one of the (then) Big Eight accounting firms.  I was their office librarian and records manager.  And I remember a phenomenon that may explain Andy's father's reluctance, which he may not have thought of.  This was when personal computers were just coming in; I remember "borrowing" the Apple IIe that the consulting arm had bought, so I could put my department budget onto Visicalc instead of 17 column ledger.

The consultants, as you may gather, were perfectly happy to play with this new toy, but I remember that the older accounting partners were very very reluctant.  And it was obvious then why:  in that era, businessmen did not type.  They didn't use keyboards at all; the closest they came to a keyboard was a 10-key adding machine (and you haven't seen fast until you've seen one of these guys adding a column!).  They dictated or wrote notes to their secretaries, and the secretaries typed, and brought the documents in for review and correction, and retyped if needed.

So these men wouldn't use computers because they couldn't type, and it would have been a major loss of face to try to type and fail.  Andy's father is about the age of the partners I'm talking about, they were in their early 50's and up. He may not want to use a computer for the simple reason that he never learned to type and at 80 years of age, he may not even have the manual dexterity to learn any more.  Andy, he's 80; just leave him alone.

Fix the Damn Tax Code

I can't stand this any more.  I have to speak out.

Senators Levin and McCain are yelling at Apple because they don't think it pays enough taxes, and it has "offshore entities" that have "no legal residence for tax purposes."

Everything Apple did was LEGAL under the U.S. Tax Code.

The Senate Finance Committee is freaking out at the IRS because of the way it audited some Tea Party "social welfare" organizations, trying to find out if they were doing enough political lobbying to invalidate their tax-exempt status.

Nothing I've seen suggests anything more than an overzealous first-line IRS employee trying to establish the rules for a legal entity that shouldn't exist anyhow.

All you congresspersons and senators trying to make publicity points out there:  YOU wrote the tax code.  Most of you have been in office for at least 20 years.  You built this mess.  Now you're complaining that you don't like it.

Well, go and fix it.  You, Congressmen and Senators, are the only people who can fix the tax code, but instead of doing some actual work (negotiating what a tax code ought to look like, for instance), you'd rather sit around and yell publicly about the awfulness of corporate tax evasion.

The tax code is what it is because Your Corporate Masters told you they wanted all those loopholes - and you obediently set the loopholes up.  Why else would the tax code allow corporations to stash money overseas and not pay tax on it?

The whole 501(c)(4) tax entity exists because some large donors wanted a way to collect tax-exempt money, without revealing their donors, and still be able to do some political organizing as long as they could say it "wasn't the primary activity."  And the Tea Party groups wanted to set them up because political organizing is their primary activity; it's what the Tea Party does.  Tell me one real piece of "social welfare" work any 501(c)(4) organization has done.  When I see one of them running a soup kitchen I'll believe the "social welfare" bunk.  For that group.

So, outraged Senators and Representatives, until you fix what's wrong with the tax code, I don't want to hear one more word out of you about the awfulness of corporate tax evasion or the terrible abuse the IRS heaped on the poor Tea Party.

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.

More Seasonal Poetry

For those of you who enjoyed November by Thomas Hood (posted last month), here's a little more seasonal poetry:

Ancient Music
by Ezra Pound

Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!
Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!

Winter is i-cumin in,
Lhude sing goddamn!
Raineth drop and staineth slop
And how the wind doth ram
Sing goddamn!

Skiddth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing goddamn.
Goddamn, goddamn, tis why I am goddamn,
So gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamn, sing goddamn, DAMN!

Death and Children

I normally stay out of the gun control debate; it isn't something I expect to influence, as the positions on both sides are religious rather than rational.  But we're all thinking about guns in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  Even my water aerobics class discussed it today, between exercises.

My first impulse after hearing the news was to think yes, it's time to bring back the assault weapon ban.  My father had guns, he was a hunter; I think his deer rifle was a 30.06.  He treated them with respect and stored them carefully.  He's gone now, but I feel sure he would agree with me that no one needs an assault rifle to kill a deer.  Or, for that matter, a burglar.

I still think the assault weapon ban is a good idea and should be passed, but it's symbolic rather than helpful.  As Prohibition should have taught us (but doesn't seem to have), passing a law against something doesn't keep it from happening.  No one seems to understand the simple fact that if a man decides he wants to kill some number of people, and he is prepared to risk and even lose his own life in the process, you can't really stop him, unless you are extraordinarily lucky.

I don't see any need to allow ordinary citizens to have semi-automatic weapons, large-capacity magazines, or armor-piercing ammunition.  But any law must be written with extreme care to prevent the gun industry from making slight redesigns which make the next generation of weapons "not really" subject to the law. We saw that in California, which has some very tight gun control laws.  As a resident of Oakland, California, I can assure you that this town is awash in guns of every caliber, despite the state laws.  I've been told by a police officer that it's easier to get a gun than a joint in the local schools.

In addition to our own issues, the absurd availability of heavy personal ordinance in the U.S. is a major enabler of the violent wars between drug cartels that have been destroying Mexico for the last 10 years.  Thousands of people dead, and it's twice our fault:  first, we ban the sale of a product that millions of people buy, and second, we flood Mexico with guns and ammunition.  We are the armorers of the Mexican cartels, to the point that the Mexican government has asked the U.S. government to restrict gun sales along the border.

But gun availability only partly "caused" the Newtown incident.  The guns Adam Lanza used were bought legally by his mother; also, he wasn't old enough to buy a gun, he stole them.  So existing gun laws didn't stop him, and the ones we're considering wouldn't have stopped him either.  A ban on large magazines might have slowed him down some.

Another factor is American attitudes toward mental illness.  Most of us think of "illness" as something you catch, have for awhile, and then get over, like a cold, or the mumps.  This may lead us to wonder what's wrong with that guy with depression, why doesn't he just "get over it?"  Mental illness is chronic, like diabetes or high blood pressure.  You don't get over it; you live with it and manage it, usually with drugs, the way you live with and manage diabetes or high blood pressure.  But the general American mental image of "illness" is something temporary.  So if you're depressed, or bipolar, or schizophrenic, or even if you "only" have PTSD (half the children in Oakland have PTSD, and I am not exaggerating) - people don't consider that you have a disease, which is something external that happens to you and then goes away, like a cold.  It's a personal failure - it's somehow your fault.  You wouldn't have that if  you weren't doing something wrong, and you should just straighten up and be normal and then everything will be all right.  We feel it's all in your head.  (I've had people tell me that about my allergies, but that's another story.)  What we don't realize is, being "all in your head" doesn't mean it isn't real.  But because we don't think it's real, we don't understand why people need to spend all that time and money being treated for it.

Consider the things you read in the paper or on the web about mental illness, and mentally ill people.  Am I right?  Many homeless people on our city streets are mentally ill - obviously mentally ill.  Do we regard them with pity for their ailment?  No, we scorn them for being loud and dirty and smelly - not like us.  And  all these attitudes are worse if the person with mental illness is a member of the U.S. military, with its history of machismo and invincible male prowess.

I don't know what insurance companies think about mental illness treatment.  I think they understand that treating mental illness tends to take a long time and a lot of money, so they write policies very carefully to restrict the amount they pay out, to protect their bottom line.  Some policies don't even cover mental illness.  I've always had very good coverage, with Kaiser Permanente, and when I had a bout with depression after my dad died I think I got 10 weeks of coverage. Fortunately, it was enough; I don't have chronic depression, I had unresolved issues.  But if you're poor, or don't have coverage for some reason, you can't afford to pay for mental illness treatments.  And our laws make it impossible to force someone to take medications, even though when a schizophrenic or bipolar person is "off the meds" they don't understand why they ought to take them.

I think we're frightened by mental illness, because we don't understand it; and because we're frightened, we're angry at the people who have it.  Until we're willing to accept that schizophrenia and depression and so on are diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure and arthritis, and to treat them like diseases instead of like personal failings, we will continue to have a pool of untreated mentally ill people which could at any time produce a disturbed person on a rampage.  Like Adam Lanza.

Finally, there's the issue of community.  I don't claim to know what was wrong with Adam Lanza; but in all the coverage I've read, and heard on the radio, I've heard nothing about him having any friends:  no one to have coffee with, shoot hoops with, go to a ball game with, or sit and talk with.  He was (I think I read) home-schooled, so he didn't meet friends at school.  He went shooting with his mother.  I can't tell that he had any other social interactions.  And nobody seems to have thought this was odd, or tried to do anything about it.

I grew up in a small town - Napa, California in the 1950s.  Small towns must have changed a lot since then, because I remember all my neighbors talking to each other about each other all the time.  Frankly, I couldn't wait to go away to college, where I wasn't immediately obvious to everyone as "Mary Ivy's girl."  In Newtown, CT, nobody seems to have known anything about Adam Lanza.  Have we lost our curiosity?  Have we lost the willingness to ask, "How are you?" and listen to the answer?  We used to care about each other; we used to listen to each other's woes.  Do we not have time to do that any more?  Is this another side effect of the loss of the middle class?

We'd all love to wave a magic wand and ensure that no one will ever again take an assault rifle - any gun - into an elementary school and blow away a bunch of first-graders, and a few unlucky teachers.  There is no magic wand.  The only way we could make this never happen again is to change ourselves: change the way we think about guns, and stop worshipping them; change our fear and loathing of mental illness, and start treating it; go back to knowing our neighbors and caring about them.  That's a lot of change.  I don't know if we can do it or not.  But in the end, the guns are just tools - the real problem is the people.  Us.

How Bad Is the Fiscal Cliff?

First of all, the term "fiscal cliff" is pure scare-mongering.  When you fall off a cliff, you die.  Usually.  If we "fall off" this cliff, we'll be uncomfortable.  We won't be dead; countries rarely die, although we might lose some less-well-off citizens.  We almost certainly will be back in recession, and who knows when we'll pull out again.  Everyone's taxes will go up; a lot of people will lose jobs when government departments are cut.

Second, the U.S. debt burden isn't that bad, and the Republicans are the only ones who think it is.  Or say they do.  If the financial markets thought the U.S. debt burden was a problem, we wouldn't be paying .65% on 5-year Treasury bonds.  (Yes, we are.)  Our real problem right now is that we haven't yet emerged from the worst fiscal downturn since the Great Depression (which took 10 years and a war to pull out of, remember).  We're spending money (yes, borrowed) on things like extended unemployment insurance, welfare, and food stamps.  Take a look at this graph:

United States Debt as a Percentage of GDP (1940-2012)

The estimated U.S. debt at the end of 2012 will be about 100% of GDP.  Before you freak, look where it was in 1946 (121.7%) and remember what happened to the U.S. economy in the next 15 years.  When, I might add, the top marginal tax rate was 90%.  Compared to the European countries in trouble (on the same graph), our debt isn't unreasonable;  Ireland's debt is 1300% of GDP; the UK's is 413%.  Greece's debt is 168% of its GDP (but Greece's tax collection rate is only 10%).  Japan's debt is 233% of GDP.  Even at 100% of GDP, we're in better shape than any of them, which is why our credit rating was downgraded in 2011 not because of our fiscal position, but because Congress wouldn't agree to raise the debt limit, normally a routine item that doesn't even make the news.

You might also note that the budget deficit has been consistently lower since President Obama took office in 2008.

I recently got an email from the White House which suggested that, if we go over the "fiscal cliff," it would cost a "typical middle class family of four" about $2,000.  If you're paid twice a month, the way I was, that's $83 less per paycheck (or about $6 a working day), which anyone would notice; but it wouldn't all come out of the paycheck; some of it would show up the next year when you paid income tax.  The White House didn't mention the income level of this family of four; the 2011 Census Bureau estimates range from $54,500 in New Mexico to $102,127 in Connecticut.  So the impact will vary wildly depending on where you are.

Still, if you're one of the many families living paycheck to paycheck, the fiscal cliff changes could tip you over a very unpleasant edge.  Which is why it would be much better if we didn't do it.  I wish I thought our elected representatives were capable of negotiating an alternative.

I'm not trying to argue that we should keep spending at the rate we have.  We shouldn't.  We need to think about what we're spending, and what we want to accomplish with the money for the nation, and not just for the various Congressional districts. And we all need to remember that taxes are the price of living in a civilized society (to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes).  They buy amenities like roads, schools, libraries, clean water, clean air, and police and fire protection.  In Princeton, NJ you can still see buildings with the medallions on them that told the 18th century private fire companies which houses they were being paid to put out, if they caught fire.  Do we really want to go back to that??

We have time to stop, think, and make rational decisions - or we would have if we didn't have this idiotic "fiscal cliff" staring at us.

It still infuriates me that we have the fiscal cliff because the Republicans didn't want to raise the debt limit, and wanted to get spending under control; but now that we're looking at it, they don't want it because it would raise taxes on the rich and cut the Defense budget in irrational ways, even though it would reduce the deficit.  And these people were elected to national office, and in many cases re-elected.

Fiscal Cliffery

The subtitle of this post should be my favorite adage, "Be careful what you ask for."  In August or so of last year, the rampant Republicans in Congress thought they were on a roll.  Having created a monster out of the country's debt burden, based on what was happening in Europe, they:

• Insisted that getting rid of the deficit and paying down the debt was more important than getting out of the recession we were still in 
• Blocked approval of the report of the Simpson-Bowles commission for fixing  the country's spending plans, I think because it didn't eliminate Social Security
• Refused to consider any action in Congress that involved raising any taxes on anything or anyone
• Caused the country's credit rating to be downgraded by jumping up and down and yelling instead of increasing the legal debt limit.

That last maneuver came close to causing the country to miss routine debt payments.  To soothe their troubled souls from having to raise the debt limit, they insisted on a backup plan:  if Congress couldn't come up with real spending reform by the end of 2012, we would have what we now call the "fiscal cliff":  all existing tax tweaks would expire (mainly the Bush tax cuts and the Social Security payroll holiday President Obama set up to take the edge off the Great Recession), and every government department and spending program would take an across the board, meat-axe 10% cut.  Including Defense.

I assume they all figured that by 2013, they'd be able to think of something to prevent this. I'm morally certain that a big part of "something" was to win the 2012 presidential election, after which they'd have a whole two months to set things up the way they wanted.  The bipartisan Congressional committee they put together to solve it certainly didn't produce anything.

So here we are.  The Republicans actually lost a little ground in the Senate, and President Obama has a mandate to raise taxes on the rich. We have 19 days, 10 hours and 21 minutes (as I write this) to January 1, 2013, when all this will ensue.  Are we any closer to a solution?  Not from what I hear.  I'm hearing all the same posturing as I did then, except that this year President Obama has given up on attempts to be bipartisan, since they never worked.

I have a bet with my financial adviser that they won't agree on a solution.  If they actually come up with something, anything, I take her out for a drink.  If they sit and scream at each other until January 1, she takes me out for a drink.

Several things infuriate me about this.  First, the country is about to be bombed out of a position it should never have occupied in the first place.  Deadlines like this are stupid.  Congress is playing chicken with itself.

Second, it's clear now that the Republicans don't give a rat's ass about the deficit.  If they did, they would be negotiating - and in fairness I've heard some very senior Republicans starting to sound like rational human beings on the subject, since they really don't want those random Defense cuts.  The trouble is, John Boehner isn't one of them.  If the Republicans really cared more about the deficit than anything, they would raise taxes on the rich, since all serious analysis of the situation says you can't raise enough money through budget cuts and eliminating deductions.  For that matter, if the deficit was the real and only issue, they would let the fiscal cliff happen, because it would punch a whacking hole in the deficit.

It's probably unfair to suggest that they won't raise taxes on the rich because the rich would then stop giving them money to get re-elected.  It's almost certainly untrue.  That money buys access to power, even if the taxes are higher.

The other reason it's clear the Republicans don't care about the deficit is that they created the deficit.  Over the last 32 years (since 1980) we have had 12 years of Democratic presidents and 20 years of Republican presidents.  The only time during that span that the budget was balanced (and with a surplus, no less) was under Bill Clinton.    Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt.  George W. Bush, the next president after Clinton, immediately instituted the Bush Tax Cuts to "give the surplus back to the people," then started two wars that he ran entirely on borrowed money.  How are you doing spending that surplus he returned to you, folks?

It pains me to say this, but I get the impression that what the Republicans really want is to stop spending money on poor people.  Grover Norquist's government "small enough to drown in a bathtub" is roughly what we had back in the Gay Nineties (1890s, that is):  no safety net; no services to speak of; certainly no regulation of food, water, or business practices; no health care; no pensions.  If something goes wrong, you're on your own.  The only happy people were the rich, who could pay for anything they needed. That's the impression I get from the spokesmen.  I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong, but nobody's trying.