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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, November 16, 2002
Cute, Juvenile Fun--Not To Be Mistaken For Serious Political Commentary Click here for a cheap laugh at Saddam Hussein's expense. While I'm In an Eighteeenth Century Mood... See this little gem. It was a poster advertising, among other items for sale in 1789 Philadelphia, "hand grenadoes." I suspect that they were probably closer to a modern pipe bomb than a modern hand grenade in destructiveness--but it does tell you a little about the level of trust of the time, doesn't it? Michael W. McConnell confirmed by Senate for the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Thanks for Eugene Volokh for giving me the link. Professor Volokh is delighted; so am I. Back as an undergraduate, we read a law review article by McConnell concerning the meaning of the First Amendment's establishment clause. It showed a considerably more intelligent understanding than almost anything that comes of the ACLU on this matter. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....It is astonishing how many people think "separation of church and state" is part of the Constitution, and do not understand (sometimes intentionally, I suspect) that the objective was to prevent special privileges being given to a particular denomination. There was certainly no notion that the government would have an active hostility towards religion in general, as the ACLU would like to imagine it. The phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance being the basis for a lawsuit would have caused a lot of headscratching and confusion. Even those with somewhat skeptical or iconclastic attitudes about religion, like Ben Franklin, recognized that religious belief was widespread in America, and a certain level of public religion wasn't a bad thing. Just to annoy the ACLU's defenders out there, a few quotes from the Continental Congress and the First Congress: And we devoutly implore the assistance of Almighty god to conduct us happily thro' this great conflict, to dispose the minds of his majesty, his ministers, and parliament to reasonable terms reconciliation with us on reasonable terms, and to deliver us from the evils of a civil war. [J. Continental Congress, July 5, 1775, p. 139] You say that God Almighty has been pleased to bring us together. You say well. He superintends and governs men and their actions. He now sees us. He judges of the sincerity of our hearts, and will punish those who deceive.[J. Continental Congress, December 7, 1776, p. 1011] The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to these states, to set apart a day of thanksgiving, brought in a report; which was agreed to as follows: PROCLAMATION A trust of the greatest magnitude is committed to this Legislature; and the eyes of the world are upon you Your country expects, from the results of your deliberations, in concurrence with the other branches of government, consideration abroad, and contentment at home--prosperity, order, justice, peace, and liberty: And may God Almighty's providence assist you to answer their just expectations. [Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1793, p. 15] Resolve, That the form of the oath to be taken by the members of this Houses, as required by the third clause of the sixth article of the Constitution of Government of the United States, be as followeth, to wit: “I, A B a Representative of the United “States in the Congress thereof, do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) in “the presence of Almighty GOD, that I will support the Constitution of the United “States. So help me GOD."[Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1789-1793, p. 7] From President Washington's address to Congress on April 30, 1789: Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe--who presides in the councils of nations--and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking, that there are none, under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.[Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1793, p. 19] The South Dakota Senate Race Instapundit suggests that the razor-thin (and doubtless razor-painful) margin of Democratic victory in South Dakota (524 votes difference) was because the Libertarian Party candidate (who received more than 3000 votes) drew enough votes away from the Republican Party candidate, and perhaps the Republicans need to lean more libertarian than conservative to prevent this from happening. I wouldn't be so sure that votes that go to the Libertarian are votes that would otherwise go Republican, regardless of whether Republicans were more libertarian or more conservative. My experience as an LP activist some years ago showed me that a fair number of people who vote Libertarian aren't libertarian; they are angry people who are upset with the status quo, and pick a third party candidate--any third party candidate--to express that disapproval. I was astonished to meet people who voted for Jerry Brown in a presidential primary, and then Libertarian candidates the rest of the way down the ticket. I met people that voted for Libertarian candidates but were Birchers who regarded the Republican Party (and would still regard the Republican Party) as controlled by the CFR/TC. (If you don't know what CFR/TC means, don't worry, the Birchers will find you soon enough and tell you all about it.) I met people who had no coherent political strategy that I could deduce except pot-smoking, and they voted LP for that reason. I met leftists who were so attracted by the Libertarian Party's principled opposition to foreign intervention and the draft that they voted for a party that is fiercely capitalist. Of course, 3000 votes in a statewide race, even in South Dakota, may reflect random error, as well. If you put a blank line on that ballot, it probably would have received at least 300-400 votes from the uncoordinated and stupid. More Satire, Though a Bit Sharper In Its Edge The Onion scores a major win with this satirical piece. If I saw it in my local newspaper, I would not be immediately sure if this was satire or reality. Yes, that's something of a reflection of my low opinion of the video gaming industry and its morals. Good For A Laugh Unfortunately, there are a few people out there who have sent me links to article in The Onion in the past believing these to be real news stories, so let me make this very clear: this is satire, and darn good satire, at that! "It hurts that in this supposedly enlightened day and age, people still make assumptions about other people," al Hamad said. "We should not rely on simple generalizations. Each crazed Palestinian gunman is an individual." Racism Is Alive And Well in America Though not in the direction you might expect. I was listening to NPR earlier today, and they were discussing how in the early days of Motown, the albums sometimes didn't have pictures of the artists, for fear that it might prevent whites from buying the albums. Now we have this absurd situation that has developed, where a black British musician is being encouraged to dump his white guitarist if he wants to be successful in America: More than 50 years after Armstrong was criticised by black newspapers for working with a white trombonist, David, 21, is being encouraged to drop white guitarist Fraser T Smith from his backing band to maximise sales during a two-month promotional campaign in the US.I guess racism is a serious problem in America. But you would never know from listening to the left that this racism is black against white. The ASC Conference I presented on two different panels, one about the "discrepancies" between Bellesiles's claims about colonial gun control laws and what the sources he cited actually said. I was pleased to see instead of the polite silence that usually greets each speaker's presentation, the audience laughed in the correct places, and clapped at the end. (Or perhaps they were applauding that I was done.) While many in the audience were criminologists, not historians, Samuel Walker, author of Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979) was present, and asked the important question as to what we need to do to prevent this from happening the next time, since Bellesiles is obviously dead in the water. I was able to make the case that not only should history journals randomly sample footnotes and check them for accuracy, but perhaps increasing the political diversity of the history profession would do some good as well. (To paraphrase the barkeep in The Blues Brothers, "We've got both sorts of politics here--liberal and leftist.") Don Kates, who delivered an impassioned presentation about Bellesiles's bizarre claims about where he found the missing Gold Rush San Francisco probate records, pointed out that law reviews routinely check all citations because, "Lawyers lie." My second presentation, on Friday morning, "Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Gun Control Laws: What Do They Tell Us About the Meaning of the Second Amendment?" enjoyed a somewhat smaller turnout, though the 8:00 AM start time might have had something to do with it. What I found interesting is that another of the panelists, a law professor, rather than directly addressing the topic--"Reflections on the Constitutional Right to Arms (2nd Amendment)"--focused on the social costs of our lax gun control laws, using statistics that, as another panelist pointed out, he hadn't heard used since the 1970s, because they had been so thoroughly discredited. In a lot of ways, the gun control movement is in serious decline. They know, I think, that they are fighting a rearguard action, trying to preserve the baroque system of gun controls that were originally adopted to disarm blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, and labor organizers, and now exists primarily to discourage law-abiding adults from owning guns. I will be charitable, and assume that their goals aren't, primarily to disarm minorities, but this embarrassing and largely ineffective tool is the only thing that they have available to them. A direct assault on gun ownership by the masses has been tried, and failed, so the best that they can do is keep rehammering the old, disreputable laws that they have into new forms, while hoping that lawsuits against gun makers will eventually bankrupt them. I will probably have the text of both of my presentations up on my web page in the next couple of days. Labels: gun rights Privacy Rights of Felons Permagringirl makes a very good point here, about why should the Megan's Law provisions only apply to certain types of sex offenders? I've never been very impressed with the claims that convicted child molesters have a right to privacy after they complete their sentences. As a law professor of unquestioned liberal credentials once pointed out to me, "What right of privacy is there for a conviction obtained in a public trial paid for with public funds?" I don't see any reason why all felony convictions shouldn't be public record. If my neighbor has a felony conviction for aggravated assault, that's useful information. I will be a bit more careful how I approach him if he is playing his music too loud (Permagringirl's point). If my neighbor has a felony conviction for fraud, that would be useful to know, especially if he comes over and tries to get me to loan him some money for a week or two. If you have been convicted of a felony, I don't see any reason why you should ever expect that information to cease to follow you around. It may protect someone else from being a victim, and it may be an encouragement to others to behave. I Have Returned From Chicago This is my first blog entry upon return. It is focused on Chicago itself. Later entries will discuss the ASC conference itself. I didn't see a lot of Chicago. The ASC conference hotel was in the Loop, which is about as nice an area as any crowded urban center can be. My hotel was west of I-94, in an area called Greektown (where even the Walgreen's drug store had both English and Greek on the outside). It looked like a somewhat rundown section, but still a giant step up from the vast slum I saw from the elevated train between downtown and O'Hare Airport. One nice thing about the Chicago Transit Authority--it appears to be run by people a bit smarter than the ones that run BART in the San Francisco Bay Area. CTA's elevated trains run from the O'Hare terminal right into downtown Chicago. I was able to get from my airplane to my hotel with a $1.50 train fare and an eight block walk. Had I picked a hotel in the Loop (doubtless more expensive), I wouldn't have had even the eight block walk. Now, if only BART ran to ANY of the major San Francisco area airports. There is Intelligent Big Government, and there is Stupid Big Government. California seems to be awash in the stupid kind. CTA's trains are obviously quite old; at least some of the subway stations are WPA projects. This may explain the fare structure, which is priced by admission to stations, not by distance travelled (unlike BART and Washington DC systems). This is a real advantage for people who fly in, and spend a day or two sightseeing. I would expect that it's not so nice for people that commute two or three miles on CTA trains to work. Like lower Manhattan, the Loop has a lot of energy to it; I can see how it could get addicting. But I am so happy to be back in uncrowded and quiet Boise. I have many blisters on my little feet right right now, partly because of a lot of walking to and from train stations, and partly because I was wearing my dress Oxfords with my suit. Climbing stairs to elevated trains and out of subways has also done some serious muscle stretching in my legs, with predictable results. I went to the Field Museum, which is a pretty impressive natural history museum. I would say that relative to Los Angeles's Museum of Natural History in Exposition Park (which I haven't visited in many years), the Field Museum is a small step up. (This is a compliment to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, not an insult to the Field Museum.) One significant difference is that the Field Museum is strong in the area of Mesozoic and Paleozoic fossils, where Los Angeles, at least in my recollection, is strong in the area of Pleistocene and Holocene creatures. I also went through the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank's little museum as well. There wasn't a lot there, but it was free! Of course, since my hotel was only about six blocks from the Sears Tower, I did the tourist thing and went to the top. It wasn't a perfectly clear day, but the view was still impressive. Food: every region has its little specialties. One of Chicago's specialties is deep dish pizza. I went to Pizzeria Uno, at Professor Lindgren's recommendation, it being something of the originator of the style. I enjoyed my pizza, but I confess that I still prefer the version produced by Old Chicago Pizza of Petaluma, California. The crust is a bit finer and less grainy in texture than Pizzeria Uno. Another specialty is Italian Beef. It's rather like a Philly cheesesteak without the cheese, and a bit more spice. I had lunch Friday with Professor Lindgren at a takeout sort of place near Northwestern's law school and it was an interesting culinary experience. The joys of travel. The hotel: the Quality Inn I stayed at was cheap, but seems like management has let it go a bit. The ceiling in the bathroom is flaking away--maybe rotting, I wasn't going to push on the wallboard to find out--the faucets were rusty, and the stopper in the tub was broken. Admittedly, I am a cheapskate, so perhaps I shouldn't expect much, but it was still a bit disappointing compared to other members of the chain in which I have stayed. Their restaurant was okay--more reasonably priced than I expect in a mid-range hotel chain, and both breakfasts I ate there were tasty--but the serving staff was indifferent at best. UPDATE: Yes, it was the Windy City. But maybe the Pothole City would better describe it. They obviously aren't spending public funds on maintenance of the physical plant. Tuesday, November 12, 2002
It's Going To Be Quiet Here For a Couple of Days I am at the American Society of Criminology conference in Chicago until Saturday. If I find a cheap place to blog from, I may get to it. Iraq Importing Nerve Gas Antidote In Quantity... Obviously, they aren't expecting us to use nerve gas; they want to be able to protect their soldiers when they start spraying it at us: Iraq has imported significant quantities of the antidotes atropine and obidoxime chloride during the past two years, the official said, supporting a report Tuesday in The New York Times. The administration is trying to stop future deliveries of the antidotes, but sanctions rules do not restrict them. Some of the imports have come from Turkey, a NATO ally supporting sanctions-enforcement flights over Iraq.The U.S. uses atropine in a little syringe gadget. When you start feeling dry mouth, you take an injector and punch through your CBW (Chemical Biological Warfare) suit. If the problem doesn't go away, you give yourself another. I believe that they give our soldiers three of these little items to carry. One of the hazards, as I understand it, is that atropine overdose is hard to distinguish from nerve gas, and it's easy to overdose on atropine trying to correct what you think is nerve gas working through your suit. I sincerely hope that the theats of war crimes trials against Iraqi officers who order use of weapons of mass destruction makes an impact, and some of them refuse to carry out their orders. It isn't just that there will be a fair number of American soldiers suffering an agonizing death from nerve gas; it is that we won't have much choice but to do some very serious killing of Iraqi soldiers (the vast majority of whom are conscripts) to stop this from getting carried away. Of course, that's what Saddam Hussein wants--lots of dead Iraqis that he can blame on the U.S. It will be the last cynical maneuver he pulls. Great Moments in Marketing Failure I needed a new parka. My old one, bought in Santa Rosa when I first moved there in 1987, had reached a very sad point. The coat itself was still in good shape, not too badly worn, except that the zipper was broken. My attempts at repairing it using paper clips (yes, I am a notorious cheapskate, which I blame on my Scots ancestry) had staved off the inevitable for a year or two, but it was time to put it in my emergency bad weather kit in the trunk. So I wandered over to the Deseret Industries Thrift Store in Boise, and found a big stack of brand new Moose Creek parkas that had obviously been remaindered. They were offered at $45. Why? The coat is warm, well designed (though the handwarmer pockets aren't big enough for my 9mm), and seemed pretty well constructed. Then I saw the "Mountain Rescue" patch on the sleeve, with a red cross on it. It looked like someone's attempt at suggesting that you were a paramedic specializing in saving people from avalanches. Very stupid. I suppose if someone were casting a Boise version of the Village People (low-key, but still macho), this is what you might buy. But, after my wife used a seam ripper to destitch the stupid patch, I have a fine parka for a very reasonable price. I don't know whose clever idea this patch was at Goose Creek, but I suspect that they didn't sell well through the normal retail channels for the same reason that I was initially repelled: that stupid patch. Porn Filters in Libraries The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that will decide whether states may require public libraries to filter Internet access for porn. The American Library Association, of course, is opposed to mandatory filtering. What I find interesting is how little discussion there is about porn filtering from the standpoint of workplace sexual harrassment. If an employer had hardcore pornography up on the walls at the office--even if an employee did this without any endorsement by the employer--it would quickly lead to a sexual harrassment suit. (See this article by Eugene Volokh for a bit of history on this.) I have a friend who works in a public library in California. On a daily basis, she is required to go through the printer output (so that the library can charge patrons by the page) and separate out really rough stuff--bestiality, as an example--so that it can be delivered to patrons. When she walks by the library's Internet terminals, she can't help but see some pretty offensive materials. This woman isn't a prude. She is actually pretty open-minded and liberal, at least compared to me. Yet she finds herself shaking and horrified by some of the stuff that she is forced to expose herself to because they don't filter Internet access. The argument advanced by ALA and fellow travelers is that filtering constitutes censorship. No, it isn't. Libraries don't subscribe to magazines filled with sexually explicit photographs. Even if you gave them a subscription to a magazine titled Women Who Love Barnyard Animals, they wouldn't put it on the shelves. The excuse that ALA uses is that libraries have limited shelf space, and so they have to be selective about what they keep, but that this isn't the case with the Internet, where there is no limited shelf space. That's bunk. Limited shelf space is not the reason that libraries don't shelve pornography, or The Turner Diaries, or other really offensive materials. They don't have it because that's not the purpose of a library, which is education and relatively civilized entertainment. The ALA has fallen into the leftist trap that to engage in any sort of selection process is discriminatory. Rather than admit that not all printed materials are of equal merit, they have decided that all content is equally valid. I know that some First Amendment absolutists are going to be very offended by this statement, but refusal to purchase a book, or refusal to waste bandwidth downloading pornography, is not censorship. Censorship is when the government says you may not publish it. The government's refusal to distribute something isn't censorship. If it is, then I am going to start screaming "censorship" because every library in America doesn't have a copy of all of my books. Even Democrats Say Their Party Is Too Liberal! USA Today has an article reporting the results of a public opinion survey. Those Democrats who think that their mistake Tuesday was not running far enough to the left appear to be mistaken; let me encourage them to continue dragging the party left: Overall, 57% of those polled said Democrats are not tough enough on terrorism, while 64% said Republicans are. And 54% of Democrats polled said the party needs to moderate its liberal message. The Next Supreme Court Justice To Be Appointed Instapundit points us to this article in the Orange County Register suggesting Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law. That could be entertaining. But I agree--Gene is just too young to be taken seriously. Hmmm. Perhaps we could persuade Bush to appoint him to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals? It could be nothing but an improvement for the most reversed and most radical appellate court in the land. Monday, November 11, 2002
The Democratic Party Commits Hara-Kiri It's really entertaining watching the internal backbiting that the Democrats are doing. Here's an entertaining column (at least, entertaining for a Republican) by Frank Rich: This lack of seriousness is sometimes matched by a soullessness that all the eulogizing of Paul Wellstone could not obscure. Fear of the N.R.A. led poor Jean Carnahan to invite reporters to watch her shoot skeet. Defending Bob Torricelli, Mr. McAuliffe enthusiastically observed that the controversy over his sleazy gift-grubbing was "creating excitement out there and helping raise more money."Bob Herbert's column is also pretty entertaining: Republicans didn't win control of the Senate on Tuesday. The clueless Democrats lost it.Large numbers of Democrats are persuading themselves that the Party just needs to make a strong left turn. Please. Do so. I look forward to the day that the Democratic Party does this exchange--swapping blue collar working labor unionists (who, for all the faults of the unions, at least involve people that know how to do something with their hands except open wine bottles) for the Malibu Beach millionaires and Jackson Hole billionaires. When that happens, the Democrats will have their smug self-righteousness, and the support of America's fabulously rich supporters of socialism--and Republicans will start to gather 60-70% of the popular vote. UPDATE: Yes, I know the formal term is "seppuku." I just wasn't sure how many readers know that. Bill Moyers Used To Impress Me As A Reasonably Thoughtful Liberal No more. While whining about the election results, he tells us that Republicans are going to do the following: That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives.Remember, because of Roe v. Wade (1973), neither Congress nor the states can restrict abortions in the first trimester in any way. They have limited authority to regulate abortions in the second trimester. What Moyers is really saying is that Republicans are proposing a ban on partial-birth abortions--a procedure so gruesome that even some vigorously pro-choice sorts I know agree with me that descriptions of it sound like something that would have been done at Auschwitz. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.What? The Republicans are planning to increase tax rates on low income people? No. They are proposing to make cuts in tax rates that, because high income people pay most of the taxes, will benefit high income people the most. If Bill Moyers had any integrity, he would say it honestly: Republicans want to cut tax rates, and because the rich pay the highest rates, they will get the greatest benefit. This is not a transfer of wealth from poor to rich. It may be a smaller transfer of wealth from rich to poor, but that's not quite the same thing, is it? It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable.And this is new? Let's see, a big chunk of the scandals now being exposed in corporate governance took place under the Clinton Administration. And Moyers thinks that suddenly all those agencies that were doing their jobs well five years ago are suddenly going to stop doing their jobs? Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming.As opposed to Clinton's judges, who never had a political agenda, and never will. Right. And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture. These folks don't even mind you referring to the GOP as the party of God. Why else would the new House Majority Leader say that the Almighty is using him to promote 'a Biblical worldview' in American politics?Unlike the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who continually argues for the expansion of the welfare state as an expression of Christian virtue. (By the way, my objection to the welfare state that the Democrats created wasn't the good intentions; it was the results.) And came up with the big prize — monopoly control of the American government, and the power of the state to turn their ideology into the law of the land.Oddly enough, I don't recall hearing this hypocrite whining about "monopoly control" when the Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress in 1993. As for "power of the state to turn their ideology into the law of the land": there is nothing that the left stands for more. They may object to particular policies, but the left doesn't object to writing laws to impose their ideology: gun control; taxes; affirmative action; equal opportunity; environmental regulation of private property. These are some of the reasons that I can't take Bill Moyers seriously anymore. He's just another whore for the left. No Surprises: You Must Have a Gun To Commit Suicide With a Gun I found this abstract of a paper titled "Relationship of Household Gun Ownership to Firearm and Non-Firearm Suicide Rates in Wisconsin Communities" to be delivered at the American Society of Criminology conference next week: Household gun ownership ranged from 9.9% in central Milwaukee to 35.7% in a suburban community. The correlation coefficients between gun ownership and 1) firearm suicide, 2)non-firearm suicide, and 3)total suicide were 0.84 (p=.009), .002 (p=ns), 0.54 (p=ns) respectively. Results were similar after adjustment for percentage of community residents with incomes under the poverty level, 0.83 (p=.022), 0.24 (p=ns), and 0.66 (p=ns). Conclusions: Community rates of firearm suicide, but not non-firearm suicide, are significantly positively associated with the percentage of households owning gun(s). This supports evidence from case-control studies that firearm suicide is related to access to firearms.If I am reading this correctly, they found a statistically significant positive correlation between gun ownership and gun suicides, but no statistically significant correlation between gun ownership and non-gun suicides, and no statistically significant correlation between gun ownership and total suicides. In short, suicides use guns if they are present; if they aren't present, they use other methods. UPDATE: While talking to Gary Kleck last night, it suddenly occurred to me that this study doesn't seem to have controlled for race, and that could make a big difference here. It turns out that white suicide rates are typically about 30% higher than black suicide rates. (Click here for Michigan suicide rates, age adjusted, and broken down by race. Here's a table for suicide rates in the U.S. in 1995 broken down by age and race.) I Will Be In Chicago Wednesday and Thursday Evenings... I will be in Chicago Wednesday afternoon through Friday evening for the American Society of Criminology conference. I will be on this panel, and substituting for Professor Bob Cottrol on this panel. If your gun rights group (in Chicago?) needs a speaker, I will be available. Email me now so that we can make contact arrangements. Autism and Brain Size Interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald about a recent study that finds that autistic children experience dramatic brain growth by four months--too early to be caused by MMR immunizations, and suggesting that this is indeed a genetic problem: Dr Courchesne's study showed the brain of a one-year-old autistic child was the size of a typical two-year-old, while a two to four-year-old autistic child had the brain size of a normal 10 to 12-year-old. Sunday, November 10, 2002
Ever Wondered Why So Many Movies Seem Like Gun Control Propaganda? Because they are. See this site for suggestions from something called Entertainment Industries Council, Inc. about how to portray guns in movies and television: Attempt to highlight alternative resolutions to conflict rather than relying on gunplay as the only or automatic means of settling confrontations. Clashes can be resolved by other less lethal means, perhaps by characters using their wits and cunning to overcome opponents.Yeah. Very realistic for situations where you are outnumbered five or six to one by thugs in an alley. Consider highlighting the emotional consequences for the shooter, such as feelings of guilt, remorse, personal angst, and so on.Yeah. Don't encourage anyone to think about the consequences for the victim who gets beaten to a bloody pulp, and spends the next five years having nightmares about what happened, or the rape victim who spends the next six months waiting for the HIV incubation period to complete. Yeah, really realistic. Accidental gun deaths are about 1200 or so a year, and half of those are hunting accidents. The "accidentally misfiring" or firing after being dropped scenarios are very rare--rarer than drowning in a bathtub. Consider the story potential that may exist in a family filing suit against a gun manufacturer for injuries or death sustained by a defective firearm that misfired.Again, defective firearms deaths are very rare. These sort of lawsuits are almost never about defective guns. Try emphasizing the fact that introducing a gun into an argument lethalizes anger: What could have been resolved with just harsh words, or even cuts and bruises, may end up with a death. Guns don't allow for cooling off or reconciling once the momentary or situational anger subsides.Yeah, ordinary law-abiding people do this so often. When an "argument" leads to murder, it is seldom because of two civilized people getting into an argument. It's usually a guy with a long criminal history, a long drug history, or a long mental illness history, and often all three combined. Consider reflecting the reality that homeowners often freeze up or tremble so badly when trying to use a gun in self-defense that they are unable to deploy it. Or show them as being too frozen in fear to even get the gun.Except that this is not the case. There are hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses a year in the U.S., even discounting the high numbers from the Kleck/Gertz study, and the Cook/Ludwig study that tried to refute it, and only replicated numbers among one million defensive gun uses a year. Where appropriate to the story, consider portraying a teenage girl threatening to break up with her boyfriend unless he gets rid of his gun -- or a boy doing the same with a gun-owning girlfriend.How about depicting the fact that you can't legally buy any gun until you turn 18, and you can't legally buy a handgun until you turn 21. How about depicting the large number of teenagers that go hunting or target shooting with Dad (and sometimes with Mom) without anyone getting hurt? Explore depiction of legal prosecution or civil action taken against parents for negligently leaving a gun available to a child who then uses it to either intentionally or unintentionally harm themselves or others.How about depicting legal prosecution or civil action taken against parents for negligently leaving car keys, or household cleaning solutions out where a child can harm himself? How about depicting the drownings of children under 10 in bathtubs--which outnumber accidental gun deaths of children under 10? Two Recent Video Rentals I Enjoyed... Spiderman and The Count of Monte Cristo. Okay, Spiderman was predictable and sappy in places. The special effects were only so-so. But it was a joy to see a movie where romance wins without turning sexual; where good triumphs over evil; and the script has enough clever lines to keep it from getting too serious. My wife and son thought it was stupid; hey, it cost me $3.83 to rent, and I didn't feel like my time was wasted. Everyone in the house liked The Count of Monte Cristo. Surprises all throughout, only some of them predictable. Sword fights without guts falling out; lovely sets and costuming; some pretty decent and at times downright excellent acting as various characters have to both convey, "I know this guy" and at the same time convey, "But I can't admit it too openly." And it was really nice to have a film with an important moral without being preachy. |
