Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Golden Compass Can't Find North

As a firm disbeliever in anything dogmatic, and one who rarely takes things "on faith," I initially snorted at the Catholic League's well-reasoned denouncement of The Golden Compass. (Okay, the trailer, with a sinuous Nicole Kidman and very impressive graphics also more than held my interest.)

I read the first book, then saw the movie. Then read the other two books.

Cinematically, the movie of the first book in the Dark Matter trilogy is badly reminiscent of the Harry Potter movies. If you haven't read the book, the movie barely skitters across the time alloted, and does not do the book (or the author) justice. It was clear that, aside from any well-publicized crises of angst by the director, that Hollywood definitely bent the book. Almost severed it (that's an inside phrase, and a spoiler).

The second and third books of the Dark Matter trilogy definitely bear out the worries of those representing dogmatic, doctrinal religion. I can't see Unitarians griping about it, but hierarchical religions should definitely see this as an attack not only of their system of governance, but on theism itself.

I have more objections to this series, aimed at children, than the Narnia books (to be fair, I've only read the first two in the series). In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one can choose to ignore the Christian references in the book: it's a lion, pretty vs. ugly is a Hollywood prejudice, who cares how many days the lion lies injured/tortured... It's not much different from Starman, which is much more the prototypical Christian story than even Narnia. But greatest stories ever told (whether the "original" was fiction or not) are common movie riffs.

In the Dark Matter trilogy, Pullman makes a cogent case against theism. It's not just calling for deicide (killing of god) -- it brings in negative stereotypes like the almost successful pederast priest and the essential evil of those charged with teaching morals. It mocks angels, portraying them as gentle, delicate, homosexual lovers.

There are many reasons to poke fun at religion, to question it, to question one religion over another. But Pullman's books take the dark matter of theologic dogma to the edge -- and then distastefully over it, to the level of 'discourse' similar to portraying Islam's Mohammad with porcine qualities.

My only hope is that Hollywood manages to as effectively neuter the second and third movies as "well" as they did the first, since clearly this first movie was only a portent of things to come, and not a work that stands on its own -- unlike even the least of the Harry Potter movies.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Teheran Victory and NIE Assumptions

Training Iraqi insurgents? Check.
Providing military hardware? Check.
Giving cover to Shi'ite extremists when folks come a'knockin' at their door? Yup.
Nuke-u-lar bomb makers? Sez who?

The National Intelligence Estimate, released yesterday, provided fodder for almost every point of view in the Iran discussion. Almost all these compass points, however, are belaboring under self-imposed delusions.

The President and his sycophants showcased it as a success of their pressure, even though National Intelligence Estimate dates Iran's cessation of activities to 2003, when the biggest threat was not a direct one to Iran, but a 'flinch,' in all probability, to the invasion of Iraq. I guess technically Bush is correct -- but we can't be in a constant state of war with Iran's neighbors to expect good behavior from them.

Iran, of course, heralded this as a victory against the United States. But they probably heralded the insane Omaha mall killer as a strike against fascist Amerika, so his pronouncements are probably not worth heralding. This is also a great coup for them on the military front, since it deflects, in the fickle, ADD media world, Iran's huge investment in destabilizing Afghanistan and arming and training Iraqi militants. So long as it's not nuclear, it doesn't count!

Bloggers, always keen to have fun, have added this to the list of reasons not to live in America. Silly, but accurate as far as it goes. America is imponderably puzzling to non-residents; it's local, State and Federal laws ebbing, flowing and conflicting in an amazing, unpredictable rhythm.

Serious analysts have bemoaned America's foreign policy towards Iran since before the uprising against the Shah. They are right in their plaints; Iran has been interfered with as long as every other country in the Middle East: since the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Infidel British.

The reality is that Iran is playing the spoiler in many fronts: Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Where it can't win, it can disrupt. Where it can't disrupt, it can foment. And it will not change its stripes until the people, heretofore subdued, subjugated and scared into silence, raise their democratic voices and bring reason and logic, for which Persians have been known for millenia, back to their part of the Middle East.

Friday, July 27, 2007

The New Medical Privacy

I did a pre-employment drug test recently for a new position -- my first drug test in my multi-decade career. I was past the indignance of my previous decade and the puzzlement I might have experienced the decade before that. After all, for all my 'interesting' background, drug use has been anathematic to my life. Not that it was anyone's business but my own.

The company -- Concerna -- had an oozy enough name that I was somewhat tense coming in the door. Inside were over a dozen people. Some waiting for pre-employment drug screening, others for OSHA-injury analysis. Behind the counter was a highly proceduralized crew of people that reminded me of all those late-night "you too can be a medical industry professional" advertisements. Lots of on-the-spot training, scrubs on people that clearly didn't use them, and a sense of grime all about the place. I didn't sit in any of the rows of chairs. I guy in a 3-piece suit (very out of place in this part of the country) kept walking in and out of the back office area. Smug, with a little soul patch/landing strip kind of beard.

Clearly, I went in seeing baggage. I filled out the forms, then waited as they input them (asking me for the spelling of every field, as reading didn't seem to be the clerk's strong suite). Then they gave me some forms to sign. One of them read (paraphrased here), in large letters "Signing this cover letter means have read and accepted the terms of our privacy agreement." I shuffled papers -- didn't see anything like that. I asked the person behind the counter where it was.

"Um, we have one if you'd like to read it."

"Of course I want to read it," I said, "you're asking me to sign that I read it."

She fought the filing cabinet for a couple of minutes, then came up with a form. "Here it is," she said (mechanically) brightly.

"Do you often have people ask for the form?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," she said, "all the time."

If so, I'd guess she probably didn't give it to 'em often. She didn't know where it was.

I read the form. At no point did it mention the HIPAA acronym. Don't get me wrong, HIPAA doesn't mean your or my privacy is ensured. But at least there's a nod to the processes and procedures involved.

I called the number for the privacy officer and got immediately bumped to voicemail. Pressed zero, then asked for the Concerna's Privacy Officer. That led to a different voice mail. I left a message.

To Concerna's credit (and this is a good thing), she did call me back within ten minutes.

"So, I had a question," I said. "Are you HIPAA compliant?"

"What's on the form details our privacy statement," she said.

"Um, yeah, but are you HIPAA compliant?"

She paused. "We are reasonably compliant with HIPAA," she said.

Knowing when to fold, as Kenny Rogers pointed it, is a good thing. The woman was upset that the lab didn't give me the paper, or wanted me to sign without seeing it. She took down the number and location of the lab ("we have so many; I don't know all of them," she said) and promised a training update to get them up to speed.


There's no point in trying to reason with 'jack in the box' medical labs. They sell a commodity service to employers, and location and price are the determinants. But to employers, caring about whether their employee information is private should be a priority. And "Concentra is reasonably compliant with HIPAA...and privacy regulations" (quote from their web site) is not, in my professional opinion, good enough.

HIPAA compliance either is or isn't. It's like 2/3 pregnant -- comply with regulations, or fall short. My social security number, birth date and drivers license number are in the hands of a company that might or might not comply with Federally mandated regulations (pathetic, in light of identity theft).

Employers have a duty to ensure that their subcontractors and vendors adhere to at least the level of privacy that their customers expect from them.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Puppet Journalism

When Nasrallah speaks, the world listens, even if he speaks idiocy. "I believe Israel could have been behind [the two incidents in which Spanish and Columbian UN troops were killed]." No doubt that's why his group is escorting UNIFIL soldiers so they're not hit by Al-Queda IEDs.

There's no thought to reality testing his claims, or refuting them (or even discussing them) in the article (look here). This is an example of the kind of idiot journalism that has come to symbolize this generation's journalists. After all, if you talk back, question, or disagree with a Famous Name, at best you won't be invited for any exclusive interviews! (At worst, it's fatwa time!)

Yes, Israeli could have been behind the killings of the UN soldiers (no doubt it would be easier to accomplish when they take their R&R in Israel, which is where they go). Israel also could secretly be transmitting mind control signals to the Iranian President through its squirrel spies, or, equally probably, using nuclear space lasers to melt the ice caps so as to drown the Arab countries' shoreline populations and oil terminals. Oh, please, would someone quote an unnamed former Israeli intelligence source as saying that?

We depend on journalists to report news. Idiotic babble does not rise to that level and should not be quoted. Maybe if public officials were only quoted when they made sense, they would speak more rationally (and sparingly!). On speak, but not be heard, which, all in all, isn't a bad thing.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Writing Haitus

News and RL have a way of overwhelming a blog. So many issues, so little patience.

I'd lust like to draw your attention to Israel's latest attempt to prove the hypothesis that repeating an experiment without changing any variables will not create different results. By this I mean that the release of prisoners to attempt to garner 'favor' with corrupt and weak regimes.

Friday, April 27, 2007

The Freedom of Speech as a Dull, Blunt Object

A straight-A high school student was arrested for turning in a disturbing creative writing assignment, which included visions of mass killings with a pistol and necrophilia.
School: Danger! Virginia Tech! Alternative learning center, criminal charges, brou hah hah!
Student: Just being creative! Lookit the assignment! (Check out his hometown paper article on the subject and his comments on it.)

They're both right, and the issue lies with the technical vs. temporally cultural definition of "free speech." (I'm gonna get in trouble with this one: I've got a bro-in-law who's a constitutional law professor).

I'd argue that if this student had written this in 1999, before Columbine1 and before VT, it would have come off as weird, sick, and perhaps resulted (if the teacher really cared) in a referral to the school shrink.

Now, after seeing what high capacity magazines and sick twisted minds can do, that same piece is a giant red flag for possibly aberrant behavior. And this kid should "suffer" the consequences of stupidity, the same as a person who yells "fire" in a crowded movie theater.

No, there's no implied threat from the student. But there doesn't need to be one for someone to see the writing as a warning sign that a person is capable of homicidal fury. After all, when a child is found to engage in animal cruelty, especially serial animal killings, it's a sign this person may grow up to be a serial killer. It's a known, established track. And if the writer happens to be a high school or college student, caveat emptor: find something equally creative but less disturbing to write about.

In each generation we learn more about the 'tells' that indicate what a person might do. Twenty years ago was the animal thing. After Columbine, we learned that a young person's writings had weight in terms of their future actions. That Virginia Tech outstripped Columbine in sheer numbers of martyred students was only due to some mistakes on the part of the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre2.

At this point, we can't take that chance with our youth. The Illinois student deserves not just reprobation, but punishment. And counseling, for in every fantasy there is the grain of truth.

Having said that, it would be great if Americans could see past their own borders to the magnitude of tragedy overseas. What I'm about to say has nothing to do with my opinion of the President's Iraq policy. We read on a daily basis about the tragedies that befall the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been two incidents involving students in schools in the last month. The total murmur on this in the general media has been body count and then moving on. To the children maimed or traumatized by being bombed, to the parents of those children, these events will change their lives forever. Helping them overcome or heal from those wounds is every bit as important as helping the survivors of the Virginia Tech or Columbine shootings. For all the money we're pouring into Iraq in terms of bribes, generator and food handouts, and other 'calming actions,' helping these kids and their families is a greater and more powerful way for us to minimize the chance that they, some day, do not turn into hatred-fueled perpetrators of massacres of their own.

  1. I'm including Pearl River and all other school shootings throughout the world when I say "Columbine"

  2. Kliebold and associate had over 40 bombs set up in lockers and in two cars, placed so they would cause maximum casualties to police and ambulance responders -- but they didn't realize the alarm clocks they'd used had plastic instead of metal minute hands, which meant the circuits (thankfully) did not connect. The bombs were found and diffused after the last bullets had been fired. More on that here.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Nappy Hair, Rap and Virginia Tech

In a seven day span that has seen a talk show host who built his career as a shock jock have his career ended (for the moment) and national Black figures finally talking about accountability for misogynistic rap "artists," the horrific attack at Virginia Tech has pointed out the next real need for media improvement.

I'm not trying to compare any of the above in terms of impact. Of course my heart goes out to the victims, their families, and the entire staff and student body at Virginia Tech. It's healthy for the nation to join in their sorrow, to have a connection with their anguish, and to have the opportunity to help them feel a little less alone at a time like this.

What the media -- all the media -- have done is to create the kind of second-hand PTSD effect that we had with the 9/11 attacks: rerunning the traumatic sounds and sights on television, radio and the web. Splashing the picture of the lunatic responsible for the carnage, and focusing on the little details of a life he ended, dragging innocent victims along with him.

This coverage, the drilling in on the evil, the violence, the technical execution of this act, has the effect of diminishing the focus on the survivors and victim families in the name of 'ear share' or 'eyeballs.' Revelling in the pornography of this demented person's violence advances no causes, heals no wounds and provides no solace or closure. It inflames, incites formless anger and rage, or the kind of sadness that only helplessness can bring.

I can shield my children from the news at home or in the car, but the ever-pervasive media reaches beyond my hands clutching at their eyes and ears. I want to spare them from this far more than I wanted to spare my young children at the time from Clinton's 'little black dress' and explanations of sex positions at too young an age.

As a nation we have to stop. Stop our unholy fascination for violence and its depiction in audio or video formats. Stop our obsession with guns (and this as a pro-carry supporter -- they're tools, not fetish objects).

We must also start. Start paying attention to the "loners," the "losers," the children or adults that have come adrift in the midst of our lives. It takes a village to have a village, not just to raise children. In Jewish Shtetls a century ago, every village idiot had a place to turn to for food, for a warm place to sleep. It wasn't personal adoption, it was communal responsibility. Because all our children, all our co-workers are at risk from people allowed to break free from the social contract or from reality as we live it.

Which would you rather see: children being hauled out of dormitories covered in blood, or a glimpse of a breast? Which is more horrific? Which more deserving of 'community values' sanction?

What to do?
  • Call your local media outlets. Sure, they're (statistically) probably owned by ClearChannel or Cox or some mega-corporation, but they have to document and report to the mother ship about listener/viewer feedback.
  • Send e-mails to the web site.
  • Complain to the FCC.
  • E-mail your state representative and senators.
  • Fax your federal representative and senators.
  • Bring the issue up at city council meetings, school board meetings and in your place of worship.
Every state has a child abuse hotline. If you see someone under fifteen acting strangely, get some details, at least the name of the child, their school and the name of a teacher. Then call the hotline. It's anonymous, and it might save the life of someone you know or love.

Adults behaving oddly, stalking, making threats, should always be taken seriously. There are laws in place to protect people from "terroristic threats," and protective orders, while not always effective, can be a good deterrent. The best deterrent is to stand up for your neighbor, your co-workers, and even strangers. Police officers would rather handle a dozen false alarms than one homicide. Every time.

I wish peace and comfort for the Virginia Tech victims and their families. And a measure of peace for the rest of us, so that we can comfort, not relive by proxy their experiences.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Easy killings, relative freedoms

Switzerland has started down the slippery slope of allowing people with death wishes to kill themselves. One of the countries that evaded the deNazification trials after WW II by claiming "neutrality." Eugenics continue where not positively abated.

In a country where President Clinton went out of his way to apologize for the Tuskegee Airmen, where States abandoned their forced sterilization of "mental incompetents" in the 1980's, reading about a first-world country moving towards helping sick people kill themselves is tragic.

Depression, bi-polar disorders and other mental illnesses can take a rational person and make them think suicide is a real option. They're right -- from a purely animal basis. But the damage they do to family really negates their selfish, tactical, short-sighted attempts to escape their pain. Medicine works. Therapy works. Suicide, as the MASH movie quote went, might be 'painless,' but the 'changes' it brings on affect the parents and families and co-workers (or fellow students) are far from that.

It's easy to toss away those in society who waver. It takes a strong society, a just society to stick up for members who are not capable of sticking up for themselves.

Switzerland is showing it's Nazi roots. The world should look at this, and then look at Darfur, the Gaza Strip and Iraq to see how it can avoid the curse of the blind eye in treating world citizens as they should be treated.